Comments on 12190

Now in ~~alpha~~ ~~beta~~ ~~gamma~~ whatever: MeFi Music. Built in 12 hours with help from pb, it's still got some rough edges and features to come, but for now you can upload a song you've written and recorded (this isn't for file sharing), stream it from the front page or from its own page (where you can also leave comments). You can add things to playlists and stream those too. And the RSS feed is a podcast you can drag into iTunes to suck down every mp3 that gets posted. I'm sure there are bugs and the color scheme was slapped together in five minutes, but expect to see things ironed out in the next couple weeks and I'll add it to the global nav for all sites when it feels complete. If you have any comments or questions, drop them here.
posted by mathowie to feature requests at 12:07 AM (351 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite

Awesome!
posted by dhruva at 12:19 AM on June 30, 2006

Mint.
posted by armoured-ant at 12:27 AM on June 30, 2006

There are plenty of talented musicians kicking around these parts, I can't wait! I also like that it deepens the MeTa "bumble bee" color scheme.
posted by SassHat at 12:29 AM on June 30, 2006

Deja vu!

But this time, there's actually music there!

First song should've been matthew chen is spamming, though.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:30 AM on June 30, 2006

Also: cool.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:31 AM on June 30, 2006

[This is bodacious]
posted by Ljubljana at 12:31 AM on June 30, 2006

Holy Shit! I have a recorded C.V. in the hundreds!

So much for you all to ignore! Coming at you!
posted by sourwookie at 12:34 AM on June 30, 2006

ummm. perhaps I should filter....
posted by sourwookie at 12:35 AM on June 30, 2006

Audiofilter: Dear AskMefites--How do I convert CD tracks to MP3'S?

I kid, I kid!
posted by sourwookie at 12:38 AM on June 30, 2006

So what do you plan to do about people uploading things that they didn't actually create themselves or don't have permission to copy?
posted by Rhomboid at 12:42 AM on June 30, 2006

I will remove them Rhombold.
posted by mathowie at 12:47 AM on June 30, 2006

Neat.
posted by JZig at 12:48 AM on June 30, 2006

Back when I did music.metafilter.com the first time, there were tons of tracks from probably 30 different members of the site. I don't think there is any shortage of original music by members, but if people uploading commercial music is a problem, I'll take measures to prevent it (like approve songs before posting, etc).

I trust everyone here wants to share their own stuff with the membership and it'll be good like last time.
posted by mathowie at 12:48 AM on June 30, 2006

I'll write a song about Metafilter tonight!

Quick, help me think of something that rhymes with "Matt!"
posted by SassHat at 12:59 AM on June 30, 2006

Excellent! And you can make instant mash-ups by randomly clicking play buttons. Cortex wins "best title".
posted by swordfishtrombones at 1:04 AM on June 30, 2006

*visibly trembles*
posted by NinjaTadpole at 1:10 AM on June 30, 2006

Awesome, but it turns out that files I'd always thought were MP3's are actually something other...I'm getting an error that the CF doesn't like the MIME type of my file - which apparently is binarycf7124 instead of, y'know, something else.

Anyone offer any advice to this backward-about-uploading-being-muffy-funster. I've got so much to share.
posted by Jofus at 1:33 AM on June 30, 2006

Fan. Fucking. Tastic.
posted by onalark at 1:43 AM on June 30, 2006

Bleedin brilliant.
posted by MetaMonkey at 2:11 AM on June 30, 2006

so, is it against guidelines for me to secure permission to post a friend's great track (home-recorded, naturally)?
posted by scarylarry at 2:19 AM on June 30, 2006

upload a song you've written and recorded

What about recordings of music that is in the public domain? (E.g., my rendition of a Bach toccata, or a cover of some really old blues tune.) Or, is this only for that newfangled music kids listen to today?
posted by epimorph at 2:38 AM on June 30, 2006

Brill. And the first track I clicked was perfect happy wake-up breakfast music, too.
posted by jack_mo at 2:40 AM on June 30, 2006

hmmm. Yes. What epimorph said. The tune I'm trying unsuccesfully to upload is a cover of a traditional folk song. Is there a lawyer in the house?
posted by Jofus at 2:41 AM on June 30, 2006

