Music Library Guide. Part 1: Overall Explanation and Tools

First things first. Media formats are just like condoms. They come in every colour, price, texture and flavour there is out there. Formats are very varied, but they can be easily grouped in two main categories: Lossless and lossy formats.

Lossless. The packing monsters.

Lossless formats, are just as its name says: What you hear is what you get. These formats are powerful, crunch formats that provide 1:1 to sound ratio. Basically, they work grouping together media information, so the size is considerably compressed. The best definition I’ve heard for them, is that they are “packers”.

The algorithm works, groping similar sounds in a digital formats, so the sound given by the source format (i.e. a CD) is the same in both the digital file and the sound recorded into the CD. Examples of this are WMA and ACC in their lossless versions. Of course, there are also open formats, like FLAC and Monkey’s Audio (APE). Almost all files you’ll find in the net, encoded with lossless, will be either of this formats.

FLAC Logo

The first impression may seem all-glorious because of the fact of the 1:1 sound ratio (actually, it sounds glorious), but as everything else it has its downside. First of all, it’s compression ratio is somewhere around 40% and 50%, depending on the album. Although it’s not a halfway bad ratio, the space is an important factor to check.

Media Freak

I absolutely love music. It’s one of the things I enjoy the most in life, but indeed, it’s not just like listening whatever gets to my hands. Music is not only a type of art, it’s also a way of life. A way of expression, a way of standing out from the crowds. It’s a part of me, as I could clearly point out a huge amount of tracks that describe a specific era or scene of my life. Memories are not just chunks stored as abstract images kept somewhere within the synapses of a brain. They are also feelings, that come out of the blue, when a specific action is triggered. Just what music makes me feel.

I’ve been listening to Industrial music since I was around 14. I had always made music a part of my life, but the first time I listened to that CD which was gifted to me, I loved the sounds captured within the Joliet structure of it. I had heard for the very first time some of the great bands of the genre, Apoptygma Berzerk, VNV Nation, Icon of Coil and Front 242, among others.

I lost that CD. It became scratched as I didn’t look after it, and it was rendered useless. It took me nearly 4 years of heavy listening to Industrial music, to find those glorious tracks again. To be able to hear them once more. From that time, I’ve listened to many other genres, sometimes hearing mainstream music, sometimes listening to the most underground part of it. My range on music has developed quite a bit, and I can surely say I’d recognize a good band from the genres I listen to the most.

Almost a year ago, I opened a new blog dedicated completely to music with a friend, named Somatoxin. We’ve had a very good time posting on it, as we both love music, and it has been interesting to watch the contrast between Industrial and Metal.

Anyway, studying Systems Engineering, and having an extreme love to both computers and music, I started to look for time-efficient tools that would help me to administer my music. In the time, I found a bunch of useful tools, like Last.fm, the Musicbrainz database, MP3Tag and the LAME codec. They all have been quite good guidelines and tools with my absolute love to music.

It’s been almost six months since I first said I was going to publish a full guide on how to administer efficiently and take the maximum out of a music library. I haven’t done anything to acomplish this since then. Thinking in a huge amount of things, today, I decided it’s about time to start finishing what I want to do. I’ve lived around a 25% of my life, and I feel I haven’t done anything productive. It’s time to get my hands dirty. It’s time to fight.

So, the first thing I’m accomplishing, is publishing a full detailed guide on how to (really) take the most possible out of a multimedia library. I was planning to publish only one post with the whole explanation, but just like a project, it will be fairly simple if I chop it down to small bits of information. In that way, I’ll have enough time to explain everything perfectly, without forcing anyone to read a lot of pages at once.

Be warned though. This will be for ‘media freaks’ only. Learning the process can take time, and each album that is added to a library will be time consuming. It may seem like a lot of work, but take my word. It will be worth it.

Stay on the watch. Soon, the first post, explaining the tools that will be used, will be published. Hang in there.

P.S: By the way, happy birthday to me!! I’ve rotated around the sun about 19 times. Just a curious fact.

Bose In Ear

Ok, I admit it. I’m a motherfuckin’ compulsive person who is actually very, and I mean very selfish… So I decided that the Sennheisser headphones that I bought yesterday were to uncomfortable to be tolerarted more than 10 minutes, and so, I bought the Bose In Ear headphones…

I spent $1,049 in them, which isn’t that much for a Bose product, but it’s surely a high price for a pair of headphones. The least thing I can do now that I feel a little bit guilty because I haven’t bought anything for Christmas, is to review them.

The pack were they were was way big for a headphones this small. It was gorgeous though. Too bad I had to tear it apart to get them out. The package include the headphones with the medium silicone buds attached. It also included small and large buds, a wearing collar to keep them hanged to the neck, and a huge (compared to the buds) leather case. Also, it included a manual which had more pages than useful information, along with the warranty and a ton of useless papers.

Now, on to the headphones.

Overall, the quality is very good. They are way better than the Griffin and the Sennheiser ones. One thing though that I miss a lot from the Griffins, is the Bass overload. I surely enjoyed that. They were great headphones, too bad that they broke easily.

The headphones themselves are notoriously designed to fit the whole ear. An I actually mean, the whole ear. The silicone buds occupy every corner of the ear, so even if you shake your head badly, they won’t fall. I’m starting to think my neck will fall apart before this headphones from my ear.

One curious thing, is the feeling of having them inside the ear. It seems as if they were about to fall, but they don’t actually even move. One thing I didn’t like, once again compared to the Griffin, is that unless you turn the volume way up, you can clearly hear the exterior sounds. I guess they are so small that they couldn’t fit a noise suppressor in.

Another point that is worth mentioning, is the comfort. They are not uncomfortable, but they could’ve been better. I have around an hour listening music with them, and they are starting to hurt. I’l see what happens if I leave them there. I want to see what’s the maximum time I can tolerate them. To be honest, there have been times that my ears hurt way bad, and keep listening to my music. The addiction is bigger than the pain.

The last important point, is the volume. Overall, the volume is good enough to hear, but not enough to hurt. I got mad when I turned them all the way up for the first time, as I remembered that the maximum sound pressure of the Griffin was higher. Part of this were the buds though, actually if I attach them to the Bose, the volume is more or less equal. The maximum pressure is actually good. What I love, is that if I turn them up, the sound doesn’t distorts a bit.

Overall, they are very good headphones. The quality is awesome, the maximum volume is quite good, they are comfortable and they are gorgeous. Too bad they’re way overpriced. I would’ve gladly payed $500 for them (Like in US) but not the whopping $1,049 they costed. It actually made me tremble…

Bose In Ear headphones

UPDATE:

Being as paranoid as me, I decided to check the qualitiy of the headphones with someone who has used them for a while. I was talking to Pablo, a friend from High school, and he told me that his headphones hadn’t wore down a bit, even though he didn’t use to carry them in the case. He made it clear that they were intact, even after months of use. Hopefully, my headphones will last the same as his.

Sennheiser MX 360 Headphones

For the third time in around nine months, my Griffin headphones died. Just like the previous two times, the cables were torn apart from the head. After analysing them, I found that the inner cables were shorter, and they were poorly soldered to the head, making them very fragile. The sound quality they deliver is quite good compared to the price, but they’re surely not a good buy if you’re looking for something durable, they’re not the best choice.

Another thing that’s worth remarking is that they’re completely made in China… I know everything this days is made in that motherfucking mediocre country, but there are some things out there that are only manufactured in China, so the only thing that’s bad is the assemblage, but not the making. It’s kind of sad that everything is made in a mediocre country, where quality is worth a shit and the only imporant factor is the price.

Welcome to the real world… I guess.