#like there are some CDs which are out of my price range. but cassettes are pretty affordable + usually on BC so the artist gets my $$$

[windrunner]

guy who just cannot stop buying casettes

[bjtch-craft]

"I'm a Rockstar Babe"

Todd Ingram X Bottom Male! Reader

☆ Summary: [Name] reunites with an old high-school friend turned rockstar things take a turn when they restart their old high-school ways.

☆ NSFW

☆Request: Yes or No

☆ Word count: 2,836

☆Genre: Angst to Smut (Kinda)

☆Warnings: Smut, degradation, manipulation (kinda, tbh I just tried making him cocky but rereading it it sounds like bro is manipulating), Bl♡wjobs, slapping, just douchy rockstar things, spitting (he's one of those ppl)

☆Authors note: Dude, I rewatched the movie and reread the novels, and why is Todd so mf fine like WHAT? And why are there no stories about this man? Anyways enjoy!! (P.s this has been in my drafts for like 2 months now and I've never finished editing it for some reason...)

Also look at the comic version of him like WHAT A CUTIE like yeah sure he's arrogant, narcissistic, uncaring, and may or may not be a pathological liar, and a walking red flag but like that red looking a little orange so??? PRAYING SOME OF YALL READ THIS!!

Did this count as being a groupie? No. It's not like I'm some obsessed super fan like Joseph I mean for fucks sake I knew Todd in high school [Name] thought as he lay on the mattress of the cheap motel room waiting for Todd to get out of the shower.

10:15 P.M. - some time earlier

[Name] was shoved and pushed around by the hundreds of thousands of fans who had gathered to watch the band play. The band in question was none other than The Clash at Demonhead. [Name] new one of the members (while technically two if you count Envy but they didn’t know each other. They were more of acquaintances really.) Todd Ingram who he was close friends with. Really close.

He'd given him head a couple of times (and slept with him too) but that didn't mean anything to them (yes it did.) it was what Todd considered a "bro-job" whatever the fuck that was. But that's not important (yes it is) what is important is how quickly their friendship ended after he got with Envy. They tried to keep in touch but after the band blew the absolute fuck up he cut ties with him.

Did it hurt? Yes. A lot. But [Name] didn't let it get to him he still supported Todd even if Todd himself didn't know it. [Name] bought every CD, vinyl, and cassette tape, and got tickets to most shows. He even tried to get backstage passes to rekindle his relationship with Todd but the prices were far out of his price range.

There have been times when for a quick second he'd seen Todd after a show or two and waved to him or said a quick word but he didn't recognize him. Which also hurt. How can you not recognize someone you spent almost TEN YEARS of your life with? But [Name] was determined to catch up with his best friend so after pulling a couple of night shifts and saving up some money he... still didn’t have enough.

10: 50 P.M.

"Todd's so hot!"

"Jesus Envys even hotter in person!"

"Why's that chick got a robotic arm?"

These are just some of the things [Name] heard throughout the event which was on the verge of ending.

12:10 A.M. - Later

The concert was over and [Name] pushed and shoved his way out of the venue and quickly rushed towards the back of the building looking for the band.

"Come on please don't tell me I missed them!"

His shoes thudded against the gravel, and as he rounded the corner a gate came into view.

"No. No, no, no, no!"

The gate door was slid open. How safe right?

"Envy? Do you wanna get a bite to eat or something?"

[Name] stopped for a moment as he saw Todd standing there his guitar case in hand talking to Envy. He took a deep breath and stepped through the gates. Fuck?

"T-todd?"

Todd turned to look at him a look of shock and anger upon his face.

"Who the hell let you in" Todd asked as he stepped closer to [Name] his voice coming off as aggressive as his eyes and hair started to glow.

"N-no one the gate was open."

"So you just snuck in?"

"I'm [Name], [First name], [Last name] we went to high school together. Remember?"

Todd's eyes and hair stopped glowing as his hair drifted back down in front of his face.

"You're kidding?!"

Todd dropped his guitar case and ran up to [Name] his tough guy rockstar persona shedding completely. He threw his arms around [Name] and pulled him into his chest. [Name] could feel the heat rising to two places as his face was smushed into Todd's rather large pecs.

"Todd you're squishing me..." [Name] said his voice muffled.

"Sorry!" He pulled away. "Jesus it's been a long time since we've seen each other... I'm a Rockstar!"

"I can see that!"

"Todd, what the fuck is going on," Envy asked?

Todd turned to look at them wrapping his arm around [Name's] waist. "This is [Name] from high school! He's my best friend remember?"

"While to me he looks like a fucking groupie! Let's go" Envy replied.

"I'm not a groupie..."

"Do you think he can come back to the motel with us?"

"No."

"Find some other cheap motel to fuck in," The Bionic arm bitch said.

"He's not a groupie and we're not gonna fuck! He's my friend and I wanna catch up with him!"

"Find. Another. Motel." Envy said the tone of her voice showed her annoyance more than anything.

12:30 A.M.

And they did find a cheap motel in an extremely unsafe part of town. Fits the stereotype, huh? A rockstar takes one of his fans to a cheap rundown-looking motel just to get it in.

[Name] once again was hugging Todd but this time was looking up at him.

"I'm so sorry for ghosting you [Name]."

"It's fine."

Todd's hands traveled down [Name's] back and reached his ass and groped it firmly, making [Name] let out an involuntary yelp. He pushed Todd off of him, causing the blonde boy to let out a laugh.

"What's the matter [Name] just like old times!"

"Todd aren't you dating Envy or something?"

He shifted his weight on his feet annoyingly.

"I'm a Rockstar babe we don't date," Todd said cockily.

"Oh?"

"I'm gonna hop in the shower. I know I reek of sweat... care to join me?"

"Smooth Todd.... real smooth."

He winked at [Name] and waltzed into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. After a minute or two he heard the shower go on.

Did this count as being a groupie? No. It's not like I'm some obsessed super fan like Joseph I mean for fucks sake I knew Todd in high school [Name] thought as he lay on the mattress of the cheap motel room waiting for Todd to get out of the shower.

"Do I wanna do this... again?"

The first time [Name] and Todd ever did anything together was on his eighteenth birthday. They were both unbelievably drunk, and both were bored lying on Todd's bed in silence. One of them now and then would say something, and they would have a short conversation.

"H-heyyy~ [Name] can I ask you for a favor," Todd asked his words coming out slurred.

"Yeah- hic! What'sss ~'s up?"

"Do you think you could um... s-suck me off?"

"Why?"

"Well, I'm one drunk! And two horny as fuck~! So can you?"

"You know what fuck it! You are my best friend!"

[Name] slid his basketball shorts off and then his boxers and grabbed at his length.

"I've never done this before so um... bear with me~."

Todd nodded his head a goofy grin on his face. "Do it as if someone's doing yours."

[Name] took him into his mouth slowly going down inch by inch the girth was almost too much to handle. Almost.

But that was years ago. They were two dumb eighteen-year-olds who were just helping each other out. But [Name] didn't feel that way anymore... but reminiscing on their old days made [Name] slowly begin to get hard in the shorts Todd had given him.

[Name] rubbed himself through the fabric and pushed down on it, making him release a soft moan. He needed Todd he didn't realize how badly he did until right then and there. The door opened to the bathroom, and [Name] quickly through the blanket over his lap.

Todd walked out with just a towel around his waist, his bulge catching [Names] eye as well as his body, which was still wet and glistened in the light.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting another pair of boxers, I forgot to bring them into the shower..." Todd looked at [Name] and noticed the tent that was forming underneath the blanket. "Aw, are you happy to see me like this again, baby?"

"What! No!"

"Come on..." He said huskily. The cockiness was back. "I heard you moan... were you thinking of the times I fucked you? The times you begged me to fill you up? The times I came on that pretty face of yours?"

[Name] could feel his cock growing harder with each question.

"N-no" [Name] whimpered out.

Todd walked to the side of the bed grabbed [Name's] hand and placed it on his groin.

"You miss my fat cock don't you," He asked his voice sounding oddly humiliating.

"I don't have to say anything."

Todd started to move his hips grinding his bulge against the palm of [Names] hand.

"Todd we can't... you have a girlfriend."

"I told you we rockstars don't really - truly date, and if anything, it's just another bro-job, remember?"

[Name] pulled his hand away and sat up and using both hands opened Todd's towel up causing his cock to pop out and slap against his happy trail.

"Fuck~," [Name] whispered out.

[Name] reached out and pumped his cock twice.

"Yeah that's it~ I know you fucking missed it haven't you?"

[Name] let go of Todd's cock and adjusted his position so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Todd backed up a little.

"Please don't like- hurt me that much. Please?"

Todd chuckled and ran his hand through his wet hair.

"You sweet dumb thing, you know I can't promise that."

[Name] grabbed Todd's cock once more and spat on it and stroked him off spreading the saliva over his cock.

"I haven't done this in a long time... so I'm a little rusty."

Todd smiled down at him. The grin was a mixture of amusement and humiliation.

[Name] placed the tip on his tongue and licked it gently before wrapping his lips around it and slowly going down on it.

[Name] couldn't lie he truly did miss this. Not only did he enjoy it, but it honestly made them closer as friends.

[Name] gagged on the base as he looked up at Todd with tearful eyes.

"Aww you look so cute with my big cock in your mouth," Todd said softly his voice coated in lust as he gently patted [Name's] cheek.

[Name] began to slowly come off his cock before Todd placed a hand on the back of his skull and slammed him back down causing him to gag and for drool to pour out of the sides of his mouth.

"Mmm-hmm-agh." [Name] groaned out.

Todd pulled his cock out of the boy's mouth and slapped it on either side of the guy's cheek.

"You took it so well [Name]~."

[Name] looked up at Todd with innocent eyes, his tongue sticking out a little as he gasped for air.

"Jesus you look so fucking gorgeous."

"I-I think you bruised the back of my throat!"

Todd grabs [Names] chin as he angles his head straight aligning his cock with [Names] lips.

Todd spat on his cock (and on [Names] face) and slammed it down [Names] throat before pulling out. [Name] stuck out his tongue and licked a stripe down his cock.

"You're such a fucking slut baby. I bet you've been craving my cock since you heard about our band haven't you?"

[Name] nodded his head embarrassingly. Todd placed a hand on the back of [Names] head and leaned in, planting a kiss on his lips as his hands traveled down his body. His hands reached the bottom of the boy's shirt and began to pull it up over his head, breaking the kiss in the process.

Todd pushes [Name] down onto the bed by his chest and crawls on top of him, attacking his neck, causing [name] to let out a soft moan. Todd kisses down his neck while unbuckling [Names] belt and gently pulls them off along with his boxers.

"I don't reckon you have a condom do you?"

"I have one in my wallet in my left pocket," [Name] says, his voice barely above a whisper.

Todd grabs [Names] jeans off the floor and pulls out the condom from the wallet before discarding them back onto the floor.

Todd rips the wrapping of the condom off with his teeth and slides the rubber on. He places [Bames] legs on his shoulders and lines himself up at his entrance.

[Name] squeezes his eyes shut as Todd pushes himself into him. A sudden wave of pain and pleasure washes over him, causing him to grab onto the sheets, twisting them in his hands. A soft whimper escapes his lips as Todd continues to push deeper into him.

"Shit- Todd, you're so fucking- ngh~ big!" [Name] whimpered out, causing Todd to look down at him with a cocky grin.

Todd had pushed himself into the other boy and slowly began to pull back out, only to slam back into him, which earned him a low groan.

"Does that feel good?"

[Name] nodded his head and let out a whimper. Todd began to rock his hips in and out of him, the tip occasionally brushing against his prostate. His thirst got faster and quicker he reached down and grabbed [Name's] hands and placed them above his head.

Todd began pounding into [Name]. The sound of skin against skin filled the room as well as screams of pleasure from both boys.

"Ugh~ F-fuck! You're going to har-!" [Name] wasn't able to finish his sentence as Todd delivered a gentle (but still hard) slap across his face.

"Don't tell me what the fuck to do!" Todd growled out.

[Names] cock twitched as pre-cum drizzled down his cock causing a moan to escape from his lips.

"Don't tell me you're into this shit you slut?"

"S-s-shut up Todd~"

Todd smirked and began rocking his hips.

"How bad do you want it?"

"W-what?" [Name] stuttered.

"I can pull out right now and leave and not let you finish you."

"Please don't~ I'll do anything!"

"Then admit it.'

"What?"

"Admit you're a filthy whore" Todd said his voice thick with lust.

"I'm not going to- ah~!"

Todd pulled out of [Name] leaving him feeling empty and somehow even more fucking desperate.

"Todd please" [Name] begged.

"Then say it."

"I-I’m a whore okay? Is that what you want to hear from me? I'm a fucking slut for you okay?!"

Todd looked down at [Name] with a cocky grin.

"Good boy."

Todd leaned back over [Name] and placed a soft kiss on his lips before pushing himself back into him. He wrapped his hand around [Name's] throat and began pounding into him. The sounds of skin against skin filled the room once again.

