Foobar 2000 isn’t what it sounds like

Lifehacker has instructions on how to customize the freeware media player Foobar 2000 to suit your own tastes.  This might be the answer you’ve been seeking instead of iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Foobar 2000 is an advanced freeware audio player:

Features

• Audio formats supported natively: MP1, MP2, MP3, MP4, MPC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC / Ogg FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, CDDA, WMA.
• More audio formats supported through optional components, official or third-party.
• Full unicode support.
• Customizable user interface layout (new in version 0.9.5). View screenshots…
• Advanced tagging capabilities.
• Support for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component. Read more…
• ReplayGain support - both playback and calculation.
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.

The Lifehacker instructions include some favorite add-ons for the program to customize it and add functions.

Bluetooth headphones?

I noticed some Bluetooth headphones while shopping… hmmm…. maybe I need to get Bluetooth capability so I can go wireless on my headphones, I thought.

But wait — Bluetooth converts files to a “lossy” codec, meaning data is lost, when sending wirelessly.  Since most codecs such as MP3 are already “lossy” formats, you are losing a lot more data.  So, the sound may be well below the quality you want to accept.

Wired headphones still deliver the best sound, in most cases.

Recommended by PC Magazine, June 2008.

Skreemer hunts for MP3s

MakeUseOf has a post on Skreemer, the search engine for MP3s.

• Search and stream MP3s for free.
• Advanced Search: Filter MP3s by length, bitrate, title, album, artist or genre.
• Option to download any listed MP3 using ‘right-click’ -> ‘Save Link As’ option.
• Share and embed MP3s on your Blog or social networking profile (Facebook, Myspace, …).
• Add SkreemR search to Firefox Search bar (incl. auto suggestion).
• For each song view related YouTube videos, Flickr images, and Wikipedia entries.
• Songbird users: search SkreemR right from the Songbird media player.

This is for “DRM-free music, podcasts, speeches and much more”.

Mashable list of essential music and audio links

Mashable.com has a list of 90+ essential music and audio websites.

These cover music discovery tools like LastFM and Pandora, social networks, and more.

Pick a station, any station….

TUN3R.com has an interesting method of connecting you to web radio stations….

You slide the orange needle around, or click on one of the innumberable graphics, and find all sorts of broadcasts.

Who knew there was a station called “Secret Agent: The soundtrack for your stylish, mysterious, dangerous life. For Spys and P.I.’s too!” or “Radio Zs - The Hungarian Jewish Radio” or all these others?

If you can’t find something here to listen to, you’re not trying!

iTunes hacks

Okay, so you use iTunes… because you have an iPod.  But what about those of us that don’t want to be locked into that?

Komando.com has hacks to modify iTunes for those little improvements you’ve been wanting in it, such as the ability to use iTunes to sync with non-iPod players.  Backup your playlists.  Access your music library from across the web.

All freeware.

Comparing media players

Wikipedia has an entry with a big comparison of media players for audio and video files.

If you want to know what’s free and what’s not, what operating system it runs on, what features are in which players, and what formats each player covers, this looks like a pretty comprehensive list. It even gives the versions of the players evaluated. An impressive effort!

Fox Magic Audio Recorder for your own MP3 recordings

Ever wish you could record directly to an MP3 file, instead of having to convert from a wav file which you just recorded to an MP3 file?

Fox Magic Audio Recorder is a freeware program that promises to let you choose either wav or MP3 format for the result of your live recordings.

Wavosaur for music editing

Wavosaur is an open source, freeware sound editor, audio editor, wav editor software for editing, processing and recording sounds, wav and mp3 files. Wavosaur has all the features to edit audio (cut, copy, paste, etc.) produce music loops, analyze, record, batch convert.

Recommended by Clif Notes Newsletter.

RockBox is open source for several brands of MP3 players

RockBox is open source software that runs on an increasing number of MP3 player brands and models.

“Rockbox aims to be considerably more functional and efficient than your device’s stock firmware while remaining easy to use and customizable. “

Zamzar goes for the conversion

Zamzar will convert a number of formats to other formats, for free, and email you a link to the new format’s file.

Zamzar does documents, images (graphics), music (audio/sound), video, and compressed formats — far too many to list. Check the list for all the current files.

While you do have to wait for the email to get the link to your converted file, it’s free and will convert things like Real Player files to mp3, and Windows .wma to mp3, and so on.

It will also convert YouTube videos to formats that work in PowerPoint.

Recommended by Tech Support Alert newsletter.

MP3, WMA, other music file players - some are compatible with certain devices, services, files, while others are not. Find what you can use with which software and hardware at PlaysForSure.com and avoid buying or using the wrong ones together.

Super converts media files

Super is a freeware program whose name is an acronym for “Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer.” It’s recommended by a number of sources, and looks like a handy tool for converting files for use in one application to another.

The site warns: “Do NOT purchase a copy of SUPER © from anyone, whether they are providing it on a CD/DVD, by email, by indicating a download link or by any other means. SUPER © is 100% FREE to download and to use. Any attempt to sell SUPER © such as on eBay, is THEFT. Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. SUPER © is a FREEWARE that cannot be sold under any circumstances.”

What it can do:
* SUPER © IS UNIVERSAL as it supports a wide variety of input/source file format to play
or encode (to & from) without any additional third party software. Supported input source file formats are:

Video formats

• 3gp/3g2 (Nokia,Siemens,Sony,Ericsson)
• asf
• avi (DivX,H263,H263+,H264,XviD,MPEG4,MSmpeg4 etc..)
• dat
• fli, flc, flv (used in Flash)
• mkv, mpg (Mpeg I,Mpeg II), mov (H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4 etc..), mp4 (H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4)
• ogg, qt
• rm, ram, rmvb
• str (Play Station), swf (Flash)
• ts (HDTV)
• viv, vob
• wmv

Audio formats

• aac, ac3, amr
• mmf, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpc
• ogg
• ra
• wav, wma

* AviSynth Script Files: avs. Let you specify advanced encoding commands using AviSynth scripts!

* SUPER © supports the conversion (encoding both ways, to & from ) of ALL the listed formats.

It allows you to extract the audio portion of a video file and convert it to a ring tone for your cell phone, convert your video for use on YouTube or convert YouTube for viewing elsewhere, convert computer game files, convert any video to an animated .gif file, convert RealMedia files (.RM .RAM .RMVB .RA) to other formats, and plays any of these files.

MP3 file searching with Clickster

Clickster is a search engine for legally available MP3 files.  Recommended and reviewed in  Clif’s Notes Newsletter.

• Search and Download MP3’s from the Internet (NOT Peer-2-Peer)
• Rip Tacks from thousands of Internet Radio Stations
• Rip Tracks from MySpace Music
• Compile Playlists and embed them, with player, into own pages
• Download Tracks Directly onto iPod or MP3-Player
• Clickster can be run from a USB Data-Stick