Brilliant.
posted by Jimbob at 2:44 AM on June 30, 2006

So what's the ettiquite on how many songs we can upload per day / week?
posted by Jimbob at 2:52 AM on June 30, 2006

Also, the upload music page (where you enter a description) wants me to "Post a new question" in the page title.
posted by Jimbob at 2:57 AM on June 30, 2006

Matt, on the upload page, you've got, "Be patient, it will take a few minutes to upload most song."
posted by emelenjr at 2:59 AM on June 30, 2006

I for got to add:

This freaking rocks. Thanks, Matt!
posted by emelenjr at 3:00 AM on June 30, 2006

Oh, and by "Brilliant", I mean that as far as I'm concerned, this is about the best thing on Metafilter since about July 15, 1999.
posted by Jimbob at 3:04 AM on June 30, 2006

What about recordings of music that is in the public domain? (E.g., my rendition of a Bach toccata, or a cover of some really old blues tune.)

As long as it's your rendition of a PD song, then it's yours, and you enjoy full copyright on it, including the right to put it on the internet. Make sure the source really is PD though.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:15 AM on June 30, 2006

This is marvy. Thanks, Matt!
posted by idest at 3:20 AM on June 30, 2006

So, dodgy remix/bastardizations of commerical tracks are right out, I presume?
posted by MetaMonkey at 3:34 AM on June 30, 2006

not to get all "what have you done for me lately?" on you, but this makes me think that the MetFil thread format might be great for writers in a similar way that (the totally awesome) MetMus will be for musicians...

a writer would posit some sort of premise in a sentence or two, and continue it on the inside. then they could link to a piece of their writing on their own site(s) or (assuming it's not too lengthy) post it inline in the thread. and then, of course, critiques could take place in the comments.

then again, i got bored just typing that. so maybe it won't work.

oh, i know -- how 'bout a video version of (the totally awesome) MetaMusic? it'd have to be sui generis. could go in interesting directions! i'd do some kind of serial, like the lone ranger, only he'd be a modern version and instead of silver, he'd ride a segway, and get mocked by people when he tried to intervene. people would just bust out laughing whenever he'd arrive 'cuz his costume would be too tight and shit, and he'd be flabby from riding the segway.

i'd call his sidekick "blunto." he'd be a giant samoan cannibis-addicted cross between bluto and tonto. oh, and blunto is very masculine, but secretly gay, whereas the "more lone ranger" is celibate, but only because he can't get laid due to the fact that no one who rides a segway will ever get laid (except maybe kamen, who gets all the science groupie 'tang). the more lone ranger, because he fancies himself a futurist, stubbornly insists that his vindication is but years -- a decade, tops -- away, once everyone switches to his chosen mode of transport.

yeah.

so, if y'all want to see that come to fruition, well, i think an email campaign would be most effective.

VOTE METAVIDEO!

WE WANT THE MORE LONE RANGER AND BLUNTO!

VIVA LA SEGWAY!
posted by Hat Maui at 4:03 AM on June 30, 2006

so, is it against guidelines for me to secure permission to post a friend's great track (home-recorded, naturally)?

I was just about to ask this too.
posted by Olli at 4:09 AM on June 30, 2006

So what's the acronym - MeMu?
posted by greycap at 4:10 AM on June 30, 2006

Oh, and this is absolutely fantastic. Huge thanks to Matt and pb. My five dollars has paid for itself many times over now.
posted by greycap at 4:16 AM on June 30, 2006

Is the reason you can only download a song when you go to that song's comment page to make people comment, or is there something I'm missing on the front page? Either way, it's cool.
posted by Orange Goblin at 4:17 AM on June 30, 2006

Whoah mp3ilicious!
posted by gomichild at 4:23 AM on June 30, 2006

This friggin rules. Thanks, Matt, pb and all the musicians!
posted by sciurus at 4:25 AM on June 30, 2006

totally cool! i began recording a little late for the compilation cd, but this is better!
posted by quonsar at 4:28 AM on June 30, 2006

MuFi.

I've got lots of little concerns about how various things are going to work out with this but that's just in my nature - how 'bout for right now I just say I think it's freakin' awesome.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:28 AM on June 30, 2006

I think I like MeMu better than MuFi. But defintely not MetMus, that sounds like some kind of infectious staph disease.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:35 AM on June 30, 2006

I'm going to say cover songs are fine. I dunno about posting your friend's song -- it'll only be ok if the friend gives you permission to do it, and be aware they can ask me to remove it. I would not post remixes of commercial music.

