Ever heard of the very popular game for the PlayStation 2, called Guitar Hero? Until recently, I only vaguely picked it up here and there, but not being a big PlayStation gamer, I never payed much attention. That is, until today. A friend of mine gave me a link to Frets On Fire, which claims to be the PC variant of Guitar Hero. Seeing it was free, I downloaded it and gave it a try, and I have to admit, it's addictive!

Allow me to give you a small introduction on this game.

First of all, start by downloading Frets On Fire and installing it on your computer.

Let's get started and begin the fun by selecting one of the available songs, there only three out of the box, but you can download additional songs.

The selected song will load and you'll notice five frets above the snares. These frets can be selected using the F1 to F5 buttons, but there are also instructions available on using your guitar hero controller. After a while, you'll notice various notes coming towards you, the goal is to pick the correct snare when the note is around the same position of the frets. You can pick a snare by pressing the ENTER key while holding a fret.

Some notes will be very short, while others have a long trail behind them, simply hold the fret down long enough to play the entire note. An example of this can be seen in the video I recorded of Anthrax - Caught In A Mosh on the left side which has some very long notes in the beginning followed by lots of short ones towards the end.

The better you play, the higher your score will be. A counter will be ticking up in the upper left corner, keeping track of the amount of successful notes played in succession, while in the upper right corner you'll see the bonus meter build up per note. This meter will tick up per 10 correct notes played and give you up to a 4x multiplier for your score, an incorrect note will reset it back to 1.

To make your ears like the song, you'd better play as many correct notes as possible, because missing a note will be audible due to the guitar suddenly falling silent. It's also possible to make a wrong note stand out very clearly. There are various degrees of difficulty, making you hit multiple notes together and shorter after each other in increasing difficulty. Since I'm still quite bad at it, the video I recorded was played on the easiest difficulty.

Don't feel sorry to play on the lowest difficulty though, the most valuable feature of the game is being the fact that it's a great party game! The laughs and hours of fun you can have with this game are amazing, especially since it's free!

Another nice addition is the possibility to change the look and feel through the use of mods, and even introduce multi-player functionality.

Frets On Fire managed to make me love this genre of games, where the simplicity makes it so addictive you'd play it all day long.

If you'll excuse me now, I have to prepare for my big rock concert! :)

Yesterday I explained how you could manage your iPod through Windows Explorer. Having this ability opens up more powerful ways of managing your iPod. One of these ways for example is the ability to automatically sync your master archive stored on your computer, with your iPod. In my case it's stored in FLAC format to retain all it's quality, since FLAC is a lossless format.

Armed with TagLib#, LAME, FLAC and a nice function to recursively search through a directory for files, I slapped together a small synchronization application for myself.

On my iPod I have the following batch file, EncodeLibrary.bat, stored:

[code]@ECHO OFF
ECHO Running: '%~d0\LibrarySync.exe %~d0\ C:\Media\Music %~d0\Music'
ECHO Encodes to MP3 with: -V 4 --vbr-new
%~d0\LibrarySync.exe %~d0\ C:\Media\Music %~d0\Music
ECHO Done.[/code]

This file simply calls my utility, LibrarySync.exe, and passes in the drive it is running on (%~d0), The Archive and the target directory. In my application I then simply scan for all available FLAC files, through a wildcard search, in the archive and trigger an action whenever a file is found.

[csharp]static void Main(string[] args)
{
/* Note to blog reader: These used to be constants, never properly refactored it since it was a quick and dirty personal app. */
DRIVE = args[0];
FROMDIR = args[1];
TODIR = args[2];

ScanDirectory scanDirectory = new ScanDirectory();

scanDirectory.FileEvent += new ScanDirectory.FileEventHandler(scanDirectory_FileEvent);
scanDirectory.SearchPattern = "*.flac";

scanDirectory.WalkDirectory(FROMDIR);
}
[/csharp]

Whenever a FLAC file is found, I check if the target MP3 already exists, and in case it doesn't exist yet, I call a Convert.bat file. I've chosen to use an external batch file to handle the copying, this way I can simply open it up in a text editor and change the encoding quality or the paths to the encoder.

