THOMSON mp3PRO

THOMSON mp3PRO Decoder Plug-in for Winamp 
(Also Media Monkey)


1) Introduction
---------------

The THOMSON mp3PRO Decoder Plug-in adds support for fully enhanced
Playback of mp3PRO-encoded digital audio to Nullsoft Winamp v2.x

The new mp3PRO format offers significantly improved audio quality
over a wide range of bit rates, while remaining completely backwards
compatible with standard MPEG-2 Layer-3 Audio (aka "mp3").

For more information about the mp3PRO Digital Audio format,
availability of mp3PRO-enabled applications and products, including
demo software to encode your music in mp3PRO format, please visit
either

http://www.mp3PROzone.com
or

http://www.thomson-multimedia.com 

on the Internet

For information about licensing mp3PRO technology please visit

http://www.mp3licensing.com



2) Installation / Configuration
-------------------------------

The installation process copied the mp3PRO Decoder to your Winamp's
plug-in directory, which makes it show up in Winamp's preferences
panel as an input plug-in. If you had an older version installed
it has been replaced by this version. This plug-in supports local and
streaming HTTP playback of both mp3PRO and plain mp3 files, several
configuration options can be adjusted in the plug-in's settings dialog
box.

Since the mp3PRO format is fully backwards compatible with
standard mp3, the mp3PRO-enhanced plug-in works as a replacement to
the mp3 decoder plug-in previously installed on your Winamp.

The mp3PRO plug-in can be enabled or disabled by checking/unchecking
the "Enable" checkbox control in the "General" decoder settings dialog
box tab (since one may needs to use the Nullsoft plug-in to explore
functionalities which the THOMSON mp3PRO Decoder does not offer).

For the mp3PRO Decoder plug-in to be actually used for playback, you might
have to disable the Nullsoft MPEG audio decoder plug-in by removing "mp3"
from its file extension list, or unchecking "mp3" ("Layer III" resp.)
support in its configuration dialog box, depending on the version at hand.
Please note that the mp3PRO Decoder plug-in is not intended to handle
MPEG Layer-1 and/or Layer-2 audio, so you might want to make sure that
your default MPEG decoder remains active for those formats.

The mp3PRO decoder's HTTP streaming options, including support for proxy
servers, can be configured in the settings dialog's "Streaming" tab.

If you want to uninstall this plugin, simply remove the file in_mp3PRO.dll
from your Winamp's plug-in directory.

3) System Requirements
----------------------

* 200MHz or faster IBM-compatible PC, equipped with a soundcard and
  running Windows XP, 9x, NT or 2000 (Windows XP or 2000, Pentium II or
  better CPU recommended).

* Nullsoft Winamp 2.x (the plugin was checked with 2.75, 2.76 and 2.78,
  other versions might work as well, but your mileage may vary).


4) About mp3PRO Digital Audio
-----------------------------

mp3PRO is the combination of standard mp3 audio and Coding Technologies'
Spectral Band Replication (SBR) enhancement technique, while being backwards
and forwards compatible. The new mp3PRO format offers significantly improved
audio quality over a wide range of bit rates.

Using advanced psychoacoustics techniques and music structure analysis,
mp3PRO creates files that are more compact than original mp3 files, with
great sound quality. You will be able to play all of your old mp3 files.
New mp3PRO files will play normally on old mp3 players, but without the
dramatic mp3PRO improvements. Of course, new mp3PRO files played with
this plug-in or any mp3PRO-enhanced application, will provide the optimal
listening experience.

The resulting performance of mp3PRO is significantly higher than that of
mp3. mp3PRO at 64 kbps performs better than mp3 at 96 kbps, offering a
convenient way to drastically improve the storage efficiency of portable
players. Products with full mp3PRO encoding functionality will allow a
broad variety of encoder configurations, including higher compression
(48 kbps and below for stereo) and higher bit rates offering enhanced
audio bandwidth (>= 20 kHz) and quality.