At the moment, there are no limits on how many tracks you can post per day, but I was thinking 3 in 24 hours would probably be an ok number. That would let you upload a few tracks without inundating everyone with your brilliance.
posted by mathowie at 4:39 AM on June 30, 2006

I think I like MeMu better than MuFi

The same number of syllables (2) and you can say Music without everyone wonder wtf you are talking about. I'll be saying Music every time as usual.
posted by mathowie at 4:40 AM on June 30, 2006

WEEEDLY WEEEDLY WEEEDLY WEEDLY WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

most excellent!!!!
posted by rxrfrx at 4:42 AM on June 30, 2006

Thank you, Matt, for keeping this Flash 7 compatible. Us Linux-ies would have rioted if Flash 8 was necessary.
posted by Plutor at 4:42 AM on June 30, 2006

I'm going to say cover songs are fine.

Clarification for the copyright-ignorant, like me. All cover songs, or just covers of songs that are in the public domain.
posted by Jimbob at 4:42 AM on June 30, 2006

Oh. That need a question mark at the end. "?"
posted by Jimbob at 4:43 AM on June 30, 2006

This just about made my week, thank you Matt.

And now I know why everyone raves about armoured-ant's meetup/gigs. Dammit, wish I'd been to one.
posted by ceri richard at 4:46 AM on June 30, 2006

all cover songs. If the original song writer asks me to remove it, I will, but I don't think Madonna is going to care if quonsar wants to dress you up in his love, all over, all over...
posted by mathowie at 4:46 AM on June 30, 2006 [2 favorites]

True. So true.
posted by Jimbob at 4:54 AM on June 30, 2006

This is pop! Yeah, yeah!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:57 AM on June 30, 2006

What about recordings of a group where I was one of the performers? It was a non-commercial venture and I was probably the only one even recording the performance. Also, the tunes are "covers" in that that they're performances of jazz standards.
posted by rxrfrx at 4:59 AM on June 30, 2006

Also, what's the longest average sample length you'd tolerate before a song with samples becomes a "remix of a pop song?"
posted by rxrfrx at 5:01 AM on June 30, 2006

Nice. My iTunes appears to be failing to download songs with spaces in the title. The feed validator appears to have trouble with this as well. I believe those need to be URL encoded (i.e. %20).
posted by scottreynen at 5:26 AM on June 30, 2006

GREAT
posted by iconomy at 5:26 AM on June 30, 2006

mathowie: "I don't think Madonna is going to care if quonsar wants to dress you up in his love, all over, all over..."

Can we get a dropcash-esque interface? I'd put three dollars into a pool for that cover.
posted by Plutor at 5:29 AM on June 30, 2006

OMGZ i love this
posted by sciurus at 5:30 AM on June 30, 2006

Awesome. Thanks, pb and Matt!
posted by dobbs at 5:30 AM on June 30, 2006

A request: Could there be a field for folks to link to CDs or other stuff they have for their music? If this is too shilly or easily abused, then nevermind.
posted by sciurus at 5:34 AM on June 30, 2006

God I'm way too geeked out about this. I'm just gonna be shameless and comment in every one.
posted by sciurus at 5:35 AM on June 30, 2006

Awesome! I like the black color scheme.

So, any of you need a good drummer that lives in the NYC area to add to your music? I'm quite bored, er, playing with myself.
posted by Mach5 at 5:39 AM on June 30, 2006

love
posted by hayeled at 5:40 AM on June 30, 2006

note: Ask MetaFilter is as useful as you make it. Please limit comments to answers or help in finding an answer. Wisecracks don't help people find answers. Thanks.

...found on every song page.

