mp3

The LP was invented in 1948, and judging by the sales surge over the past few years, LPs won't be going away anytime soon. Amanda Ghassaei's "3D Printed Record" project demonstrated vinyl's continuing relevance in the 21st century. Years ago when I saw an early demonstration of 3D printing, I knew the technology would eventually lead to printing LPs, but now it's a little closer to becoming a reality. First, however, there are major sound-quality issues to overcome with 3D printed LPs (though they can play tunes with fidelity that's far below MP3 … Read more

Traktor Pro for Mac is a popular and highly regarded DJ mixing app for Mac OS X. It is available from many sources, and after the 30-day trial you have to pay $229 USD to buy a license. Traktor Pro for Mac installs easily.

While the price may seem high for a DJ mixing app, Traktor Pro has long been a standard for serious professionals and amateurs alike. Traktor Pro for Mac offers a two-deck interface that lets you cue up audio from two different sources and manipulate a virtual mixer to keep a constant stream of music playing. You … Read more

A great-sounding recording will sound its best only when it's properly mastered to LP, SACD, DVD-Audio, or a high-resolution file. Those formats will reveal the full glory of the music in ways that lower-resolution formats like MP3 or analog cassette always miss. But if you didn't have access to the high-resolution file to compare it with, a great recording will still sound pretty terrific as an AAC, M4A, or 320kbps MP3 file, because the recording's innate quality would shine through. On the other hand, a heavily compressed, processed and crude recording will always sound heavily compressed, processed … Read more

iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches get all the attention, but let us not forget the humble iPod Shuffle, the tiny clip-on MP3 player that's hard to beat for hiking, biking, running, and the gym.

Apple sells the Shuffle for $49, but for a limited time, Walmart has the fourth-generation iPod Shuffle 2GB and accessory kit for $39, plus sales tax where applicable. Shipping adds about $3, but you can avoid that charge by choosing store pickup or padding your cart to at least $45.

I should note that three of the seven available color choices are already out of … Read more

Samsung's latest Galaxy announcement, the pebblelike Galaxy Muse, is a stylish $50 media player that attempts to divert some of the iPod zeitgeist to Samsung's flagship phones.

Plug it into the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and the Galaxy S3, and the Galaxy Muse syncs with the smartphone, so you can access just your music without bringing the entire phone with you on a jog.

Available in the familiar Pebble Blue and Marble White options, the Galaxy Muse offers 4GB of storage and delivers up to 6 hours of music playback. While it might be easy to dismiss it … Read more

While there are a number of media players and audio programs that can be used to play music through your Mac, iTunes being a library and content manager as well as a player that comes preinstalled on Mac systems makes it the most popular option out there. The program offers simple controls for sorting through music, generating playlists, and playing your music, but in addition there are some settings that can be used to greatly improve sound quality during playback.

The first of these is the Sound Enhancer setting in the iTunes preferences, which is activated by going to the … Read more

Ripping files with Windows Media Player usually leaves you with a hard drive full of WMA files that, unfortunately, don't work with many music players and are unnecessarily bulky. WMA to MP3 Converter changes them to the much more widespread and neater MP3 format that works with just about any audio player you can think of.

The program requires you to register at the time that you download it, which raises alarms. However, registration only asks you for some minor information and then a code is sent to your e-mail. Once you're in, the program uses an almost … Read more

This app not only provides an alternative environment for you to browse and play music, but it also allows you to pick off those music files directly from the Web. Easy MP3 Music Downloads Pro acts as both a download manager and a media player.

The starting interface of Easy MP3 Music Downloads Pro resembles the interface of Android's default music player app. There's the playlist, artists and albums section. Thus it is probably technically impossible for anyone to get lost in it. The basic functions are also quite the same. You can choose a music file from … Read more

The RipTunes user interface is simple and straightforward. At the top are four tabs: Search, Library, Queue, and Ringtone. Search is self explanatory, Library is where you can view all downloaded files, Queue brings up a page showing current downloads, and Ringtone is where you can cut MP3 files to make ringtones.

The Search tab is where you want to go first. Inputting any artist name or song title will bring you to a new page. Overall the program works amazingly well downloading and converting to MP3. A typical song will take about 30 to 45 seconds to completely download … Read more