Music

All posts tagged Music

So I made this small application back in 2009, and was going to wait until I’d made this software compatible for multiple operating systems before I posted it on my blog, but it seems I’m never going to get round to it!

I made it in C# for generating cue sheets. You’re probably not going to want the software if you don’t know what a cue sheet is, but as Wikipedia says, “A cue sheet, or cue file, is a metadata file which describes how the tracks of a CD or DVD are laid out.”. You can also use them with some media players, such as the excellent Foobar2000.

Basically, you just paste a tracklist in using the “Artist – Title” format (without the quotes), putting each track on a new line, and load a track into it. You can then skip through the track in the embedded player and set cue points (based on whatever track is selected in the combo box). Feel free to comment if you get any problems and I’ll help out as much as I can.

You can download it here: Music Cue Sheet Generator

You’ll also need the .NET framework (version 3.5) if you haven’t already got it.

It’s in no way bulletproof, but it works well for my needs, so I never really improved it further 🙂

Hope it comes in handy for someone… here’s a screenshot:

Music Cue Sheet Generator

Music Cue Sheet Generator

Found another cool application the other day, it’s similar to Last.fm in the fact you can stream music and find similar artists you might enjoy etc. You can also stream full albums, add music to a queue and create playlists. The quality isn’t perfect but it’s listenable, much better than most free “web” services. This is actually a desktop application though.

Here’s a few excerpts from their FAQ, they do a better job of explaining it than I can.

What is Spotify?
Spotify offers you legal and free access to a huge library of music. All you need to do is create an account and download our streaming music player.
What is your goal?
Our dream is to let everyone listen to whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want.
Do I need to pay to use Spotify?
No, the advertising-funded version of Spotify is free of charge, however, for now it requires that you receive an invite to register. Alternatively, you can pay for an ad-free subscription to Spotify.

I’ve been listening for quite a while now and I’ve only heard one short advert so far, so it’s totally acceptable in that respect unless you really hate ads. I’ve got a feeling ads will get more frequent as their user base grows but for now it’s great.

It’s only officially available for Windows and Mac at the moment but apparently it works under Wine on Linux.

Here’s a screenshot from their site:

Spotify

Spotify