A Useful Converter

As you know, we can choose many audio, video and picture formats out there. In audio world, they are providing MP3, OGG, AAC and so on. In picture world, you can choose between JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF and so on. In video world, you can meet with MPEG 1, MPEG 2, MPEG 4, FLV and still so many more. This is a good news but on other hand, we can get headache to choose them. But on my daily practice, I prefer to choose just one format as my favorite format. Because, usually if I choose another format I must download its decoder or download its own player and I don’t like it.
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Getting CD Track Names With iTunes

I have big collection of CDs enough. And after MP3 format is so popular, I want to convert them all into MP3 format. So, I can bring them in my MP3 player. Usually, I use iTunes as my converter application to do that job. Because I have 200 CDs collection, to type their track name is a hard job and waste my time.
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Create Grand Piano Sound From A Cheap Keyboard

Do you know that you can make your keyboard to have the Grand Piano sound? With Soundfont technology you may have whatever sound you want, including Grand Piano. You can find the grand piano soundfont sampler on internet, just typing soundfont piano on your search engine you will find so many results on it, from free until pricey. I have been found my favorite grand piano sound from Studio AX. And I will show you how to use it.
The tools that you need are:
a. Midi Cable (USB or Joystick port).

b. Soundfont Player software (you can search it on the internet, I am using Soundfont Player v1.0 from soundfont.com)
c. PC with Sound Blaster sound card (or has Soundfont compatible). I am using sound card Sound Blaster Audigy. Because Creative Labs is creator of Sound font technology, sound card which supported Sound font is Creative Labs made.
d. Grand Piano soundfont.
e. At last, your music keyboard.

Now, follow these steps:
1. Connect your cable MIDI to your computer, because I am using Joystick port MIDI cable so I connect it to my joystick port).

2. Connect the other side your cable MIDI to your MIDI keyboard port, plug MIDI OUT port to MIDI IN keyboard port and plug MIDI IN port to MIDI OUT keyboard.

3. Open your SoundFont Player software.

4. And then click File – Open menu

and locate it to your grand piano soundfont file.

5. When the file is loaded, your soundfont banks will shown in soundfont player software and each bank represents a sound.

6. To play it, don’t forget check your MIDI port settings first. Make sure you’ve set MIDI IN and OUT device properly. Every soundfont player will provide a dialog to set them. Usually, you need to refer its ports to your sound card device.

7. After all MIDI ports are refer to right device, try to click your a bank to test your settings. If you press a key on your keyboard then you hear a tone, it means your settings on its track. But if you get an error message, usually you don’t have bigger enough cache memory. It means you need to adjust SoundFont cache in your Sound Blaster configuration.

8. To adjust it, just open SoundFont Bank Manager program (that program is included at Sound Blaster Audigy package).

9. On SoundFond Bank Manager, click MIDI Devices button.

10. On Options dialog, slide the slider which below SoundFont Cache label to right to adjust your SoundFont cache to bigger size and then click OK when you’re finished.

11. Switch to SoundFont player, and then try to press a key on your keyboard, if you hear a tone, it means your cache setting is enough. But if it doesn’t try to re-adjust your SoundFont Cache until you don’t get an error message anymore.

12. And if you want to make to adjust the MIDI sound be louder, just double click the speaker icon on systray and then slide the slider which has label MIDI Synth to upper.

Remember, I tried it on Sound Blaster Audigy product, if you’re using other series, maybe you’ll faced with different interface but at least you already know its concept.
(article no:0048)