Accelerator Software Provides a Faster Download

Over half of all households that connect to the Internet have a broadband connection these days, mostly cable or DSL. Which means the other half does not and still uses dial-up. Modems are much faster than they used to be in the early days of computing, but today's websites are larger and require a lot of bandwidth to load quickly. To make matters worse for those on slower connections, even simple software updates are now often dozens of megabytes and can take a long time to download. What it all means is that modem users need a break!

Fortunately, there are things that can be done to make a connection faster. You see, the operating system software on today's computers is not optimized for fast downloads. Microsoft's primary goal is simply to make sure Windows works with all the different hardware out there. Compatibility is important, of course, but it can be frustrating when things just don't work as well as they should.

But not everything is your computer's fault. Your Internet service provider, too, is primarily concerned with reliability (good), compatibility (good), and moving as much traffic as possible with as little investment as possible (not so good). Further, while the Internet moves at electronic speed, not all connections are equal. You may have noticed that downloading pictures from the same exact website is sometimes faster and other times much slower. That may be because the server is very busy, but it can also be because your connection is taking some detours instead of directly getting on the highway.

What does it all mean? It means that between hardware and software designed for compatibility rather than performance, and Internet connections that may not necessarily favor individual dial-up customers, you may simply not get the speed your computer is capable of and that you are paying for. This is bad news for those who frequently download movies, music or pictures.

Fortunately, there are solutions, and I don't mean getting a new computer or waiting until you have broadband access. One such solution is download accelerators. They can greatly increase the speed and reliability of your downloads. How do they do it? By optimizing the way your computer works and by making sure your data downloads the fastest and most direct route possible. With a download accelerator, you are no longer at the mercy of some remote traffic routing computer. Instead, the accelerator in your own system determines the best way to download data as quickly and efficiently as possible.

But speed is not the only benefit of a good download accelerator. How often has it happened to you that a connection times out or is interrupted before a file has downloaded completely? Probably quite often. And then you have to start all over. A download accelerator will keep track of things and will simply pick up where you left off if a connection gets dropped. Imagine how much time you save.

The bottom line is clear. You have better things to do than wait for downloads to complete. If you want to regain control of your Internet connection, accelerate downloads and restore, or just web browsing in general, a good accelerator is invaluable.

Is Your Band Ready For CD Duplication Or CD Replication?

It’s a typical situation. You’ve been putting a lot of energy in your craft and people are starting to talk about your band. You’ve played a few shows and everyone is asking for a CD. I used to think that in order to release your own CD you would go out and play a bunch of shows and then someone would come out and sign you. They’d take care of everything. They’d set up the recording studio, organize the artwork, and pay for it to get manufactured. That’s not the case these da...
It’s a typical situation. You’ve been putting a lot of energy in your craft and people are starting to talk about your band. You’ve played a few shows and everyone is asking for a CD. I used to think that in order to release your own CD you would go out and play a bunch of shows and then someone would come out and sign you. They’d take care of everything. They’d set up the recording studio, organize the artwork, and pay for it to get manufactured. That’s not the case these days.

At present, technology is readily available for any budding musician to record, create, and duplicate CDs. CD duplication involves CD-R media. CD-R prices have dropped dramatically since the first CD Recorders were available on the consumer market. This makes it an affordable option for anyone who wants to copy their own CDs and pass them on to friends, family, or fans. This is a great option for the young band that is still getting their feet wet in the music industry. Duplicating a limited amount of CDs can keep a limited budget in place.

If your band is at the point were your ready to start selling your CD your best option is to make a retail-ready CD and having it replicated. What is a retail ready CD? These are the same CDs you find in the music stores by the major label artists. They have great artwork printed on CD inserts, a nice tray card insert, silk screened art on the CD, and they are shrink-wrapped.

The retail-ready CDs are not duplicated, but Replicated. This means that an exact replica of your CD master has been stamped out on all of the CDs. CD Replication is the way to go if you are serious about selling your music for profit. In fact most music stores will not sell duplicated CDs. Think about it this way. It is illegal to sell or profit from duplicating copy written material. If you tried to sell CDs that have been duplicated to a retail store you’ll more than likely get turned down. How are they to know that it is really your band? One of the best anti-piracy practices that CD manufacturing plants have instituted is the verification of copyright and ownership through a International Property Rights Form. Filling out an I.P.R. form ensures the CD Replication plant that they are not infringing on anyone’s copyright.

CD Replication not only shows that you value your art enough to have it made retail-ready, but also cost effective. I’ll break it down in general.

