Building a Recording Library

The first thing I want to tell you should come as very good news. When it comes to popular music, the Gnutella file-sharing network is now legal by precedent in America. The American Supreme Court has tabled the issue for now, but it is very likely that eventually some legislation will be passed that clarifies the actual legality and illegality of the situation with Gnutella.

As far as it goes now, you can't keep a massive library, butthere is no fixed limit. An iPod full of songs is probably okay, and ten hard drives of songs durned well isn't. Further, you can't sell mp3's that you've downloaded, just as you can't sell copies of CD's that you have bought in the store.

The other two caveats are that full-length movies are not fair game, although clips and trailers are okay, and finally that direct person-to-person sharing is illegal. There is a rational reason for you not to p2p as well, which is the fact that direct-p2p sharers allow people direct access to your hard-drive. Remember that most 'Netizens are scum, and you do not want that kind of scum looking directly at your hard-drive.

For the Mac PC, the best Gnutella client is Cabos. The big advantage with Cabos is that it limits the amount of partial or corrupted files that it saves to a back-up cache, which is the opposite of what most Gnutella clients will do, and further that it is very skinny in terms of application megabits. With Gnutella, what you really want to do is to search specific "tracks," and this will allow you to check out different songs. By and large, the actual Gnutella network does not have enough files on it to get a whole album of anything, so if you want the entire recording, you will have to go and buy the entire recording. Otherwise you can be satisfied with a smattering of songs.

If you're running a Mac PC, an iPod Nano is your best bet. Understood that it can only cache a few gigs of material, but they wear out a lot slower because they run on flash-ware instead of on hard-drive technology. Also, if you're going to work out with an iPod, a hard-drive iPod can crash pretty quickly, or will just wear out very fast. Further, the hard-drive iPods cannibalize the batteries loaded in them incredibly quickly, and Apple only offers a full replacement of the iPod when - not if - that happens. They won't fix them, and you will have to buy a new iPod if you are outside of the warranty period.

Apple has lost a ton of respect from me, and when it comes time for a new PC, I will not be buying Apple. I'm stuck with my "spaceball-pod," for now, but when I replace my computer, Apple has lost me as a customer, unless they turn their companies' quality standards completely around. If you're in the market for a new computer, look at the budget, and then buy a standard WinPC of some sort.

A non-proprietary WinPC has some big advantages, if you know someone you can trust who can build one, or if you have a good working knowledge of hardware and software. However, don't buy non-proprietary parts if you haven't done your homework. Further, make sure you buy those parts from a reuptable dealer.

When it comes to the WinPC, there is a cigarette-lighter sized flash-drive mp3 player made by Sony that is a real nice buy, and the product is not very expensize. The largest storage space on that particular model is 1 gig, and it has no screen, but they run maybe 80 dollars or so, and for music listening, they are the stuffin'. The mp3-player also has a built-in radio antenna, and the player is great for exercising. The only downside is that at one point you had to run a proprietary Sony software in order to manage the library and recharge the mp3-player. The simplest fix for this problem is to fix the preferences file so that the software only runs when the player is plugged-in, which is pretty doable even for those without majestic computer abilities.

The new WMP for WinPC is better than iTunes, but the WMP for Mac is a terrible piece of garbage. You'll be stuck with iTunes if you're on a Mac PC, and that is a shame. Also, with iTunes on a Mac, look at the cross-bar and change your palette from the high-gloss "album cover," setup to the regular library function. The setup uses less resources, and you can also get a clearer view of your library by fixing that little widget.

Hear is how I run things, and the setup has some disadvantages, but it also works out fairly nice. When it comes to folk-music, jazz, and classical music, I purchase the recordings, either from the local Borders, or just recently I've started looking into a high-quality Internet-based recording catalog called H&B. When it comes to any other kind of music, I just deal with the limited smattering of songs I can get off of the Gnutella network.

As far as the H&B site is concerned, if you search H&B, or H&B Classics, it should be one of the first two or three hits on a simple google-search. It was recommended by the Penguin Classics Guide, and my Mom and I are going to road-test the site with a debit card sometime after Christmas. It is possible to get into trouble using a debit card on the Internet, but a good trick is to at least open an account on the Internet with a debit card, even if the site looks correct, in order to avoid some very nasty surprises.

I think H&B is going to more than pan out, the site looks amazing, but I do not want my mother or I to have to go to court over a stolen identity. That would probably ruin my mother's finances for the rest of her life. That is how wicked a stolen identity can be, if you do not mind your pints and quarts.

That will pretty much finish off this article, but the final thing to mention is the "Smithsonian Folkways Collections." The collections are mostly field-recordings of different types of American folk-music. The sound-quality is amazing, considering the age of the recordings, and you can generally just find them lying around for 5 to 7 dollars in the bargain bin at any CD store.

Almost any music you can mention is based on folk-music on some level, rock coming from blues, country coming from honky-tonk and "old-grass," and so on, and for the price you just cannot lose. I'm hoping to get the whole series. It's amazing to hear Leadbelly playing a gut-12-string in digital sound, and there are many other such amazing examples even we took from only the limited amount of the series I currently own.

Trust me, the American Government spent big money on this series, and they got this particular project - just right. Also, if you're into podcasts, there is a free Smithsonian Folkways podcast available at iTunes that has a new podcast once a month. I'm not into podcasts much, but some people love them, and for free you'll be exposed to a lot of different folk music and some good commentary on that folk-music.

So I think the next article will be on electronic music, and I have got the goods on this stuff, so wait until you see. Just wait.