Mac OS X: You can convert audio files on your Mac with iTunes or a few other third-party applications, but there are often unnecessary steps involved and certain formats aren’t supported. xACT is a very simple app without those problems and just gets the job done. More »
Just because you’ve only got two speakers and a subwoofer doesn’t mean you should just place the speakers wherever there’s space. Audio firm Dolby offers an interactive app that shows the best speaker setups, angles, and distances for your living room. More »
There are plenty of great podcasts out there to choose from, but we’ve got the best of the audio variety right here to scratch your Mac itch. While all the TWiT-centric video podcasts in part one of my podcast roundup have companion audio feeds, these radio-styled talk shows are much better choices for your iPhone or iPod touch.
TWiT TV’s The Tech Guy. (iTunes Link) Leo Laporte is the Chuck Norris of all tech-based talk shows on any format. Leo may be trying to record every moment of his life, given the number of shows he’s involved with. With audio and video podcasts, and traditional over-the-air shows, it’s amazing he finds the time to tweet. While Leo tends to be more Mac-focused than PC, the tech discussions can go either way.
The Mac Observer’s Mac Geek Gab. (iTunes Link) Dave Hamilton and John F. Braun have been with The Mac Observer for a long time, and have been producing a quality podcast for almost as long. Their enthusiasm never seems to die out. The depth of knowledge they have regarding Mac-related technologies is proven over and over. There’s also an enhanced iTunes version with premium content, but you can only grab it through iTunes.
The MacCast. (iTunes Link) For Mac geeks by Mac geeks. With five years of history behind him, Adam Christianson is another veteran of all things Mac. The variety that each show has to offer is refreshing. Adam is very articulate, and you can easily visualize the detailed step-by-step walk-througsh typically included in each show.
Mac OS Ken. (iTunes Link) A quick podcast bringing you the latest Mac news — all of the latest Mac news. Ken Ray has a familiar format that’s often imitated. At times, you expect a full-on rant to ensue, but Ken manages to pull back and keep to the facts with just enough commentary to keep things interesting. This podcast even has its own iOS app.
For Mac Eyes Only. (iTunes Link) Beyond the quick tips, the weekly program is a collection of how-tos mixed in with news and rumors being discussed online.
Lately, I’ve been trying to steer clear of having to sync daily. I use MobileMe to keep my bookmarks, contacts, calendar and notes in sync when on the go. I have my favorite albums on hand and utilize services like Pandora to fulfill my other music needs. Podcasts, on the other hand, are very time-based, and it wasn’t until I found Podcaster for $1.99 in the App Store (iTunes link) that I was able to wean my iPhone completely off of its dependence on iTunes. Without having to search all over again for my favorite podcasts, I was able to export the OPML file from iTunes, upload and share the file from my MobileMe iDisk, and import the URL into Podcaster. That way, my iPhone will always grab the most current content automatically.
Think we’re missing any truly great audio podcasts? Please share in the comments.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
If you hate the quality of Apple’s included iPhone headset but love the functionality of the remote, here’s a quick hack to combine the remote with a better headset for quality sound on the cheap. More »
If you don't consider yourself an audiophile there's a good chance you placed your speakers based on where they'd look best—and stick out the least—rather than where they sounded ideal. Follow some basic speaker placement rules to optimize your setup. More »
The internet has revolutionized nearly every form of media, and music is no exception. This week we look at the five most popular music streaming services to see how people are getting their music fix.
Photo by CarbonNYC.
Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite music streaming services, and now we’re back with the top five contenders. Read on to learn about the services and then cast your vote in our poll at the end.
When you’re ready to listen to some tunes online, Grooveshark allows you to jump right in. Unlike many services that require a subscription to use, Grooveshark lets you search for music and build a playlist as soon as the site loads. If you want to save the playlist, however, and access other session enhancing features like flagging songs to enable the music suggestion service, you’ll need an account. Aside from manually building a playlist, you can also listen to Grooveshark Radio, their suggestion engine. One of Grooveshark’s most unique features is that if you can’t find a song or artist you love, you can upload the music from your own collection to build the Grooveshark database.
