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Clips! New artist feature that's gonna be HOT...

fu-dog	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 2:01 AM Artists can now add clips to each of songs. These clips can be heard by the user with just a roll-over of the m ouse. This lets users sample your work without having to click on a song and wait for the download, and it doesn't require mp3 player software either. Enjoy.
utopiauk	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 4:11 AM I really like this, its a great feature. The only problem I had is that getright tries to download the clip but if I disable getright it works fine.
withering	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 6:04 AM Cool. But what does it require? IE? 5? 6? Windows? Mozilla? luunix? Opera? Which format are the clips supposed to be uploaded in? Wav? Mp3?
utopiauk	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 6:46 AM I'm using IE6 and uploaded the clips as low quality mono mp3's. They seem to work okay.
withering	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 7:17 AM Ah. To answer my own question: This feature is using the "Macromedia Flash Player". So it should work on platforms that have a flash plugin, which is most windows browsers and mozilla on linux. (Was that right, fu?)
fu-dog	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 10:31 AM That's correct, ofwitheringashes, Macromedia Flash Player is technology that enables this feature. Currently, just like the rest of our site, the clips need to be in MP3 format. I will look into setting up other sorts of formats for clips when i get other formats enabled site-wide. utopiauk: Thanks for mentioning this issue with GetRight. I will have to look into that.
withering	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 12:13 PM This feature rawks! Suddenly my page are 10 times more hi-tech than others ! If everybody would use this feature, perusing the DMusic archives would be a much easier thing to do. Only missing the song description from the 'Blue blocks' though. With that included it will be Prefect! So... what are you waiting for folks? However, to get an acceptable soundclip under 32kb requires some tweaking; I've used Mono/22KHz with lowest VBR encoding which'll give you about 7-10 seconds of fame, depending on the music. To get a 14s soundclip for 'Escape' I resorted to 11KHz, but it sounds just awful, so that's not recommended .
Larree	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 12:20 PM That could be interesting.
Sweats	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 2:17 PM can someone tell me what I need to do this and how, thanks.
withering	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 3:34 PM Add clip / change clip (on each of your tracks) "Add clip" asks you to upload a file for the clip. This file has to be a tiny part (your favourite) of the track, in mp3 format. It can't be larger than 32Kb, which means about 7-10 seconds with low quality mono audio. For making the clip, just use a wave editor to cut out the part of the track you want, then encode it as mp3. Hope this helps.
Sweats	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 5:11 PM whats the best wave editor?
CrescentShadow	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 7:20 PM wow, this is awesome.. thanks fu dog! keep up the awesome work
CrescentShadow	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 7:25 PM whoa, when i uploaded my clips.. and played them, they sound like MIDI in fast forward! rofl, this is really odd.. any idea whats going on??
CrescentShadow	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 7:44 PM nevermind, i figrued it out. you must use a certain Hz.. dont know how else to say it... but i first tried it with 32kps/1600Hz and it totally messed up. then i tried it with 11025Hz and it works... sooo, do that if it messes up for you
Sweats	Date: December 16, 2003 @ 9:46 PM CRAZY!!! This is great, had to sacrifice some quality, but its worth it. Thanks guys. Check them out at http://dirtydon.dmusic.com it'll only take a bit!!!
johnnygnote	Date: December 17, 2003 @ 4:16 PM Sweats: Audacity is free and easy to use and Acoustica is free for 30 days and costs about 20 bucks very nice. I have both and use them to edit my waves for beginnings and endings and fades, many other features.
Sweats	Date: December 17, 2003 @ 5:27 PM Thanks anyway, but I already clipped my songs.
leflaw	Date: December 17, 2003 @ 5:58 PM not like this.
Sweats	Date: December 17, 2003 @ 5:59 PM what?
mawcs	Date: December 19, 2003 @ 2:50 PM It would be really cool if the clips feature was available in the DM picks, where available.
rapidhopeloss	Date: December 19, 2003 @ 3:21 PM All my songs are clipped
CrescentShadow	Date: December 19, 2003 @ 7:29 PM Hm, after using clips for a while, I've notice a big downside... The time it takes for the page to load is greatly incresed. Especially if you are looking at a subcriber's page who has 20 clips.. thats 640k extra you have to load, I feel sorry for dial up users in that case. I was thinking, if this becomes a problem for dial up users, maybe they would want an option to turn off clip viewing so their pages load faster... just a thought.
fu-dog	Date: December 19, 2003 @ 7:44 PM Definitely something i'm planning to setup. There'll also be larger clip sizes allowed so that users with faster connections can hear better/longer samples. I also intend on setting up an "auto-clip" system that will clip a section of your track and put it up each time you upload a song. Then, if you want to replace that with a more representational clip, you can upload your own to replace the auto-clip. Is gonna be spiffy.
leflaw	Date: December 19, 2003 @ 7:52 PM Sweats Date: December 16, 2003 @ 5:11 PM ( delete ) whats the best wave editor? \ Try Wavelab (Steinberg)
withering	Date: December 20, 2003 @ 10:17 AM While I do think this feature is übercool, please do not put too much emphasis on it. After all, it is dependant on a 3rd party tool which not everybody might be able to / want to use. One thing that I found really positive in comparision to other "music sites" when I first came to DMusic, was the openness/accessibility of it all, that this site is very cross-browser compatible and with a ratio of information vs. eye/ear candy significantly higher than others. Also with regards to bandwith consumption, think this would maybe be too heavy to put on the charts? I see this as a step on the way to provide better browseability for the site (which it needs). But I think the focus should mostly be on low-tech features which everybody is able to use. (Like a weekly humanly compiled 'highlights' list for instance?)
