download a song

[dcphipps]

I am pretty new at this, i am working on a Holloween lights, I want to use Purple people eater song and can't get it downloaded, I have it on CD, in my computer, also from I tunes and it will not work.

Any Ideas

[jimswinder]

I am pretty new at this, i am working on a Holloween lights, I want to use Purple people eater song and can't get it downloaded, I have it on CD, in my computer, also from I tunes and it will not work.

Any Ideas

Do you mean to get it into a sequence?

Are you going to File>New>New Musical File Sequence...then a window should pop up and it should be the Light>Audio folder. THis is where you want to put your audio files.

If you are doing this and the sequence is not able to opern thefolder, then more than liely it is ina format theat the Sequence Editore does not recognize...more than likely an iTiunes format.

You can use iTunes to convert the iTune files to an MP3 or WAV file, which is recongized by the editor.

[Orville]

When ripping from a CD, make sure you have it set to 128kbps {although I use 192kbps myself} and UNCHECK VBR, the MP3 needs to be in CBR format or it can screw the timing in the sequencer on playback. Most often there is an option to select how you want to rip a CD in the Windows Media Player {if that's what you use}, there are other CD Rippers out there and most allow you to rip the CD with an assortment of options, I use the 192k old standard option when available.

Here's how I have my RIP tab{options} set up in WMP v.11:

Rip Music to this location: C:\LOR\Audio\192k\Ripped CDs {Directory where you want the CD ripped too}

Filename {button options}: [x] Track Number [x] Song Title

Rip Settings: Mp3 {Wav Lossless could be selected if using WAV files}

[x] Eject CD when ripping is completed {this is optional, but I use this to let me know the complete CD has been ripped by opening the CD/DVD player/recorder door, especially if I am doing something else and not really watching it.}

Audio Quality {Slider}: I use 192k, which uses about 86 MB per CD, 128k uses about 57MB per CD. {I use 192k because to me it sounds better, I've had issues with 128k not having a decent audio sound quality.

And make sure YOU DO NOT have the "Copy protect music" option checked, although this is only supposed to only work and be available if ripping to Windows Media Audio {WMA} format is selected. But if this would happen to somehow be checked, it could possibly and will disable the file from playing without downloading music usage rights, which are also "limited" to a certain number of times the file can be played before it will no longer work/play, I was playing around with this option a while back, and it somehow stayed checked under the Mp3 option {it should not have, but Windows sometimes has a mind of its own!}, it would not allow the file to be played after a while, it just disabled it, nor would it allow it to be played on other computers without downloading the "usage rights" for it every time it played, and these "usage rights" can only be downloaded a certain number of times, once it expires or won't download those rights any longer, the music file is worthless.

So even on downloading any song you may buy from a website like itunes, CDBaby or others, makes sure that if they offer a "copy protect" option to the music file{s} you're downloading are UNCHECKED, or eventually that song you bought won't work.

And if you use either the DC-MP3 Showtime Director or Mini Director unit these "copy protected music files" won't work because these MP3 player/director units can't download the music usage rights for the music, so without that "playing right", these units won't even play any music that is copy protected.

And even if the director units could, if the song is played multiple times a night, the usage rights could expire long before your show would end for the season, leaving you with a dead sequence in the show, which could do one of two things:

#1. stop the show at the music file that no longer works and hang the show or

#2, if you're lucky will just ignore the file and skip to the next sequence/music file in your show.

Unfortunately, it is usually always #1 that happens, or has been my experience with music files that had somehow had been, or gotten "protected".

And even running tests from my desktop, once those rights had been downloaded enough times and had expired so that the music would no longer play, #1 is still what usually happened from the desktop. Then I would have to remove that sequence and "protected" music file from the show file and recreate a new show excluding it.

Just some things to watch for when ripping CD's or even downloading MP3 files to your computer, and how I use WMP 11 to rip my CD's.

Good Luck!