Flac to Mp3

I use Audacity

Download from : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Install then run Audacity

Open the directory with the Flac files you want to convert

Drag all the flac files over to Audacity and wait for it to process each one

Once complete go to Audacity and click on File then Export Multiple

Untick "Overwrite existing files" now choose the export location (must do this each time) press Export

Click OK for each file, it will then batch process them all

Once done and happy delete all the flac files in the directory

Go back to Audacity press File the close, this will close all the imported Flac files and reopen as new project.

Beat Finder For Audacity Vamp Queen Mary Plugin

If you run into trouble with installing the beat plugin.

Audacity Installing (Queen Mary Plugin)

Download vamp plugin :http://www.vamp-plugins.org/download.html

Scroll down to Queen Mary plugin set : http://isophonics.net/QMVampPlugins

https://code.soundsoftware.ac.uk/attachments/download/106/qm-vamp-plugins-1.7-win32.zip

I created folder called Vamp Plugins in C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\Vamp Plugins

Unzip plugin and copy qm-vamp-plugins.dll into the Vamp Plugins directory.

Now go to Start, right click on computer, then properties, then advanced, then environment variable

Under user click new variable name type VAMP_PATH
Under variable value type C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\Vamp Plugins, click ok, then ok again
Run Audacity under analyse you should now see Bar and Beat Tracker

Follow the video for how to use the vamp plugin

See video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5WUM3CjJkU

Also see AllinOne Plugins for Audacity for additional plugins

 Allhttp://www.freeaudacitytutorials.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/AudacityAllinOne.zip

Download, unzip, then copy contents to C:\Program Files (x86)\Audacity\Plug-Ins

Make sure you close Audacity first.

Christmas Light Controller Convert Mp3 To Wav

If you have Silicon Chip Christmas light controller you will need to convert your music from Mp3 to Wav.

I use Audacity : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Install and run Audacity

Drag your mp3 straight into Audacity

Click on File then Export Audio

Choose your destination and select WAV ( Microsoft) signed 16 Bit PCM

Then click save.

Raspberry Pi B+ With AirPlay / Shairport Audio Streaming

It was time to have a bit of fun and build an audio streaming device using a Raspberry Pi.

I had a pair of powered speakers lying around in the garage and thought it would be good idea if I could stream my music from my iPhone or from my music drive straight to the powered speakers.

Just to be clear I don't claim to be a Raspberry Pi expert in any shape or form.

After around 4 hours it was complete and worked first go.

LXPanel 0.5.10

I was able to stream music from iPhone Music player and Tuneshell Player, Plex player and StreamToMe.

 

Click the link below to download my Image file and save you hours of work


First of all you will need a couple of things

1: win32 Disk Imager : http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/files/latest/download
2: A micro sd card  and reader
3: My image file : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwjqRgkVKt1IX1pabExoMkRxNGM/view?usp=sharing

Install Win32 Disk Imager

If you already have a disk image file like My image file above, them scroll down to Write Disk Image.

Backing up your Raspberry Pi micro SD card is quite easy
Remove the micro SD card from your Raspberry Pi and insert it into a card reader.
Now insert the card reader into your computers USB socket
Now run Win32 Disk Imager
Choose a destination for your image file by clicking on the blue folder button, type an name for your file, in my example it was raspberrybackup.img, then press read.
Once finished you will receive a Read Successful message, press OK.

Write Disk Image

Insert a new micro SD card into the card reader and insert into your computers USB socket

Take note on the drive letter, in my case it was Device "D"

Now run Win32DiskImager.exe

The correct drive letter should self populate, if not select your Micro SD Card

You don't want to format the wrong Drive

Click on the blue folder button and select the image file raspberrybackup.img, then press write.

To Test your Raspberry Pi Audio Streamer

Insert your newly programmed Micro SD card and your network cable into your Raspberry Pi

Connect the audio out to your Hi Fi system

Power up your Raspberry Pi via the Micro Usb lead ( I used a 5v Iphone charger)

Give it a minute or so to boot, then give it a try.

IPhone, swipe up and select AirPlay then select ShairPort raspberrypi then Done.

