Michael Miller - The Ultimate Digital Music Guide: The Best Way to Store, Organize, and Play Digital Music

Michael Miller

800 East 96th Street,
Indianapolis, Indiana 46240

The Ultimate Digital Music Guide

Copyright 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7897-4844-7
ISBN-10: 0-7897-4844-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: June 2012

Associate Publisher
Greg Wiegand

Acquisitions Editor
Rick Kughen

Development Editor
Rick Kughen

Technical Editor
Karen Weinstein

Managing Editor
Kristy Hart

Project Editor
Anne Goebel

Indexer
Erika Millen

Proofreader
Jess DeGabriele

Publishing Coordinator
Cindy Teeters

Cover Designer
Anne Jones

Compositor
Tricia Bronkella

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Michael Miller has written more than 100 nonfiction how-to books over the past 20 years, including Sams Teach Yourself Spotify in 10 Minutes, How Home Theater and HDTV Work, Creating a Digital Home Entertainment Center with Windows Media Center, The Complete Idiots Guide to Home Theater Systems, The Complete Idiots Guide to Music History, and Absolute Beginners Guide to Computer Basics.

Mr. Miller has established a reputation for clearly explaining technical topics to nontechnical readers, and for offering useful real-world advice about complicated topics. More information can be found at the authors website, located at www.molehillgroup.com.

To Sherry, with whom I share all my music.

Thanks to all the usual suspects at Que who helped to turn my manuscript into a printed book, including but not limited to Rick Kughen, Anne Goebel, and Greg Wiegand. Thanks also to Karen Weinstein, who served as technical editor for this book and helped to make sure all the technical details are correct.

Most especially, thanks to all my friends who have graciously shared their music with me over the years. You turned me on to a lot of great stuff, and I hope Ive returned the favor.

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I am a music lover. Big time. My wife and I try to catch at least one or two major shows a month, and Im an A Train member of and frequent visitor to our local jazz club. (Thats the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, one of the best in the nation.) I have more than 1,700 albums in my music collection, or more than 25,000 individual tracks if you count that way. I listen to jazz and rock and folk and soul, and even the occasional Broadway show tune. Im fairly sure I know the entire Great American Songbook by heart, and can throw out the names of all the backing musicians on most of the big hits (and a lot of album cuts) pressed during the 1960s and 1970s. I play drums, piano, and a little guitar, and write books about music history and music theory and the like. I may be an expert on certain aspects of music, if that sort of thing matters or impresses you.

Im guessing that youre a music lover too. Maybe not as extreme as meor maybe you arebut a music lover, nonetheless. You have your own personal tastes and opinions as to what makes good music, Im sure, and no doubt have a decent collection of said music in your possession. Your collection might be on compact disc, or it could be on vinyl or audiocassette, but Im guessing at least part of your collection is digital, coming either from ripped CDs or Internet downloads. Or maybe your collection isnt digitalyetbut you want to go that route.

I have to tell you, moving to an all-digital music library has a lot of benefitsif you do it right. When your music is in digital format, its a snap to find that one track or album and play it virtually instantly; no more hunting through your entire collection for that song you just cant quite put your fingers on. A digital music library is also easy to organize just about any way you want to, and then reorganize with the click of a button; if you want to play only soul music or only folk, thats a snap, too.

Even better, a digital music library doesnt take up any physical space. You know those shelves and racks of discs and tapes? Pack all those old relics up and put them in the attic, because your new digital collection takes up no more space than a computer hard drive. Make your digital collection as big as you wish, it doesnt expand any physically.