For streaming applications, mp3PRO will help to increase the audio bandwidth
of the compressed signal, giving it a substantial audio quality boost over
current streaming mp3 formats at the same bitrate. This means improvements
to every aspect of your digital music listening experience: faster download
times, higher audio quality streaming music, and increased storage capacity.


5) License / Terms of Use
-------------------------

The mp3PRO Decoder Plug-in is provided for your personal use within Winamp
only.

By installing this software on your computer you accept and agree to be
bound by the terms of the accompanying license agreement.

Copyright (c) 2002 Coding Technologies GmbH.



TIP :::

You can get MP3Pro DLL from here:::

http://www.mediamonkey.com/addons

PIXEL TRIP for Winamp 2.x

Pixel Trip is a visualization plugin for Nullsoft's WinAmp 2.x.

   
To install Pixel Trip, just copy the appropriate DLL into your
WinAmp plugins folder. The next time you launch WinAmp  Pixel Trip
will be avalable under the visualization Plugins list, in Preferences

Pixel Pro has a number of options that can be accessed through the
Configuration Dialog.


Download :::

http://www.visolu.com/PixelTrip

Synthesizer and Algorithmic Music Systems

HG Fortune:::

Synthesizer and algorithmic music systems VSTi Plugins for Windows

The Tiger

Serenity

ScapesWizard 2

Ultra Swamp

Altair 4

Alphatron

The Dreammachine

Avatar ST

Atonoise 2 VST Fx

Classics/Backlist:::

Alien Space Weaver, Arracis Gold
AlioNoctis, SwampXT, etc.

Downloads:::

Free versions & demos

Free User Content:::

Free sf2 files & patches


Web Site:::

http://www.hgf-synthesizer.de/

Party Mix Visualisation

Party Mix Visualisation Plugin for Winamp


An ideal pack to enhance your listening experience.
If you're dj-ing at a party: even better...

 What's new in this version:

 * Visualization plugin change made easy
 * Frequency display for "Spectrum Analyser and VoicePrint"
 * Customizable intensity scale from a bitmap file
 * 9 custom scales included

The three main things you need to know:

 1. This plugin will never ever change your screen resolution!
 2. It contains built-in Winamp volume control + play/pause/stop...
 3. It includes the following visualisations:

 - Philips
     * professional equalizer, like in hi-fi equipments
 - Spectrum Analyzer
     * left+right channel detailed spectrum
 - Spectrum Analyzer + Voice Print
     * spectrum + voice print: See the beat you hear!
 - Spike Spectrum Analyzer
     * Spiked Spectrum
 - 3D Bars
     * 3D Bars moving along with the music
 - The Cube 
     * 'Screen Saver' with a rotating 3D cube

This plugin will draw you in: the visualisations are made to
really make you 'see the music' on your screen.
"Philips" will make you think you have a professional hi-fi
equalizer equipment, "Spectrum Analyzer & Voice Print" will
make you see the sounds you hear, "The Cube" will attract
you with its movements...
As for the others, you'ill have the pleasure to discover them
by yourself!

One thing its sure: all the vis will adapt to your
screen resolution!

Enjoy!


Download Plugin (330kb)

http://andreit.free.fr/downloads/winamp/vis_PartyMix.exe


Web Site:::

http://andreit.free.fr/index.php?title=Projets/Plugins_pour_Winamp

Seven Suggestions While Mastering

Tips from the guide "Mastering with Ozone".


Before you jump into a marathon mastering session, here are seven things that are good to remind yourself of periodically:

1)  Have someone else master your mixes for you. OK,in most project studios we realize that the same person is often the performer, producer, mixer, and mastering
engineer. At least get someone else to listen with you. Or find someone who will
master your mixes if you master theirs. You’re too close to your own music. You’ll
hear things other listeners won’t hear, and you’ll miss things that everyone else does hear.

2)  Take breaks and listen to other CDs in between. Refresh your ears in terms of what other stuff sounds like. OK, the pros just instinctively know what sound they’re
working towards, but for the rest of us being reminded from time to time during the
process isn’t such a bad idea.

