Plus! Digital Media Edition: Music Tools
Published: March 3, 2003
By Sharon Crawford, Windows XP Expert Zone Community Columnist
Editor's Note: Past articles by members of the online community are archived for your use. The information may become outdated as technology changes. For the most current information, please search the Web site or post a question in the newsgroups.
Plus! Digital Media Edition is part of the Microsoft Plus pack product line. Plus packs have been around since Windows 95. They're add-ons to the Windows operating system, offering extra tools that make the computing experience more enjoyable. I've always looked at Plus packs as optional items—nice but not exactly essential. Plus! Digital Media Edition (DME) reverses that opinion. This pack of creative tools goes directly into my must-have category and I recommend it for all digital media buffs.
The tools in Plus! DME enhance your experiences with photos, music, movies, and portable devices. This column focuses on two tools that enrich your music experiences, Analog Recorder and Audio Converter.
Get Plus! Digital Media Edition
Plus! DME breaks ground by being the first product Microsoft has made available by download. It costs $19.95 and you can purchase, download, and install it immediately. Visit the Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition Web page that will take you to an online store where you can download the product. You can purchase a copy on CD from Shop Microsoft.com or at your favorite online computer store. It's also available in other retail outlets where you find Windows XP sold.
The tools in Plus! DME build on the digital media improvements contained in Windows Media Player 9 Series. It's no coincidence that final versions of both products were released the same day. To really enjoy Plus! DME, you should upgrade to Windows Media Player 9 Series if you aren't already using it to play and organize your digital media content. In an earlier column, Windows Media Player 9 Series, I took Windows Media 9 Player Series for a spin and explained how to use some of its new features.
The video tool in Plus! DME works with Windows Movie Maker 2, so you'll want to upgrade to that version to get the most from Plus! Effects and Transitions for Movie Maker 2. Visit the Windows Movie Maker 2 Download site for the free download. For more information about Movie Maker 2, see Tony Northrup's column, Moviemaking 202.
Plus! Digital Media Edition Tools
Before I explain how to use two of my favorite digital music tools, a brief word about Plus! Photo Story. It's a truly great tool that lets you add zooming and panning moves to still images. You can also add narration and background music to turn your digital photos into slide shows that tell a story. Tony Northrup's column, Plus! Digital Media Edition: Photo Story, contains a sample photo story that beautifully demonstrates the creative possibilities of this tool.
The audio and digital music enhancements in Plus! DME include:
| • | Plus! Party Mode makes your computer work like a jukebox. |
| • | Plus! Analog Recorder helps you change vinyl records or cassettes into digital music files. |
| • | Plus! Dancers adds to your desktop animated dancers that groove with your music. |
| • | Plus! CD Label Maker helps you create custom labels for your CD collection. |
| • | Plus! Audio Converter lets you automatically convert audio files to WMA files or MP3 files (if you have an MP3 codec installed). |
| • | Plus! Alarm Clock uses your music to wake you up or remind you of an event. |
| • | Plus! Sleep Timer automatically turns off media after the number of minutes you set has elapsed. |
| • | Plus! Skins for Windows Media Player 9 Series lets you personalize the Player with additional skins. |
The video tool, Plus! Effects and Transitions for Movie Maker 2, is a set of 50 new effects and transitions for Movie Maker 2.
Plus! Sync & Go lets you grab news and other audio and video clips from the Internet and move them to your Pocket PC. It's cool, it works, and it's going to be covered in another column here on the Expert Zone.
Digitize Music with Analog Recorder
Plus! Analog Recorder is exactly the tool you've been looking for if you have vinyl LPs or audio cassettes that you no longer play, but can't bear to part with. All that music doesn't have to be lost or purchased again in digital format. You can digitize it yourself using the Analog Recorder. Record part of a song, part of a tape, part of a record, and make your own playlists, much like ripping a CD.