Todd raised his hand and brought it across [Names] face with enough power to cause a sting of pain leading [Name] to let out a dry moan.

"I can't believe your into this shit!" Todd said with a cheesy grin.

"Shut up!" The boy underneath him whined out.

Todd smirked and removed his hand from [Names] neck and grabbed him by the waist and slowed his thrusts.

"What are you- agh~!"

Todd pulled [Name] into him driving his cock deeper into him pushing past his prostate. [Names] jaw dropped as the sudden feeling causing a high pitched moan to erupt from his throat. Todd took this opportunity and grabbed his jaw holding it open and dipped his thumb into his mouth.

"Don't close your mouth got that?"

[Name] replied with a whimper as Todd's thurst became annoyingly slow as a string of spit slowly began to fall from his lips and landed in [Names] mouth.

[Named] closed his mouth after Todd gave him a look that practically yelled at him, too. Todd's slow thrust became faster and faster. Todd wrapped his hand around [Name's] dick and began jerking him off as [Name] placed his palm at the back of Todd's head.

"I'm so close!" Todd groaned out as his rhythm began to go out of sync.

His movements became harder and harder as he felt himself getting closer and closer to finishing.

"W-where- fuck~ where do you want it?" He moaned out.

"On me..."

Todd placed a hand behind [Names] head as his thurst became sloppy he spat once again at [Name] the salvia covering his face before pulling out and jerking himself off.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"

With one final moan ropes of cum erupted from his cock covering [Names] body in white ropes. Todd pumped [Name's] cock for a minute before he came their cum mixing on his stomach. Todd scooped up some of his cum off of the boy's body with his index finger and popped it into [Names] mouth.

"How's it taste?"

"Salty... can you get me a towel?"

1:35 AM

[Name] lay on the cheap hotel's mattress, his head on Todd's chest, listening to his heartbeat.

"Hey, have you ever thought of being a roadie?'

"A what?"

"A roadie helps the band set up... you could be one for us so we could keep in touch and..." He wrapped his hand around [Names] body and groped his ass "Have some more time to ourselves."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS MAN IS SO FINE ARGH. I NEED HIM SO BAD LIKE I WANT HIM TO FULLY REARRANGE MY INSIDES.

Authors note!!

Again, sorry for the break. School is still once again kicking my ass :) I do plan on writing more over Christmas break, but I do have like half-written stories in my drafts, so here are some of them. (Some of them have titles, but they are to be determined, so kill me or wtv) .

Darry Jenner x Male reader (Fluff)

Miguel Ohara x Male reader (Smut)

Chad Meeks x Male reader (TBD)

Simon Kalivoda x Male reader (Fluff)

[camillecrellin]

Video Store — Angela Giarratana

Synopsis: You owned a video store. Spencer Agnew's favourite. He constantlly mentions it to his coworkers. What happens when Angela and Chanse pay the store a visit?

A/N: The synopsis is shit, I'm soo sorry. I hate this but please request some Angela/Smosh/Starkid stuff. I need to get my hyperfixation out somehow.

Word Count: 670

Warnings: mentions of death, swearing

Owning a business wasn’t easy. Especially for a dying media, but films and music were your passion. And so, when your mum passed, she left you her old corner store, which after a year long renovation you turned into what it was now. Your very own video and film rental shop.

Instead of Streaming was the name. A simulacrum of the past where you could rent or buy films, music, and video games.

And because of the niche need for physical media anymore, you knew almost everyone that came into the store. There was no way around it. You liked it. Despite not being a very social person, you knew that the people that shopped at your store shared the same interests.

Spencer Agnew was one of these people. A self-proclaimed film and video game nerd, he would come into your store about once a week to look over your new stock. And every now and then he’d bring people in from his work. Some of them even becoming regulars as was the case with Shayne and Damien.

Humming along to the sounds of Iggy Pop over the speakers, you went about your day refilling shelves to an almost empty store when the bell rang, signalling that someone was here.

Looking up you smiled at the two customers as the entered the store with wide smiles on their face. “Holy fucking shit this is soo cool.” The brown-haired girl gushed.

“Thank you, Spencer.” The man, who came in with the girl, sang making you quietly laugh to yourself.

“You’re Spencer’s friends?” You asked.

The pair looked to each other before the boy said, “You know him?”

“Yeah, I own this place.”

“Oh my God, you’re Y/n!” The girl squealed as she held onto the guy’s arm. Composing herself, she looked to you and continued. “Sorry he’s talked about you before; this place is like his man cave.”

“Oh yeah.” You chuckled. “I know.”

“If you need any help, just ask me.” You said, turning back to replenish the stock. “It’s 2 for 1 on the VHS’ but we rent VCR players assuming you don’t have one still.”

“Do you have any musicals?” The girl asked, making you whip back around to face the pair.

“Musical movies are just here, and the cast recordings are up the stairs with all the other music. We have them on vinyl, cassettes, and CDs.” You pointed to the locations.

“You really know your stuff.” The girl chuckled in an almost awe like way.

“Yeah, I love movies and I got a film degree so I guess I should do something with it.” You smiled at the girl, who nodded and walked over to the musical section of the DVDs.

It was around 10 minutes before the pair retreated, the guy having obviously embarrassed his friend as she seemed more on edge and nervous than before.

Carrying the MTV Legally Blonde proshot and the musical Nine, the girl came up to the counter.

Walking up to the checkout, you smiled. “Just those?”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“Good choice.” You said, scanning the DVDs your hand reaching for a paper bag. “Well actually I haven’t seen Nine, but it looks decent.”

“Neither have I but it says it’s Italian so…”

You raised your eyebrows, making her friend speak up, “She’s Italian.”

Laughing, you looked down in embarrassment, “I should’ve guessed.”

Bagging up the items, you set up the card machine, telling the girl the price before she paid. As you went to hand her the bagged DVDs, your hands brushed, a blush creeping onto your face.

Gaining a small confidence, the girl spoke. “I’m Angela by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Angela.” You smiled as you gazed into her eyes before quickly realising that she came with a friend. “Both of you…”

“Chanse.” He introduced himself.

You thanked Chanse with a nod before turning back to Angela, “You should come here more often. I can give you some recommendations.”

Angela agreed, biting her lip. “I will.”

[superbatson]

elvis music tag game

thanks @if-i-can-dream-of-elvis for the tag! ❤

Last Elvis Song You Listened To: i think it was "witchcraft" (bc i started making a halloween-themed elvis playlist, so naturally that's on it)

Current Elvis Song Stuck In Your Head: baby let's play house

Favorite Live Performance Moment: okay i love the previous answer of "if i can dream" from the comeback special but honestly mine is him on the square stage in that special, when he's up on his feet singing "heartbreak hotel/jailhouse rock/etc". i mean, i haven't watched the original special in some time, but i think there's just something magical about seeing him doing his thing on stage again after so much time away. and also i'm a slut for the leather jumpsuit, lbr.

Favorite Genre/Era You Like To Hear Elvis Sing Most: tbh i think most of the elvis music i've listened to were his #1 hits, i haven't ventured that far out from them yet. i did recently start listening a little more to his later stuff from the 70s and wow, they're underrated as heck. the production value is higher and his voice is a lot stronger and a little more mature. definitely an era i need to explore more of.

Current Favorite Elvis Song (bc how can you pick!): kinda ties into my last answer, i've listened to "edge of reality" a lot recently and i really love it. (and i thank the movie for putting it on my radar! it's so good!)

Elvis Song You Tend To Skip: again, i really mostly listen to his top hits, though i'm trying to venture out more. that being said, of that group, i don't really like "viva las vegas". i know it's a classic but i feel like it's been covered to hell and back and therefore kinda gives me bad vibes. like, it's a cheesy song, first and foremost, but it also makes me think of all the gimmicky impersonators that infect vegas and all the shit that went down during elvis' vegas years. it just has a lot of baggage for me, i guess. so i pass on it.

What Kind Of Music Did You Listen To Before/Besides Elvis: it's funny, i don't really remember a time when i didn't like elvis! i guess i must have watched lilo & stitch so young (which it turned me into a fan) that i don't remember a time before it! i guess i'll say, though, that i was generally grown up on classic rock bc my dad has always been a big fan of the beatles and moody blues. but my personal taste has ventured out of that, obviously. i can't even begin to list all my favorite artists but my taste ranges from, like, your generic pop/rock (5sos, shawn mendes) to alternative (bastille, set it off) to edm (madeon, martin garrix) to broadway (ghd, spongebob).

Are You Collecting Elvis’ CD’s, Cassette Tapes, 8-Tracks, or Records?: no. i would love to have some elvis vinyls, but i don't really have a place to keep them, nor a record player to put them on to listen to. i am kinda itching to buy a cd for the 68 comeback special bc it comes with a blu ray disc of the show, but it's like $90, so i'm trying to wait for the price to come down. (i do own a cute little elvis funko pop doll, if that counts for anything.)

Is There Any Other Music You’ve Started Listening To Because Of Elvis: because of him? probably not. i mean, i do find it to be a funny coincidence how seeing jersey boys back in 2015/16 got me back into older music after kinda growing sick of it as a child, but there isn't really a direct connection between that and my love for elvis, it's more coincidental. i will say that if austin butler ever decides to release music of his own, then i'll certainly listen to it and have elvis to thank for that. 👀

Last Live Performance You Were At: if we're talking concerts, then it's back in 2017 when i saw my beloved phillip phillips in concert for the, well, technically third time, if the 2012 idol tour counts. (i also got a meet & greet with him before that 2017 show, and my pic with him is still my facebook profile picture to this day.) if we're talking any sort of live show, then it'd be last november, when i saw the friends musical parody on tour. (oh, was it fun! i would totally see it again, though i know that when they tour again, it'll probably be a different cast. sigh.)

If You Could Have Been At Any Of Elvis’ Live Performances, Which Would Choose: i have a lot of love for the 68 comeback special bc it was probably the first full live performance of elvis' i got to watch and i had the pleasure of seeing it on the big screen when it was released in theaters for the 50th anniversary, so i feel like that'd be my answer. oh, to be one of those girls sitting right there on the edge of the stage, getting to see elvis up close, feel that energy radiating off of him... yeah 💕 (again i say, it was also such a special performance, seeing him get back to his roots. i can only imagine the electricity in that studio, from him, the fans, his team... it would have been absolutely amazing to have experienced it in person.)

apparently a lot of y'all in the elvis/austin fandom have already gotten tagged, so i'll open this up to whoever wants to do it, 'cause i don't want anyone getting tagged who's already filled this out. so as per usual, you can just say i tagged you if you see this and decide to fill it out yourself 🙂

[ipromiseiwilltakeyouthere]

Tagged by @explosionshark and I haven’t done one of these in a while so let’s go!

1. What is the first song you remember hearing?-

 Hmm, I’m not really sure. I think one of them actually might be “good riddance (time of your life) by green day which was all over the radio when i was 3 or 4 but maybe or probly nsync or ricky martin or britney spears or something lol. 

2. What is the first band you got into?

Green Day!!! American Idiot came out and I was the right age and it just clicked. Them and My Chemical Romance both shaped my taste!

3. Do you collect any physical music?

Uh. Yeah. I have way too much physical music. Moving it up here to canada was kind of a hassle but I fit it all! I have probly around 200+ cds, maybe more- and over 100 + vinyl, oh and also like 30 tapes probly. (I love cassette tapes)

4. What is your favorite piece of music memorabilia?

All of my vintage nine inch nails shirts and all my pressings of three cheers for sweet revenge on vinyl. But the vintage nin shirts for sure. I have them all in a footlocker back in pennsylvania and I cannot wait to get them back because I love them so much. I snipe em on ebay for great prices (mostly).

5. The favorite concert you’ve been to?

Even though I went with someone that would’ve been nice to not go with, I also went with my brother so- nine inch nails back in 2018. It was also cool to see My Chem at Madison sq. garden back in 08′. But I think nine inch nails put on one of the best shows i’ve ever seen on a big scale. (yo but also back in 2019 seeing ghostemane for the first time was fucking cool as hell)

6. If you could see one artist who is no longer alive in concert, who would it be?

Nirvana for sure. I think. They’re one of my favorite bands still and to this day I keep finding meaning in their music and through interviews. They genuinely were the musicians who broke the mold and were just doing it because they loved to play music. They’re the first band I can think of. (i think seeing lil peep would be cool too?)

7. Have you met any musicians?

Oh yeah, thomas erak from fall of troy, lemmy from motorhead, frank iero from mcr, ghostemane, chris motionless a bunch of times, jake casualty randomly in the middle of soho lol. and a bunch of other people at warped tour etc. MANY musicians! I wanna meet lady gaga! I wanna meet trent reznor! 

8. What’s your go to album when you’re feeling sad?

You know, I don’t really know. I haven’t really put an album on that I listen to when I get sad in a while (mostly cos I don’t really get sad anymore). I remember listening to a lot of emo going through shit in highschool. But I think I’ll probly go with The Fragile by Nine inch nails- It just gives me a melancholic feeling.  

