Wednesday February 15, 2012
Even though the SHOUTcast streaming music platform may have been developed by the makers of Winamp, there are a number of ways to access this service other than using the Winamp software media player. If you are not sure exactly what SHOUTcast is, then it is basically a streaming media software application that enables the broadcast of radio stations over a network -- usually this is the Internet. For the listener, all that is needed is a software program that can connect with a SHOUTcast server. You will then be able to choose a radio to listen to from a large list -- currently there are over 52,000 stations that are broadcasting all over the Internet!
Using Winamp to tune into Web radio is a popular way, but there are other software media players out there that also have built-in support. For example, iTunes, Foobar2000, Spider Player, Fusion Media Player, and others are all compatible with SHOUTcast.
Another way to access Web radio via SHOUTcast servers is to use a mobile music app. There are several SHOUTcast apps now available for various mobile operating systems such as: iOS (iPhone / iPod / iPad), Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS, and others.
For a look at other ways you can access Internet radio stations that stream via SHOUTcast, read our definition article on SHOUTcast that goes into more detail on the subject.
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Friday February 10, 2012
Google is rumored to be currently working on an Android-powered home entertainment system that is presently in the prototype stage. Some reports in the blogosphere say that Google's entertainment device will be available by the end of this year and will be capable of wirelessly streaming your digital music library -- from the Google Music service too perhaps?
This theory is certainly strengthened by an article that the New York Times recently published. In their report there's a link to an application that Google made to the Federal Communications Commission to test an "entertainment device" outside the laboratory environment -- take a look at Google's application here.
With the news of Google possibly making its first real steps towards developing its own hardware device, will it end up being a successful venture considering that for the most part, the company's experience lies mainly with software development -- i.e. its Android operating system?
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Wednesday February 8, 2012
Even though we are accustomed to having silent gaps between each song in an album or playlist, you can use an audio mixing technique called Crossfading in Windows Media Player (WMP) to eliminate this. Crossfading which is built into WMP is an enhancement feature that blends the end of one song into the start of the next; this creates a smooth transition between the two and effectively removes the silent pauses between songs.
DJ software typically makes extensive use of this to make professional sounding mixes, but you can do the same thing (albeit on a more basic level) without any fancy DJ hardware or software. If you've ripped your own audio CDs for example to create a digital music library, then you can employ automatic crossfading to enhance your listening experience. Any previously created custom-made playlists you have (for tracks purchased from online music services for instance), can also have crossfading applied to them which can make your mixtapes a lot more interesting to listen to.
If you like the idea of having professional sounding crossfaded songs, then these Windows Media Player tutorials go into more detail on how to achieve this:
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Friday February 3, 2012
According to an article published by 9to5Mac, a bug in Apple's iTunes Match platform is causing certain explicit songs to be cleaned up! Instead of the exact version appearing in your iCloud storage space, a clean version from Apple's iTunes music catalog is incorrectly pulled -- effectively censoring your music collection. Rumors in the blogosphere point to the problem only affecting certain songs that haven't been purchased from the iTunes Store -- i.e. other online music services, ripped songs from CDs, etc. For some reason Apple's subscription iCloud add-on can't always identify an explicit version.
In the 9to5Mac article, a reader who contacted Apple via email to report the anomaly, received a response from an Apple engineer who allegedly said, "Apple is currently investigating the issue and working on a fix."
For more information on iCloud and iTunes Match, here are some articles that go into more detail:
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