Analog Recorder includes advanced features to filter out the surface noise characteristic of analog recordings and automatically adjusts the recording level so the newly digitized recordings don't suffer from distortion or excessive static popping and hissing.
The only thing the least bit complicated about the process is connecting the analog device to your computer and even that is a lot easier than you might think. I'm inclined to break out in a rash when reading instructions that include words like “input,” “output,” and “jacks,” but I found the procedure quite easy.
To get the best out of your analog recordings, clean your LPs first with a disk-washing solution. Check the condition of the record player's needle and if it's not excellent, replace it. For tapes, clean the playback heads of the tape machine and turn off any options (like a Metal setting) that add noise. There's a substantial amount of time and work involved in converting a large library of analog music and it's wasted if you don't do the ground work and end up with high-quality digital recordings.
Transfer Analog Music to Your Computer
To transfer your analog music to your computer, you'll need the following:
| • | Record player or the cassette player |
| • | Stereo receiver |
| • | Connectors |
The record player has to be connected to a stereo receiver or preamplifier to boost the signal to your sound card. The cassette or reel-to-reel tape player doesn't require the stereo receiver but you can connect that way, if you want to.
To connect the receiver to your sound card, you'll need a "Y" stereo adapter cable with a pair of RCA-style, left- and right-channel connectors (male) at one end and a single line-in, 1/8-inch (3.5 millimeter) mini-connector at the other. Don't have one lying around the house? Just write down the description and drop by an electronics store.
For example, at Radio Shack you can get a six-foot patch cable (Catalog #42-2352 at $5.99), add a Y adapter (Catalog #: 274-879 at $5.99), and you're ready to go. Or go upscale at Monstercable.com and get a 10 ft. Computer Stereo Audio to Stereo Receiver Connector (Model JM REPC M HP-10 at $24.95), which is all you'll need.
The Help system for Analog Recorder has a clear diagram that shows how to use the connector to attach the stereo receiver or tape deck to your sound card's input. To view it, open Plus! Analog Recorder (see Step 1 in the procedure below):
| • | On the Welcome page, click Learn more about connecting audio devices to your computer, then on the next page, click To connect your stereo receiver to your computer or one of the other appropriate related topics. |
After you've connected your receiver or tape deck to your computer, start transferring music to your computer:
1. | Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition, and then click Plus! Analog Recorder. |
2. | Click Next on the Welcome page to do a recording level check. |
3. | This step is essential when going from analog sound to digital. Both analog and digital media have an upper limit beyond which they no longer accurately represent amplitude. With analog recording, exceeding the upper limits causes varying amounts of distortion depending on the equipment. With digital equipment, once you reach the upper limit, the sound is clipped off. You lose part of the audio information, and the result is very unpleasant to the ear. So follow the instructions to set the incoming signal to acceptable levels. |
4. | Click Next, and to start a recording, click the Record button, and then immediately begin playing the music on your analog audio device. The length of the current recording is displayed in Elapsed time. |
5. | Click Advanced to change any of the default settings. For example, if you do not want Analog Recorder to automatically detect and split tracks, clear the Automatically detect and split tracks check box. You can manually set tracks when you play them back. |
6. | After you finish recording your music, click Next. |
Now you're ready to play your tracks, review how they're split, and name them.
1. | Select the tracks you want to play, and then click Play. Analog Recorder automatically levels the volume so that all tracks play at the same level. | • | To change the playback volume, move the Volume slider left to decrease or right to increase the volume level. | | • | To move forward or backward within the track, move the progress indicator to the right or left on the Seek bar. You can also click anywhere on the bar to go immediately to that place within the track. | | • | To immediately begin playing a different track, double-click that track. |
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2. | Use Split to break tracks up: in the tracks list, click a track, click the Play button, and at the point in the track where you want to split it, click the Stop button, and then click the Split button. |
3. | Use Combine to consolidate tracks: in the tracks list, click the first track you want to combine, press and hold down SHIFT, click the last track you want to combine, and then click the Combine button. |
4. | Name your tracks by clicking the track list. The information you put here will be what is displayed when you play the tracks in Media Player. |
5. | Clean tracks by applying cleaning filters: select a track, select one or both of the Reduce pops and Reduce hiss check boxes. Then click Preview to hear the result and decide if you want to keep the settings. Note: The Reduce pops and Reduce hiss options are indispensable when recording beloved and worn LPs. If the Reduce hiss option isn't available, it means that Analog Recorder wasn't able to detect any silences on the track. If you're sure that there's background hiss that you want to get rid of, go back and re-record the track, this time deliberately recording some silence at the beginning or end of the record or tape. |
You're also asked to opt for or against Copy Protection.
