Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[tom poe <tompoe AT amihost.com>]

Well, it takes time, effort, and patience. For me, anyway.

I have a PIII PC with 20Gb hard drive.  I don't have Windows on the
machine.  I have Linux, with the Redhat 8.0 distribution.  It is hooked
to the internet.  The sound card is what is called, emu10k, or lower end
sound card.  I forget what the video is, but certainly not an expensive
card.  Total cost if you buy one of these, about $400.  Monitor is
extra.  Speakers are cheapest, so good speakers cost extra.  Microphone
is cheapest.  So, add a good quality microphone costs extra.  Still way
under $1,000.

What did I get for my personal $600 investment?  Well, here's what I
did.  I went to Stanford University on the Internet.  I decided to work
with them, as the RH 8.0 install was straightforward, and closest to
what folks experience when they install Windows.  The Stanford project,
CCRMA, guides me through installation of audio and video software, and
optimizing my distribution for music and movie-making.

With the first few steps, I was able to reconfigure my kernel/OS so that
I could get the most out of listening and recording music.  For example,
I shut off the CDROM automatic detector.  This single step prevents the
computer from listening and checking to see if there's a CD in the
tray.  When I listen to music, the music gets interrupted when this
happens, and it comes across as a "skip" or "glitch".

Now that the kernel/OS is optimized, I can then download off my slow 56k
modem, the playlists submitted to SONG STORM.  I put the mp3's in a
directory of their own.  In a terminal, I change directories until I am
in the directory containing the mp3 files.  I type: mpg123 *.mp3 and the
mp3 player plays all of the songs in the directory.

The next improvement will be to take all the songs in the directory,
adjust the balance for the songs, so that all songs are optimized for a
single volume, balance, tone, etc. quality.  I'll let you know when I
learn how to do that.

Note, that with a slow modem, it is difficult to listen from the site of
the song file, directly.  It just makes sense to consider having a hard
drive that is as large as can be afforded.

Note, that with such a setup, a single click will update all audio
software or video software.  That means there is no lower, or more
efficient cost of ownership for this computer, anywhere.  Problems come
up, but there's help and support from a variety of support resources,
including Open Studios, CCRMA mail list, local Users' Groups for Linux,
Perl, PHP, MySQL, etc.  Plus, each software application has its own
mailing list support system.

I am most fortunate, in having more than one computer, as I can now
eliminate the radio, and use the songs from independent artists on my
home entertainment system.  What do you think?
Tom