My favorite music options at work

I like to listen to music for good portions of my workday. Some companies I’ve worked for don’t allow their employees to store mp3 music files on company owned equipment. But not all is lost due to some new options on the web. Here are three options I use at work:

Seeqpod calls itself the “playable search”. In other words it scours the net for songs and makes them playable via the Seeqpod website. You can create and share playlists. Type in the name of your favorite artist and Seeqpod quickly searches for available songs. I searched for Pink Floyd and was presented with nearly 600 songs for my listening pleasure. This is a great service for those looking for a specific group or song and those who want control of their playlist.

Slacker is great for discovering new music and for those that want to set a station genre and just let it play. This works well for those who don’t want to spend much time managing their music selections. Slacker has many stations to choose from and you can skip up to 6 songs per hour. I keep this on at work more than any others. The sound quality is quite good.

The Hype Machine is really cool which means it can’t be long before the RIAA tries to sue it into oblivion. This site goes out and searches for music blogs that review and post mp3s file which it then adds to its library for you to search and stream. For example, I searched for Van Halen and was presented with a list of songs available for listening as well as links to iTunes and Amazon if I’m interested in purchasing.

Pandora was one of the first internet radio stations I heard of and has become one of the most popular. I still use it occasionally but not as much since I discovered Slacker. But you’ll be rewarded with excellent music once you take a few minutes to configure it with your favorite artists.

These three are my favorite options for adding music to my work day but many others exist such at Last.fm and AOL Radio which offers over 200 free stations via XM. Give them all a try and see which works best for you. I think all of them have something to offer.

Note: iTunes also includes free radio stations but I didn’t include it here because it requires installing software and not all employers allow that.

Technorati Tags: Internet radio, AOL, Seeqpod, Hypemachine, Pandora, Slacker, Last.fm

Chinese Translation

Presentation Zen links to this great little tune called Chinese Translation. The animation and the music are a perfect fit. The song has a neat message. The last 90 seconds or so of instrumental is fantastic.

ToEPFDIzhNA

The Dark Side of the Moon

I can’t believe I didn’t come across Wil Wheaton’s blog before this weekend. But I’m glad I did just in time to read this post about his favorite album of all time: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

This has been my favorite album as well for many years. It doesn’t seem that long ago when one of teammates on our high school baseball dubbed the album to cassette for me and told me to listen. I loved it the first time I played it through. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard. The mood, the subtle guitar, the background voices and sounds and machines. It was all there as it opened my mind to how music could be used to relax. Most of the music I was into up until then was loud, screeching metal or hard rock. Dark Side changed that.

I carried my Walkman and that cassette tape darn near everywhere I went for several years. When my dubbed version wore out I bought the album from which I’d make copies over the years. It came in handy during long bus trips around the state of Utah for baseball, basketball and football games. It helped me relax before and after the games. Like a good book, it would pull me into a world of mellow. The instruments, the lyrics and the mood they set were perfect. Even the cover is perfect.

I can’t imagine another album reaching me like Dark Side has. Back in 1984 it become my favorite album which still stands today.

Be a Slacker

How do you listen to music at work? I don’t like to leave my iPod out all day so what I usually do is bring a DVD or Flash stick full of mp3s to listen to. I still do this but I’ve found another way to listen to music at work (or home) that I really enjoy.

I’ve been using a service called Slacker. I like the number the variety of stations and especially the classic rock channel. I like Slacker quite a bit better than those stations found on iTunes.

Give it a try and see what you think. If you setup an account you can create your own stations based on music you already listen to.

Tunebite strips iTunes songs of DRM

I bought a song from the iTunes store this afternoon which means I can only play it on my iPod or on my PC using iTunes. But what if I want to play it using my player of choice, Q-Player? Because Apple refuses to license their format to anyone, I can’t do this easily. My reasons for wanting to do this are many but the most important one for me that music sounds so much better using Q-Player with iZoTope Ozone DSP plug-in. Give it a try and be prepared to be blown away at how much better your music sounds.

I have a friend who burn his iTunes music to CD and then rips that CD back into mp3 format. But Tunebite makes the process much easier than that. Once you have Tunebite installed, it will ask you where it can find the LAME encoder (lame_enc.dll) which you can Google for. Once you’ve done that you just fire up Tunebite and point it towards your protected music. It encodes in real time which can take some time, but worth it it you want to listen to your music on your terms.

Like most mp3 converter programs, Tunebite is pretty ugly (I do love the huge, red GO button) from a UI perspective. But it works which is what matters most.