3)  Move your listening position. Studio reference monitors are very focused and
directional. The sound can change significantly depending on your listening position.
Shift around a bit. Stand across the room for a moment.

4)  Listen on other speakers and systems. Burn a CD with a few different variations and play it on your home stereo system, or drive around and listen to it in your car. Don’t obsess over the specific differences, but just remind yourself what other systems sound like.

5)  Check how it sounds in mono. Check how it sounds with the polarity inverted on one speaker. People will listen to it this way (although maybe not intentionally)
and while your master probably won’t sound great this way hopefully it won’t completely fall apart either. Ozone provides a quick check for this by clicking on the Channel Ops button. You can quickly switch to mono, switch left and right speakers, and flip the polarity of speakers.

6)  Monitor at normal volumes, but periodically check it at a higher volume. When you listen at low to medium volumes, you tend to hear more midrange (where the ear is most sensitive) and less of the lows and highs. This  is related to something called the Fletcher-Munson effect, which involves how different frequencies are heard differently depending on the playback volume. So check from time to time how it sounds at different volume levels.

7)  When you think you’re done, go to bed, and listen again the next morning.

Luxonix - LFX-1310

LFX-1310 is a virtual multi-effect processor, channel strip version
of Effecting Module of Ravity(S)/(R).
LFX-1310 will be your best tool with which you can effectively ex-
press the musical feeling you have.



Freeware

WEB SITE:

http://www.luxonix.com

MilkDrop

What is MilkDrop?


MilkDrop is a music-visualization "plug-in" for the Winamp music player. 
As you listen to music through Winamp, MilkDrop renders the soundwaves in a
visual feedback loop, driven by 3D graphics hardware, to create a
rich visual journey through sound.  MilkDrop can also be driven by a live
audio feed (microphone or line-in) - see the documentation for details.

MilkDrop 2 is a major upgrade to the original MilkDrop visualizer, opening up
the power of modern graphics chips and programmable pixel shaders to the realm
of music visualization.  Pixel shaders allow dozens, even hundreds of complex
instructions to be executed for every pixel on the screen, every frame. 
Other new features include jpg textures, gaussian blurring, a preset "mash-up"
feature, and a prest "back" button.  MilkDrop 2 is backwards-compatible with
presets from MilkDrop 1.


Useful Links:

Official Milkdrop Homepage:::

http://www.nullsoft.com/free/milkdrop/


Milkdrop.co.uk - An Excellent Third-Party Preset Community Site:::

http://www.milkdrop.co.uk/

ELIXIR

"ELIXIR" Cd - Various Artist (2011)

A Compilation of Electronica - Dance Music

Record Label: 1.1 Digital Recordings

Featured artists include:

-CAC War Kitty
-Clear Air Turbulence
-PhaseShift180
-Kris Samsel
-Beatmistresscait
-Jim Robson
-4cue
-Cyborg Music
-QUANTIFYD
-Heidi Massin

11 Tracks - Total Time::: 59.32 min.-

Mastered by Buzz Smith Music in Houston, Texas


Buy CD/MP3:::

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/elixir3

More Info:::

http://www.goodearthmusic.com

Qubenzis Psy Audio

Qubenzis Psy Audio

Qubenzis alien-morph A Psychedelic trance music project by musician,
producer and dj Ricky Maard. Here on qubenzis.com you may enjoy the
absolutely latest of QPA's very original electronic music production.

Qubenzis Music
Psy-Trance Stuff
Free Downloads
Music Resourses
Download Store


Visit :::  http://www.qubenzis.com

LAME - Intro to Encoding

Constant Bit Rate (CBR) :::

CBR encoding is the basic encoding mode of MP3: The bitrate is kept constant across the entire file, which means the same number of bits is allocated to encode each second of audio, and internally, frames of audio data occur at regular, predictable intervals, given a predictable file size for a given duration. CBR is therefore the "opposite" of VBR.