DIY CD Duplication

· 1 Computer with CD Recorder
· 100 Memorex CD-R
· CD Jewel Cases
· Printer Ink
· Man Hours

Total $1495.00


Typical CD Replication Package

· CD Replication for 1000 CDs
· 1-3 color on-disc silk-screen imprint
· CD Jewel box, assembly, professional quality film-wrap
· 2 Panel Insert and Tray card
· Bar Code

Total $1000.00

These prices are very approximate and are only used for the purpose of estimating the difference between CD Duplication and CD Replication. Lets dig in a little bit. I’ve already illustrated some of the benefits of CD Duplication and the benefits of CD Replication. You can see above that you are spending approximately $500 more taking on the CD duplication responsibilities yourself and only getting 100 CDs!! Having your CDs Replicated costs less and someone else is doing the work. You can spend the time you’d spend on CD duplication and practice your chops or promote your upcoming CD release party, saving yourself $500 that you can use for items like merchandising, t-shirts, stickers, and posters.

Whether you choose CD Replication or CD Duplication, you’ll need to do some research. There are plenty of resources available for CD Duplication and you probably own everything you need. It is up to you and your band to decide which option is better depending on what level you see your band on. Are you a band that plays parties or small clubs, or is your band seasoned and touring? There are benefits to both. Find a local CD manufacturer in your area and ask for their recommendation. Most CD manufacturers also offer quick turn high quality CD Duplication with printing on the CDs. Keep rockin’!

Shakira La Diva Latina

La cantante colombiana Shakira se ha destacado por meterse en el mundo de la música Internacional manteniendo su identidad y originalidad latina, oriental y única.


Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll nació en 1977 en Colombia y desde los años 1990 en Latinoamérica, y desde los 2000 en los Estados Unidos se ha convertido en una gran figura de la música latina con estilo oriental que la destaca entre los demás artistas.

Ella es una exitosa cantante, escritora, instrumentalista, productora de discos y bailarina la cual ha logrado atraer los oídos y corazones de la millones de jóvenes y no tan jóvenes que disfrutan de su música original, creativa y rebelde.

Sus líricos son originales ya que escribe poesías inusuales en las cuales incluye frases como:"Tu mordiste la manzana y renunciaste al paraíso, y condenaste a una serpiente, siendo tu el que así lo quiso."

Logra producir rimas de una forma única que solo ella conoce y a su vez en sus versiones en ingles que comenzó en el 2001, logro adaptar su propio estilo sin problema de idioma.

Su primer disco en ingles se llama "Laundry Service" (Servicio de Lavanderia) convirtiéndose en un hit impresionante con el cual gano la mayoría de sus 10 Grammys ganados hasta ahora. Las canciones mas conocidas de aquel disco don "Underneath Your Clothes" (debajo de tu ropa) y "Whenever, Wherever" (Suerte) fueron los mas populares. Su música incluye tiene un estilo de Pop con Oriental, Tango, Latino y otros nuevos ritmos originales.

Fijación Oral Vol 1 and 2, fue su siguiente álbum que saco con Alejandro Sanz la canción "Tortura", con Wyclef Jean "Hips don't Lie" y luego con Vellones "Beautiful Lie" otro gran éxito.

Shakira tiene un origen descendiente catalán-Italiano mezclado con católico Libanés, la cual la caracteriza por tener un estilo oriental, latino que ha logrado obtener a lo largo de su popularidad que la diferencia de cualquier otro artista.

Shakira escribió su primer poema llamado "La Rosa de Cristal" a los cuatro años y siguió escribiendo poemas que luego se convirtieron en canciones. A la edad de 8 cuando su hermano fue matado en un accidente de motocicleta Shakira escribió su primera canción llamada "Tus Gafas Oscuras".

Su personalidad por su puesto es expresada en sus líricos y poemas, así es como también políticamente mantiene opiniones bastante polémicas como comentarios "anti-israelíes" salidos en alguna entrevista en la radio resaltando su origen libanés frente al conflicto en medio oriente.

Tu actual novio, futuro marido es Antonio de La Rua, hijo del previo Presidente de la Republica Argentina, quien no es exactamente querido por la población Argentina. A pesar de sus decisiones personales, su éxito como cantante y bailarina sigue siendo un hit y aplaudido por Sudamérica, Estados Unidos, España y demás países.

Su estilo puede ser comparado al de Alanis Morisette, pero con una sensualidad y habilidad de bailar Belly Dance, que la destaca de las demás cantantes. Lo que la ha ayudado a despegar en el mundo Internacional fue cuando saco su disco MTV Unplugged, "Donde Están los Ladrones" en 1999 el cual llego a las casas de millones de jóvenes en Estados Unidos e Europa.

