We’ve been asked to do music for a wedding, we have the tracks ready but a)want to mix them into one long playlist
b)need to convert all to MP3 as some are wma’s and
c)be able to upload it all to an ipod to play on the night.

I said doing it live would be easier and more fun, but this is what they want. Is this possible or moon on a stick?

Cheers.

Windows media player. Just create the playlist in there. You can even segueway between tracks.

Can i upload to an ipod from there though?

It’s not my device, i use a creative zen which is fine whether it’s mp3 or wma.

Erm… iTunes? It’s what it’s for, really

Use your PC with windows media player. Create a playlist and leave it alone. However you can intervene and add/remove tracks, shift them up and down the playlist if required. Setting will allow automatic crossfade so there aren’t any gaps in the music. For the past few years i’ve done numerous parties for people I know as well as my own. It’s very easy, but I would rather someone else had the responsibility so I can relax at these events!

iPods are useless without iTunes. Get a player that handles all the different formats if you don’t want to use your pc for this gig. Do you want to rely on you little iPod’s battery for such an event?

I accept how sexy iPods are and that they have a great UI, but they just don’t cut it in many other ways. I’d have one if they:

1) accepted a replaceable battery
2) supported multiple formats
3) had an FM tuner
4) worked with any other application other than iTunes
6) suppoerted drag and drop
7) had the best audio performance
8 ) were competively priced against alternative manufacturer’s players

Good looks and a fantastic interface don’t outweigh the negatives for me. Sorry to all you iPod fans (I know you outnumber the rest of the MP3 owning population by 10 to 1 – how weird is that?)

6) suppoerted drag and drop

Whilst I agree with some of your comments and I’m fairly ambivilent on others, iPods do support drag and drop. You just have to do it within iTunes rather than Windows Explorer. Can’t see a difference between these things.

1) accepted a replaceable battery
2) supported multiple formats
3) had an FM tuner
4) worked with any other application other than iTunes
6) suppoerted drag and drop
7) had the best audio performance
8 ) were competively priced against alternative manufacturer’s players

2) MP3, AAC and Apple Lossless. AAC is transparent in ABX tests for most people even down to 128kb/s, and Apple Lossless can obviously be converted from FLAC files etc. I don’t know why you would bother with any other format for a portable player.

4) There are plugins for other apps (Foobar definitely has one here and IIRC Winamp as well)

7) Got a link that says otherwise? Be interested to read about this.

people with ipods listen to music,

people with alternatives generally try and tell why it’s superior! 😕

brick, do you want to “mix” them or just crossfade from one track to another?

1) accepted a replaceable battery
2) supported multiple formats
3) had an FM tuner
4) worked with any other application other than iTunes
6) suppoerted drag and drop
7) had the best audio performance
8 ) were competively priced against alternative manufacturer’s players

it’s fairly unbelievable, but Microsoft’s Zune almost meets your wishlist
requirements. OK, so you can’t replace the battery easily, drag and drop is impossible but everything else is there. Have had a Zune 80 for a year and it’s great.

Haha, the inevitable backlash! 😆

I bought a Creative Zen Micro a few years ago which was great in it’s day. It appeared when iPods were the size of small novel, like the Creative players that preceded the iPod range.

I now have a Nokia 5800 which has surpassed expectations on all counts. All boxes ticked thanks! 😀

I do listen to music, lots of it!

Please let me know when they bring out an iPod that isn’t locked in to iTunes….yawn

Please let me know when they bring out an iPod that isn’t locked in to iTunes….yawn

Err…they already do.

There are loads of alternatives to iTunes

I just need to fade the tracks in and out, nothing too complex. TBH I have never tried media player butif it’s possible in there i’ll have a look.

Unfortunately, an iPod won’t do the crossfade, just iTunes.

brick – I was in the same position. If you have a definitive song list and you’re happy doing it all in advance:

1) Drop them all into iTunes;

2) set them up in the order you want to play them in a playlist;
then set up iTunes so it does its automatic crossfade over e.g. 15 seconds;

3) then (this is the bit that takes all the buggering about) for each track set the points where song begins and ends so that when the iTunes crossfade kicks in, it’s not too jarring. The point of this step is so that you don’t end up having the fade up and the fade down of singing going over each other for example – and also you are not going to want to play the full 4-5 minutes album version of every song necessarily;

4) then once you have everything playing/fading in a “super disco mix” just like you want it in iTunes, download Audacity, which is a free sound recorder. You then hit record on Audacity, hit play on iTunes and record the whole mix.

5) Then you export the mix from Audacity to MP3 or CD format, and then just burn a CD of it. Audacity gives you an option to split a recording up into separate (seamless) tracks, which might be a good idea e.g. in case it gets scratched so you don’t have to start the music right back from the beginning! And make 2-3 copies just in case.

This worked really well for the people I was doing it for – they only had about 30-45 minutes of disco music in the end (Scottish wedding meant ceilidh music etc) but it was no different from having a DJ that is just given a list of stuff to play.

The bonus of having it on CD is that you can just give it to anyone to play on the machine and you don’t have to watch it.

All of the above is very easy – if you can edit a Word document, you can make it work. Try not to do it the night before, like I did…

Alternatively, you can still do it all from a laptop running iTunes if you’re willing to stand in front of it. I would recommend still doing steps 1-3 so that the transitions are less crunchy/painful – but if you wanted to skip songs or fade up/down or throw another request in, you’d still have the flexibility to do that too.

Check out these:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1471353
http://ask.metafilter.com/35689/Burn-baby-burn-ambient-inferno
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorial_common_ed_3.html

konabunny, why can’t you just export directly from iTunes?

because it doesn’t do the crossfade on burning CDs (unless iTunes has changed in the last year).

The BBC has also taken a dig at Apple for blocking the path to a full download service for the iPhone. “Apple keeps its DRM technology close to its chest and has so far not licensed that technology to third parties,” says Rose.

“This means that as of today, it’s not technically possible for us to make rights-protected BBC iPlayer programmes available for download from the bbc.co.uk/iplayer website in a format compatible with Apple devices. That’s a major missing piece for us and a disappointment for Apple device owners, so please know that this has our full attention.”

Good old Apple Corp!

Enjoying watching iPlayer programmes on my inferior Nokia 5800! 😆

The BBC has also taken a dig at Apple for blocking the path to a full download service for the iPhone. “Apple keeps its DRM technology close to its chest and has so far not licensed that technology to third parties,” says Rose.

“This means that as of today, it’s not technically possible for us to make rights-protected BBC iPlayer programmes available for download from the bbc.co.uk/iplayer website in a format compatible with Apple devices. That’s a major missing piece for us and a disappointment for Apple device owners, so please know that this has our full attention.”

Good old Apple Corp!

Enjoying watching iPlayer programmes on my allegedly inferior Nokia 5800! 😆

cheers Konabunny!

it’s not as tricky as it looks – i am not very techie and even less musical and it all came out fine. certainly no worse than my mate’s wedding where the bride had hired a live DJ and then gave him a list of songs to play and in which order they had to be played!

also, only downside is that whoever does the mix knows exactly what’s next: “yes, Stevie next…now Kylie…the B52s song the maid of honour wanted…” 😆

Sod what the happy couple want, do it live. DJing is mainly about playing the right track at the right time. Moreover, you’re bound to get requests from the guests throughout the night and it would be a shame not to be able to play these.

There are two main options if you want to go the computer way:

1. Jukebox software – iTunes, WMP etc
2. Virtual DJ software – google will find you loads, just a play with some of the mix options. Some will automatically beat match for you.