9. What’s your go to album when you’re feeling happy?

Elephant by the white stripes? That’s the first one that came to mind. Fun to drive to. Or maybe Speak and Spell by depeche mode cos its so upbeat. -edit, deffo fall out boy’s first two records FOR SURE

10. One music documentary you love?

I liked the VH1 metal history series whatever it was called. Shame they only did such a broad range of metal subgenres. Obviously they could have gone way deeper. Like the hip hop one I’m watching on netflix; There is so much history of hip hop its so cool to see how different regions took that genre and bent it in such a short time. Really cool shit. 

11. What is one concert DVD that you love?

I really don’t watch live DVDs they’re not really my thing but Bullet in a a Bible by Green Day is obviously a banger. 

12. Do you prefer listening to playlists or albums?

Albums if I’m in the car, Albums if I’m spinning wax, playlists if I’m doing chores or something and playlists if I’m in the shower. 

13. Do you listen to albums in order or on shuffle?

playlists go on shuffle but albums are most certainly in order 1000% of the time. if you like albums shuffled you’re a monster. 

14. What is your favorite deep cut song by your favorite artist?

omg Summerboy by lady gaga off of the fame. Pretty much a lot of the fame are some deep cuts and I fucking love that album. I like it rough? Star Struck? bangers. Listen to this album if you like 80s synth dance music- gaga was so ahead of her time. 

15. What is your favorite CD/cassette/vinyl you own in terms of its packaging?

hmm- I think I’d probly go with shout at the devil by motley crue because I got an original pressing that still has a catalog in it to send money to an address and get xyz (shirt, record, accessory) like I just think its really cool. I can’t really think of any that stand out too much. Gatefolds are obviously pretty cool though. But nothing as of right now strikes me. 

[ourladyofomega]

Close to the end of the year, and also when the semester ended, I looked forward in selling my books after finals so that I would get money back. I’d get a friend together to take me to Tower Records in Huntington. In a matter of one hour, that money would be gone. Right now I’d be very excited about what I would find in those bins. But due to the pandemic it hasn’t been the case and the euphoria of being in a store, any store at midnight, has been absent. During the mid-00′s, Tower Records went under and currently co-opting the former Huntington location is a third-rate clothing store.

One day as I was driving to work, people stood on the sidewalks of Route 110 holding picket signs like it was the end of the world. First advertised on those signs were 10%-30% percent off all merchandise at Tower. When passers-by and sidewalk shoppers took a closer look, they ended up in shock as they realized that it was an end of an era of some sort. A few days later, the stakes went up. 40%-60% discounts finally garnered Tower’s final audience and rush of shoppers. The final swan song came when all merchandise was down to a whopping 70%-90% percent off. That was when they had their biggest ever turnout because no one wanted to pay full price for music. (Not then when downloading broke, and still not now.) Music collectors and fans were reluctant to buy any new release or any title that was full price. Now they all jumped at the opportunity to clean out Tower’s shelves with a steal. Buyers hovered and tracked entire sections looking for that one shining crown jewel that made their lifetime.

As a music fan for years, I couldn’t begin to tell you how much Tower shaped my taste in music and style. Unlike FYE and Sam Goody, Tower was the one commercial music chain that had a lot of artists and titles that no other commercial store had. Think of what was the Port Jefferson Music Den (closed in 2002) where they were the one underground record store that had everything other stores didn’t even come close to carry. I remember summertimes visiting the Massapequa location picking up rare CD singles and imports as well as other rare hard-to-find and ahead-of-release-date CD’s and artists I picked up such as Autechre’s LP5 (1999) and EC8OR’s World Beaters (1998).

And being a fan of print media and graphic design, I also bought stacks of magazines every week. The magazine selection in Huntington was unrivaled, measuring at least several rows of 60-70 feet of anything and everything you could think of: Industrial Nation, Punk Planet, The Wire, Disruptiv, Mass Appeal, Mean, Vice, YRB, and art design magazines like LoDown, as well as hardcore zines Short Fast Loud!, Maximum Rock And Roll, Under The Volcano and other cult magazines I happened to be lucky to pick up (Lisa Carver’s Rollerderby, anyone?). Every month went at least $60.00-$70.00 total on magazines alone.

Yet towards the end of Tower’s presence I didn’t pick up on music as much because just like other buyers, I had to stand back at the higher-than-usual prices for releases. Compared to discount chains like Best Buy and other record stores, it wasn’t unusual to find a new release with no-frills to be priced at $19.99 or even $21.99. DVDs I noticed were priced at times to be five dollars higher than their competitors. Maybe some shoppers felt the same sentiment as I did.

Not only that, the forces of internet piracy and MP3 downloading of recent years proved to be too dominant and powerful to be stopped, and is currently but begrudgingly co-existing with other existing record stores this day and age. Consumers then re-routed the system right to their own bedrooms with no price to pay for their music. These factors, plus incurring debt that led the chain to bankruptcy proved to be too much for them.

Without Tower Records, it was less convenient for me to pick up whatever artist or movie title I wanted right away right after work. When Tower closed down it took a bite out of some of the physical record collecting I had. Yet, only they could have given me these experiences: no more magazines letting me know what the latest art direction was or who was in the spotlight. No more frantically walking around with a huge stack of everything and more in my hands still looking for one more CD. No more back room full of posters, sheet music, jazz, classical, hip-hop, techno, and soul. No more silly Hollywood memorabilia and comic-book fantasy merchandise. No more video games, no more characters hanging out in the store wearing goth, back-pack indie, or hardcore.

No more attitudes from the employees who treated customers like nothing because they felt like it. That was really the only problem I had with Tower Records, mostly in Huntington. The cashiers pointed people out with a huff and puff because they were given more than enough change or money, or how they rang up a transaction without even making an emotion or saying a word. Some stuck female cashiers had that flat out know-it-all act for no apparent reason. Sometimes I even renounced the shop because of its sometimes poor service, but that was not the case in the end as the attitude did improve, thank you.

And no more of where I had my first date with my Peruvian then-girlfriend. I would never forget wandering in that Huntington store looking for the next purchase when she walked in, greeting each other with open arms. We left when a thunderstorm knocked the power out but we returned after dinner and had a fun time, the first of many for months to come. This was also where I met a pretty pale Irish ginger who I later met again into at community college the following year.

What is now left of the record store scene on Long Island? A few of them which existed when Tower crumbled are still around (Cheapo’s, Looney Tunes, Infinity Records) and even new ones popped up (High Fidelity and Record Reserve to naming two). Some opened and either re-located (Record Stop) or said good-bye by the time you read this (Permanent Records and Vinyl Paradise). The majority of shops in total are still around because internet opinion made their case about the lack of quality, esthetics, art, and ritual of having the physical thing that you don’t get from digital or streaming; and the classic ritual and synesthesia of experiencing a record store and handling the format makes the case of cherishing these shops. On the online circuit, some titles are now being released in very limited quantity, mainly in the low thousands or even in the mere hundreds. It’s a huge drop-off from what the millions in print runs used to be. Naming your own price for digital downloads, streaming, or even buying from the label or artist directly is the way to go nowadays.

With my radio show, Omega WUSB, I do most of my music testing at home. My habits have been ruined by MP3s and streams as acquiring music is of very low cost and extremely ubiquitous. After all that, it hasn’t stopped me from going to record stores or celebrating Record Store Day to find breaks, samples, or dollar music to win it all. Yes, I still very much prefer to go out of town to buy music with my money which I support the artists and shops I like. Even to this day, I’ll be very happy spending $200.00-$250.00 on music just to have the artwork, colors, lyrics, pictures, ink, liner notes, credits, barcodes, and the entire release itself, because later on I will turn a profit in style points as time goes by, just like when people are hoarding and sharing their vinyl and cassette collections now.

That November was my last visit to Tower Records ever, a few months after getting a substantial check from a near-fatal car accident. Acquired would be some titles that made my pre-Omega shows and would be part of some personal seasonal mixtapes. Prices were 40% off on music and that was when I decided to go and treat myself. There comes a time when you just can’t wait and risk a good sale on music before they’re gone forever. The total spent on my last ever visit there was $200.00 on music and the Andy Warhol book at $75.00, originally $125.00 (have you ever carried a book so massive and so heavy?) I took my bags worth of music and magazines with me to the trunk of my car, never to return to the Tower Records experience again.

On another note, I’m still friends with M-Ro to this day, a former manager there. He moved on to become a lead of Hicksville’s Utopia further west before becoming a ticket broker at an independent movie house. He once had a show on WUSB and was a major figurehead and darling of the Long Island punk scene. You might also know his brother J-Ro, a master archivist who still has his own show with us and is known as a major record collector by practically everyone on the island.

[kristy5359516292-blog]

Google Photographs

VLC can extract audio from any of the many enter sources it supports, youtube to audio cd converter online and www.audio-transcoder.com write this audio to an audio-file in a wide range of formats. Precise Audio Copy or EAC claims to read audio CDs virtually completely" and it even tries and proper errors that it finds. The downside is that it doesn't ship with a built-in MP3 encoder. However, EAC works with the excellent open supply MP3 encoder, LAME. I use iDealshare VideoGo to transform FLAC to iTunes supported MP3, M4A, AAC, AIFF, and many others. AudioConverter Studio may sort your music whereas changing. By default, the filename of your source file is used, so will likely be converted to track01.mp3 (in case you convert FLAC to MP3). However the file might comprise some extra data in its tags: title, artist, album, and so on. AudioConverter Studio is able to using this info for naming converted files and creating folders for them. For example, with a format like Artist\Year - Album\Observe# - Title any Audio CDs that you just rip can be sorted in your music folder automatically by artist, then by yr and album, then by observe quantity and title. So that you get a properly structured assortment with none additional effort.

FreeRIP is powerful and loaded with spectacular options to offer the customers with a better MP3 conversion and CD ripping experience. We can convert CDA to mp3 as well as mp3 to CDA. It additionally supports most of the standard audio codecs. With lossless recordsdata, the file format will make as a lot difference to the sound as the colour of the case the CD comes in. At "Title" field, should you test "Identify as file title (not include extension)", CDA to MP3 Converter will set Title as file title when converting. For example: authentic file identify is "Completely happy New Yr.mp3", after which the title will probably be set as "Blissful New Year" routinely. Audio CDs could also be ripped to WAV with Home windows Media Player 11 or 12 (click Instruments > Choices > Rip Music and choose "WAV (Lossless)" within the Format dropdown in "Rip Settings"). Earlier variations of Home windows Media Player are usually not applicable for extracting CD audio for modifying in Audacity, as a result of they're unable to extract to WAV. No want at all to convert it to MP3 and lose sound high quality. Total Audio Converter could be run through command line (get the ready-to-use command line from GUI settings). Helps playback of all the audio recordsdata with the built-in player to overview the impact. Moreover converting audio format from one to a different, you too can use this app to chop the wanted half from an audio file or merge multiple audio information into one single audio file. Audio Converter is a straightforward-to-use app for Android to transform audio WAV, WMA, MP3, OGG, AAC, AU, FLAC, M4A, MKA, AIFF or RA file offline or on-line. Convert CD Audio monitor to Audio information encoded by Flac - free lossless audio codec. Windows Media Player will copy songs out of your CD to your laptop's arduous drive in MP3 audio format, but you may also select one other audio format, like WMA, WAV or FLAC. Ripping - Buzz and Majik have lined this properly. Your finest wager is to tear with a respected ripper to WAV. Then convert the ripped WAV file to FLAC or ALAC. Playback shall be equivalent. Unable to convert my WAV files. Upon discovering this, determining methods to uninstall this was not straightforward. The format you choose to make use of will in all probability rely in your personal preferences, whether or not you have already got music in a particular format and what codecs any music gamers that you just personal assist. The reason being simple: Though they are universally described within the mainstream press as being of "CD high quality," MP3s and their lossy-compressed ilk do not provide sufficient audio high quality for serious music listening. This isn't true of lossless-compressed formats equivalent to FLAC , ALAC , and WMA lossless—in reality, it was the discharge of iTunes four.5, in late 2003, which allowed iPods to play lossless information, that led us to welcome the ever-present Apple participant to the world of high-finish audio. However lossy information obtain their conveniently small measurement by discarding an excessive amount of of the music to be price considering. I might recommend that you run the same assessments that you simply made with MP3s on cassette tape, and evaluate these outcomes to MP3 or AAC. I think the digital formats even with all their faults, would win hands down. Wow, flutter, and frequency response - as well as noise and distortion, can be a lot worse on cassette tape. Perspective, perspective, perspective.

After selecting the correct profile, click on on the Browse button and select your destination folder and the identify of the brand new MP3 file that will likely be created. Hamster Free Audio Converter is said to work with Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000. Free convert cda to alac on-line why not try these out: convert m3u to alac behaviour method cda 2 alac better You'll be able to download this system from the developer homepage.

