Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Burn Baby, Burn
Confused by the age of digital music and MP3? Iain Laskey has just the book for you.
| Product | Burn Baby, Burn |
|---|---|
| Company | Peachpit Press |
| Web | www.peachpit.com |
| Price | From £14.99 |
| We like | Covers all the basis in a clear, easy to read style |
| We don't like | Questionable ethics in places |
| Rating | 8/10 |
| Requirements |
One of the big shifts in behaviour in recent years is the way we listen to music. Music used to be something you only listened to at home or at a gig. Vinyl ruled the roost and albums were something you played end to end without interruption.
Then something happened.
The combination of CD, computers, MP3 and the Internet has radically changed the way we source, store and listen to music. The success of the Apple iPod and its ilk show how many people want to listen to music on the move and using playlists they chose, not whatever the current album happened to contain. Whether you favour MP3 players or CD or even your PC, you'll need to know how to work with music, modern style.
The range of tools and technologies that can now be used to provide our music is rather bewildering. Happily, Burn Baby, Burn aims to demystify it all and provide a thorough grounding in everything you need to know.
The book starts with the basics and shows you how to copy CDs to MP3 format (and back). The book is fairly technology agnostic and examples include both Apple Mac and PC based solutions. Linux users may be disappointed though. It also covers CD and DVD burners, the different types of blank media and how to connect turntables, tape decks and the like to your PC or Mac.
Subsequent chapters cover useful stuff such as how to capture Internet Radio broadcasts using Total Recorder, how to copy music from cassette tape and vinyl and the quickest way to subsequently tidy up the results. These sections are particularly useful if you want the best results. The book shows you in a step by step fashion how to remove tape hiss, get rid of crackles and pops from vinyl and provides tips on other filtering and equalisation techniques.
Burn Baby, Burn finishes off with information on polishing the final compilations and burning them to CD. Unusually, the book also includes information on creating Enhanced CDs which play normally on CD players but on a PC can display additional files, movie clips and so on.
The book provides a lot of genuinely useful information and is an extremely easy and quick read. Most of the time it glosses over the more technical issues but things you do need to understand are explained in very simple terms. Overall it's a fine read.
What we did struggle with was some of the authors more personal viewpoints that kept creeping in. They make it pretty clear they see sharing MP3s and other copyright media as a Good Thing and try to argue the merit of this view by saying it only hurts nasty corporations - after all, the band got paid with an advance. I suspect the publishers got a bit nervous as they do include their own disclaimer saying that despite what the book says, it really is very, very naughty. One thing I did have some sympathy for was the view that a lot of audio on vinyl and even cylinder may be lost forever if someone doesn't start archiving it.
There are also several drug references and discussions on how to beat the law makers at their own game when someone knocks on your door to complain about the volume you're playing your music at.
Ethics apart, this is a highly recommended book for anyone with an interest in music and working with it in the digital domain.