TuneShell App - Stream From your iPhone Music using the Tuneshell App, click on the Blue AirPlay

then ShairPort raspberrypi

Plex App - Stream From your network Music drive using Plex App, click on the Blue AirPlay then ShairPort raspberrypi

ServeToMe App - Stream From your network Music drive using the ServeToMe App, click on the Blue AirPlay

Convert Your Music From Stereo To AC3, DTS or 5.1 Audio

TFM Audio Tool : http://members.home.nl/thefilmmachine/

Quick and easy conversion tool

Simply install then run

Press the add media button or drag and drop.

 Select the Output folder

Tick the Upmix the audio to 5.1 channels

Disable Winamp On Startup

You want to remove that Winamp agent icon in system tray annoying right.

Run Winamp,Click Options, scroll down click on Preferences, scroll down to General Preferences, then File types, untick Enable Winamp Agent.

Split Join MP4 Videos

I needed to Split 10 seconds worth of each arcade rom.mp4 video and join then all together into 1 mp4 file again.

I used Yamb 1.6 :  http://www.videohelp.com/download/Yamb-1.6.exe

or http://kurtnoise.free.fr/Yamb/ for the latest version

Bluetooth Controller Not Controlling Music IOS7

After the installation of IOS7 I was unable to control music on my iPhone from car Bluetooth controller properly.
If I was to choose a song manually it would play a song, but no matter how many times I disconnected and connected the controller it would still not respond to up/down next track controls.

Fix - Go to Settings, General, Reset, then Rest All Settings - BE AWARE THIS WILL RESET YOUR WIFI PASSWORDS. 

All Bluetooth audio controls worked again

What Id3 Tag Version Is Embedded In My Music

http://download.softpedia.ro/dl/d8f81c85b3b40505d2c1d795c96517c3/51cfe0af/100073583/software/MULTIMEDIA/AUDIO/ID3-TagIT-Setup33.exe

Run Id3-TagIT

On the left hand Folders column choose the directory with all your music.

You will notice that when you select a folder not much happens, click on options then sub directories and make sure it is selected or press alt and F9 to enable.

Now re choose the main music directory, this will scan all folder and sub folder and bring up all the id3 tag information including id3 tag version embedded.

In my example you will see all music is embedded with version 1.1 and version 2.3

Sound Effects

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AUDI-A4-WINDOW-REGULATOR-Kit-Rear-Right-00-08-/251008765387?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Make%3AAudi%7CModel%3AA4&hash=item3a7149cdcb&vxp=mtr

Keyboard With Sound Triggers

Allows you to map sounds with a usb QWERTY keyboard.

Simply drag and drop a wave file to the desired key.

You can fade in and out, pitch, loop, adjust volume and prioritize the sounds.

Works with windows or mac : http://soundplant.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdLCQ0mz33M

List Of Jukebox Software

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Jukebox_Software

Batch Change Album Artist Name Same As Artist Name

I use Tag and Rename 3.5.7 And Mp3tag v2.48

In tag and rename go to view then make sure folder is ticked, under folders on the left hand side choose the music directory with the files you want to change, click on edit, then select all, click on the centre column (Multi File Tag Editor), then the button (Edit All Supported Tag Fields), then the middle column (Additional), tick Album Artist remove any content in this field, press save then ok

This will remove all album artist tag information from all songs. (don't worry we will put them all back including the ones that were missing).

In Mp3tag go to file then Change Directory, choose the location of the music you want to change.

When this imports all the music you should see all the Album Artist and Artist fields will automatically fill themselves.

If you don't see the column right click on one of the columns and press customize, add missing columns.

Go to Edit, then select all, then File Save tag

M4a To Mp3

Free : http://www.pistonsoft.com/download/m4a-to-mp3-converter.zip

Does My Media Have Drm Protection

The easiest way is to add Protected column to your windows explorer.

To do this, go to where your media resides.

In the top right in search enter say wma

This will bring up all songs with the extension wma

Now right click on one of the columns, on mine I have Name, #, Title, Contributing Artist and Album.

Right click on one say Album, a context menu will appear, click on more, then scroll down to Protected.

The songs will either say yes or no

DRM video test file : http://www.haihaisoft.com/download/Media-DRM-EN-sample_P.wmv

Protect your content :  http://www.media-drm.com/Demo1.aspx

Another way is to right click on the file, then properties, then Details column, then scroll to protected.