[cindianton47-blog]

Mpc To Mp3 Free Download

The way to convert MPC to MP3 on-line with MPC to MP3 Converter? Click on Convert button to start to convert MPC to MP3 or different audio format you desired. A conversion dialog will seem to indicate the progress of mpc to mp3 conversion If you wish to stop the process, please click on Cease button. After the conversion, you can click the Output Folder button to get the transformed recordsdata and transfer to your iPod, iPad, iPhone, mp3 player or exhausting driver. Common: This sets a identified, common bit fee for the file, but inside this common permits some fluctuations in bit charge to mirror the relative problem of encoding the file. This doesn't provide as constantly high a top quality as variable bit fee, however is generally preferable to fixed bit price if it's good to know more or less how massive your recordsdata can be; it gives bit charges from eight kbps to 320 kbps. Converting the audio found on cassette tapes can be a time-consuming process. That's as a result of it isn't a easy file transfer that solely takes a number of seconds. Cassette to MP3 converters should record the audio in actual time because it plays in the deck. For those who're converting an entire cassette, this could take as much as an hour. Then it's a must to go into the applying to listen to the captured content, edit the audio, separate the tracks and some other issues. These are all fairly easy things to grasp, however it can be fairly concerned as nicely. Just know that for those who're converting a lot of tapes, you are most likely taking a look at a protracted-term project. So to us at Stereophile, the question of which lossy codec is "the most effective" is moot. We advocate that, for critical listening, our readers use uncompressed audio file formats, resembling WAV or AIF—or, if file size is a matter due to limited arduous-drive area, use a lossless format comparable to FLAC or ALC. These can be audibly transparent to all listeners always with every kind of music by means of all systems. MPC (Musepack) is a kind of audio compression format, which makes use of a compression sample based on MPEG-1 Layer-2 and MPEG-2 algorithms and is optimized for variable medium high bitrates not exceeding 48khz. Bitrates range consistent with the complexity of audio information. These parameters guarantee efficient compression with little detriment to sound top quality. Though Musepack does current better sound high quality than MP3, it is still not so normal on account of few audio players assist it. Loading up Free MP3 Cutter you are met with a easy file identify line. Both by typing within the desired file location, looking for it, or dragging the desired file into place, you're prepared to chop. A play button starts whatever audio you have loaded up, mpc to mp3 audio converter online free permitting you to search out the purpose within the observe you want, which can be handily marked by a plain timeline. Throughout the growth of the MUSICAM encoding software program, Stoll and Dehery's crew made an intensive use of a set of top quality audio evaluation materials 30 selected by a group of audio professionals from the European Broadcasting Union and later used as a reference for the assessment of music compression codecs The subband http://www.audio-transcoder.com coding technique was discovered to be environment friendly, not just for the perceptual coding of the top quality sound supplies but particularly for the encoding of vital percussive sound materials (drums, triangle,.) due to the specific temporal masking impact of the MUSICAM sub-band filterbank (this benefit being a particular function of short remodel coding methods).

Played by nearly each transportable digital audio gadget and lots of DVD gamers, MP3 continues to be laborious to go past for those who're looking for most compatibility to your recordsdata. While you will get a lot better compression from other codecs, arduous disks and clean CDs are low-cost enough to justify the additional file dimension. Stereo imaging will not be terrific and encoding quality differs from one software package to a different.The ancillary information subject can be utilized to store consumer outlined knowledge. The ancillary knowledge is elective and the number of bits available isn't explicitly given. The ancillary data is situated after the Huffman code bits and ranges to the place the subsequent body's main_data_begin factors to. mp3PRO makes use of ancillary data to encode their bits to improve audio quality.Great Software, Works Perfectly. Great software program, low CPU and tons of straightforward choices. Now to fix the official evaluate- batch mode works great, and in addition you may select your output bitrate. Simply press the pink button within the Quality box, and you may select between 32-320kbps. I've had essentially the most success utilizing WAV recordsdata, but I've also efficiently converted videos and so forth to MP3. This is positively one of my go-to software instruments. 5 stars.

[lidaforeman0795-blog]

AIFF To MP3 Converter For Mac, Convert AIFF To MP3 On Mac

Convert AIFF to MP3. Step three. Right-click on your file and select Convert Selection to MP3 to start out the AIFF to MP3 conversion. If in case you have bulk of AIFF information within completely different folders, www.audio-transcoder.com and you want to convert them to MP3 or WAV format and output to another folder or driver and preserve the unique tree path, you should use the feature we designed for you. As you'll be able to see, the two converters are totally different in many ways, if you needn't solely audio conversion but additionally video conversion, Leawo Video Converter for Mac is definitely the one for you. But when value is a significant concern for you whereas selecting a AIFF to MP3 converter Mac model, to convert AIFF to MP3 Mac customers with considerations like this could probably go along with MediaHuman. Click on on Convert" button to start out the conversion from AIFF to MP3. If the sound of your AIFF information is so decrease or greater, you should utilize the software program to amplify or scale back the sound. Utilizing native codecs is at all times encouraged and you'll avoid quite a lot of problem in editing production music simply by choosing the proper format to obtain. This free online AIFF converter lets you easily convert audio information from numerous codecs to AIFF audio information. You solely must add your file or present a link where we will obtain your audio file. After clicking on "Convert file", your file will likely be converted to AIFF and you'll obtain it immediately. Value. No hidden prices! Our pricing is evident and concise. As soon as paid you get all the upgrades free of charge. Tech help can also be free to registered customers (certain we are going to reply all your questions even in case you are utilizing trial version of Complete Audio Converter). Softonic Editor: Complete Audio Converter is a straightforward-to-use device conversion software with support for a bunch of codecs and skill to rip audio CDs. MP3's bitrates differ from 8kbps to 320kbps. A typical MP3 file encoded at 128kbps is close to CD high quality. MP3 audio is more and more being used in video manufacturing coupled with numerous MPEG4 video codecs like divx. AIFF or even can convert video to AIFF audio on Mac or Home windows. Click on "Start" button to begin conversion. After profitable completed the converting, the outcome will likely be stored on the vacation spot folder you previously selected. Certain, VideoSolo Free Video Converter might solely give you some restricted functions. If you want to have full version, you might attempt to use VideoSolo Video Converter Ultimate to get more possibilities. As an illustration, you could possibly be able to promote the video high quality with its constructed-in video enhancer. You might also extract the audio directly from the video and convert to your required audio file format.

Burn CD: When someone needs to burn a CD with music, the MP3 format lets you save extra songs on it than an AIFF format. You'll be able to download and set up MP3 to AIFF Converter in your computer by clicking above downloading button, after which launch it. Alternatively, in contrast to the completely different MP3 and other lossy codecs, compressed lossless codecs really do save you loads of disc space in comparison with uncompressed formats (see chart beneath). Since they sound almost indistinguishable from WAV and AIFF, lossless audio presents a strong argument for ending up in your digital crates. We counted what number of steps each program took to complete a wide range of tasks and located that Xilisoft makes converting audio recordsdata easy and easy. It extracts audio from a wide range of video information, together with MPEG WMV and MP4. The conversion and extraction course of take a bit longer than the most effective programs we examined, which isn't great for changing multiple large files. This program has a batch processing characteristic that allows you to convert a number of information with one click on of the mouse. You may add results like echo and chorus and normalize volume, which is helpful for coverting files taken from vinyl recordings or cassette. AIFF to MP3 Converter by Aiseesoft can be your finest choice to convert AIFF file to MP3 file. It is able to changing an AIFF file to MP3 with top quality. It also allows you to edit your AIFF file before converting. It supports batch conversion to save your time. As well as, other than changing AIFF file to MP3, this powerful converter has the ability to transform you AIFF file to other standard formats, like AAC,WAV, WMA, MKA, OGG, FLAC and more. First, you'll be able to free obtain and set up it to your laptop.Click on "Burn" to start burning your AIFF recordsdata to disc. Once burning is finished, your AIFF information will now be on an audio CD, should you insert this CD into a computer it will present thecda files in My Computer. When you've got a bunch of music files unsupported by your MP3 player, Freemake Audio Converter is a straightforward technique to solve that downside as soon as and for all".

[domingabarreto-blog]

ConvertDAV File To AVI,MP4,WMV,MP3 To Play On PC

Start CDA2MP4 Converter. MP4 files are used to store and view video, whereas MP3 information are used to retailer and consider audio. Each the MP4 and MP3 file codecs have the same lineage - they both come from the Moving Picture Specialists Group (MPEG) format of file compression. In addition, each the MP4 file format and the MP3 file format are fairly comparable in relation to their properties, with the only main difference between the 2 being the fact that the MP4 format is for video and the MP3 format is for audio. I'm a Civil Engineer with the Metropolis of Saint John in Improvement and Neighborhood Improvement Companies (Constructing Inspection, Group Planning and Infrastructure Growth). In 2016 we underwent a complete file digitization course of. We despatched all of our recordsdata out for digitization and created an entire digital submitting system. With this new process we began sending our emails to be filed to a devoted submitting email deal with. We had many factors trying to transform the emails and their attachments to a single TIFF with all the attachments. Some methods we tried for changing emails had been very time consuming and others not even doable. We then tried Total Outlook Converter Skilled and it's relatively customizable and simple to use. It has been saving us a great deal of time altering our emails and attachments to TIFFs. Additionally it is a terrific characteristic that we are able to select the compression algorithm before altering. For those who go for MP3, you may wait around longer than you'd like, as the program first extracts songs to momentary WAV files earlier than changing them to the compressed codec. In our tests, www.audio-transcoder.com the appliance had no hassle acquiring monitor data from the Internet. As you might expect, this system enables you to set the bit price and use VBR compression, however the skill to normalize tracks is a welcome surprise. Ditto for the audio-conversion and recording tools, which are fairly fundamental however still work simply high-quality. MediaHuman audio converter is neat with a minimalistic design that is easy to work with. Its simplicity makes it a very helpful audio converter software program. Simply drag and drop the audio you want to convert, choose the output format and Media Human will take it from there. It even allows you to set the bitrate earlier than the conversion starts. It supports a long record of 26 audio input codecs including MP3, WAV, FLAC, and AAC. Supported output codecs embody WAV, MP3, FLAC, M4R, ALAC, AIFF, AC3, WMA and AAC. If you happen to've bought music from the iTunes Retailer, you will have AAC recordsdata at 256 kbps (that is kilobits per second, a sign of the standard of the compression; greater numbers are better). When you've bought from Amazon, you will have MP3 files, almost certainly in VBR (variable bit price compression), so the bit charge you see will probably be a mean. Information from different sites may be in FLAC and even WAV format; the former is the commonest for lossless files, notably from sites that promote live or classical music. We counted how many steps every program took to complete a wide range of tasks and found that Xilisoft makes converting audio recordsdata simple and easy. It extracts audio from a wide range of video information, together with MPEG WMV and MP4. The conversion and extraction course of take a bit longer than the best programs we examined, CDA to MP4 which isn't great for changing multiple giant files. This program has a batch processing characteristic that permits you to convert a number of information with one click on of the mouse. You may add results like echo and chorus and normalize volume, which is useful for coverting files taken from vinyl recordings or cassette.

2. Add CDA Recordsdata. Confirm the cda information you need to convert to MP3 after which affirm. In case your CD would not robotically open in Any Audio Converter, click on on Add CD Disc in the greater-left corner, choose your CD drive, and click on OK earlier than persevering with. M4B file is an audiobook format which may be "bookmarked" by supporting audio players reminiscent of iTunes and iPod. In case your CD is an audiobook, the CDA to MP3 Converter can convert your CD to M4B audiobooks.

Can Home windows Media Participant convert WMA to MP3? Home windows Media Participant is a default media participant for residence windows computer systems, and it could handle both video and audio information, which helps the choice of audio codecs akin to WMA, WAV, and MP3 amongst others and you'll convert to any of the supported audio codecs. The Any Audio Converter can be an advanced CDA to MP3 Converter, which reads audio tracks out of your CDs and means that you can save them to your laptop computer in a wide range of digital codecs together with WMA, MP3, Ogg, Wav, or FLAC audio data, serving to you trade CDA data from a CD to MP3 format successfully. I've a one among a form monitor that I can not exchange that was inmp3 format before I upgraded to 8.1. However now it's incda and I can't for the life of me figure out find out how to get it converted again. It's the standard forty four bytes that everycda shows as, it is in my file explorer however I can't discover a file converter that will recognize it. It will not play with iTunes or Windows Media( as is predicted) but it WILL play with VLC Media Player. If there are any recommendations I might love to hear them.

For one-stop media conversions, it is onerous to go improper with Freemake Video Converter, an all-in-one converter that can take numerous audio, video, and photo file formats and convert them into system-pleasant varieties. Freemake helps many gadget presets that ensure compatibility when importing videos or music to a selected smartphone or pill model. You possibly can tweak output quality and different technical settings. A straightforward to use interface simplifies workflow and guides you through the method. Some features, equivalent to subtitles, DVD menus, and blackbar removing, can be found by donating.