After encoding the file, I take the meta data from the original FLAC file and place it in the target MP3 ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags. This way my iPod can read out the file details and organize it easily in it's catalog.

[csharp]static void scanDirectory_FileEvent(object sender, FileEventArgs e)
{
string from = e.Info.FullName;
string to = TODIR + e.Info.FullName.Remove(0, FROMDIR.Length).Replace(".flac", ".mp3");
string toDir = TODIR + e.Info.DirectoryName.Remove(0, FROMDIR.Length);

if (!IO.File.Exists(to))
{
if (!IO.Directory.Exists(toDir))
{
IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(toDir);
}

Console.WriteLine("Writing " + to);

Process convertFile = new Process();
convertFile.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
convertFile.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = false;

convertFile.StartInfo.FileName = DRIVE + "Convert.bat";
convertFile.StartInfo.Arguments = "\"" + from + "\" \"" + to + "\"";
convertFile.Start();

convertFile.WaitForExit();

Flac.File flacFile = new Flac.File(from);
TagLib.Tag flacTag = flacFile.GetTag(TagLib.TagTypes.FlacMetadata, false);

TagLib.File mp3File = TagLib.File.Create(to);
MP3.Tag mp3Tag = mp3File.GetTag(TagLib.TagTypes.Id3v2) as TagLib.Id3v2.Tag;
MP3Old.Tag mp3OldTag = mp3File.GetTag(TagLib.TagTypes.Id3v1) as TagLib.Id3v1.Tag;

if (flacTag.Album != null) { mp3Tag.Album = flacTag.Album; }
if (flacTag.FirstPerformer != null) { mp3Tag.Performers = new string [] { flacTag.FirstPerformer }; }
if (flacTag.Title != null) { mp3Tag.Title = flacTag.Title; }
if (flacTag.Year != 0) { mp3Tag.Year = flacTag.Year; }
if (flacTag.FirstGenre != null) { mp3Tag.Genres = new string [] { flacTag.FirstGenre }; }
if (flacTag.Track != 0) { mp3Tag.Track = flacTag.Track; }

if (flacTag.Album != null) { mp3OldTag.Album = flacTag.Album; }
if (flacTag.FirstPerformer != null) { mp3OldTag.Performers = new string [] { flacTag.FirstPerformer }; }
if (flacTag.Title != null) { mp3OldTag.Title = flacTag.Title; }
if (flacTag.Year != 0) { mp3OldTag.Year = flacTag.Year; }
if (flacTag.FirstGenre != null) { mp3OldTag.Genres = new string [] { flacTag.FirstGenre }; }
if (flacTag.Track != 0) { mp3OldTag.Track = flacTag.Track; }

mp3File.Save();

Console.WriteLine();
}
}[/csharp]

The content of my Convert.bat file looks like this:

[code]@ECHO OFF
"%~d0\Tools\FLAC\flac.exe" --decode --stdout --silent %1 | "%~d0\Tools\LAME\latest\lame.exe" -V 4 --vbr-new - %2[/code]

It simply encodes the FLAC file to a VBR MP3 with a target bitrate of 165kbps.

All said and done, this is how the tool looks like in action:



When I connect my iPod, I usually follow these steps from now on:

• Run reTune to manage my songs in Windows Explorer.


• Run EncodeLibrary to encode possible missing songs.


• Run reTune to organize them back into my iPod.


• Disconnect and listen to music.

I created a small zip file for anyone who would like to set something like this up for himself as well. To use it, simply follow the following steps:

• Extract the zip file to the root of your iPod.


• Edit EncodeLibrary.bat to point to your master archive, and the target folder.


• Get the FLAC and LAME files and place them in a folder called Tools. Look at Convert.bat to determine the exact paths.


• Run EncodeLibrary.bat from a command prompt, and with a bit of luck it'll work for you. If not, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do for you.

Do you know of other cool things I could create for my iPod? Comment and let me know!

Do you own an iPod? Are you tired of using iTunes? If you answered positive to both questions, read on! reTune is your solution.

reTune is a very small, but useful, tool which you store on your iPod and every time you connect to your computer (or any computer for that matter, since you'll be free of iTunes), you double click just one file and you will be able to manage your iPod music collection through Windows Explorer!