That said, in some formats there may be some variability in the number of bits that contain actual audio information from frame to frame. This concept manifests in the bit reservoir of MP3s. In a CBR MP3, even though the frames are of a fixed size, the audio data is not necessarily distributed consistently between them; audio for one frame might use fewer bits than the frame has, so that frame adds the spare bits to a reservoir that can supplement the bits allocated to the next frame. Thus, the effective bitrate is allowed to vary somewhat in a CBR MP3, even though there is a fixed number of frames for the duration of audio. For example, for a 256kbps file, the bitrate of a single frame can be up to 320 kbps, but the frame immediately before and/or after that one would have to use fewer bits, whereas in VBR, there would be no such restriction. Consequently, the amount of variability across the entire MP3 is not as great as that afforded by VBR, but it is not insignificant; a CBR encoder that does not efficiently use the reservoir will likely produce a lower quality file than one that does.

ABR is a more flexible way to encode where filesize is important, but still giving some flexibility to choose frame sizes.

Who should use CBR
CBR is useful for people who are concerned about maintaining maximum compatibility, especially with certain streaming applications and some hardware-based decoders that don't reliably support VBR.

CBR is also useful for people who desire the ability to obtain accurate estimates of the bitrate or approximate duration of a file's decoded audio without scanning and partially decoding the entire file.


Average Bit Rate (ABR) :::

ABR is a mix between CBR and VBR.

Like CBR, the files will have the (approximate) bitrate specified in the commandline, and uses the CBR algorithm to compute the number of bits needed to encode each frame.


Like VBR, the files will use different frame bitrates so instead of relying on bit reservoir like CBR, each frame just uses the smallest possible bitrate that can encode it.

The difference between ABR and true VBR is in how the desired number of bits is chosen. The true VBR mode determines the number of bits based on the quantization noise. VBR figures out how many bits are needed so that the quantization noise is less than the allowed masking.

ABR mode uses the CBR formula to determine the desired number of bits. This formula is based on the perceptual entropy, which is a rough measure of how difficult the frame is to encode.

The majority of frames in a VBR MP3 produced with an ABR method is normally at or near the target bitrate chosen by the user, but each frame can still potentially vary within the normal range of 8 to 320 kbps. The ABR encoder will typically limit the range of bitrates it can choose from, or will greatly favor certain bitrates, in an effort to ensure that the average comes out near the target.

Who should use ABR
ABR encoding is desirable for users who want the general benefits of VBR (an optimum bitrate from frame to frame) but with a relatively predictable file size like they would get with constant bitrate (CBR), and a greater preference for bitrates that are near a desired target. Inevitably, some frames will be encoded with more bits than necessary, but the result will always be equal to or better than that of CBR for the target bitrate.


Variable Bit Rate (VBR) :::


In Variable Bitrate (VBR) coding, the user chooses a desired quality level instead of a bitrate. A correct implementation should be able to maintain the same quality perception, changing the bitrate to a higher or lower one whenever the audio file is more or less complex. With MP3, this is not always possible.

VBR encoding is the logical way of encoding data. General data compressors (like .zip and .rar) are VBR, as lossless codecs are as well. Being able to indicate a quality value, the encoder decides for each frame, which is the most appropiate bitrate to keep it.

The main advantage of using VBR is that the encoder will use the smallest amount of bytes needed to keep the asked quality. The inconvenience is that the file size is quite unpredictable, and can change from file to file in more than 50kbps. (or nearly double the size, with different genres and quasi-mono content)


Mid/Side Stereo :::


During years, what is called Joint-stereo has been misunderstood.
Joint stereo in MP3 is a mechanism to selectively choose between three modes of storing stereo information. These three modes are Simple Stereo , Mid-Side Stereo, and Intensity-Stereo.