1. | If you want to protect the music that you recorded so that it can only be played on your computer and other compatible devices, such as a portable audio player, click Add copy protection to the music. -or- If you do not want to protect the music you recorded, click Do not add copy protection to the music. If you click this option, the music can be played on any computer or device. |
2. | Read the content protection statement at the bottom of the dialog box, and select the check box if you agree to the copy protection terms. If you don't select this check box, you can't continue with your Analog Recorder session. |
Select the location to save your recordings and move on to the next record or tape.
Optimize Audio Files with Audio Converter
Plus! Audio Converter is my second favorite tool in Plus! DME. Audio Converter changes your music files into Windows Media Audio (WMA) files or MP3 files. You'd use it to convert audio files to a different format for transferring to a portable device, to convert large numbers of audio files at one time, and to convert Media Library files to a smaller bit rate.
To begin converting music files:
1. | Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition, and then click Plus! Audio Converter. |
2. | Click Convert a folder of audio files or click Convert specific audio files. For a folder, specify the location and the types of files to look for. Audio Converter reports its finds and you have an opportunity to remove the files you don't want changed, as shown in Figure 1. 
Figure 1
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3. | On the Select your conversion options page, choose an output format, quality, and location for your files. Your audio files can be converted into one of four output formats: | • | Windows Media Audio—files are predictable in size, though because of the vagaries of individual tracks, the quality may not be the same throughout. | | • | Windows Media Audio (variable bit rate)—produces the smallest file size with very good quality because a higher bit rate is used for more complex portions of the recording and a lower bit rate is used for less complex parts. | | • | Windows Media Audio Lossless—records with little or no compression for very high quality. You can play audio files recorded with WMA Lossless only on computers. | | • | MP 3—to convert your audio files to MP3 format, you need to install an MP3 codec on your computer |
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4. | To select a bit rate for regular WMA files or MP 3 or to select a bit rate range for WMA variable bit rate files, move the Quality slider. WMA Lossless files are very large files and the Quality slider is not unavailable for them. |
MP 3 codecs are widely available on the Web. Just do a search for “MP3 codec” and download one. The MP 3 PowerEncoder for Windows XP at $9.95 is a good place to start.
1. | Click Save my converted audio files in the same folders as the source files if you want the converted files to be saved in the same folders as the original files. -or- Click Save my converted audio files in this folder if you want the converted files to be saved in a different folder. Then click Browse, click the folder you want in the Browse dialog box, and then click OK. |
2. | By default, the selected files are added to Media Library, but clear that check box if you don't want to add them, select the Volume leveling check box to apply that feature if desired, click Next, and then click Start Conversion. A status bar, shown in the Figure 2, reports the process of leveling if you chose that option and then converts each file. 
Figure 2
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The tag line for the music enhancements in Plus! Digital Media Edition is “Take music to the max!” After you try this Plus pack, you'll find it gives you a richer digital media experience with Windows XP that's also fun and easy to get into.
Sharon Crawford is a former editor now engaged in writing books and magazine articles. Since 1993, she has written or co–written two dozen books on computer topics. Her books include Windows 2000 Pro: The Missing Manual, Windows 98: No Experience Required, and Windows 2000 Professional for Dummies (with Andy Rathbone).