When you run it for the first time, it will scan your iPod for MP3 files, read out the artist, title and album information and store it in Apple's proprietary iPod format. I advise to start using reTune from an empty iPod, since it will not magically extract music already on your iPod. Read these detailed instructions before using it.

reTune keeps a kind of mapping file between the location where the music file initially was located, and where it is stored after syncing. When you plug your iPod back in, and rerun reTune, it will move the file back out of the iPod, making it visible in the file system and allowing you to manage your collection, just remember to sync them back into the iPod afterwards :)

Here's a sample session of using reTune:

I connect my iPod, which holds a copy of The Archive in MP3 format, from some time ago, and run reTune.



From this point on, I can manage the files on my iPod through Windows Explorer and add or remove music.



When I'm done organizing my files, I run reTune again, which moves everything back into the iPod.



After this I simply remove my iPod and off I go, ready to hit the road again, but now with my updated music collection. And at no single point I needed iTunes or was I bothered by DRM restrictions, I should be able to play all the music I bought in my local music store on all devices I own. And I can.

iTunes fanboy? Anti-DRM? Speak up and spark the discussion!

You're an audiophile, and you wish to listen to music in the highest possible quality, but on the other hand, you don't have that much disk space at your disposal to store everything as wave files. What are you to do?

Meet Free Lossless Audio Codec, or FLAC for the friends. A codec which allows you to store your music digitally without any loss of quality from the original source, but not as big as storing huge wave files. Unlike as with MP3 where data is discarded, resulting in an audible quality loss. MP3 is called a lossy format, while FLAC is lossless.

FLAC is a reasonably unknown player among the general public, but it's here to stay and become mainstream. There is a reasonable selection of hardware devices out there already who can playback FLAC files, while most respectable music players will play them on your PC, Winamp being one of them.

A small summary of the most important features of the FLAC format:

• Lossless, no quality is lost when compressing the sound.


• Fast, the algorithm was designing to support very fast playback.


• Metadata, you can store all sorts of information in it to display when playing.


• Archiving, since a flac file is of the exact quality, you can convert it easily to lossy formats, like MP3.


• No DRM, there is no DRM on all flac files out there, for now.

You can already buy FLAC music from smaller record companies, or find some free music recorded as FLAC files. Or you could simply store your own CD collection as FLAC files with this nice guide. Storing these files needs a bit more space than storing MP3 files however. To give you a small idea, these are the sizes and compression ratios (lower is better) after I archived my own CD collection:

• Andrea Bocelli - Romanza : 351MB (Ratio: 55%)


• Arno - French Bazaar : 360MB (Ratio: 54%)


• Carl Orff - Carmina Burana : 229MB (Ratio: 40%)


• DJ Tiesto - Magik 5 - Heaven Beyond : 528MB (Ratio: 70%)


• Hed Kandi - Serve Chilled - HEDK068 : 458MB (Ratio: 60%) & 467MB (Ratio: 61%)


• Hed Kandi - Beach House - HEDK069 : 499MB (Ratio: 65%) & 553MB (Ratio: 70%)


• Praga Khan - Twenty First Century Skin : 399MB (Ratio: 65%)


• Praga Khan - Pragamatic : 466MB (Ratio: 70%)

I noticed that 'sung' music usually ends up with smaller files. I'm not sure why, but my guess is that there are more moments of silence when a person sings and grasps for breath, unlike electronic music where it's a constant stream. On the other hand, you'd expect electronic music to have recurring patterns and compress better. I'd have to withhold giving a good explanation for this, because I don't know either.

My personal approach towards FLAC is to have all the discs I have physically in the house, stored digitally on a central file server. After which I will stream the FLAC files itself to a high-end Hi-Fi setup, as if the disc itself would be playing on a normal CD player. But I will also be writing some automation tools to easily convert The Archive to other formats when needed, for example to play on my iPod.

If you're serious about music, I'd strongly recommend having a look at the FLAC format, the devices, software and possibilities, you won't regret it, even if you don't use it. Knowledge is power after all!

Are you using FLAC already? Leave some feedback on how you use it, and possible nice tools.