Hack Job

Filed under: daily, digital audio hacksReader [Kelly Regan] flies large scale RC planes, but would often need someone call out flight sequences while rehearsing. Not wanting to impose on fellow club members, [Kelly] built a sequencer caller from a cheap MP3 player. It just required extending the FWD key to a pin header. Those pins are connected to a custom switch on the back of the controller. Each maneuver is recorded with 30 seconds of padding and then added to a playlist. Once the maneuver is complete, a quick press of the button moves on to the next track. It's always nice to see people building devices that the consumer electronics industry probably wouldn't.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

A short while back, I decided I needed to get a handle on my music collection.  I’ve got random MP3s from years back, purchased MP3s, CDs and even an old 8 track or two.  There are many ways to do go about this but after throwing out the 8 tracks, here’s what I did to get organized.<!--break-->Getting music from ‘out there’ to ‘in here’.  There are several ways to go about doing this.  The first, and easiest is to hang around your favorite DRM-free download store, like Amazon.com or Rhapsody for starters.  See something you like?  Buy it!  You may also have a lot of your music on an ancient format, like a CD or perhaps a clay tablet.  Let’s say you’re looking at a stack of CDs that are sitting outside of your computer and you’d like to get all that music into your computer.

Filed under: misc hacksWe're a little confused: [xXxMrCarlosxXx] built an amp out of a cigarette tin and calls it a Mobile Oppression Unit, but we thought all mobile oppression came in the form of giant, invincible crab-shaped palaces. In any case, or more specifically, in a repurposed Lucky Strikes case, he used an mp3 player, some speakers from a garage sale, and a bread board packing an LM1877N-9 chip "optimized for loudness" to construct a great-looking, compact boom box. Check out his Flickr stream at the read link and begin oppressing your neighbors with sheer volume today.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Open source, cross platform Streamripper allows you to save streaming mp3 radio stations to your hard drive. And I will show you how.How do I use Streamripper?If you are running Windows, the best way is probably to install and run Winamp, this is a very popular media player - and it’s free!read more

Haystack is a social network that is all about music. You can check out an artist's music, videos, and pictures and get reviews of their albums. Using this hack, you can also download free music from the site to play on your computer or portable media player (iPod, Zune, Zen, etc.).

1Article on how to configure either mod_cband or mod_bw to control bandwidth usage. Article addresses specific problem of MP3 downloads consuming too much bandwidth.

All the BBC's creative resources for learning in one place, for filmmaking, podcasting, music-making, photography, writing, singing...

All about the LAME mp3 encoder

Podcast auto-downloader software.

open source mp3 player