With a few professional loop libraries the quality of the music you can make is shockingly awesome.
A complete music production tool for almost any style - works best with techno, rock, pop and hip hop.
Way more user friendly than any music editing software I have ever used like Cubase, Audacity or ProTools.
Great for making background music for Youtube videos, PowerPoint and family slide shows too.
It’s easy to use but there will still be a learning curve for the complete beginner. For those who have used other music software though, this will astound you.
When you look at the differences between the original iPod and the Nano side by side you can see that the main difference is the number of songs you can store. I didn’t know which to get so I jotted down a basic comparison:
iPod Classic Features
Holds around five thousand songs.
Forty plus gigabytes of hard drive capacity.
User friendly jog wheel with shuffle function.
12 hours of battery time.
User play list features.
iPod Nano Features
500 or 1,000 song capacity with the 4 gig model.
Smaller Click Wheel and a full color screen.
1.5 inches of screen display.
Plenty of battery life like the original - up to 14 hours.
Shuffle function also included.
Also includes iTrip which lets you play the music through the radio.
Both versions can play music, podcasts and audiobooks. You can also use the them to store photos, lists, contacts and calendars. Many car dealers including Honda, Mercedez and BMW have designed sound systems in their new cars that integrate with the iPod. People report that both iPods sound great. To me they are both super small anyway, so I’d rather go with more storage.
There are allot more choices than iTunes for music you can download to your iPod. Some of these options are free or very cheap when compared to the $.99 per song at the iTunes store. Don’t let all the law suits by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) scare you. There are still legitimate legal Websites to get music from besides Apple’s iTunes. Here are a few:
3hive - A blog site with excellent selections of pop, rock and techno music.
Teradazzle.com - 1000 free MP3 downloads new ad supported format.
Amazon.com - always has several hundred free MP3s as samples to get you to buy the whole CD.
eMusic.com - subscription site that has been around for a while and is very trusted and safe.
Epitonic - kind of like college radio online with download-able music and streaming.
Freekidsmusic.com - just like it says, free music for kids.
Garageband - indie bands offer their music in a review-based contest.
MFiles - direct access to classical MP3 downloads.
MP34U - MP3 files handpicked by a committee from all over the Web.
The blog sites normally do a review of the band and then attach the MP3 to download. Some of the subscription sites do a free trial but the per song amount works out to much less than iTunes after that.
Some of the sites have optional software you can install, but most of these allow you to download the MP3 right from the Website. That means you don’t have to put any software on your computer that may have viruses like Limewire P2P.
So there is no reason you have to break the law in order to get some free music for your iPod! If you can’t afford new music just look for some alternatives.
iPod commercials are known to be innovative and ground breaking. They particularly started to get my attention when some of my favorite bands like U2 and Coldplay showed up in them. So I was checking out a bunch of the clips on Youtube and put together this collection.
The Breakdance iPod Commercial
This one features the great tune “Technologic” by Daft Punk from the CD “Human After All” is being played on the background. A classic that many others are modeled after.
iPod U2 Commercial
By reading the comments on Youtube, I am not the only one who started to notice the iPod when U2 did this commercial. I particularly love the white mic and guitar chords.
Coldplay iPod Commercial
A simple song and a simple video just blows me away…
Eminem iPod Commercial
This is my favorite hip hop tune and I love added paint and urban graphics.
What’s interesting about the commercials is that they are obviously promoting actual songs for sale on iTunes in addition to the iPod itself. A band with a song picked for one of these spots is very fortunate indeed! Some of them are even premiered at the MTV Music Video Awards.
There are a ton of other excellent videos but these are my favorite.
Since selling music is a business then why do musicians and record companies offer free legal music downloads?
It’s just like radio, a free sample that gets people liking the music so they buy the CD. It seems contrary to making money but the Grateful Dead for example always let people record and share their live shows and they are one of the biggest bands in history because of it.
It exposes artists and styles of music that you would normally never listen, even on the radio. For instance maybe you have never heard electronic or much instrumental music but you can check out my techno music download or guitar instrumentals for free.
It’s a way for artists to get exposure and publicity from music blogs, their own site and other online media like radio. Here are a few easy ways to get the word out for this technique to work.
Free music leads to getting gigs like live performances, soundtrack/video work and attracting students.
Basically, there is allot of new free music online that really is ok to download, so don’t believe all the people that say you are doing something illegal.
Don’t worry about downloading free MP3 files as long as the Website clearly indicates that they have the right to distribute the song.
This video will teach you how you “could” charge your iPod using Gatorade and an onion if you wanted to and you were desperate.
Well the fact is that the method can generate electricity but many people have tried and it did not work. Some people even ruined their chargers!
The Mythbusters TV show caught on to this, tried it, and proved that the method did not work. ABC news tested the iPod charging myth too and it failed.
Maybe this is secretly a very smart joint venture between Gatorade, iPod and the onion people in order to boost sales!? (The video has had 7 million views) But seriously, if this really doesn’t work, shouldn’t Youtube take it down?
Update: Some iPod owners tried this and it lit up the screen for a few seconds, so this could be a fun experiment to do with kids.