[desireerapp68-blog]

SDR Free Flac To MP3 Converter

A utility to transform a Flac library to MP3, Opus or flac2mp3 Ogg Vorbis format. Those who choose to convert their FLAC tracks to MP3 usually need to be able to play them on their transportable units, resembling iPod, Microsoft Zune or even Kindle. 1). FLAC is a lossless format however you can't play it on certain audio gamers like iPod. Boxoft FLAC to MP3 Converter will allow you to to batch convert FLAC files to plain MP3 format information, that are much smaller and flac2mp3 have higher support amongst audio purposes and hardware gamers. This can be a completely primary app that can assist convert all of your FLAC information When dealing with compatibility in units, the MP3 format is far more accepted. And it stays like this for all future use of the MP3 format, until one goes to Instruments""Preferences""Reset preferences" which then returns all to defaults and it works, however solely at the 128 bit price. Other codecs like OGG Vorbis and so forth are not showing this behaviour, and I don't keep in mind my earlier verson which was 2.0.5., doing this. Choose "to FLAC" after which click on Convert to transform recordsdata to FLAC format. FLAC is a lossless audio format, which means it saves unique CD high quality if you creating FLAC files immediately from an audio CD. Not like WAV format which is also lossless FLAC adds some compression very similar to ZIP shrinking. It does not cut back the quality however makes FLAC files smaller than WAV's. They're much greater than MP3s although, which make it cumbersome for utilizing in MP3 gamers and other cell gadgets. We counted what number of steps each program took to finish a wide range of duties and located that Xilisoft makes changing audio recordsdata easy and easy. It extracts audio from a variety of video information, including MPEG WMV and MP4. The conversion and extraction course of take a bit longer than the very best applications we tested, which is not great for changing a number of giant information. This program has a batch processing characteristic that lets you convert multiple recordsdata with one click of the mouse. You can add results like echo and refrain and normalize volume, which is useful for coverting information taken from vinyl recordings or cassette. 2. Simply select the output files like MP3. You'll be able to add as many FLAC information as you want from the local arduous drive, and all of them might be batch converted once you hit the convert button. File names will likely be retained, solely the file extension adjustments to the chosen format. MP3 stands for Motion Image Specialists Group Layer 3, which is a digital compression algorithm for audio file. The mp3 file can be over 10 instances smaller when compared to a uncooked source file. In the present day, the MP3 file format is the most well-liked musical file formats on the planet. KeepVid Online Converter website is born as a free converter website with the powerful converter which may convert the video and audio to almost 60 formats totally free. It lets you convert the videos on any system comparable to windows, Mac, Linux or unix etc because it's browser primarily based converter and don't have any system compatibility difficulty. This converter website is cross platform and can be utilized on any working system system. It could also convert FLAC to MP3 Mac devices totally free. Free FLAC to MP3 Converter's person interface is small and easy, with no other controls, options, or settings beyond these instantly accessible. We could drag and drop files into the primary window or click on Add and browse to our FLAC files, or click on Remove to delete them from the list. We tried each methods. The following step after adding our information was to pick out an output folder by changing the choice from Similar, which saves transformed files to the same folder as the supply file, to Different, and then shopping to a brand new vacation spot folder. Then it was a easy matter of pressing Convert to MP3 to process our batch. That is about all there's to the program's interface and performance.

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[geezeralert]

A Beatles fan gets back to where he once belonged

(Some albums from my collection)

(First of three parts)

As a really big fan of the Beatles, I have always been somewhat in awe of those who are really HUGE fans of the famed singing group.

They just seemed to enjoy the music on a whole different level, with thorough knowledge and appreciation for what was produced by this unique musical foursome in their eight-plus years together.  

So, over the last four months, as a retired-geezer-bucket-list endeavor, I took a huge leap towards earning my “huge fan” badge.

I re-listened to, re-enjoyed and studied — consulting at least five books — each of the some 300 Beatles’ recordings, as contained on their 13 official albums/CDs along with many of their various related versions (on the three two-CD anthologies, various collections like “One” and the BBC live sessions).

I am blogging about it because, honestly, I’d just like to share my experience and put my basic impressions down in writing.  It was riveting and sinfully fun, spending too much money and too much time — including many breaks to just sit back, travel down memory lane and simply be entertained by these pop songs/albums that took me through the 1960s, from my pre-teen to college years — on what’s really a rather personal, trivial pursuit.  

But I’m also holding out hope that my findings could be interesting for other Beatles fans, of whatever level.

Quick bottom line: I am more impressed now than I was before with the output of this pop group and the incredible blending of the four multi-talented musicians Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.  I’ll write about why and list the highlights of what I learned in the second part.

First off, though, I should define “really big fans,” my current state and that of many millions of my contemporaries worldwide from the sixties.

This group is familiar with all the Beatles recordings (able to identify them when hearing just the opening notes), their background as a group and individuals (back to teenage years), their basic timeline as recording artists (who authored what compositions and when), their alternate recordings, their post-Beatles recordings, their relations (girlfriends, wives), and their basic life stories.

In other words, we just just paid attention all these years, watching the relevant movies and videos, buying their records and reading at least the most reliable major books about them — first by Hunter Davies and then by Bob Spitz — while also picking up more than a few of the annual money-grabbing “new” ones.

I’ve read two books by “first wives” Patti Boyd (“Wonderful Tonight”) and Cynthia Lennon (“John”) and Lennon’s sister, “My Brother.”

I also bought one of the first song-by-song compilation books, “Beatlesongs” (1989) by William J. Dowling. For decades, it was my go-to source for day-to-day inquires like “who played that great bass part on ‘Hey Bulldog’”?  

By being a big fan, my Christmas and birthday presents from family and friends often have been Beatles stuff (when they tired of stuff feeding my other passion, baseball) including three coffee table books, a box of “The BBC Archives” TV and radio broadcast material, and three other books going into each of the group’s songs.

From all that, I am left wondering if the Beatles ever had a private, unphotographed, unrecorded (in writing or audio) stretch long than five minutes.

It was the final gift last Christmas,  “Revolution in the Head” by Ian MacDonald, that propelled me to finally take on this long-planned intensive study of the Beatles’ music.

MacDonald’s definitive work, updated three times since published in 1994, is classified as a textbook by the Los Angeles Public Library. It goes into great detail on the musical and sociological aspects of each song so it was sometimes beyond my sphere of interest. But it was most useful to me by going song-by-song in chronological order, referencing all the alternative versions of the songs and telling where to find them.  

Along the way, I also found the fascinating (although partially disputed) book “Here, There and Everywhere” by Geoff Emerick, a teenage recording studio prodigy who helped engineer (record, mix) just about every Beatles song, either as an assistant in his teens or the primary engineer in his early 20s.

His first-person observations helped flesh out the more technical aspects or third-party accounts of the Beatles songs.

(Other books used for the song-by-song marathon: “The Beatles: A Hard Day’s Write. The Stories Behind Every Song” by Steve Turner and “All the Songs. The Story Behind Every Beatles Release,” a massive, picture-filled coffee table book by Jean-Michel Guesdon and Phillippe Margotin.)  

Meanwhile, there are a ton of other written works out there awaiting my attention once this project is done – exhaustive books by Mark Lewisohn; memoirs by the group’s producer (and Fifth Beatle early on) George Martin and original drummer Pete Best; “Shout: The Beatles in their Generation” by Philip Norman; and “Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now,” by Barry Miles — to name a few . . . in my price range (more on that in part three). There’s a seemingly never-ending flow of written material and reworked music.

And it’s fair to assume “really huge fans” have read them all. (I’ll delve more into what constitutes that fan level in parts two and three.)  

The original idea for trying this project came after advanced technology, resolved legal issues and a favorable marketplace brought about the production of the entire Beatles catalogue on CDs nine years ago.

I had tried keeping up with the Beatles’ output over the years on vinyl, eight-track tapes and cassettes but, for one reason or another, had some holes.

Nearly my entire Beatles collection of vinyl albums was stolen from my college dorm room in the early 1970s. I then rebought some of the biggest ones at that time but then sat back and waited for releases in the latest medium (eight-track, cassettes, CDs, digital) and lost track of what I had.

So, when the complete collection on CD (remastered to sound even better!) became available, I perked up. But the price tag ($150-200) gave me pause.

Then came an offer to buy the whole shebang at half price. I was ready to pounce.

But there remained another major issue.

The Beatles’ studio personnel, I learned, recorded each of their songs in both monaural (“mono”) and stereo. Each version had/has its strong backers, especially as the original tapes were revisited and reproduced with improved quality (both in stereo and mono) for the latest CD versions.

For the “true experience” of listing to the Beatles songs, did one really have to possess and listen to both stereo and mono versions? The inner Beatles fanatic and picky perfectionist told me “yes.” My practical and realistic self, though, said that’s crazy, unnecessary and an expense only the crazy wealthy fan would want to pay.

Luckily, many music critics recognized the dilemma this posed for the average fan. From reading a few of their comparisons and conclusions, I came up with a fairly consistent recommendation for which albums are best in mono and which are best in stereo:

Mono sounds best for “Please Please Me,” “With the Beatles,” “Hard Days Night,” “Beatles For Sale” and “Help.” Stereo is recommended for “Rubber Soul,” “Revolver,” “Magical Mystery Tour” “The Beatles (The White Album)” “Yellow Submarine” “Let It Be” and “Abbey Road.” (The latter two were only mixed in stereo anyway.)

Mono and stereo versions of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” both offer great listening experiences, and the 50th anniversary remix in 2017 added yet another aural mix.

The mono box set includes all the songs released as singles (45 rpm) and not on any of the basic albums (though some, those that rose to no. 1 on Billboard lists, are included in the “Beatles — 1” album/CD).  

Emerick actually recommended the mono mixes of  “Revolver” and “Sgt. Pepper,” which he engineered. He said much more care was given to the mono versions than the stereo ones, which were rushed at the conclusion of the project.

He wrote:

“True Beatles fans would do well to avail themselves of the mono versions of Sgt. Pepper and Revolver because far more time and effort went into those mixes than the stereo mixes. The stereo versions of those albums have an unnecessary surfeit of panning and effects like ADT (Automatic Double Tracking) and flanging. (Fellow engineer) Richard and I would sometimes get carried away with them because of their novelty value . . . especially if George Martin wasn’t there to rebuke us. Needless to say, it was John who especially loved that kind of overkill — we’d sometimes whack something on too severely just to see how it sounded, only to find him winking at us, saying, ‘More!’”

It should be noted that Emerick wrote his book in 2007, before all the remastering of the Beatles albums took place. So, perhaps the new stereo mixes enhance those versions to the point that they now are preferable.  

And then there’s the whole “Let It Be” controversy, when the original recordings were turned over to “wall of sound” maestro Phil Specter, reportedly by John Lennon, much to the chagrin of McCartney.

So, a stripped down version of those songs “Let It Be-Naked,” was produced.

For my listening project, I listened to that naked CD as well as a number of mono vs. stereo renditions of Beatles’ songs.  

Basically, I agreed with experts (they are so grateful, I’m sure!) that the early albums are best in mono.

This was a time when few people had quality stereo systems, if any stereo at all (I had a small portable one in my room), and thus much more time and care was given to the mono versions (says my books). Those tunes in stereo sound pretty tinny and awkward to listen to (says my ears), especially with headphones (e.g. the drums and base in one ear, the voices in another).  

Of course, musical preferences, like all reactions to art, are wholly subjective. When I posted a list of my personal choices for “five worst Beatles songs” (yes, they did produce some songs I cannot stand: “Rain,” “Paperback Writer,” “Baby You’re a Rich Man,” “I’m Down,” “Helter Skelter”) on a Facebook site, several respondents said the tunes were actually among their favorites. Some fans treat all of the group’s output as wonderful and any criticism as sacrilege.

In the books I consulted, Beatles tunes certified as “classic” by one author sometimes were depicted as “a disaster” by another. Even the Beatles disparaged as “garbage” some songs I (and others) enjoy.

Typical of most listeners, my reactions when sampling the stereo and mono recordings are probably based on how I first heard the songs. And for nearly all of them, that would be mono. Anything different sounds off kilter.

Some examples: The stereo “Taxman,” the lead song on side one of “Revolver,” has the bass and rhythm section on the left side while the lead guitar and percussion are on the right, with vocals in both. It sounds wrong to my ears, which first heard all the music coming out of both speakers (mono). Likewise, on the same album, “She Said She Said” (a favorite of mine) splits the instruments into separate channels and doesn’t sound quite right to me.

Still, the later works, as remastered, do have much greater depth and clarity in the stereo versions. Songs like “Martha, My Dear,” “Savoy Truffle” and “Glass Onion” sound terrific (I played them over and over). Likewise, most of Sgt. Pepper, which was remastered a second time for the 50th anniversary CD, is fine in stereo.

In several cases, like “Martha My Dear,” I enjoyed a song in the latest version far more than I did originally.

Which brings us to my general observations on what I heard and read. That would be part two, coming tomorrow.  