How Is The Audio Craze Sounding?

Sound effects sell. It's just one type of audio that has joined the race on the information superhighway to fulfill its promise, which some of us have been asking for and using for well over a decade now: The ability to send sound effects from a web site to a client at a moment's notice.

Knowing that kind of thing sometimes makes it hard to believe that there was a time when sound effects discs took weeks to arrive! Weeks! And, when they did ar- rive, occasionally they wer...

Sound effects sell. It's just one type of audio that has joined the race on the information superhighway to fulfill its promise, which some of us have been asking for and using for well over a decade now: The ability to send sound effects from a web site to a client at a moment's notice.

Knowing that kind of thing sometimes makes it hard to believe that there was a time when sound effects discs took weeks to arrive! Weeks! And, when they did ar- rive, occasionally they were of pretty shoddy quality, requiring us to take hours to sort through the "sound catalog" and make functional.

All self-professed "audio geeks" and sound engineers alike are relieved, to say the very least, that those days have passed. Today, companies are looking for better and easier ways to make their audio libraries accessible to a greater number of users, while making sure their files are at higher resolution and ready to pop in to an already-running production.

That said, the latest craze of downloadable single files or entire libraries has been hampered by a bevy of issues. Not only is the Internet's increasingly narrow bottleneck a concern, but so are any number of software compatibility problems and the high cost of putting those files on the Internet. Though most com- panies "audition" sounds on the Web, and a quick per- usal of home pages allows for more specific searches, the overwhelming feeling is that the compact disc method of distribution will not disappear any time soon.

The Internet has, however, allowed these audio post houses to offer their own libraries online. In fact, one quick search for "audio: sound effects" generates nearly 1 million links to some of the more established companies as well as to some of the more obscure ones.

One thing is for sure. As the number of general sound effects catalogs have grown over the years, demand seems to be decreasing. So, some companies are turning more and more to specialized discs. Maybe there are a lot of general libraries out there, and people don't need another general library. However, more special- ized libraries are coming to the marketplace, People are considering more "niche" categories of sounds and just going out, recording them, and posting them on their web site.

It's as simple as that, but it's also very, very com- petitive among big business as well as audio entrepre- neurs or enthusiasts.

For example, any high-end automobile TV ad campaign is going to go directly to these kinds of links to locate the best "sound quality" for their ad. For ex- ample, that secure sound of the door shutting on a brand-new car in a TV commercial takes hours and hours of research. And that sound comes from one of these audio posts, which means someone just made a lot of money.

Sound sells. It sells more than you'd think, and it's one of those "I've never thought about it," kinds of subconscious realities we "hear" every day.

So the next time you see a luxury car commercial on TV, really listen.

Home Audio Recording For Everyone

I'm not really sure how old I was when I got the gift for Christmas, but I remember thinking it was a pretty impressive piece of electronic hardware. It was really cool looking (technologically speaking), and I was awfully proud to own it. It certainly made for lots of fun times.

What was this high-tech gift, you ask? Why, it was a tape recorder! It was a monographic, reel to reel tape deck that came with it’s own plug-in microphone. I could hold that mic up to my transist...
I'm not really sure how old I was when I got the gift for Christmas, but I remember thinking it was a pretty impressive piece of electronic hardware. It was really cool looking (technologically speaking), and I was awfully proud to own it. It certainly made for lots of fun times.

What was this high-tech gift, you ask? Why, it was a tape recorder! It was a monographic, reel to reel tape deck that came with it’s own plug-in microphone. I could hold that mic up to my transistor radio’s speaker and record songs onto tape. I could also play the guitar and sing and record every second of it. I could even hide and record conversations from unsuspecting family members. I was in recording heaven!

Years later I owned an 8 track stereo recording deck (ok, that was a mistake). At another point in time I had a stereo cassette recording deck that would physically flip the tape over when one side was finished recording or playing. Now I own a more conventional stereo dual cassette deck, but I no longer use it for recording or much of anything else for that matter.

All my recording is now done on my computer. The audio and midi software available today for computer recording is quite amazing. You can record multiple tracks, edit the recordings and add special effects as desired. Many of the audio recording programs come with their own native special effects such as reverb, compression, flanger, and chorus, to name a few. Some of the recording software can also accept third party effects such as vocal removers, tube amp effects and many more.

Multitrack recording software allows for recording various live instruments, vocals, etc, onto individual tracks. After recording one track, you can play it back while recording another. Once finished, you can mix all the individual tracks down into one stereo track. Some recording software will import and record both audio and MIDI, some audio only. If you have a MIDI keyboard or other MIDI instrument, be sure to pick software that handles both formats.

