If you can hear it, you can record it.

MP3MyMP3 is a free application that will allow you to record to an mp3 file any sound that comes out of your speakers. Useful when converting DRM files to MP3 or capturing streaming audio off the web.

For Digital Music Collectors, MP3 is King.

Yes.  For any digital music collection, the mp3 format is still the best.  With any DRM you choose (iTunes, MSN, for example), your music will always be slaved to a company’s proprietary format.  If you happen to be on an internet-less computer, your files may not even play.

So your best bet for a collection is to tranform all your DRM files into the Mp3 format (or any other DRM-less format, for that matter).  Another option is to buy CDs and convert them to MP3’s.  Thankfully, there are companies out there that believe that selling DRM-free music is the way to go, amazon.com will start offering DRM-free music later this year, iTunes will offer EMI’s music free of any DRM, and let’s not forget emusic.com (a DRM only music store).

Defining a Standard Music Genre Tree.

A quick Google search for “Music Genre Tree” does not provide immediate results to give me an indication that there is much work being done in defining a standard music genre tree. The following statement, found in wikipedia, makes a good point regarding the difficulty to create such a tree:

“These classifications are often arbitrary and controversial, and closely related styles often overlap. Many do not believe that generic classification of musical styles is possible in any logically consistent way, and also argue that doing so sets limitations and boundaries that hinder the development of music.”

While I agree with the above statement, I still believe that an argument can be made for the necessity of genre trees. In fact, many music sites have created their own genre trees. Having a standard will allow sites and/or software programs to be more compatible when “speaking” to each other.

To demonstrate that creating such a tree will not be a trivial task, I have taken all the sub-genres listed under hip-hop for three popular music sites:

Live365.com

• Alternative Rap
• Dirty South
• East Coast Rap
• Freestyle
• Gangsta Rap
• Old School
• Turntablism
• Underground Hip-Hop
• West Coast Rap

MSN Music:

• Alternative/Underground Hip-Hop
• Classic/Old School Hip-Hop
• East Coast Rap
• Hardcore/Reality Rap
• International Rap
• Latin Rap
• Pop/Crossover Rap
• Southern Rap
• Various
• West Coast Rap

Amazon.com

• Bass
• Christian Rap
• East Coast
• Experimental Rap
• Gangsta & Hardcore
• International Rap
• Latin Rap
• Old School
• Pop Rap
• Rap Rock
• Southern Rap
• West Coast

From this small sample of sites we see common patterns, Dirty South, East Coast, Old School were all present on all three sites. However, we also see vast differences: there are hip-hop sub-genres that only appear on one site (ie. Turntablism, Rap Rock, Christian Rap, and Freestyle). Other arguing points would be to place Latin Rap under the international sub-genre. Furthermore, one can make the case that the international category should not exist – if an international sub-genre exists this means that the root level is reserved for one particular nation, defeating the purpose of ‘Standard’. We quickly realize from this sample the complexity in creating a standard genre tree. At the very least, we should start discussing these points and strive for a standard.

The road map for creating such a tree would be to compile the existing genre trees from the top music sites and extract the common patterns.   From these common patters, or genre leaves, we can create the Standard Music Genre Tree version 1.0.  Next, we end up with the inconsistencies between sites and start discussing what genres should, or should not, be included and where these genre leaves/nodes should be located in the tree.

I’ll log my progress regarding this genre tree on this blog.

update May 02, 2009: I have setup a site for the standard music genre tree project: http://www.musicgenretree.com

an introduction…

This will be a blog covering specifically digital music file collections. The topics that will be covered here include: building, managing, and enjoying your music collection. For instance:

• I will cover different methods to fix your collection (adding tags, cropping audio files, or removing duplicates).
• I will also cover software and web sites to help you manage your music collection.
• Music genres is also a subject in which I will be writing.  Music genre is a big topic when dealing with music collections because we must map digital music files to one, or more, genres.
• I will touch on the problems when tagging music files.  For example, songs with several artists, such as mashups.  Or songs with several versions (ie, live, remix, acoustic).

I started my digital music collection around the late 90’s when mp3’s became popular, about two years before the term mp3 became a household name with the help of Napster. My collection now stands at around 80GB. I do not restrict my collection to one particular genre. My collection spans from hip-hop to classic rock, from drum and bass to alternative, from swing to r and b, and everything in between.

The goal is to have a perfect music collection system. This ‘perfect’ system is a collection where every single file has been properly tagged and rated, there are no file duplications, you can get to any song in your collection within a second.   This ‘perfect system’ should also discover new music for you. I am in no way near this ‘perfect system’. However, I have many ideas on how to get there and, hopefully with your help, we can all arrive to this ‘perfect’ system.