View Full Version : Comfortably Dumb...
I just got a MP3 player (Creative Nano Plus) and I'm really bad at instructions or reading fine print for that matter.
I take it I can rip CD's to my computer to download to the player, but what about online services? I just joined AOL's Music Now free 30 day trial ($14.95 after) and am listening to the Pink Floyd channel which has a list of songs I can listen too. It seems if I elect to download them it's $.99 each title but a typical line looks like this....
> (listen) + (add to song list) "Us and Them" - Dark Side of the Moon - Buy Download
What gives, if I add them to my song list, am I paying extra? Will I be able to up/download(?) to the player?
I'd hate to get ahead of myself and find out I owe big bucks during a free trial membership! Anyone have some serious trail tunes they have burnt to a CD they can let me borrow?
Any other tips? Wish you were here!
Sly,
Go to archive.org or bt.etree.org for free high quality legal downloads of live music. I just d/l an excellent Warren Zevon concert from 1987 for my iRiver MP3 player. emusic.com is supposed to be an good for-fee service although i haven't used it yet.
If you plan to rip your own CDs to MP3, EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is an great ripper, free from the author at www.exactaudiocopy.de/index.html (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/index.html).
Have fun. I don't use my player on the AT but do use it on my almost daily hikes in the woods around NJ.
Thanks BigToe, I'll check 'em out. I hope to get the hang of it eventually without having to pay an arm and a leg. I'll need those for hiking!
SGT Rock
09-19-2006, 02:05
You can also rip MP3s with Windows most recent media player version. It reads the CD, lets you rip the music to your library, and then you can put it on your nano. I do it with my stuff. And the software is free.
A good site to Download music is allofmp3.com. The songs are only 2 cents/each. It's run over seas so it can basically charge whatever they want. A law suite was brought against the owners of the site and the site won. So it's legit.
berninbush
09-19-2006, 08:10
I also have the Zen Creative Nano Plus, and I use the software that came with it to put music on it. Windows Media Player also works, but the special software makes it a bit easier. Zen Nano doesn't support playlists, but you can put your songs in folders to keep them in some kind of order on its own software. If you really have a particular order you want your music in, you can put each song in its own folder and number the folders 001, 002, etc. so that they line up correctly.
I haven't tried online download services much, so I can't tell you about that. But if you download a song to your hard drive and it's in a supported format (see the user manual), you should be able to put it on the player.
Long feet
09-19-2006, 08:19
I have been using iTunes for years. I studied in Europe for a year, and ripped my entire cd collection before I left. Now I just sync it to my iPod. I hear that this is the least complicated, but don't have much experience with any others. I am not sure how to go about syncing non ipods with iTunes though. Hope that helps.
Alligator
09-19-2006, 11:37
Sly,
Go to archive.org or bt.etree.org for free high quality legal downloads of live music. I just d/l an excellent Warren Zevon concert from 1987 for my iRiver MP3 player. emusic.com is supposed to be an excellent for-fee service although i haven't used it yet.
If you plan to rip your own CDs to MP3, EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is an excellent ripper, free from the author at www.exactaudiocopy.de/index.html (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/index.html).
Have fun. I don't use my player on the AT but do use it on my almost daily hikes in the woods around NJ.How fast does EAC rip?
hikerzim
09-19-2006, 12:30
I use this program... free to download.
Haven't had a problem with it yet. ;)
http://www.download.com/Free-CD-Ripper/3000-2140_4-10396883.html?tag=lst-0-1
I don't what's taking me so long (comfortably dumb, I guess), but I'm getting there ... I downloaded a Dead concert from Archives.org and was finally able to upload to the Zen. Others have come foward and offered to send me some more music and I do have some CD's I can rip using WMP or the Creative software. Now to remember to cancel my online subscription.
Pretty cool little gadget, listening to it makes me want to go hiking! ;)
A good site to Download music is allofmp3.com. The songs are only 2 cents/each. It's run over seas so it can basically charge whatever they want. A law suite was brought against the owners of the site and the site won. So it's legit.