Also, would it be cool or not cool to have a "download count" (as in, how many times a track has been downloaded) next to the download icon?
posted by Witty at 5:41 AM on June 30, 2006

Niiice.
posted by graventy at 5:53 AM on June 30, 2006

The color scheme is wonderful. I look forward to listening to these tracks!
posted by Meagan at 5:57 AM on June 30, 2006

This is totally fetch!
posted by OmieWise at 6:07 AM on June 30, 2006

How about a "more tracks from x" link inside each thread--save a few clicks going thru the name to the profile, assuming "X Tracks to Music" is coming to profiles.
posted by dobbs at 6:10 AM on June 30, 2006

On the RSS feed/iTunes thinger, it looks like everything posted after "Drive Safely" won't download, although I could DL from the music subdomain easily enough.
posted by sciurus at 6:11 AM on June 30, 2006

And I had so many things to do today.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 6:19 AM on June 30, 2006

neat!
posted by soplerfo at 6:19 AM on June 30, 2006

I predict new memberships are going to SPIKE huge because of this. Is there going to be "gotta be a member for X" period of tiem before one can post tracks?
posted by dobbs at 6:20 AM on June 30, 2006

Is there any rule about how long before noobs can start posting in there? Because if not, this thing could turn into Myspace Music in a couple days...
posted by SassHat at 6:20 AM on June 30, 2006

So cool.
posted by taz at 6:23 AM on June 30, 2006

dobbs and sasshat speak the truth. I've been hanging for this for a long time because there's simply nothing like it out there. I assume several hundred thousand others are as well.
posted by Jimbob at 6:24 AM on June 30, 2006

So can I do live poetry readings now?
posted by longbaugh at 6:28 AM on June 30, 2006

You know how when some schlub from the office you never really pay attention to gets up on stage with a guitar and sheds his ill cut, wrinkly jacket for a tight t-shirt and jeans and suddenly you realize he's got really well-muscled arms, and damn, look at those narrow hips, and he's got this gravelly voice and can really blaze on that guitar and the schlub has suddenly become a rawk stah and you just swoon? That's how I felt listening to the songs this morning.

Thanks Matt!

Can we have playlist links on our profile pages?
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:31 AM on June 30, 2006

So can I do live poetry readings now?

'Can you' and 'should you' are both questions worth considering.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:33 AM on June 30, 2006

I like the way we spend months whining for some lame feature we see on other websites, like personal messaging or tag sorting, and Matt is all "Yeah, no, I dunno, not today." Then out of the blue he drops on us some really cool feature that most of us had not thought of. Thanks Matt.
posted by LarryC at 6:36 AM on June 30, 2006

So cool. I'm thinking I might do some spoken word performances of great legal documents. </kidding>
posted by monju_bosatsu at 6:45 AM on June 30, 2006

Matt, did you change/move the playlists? I could see them earlier and now I can't. Is it me?
posted by idest at 6:48 AM on June 30, 2006

Request: Ability to "add song as favorite" and see the top favorited songs!
posted by kdern at 6:49 AM on June 30, 2006

idest, they're on the right. I assume the line only appears on tracks that have been added to someone's playlist.
posted by dobbs at 6:49 AM on June 30, 2006

Oops - sorry. Just saw that the fave feature is already there.
posted by kdern at 6:50 AM on June 30, 2006

Random observation:
When you click the "Older Songs" and "Newer Songs" link, they all list the same songs. I pressume it's simply because there aren't enough songs to fill up a previous song page?
posted by jmd82 at 6:53 AM on June 30, 2006

dobbs, so it was me. This is what happens when I don't get enough coffee. Thanks!
posted by idest at 6:54 AM on June 30, 2006

OmieWise writes "This is totally fetch!"

OmieWise, stop trying to make "fetch" happen! It's not going to happen! Flagged.

Nice one, mathowie & pb.
posted by mullacc at 6:56 AM on June 30, 2006 [1 favorite]

Very awesome.

I'm a (very) amateur home recorder so maybe I'll get some balls and post something.

One thing that I'd really like is to know how some of these are made, like, I'd like to see intermediate stages, the individual tracks, how they're set up in audition or sonar or whatever it was they were recorded with. Hmm, that would make for nice remix capability also.
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:57 AM on June 30, 2006

I can't wait to post the Tuvan throat singing I've been working on! Thanks for this, matt!
posted by horsewithnoname at 7:03 AM on June 30, 2006

Nice.

Some suggestions, though:

1)Add fields for

duration
genre
(bitrate)

2)Like you have playlists, allow 'Albums' where a poster can arrange their entries into, well, albums.

