In a recent comment Lucy mentioned “getting to grips with MP3 technology” as if it were quantum theory. This from someone who paints walls (and grouts them!), paints sellable pictures, has a black belt and two dans in cooking, is presently aborbing Proust by osmosis and uses a camera as a brain/eyeball accessory. I’d say MP3 technology isn’t rocket science if she didn’t also eschew clichés.Lucy owns LPs illustrative “of a wasted youth”. Transferring their contents to CDs or DVDs is tedious and time-consuming (see The slob’s guide to LP – CD transfer). But not difficult. The silvery disc is then slipped into the computer and recorded on to the hard disc. Thereafter to the MP3 player.
Transfer software comes on a CD with the player. Because the original music occupies an enormous file it is subjected to a process called RIP emerging in slimmed-down MP3. Transfer is thus many times faster than real-time. I chose to edit down the info identifying each track (Who cares what key the Emperor’s third movement is written in?) but this is only for nit-pickers.
My Zen Creative Touch was bought for its (then) huge 20 GB capacity and for its 24-hr battery life. But note that word “touch”, think instead “horribly over-sensitive”. Precise track selection is an acquired art. However the 30 composer folders each contain a selection of works, some whole operas. Plus various collections. Several days’ continuous playing and I’ve only used one-third of the Zen’s capacity. Go on Lucy, bite the techno-bullet and view the Rosy Granite Coast while listening to Spem in allium.
9 comments:
I found 'Spem in Alium' on YouTube after reading of it here. (Not the best source, I'm sure, but it was convenient, and I wanted to know what you meant.)
Despite the audio limitations of the speakers in my computer, this is a beautiful piece of music. A symphony of voices.
Gave me goosebups to hear it. Would like to hear it performed live sometime.
:)
RIP applies to my knowldge of MP3 technolgy as a whole and my ability to manage it if I possessed a player.
The Guardian advertised an LP to MP3 solution a while ago (yes, I have become a Guardian reader thanks to the BB influence!) but I can't find it now. I did turn up a few at webmarchand.com, for a French selection!
http://www.webmarchand.com/a/liste_produit/idx/1062300/mot/Platine_vinyle_mp3/liste_produit.htm
The Crow: SiA was on the first CD I ever bought. I haven't played it in a coon's age (Am I allowed to write that?). I chose the title because it seemed to fit in with Lucy's preferences.
Plutarch: Such wilful Ludditism. You press a button on the player and it plays. As to loading it up, you have grandchildren don't you? These days morphic resonance ensures they are born with spatulate fingers which operate any kind of button.
Julia: You've got it wrong, I'm supposed to learn from you not the other way round. Discard The Guardian and start out on El Païs, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and le Canard Enchainé. I remember that device advertised but I'm assuming Lucy still has an LP player. If so all she needs is a CD recorder and a cable to link to the amp's AUX socket.
As for "coon's age," I'm guessing that as long as the raccon in your presence doesn't object, it shouldn't matter.
SiA is hauntingly beautiful, but can't say I'd listen to it twice in one sitting. One has to be ready for it, I think, or one could easily fall into deep slumber. Still, I was glad to find it, and would enjoy hearing it (once) in person.
:)
Where can I get those spatulate fingertips you mentioned, and will they help me type better?
That misspelled word above is racoon.
I think we might be lining up a blogging rendezvous to hear the Tallis Scholars singing SiA, perhaps at the ROH taking in a visit to the Queen's private loo, followed by a lamb bhoona and all the trimmings at the India Club.
I'm sure I'd have some takers; one blogging friend I'd converted to it e-mailed me overnight to ask if I could make it to Copenhagen that day where it was on. Not without a private helicopter I said regretfully; she was in America and had a rather sketchy grasp of time zones and the European perception of distances.
I will get around to the MP3 thing, I know it probably isn't difficult but accidy is my besetting sin in matters technological, and most others.
Thanks for the special mention!
... come to think, a sketchy grasp is a mixed metaphor; a tenuous one is perhaps better.
Lucy: Rather a long way to travel for a comparatively short piece. But I suppose once 40 virtuoso voices have been assembled other motets, etc, would be added to the programme. As I mentioned to The Crow in replaying my version for the first time for yonks I was enormously struck by a companion piece, Allegri's Miserere, which I didn't realise I had. It is possible to accumulate too many CDs; in my case that's somewhere between 600 and 700.
Re MP3 players. This is hardly the season for such accidie-dispersing work. Try autumn
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