First the bad news about Spotify: as of this writing, 02/28/2010, Spotify isn’t available in the U.S. due to various legal issues and licensing requirements. The good news is that Spotify is an incredible music service, and we're always hearing whispers that it'll soon be available stateside. You can collaborate on and easily share playlists using the service—as easily as you share a link to a YouTube video for comparison's sake. A premium account adds more features, like commercial-free listening or the ability to listen to your playlists on your mobile phone. Premium service also enables offline mode for local storage of music, higher quality streaming, and travel access—so should you visit a country like the U.S., where Spotify isn't available yet, you can still enjoy it.
Pandora is the easy-to-use front end for the massive database of attributes generated by the Music Genome Project. The Music Genome Project analyzes songs with up to 400 different attributes so when you tell Pandora "Play me something like the song Punkrocker by The Teddy Bears featuring Iggy Pop" it doesn't just return a song that people who liked "Punkrocker" also liked—it returns a song that is also "genetically" related to your suggestion. Pandora may not have the most bells and whistles of the music sharing services rounded up today, but the power of the Music Genome Project and ease with which you can create and rate personalized streaming radio stations has won Pandora many fans. Upgrading from free to premium service allows you to stream more than 40 hours a month, gives you access to a dedicated desktop client, and increases the quality of your audio stream.
Last.fm is another service that not only streams music but generates suggestions for new music based on what you like. In addition to building playlists and enjoying tunes on the web, you can "scrobble" your own music collection to Last.fm—which basically means you let Last.fm track the songs you're listening to and add them to your Last.fm profile, allowing you to both listen to them and use them to increase the scope of Last.fm's suggestion engine for better personalized picks. In addition to listening to streaming radio and building personalized stations, Last.fm also allows direct music download—when authorized by the copyright holder—so you can expand your personal collection as you listen.
Lala's claim to fame is the ease with which you can listen to both your own music over the web and purchase new music inexpensively. Lala has a database of 8 million songs that you can listen to once for free, purchase for online play for $0.10, or buy as a DRM-free MP3 for $0.79. If you have a song in your personal collection—on your computer at home—you can add it to the Lala database to allow unlimited play without paying a fee. Lala doesn't sport a hefty music recommendation engine like some of the other contenders in the Hive Five—although we didn't find the one they have lacking—but instead focuses more strongly on connections between people to drive music suggestion. As a result Lala supports easy rating and playlist sharing with friends to encourage organic music discovery.
Now that you’ve had a chance to look over the top contenders for champion of the golden earphones, it’s time to cast your vote in the poll below to decide the winner:
Which Music Streaming Service Is Best?polls
Have a favorite that didn’t get a nod? Have a creative way to use one of the Hive Five nominees above? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Ed. note: It can be pretty expensive (and a big pain) to install a wired, whole-house speaker system, but reader Tom O’Brien writes in with his low-tech solution: Route your speakers through the phone lines already installed in your house.
Here’s Tom’s set-up:
Using existing telephone wire and powered speakers, it’s fairly simple to connect speakers throughout the house via existing phone lines. This will work only if the lines have 3 extra wires, such as when no land line is in use, or if the house has 6 (very common) or 8 strand telephone wire. Cat 3 wire is 8 strand.
Each audio jack in the setup can connect to any source or supply output to speakers. All power is supplied by the input and output components. This is just a big complicated extension cable.
I live in an old 3 level house. This permits the same audio to be played throughout. Off/on and volume controls are on the remote speakers, as with any powered speaker. This will possibly violate the sensibilities of audiophiles, but the sound is fine for me.
Materials include:
- 3.5 mm headphone jacks from Radio Shack
- Repurposed Cat 5 or Cat 3 junction boxes drilled out for audio jacks. Home Depot’s are cheapest.
Tools:
- Soldering iron
All audio files, podcasts, etc are saved on netbook PC at “Home Base” (pictured above).
Note 2 cords plugged into panel. One is output from computer, other is to the speakers on shelf.
A CD player, portable mp3 player or any other source can be plugged in as well, hence so many jacks at home base.
The good speakers in living room.
3.5 mm headphone jacks from Radio Shack.
This is a cover panel for an in-wall junction box. The example has both speaker jacks and a phone jack and uses cat 3 (8 strand) wire. It would have been easier to just wire in a second box for the speaker jacks.
This is suitable for an in wall junction box.
