Geeky Fun: MP3 Tunes - Get Your Music Anywhere.
WARNING: I recently tried their streaming service and it has the wrong bitrate. Worse, it has actually recoded my MP3s at this new bit rate so that ALL of my MP3s on all my computers that were synced (they’re likely OK on the originating computer but I’m not at home to check) are borked. I’ve sent in an email and we’ll see what they have to say. At the moment, though, I retract my recommendation of MP3 Tunes and highly recommend that you stay away until this is resolved. My apologies for this situation, and I’ll update this post as things unwrap.
Turns out it was the soundcard on this particular computer. Phew…disregard my mad panic.
My newest cool find is MP3 Tunes. MP3 Tunes is basically a web locker where you can store your audio files (yes, OGGs too) and then get at your music from anywhere. While not specifically a GNU/Linux service, the client that is used to sync your audio files is available for GNU/Linux which is so rare these days that it put MP3 Tunes at the top of my love list.
I suppose the fact that there’s a GNU/Linux client isn’t that surprising since Michael Robertson, Chairman of Linspire, launched MP3 Tunes, but who cares. It’s still nice.
Here’s how it works. You sign up for a ‘locker’ and download the applicable client side Oboe application. You tell the Oboe application where you store your music and it happily syncs any music you have with the contents of your locker.
How can you fill your locker? Well, you could rip CDs to your local music directory and then fire up Oboe to sync it, or you could do what’s called a ‘webload’ into your locker. A webload is supplying a link to an audio file to your locker. MP3 Tunes will then suck the file from the link and store it in your locker. Again, fire up Oboe and your new file(s) will be synced to your local machine. Another cool way to load your locker with the webload Firefox extension. Once installed, any audio links on any webpage you visit will have a music note icon beside it. Click it, and presto blammo - that file gets sent to your locker. Guess what you do then? Yup…fire up Oboe and sync it on down.
So once it’s in your locker, then what? Well, you can use the Oboe application on any other computer anywhere and sync your music. You can only sync two computers at a time, but there’s no limit to how many computers you can load Oboe onto and sync. This is great since I have three computers in the house and one at work. I can get my music locally anywhere.
If you don’t want to sync your music, you can manage your music right online via the built in flash player in your locker. You can build and manage playlists, delete songs, and play them right off the web.
As with anything there are two subscription levels, but the first one is free and that’s my price (well, not really. I paid for the premium I like it so much). You should check out the MP3 Tunes site for all the details, but the basic difference between the two is the sound quality and the sync. Only the premium account ($40/year) will allow you to sync your music via Oboe. As well, the free account plays your music at a lower quality than the premium accounts. Both accounts will let you play music and manage playlists right out of your locker, though.
Since Oboe syncs to any directory you tell it to, you can easily use your locker with Amarok or LSongs or anything else. As long as both Oboe and your music application are looking for your music files in the same place then it will work just fine.
Way cool…I’m having a blast webloading demo songs from all over the web.
Oh, did I mention that there’s an MP3 Tunes store where you can buy music for 88 cents a track or $8.88 an album?
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2 opinions for Geeky Fun: MP3 Tunes - Get Your Music Anywhere.
geoff
Dec 6, 2005 at 4:44 pm
This is effectively a server installed on the computer with the music on it, is it not?
Why not just use Apache? It’s free.
Jon
Dec 6, 2005 at 5:27 pm
In a word, integration. When you get down to brass tacks, everything out there is just a server delivering files. The magic is in how that’s done.
The sync client keeps all my music on all my computers synced with no fuss and no muss.
Webloading and sideloading rocks. I see an audio file I like, I just click it and it goes to my locker. And then gets synced to all my computers.
If I’m on a computer that isn’t mine, or that I can’t (shouldn’t) install s/w on like the one at work, I can just stream it via the built in Flash player.
Performance. I know that you’ve had as many problems with me with your host so you’re on stranger to the plethora of shitty hosts out there. The MP3 Tunes server pumps it out at 192Kbs without a glitch (so far).
Lastly, money. This isn’t a couple of HTML pages, this is Gigs and Gigs of music which means Gigs and Gigs of bandwidth. That’s not trivial. I can’t afford a reliable (please, no $10 a year for 100GB a day offers :) ) host that will offer me that kind of bandwidth. Alternatively, Shaw would shut me down pretty fast if I ran my own server. It would have hard for them to ignore the massive bandwidth the sync or streaming uses.
Lastly, lastly, technology: It wouldn’t be a trivial matter for me to create the software to stream it, write playlists, sync, webload…etc.
Well worth the $40 a year in my opinion :)
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