3)Metafilter Radio; no explanation necessary, I hope.
posted by Gyan at 7:05 AM on June 30, 2006

This is excellent. My only concern is that without some sort of guideline stipulating that you should have been personally involved in a track you upload (writing, performing, or producing), it could quickly become HypeYourFriend'sUnsignedBandFilter. Because, frankly, that was my first instinct.

My suggestion: Limit your own uploads to your own creations. If you think this would be a good venue for someone else's music, encourage them to sign up for a membership.

Just a thought.
posted by staggernation at 7:07 AM on June 30, 2006

Matt: the autodiscover link in the <head> points to AskMe: link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://ask.metafilter.com/rss.xml", which buggers the Add Live Bookmark thingie in Firefox.
posted by signal at 7:13 AM on June 30, 2006

I hope that the people who had their music uploaded on the older version of MetaFilter Music resubmit their stuff. I really miss a few of those songs. Do it!
posted by iconomy at 7:15 AM on June 30, 2006

frankly, that was my first instinct.

God yeah. My friend's band *rocked* CBGBs last night and I'd love to post my favorite of their songs. Is that kosher?
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:16 AM on June 30, 2006

flash==yuck
posted by Afroblanco at 7:16 AM on June 30, 2006

Sweet. Thanks Matt and pb!
posted by safetyfork at 7:18 AM on June 30, 2006

MuFi! I can't wait to add acerbic comments!
posted by klangklangston at 7:19 AM on June 30, 2006

Just for that stav I'm a gonna write me a poem 'bout you being far, far away in the kingdom of Silla.
posted by longbaugh at 7:25 AM on June 30, 2006

flash==yuck

Flash > Quicktime, which is what Firefox seems to default to if you try to embed MP3s any other way. I like it. It's very functional.
posted by Jimbob at 7:25 AM on June 30, 2006

You can play more than one and mash them up!
posted by scarabic at 7:33 AM on June 30, 2006

Music is being added faster than I can listen to it. And it's good. Zoinks.
posted by MetaMonkey at 7:44 AM on June 30, 2006

I LOVE THIS!!!

But: in firefox if you listen to a song on the "comments" page rather than the main page, it stops playing if you scroll down past the player.
posted by Lotto at 7:45 AM on June 30, 2006

Have I said how awesome this is yet?
posted by sciurus at 7:49 AM on June 30, 2006

I'd love to hear a techno remix thingy of pink stainless tails' 'jingle bell rock'. Someone please do this now!
posted by kev23f at 7:49 AM on June 30, 2006

Another bug: if you switch to a tab with a non-Music page loaded, the flash player pauses.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:50 AM on June 30, 2006

I love this page. Many thanks.
posted by Mr. Six at 7:51 AM on June 30, 2006

hey, I'm trying to work here!
Damn it.
posted by hellbient at 7:57 AM on June 30, 2006

This rocks.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:59 AM on June 30, 2006

...and the fuckers in IT decide to block access to the site. Piss midgets!
posted by slimepuppy at 8:03 AM on June 30, 2006

1)Add fields for
duration
genre
(bitrate)

I thought about this, and I could use some ID3 libraries to pull this stuff out, but especially for genre, I think tags are just as use(less) as the genre field is in ID3. My iTunes collection by genre is a mess of 300 goofy genre names made up by the artists.

2)Like you have playlists, allow 'Albums' where a poster can arrange their entries into, well, albums.

I thought about compilations by the artist, then playlist by the fans, but it's the same functionality and confusing to call it by two names. An artist can make a playlist of their own album, and they should.

3)Metafilter Radio; no explanation necessary, I hope.

I suspect my bandwidth bill will be bad enough already unfortunately, so I probably don't have the pipe to do streaming audio also.
posted by mathowie at 8:04 AM on June 30, 2006

But: in firefox if you listen to a song on the "comments" page rather than the main page, it stops playing if you scroll down past the player.

this didn't happen for me. however, if I play a track from the front page and then move to another tab (firefox) the player stops.
reprise: !!!!!
posted by carsonb at 8:09 AM on June 30, 2006

Matt, this is awesome. I had some CF disaggreements with Firefox this morning but have now managed to upload using IE. I am now wallowing in wonderment. Officially.
posted by Jofus at 8:09 AM on June 30, 2006

First song should've been matthew chen is spamming, though.

