Product Description

You've recently found the Stratocaster you had for your garage band in high school. Uncle Jed's banjo and strumming talent have been passed down to you. Puberty has ended, and your once-shrill voice has turned into an angelic, swooning lullaby-maker that you want the world to hear. Or maybe you've just been unsuccessful at getting your tape heard by recording executives who can't even tap along with chopsticks. Get even. Get heard. Get electronic. Get The Complete Idiot's Guide to MP3: Music on the Internet. This light-hearted guide not only shows you the best way to listen to countless artists and their tunes on the Internet, but also reveals the best ways to get your own opus on the market.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1048738 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-15
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 294 pages

Amazon.com Review
In The 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 for ripping, i.e., encoding music files into the MP3 format.

The book devotes more space to the Diamond Rio PMP300 than 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

From Library Journal
Today, you can never have enough books on MP3, the revolutionary digital technology that enables users to download music files from the Internet (free of charge) and store them on a computer disk. With more people creating their own personal music CDs, using MP3, this is a very hot area. Underhill and Gertler cover all the bases, including the legal issues. Buy multiple copies.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover
You've recently found the Stratocaster you had for your garage band in high school. Uncle Jed's banjo and strumming talent have been passed down to you. Puberty has ended, and your once-shrill voice has turned into an angelic, swooning lullaby-maker that you want the world to hear. Or maybe you've just been unsuccessful at getting your tape heard by recording executives who can't even tap along with chopsticks. Get even. Get heard. Get electronic. Get The Complete Idiot's Guide to MP3: Music on the Internet. This light-hearted guide not only shows you the best way to listen to countless artists and their tunes on the Internet, but also reveals the best ways to get your own opus on the market.

Customer Reviews

Become A Revolutionary
For most, the term "revolutionary" conjures up an image of a slightly portly man, wearing fatigues, and chomping on a (you guessed it!) Cuban cigar. Not so. At least not in the digital age. There is a revolution under foot, and its called the MP3 revolution, and there is a book out now you might call "the bible of MP3 music". "The Complete Idiot's Guide to MP3: Music on the Internet" is a comprehensive book that does not overload the reader with unnecessary technicalities (although it points the reader in the right direction if s/he were so inclined) and should be a very useful resource for those music artists who are now thinking about getting into the MP3 game. What knowledge I have learned in driblets here and there throughout the last year and beyond is all collected within this book. It seems there is very little one needs to know in order to get involved in the MP3 revolution (you don't even have to risk your life for THIS cause), which should come as a relief to those music artists who are otherwise occupied with perhaps weightier causes (like the "rent" cause).

The book is heavily biased (and justifiably so) toward MP3.com; this should come as no surprise as Rod Underhill, one of the authors, is the Director of Music for MP3.com. MP3 and MP3.com are changing the way people are accessing music, and it may give music artists more leverage, and hence more financial returns, in the future.

I enjoyed the MP3 selections included on the compilation CD provided with the book, particularly the selection, "I Will Love You", by Fishe. I am also pleased to say that one of my own compositions, "Elegy: Adagio for Strings", was chosen to be included amongst the works of the 70 or so talented international MP3 musicians and composers.

I enjoyed the book very much; it was useful, informative, and it read well (and quickly). If you haven't yet gotten involved in the MP3 revolution, buy the book: it can help you understand the revolution, why it happened, and it will show you how you too can become one of the MP3 revolutionaries. Enjoy!

Good "nuts and bolts" look at MP3's
This book offers a kind of "bare bones" look at the MP3 phenomenon, starting off with chapters on what exactly MP3's are, and "A Compressed History" of MP3's. There are also chapters on finding and downloading MP3's, the software you can find to play them, chapters on making your own MP3's (hence the terms "ripping," digitizing, and "sound squishing"). There's good advice if you are a musician on marking MP3's, "marketing" them and where to post them to publicize your work.

Also too, there's a long section on MP3's and the law, what's legal and what isn't about them. The author makes a good case for why "pirating" MP3's are not a good idea, but points out the music industry isn't making any attempt to hold down prices for music to the consumers, hence the popularity in downloading MP3's off the 'Net. There's also a glossary of terms in the back of the book, a reference card in the book's front listing MP3 reference sites, MP3 software sites, and sources for MP3 recordings.

This book although now a bit dated offers a good introductory look at MP3's.

Worth the 20 bucks, for sure. But don't stop here!
[...] This book is written by TWO authors: Rod Underhill of MP3.com, and Nat Gertler (who has written many other Complete Idiot's Guide and computer books). They each have their own slant. The book is DEFINITELY a big plug for MP3.com as an internet entity on the world wide web for online music (...). ... There is a lot of information in the book about MP3s in general as well as MP3.com - the company - in particular. So, in this case, it's a cool plug. There is also a good deal of REPETITION in the book. For instance, what it says in the "ROD SPEAKS" box on page 160 about LYCOS falling into Copyright Trouble is almost EXACTLY stated in slightly different wording on page 172 in the "JAM ON THIS" box where the heading is called: "Lycos Moves into Tricky Waters."

... The authors also have included a humorous and healthy dose of democratic debate between each other as is evident on page 170 in the "NAT SPEAKS" box called: "THE ACT STINKS" where Nat Gertler CORRECTLY, I believe, clarifies the corporate unfairness of the 1992 AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT of favoring big corporate interests over the consumer. Nat says: "My beloved co-author Rod, who wrote most of this chapter, isn't nasty enough towards the Audio Home Recording Act. This new tax (signed into law by Mr. "No New Taxes" himself, George Bush) has ugly causes and ugly effects: ... New taxes, weaker copyright, crippled and expensive technology, all in the name of funding international multimedia conglomerates. This act is a loser all around." ... BRAHVO, Nat! ... Spoken like a true Sociologist! ... YOWZA! - The Aeolian Kid