[ashxpad]

The 10 Hottest 35mm Cameras You Could Buy in 1991

1991. What a great time to be alive. Seeing movies like Robin Hood and Hook in the theatres, and hearing hits like “Joyride” by Roxette or “Losing My Religion” by REM are some of my favorite pop culture memories of that time. Not to mention watching TV shows like Home Improvement, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Of course, being eleven years old, my photography experience was limited to disposable cameras, but that might not be the case for you. If you were older or luckier, you might have had one of these classic or innovative cameras I’ll be talking about today.

Today I’m going to go over the top ten hottest 35mm cameras you could buy in 1991.

A couple of things I want to mention about this list before I get started.

I constructed the list with a few parameters in mind. First, I used Popular Photography’s Top Cameras for 1991 as the base for it. Next, I boiled the list down from twenty to ten, by selecting the ones still most relevant today. The higher number of Google results, the higher it appears on the list.

Read also: 10 of the Hottest 35mm Cameras You Could Buy in 1982

In this golden age of photography, which in my opinion was 1975 to 1995, many of the cameras released had a very long shelf life. Because of that, if I include the older models, my top ten list could have several of the same entries, even if I jump ahead nine years. So for that reason, I have put a cap on cameras to be no older than seven years from the year featured.

That brings me to the last bit, which is this isn’t a list of cameras released in 1991, rather it is a list of the hottest cameras you could buy in 1991. As I mentioned, some of these entries had been out for a few years by 1991.

With all that being said, let’s get started.

#10. Yashica 230 AF

The first camera on today’s list may be a bit of an unknown these days: the Yashica 230 AF. An early auto-exposure camera, with three modes plus manual. The 230 AF was announced in 1986 but immediately caused some controversy, as mentioned in an article by Norman Goldberg, released by Popular Photography in November 1986.

“Yashica created a stir when the company was forced to withdraw its newest entry in the autofocusing fray. Called the 230 AF, the camera quickly became the subject of a patent dispute, but not before several German-language photo magazines came out with the details on the camera. To satisfy the affronted party – perhaps Minolta – the camera was displayed in a locked showcase. Word is that the matter will be resolved soon.”

Despite the early controversy, the 230 AF made its debut in 1987. One of the more interesting features was the CS-110AF flash accessory, which fit over the hot shoe and pentaprism to give a seamless appearance, it almost makes it look like another camera.

Picking up one of these in 1991 with the flash and a 50mm f/1.8 would cost you $765, or $1,536 today. There are not many found on eBay but if you want one of your own you can expect to get one for under $100

#9. Olympus IS-1

At number nine is the Olympus IS-1. A very strange-looking camera. Even stranger at the time because cameras like this marked the birth of the bridge model. A camera that included many of the manual and auto exposure modes of an SLR, but with a fixed lens like a point and shoot.

Because it didn’t fit into an already established category of camera, Olympus dared to make their own, calling it a ZLR, or Zoom Lens Reflex. This was absolutely a marketing gimmick, but it seemed to work. The IS-1 garnered a fair amount of attention.

In December 1990, Mike Stensvold conducted a thorough review in Petersen’s Photographic on the IS-1 and concluded that “The Olympus IS-1 comes closer than most to truly being a ‘camera for everybody.’ In point and shoot mode, it’s as simple to use as any camera in its class. It offers versatility to the more creative snap shooter and it’s got some advanced features found in few other such cameras, making it useful to more serious photographers, as well.”

Olympus’s goal was centered around the idea that this was a new concept camera and the wave of the future. This three-page ad, published in November 1990 encompasses that notion by posing the question: “Remember the first time you received a fax, talked on a cellular phone or heard a CD”?

In 1991 you could expect to pay $800, or $1,600 in today’s money. If you want to buy one used on eBay they are cheap as chips.

I actually did a very detailed history on this camera recently on an episode of my show This Old Camera, in case you want to learn everything there is to know about the Olympus IS-1.

#8. Nikon N8008

Coming in at number eight is the Nikon N8008, funny how that worked out. A consumer-level autofocus SLR with some impressive features for its time including a 1/8000th shutter speed and a flash sync speed of 1/250.

While many camera manufacturers of the time were abandoning their lens mounts from the days of manual focus SLRs, Nikon was staying true to their user base by creating a new autofocus system that could still take older manual focus lenses with a fair amount of compatibility.

Peter Burian conducted a field test and wrote about it in the Winter 1989 issue of Outdoor and & Travel Photography magazine.

“Though the N8008 is clearly an advanced and sophisticated piece of high-tech engineering, it is exceedingly user-friendly,” says Burian. “I predict that any photographer who can operate a digital watch or VCR will be familiar with the N8008 and its use within 30 minutes.”

Peter also says it handles like a dream but had a couple of hang-ups about its operation. He noted that although the N8008 is capable of continuous autofocus, he nailed more sharp images with the standard AF.

The advertising campaign for the N8008 bore the title: “The difficult is does automatically. The impossible takes a few more seconds.”

Here are a couple of examples from 1989.

This one with the ballerina touches on the matrix metering system, and rear curtain fill flash. “The point is,” says the ad, “highly creative pictures that used to be difficult to impossible for anyone less than a professional photographer are now within your grasp.”

The other ad sings a similar tune stating “Ordinary exposure control systems could be fooled by the dark black sky and overexpose the lighted skyline.”

A brand new N8008 with a 50mm f/1.4 would cost you $960 1991 dollars, or $1,928 today. This camera is an unsung hero in today’s film photography community and comes in at an incredibly low price of $70 or less with shipping, body only.

#7. Contax RTS III

At number seven is the Contax RTS III. In a time when autofocus was quickly becoming King, the people at Kyocera decided to make a more streamlined, more sophisticated manual focus SLR. The first thing that people will notice is that the RTS III uses Zeiss glass, known for its build quality and sharpness. But the thing that reviewers and adverting talked about the most was a feature called RTV, or Real Time Vacuum.

In a user report, published by Petersen’s Photographic in 1991 and written by Bill Hurter, it’s explained that the RTV system is engaged when the shutter fires, and sort of sucks the film back onto the pressure plate, creating a flatter image, thus creating a sharper image.

“Roll film in cassettes was a great breakthrough, but one of its problems has always been that film curls,” says Hurter. “It curls because it is rolled into a cassette. Also temperature and humidity affect the degree of curl. Contax engineers have shown film-plane flatness error to exist in current state-of-the-art SLRs to a degree of 20-30 microns in extreme cases. Further, the contention is that a 10 micron error in film plane flatness would cause a rear focus displacement of approximately 1 cm in an image shot at a distance of 3 meters with a Zeiss 85mm f/1.4.”

Basically, you don’t buy a Contax RTS III for quick focus, but superior focus.

A 1992 ad titled “See through the eyes of a genius” gives the reader a visual of what the RTV does to film flatness and showcases the Zeiss glass.

The price on an RTS III with a 50mm f/1.4 would set you back $3,630 in 1991, or about $7,300 today — a steep investment for a manual focus camera in a progressively autofocus world, but still not the most expensive manual focus camera on today’s list.

#6. Minolta Maxxum 9000

Number six is the Minolta Maxxum 9000. In January 1985, Minolta changed photography forever with the Maxxum 7000, and ten months later we were introduced to the 9000. While the 7000 was a model meant for the broadest audience possible, the 9000 geared itself toward the more serious amateur and professional.

In May 1986, Modern Photography had a very extensive look at the Maxxum 9000. Seeing how it compared to the 7000, which they noted that “Indeed its designers not only responded to virtually every criticism we made of the original 7000, they have also created one of the most sophisticated, comprehensive, internally complex and startlingly original SLR systems the world has ever seen.”

Popular Photography did their own field test in September 1986, praising the camera. But even when incredibly innovative, a camera is rarely perceived as perfect, and the Maxxum 9000 is no exception. Writer Bob Schwalberg had a few complaints for sure, including the average/spot metering setting didn’t have a lock on it, so a sleeve, or a strap or whatever would often change metering modes without him realizing it. Also the lack of lens selection.

“Almost two years after the launching of the Maxxum autofocusing camera system, Minolta’s AF lineup is heavy on zooms, but short on meat and potatoes workaday optics.”

At the time of review, they have nothing wider than 24mm, no 35mm, and not a single zoom in the 50-135mm range.

Advertising claimed the Minolta Maxxum 9000 to be “The World’s Most Sophisticated Camera” and encouraged you to “Ascend to the height of professionalism.” It seems in this ad, released in 1989, one of Bob’s issues was resolved, as I’m seeing a 16mm prime and a 35mm to what I presume to be 105mm lens.

With a 50mm f/1.7, a Maxxum 9000 would set you back $974 in 1991, or about $1,950 today.

#5. Leica R6

The Leica R6 comes in at number five. While many cameras take a leap forward from one version to the next, Leica actually took a step back, as quoted in a review by Jack Neubart in the fall 1990 issue of Outdoor and Travel Photography Magazine.

“Unlike the R5, the Leica R6 is principally mechanically governed. The R5 comes complete with several auto exposure modes, plus manual; but the R6 has only manual exposure control, with shutter speeds ranging from 1 second to 1/1000th of a second.”

Another review, in Outdoor Photographer’s October 1989 issue by Debra Davis sums up the purpose of the camera the best.

“In this day of electronic-laden auto-everything cameras, there is a new product on the market that stands apart from the rest. Welcome to the Leica R6. Designed to appeal to the photographer who wants mostly a mechanical, manual camera, the R6 shuns current trends and offers a back to basics approach to photography.”

This three-page special advertising section titled “The Shot of a Lifetime” features three Leica cameras including the R6. The main photo was taken during a Mount Everest climb with an R6 by photographer Warren Thompson.

“A camera which could be disabled by a failed, inexpensive battery would jeopardize the photographic mission,” says the ad.

The next page claims the R6 can withstand temperatures as low as -4F and as high as 140F.

Something that made me chuckle was this quote on page 2: “If Michelangelo were alive today, he wouldn’t be painting – he’d be using a Leica.”

I guess we’ll never know.

This Leica R6 ad titled: “Seduction” gives a really nice top-down look.

“You’re irresistibly drawn to it – seduced by the beauty, the precision, the mystique of legendary performance. Unlike mere ‘cameras,’ you don’t just hold a Leica, you caress it and feel the perfect balance, comfortable fit and smooth, positive operation – an extension of your hand, your eye and your art. You’ll be starting an affair with excellence that will last a lifetime whether you choose the manual R6, the electronic R5 or fast handling RE.”

Settle down there Leica.

During my research for other videos, I’ve come across quite a few Leica ads, and I have to say, many are like this one, and there’s a reason that some Leica owners have, shall we say, a superiority complex.

If you wanted to be seduced by this all manual beast, you better take out a second mortgage, because with a 50mm f/1.4 this Everest climber will cost $5,550 in 1991, or… wait for it… $11,147 in 2021 money. These days though, you can get one for a respectable $600 used. That Summilux-R 50mm f/1.4 will still choke your wallet though, at a cost of 1,200-1,800 bucks.

#4. Nikon F4s

Sliding in at number four is the Nikon F4s. I’m always curious to know the differences between models with slightly different names. In my top 35mm cameras of 1982 article, I was wondering what the big deal was between the Nikon F3 and F3HP, and the answer was, basically, the viewfinder.

Here I was again curious what the difference between the Nikon F4 and F4s was and the answer may amuse you: a battery pack. What makes an F4 an F4s is the MB-21 battery grip that takes six AA batteries and that is about it. You get a beefier camera and a slightly higher frames per second burst rate. With the MB-21, you can turn any F4 into an F4s. It’s a little sneaky on Nikon’s part, especially since it got its own advertising campaign.

Here are a couple of examples. The first here says “The Reasons” and brackets the ‘S’ and another example here it brackets the ‘es’ in Lenses. An odd choice. You’ll notice all the ads for the F4s include the battery grip because it has to.

Regardless, the Nikon F4 was a revolution for Nikon. They plunged into autofocus and while everyone else was remounting their cameras, Nikon stayed true to their user base by allowing older manual lenses on their newer autofocus cameras.

#3. Canon EOS-1

Getting the bronze medal for today’s top 10 is the other autofocus revolution flagship, the Canon EOS-1. Announced in 1989, the EOS-1 was not Canon’s first EF mount camera, but the first flagship model. As you can imagine, many FD mount Canon users were very upset that their cameras were antiquated overnight. History speaks for itself though and Canon survived the backlash.

The earliest ad I found was in September 1989’s issue of American Photographer, a colorful three-page ad, that would be one of a theme of ads with the suggestion, to quote “shoot it hot”.

“Live for photography. Eat Sleep and breathe it. Become a photograph.”

“Send the world your message…written in silver.”

I did a full history on the EOS-1 on my segment This Old Camera, in case you’re curious. After I released that video, my Patreon patrons and I were making “Shoot it Hot” jokes for weeks. It’s so incredibly cheesy and so very 90’s.

In September 1992, Camera & Darkroom magazine published: “A Quiet Revolution, A look at the Canon EOS Phenomenon,” by Mike Johnston.

Johnston took an in-depth look at Canon as a company, specifically their transition from FD mount to EOS, the controversy, and resulting innovations.