The 3 screws at the top are for the audio jacks, the 4 screws at the bottom connect a 2 line phone via the cat 3 phone jack in the center.
External box wired in to existing phone system.
Double sided tape works well to secure wood to the box.
Thanks for the great suggestion, Tom! If you’re looking for a higher-tech solution that’ll still keep it cheap, check out our previous guide to using an AirPort Express to set up wireless, multi-room music playback.
Dear Lifehacker,
I have unabridged Asimov audiobooks that are great, but read at a mind-wrenchingly slow pace. I can boost an MP3′s speed 20 percent using Audacity, but I have around 250 MP3s. How can I process these files all at once?
Signed,
Sped-Up Sci-Fi Fan
Dear Sped-Up,
If you were a command line geek, or knew one who owed you a favor, speeding up all of your audiobooks at once would probably be a five-minute affair. That said, it’s not that difficult to set up a “Chain” in Audacity (which runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux) that you can apply to multiple files from inside the program.
You already know the effect you want to apply to all your MP3s: a 20 percent "speed" increase, where pitch and tempo are sped up at the same time and no correction is applied, as if you were just playing a tape faster. Most folks would go for "ChangeTempo" instead, because a ChangeSpeed on a normal narrator sounds pretty Alvin & The Chipmunks. Still, you described your audiobook narrator as "mind-wrenchingly slow." Let's set this speed-up as a chain by hitting the File menu in Audacity and selecting "Edit Chains"—it's down near the bottom of the menu.
Update: If you don’t see “Edit Chains” in your File menu, you may need to upgrade to the latest Beta release, as opposed to Stable.
You’ll get a new window with two “chains” pre-loaded as examples. Hit the “Add” button in the lower left, give your new “chain” a name like “Asimov Audiobook Speed-Up,” and hit OK. You’ll notice that there’s a single command listed for your new chain in the right-hand window, but it’s just an empty “END” command. Double-click that command, or hit “Add.” You’ll get a pop-up window asking you to select a command and edit its parameters.
Click on the image below for a larger view.
I double-clicked “Change Speed” in the commands window, and it auto-filled the fields above with the basic command line operation to run a speed change on files. It’s set to 0 percent, however, which won’t do us much good. Hit “Edit Parameters,” and you’ll get a slider and numeric input you can use to set a percentage for the speed-up or slow down. You can use the automatic vinyl conversion tools if you were copying a 33 1/3 record to some other format, but we already know our number, 20 percent, and we’ll stick with that. I’m not sure how the Preview button is supposed to work, but let’s just leave it alone. Hit OK, hit OK back at the command chooser, and OK once more at the Edit Chains box, where you can see your one-line Asimov Audiobook Speed-Up chain.
Back in Audacity, close any files you happen to have open for editing. Hit the File menu and select "Apply Chain," and in the dialog that pops up, select your Asimov chain and click the "Apply to Files" button. Choose the audio files you want to run through your speed wringer. Audacity isn't the A-number-One most stable program I've ever used, so I'd recommend running around 10 files at a time through your chain—then again, maybe you can plug in 30 files at a time and just deal with the crashes when they happen, since it processes them one at a time anyways.
Audacity will run through your files and convert them, one by one, and show you its progress. Not every Audacity command can be plugged into a “chain,” but speed change just so happens to be one of the lucky ones.
Good luck with your listening,
Lifehacker
P.S. — We truly do appreciate the smiling coincidence of devising an automation process for the preeminent author of robotic-based fiction.
Windows 7 only: We’ve already shown you how to add Jump Lists to Winamp, use them in iTunes 9, and now there’s a plugin that adds full support for Jump Lists and taskbar controls in foobar2000.
Installing the plugin requires simply unpacking the zip file to the components folder inside your foobar2000 installation directory and restarting the player—the controls should show up immediately by hovering your mouse over the taskbar button or accessing the Jump List with the context menu.
There are also a number of configurable options found in the preferences panel, allowing you to disable certain context menu items or disable Aero Peek when using the thumbnail view. It’s a slick addition when rolling your own killer audio player, and in our testing, works extremely well. The foobar2000 Windows 7 shell integration plugin is a free download for Windows 7 users only. Thanks, Juliana Peña!