Creating a simple home audio recording studio is easy. In addition to software, an audio and/or midi interface will allow you to plug all kinds of audio components, microphones and instruments into your computer for live recording, recording from tape or even from your old vinyl lp’s. You can also use a home stereo system as an interface for audio components by running cables to it from your computer’s sound card. A laptop with recording software and a USB interface can serve as a totally portable recording studio. And again, if you have MIDI instruments, be sure to get an interface that will allow connecting them in additon to audio components and instruments.

The digital revolution has made music recording easily available to anyone with a computer. If you enjoy music and want to do more than just download mp3’s from the Internet, get some multitrack recording software and start your own home sound studio.

Differences In Microphones For Your Stage Set-up

Using different types and manufacturers of microphones can make all the difference in the world when setting up a stage for your band. If you use the wrong one, you battle with feedback all night. Even if you use a feedback "eliminator", you will suffer very poor frequency response, because it is being "eliminated" as feedback, instead of the desired freguencies that make your music full and enjoyable.

Here are some things you should know, from the school of hard knocks, a...


Using different types and manufacturers of microphones can make all the difference in the world when setting up a stage for your band. If you use the wrong one, you battle with feedback all night. Even if you use a feedback "eliminator", you will suffer very poor frequency response, because it is being "eliminated" as feedback, instead of the desired freguencies that make your music full and enjoyable.

Here are some things you should know, from the school of hard knocks, about microphones and their uses.

Types: There are many types of microphones available but they generally divide into three groups: dynamic, condenser and ribbon.

Dynamic microphones are the most common and the most basic types of microphones. They consist of a diaphragm attached to a coil that moves through a magnetic field inducing a small electrical signal. They operate using similar principals to a speaker and tend to have a limited frequency response, but are very rugged.

Condenser microphones have become more popular over the years because they have a very wide frequency response (tone) and are not as delicate or as expensive as ribbon microphones. They are, however, more delicate than dynamic microphones. They require a power source that can be an internal battery, an external power pack or phantom power that is provided by the mixer. They work by supplying a charge to a fixed plate that creates a capacitor. A thin diaphragm is mounted adjacent to the plate and induces voltage changes in the plate when subjected to sound vibrations.

Ribbon microphones produce sound by stretching a thin metal ribbon across a gap of a strong magnet. Sound moves the ribbon across the magnetic field creating electrical impulses. They have an excellent frequency response (tone) but tend to be very delicate and expensive. Since they are rarely used in basic P.A. systems, nothing more needs to be said about them.

Polar Patterns: This refers to the directions that the microphone will pickup sound from. Polar patterns tend to be divided into two types: omni and uni-directional.

Omni directional microphones are rarely used because they pick up sound from all directions and often pick up sound from directions you don’t want to have sound picked up from. Can you say...
... "FEEDBACK"...

Uni-directional microphones are the most common and probably total more than 95% of all microphones sold. They range from the shotgun, picking up sound from only straight in front of the microphone, to the cardioid, picking up sound from in front
of, or somewhat around the front of, the microphone in a heart shape pattern.

Knowing the pattern of a microphone is VERY important because it affects what area of sound that the microphone picks up from, as well as its susceptibility to feedback.

Sensitivity: This refers to the level of “hearing” that a microphone possesses.

The higher the sensitivity, the quieter the sounds that it will pick up. This is an important specification, especially dependant on your stage volume.

Impedance: This is important to know so that you buy the proper microphone to match your particular mixer. Although many mixers have inputs for both high and low impedance microphones, some only have one or the other. Generally speaking, if the microphone’s impedance is above 1,000 Ohms (1k Ohm) it is considered high impedance, otherwise it is considered low. Most professional microphones are low impedance and come with a cable with XLR connectors. High impedance microphones generally come with a cable with phone (1/4”) connectors. You can purchase matching transformers for 1/4" connectors that change the impedance of high level inputs, like guitars or keyboards, to low level, balanced inputs, to help eliminate ground loops and noise.

As you can see, chosing the correct microphone for your application can solve and enhance your performance and overall sound field from the stage. After all, your music, as represented by great sound, is what its all about.

Clickster

Clickster is a MP3 search engine that scours various online resources for MP3 files that match your keywords and allows you to listen to them without having to download the files first.

Unlike P2P networks, Clickster searches for files that are publicly available on the Internet, which usually results in faster download speeds, and does not require you to share any files.

You can either stream the selected song through the integrated media player controls or download it to your hard drive.

In addition to individual songs, Clickster can also search for podcast that match a certain music genre, and rip/download music from MySpace.