“When Canon introduced the EOS line in 1987, they immediately earned for themselves, among other things, a bad rap of sorts. The reason was the lens mount capability. The introduction of the new line was news; and the reaction from those heavily invested in expensive FD optics was swift, loud- and, to put it mildly, less than pleased.”

He would go on to say “even if you’re not a Canon photographer, it might be wise to keep your eye on them… if only to see which way the winds of change are blowing in the field of 35mm photography.”

A Canon EOS-1 with a 50mm f/1.8 would knock $1,939 out of your 90s Velcro wallet. Or about $3,900 today.

I paid $197 for the copy I have with an EF 28-105mm lens. It wasn’t in the best shape though, so expect to pay a little more.

#2. Leica M6

Obtaining silver for today’s countdown is the Leica M6. Is it any surprise that a Leica made it to the top 3?

A review by Debra Davis in the June 1991 issue of Outdoor Photographer explains the advantage of using a Leica quite well.

“The M6 allows the photographer to know what’s coming into the frame by displaying six distinct frame lines in the viewfinder window. These are projected in pairs corresponding to different focal length lenses for 28mm or 90mm, 35mm or 135mm, and 50mm or 75mm. The correct set automatically appears when you attach a lens and includes an area outside the frame line so you’ll be alert to something moving into the photo. In addition, you may manually select a different set of frame lines just by pressing a lever next to the lens. So without actually changing lenses, you can see and decide quickly, which lens to use for best composition.”

The ability to go unnoticed in a crowd is also touched on.

“The M6 is fast and silent, small and simple,” says Davis.

And here we go again with the melodrama, using the same ad theme as the R6, except this time it’s not Seduction, it’s …Obsession.

“It’s an almost unreasonable dedication to quality – meticulous attraction to detail, flawless mechanical precision, incredibly quick, quiet handling and optics that defy comparison – an obsession with perfection. It’s what sets Leica above mere “cameras” and accounts for their unchallenged reputation and unequaled value.”

If Jesus was alive today, he wouldn’t be a carpenter, he would be making Leicas.

Okay, I made that last part up, but it’s hard not to snicker at the hubris of it all. I will give Leica this, the commitment to only making small changes from model to model is impressive. Even as they transitioned to digital models, the design made very little change. You know that when you buy one, and ever feel like upgrading, you can do so knowing you won’t have a huge learning curve ahead of you.

The M6 might be second on the list, but it’s first in price. With a 50mm f/1.4, you can expect to pay $5,685 in 1991 cash, and just to give you a better idea of how much that is, in 1991, you could buy a used 1987 Dodge Omni for less, at a cost of just under $5,300. With inflation, an M6 was $11,418 in 2021 money. That is, just bonkers in my opinion. Especially when you consider that these days, you pay for the sensor in a high-end digital camera, but back then, everyone was using the same film.

Getting one on eBay is still going to be pricey. Body only is going to be three to four K.

#1. Olympus OM-4T

Coming in with the gold, is a camera you probably didn’t expect, the Olympus OM-4T. Maybe some of you did, as last time I made a list like this on the hottest of 1982, lots of you asked where the Olympus cameras were. The OM-1N came in at eleventh place in case you’re curious.

One of the features of the OM-4T that caught my eye while reading up on it was the ability to multi spot meter, as described in this review by Petersen’s Photographic writer Dan O’Neill in December 1986.

“Multi-spot metering is done by selecting different areas in the scene and metering each one with the press of the spot button. Up to eight spots can be metered and averaged by the OM-4T’s microcomputer.”

The other big deal with the OM-4T is the Full Syncro flash system. Basically, Olympus uses a focal plane shutter and that comes with its limits on how fast you can sync a flash to it. While many other manufacturers worked on a better shutter, Olympus just increased the duration of the flash system to properly gather all that light at quicker speeds. A focal-plane shutter has two curtains. A leading one and a trailing one, and at higher speeds the trailing curtain is already closing before the leading one has completed its cycle, so in the case of flash, you get an incomplete flash exposure.

Long story short, the OM-4T had a max flash sync speed of 1/2000, as promoted in an ad titled: “The first camera ever to break the light barrier.” They also called the multi spot meter function, “The most precise built-in meter in camera history.”

So what does the T stand for? According to David Brooks of Petersen’s Photographic, “the use of titanium for the bodies top and bottom plates. This exotic metal provides both lighter weight and greater strength to protect the camera’s internal circuitry to dedicate the new F-280 flash and integrate its special new capabilities into the OTF auto flash exposure control, auto-spot continuous light metering, and exposure automation.”

With a 50mm f/1.8 lens, the OM-4T will set you back $1,330 by 1991 standards, or just under $2,700 by today’s. These days you can expect to pay a respectable three to four hundred body only.

Conclusion

And that concludes today’s list. Thanks for reading and watching, and happy shooting!

About the author: Azriel Knight is a photographer and YouTuber based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find Knight’s photos and videos on his website, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

from PetaPixel https://ift.tt/3nWJofa

[jovandawkins]

Music, Economics, and Beyond

"The whole point of digital music is the risk-free grazing" --Cory Doctorow Cory Doctorow, Canadian journalist together with co-editor and of the off-beat blog Boing Boing, is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent in the Creative Commons nonprofit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon lawfully and to share. Doctorow and others continue to write prolifically about the apocalyptic changes facing Intellectual Property in general along with the music industry in specific. In this article, we will explore the cataclysm facing U. S. industry in the portal example of the music industry, a simple industry in comparison to those of automotive or energy. However , within the simplicity of this example we may uncover some lessons that apply to all industries. In his web-article, "The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free, " Michael Arrington tells us that music DVD sales continue to plummet alarmingly. "Artists like Prince and Nine Inch Nails are flouting their brands and either giving music away or telling their fans to steal it... Radiohead, which is not any longer controlled by their label, Capitol Records, put their new digital album on sale on the Internet for no matter what price people want to pay for it. " As many others have iterated in recent years, Arrington reminds us that with regard to effective legal, technical, or other artificial impediments to production can be created, "simple economic theory dictates that the price of music [must] fall to zero as more 'competitors' (in the following case, listeners who copy) enter the market. " Unless sovereign governments that subscribe to the Universal Copyright laws Convention take drastic measures, such as the proposed mandatory music tax to prop up the industry, there pretty much exist no economic or legal barriers to keep the price of recorded music from falling toward zero. With response, artists and labels will probably return to focusing on other revenue streams that can, and will, be exploited. Especially, these include live music, merchandise, and limited edition physical copies of their music. According to author Stephen M. Dubner, "The smartest thing about the Rolling Stones under Jagger's leadership is the band's workmanlike, corporate method to touring. The economics of pop music include two main revenue streams: record sales and traveling profits. Record sales are a) unpredictable; and b) divided up among many parties. If you figure out how to tour efficiently, meanwhile, the profits--including not only ticket sales but also corporate sponsorship, t-shirt sales, etc ., --can be staggering. You can essentially control how much you earn by adding more dates, whereas it's hard to overpower how many records you sell. " ("Mick Jagger, Profit Maximizer, " Freakonomics Blog, 26 July 2007). In order to get a handle on the problems brought about by digital media in the music industry, we turn to the data the majority relied upon by the industry. This data comes through Neilsen SoundScan which operates a system for gathering information and tracking sales. Most relevant to the topic of this column, SoundScan provides the official method for tracking gross sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada. The company collects data on a every week basis and makes it available every Wednesday to subscribers from all facets of the music industry. Like for example , executives of record companies, publishing firms, music retailers, independent promoters, film entertainment producers and their distributors, and artist management companies. Because SoundScan provides the sales data used by Billboard, the leading trade magazine, for any creation of its music charts, this role effectively makes SoundScan the official source of sales records inside the music industry. Quo vadis? According to Neilsen Soundscan, "In a fragmented media world where technology is usually reshaping consumer habits, music continues to be the soundtrack of our daily lives. According to Music 360 2014, Nielsen's third annual in-depth study of the tastes, habits and preferences of U. S. music listeners, 93% of the country's population listens to music, spending more than 25 hours each week tuning into their favorite songs. " For most Americans, music is the top form of entertainment. In a 2014 survey, 75% of respondents claimed that they actively chose to listen to music over other media entertainment. Music is part of our lives across all times of the day. One fourth of music listening takes place while driving or riding in autos. Another 15% of our weekly music time takes place at work or while doing household chores. It has end up no surprise over the past five years that CD sales have diminished while download listening and sales get increased. Bob Runett of Poynter Online comments, "Start waving the cigarette lighters and swaying aspect to side--the love affair between music fans and their cell phones is getting more intense. Phones with audio capabilities will account for 54 percent of handset sales globally in five years, according to a report talking to firm Strategy Analytics Inc. The report suggests that we keep watching the growth of cellular tunes decks (CMDs), devices that deliver excellent sound quality and focus on music more than images. " ("A Few Notes About Music and Convergence, " 25 November 2014) Stephen J. Dubner summed in the mess quite well almost a decade ago. "It strikes me as ironic that a new technology (digital music) can have accidentally forced record labels to abandon the status quo (releasing albums) and return to the past (selling singles). I sometimes think that the biggest mistake the record industry ever made was abandoning the pop sole in the first place. Customers were forced to buy albums to get the one or two songs they loved; how many albums can you claim that you truly love, or love even 50% of the songs--10? 20? But now the people have talked: they want one song at a time, digitally please, maybe even free. " ("What's the Future of the Music Sector? A Freakonomics Quorum, " 20 September 2007). Like many of us, I (Dr. Sase) also have worked for a musician/producer/engineer/indie label owner releasing esoterica since the 1960s. While occasionally made an adequate living off my movies, I also developed my talents as an economist, earning a doctorate in that field. Therefore , I thought from this dual perspective of an economist/musician. The post-future, as many music pundits call it, does not really change that much from the past. How and why folks obtain their music continues to reflect at least three linked decision drivers. We can summarize the three most relevant as 1) Content, 2) Durability, and 3) Time-Cost. Let us explain further. 1) Content When I started to record music in the early 1960s, the market has been filled with "one-hit wonders. " It was the age of AM (amplitude modulation), DJ radio. It was also the age of this 45 RPM record with the hit on the A Side and usually some filler cut on the M Side. It was not uncommon for anyone with a 2-track reel-to-reel to "download" the one hit desired from their favorite broadcast station. There were few groups that offered entire twelve-inch LPs with mostly great songs. The first these LP that I purchased was Meet the Beatles by those four lads from Liverpool. Click here Jovan Dawkins During the late nineteen sixties, the industry turned more to "Greatest Hit" collections by groups that had previously turned out a archipelago of AM hits and to "concept" albums. During this golden age of LP sales, the Beatles, your Stones, the Grateful Dead, Yes, King Crimson, and numerous other groups released albums filled with sound content. Bottom line: consumers don't mind paying for product if they feel that they are receiving value. 2) Durability How come would someone buy a twelve-inch LP when they could borrow a copy and tape record the tunes to a reel-to-reel or, later on, to a compact cassette? The answers at that time were simple. First, it was "cool" to have a great album collection, especially one that a member of the opposite gender could thumb through in your dorm room. Let us simply say that one's album collection could inform another party about people's tastes and possible sub-culture and personality. Therefore , an attractive collection provided a certain degree of social currency. May well this account for the resurgence of vinyl in recent years? The second part of the equation came in the form of actual product flexibility. Like current downloads, self-recorded reel-to-reel and cassette tapes generally suffered from some loss of fidelity in the change. More importantly, the integrity and permanence of the media also left something to be desired. Thirty to $ 40 . 00 years ago, tape would flake, break, and tangle around the capston. Unless one backed up their collection for a second-generation tape, many of one's favorite tunes could be lost. Today, computer hard drives crash. Without the expense of additional hard drive and the time involved to make the transfer, the same durability issues ensue. What about CDs? Since several of us who use CD-Rs for multiple purposes know, the technology that instantly burns an image actually leaves a product that remains more delicate and subject to damage in comparison to a commercially fabricated CD, stamped with a metal master. Will the Internet clouds provide the same level of comfort for music producers and listeners? We might just have to wait and see. 3) Time-Cost This third element basically reflects the old "tape is running/time-is-money" economic argument and may explain why younger music-listeners prefer to download songs either legally or illegally. The idea echoes the same economics that led listeners in the 1960s to record their favorite hits off of the radio. That substance of the argument has to do with how an individual values his/her time. If music-lovers works for a low per hour wage (or often no income at all), they will value the time spent downloading, backing up, and switching cuts in terms of what they could be earning during the same time. Let us consider the following example. Assuming that twelve packages or a comparable CD costs $12. 00, a baby-sitter earning $6 per hour could afford to spend even though two hours of time ripping music to achieve the same value. However , someone with a skilled trade or a degree may be earning $24. 00 or more per hour. Spending more than one half hour at ripping would exceed the worth derived. The counter-argument of the time-cost of travelling to a brick-and-mortar music store gets offset by a persons ability to log-on to Amazon or elsewhere in less than a minute and possibly receive free shipping. The market will constantly change as the primary market demographic ages. It happened with the Baby-Boomers of the 1960s and 1970s therefore will happen with Generation X, Y and Z in the current century. The bottom line of all of this debate rests on the fact that a consumer will choose the mode of deliverable that optimizes his/her bundle of values. The following bundle includes quality and quantity of content, durability, and time-cost effectiveness. These remain the lessons that will music makers and music deliverers must understand to survive. The more things change, the more they continue to be the same. "When I'm drivin' in my car, And that man comes on the radio, He's tellin' me more and more, Approximately some useless information, Supposed to fire my imagination, I can't get no, oh no, no, no . inch -Michael Philip Jagger, British Economist, London School of Economics In conclusion, we recognize that certain values inspire consumers as well as businesses. These values include content, durability, and time cost. It does not matter whether the good and service under consideration exists in the form of real, personal, or intellectual property. The premise remains the same for making favorite songs, building automobiles, teaching economics, and providing legal services.