Fixed.

Thanks for doing this, Matt. I'm an thrilled.
posted by cortex at 8:12 AM on June 30, 2006

Error Occurred While Processing Request

The MIME type of the uploaded file "audio/mpeg3" was not accepted by the server.

Um...huh? It's an mp3. Way to make me feel stoopid.
posted by nylon at 8:21 AM on June 30, 2006

oops sorry. no mashups, eh? I did make a half-assed attempt to look for some rules.
posted by hellbient at 8:23 AM on June 30, 2006

Matt, the AskMe copy is beneath the comment box ("wisecracks..." etc.)
posted by dobbs at 8:35 AM on June 30, 2006

nylon: same thing happened to me. Try using IE.
posted by Jofus at 8:37 AM on June 30, 2006

So Good. Thanks, Matt. Let The Meta-Music Downloading Commence!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 8:42 AM on June 30, 2006

Try using IE

Awesome! Hello! I'm writing this from Netscape! It works! Thanks Matt! Thanks Jofus!
posted by nylon at 8:56 AM on June 30, 2006

[this is good]
posted by MzB at 9:01 AM on June 30, 2006

Is there a way to download the tracks? Or is the lack of a download a design feature?
posted by Mitheral at 9:02 AM on June 30, 2006

Mitheral, go into the thread and you can download an mp3 by clicking the little floppy.
posted by dobbs at 9:06 AM on June 30, 2006

Mitheral, go into the comments page for the song, the download link looks like a disk next to the songbar.
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:07 AM on June 30, 2006

Nicely done, mathowie & pb.
posted by me3dia at 9:08 AM on June 30, 2006

Any chance of a number of plays/number of downloads?
posted by Lotto at 9:14 AM on June 30, 2006

Got it. FF (or more likely some extension) is causing the floppy icon to appear under the bar all the way to the left.

Glad to see there is a download option. Can't listen to these at work and it would be painful at home.
posted by Mitheral at 9:15 AM on June 30, 2006

Cart before horse, perhaps, but it'd be nice to have this integrated with My Comments and My Posts.
posted by cortex at 9:19 AM on June 30, 2006

And favorites. And all the other various things that I should really just presume you're working on. BE FASTER! INSTANT GRATIFICATION! WAHHHHH!
posted by cortex at 9:25 AM on June 30, 2006

cortex, favorites ARE working.

I'll add it to my posts/comments soon.
posted by mathowie at 9:27 AM on June 30, 2006

Fantastic work, Matt & pb. Thanks.

mathowie writes 'I suspect my bandwidth bill will be bad enough already ...'

Worth repeating. Would it be presumptuous to gently nudge people in the direction of the donate link?
posted by blag at 9:32 AM on June 30, 2006

mathowie, I misspoke: savedfavorites
posted by cortex at 9:37 AM on June 30, 2006

After seeing some field recordings, I have to wonder if should be putting a low bar of "this should be music" as a baseline. I don't want spoken word stuff or podcasts of people talking (there are already loads of places to host/serve those). I'd like things to be "music" and I'm not sure that taking a microphone to a bubbling stream counts as music.

Thoughts?
posted by mathowie at 9:45 AM on June 30, 2006

I'm in favor of having some proportion of the out-there stuff—I really like nylon's stuff, for example, and am glad to see it on the site, even if it's extermely ambient.

I think the key thing is that these should be single, self-contained musical works of some sort. So, right, definitely no podcasts. No random talking about whatever.

Spoken word seems okay in moderation, where we're making a distinctiong between "spoken word" and "i'm going to recite some poetry", at least. I like an eclectic mix.
posted by cortex at 9:53 AM on June 30, 2006

My thoughts are it's far too fine a line to draw, Matt. I used to consider it "not music" but after living with someone who made these kind of things, I changed my mind.

Saying, "No spoken word or standup comedy" is a far easier thing, but it's not so simple to classify what is and what is not music.