Looks like another good site, I'll check it out. Thanks all
The Old Fhart
09-19-2006, 16:31
Sly, One thing to consider is how many songs you will be able to load into your MP3 player. If you have the 1Gb model Creative Nano they claim you can store up to 500 songs @64Kbps. You may find you get far less than that depending on the sampling rate (sound quality) you use. If the software you are using allows you to resample at different rates, try going from whatever the default is (maybe 128Kbps or higher) to say, 64Kbps, and see if that sounds acceptable to you. If it is then you can resample all the music before you load it onto the MP3 player and get lots more music.
I have loaded audio books (The Hobbit, A Walk In The Woods, A short history of Space and Time, Me Talk Pretty One Day) onto my MP3 player by resampling them to 16 or 24Kbps and choosing mono to cut the size way, way down and still have acceptable voice quality sound.
Uncle Silly
09-19-2006, 18:36
How fast does EAC rip?
Depends. Either (a) as fast as your CD drive will let it (Burst mode), or (b) as slow as it needs to to get a good rip (Secure mode). EAC is excellent for getting clean copies off your old scratched CDs -- put it into Secure mode and let it work. Burst mode is super fast, but doesn't do any error-correction, so if the CD is scratched up it won't get a good copy.
I've been using EAC for years, and it's gotten me excellent copies of otherwise unplayable CDs.
I have an I-Pod so I don't know if this'll work for you. I go to the local library, check out CDs download them to I-Tunes then load what I want into the I-Pod and keep 'em all in a the I-Tune library.
Sly, One thing to consider is how many songs you will be able to load into your MP3 player. If you have the 1Gb model Creative Nano they claim you can store up to 500 songs @64Kbps.
Thanks Fhart. Yeah I got the 1g Zen, it wasn't that much more than the 512. The Dead concert I uploaded was at 128Kbps. I'll definitely do some experimenting.
I have an I-Pod so I don't know if this'll work for you. I go to the local library, check out CDs download them to I-Tunes then load what I want into the I-Pod and keep 'em all in a the I-Tune library.
Thanks EZ. I think it works pretty much the same way with the Creative software.
We still on for the BMT? I got the guidebook, came with the MP3 player!
berninbush
09-20-2006, 14:59
One other nice feature of the Zen Nano is the little headphone jack cord that allows you to record things directly from the headphone jack of a stereo, tv, or computer.
It's better to download through the USB port if you're doing CDs (sound quality is better, and it gets the title of the track automatically) but if you've got something like an old cassette tape, or the audio from a movie, or a computer file in a funky format, you can do it with the headphone cord. (One annoying "feature" is that if the sound volume drops below a certain level, the Zen Nano automatically stops recording and then starts again when the sound comes back up.)
I used this to capture some MIDI files that were rehearsal tracks from my choir's website, so I could listen to them while commuting.
humunuku
09-20-2006, 20:31
another great free source for a ton of music is your public library...mine has tons of cds, new stuff every month
So far I'm in. The only thing is there will not be any intelligent trail conversation with all this hi-tec music stuff. We'll have to set a time of day to set the world straight. :rolleyes:
So far I'm in. The only thing is there will not be any intelligent trail conversation with all this hi-tec music stuff. We'll have to set a time of day to set the world straight. :rolleyes:
Intelligent trail conversation? That would be a first! :p
Hey, check this out. I downloaded a few albums from the AllofMP3 site and placed them each in their own subfolder label with the bands name, each had the default folder icon. Now they have album covers for each band! How'd they do that?
When should we start?
Got the stuff needed to hike the Colorado Trail too! :sun
saimyoji
09-22-2006, 17:57
Intelligent trail conversation? That would be a first! :p
No no. CHeck out this thread:
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17391&highlight=fart+baseball
No no. CHeck out this thread:
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17391&highlight=fart+baseball
I think I'll pass! :eek: