The Revolution in Digital Music -- You Can Take It with You

There are more technically detailed definitions, but all you need to know about the term “digital music” is that it refers to music that can be stored, transmitted and copied without degradation, as opposed to analog music, which will degrade with each copy.

As few as five years ago, the music industry was still planning a future based on music that was pre-packaged onto shiny silver discs. They were not paying attention to new technologies that allowed anyone to “rip” and “burn,” or to the rapid spread of “peer-to-peer” (P2P) software that allowed people to share entire libraries of music over computer networks. Now, with the proliferation of the Apple® iPod® and other personal storage devices, the digital revolution in music is in full swing and the music industry is scrambling to keep up with it.

Why digital?

The reasons behind the move to digital music are obvious and fairly straightforward:

• Convenience —CDs take up storage space and have to be organized in some fashion if you want to access your favorite tunes. Digital music lets you easily store literally thousands of songs on your computer's hard drive or in a small personal device, and individual songs are accessible at the click of a mouse or turn of a wheel. Plus, the new personal storage devices are compact and fit readily into a shirt pocket or small purse.
• Economy —CDs require you to buy the entire disc to listen to a single song. You can download individual songs and play them over and over again without paying for songs you don't want.
• Choice —CDs limit you to a particular selection of songs. With digital, not only can you choose the music you want to store, but you can arrange it and rearrange it in any order you choose. Digital allows you to create play lists based on virtually any criteria you select. Want to bundle a group of songs by pop-punk groups whose names begin with J and download it to a CD? It's easy. Digital is all about choice and, as the amount of legally available music increases, your choices will grow.

Compression provides flexibility

One of the driving forces behind the digital revolution is the ability to compress music through a variety of software algorithms. The best known of these algorithms is called MP3®, which stands for MPEG -1 Audio Layer-3 (MPEG stands for Motion Picture Experts Group). MP3 allows you to compress a song by a ratio of 10:1 without losing significant quality when listening to the song. MP3 quickly became the de facto standard for most applications, but there are plenty of challengers, which we'll talk about later.

Compression offers you several advantages. First, you can store a lot more music, up to 10 times as much, in the same space. Second, you can download it much faster. WAV (short for waveform audio format) files, for example, are extremely high quality but they are not compressed, meaning they take up large amounts of storage space and are slow to download.

Creating your digital library

Want to build your own digital music library? It's easy. You can download from any of the growing number of legal sites on the Internet or you can rip songs from CDs.

Downloading

The original P2P networks, like Napster®, Grokster® and Kazaa® allowed people to share the music on their hard drives with anyone who possessed the requisite software, which could be downloaded from the Web. Not only did you have access to thousands of titles, but it was all free. There was only one hitch; this practice appeared to violate copyright laws, not to mention that it threatened the entire structure of the music industry.

Various court cases, culminating with MGM Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. , 2005 U.S. Lexis 5212 (2005), determined that the P2P model based on unlimited file sharing was illegal. Even before, the Grokster case, a number of pay per download sites became available, including a legal Napster site. In addition there are still many sites that offer free downloads through the cooperation of participating artists.

Some of the more popular sites include: www.napster.com , www.music.download.com , www.mp3.com , www.MyKazaGold.com , and many others. However, the commercial download sites are dominated by Apple's iTunes®, http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ , and Sony's Music Store, http://www.sonymusicstore.com/store/ , both of which are tied to specific products.

Ripping from a CD

It's important to remember that CDs contain audio files that are actually in a digital format. Ripping is simply the process of copying the files from a CD to your PC and, in the process, converting them to a more useable format, usually MP3. Virtually all PCs now come with CD-ROM drives that can be used to extract songs from a CD, copy them to your PC and convert them to MP3 format. CD-ROM drives are rated by the speed at which they can rip. For example, a drive that can rip at a speed of 12x can copy and convert the contents of a 70 minute CD in about 10 minutes.

Managing digital music

In addition to CD-ROM drives that can rip music, most new PCs also have software programs that can be used to manage your music files, including ripping files, arranging your stored files and burning them to PCs. There are several well-known programs, including RealPlayer® from RealNetworks®, Microsoft's Media Player and Winamp®. Hewlett Packard loads it's own proprietary program on its machines, as well as Windows® Media Player. Other programs may be downloaded for free from the Web.

All these programs allow you to convert files to various audio formats, create music libraries on your PC based on your own criteria, play songs, watch movies, etc., and burn CDs. Each has its features that make them more attractive to specific users. You might want to try several of them to find the one with the features that best fit your needs.

Burning CDs

As the name implies, a CD burner uses a laser to burn information onto a disc. Again, CD burners are fairly standard on all new PCs. Once you have a burner, you need software that will allow you to use the burner. Both RealPlayer and Windows Media Player enable you to burn CDs, or you might want to consider a separate program that is designed specifically for this use, such as Ahead's “Nero Burning Rom” or Roxio “Easy Media Creator®.”

A standard CD can hold up to 650 megabytes, which translates to about 70-75 minutes of music in MP3 format. Blank CDs come in CD-Rs (readable) and CD-RW (read-write). CD-RW discs cost a little more, but you can record on them, erase them and re-record as often as you like. Be careful though, because CD-RW discs will NOT work in a standard CD player. Most of the programs that enable you to burn CDs also allow you to create your own labels.

Listening to digital music

There are lots of ways to listen to the music you download or rip from CDs, but you're most likely to use one of three:

Using your PC as a media center

With hard drive capacities routinely exceeding 200 gigabytes plus, it makes sense to use your PC as the basis for listening to and storing music. High quality speaker systems are now available for very reasonable prices and you can always plug in headphones if don't want to bother anyone else.

Portable disc players

Regardless of whether or not you listen to music on your PC, you're likely to create your own discs in MP3 format. If you do, there are a variety of portable players that give you the ability to listen to your music wherever you are, from the library to an airplane. Just use the headphones, make sure you have some back-up batteries, and you're ready to listen. If you do buy a disc player, make sure that it's MP3 compatible.

Portable MP3 players

Apple started this class of listening devices with its wildly popular iPod series. Portable MP3 players allow you to download music directly to the player and store it on the device without having to use a disc. This offers several advantages over a disc player. First, you can store a lot of songs on one of these devices, as many as 1,000 songs on the 4-gigabyte iPod, which weighs about three and a half ounces. Second, you have lots of choices for organizing and listening to your music. Third, there is a lot of legal music available from the Web for a reasonable price. Fourth, the devices are both lightweight and small enough to be carried easily. And finally, the quality of sound through the bundled headphone is generally quite high.

For the most part, these players will allow you to convert music on a CD into MP3 format and transfer it to the device using a computer and software supplied with the device. In a brilliant display of marketing savvy, Apple created it's own proprietary Web site, called iTunes, that allows users to quickly and easily download songs directly to their iPod for a fairly low charge per song.

Sony has followed suit with its own line of portable devices and its online Music Store that functions in the same fashion as the iPod and iTunes. The Sony offers some excellent features, including a longer battery life than the iPods, however, Sony chose to go with its own proprietary compression program called ATRAC3. This means that MP3 files must be converted into ATRAC before they will be accepted by Sony devices. Think of it as a replay of the Beta/VHS wars in video recorders.

The good news is that we've come a long way from the days of stationary hi-fi equipment and vinyl LPs. The choice of options is yours, and never before have there been so many choices.