You can also use MediaInfo : https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Install once finished find a media file, right click on the file and select MediaInfo.

Change Album Artist Name Same As Artist Name

Open Mp3tag - I'm using V2.48

Press the icon Change Directory

Choose the directory where the Album situated

On the left hand side change Album artist field to the name of the artist

Press edit then select all files

Press the save icon on the left

Done

Test Your Mp3's

Mp3 checker : http://www.free-codecs.com/MP3_Checker_download.htm

Click on Scan Folder

Choose your MP3 music folder to be scanned, click OK

Click on Scan Files

Also try Checkmate MP3: http://checkmate.gissen.nl/





To fix or Repair broken mp3's :

http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/

http://www.helium-music-manager.com

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mp3diags/?source=typ_redirect

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/MP3RepairTool-Download-5181.html

http://www.shivi.de/MP3Test-EN.html

Mp3's Tag Information Is Not Showing In Windows Explorer

I noticed that some of my mp3' did not show tag information in windows explorer.

I opened them up in Mp3tag and Tag And Rename and the music details show fine.

I thought it may have had certain tag information missing but it was not the case.

It seems that the files were indeed corrupt even though I could play them.

I used a program called mp3val-frontend, downloaded from : http://mp3val.sourceforge.net/

Drag the files in question into the program, then click on action scan all.

After the scan you should see some files labelled problem

Now action repair all files

All mp3's should be repaired and when viewed in windows explorer, all information should now be seen.

Media Player 12 Deletes Library

Your Media Player 12 updates the library and when finished it starts to delete the library to zero.

This all started when I found that the folder.jpg files were changed to 200 x 200.

See : http://lozaelec.blogspot.com/2011/04/window-media-player-changed-images-to.html

This registry fix worked to stop the folder.jpg files being changed.

I then deleted all music.

From a back up drive, I copied all the music back with the correct folder.jpg 300 x 300 size.

When I ran media player its started to update the music, then after a while it deleted all the music.

The graphics of Media Player went white and then it locked up.

I tried to delete the .wmdb files in the media player folder so that it can recreate new .wmdb files, but it deleted the files.
After many days of fault finding and a phone call to Microsoft who wouldn't help because I had a copy of an Oem key. As an Installer of many PCs, I had to contact my supplier to get them to ring Microsoft for help.

Great help

Anyway, I decided to copy a few artists at a time, it worked.

So I searched the net for "Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add Files"

I found this : http://msgroups.net/microsoft.public.windowsmedia.player/WMP12-Bug-with-Large-Libraries-confirmed-and-reproducable

and

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/topic/12577-wmp12-whs-pp3-mce-45k-songs-empty-library/

If I copied more than 32750 files this would reverse the library back to zero

The trick was to delete the whole collection and this time only add up to 30,000 files.

To do this I would highlight some of the artists and then go to properties.

If under 30,000 files, I would copy this to the managed library folder.

In media player the music library should now soon start to update the library

Once all the files have copied wait for media player to finish updating the music

When done close media player.

Open media player, keep your eye on the bottom right hand side you will soon see update complete

Now Copy and paste the next lot of music under 32750 files.

Media player will start to update the files as it is copying, wait for media player to finish updating the music

Then close it again, the restart again, keep doing this process until all music is copied.

Worked for me, after 2 weeks of fault finding its finally done.

Media Player 12 Will Not Update Library

Windows 7 ultimate

I deleted all me songs due to errors with media player 12 changing my folder.jpg picture sizes

When I ran media player it started to delete the library as expected.

I then placed 1artist and album in the folder and ran media player again, it locked up, would not do anything.

I went to file then manage libraries deleted the old library then added it again, then went to apply media changes still nothing.

I started again copying back over from backup while I was out for the day

When I got back this is what I did.

1) Closed media player

2) Went to  Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services then scrolled down to Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service and pressed stop.

3) Make your way to C:\Users\User\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player
The easiest way is Go to Start, All Programs, Accessories then Run
A textbox will come up enter %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player
press enter

4) The media player folder has A few .wmdb files, delete these.
   I deleted everything including album cashe, this took while.

5) I then ran media player

6) It started indexing my music
   If not, check to see that you have selected your managed library directory.
   Go to file manage libraries, then music, and make sure your music folder is shown.

   It worked for me hope it worked for you