[vapormaison]

Budget Hi-Fi for Future Funk & Vaporwave: An Introduction

Introduction

I’ve had a couple of readers reach out to me in DMs after the holiday, and both wanted to start consuming vaporwave in reasonably high-fidelity — presumably with some fresh Christmas cash. First off, I want to apologize for converting them to this insane hobby. It will serve as an eternal joy to your ears, but an eternal terror to your finances. With that in mind, they both gave me budgets of around a thousand dollars, American, and I found myself recommending rather identical setups based on their parameters, living space, and general use patterns.

From the outline I gave over those previous DMs, I prepared a three part (potentially five part, if there’s sufficient interest) series of articles serving as a primer to roughly introducing basic principles of hi-fi enjoyment to a novice or neophyte crowd, My hope is that this can double as both a buyer’s guide for the reader, but also as a way to proselytize new fans into these two great hobbies: hi-fi and vaporwave. Here goes:

BASIC PRINCIPLE: Pure Sound, Compression & Loudness

“Pure Sound” is more of a term in vogue with Japanese audiophiles, but I think it’s functional here for what we’re trying to achieve. To understand pure sound, we’ve got to take a look at its antithesis: compressed digital. I want to make a point here of the word compressed because I’m not some boomer or vintage fetishist to the point where I can’t appreciate good sound from a digital source.

But, the way 90% of the world consumes music in the 21st century — in lossy mp3 formats with varyingly low bitrates on mediocre-to-poor head/ear phones is not ideal. Steve Jobs’ decisive victory over physical media with the iPod and iTunes expanded our libraries, but rendered most of that music into poor shadows of its state when originally recorded. The reason why your dad or grandpa are still devoted to their old stereo with a collection of CDs and vinyls is not just because they’re a luddite — primarily, it is because those CDs (up until ’95 or so) and vinyls (since and to forever, essentially) are usually compiled and pressed in the highest resolution possible. 

And before, anyone gets on my case about denigrating about Steve — I love the guy. His taste was excellent, too. Here’s a picture of the man’s Woodville mansion, where his only furnishings are a lamp, his hi-fi and some records. He’s got a handmade-in-Scotland Linn LP12, Acoustat Monitor 3 loudspeaker pair, and a Spectral Statis Amplifier. Absolutely legendary gear. Rest in sonic peace, King.

It was a $30,000 kit in its day, so he spared no expense. While he was selling you poorly compressed music, he was enjoying his audiophile vinyl music (a 1960s recording of Handel is in there, one of the “pure sound” classics in Japan) in the ideal recreative sonic comfort. Be more like Steve. I’ll try to get you there for 1/25th of that price.

What We Need:

To get a good sound system going for your library of vaporwave, there are four things you need at minimum. Today I’m going to just address formats. In the coming weeks I’ll go over the following: playback platforms (turntable, network streamers, etc), amplifiers, and your speakers (in-ear, headphones, or loudspeakers). But what all those are predicated by are a necessity of some kind of musical source — the reason, if you will, that you’re probably intrigued by hi-fi, right? Apart from the aesthetics of most systems, we’re trying to reach a higher echelon of music enjoyment.

Digital Fomats

The short answer here is just .flac files. They are lossless (uncompressed) 16-bit data-hungry kings which pump out much more detail than normal mp3s, which will be extremely important when you get a pair of nice speakers or headphones. I will go into that into more detail in a future article. If you play a crummy mp3 on a pair of nice earphones or loudspeakers, you waste their ability to soundstage — something we will discuss when we get to the speakers article. These lossless lassies also give us the ability to chase after that muse known as “dynamic range”, which is another way we can detect detail in musical compositions.

This kind of stuff matters deeply to both audiophiles and the artists themselves. If you remember the Quincy Jones vs. the Estate of Michael Jackson case, one of the accusations is that the detailed sound-spaces he created were crunched to oblivion in subsequent CD and digital releases of tracks like Thriller and Bad.

Above is a CNET comparison of the vinyl rips of Bad’s original release and a 2017 mp3 release. The top is “good” dynamic range -- you can hear the whole sound arrangement. The bottom is, well, shit.

People will occasionally argue for other digital formats. I don’t consider it a point even worth belaboring, really, as in my own benchmarks and those of many other audiophiles, there’s just no beating FLAC for general purpose listening. Some people will simp for another similar lossless format, ALAC. It’s Apple’s format, and while I’m a huge apple Stan (this is being typed on a 2018 MacBook pro connected to a Apple Thunderbolt display), Apple has effectively abandoned the project since Jobs’s death, primarily because it doesn’t sell, and secondarily because it needs a visionary of Jobs’s caliber to really take it global. Some people will also try to sell you on WAV. Just laugh at them. It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of vaporwave releases offer .flac as a format available for download, and you should be taking that option every single time.

Now, if you’re not a downloader, there are some streaming services that are offering hi-res. Spotify does so, but poorly at the moment. Tidal does a much better service to listeners and creators. I’m a Tidal guy, myself, but just because Tidal was an early adopter of hi-res formats for streamers. The differences in a few years, I think, however, will be negligible, as Spotify has finally started to take audiophiles serious now that its market share has started to stagnate. I’ll be going more into how to optimize your lossless streaming in my article about pre-amplifiers and network streamers, so stay tuned for that.

Analog Formats

I’m going start off by making a controversial statement here: cassettes are not high fidelity.

This is unfortunate, because the vast majority of physical releases for vaporwave are definitely motivated by a sort of 80s nostalgia and I’m sure many of the purchases are also motivated by the false presumption that the cassettes offer better sound quality. While they very well might seem like it in comparison to a youtube upload (although I think Real Love uploads in hi-res audio, not sure about Artzie), they will mostly be wasted on your system unless you’re just looking to pump some bass or annoy your neighbors. Real quality sound will be difficult to extract from these.

Why CDs? Why vinyl? It comes down to the numbers. I’ll explain this in the most lay terms possible, so much so that I’m sure audiophiles will wander onto my socials and demand retractions and corrections.

One of the ways we measure high quality sound is in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). I think this is best expressed as a sustained “pop, & warmth” that you hear when a needle hits a record. With tapes it sounds a little different — I’d liken it to the cracking of unboiled pasta, or the fluttering of plastic in the wind. The lowest quality consumer tapes, the stuff that your parents probably fucked to in the early 90s, are rated at roughly 45-50db of SNR. That’s like 2003-iTunes level of muddy, ugly, sound. CDs are almost double consumer-grade tapes, at around 95db. Vinyls sit at around 70-75db.  

Now, some vinyl-heads will come at me with some takes from the Loudness Wars. Yes, CDs went through a period from roughly 1994-2008 where they were poorly mastered that they bordered on unlistenable. But we’re talking about vaporwave, where the work is contemporary, and the mastering and production lines are boutique. No one at the Aloe Island, DMT FL, or Neoncity is demanding the mastering engineer to compress the sound to make the bass sound punchier for badly designed car audio systems based on bad anecdotal studies from disgraced EMI engineers -- at least that I know of. 

However, I will, just for you, include an obligatory “loudness wars” jpeg that only you will understand. Everyone else, for the purpose of this article, disregard.

Saint Vitus - "Let Them Fall" from "Lillie: F-65" (2012)

Additionally, I know most of you guys like a “little” analog sound in your systems. I do, too. Vinyl’s a warm medium, and I love it for that. It exists in that happy medium between the noisiness of cassette tape and the cold cleanliness of CD. If I ever have to do serious reference listening of classical music or something like that, I have CDs for that. Vinyls are what I listen to for fun.

Concluding Thoughts

My next article — in a few days — will be getting into the weeds with gear, specifically turntables, cassette decks (I know the people want it) and network streamers. I’m hoping that gives interested parties some time to get their records or FLACs on a hard-drive, because that is going to be essential to us even embarking on this journey towards high-fidelity Outer Heaven.

[iphonefmtransmitter]

How to Use the Best FM Transmitter for Android Phones

The Best FM Transmitter for Android Phones

The Gizmo Guy Gadget is the best FM transmitter for Android Phone - a wireless solution to connect new phones to older car factory radio without the trouble and expense of a new Bluetooth compatible radio.

Best FM Transmitter for Android Phone Features:

Crystal Clear with No Interference, even in densely populated Metropolitan Areas.

Plug and Play! No Installation! Connects easily without Bluetooth.

Safe to Use - Allows you to keep your eyes on the road while you listen to your podcasts, music, Siri - turn by turn directions or receive phone calls

Small and Discreet with a rechargeable battery. It will NOT spoil the integrity and aesthetics of your car’s design. No silly goose neck or mushroom thingy awkward positioned to “poke” your passenger.

Works outside of your car - in your home stereo too!

There are hundreds of different FM transmitters available on Ebay and Amazon. There are many brands - like Scosche BTFreq, VicTsing, SoundBot, GOGroove, LDesign, and IMDEN Bluetooth FM transmitters. Each of these come with a mix of positive and negative reviews and recommendations. Despite all the testimonials you might see - most of them DO NOT WORK!

These wireless transmitters failed to find a empty radio station with no static using the same old radio transmission technology made for the cassette player era. Older fm radio transmitters have a low radio emission which is filtered and interfered by the new premium noise filter system, which resulted in poor sound quality

These wireless transmitters failed to find a empty radio station with no static using the same old radio transmission technology made for the cassette player era. Older fm radio transmitters have a low radio emission which is filtered and interfered by the new premium noise filter system, which resulted in poor sound quality.

I discovered this problem when I tried to connect my new iPhone to the older Mercedes Benz I inherited from my Dad. I didn't want to get a new head unit and spoil the aesthetics of the car. The old Benz had no aux connection and the only option was thru the tape player adapter which came with a long irritating wire and sounded horrible!

I tried everything available on Ebay and Amazon; the prices ranged from high to low, everything from the popular Nulaxy bluetooth fm transmitter to other big name FM modulators. Nothing worked to my satisfaction! The consistent problem was the persistence of the static noises. While some were less than others, they all had noticeable static and was unbearable for any kind of acoustic or bass sound.

I tried to mask the static noise by cranking up the volume, but that was not an acceptable solution when you switched from the transmitter back to the car radio. The radio would be so loud, it often scared me and could also damage the car system and speakers!

Through extensive research, I found the problem is NOT the strength of the radio signal, which is regulated by the FCC. Boosting the radio signal would only result in more static and distorted noises.

Frustrated and without options; I decided to make my own Gizmo Guy Gadget as the best FM Transmitter designed specifically for today’s application with iOS and Android smartphones.

I discovered the cause of the static and humming noise problem is with the insulation of the electronic oscillator and its power source. By insulating the power source and isolating the oscillator of the transmitter, I can achieve better and near CD (compact disc) sound without compromising the quality. This allows my Gizmo Guy Gadget to tune in and connect your smartphone just like you would with Bluetooth technology. It allows you to use it as a wireless broadcaster for a media player, satellite radio, or other device in your car as a Bluetooth Alternative.

Simply plug my Gizmo Guy Gadget into your smartphone (or dongle for the newer headphone-less iOS or Google Pixel 3 phones). Set your car radio - you can choose from one of the three fixed frequency 87.9 FM / 94.9 FM/ 102.7 FM. Identify the cleanest channel frequency for your local area and set it on your car's stereo. That is it!

Conclusion: 

Replacing the factory stereo on 1999 - 2009 model year vehicles may be more trouble than it is worth, as they are usually tied to different optioned features such as OnStar, Climate Control and Steering wheel controls to name a few.

Aftermarket stereos are an for invitation to vandalism. The Gizmo Guy Gadget is a non-invasive, inexpensive solution made for pre-Bluetooth era luxury vehicles. It will allow you to keep your cars’ aesthetics and give your sound system a new life. You can play iTune Music, Pandora, Podcast and make hands-free calls using your car’s speaker system. It works with any iOS and Android phones with no Bluetooth. This wireless radio transmitter is an unique gadget that brings modern day technology from your smartphone thru your car stock radio without Aux.

Check out How to Use the Best FM Transmitter for Android Phones by Gizmo Guy Gadget on Snapguide.

https://snapguide.com/guides/use-the-best-fm-trans...

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