I was organizing my digital music library today and found a Mp3 music file that I thought I’d never, ever be able to listen to again!
Let’s rewind a bit to that period of what was essentially the Wild, Wild, West on the Internet…I’m talking about free downloads. Yes, Metallica whined about it…some people even got busted for it…but face it…DIDN’T WE ALL DO IT? Perhaps you were too busy in Internet chat rooms to bother yourself with getting some sweet free tunes (or software)? Or…porn, I guess? Did other people do that? I never did any of THAT! Though I did find a XXX rated version of nine inch nails’ song “Get Down, Make Love” that has real orgasm sounds in it…so I guess that’s kind of porn-ish, isn’t it? 🙂
While in the midst of this “free for all,” sometime in the late ’90s or early ’00s, I found an absolute gem of a music track – more than an hour long – called “Slow and Sleazy ’80s Megamix.” Some of the tracks you’ll find in this track – all melded nearly flawlessly (gotta hand it to whomever put this together) – include
- “Rock Me Amadeus, ” Falco (there is also another Falco track on here that I have to figure out)
- “Let Me Go,” Heaven 17
- “Forever Live and Die,” OMD
- “Fly on the Windscreen,” Depeche Mode
- “Close to Me,” The Cure
- “The Circus,” Erasure
- “Sadeness,” Enigma
- “Shout,” Tears for Fears
- “Hippychick,” Soho
- “Tenderness,” General Public,
- “Waiting for the Night,” Depeche Mode
- “Big in Japan,” Alphaville
- “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” Taco
- And too many more to list!
I guess I somehow managed to save this file all over the place, burned it on CDs (can’t find any of them now), it’s probably saved on at least two CPUs sitting in our house that we have yet to remove the data from – and recycle. What – judge me you do? You don’t have any old CPUs sitting around your house? Or old monitors? Well aren’t you a total non-hoarder! 🙂 Yes, it’s one of the down sides of having a spouse who works from home…his company doesn’t always want the old equipment back! And hauling a 50 pound tube monitor up a flight of stairs isn’t exactly high on our “to do” list! It’s sitting in our basement presently – on top of a small metal filing cabinet. What better place to store obsolete electronics than on top of what is essentially obsolete furniture, right? Aren’t we all supposed to be “paper free” now?
Digital music files always seem to turn up in the last place you look, don’t they?
But back to the topic of digital music, shall we? I found the file on my portable music player today, which I bought with some trivia prize winnings in 2017. Even though the Mp3 file was taking up 62.7 MB of space on the music player – it won’t PLAY on the music player (doesn’t recognize the format). Ditto for my car’s music player, and my old laptop.
However…plot twist – my new laptop – whom I’ve named “Diana” – WILL play the file!
And that is exactly what I have planned tonight in the “human cave” while my husband goes out on a very, very brief visit outdoors at exceedingly safe social distances with a friend for a bonfire. He is not even setting foot in the friend’s house! He’ll be bringing a small bottle of hand sanitizer, will be able to easily sit at least six feet away (more like 12 feet). He needs to get out of the cage for a spell. But he will be back to join me for board games before I even had a chance to miss him!
While he’s gone, I’ll hook up Diana to the stereo receiver and speakers – and let the ’80s/early ’90s alternative jams take me to another place!!!! Maybe I’ll even dim the lights…
hebspeaks 
I also use SandDisk ClipSports, and I am familiar with the ‘format not recognized issue’. I don’t know the exact root cause, but for me it usually means that the (MP3) file was produced in another era with less-than-standard output options. I use the audio-editing program Audacity to manipulate MP3s (mostly editing and amplifying for consistent levels… but it does much more) and one of side benefits of Audacity is that it can output new versions of the files. The outputs will play on several generations of SandDisk ClipSports. You can also update the firmware, but that won’t typically affect these MP3 issues.
I’m quite a fan of the ClipSport. In many ways it is a very primitive device, but it stores BEAUCOUP data (depending on the size of the ‘external’ SD card… a feature that I think they discontinued :P) and the battery life is exceptional. If you are a PC person, it is pretty straightforward to organize files on the Clip Sport such that the primitive interface works for you.
Another tool I use (as a PC -> ClipSport, PC -> AutoUSB, and PC -> Android MP3 user) is MP3Tag. Cleaning up MP3 tags and applying some consistency is useful for a variety of reasons. A player like the ClipSport may not need album art, for example (to reduce file size and squeeze even more onto the player). I’m a fan of one podcast that routinely adds EXTREMELY large album art to their files, despite it being pointed out to them that most topnotch content producers (e.g. BBC) still include quite beautiful images but at a fraction of the image size. Modern podcasts are also all-over-the-place in terms of what they store in the tags (metadata) and some content producers will use ID tags favored by Apple that don’t ‘play nice’ with all media players. MP3Tag can strip out useless metadata and also convert the tags to a more standard format.
I really just keep my ClipSport on shuffle pretty much all the time. The main times I use it are when I’m out taking walks. I do very little else with it other than adding new songs I’ve downloaded on my PC. Yes, I’m pretty happy with it! I rarely use the clip feature unless I’m not wearing something with pockets. Thanks for commenting!