In the mix

[vovat]

I finished the mix CDs for colleenanne, countblastula, aliste, and slfcllednowhere. They should be on the way pretty soon, but I'm going to need bethje to help me make inserts for them first. I mean, I guess they don't NEED inserts, but it would be nice to at least have track lists to go with them, right?

Speaking of mixes, I don't think I've ever made a mix tape or CD for someone who wasn't already a They Might Be Giants fan. I mean, I guess it's cool that pretty much everyone I know already likes them, but I think it might be fun to introduce them to someone at some point. Of course, with my luck, that person would probably end up hating TMBG.

I always use Musicmatch to rip tracks from CDs, but the program tends to be quite unstable on my computer. Is there another program I can use for that? Maybe I just have to defragment my hard drive or something, and it'll run better. My computer has been acting up quite a bit as of late. Part of that is probably because I tend to have so many windows open at the same time, but since most of those windows don't actually have to DO anything when I'm not actively working with them, that really shouldn't be much of a problem.

I guess I don't have anything else to say right now, so I might as well post this.

Comments

[tisok.livejournal.com]

i've made mixes for non-TMBG people. i'm never sure whether to put a more "normal" track or a more "weird" track on, though.

[tisok.livejournal.com]

oh, also, to answer your question. cdex is the best ripper i've found.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Does that cost anything?

[tisok.livejournal.com]

nope. http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on the person. There are certainly TMBG songs that I really like, but probably wouldn't give to someone who wasn't familiar with the band. I've always thought it might be a good idea to put "It's Not My Birthday" and "Sleeping In The Flowers" on a mix, because: 1) they're personal favorites of mine, 2) it would be one song by each John, and 3) they're fairly representative of early and late TMBG. The always-popular songs like "Birdhouse In Your Soul" and "Ana Ng" might also be good choices, though, if the person isn't already familiar with them.

[aliste.livejournal.com]

iTunes is a free download and works on Windows. Also, it can automatically create appropriately-sized CD case inserts for you to print, which is pretty convenient.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Alas, it does not work with Windows ME, which is what I have.

Just for curiosity's sake, though, if you use it to rip CDs, does it make MP3s or files of that weird iTunes format?

[aliste.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't realize that you wouldn't be able to use it. (I'm a Mac person myself.)

You can choose whether to rip to mp3 or AAC, so that's not a problem if you ever wanted to try it out.

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

i used to use musicmatch.. but now it's one of several programs (itunes is another) on my dad's computer that claims that there's no sound card (the heck?) so i use windows media player for all my mp3 stuff now. it, of course, rips stuff to '.wma' format and it'll automatically convert them to mp3 if it's burning.. not sure about just ripping/not burning..

one thing about musicmatch i found weird was that sometimes even though i was connected to the internet (to grab the song info so i wouldn't have to type it all in) it would say i wasn't. that was annoying.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, one reason I don't use Media Player for that is that I'd rather have MP3s.

At least once, I had a problem with Musicmatch not realizing that I had put in another CD, and then ripping parts of the new CD that were the same lengths as the tracks on the last CD. That was how I ended up with a cut-off version of "Ana Ng" on a TMBG mix that I made. It had ripped the part of "Ana Ng" that was the same length as "Everything Right Is Wrong Again."

[onib.livejournal.com]

I also have always used cdex, exclusively, to rip tracks. It's free, and you have a lot of control over which codec you use and your mp3 compression ratios.