Squiddy's Guide to Mp3s

[squiddy22]

Squiddy's Guide to Mp3s

Hi, I'm squiddy22. There are some people don't know about mp3s very much. Sure, they have music on their userpage that they retrieved a code for off a website, but this guide shows how to do all of that yourself, as well as explaining an easy way to understand mp3s.

Q. What is an mp3?

A. Mp3 (MPEG audio Layer 3) is a commonly used lossy compression audio format, which main purpose is to greatly reduce the number of Bytes (file size) of a music file without hurting its quality. You can find mp3s on the web in many places.

Q. What does the quality have to do with anything?

A. Quality is how good the music sounds. It is measured in bit rate, in kbps (kilobits per second). The higher the bit rate, the better the quality, but 128 kbps is enough for most mp3s. Also, the higher the bit rate, the bigger the file size. Mp3s can have up to 320 kbps at the max. If the quality doesn't matter to you that much, then that's fine.

Q. How are mp3s compressed?

A. This is pretty cool. When mp3s are compressed, a complex algorithm is used to take out sounds that cannot be heard by the human ear. Basically, certain parts of the song can be taken out without hurting the quality of the song. When you convert something to an mp3, it can turn out to be about 10 times smaller than it was before. Lets say a WAV file for a song is 56 MB (Megabytes), so we compress it as an mp3 at 128 kbps, and it turns out to be only about 5 Megabytes, without affecting the quality. Here's a chart for file sizes:

• 1,000 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte
• 1,000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
• 1,000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte

Q. Are there any cool programs out there for mp3s?

A. Oh, yes there are. There are some good "ripping" programs out there. If you're wondering what "ripping" is, ripping is pretty much copying a song off of a CD onto your computer. I have this awesome program called FreeRIP. It's a free program that can rip music, convert wavs to mp3s, convert mp3s to wavs, decrease the quality of mp3s, and, well, that's all I can think of. It's pretty cool, you get the idea. If you would like to download or get more information on FreeRIP, just search for it on Google.

Q. How do I get a song I have on a CD onto my computer?

A. Well, first, you can always try FreeRIP. Again, just search for it on Google and I bet it's website will be the first choice on the list. Once you download it, it's not hard to figure out. You can also just pm me. Remember, you don't always have to do it this way.

You can also rip music with Windows Media Player 10 or later, but can only rip at 128 kbps or higher. If you don't have WMP 10 or later, go to the HELP tab at the top, select 'Check for Updates...' and follow the given instructions. Lets move on to ripping music. First, make sure you have the CD that has the music you want to rip in the CD drive of your computer. Then, go to the TOOLS tab at the top and select OPTIONS. Then, a new window will pop up. In this new window, go to the RIP MUSIC tab and under RIP SETTINGS and make sure it's set to MP3. Then, go click the RIP tab near the top of the WMP window, and select the song(s) you want to rip. There will be a little checkbox next to each track, so just click the checkbox(es) next to the song title(s) of the song(s) you want to rip. After doing all that, click START RIP. If you want to pick the location for your ripped music to appear, just go to the TOOLS tab at the top, and select OPTIONS. Then, go to the RIP MUSIC tab, click the BROWSE button and choose a location for your ripped music to appear, and then of course click OK. Otherwise, your ripped music will appear in the 'My Music' folder. It would be best to look at the pictures below, since they contain the specific information.

Here are some pictures with more information:


^ Click to enlarge ^

When you rip music with WMP, there might be some flaws that could come with your ripped music. Here is more information about that:

Originally Posted by The Microsoft Website

Variables such as the type of CD you are trying to rip and the speed of your CD drive can affect the quality of the ripped file. Although you are ripping digital information from a CD, you may not get an exact copy. For example, you may notice some minor flaws when playing ripped files, such as faint scratches or pops in the audio. This is normal and is caused by the method your CD drive uses to read information from the CD.

Q. How do I get an mp3 I have on my computer or CD onto my userpage?

A. First, you need to make sure that you have the correct program for ripping music. As I mentioned above, a good program would be FreeRIP. You can still use Windows Media Player if you're willing to accept the risk I mentioned above. Once you have the mp3 you want, you need to upload your mp3 to a hosting site. You can pm me for a link to one of those. After you upload it, it should give you a link to the music. Specifically, a link that after clicking on it, opens up your default video/audio player (usually Windows Media Player) and plays the song. If it gives you a link like that, just copy and paste the link in-between the quotes in one of the codes below. Make sure the link ends with '.mp3'.

*IMPORTANT* It is very important you do not name your files with improper characters. The only characters you can use in a file namre are:

• Any letter in the alphabet
• Any number
• These symbols _ (What I call "Space underlines". Made by holding down SHIFT while pressing the first key on the right of the 0 key on the keyboard)
• These symbols - (Dashes. Made by pressing the pressing the first key on the right of the 0 key on the keyboard)

This is because the internet has rules for protocols, meaning transferring things across the internet, because the internet can't understand improper characters like spaces.

To copy the link, highlight it by clicking where the link starts, holding down, dragging your mouse over to where the link ends, and letting go of the mouse. Double clicking on the link sometimes works too. Then, press and hold down the CTRL key while pressing C on the keyboard. You can also right-click the highlighted link and select COPY. You do the exact same thing with pasting, except you hold down the CTRL key while pressing V instead, or, like I just mentioned, right-click and select PASTE. Now, here are the codes for userpage music:

Just click a part of the code at least 3 times to highlight the whole code, and remember, the music link goes in-between the quotes.

Basic code:

<EMBED SRC="Music link here" HEIGHT=25 WIDTH=300 AUTOSTART=FALSE>

If you want it to start automatically (autostart) or play over and over (loop), use one of the codes below:

Code with autostart only:

<EMBED SRC="Music link here" HEIGHT=25 WIDTH=300 AUTOSTART=TRUE>

Code with autostart and loop:

<EMBED SRC="Music link here" HEIGHT=25 WIDTH=300 LOOP=TRUE AUTOSTART=TRUE>

All of the codes above will create a control box wherever you placed the code that contains the usual play, and stop button, along with a volume bar. If you would like to have music playing but no control box, use one of the codes below:

Basic code with no control box:

<EMBED SRC="Music link here" HEIGHT=25 WIDTH=300 AUTOSTART=FALSE HIDDEN=TRUE>

Code with autostart and no control box:

<EMBED SRC="Music link here" HEIGHT=25 WIDTH=300 AUTOSTART=TRUE HIDDEN=TRUE>

Code with autostart, loop, and no control box:

<EMBED SRC="Music link here" HEIGHT=25 WIDTH=300 LOOP=TRUE AUTOSTART=TRUE HIDDEN=TRUE>

...and there you have it, what you need to know about mp3s! If there's anything that I need to add, please tell me, or, if I've noticed it myself, I will see to it as soon as I can.