Country & Square Dance Music
Lets get one thing straight. We will not offer any digital music for you to download. The music we produce is only distributed through Hanhurst's Tape & Record Service. Click on [Our Music] for more information.
What I would like to discuss is how to handle this music. We can identify the following types of media for digital music:
 | Compact Disk (CD) Broadly accepted standard medium for music. For Square Dance music it's only just picking up. More producers have accepted the CD for releasing music. |
| MiniDisk (MD) No music is released on MD, and that will probably not happen at all. Callers do use MD however, to record their (hopefully) purchased recording to. It is a very convenient medium because it can store a lot of tracks, and is very easy to handle. Bill Heyman provides some good information about MD at http://www.dosado.com/callers/mdisk.htm |
| MP3 This is a format that is coming into fashion. Especially for the computer nerds among us. There are already callers using a laptop computer to play the square dance music through, me being one of them. The advantage is that all the music you have (recorded) is available thru a single mouse click. The disadvantage is, however, when there are more callers and cuers sharing a dance, you might end up with a large table filled with laptop computers, where in the old day every one would bring just their records using a single record player! If you want to know more about mp3 players that you can use, check Vic Ceder's site at http://www.ceder.net . He provides lots of information and offers a complete callers solution for playing music and calling. Also, it's worth while to check out the The Basics of MP3 Format Digital Music page of Hanhurst's Tape and Record service. Currently, I use the "Digital Music Magician" by Bill Heyman, which can be purchased with Hanhurst, now owned by Tom and Pam Dillander from Palomino Records Inc. Check out this link: Digital Music Magician |
But what do you do when you find a good song released on
MP3, and you do not want, or just cannot play it thru a laptop computer?
Is it possible to transfer this computer file to a CD, or MD? Why...,
yes...., that is possible, and I will try to explain how to do that.
| Requirements You will need a computer with: -Internet connection in order to download your favorite song -Sound card, so you can play your favorite song and/or record it to a MD -CD (re)writer unit, to burn your song to a CD (if you want that) Most recent computers will be equipped with these features and have enough power to fulfill the tasks we need. |
| Downloading the song I will not get into this, because that is an easy enough task well explained by your (digital) music provider, such a Hanhurst's. On the website you have the possibility to listen to samples. There is a thing of importance though, you need to remember where you store(save) the downloaded music file. |
| Recording your song to CD With the right software, it is easy enough to record your song(s) to CD. Nero Burning Rom and Easy CD Creator will accept MP3 files and create CDs that can be played on a regular CD player. Just follow the wizard that will help you through the process. |
| Recording your song to MD This is another matter. You need to hookup you MD recorder to your sound board. There are 2 ways to do that: -Analogue You need to identify the line output of your computer's sound board. This is the 3.5mm stereo output marked LINE OUT. If you are unsure about this, check the manual of your sound board. The other end of the cable should have the same 3.5mm jack, if you are using a portable recorder. If you use a desktop recorder, you need a cable with a 3.5mm stereo jack on one end, and 2 cinch male connectors on the other end. In both cases connect those to the line input of you MD recorder.   Now you can play your MP3 song with a software player such as Real One Player, or Microsoft's Windows Media Player. Just start recording with your MD recorder as you always do. -Digital If you have a digital output on your sound board, that's great because you don't loose any sound quality. Identify the digital output in you sound board, and the digital input on your MD recorder. You may need to purchase the right fiber-optic cable. Check your manuals. When in doubt, take the manuals to your local home audio dealer or Radio Shack and let them assist you in finding the right cable. For the rest, the procedure is the same as for analogue recording. |
Now that you have successfully recorded your favorite song, you have now the possibility to download those great songs that we, and other producers make available. There is another advantage if you like, singing calls released as MP3 are cheaper. They are only $ 5.00, where vinyl is $ 6.00 as are CD's. And you'll save the postage!!!
I understand that a lot of callers are still using
vinyl, and there is nothing wrong with that. The thing is however, that
the production of vinyl is very expensive. It is very hard for the
producers to make a profit.
Producing CD's is cheaper because of the fact they can be produced at
small quantities.
Production of MP3s is even cheaper because one only has to send a file across
the internet.
One last thing I would like you to consider: It is technically very easy to copy MP3 files, and share them with other callers. But if we all start doing this, it will in the end kill square dance music production. This would really make me sad, and not just me! For me producing square dance music is like a dream come true. Let's not make it a nightmare for us all.
If you have any questions about this subject, feel free to drop me an E-mail, and I will do my best to help you out. Any suggestions to improve this article are most welcome.
EPTunes
Producer: Erik Pluylaar
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