Complete Idiot's Guide to MP3: Music on the Internet
InThe Complete Idiot's Guide to MP3 Music on the Internet, you get the full scoop on MP3 tunes. Covered topics include MP3 player software, portable MP3 hardware, ripping CD tracks, digitizing tapes and records, and publishing your music online. There's also some information on copyright as it applies to MP3 files and a guide to Internet sites that publish MP3--material that's useful for musicians as well as listeners.The book begins by showing you why MP3 is one of the best digital music formats. For one thing, most MP3 encoded music is legally free of charge. And because it's completely digital, an MP3 file loaded into a handheld player won't skip while you exercise the way CDs can. On the software side, the book focuses on playing MP3s with Winamp. It also covers Virtuosa Gold and MusicMatch Jukebox forripping, i.e., encoding music files into the MP3 format.The book devotes more space to theDiamond Rio PMP300than any other piece of MP3 hardware, but it does an evenhanded job of exploring the other MP3 players available. Perhaps more importantly, the book explains little hardware hacks, such as using a cassette-deck adapter to connect your MP3 device to your car stereo (though it might also have included information on connecting a PC's sound card to a home stereo). About a third of this book is a directory of musicians who have given permission for their MP3 music to appear on the book's companion CD-ROM.--David Wall