My new hobby-project? :P

After seeing the price-tag, I'm thinking I'd better look at the Korg MS-20 mini instead.

The kit is WAY too f******g expensive for me (currently studying for a Bachelor's degree).

Metallica på Spotify

Etter alle årene med rettssak(er) og mediaoppstyr ifm. Napster og digitale distribusjonsrettigheter, er Metallica endelig også på Spotify ;)

http://www.nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.9753314

Music, formats and storage

For the past 6 months I've been pondering about ripping and encoding my entire music-collection into a digital archive for both safe keeping and easy access. Earlier, I only encoded my favorite tracks, saving precious disk-space. But in these days, disk-space is plentiful, and encoding is pretty straightforward.

Only thing I couldn't decide, was which encoding-format to use. I've been a happy user of MP3-technology for well over 12 years, but, I have noticed glitches / crappy noise and disturbances in certain MP3-codecs (which vary a lot across different music-devices / systems).

So eventually, it became a stand-off between FLAC and Vorbis. And since I really can't hear the difference between a 320kbit OGG and a FLAC file, the choice pretty much fell on Vorbis. Vorbis is also known as "Ogg Vorbis", an open-source audio-codec accepted by almost every modern MP3-compliant device available today (Vorbis can be encoded in bitrates ranging from 32 to 500 kbit/s, and is globally voted as the best sounding codec at comparative bitrates of 128-320kbit/s).

Beginning with my precious electronica music, I converted all tracks to 320kbit Constant BitRate (CBR) Ogg Vorbis files. Totaling 624 tracks, averaging 4 minutes, came to a total of 4.4 GigaBytes (which I'm currently listening to through Rhythmbox as I type :p). In other words, my ENTIRE electronica collection on ONE DVD+/-R disc! AWESOME!

Calculating the rest of my collection, I should be able to compress it all on 8-9 DVD+/-R discs.

I really understand why Spotify® uses Ogg Vorbis, it keeps a high quality of sound as well as saving disk-space, and from what I can tell, it doesn't strain the CPU very much either.

What makes me smile, is that EVERY device in my room can play Vorbis ;) My PlayStation3 system, my Asus Eee netbook running Ubuntu, my Pioneer DVD-player and my HTC Desire Android smart-phone ;D

Open-Source FTW! ;D

Spotify @ Android

Hellz yeeeeah ;D

Finally, Spotify for Android is out!

But alass, my phone gives me the error-message: "Download unsuccessfull" after trying to get it from Android Market.

F***ing Market...

Update, 09:00

Ok, I found a solution to my problem, since it seems a lot of ppl have had the same issue. I basically found a truncated URL-link, downloaded the APK package to my SD card, and installed it via "AppManager" (available at Android Market).

Update, wednesday september 9th

Seems this has been an issue for quite a few people, and on the download-page for android @ spotify.com, they've even put this in the introductory text, offering a manual download link to the APK package as of version 0.3.20 (telling developers and owners of the G1-version to proceed using this manual option. I suspect my troubles are caused by me updating the phone firmware with a minor version-update from HTC, but I really hope this gets resolved in the 1.6-release).

Spotify for Android! :D

Only thing is, there is no sign of a release date, or any further info on this application other than this YouTube-video and a post on the Spotify-blog from way back in May.

The Prodigy

De lever ennå, og pumper ut hardcore dance så det hviner etter ;P
Ja, det er ett av favoritt-bandene mine ;D

Gleder meg VILT til Hovefestivalen, blir første gang jeg ser dem live (grunnet tidligere økonomi og fridager).

N.B.: I dag slippes faktisk singelen "Warrior's Dance" ;) som jeg faktisk har liggende som pre-order ;P

Ledelsen i "Mininova" skremt...

Nå skal piratfilmene bort fra Mininova

Ledelsen i Mininova er åpenbart skremt av dommen i The Pirate Bay-saken, og holder nå på å "filtrere" bort ulovlig materiale. Selv om Mininova ikke har egen "tracker" slik som The Pirate Bay, skal altså alt ulovlig materiell filtreres bort ved hjelp av et skreddersydd innholds-filter.

Systemet som filtrerer er utviklet og godkjent av film- og platebransjen. Men hvor effektivt det kommer til å bli gjenstår å se, for i skrivende øyeblikk kommer et raskt søk på det nyeste av film og musikk fort frem med resultater (systemet har bare vært i aksjon siden onsdag sist uke).

http://www.itavisen.no/812958/naa-skal-piratfilmene-bort-fra-mininova

Looks like my luck has turned ;P

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio

Turns out my Digital I/O Module-purchase wasn't a total loss. Just caught a glimpse of an article describing the OSS driver (Open Sound System) working on some of the X-Fi series soundcards. As I went deeper into X-Fi support research, being intrigued by this news, I found that the ALSA project (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) already had a module in-code that is supposed to support the Xtreme Audio version of the X-Fi cards, module "ca0106", the Creative developer describing the module on the open source website of Creative, had not tested the module himself. And, after reading some technical specs of the card, I realized it had an I/O port! Woohoo! Finally! Optical and coaxial SPDIF input and output! ;D

Allright, I'm aware of the fact that this card is a spin-off on the Audigy-chip, and supposedly "half-supported in ALSA, but not mentioned in ALSA support-pages". But further research into this comment revealed that the ALSA project had fixed playback bugs in their new alsa-1.0.15 branch. Despite these negative remarks, I'm going for this card, firstly because it's based on the last Audigy-chip (of which I am perfectly content with), it's not too expensive and it incorporates the Digital I/O port needed for my Digital I/O Module.

If I'd opted for the version above this card, I would have to fork out double the price just for the addition of the X-Fi chip with it's sound crystalizer and EAX Advanced HD capabilities.

As i'm using this card strictly for home cinema viewing and music purposes, I'm not really that concerned about perfect latency or near-noticable distortion reduction.

As I see it, if a source has shit quality, it will sound like shit, no matter how many DSPs (Digital Sound Processor(s)) you pass the source through. And since I'm now using optical SPDIF sources, sound distortion is a non-effect (the superb' wonderful thing about optics compared to copper wiring when it comes to audio, or maybe all transmission purposes I guess).

One thing I came to think about, is the analogue jack-connections I use to connect my VCR-equipment to my computer with, but then again, I could always run a dual-soundcard setup and just patch the stereo-ouput of the Audigy 2 SZ to the X-Fi Xtreme Audio, or maybe even setup an SPDIF bridge internally between the two cards to get complete digital resampling of all my sound-inputs ;P I love cross-connecting equipment.

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=15855

Spintables, I'm jealous

Spin!-Spin!!-SPIN!!! Mayn, can't wait until I can afford a decent setup. I really enjoyed watching Christian rippin'up tunes on this ;P

A true music composer

The whole studio-setup ;] me like... Go on Tommy-Boy! ;D

My trustworthy MP3-player B-)

It's pretty cool working for an IT-/ISP-company, especially when you receive really cool christmas gifts, like this Creative Stone 1GB MP3-player :P