rapidhopeloss	Date: December 20, 2003 @ 10:51 AM ^highlights lists would lead to more elitism. PS: about the 3rd party tool thing.. read fudog's last response...there will be auto clipping one day.
withering	Date: December 20, 2003 @ 12:03 PM 3rd party: Meant the flash plugin. Believe it or not, but it's not a household item everywhere. It's a proprietary standard only supported by its owner/creator, Macromedia. Not my intention to do a RMS rant here, but it's usually not a good idea to embed such things into your body, especially if you're a community site like DMusic. About elitism - it's in the interest of both the DMusic owners and the majority of listeners to highlight quality music. Then it's up to the individual user (like me) to peruse the archives looking for the hidden gems. And what could be more elitism than what we have today; DM Picks and Top20 charts? Except that neither of them function at all as intended. When I first surfed to DMusic, I went straight for the main Top20 list, then the top of the DM pick list in the metal genre, just to get a quick taste of what the musical quality were like. And to be frank, if it hadn't been for the fact that I am an artist and saw this as a possible place to upload my own music, I would have turned around in the door and never returned! Later I have judged myself very lucky that I stayed, because there is an amazing amount of talent here. It's just so hard to find it! This is why I even cared to write this loooong rant: 1) I want DMusic to survive in a ever more competitive market. 2) I want to see Independent music come forth as a good alternative to the industry, not only for musicians but also the general public!
fu-dog	Date: December 20, 2003 @ 2:16 PM Accessibility is a definite issue with the clip system. The reason i waited six months to implement this was because i was trying to devise a system that didn't rely on any plugins. However, scalable vector graphics (SVG) have become an official recommendation of the W3C, and in the coming months/years we'll probably find that most browsers will come with native SVG capabilities. Bandwidth is the biggest isssue, both with this feature and with the site as a whole. I've been trying to skirt this as much as possible but i'm really starting to give in to bandwidth hogging creations. To try and ignore that multimedia is bandwidth-intensive and work around that fact fights the current limitations of common consumer technologies and only hinders the user experience. In any case, the addition of this feature does not negate the fact that we need better browsing systems. It's merely another tool to help artists represent themselves and highlight their creativity.
withering	Date: December 20, 2003 @ 2:51 PM
leflaw	Date: December 22, 2003 @ 7:29 AM Date: December 21, 2003 @ 6:34 PM ( delete ) I think ofwitheringa's comments should be required reading for all dmusic admins and employees. We have to present the best music the best way possible.
RancidFish	Date: January 11, 2004 @ 7:12 PM I seem to be unable to get clips to work. I can make a clip that sounds okay that's 4 seconds long and about 31k. I upload it, though, and it doesn't play when I m ouseover the "Clip" symbol. What's up?
Veracohr	Date: January 12, 2004 @ 8:09 AM RancidFish: do you have an updated Flash plugin?
TameasDust	Date: January 12, 2004 @ 9:15 AM well boogie woogie two shoes ... sorry just had to anywho ... when I was running win98 i couldn't upgrade to the latest flash plugin for some strange reason ... wonder if that could have somethin to do with it
TameasDust	Date: January 12, 2004 @ 9:19 AM clips that squiggly line thingy ... works great and surprised the heck outta me ... happened to be listening to doris day when my m ouse strayed accross the sample thingy ... i thought wtf oooo coool
RancidFish	Date: January 15, 2004 @ 1:54 AM I thought I had posted this, but apparently I hadn't. Veracohr: Yeah, clips work for me for everyone's clips but my own. That indicates to me that there's something wrong with the file I'm uploading. However, I've tried all sorts of different frequencies, bitrates, lengths, etc, but still nothing seems to work.
Sweats	Date: January 15, 2004 @ 2:22 AM doris day
fu-dog	Date: January 16, 2004 @ 2:18 PM Clip uploads were most likely not working properly in the last week and a half. If you had a problem with being unable to hear your clips, please try uploading them again.
Jazzmary2U	Date: January 17, 2004 @ 6:15 PM Fu.. this is SOOO COOL!!! I will try to upload a clip or two soon.. Only a couple clips will not slow down page loading? Also, can I delete the clips and add others to keep my bandwidth in check.. or server space.. or whatever?
fu-dog	Date: January 18, 2004 @ 2:52 PM You can have one clip for each song that you have on the server. If you don't like a clip, you can change it or delete it. Clips should not slow down the initial display of the page, but in the end, your page will be sending quite a bit of extra data to the user.
Jazzmary2U	Date: January 19, 2004 @ 12:42 AM Follow-up question, Fu-dog. How large should a clip file be for optimum load/playback? Does the plug in automatically assign the proper size and values when the clip is uploaded?
Jazzmary2U	Date: January 19, 2004 @ 12:45 AM Also.. a tip, folks.. when you select a portion of the song for a clip, try to choose something other than the first 15 seconds of the tune. I have listened to a few and not been able to figure what the song is because all I heard was the first four chords or whatever, and then it stops.
fu-dog	Date: January 19, 2004 @ 10:07 AM The maximum size is 32KB. I'm not quite sure what the "optimum" settings are... If you want a long clip you'll need to drop the level of quality, and if you want a higher quality clip you may only get those two chords... The system has it's issues. Too bad not everyone has broadband. I might be altering the system in the near future to allow hi/lo clips for broadband/modem users... we shall see.
Jazzmary2U	Date: January 19, 2004 @ 10:59 AM Thanks, Fu.. you'll be hearing from me!
Jazzmary2U	Date: January 19, 2004 @ 11:02 AM Works for me ok as is on dial-up. For a quick listen, kbs quality is no big deal, imho.. good music will be downloaded anyway..
YaBoyDrew	Date: June 20, 2004 @ 2:25 PM yeaaaaaaaaa i luv the clips idea, but sumtymes when i upload it it comes outt like i speeded it up

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