In Simple Stereo, the encoder analyzes the left and the right channels independently and stores the information as-is, without further checking the similarities in the signal1

In Mid-Side Stereo, the encoder analyzes the left, right2 , mid (l+r) and side (l-r) channels. It then gives more bits to the mid than the side channel (as usually the side channel is less complex) and then stores just the mid and side channels into the resulting MP3.
This way, the mid channel can be encoded as if the frame was bigger, and as such have more quality with the same bitrate.
Note: Mid/side in MP3 is switched frame-by-frame. In AAC, it can be switched band by band.

Intensity-Stereo (not supported in LAME) uses a technique known as joint frequency encoding, which is based on the principle of sound localization.
Human hearing is predominantly less acute at perceiving the direction of certain audio frequencies. By exploiting this 'limitation', intensity stereo coding can reduce the data rate of an audio stream with little or no perceived change in apparent quality.
It works by merging the upper spectrum into just one channel (thus reducing overall differences between channels) and transmiting a little side information about how to pan certain frequency regions.
This type of coding does not perfectly reconstruct the original audio because of the loss of information and can cause unwanted artifacts. However, for very low bitrates this tool usually provides a gain of perceived quality. 3

The LAME mid/side switching criterion, and mid/side masking thresholds are taken from Johnston and Ferreira, Sum-Difference Stereo Transform Coding, Proc. IEEE ICASSP (1992) p 569-571.

The MPEG AAC standard claims to use mid/side encoding based on this paper.

1.This is not the same than dual-mono. Dual-mono should be used where the left and right channels of the input file contain two different streams, where you should choose one (as in two different languages)
2.If one channel has much less noise masking in a certain band than the other, it could happen than the noise spread (by mid/side stereo) may no longer be masked for that channel. If both channels have the same masking, then the noise spread between both channels will be equally well masked.
To prevent this from happening, there is an analysis done on the left and right channel to determine the noise masking thresholds and properly mask the noise.
3.Quote from wikipedia Joint_stereo.


Information extracted from LAME 3.99 Help


LAME Official Home Site ::: http://lame.sourceforge.net/

Media Monkey

MediaMonkey is an easy-to-use media organizer for serious music collectors. It catalogs music files (MP3s, WMAs, OGG, AAC/M4A, MPC, APE, FLAC, VQF, WAV files) and audio CDs, and helps you: - Organise your music and help you find the tracks you're looking for - Tag tracks in your library (automatically) in a variety of formats (ID3v1&v2, OGG, WMA, APE2, RIFF) - Play MP3s and other audio formats, level volume, and display funky visualizations - Synchronize tracks with your portable audio player - Record CDs into OGG, MP3, and WMA files - Convert any supported format into into OGG, WAV, MP3 or WAV files - Create playlists and music mixes quickly (manually or automatically) to suit any occasion + Much, much more...

OS Requirements MediaMonkey is supported on: - Windows 7 - Windows Vista - Windows XP MediaMonkey is also known to work, but is unsupported on: - Windows 2000 (SP3/SP4) - Windows 98 SE - Windows ME - WINE (Linux) See: MONKEYS AUDIO Suggestion: Try to download the last version of the program for get all supported formats and register Media Monkey (free) to Media Monkey Gold

MoonLight

Bedroom Producers Blog - Free VST Plugins

Bedroom Producers Blog Free VST Plugins --Tyrell N6 v2 freeware virtual synthesizer --Orban Loudness Meter 2 free standalone loudness --TDR Feedback Compressor freeware bus compressor --Sinevibes Filther AU Plugin --Limiter 6 (Public Alpha Version) freeware limiter VST/AU --Expresso freeware distortion/saturation effect --Free Tube Amp Plugin only for registered iLok users and much more..... FREE VST PLUGINS

HeadLiner - Promote your Music

HEADLINER

Reason Manuals & Helps

Reason 1.0 - 2.0 - 2.5 - 3.0 - 4.0 - 5.0 - 6.0 All Idioms: English - German - Spanish - Japanese - French - Italian Reason Docs: Getting started - Manuals - Helps Mac & Windows DOWNLOAD HERE