I'd much rather listen to the recordings Nylon has made (and in fact I have bought his CD) than much of what passes for music on the radio these days.
posted by dobbs at 9:56 AM on June 30, 2006

Yay! That's awesome!
posted by easternblot at 10:04 AM on June 30, 2006

While I don't think flagging is the answer for everything, I think a "not music" flag might be a good fit there (I suppose just "it breaks the guidelines" would do, if there are some guidelines.) I think the community would be quick in large numbers to identify anything that really doesn't belong, but tolerant of outre, experimental, or nichey music.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:08 AM on June 30, 2006

also, the font size on the music tags page is tiiiiny.
posted by cortex at 10:12 AM on June 30, 2006

Wouldn't this make a lot more sense as a feature of Projects rather than a separate section?
posted by cillit bang at 10:13 AM on June 30, 2006

Yeah, I mean I like nylon's stuff, but I'm wondering about the second wave that don't do as high quality stuff -- if I'm pulling everything in iTunes via the podcast feed, downloading sounds from a field more than once a week would get old.
posted by mathowie at 10:15 AM on June 30, 2006

Not if we see a hole giant scadsload of music, and I'm betting that we will. This is the perfect venue for "I just made this song". Projects is a good fit for a proper album release or some such, but as a house for up-to-the-minute creative output, this makes so much more sense.
posted by cortex at 10:16 AM on June 30, 2006

Wouldn't this make a lot more sense as a feature of Projects rather than a separate section?

Given music players, playlists, and all the related features with serving audio online, making a separate site seemed most appropriate. It's not like the nav bar is filled up or anything.
posted by mathowie at 10:16 AM on June 30, 2006

(He says to cillit bang...)
posted by cortex at 10:17 AM on June 30, 2006

Pretty cool! But Opera seems pretty tweaked by the flash - regular text not showing up until a mouseover and indenting a little screwy.
posted by mzurer at 10:37 AM on June 30, 2006

But, if it's more like King Missile, don't!
posted by cellphone at 10:38 AM on June 30, 2006

And I think field recordings are ok. What's the aesthetic difference between a good field recording and a noise piece?
posted by cellphone at 10:40 AM on June 30, 2006

I'd like things to be "music" and I'm not sure that taking a microphone to a bubbling stream counts as music.

The "not music" argument can get pretty tricky (and boring), and runs the risk of alienating certain folks (although that may be the point). I'd say take it on a case-by-case basis.

I really don't know (or care) if sound collage, field recordings, microphone-in-the-pants experimentation is music or not, but for the most part I'd like to judge for myself whether I find it interesting (you could just ask yourself "will Hellbient find this interesting?" and go with that). I'm sure there will be exceptions, but hopefully it won't be much of an issue. I understand the importance that you'd like to lay down the law now instead of later though.

I don't envy you in this regard.
posted by hellbient at 10:41 AM on June 30, 2006

I wouldn't even kill the spoken word stuff. I think the relevant criteria should be whether the audio is a finished and complete piece, as opposed to a sample. A 20 second field recording of a single sound is just a sample, while a 3 minute field recording of a whole environment might be considered a finished piece--like the Quiet American, for example. Also, if someone wants to do spoken performances--I'd love to hear some MeFi standup routines, for example--why should that get axed? I realize you envisioned the new subsite as primarily for music, but there's a lot of potential that can be realized without impinging on the primary mission.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:45 AM on June 30, 2006

mathowie writes "I'm not sure that taking a microphone to a bubbling stream counts as music."

I love environmental recordings so I vote to allow them. Besides which I bet it's not going to be a practical problem unless someone starts posting recordings of TimesSquare.
posted by Mitheral at 10:50 AM on June 30, 2006

How about mindless doodling in FruityLoops? Would you consider that music?
posted by signal at 10:56 AM on June 30, 2006

So I can bring up the deleted posts (e.g. http://music.metafilter.com/mefi/1) and still play and save the files. If you're going to delete them, you probably should also disable access to the player as well.
posted by jazon at 10:56 AM on June 30, 2006

MetaAudio?
posted by wheelieman at 10:57 AM on June 30, 2006

Very awesome.

I live beside a river, I know what they sound like; I vote for Chords & Notes Music Only.

Thanks, mathowie!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:00 AM on June 30, 2006

If you enjoy the field recordings/experimental stuff, comment on it so Matt knows there's folks out there that are interested in hearing it.
posted by hellbient at 11:03 AM on June 30, 2006

this... is fucking hot. yay for mathowie!
posted by shmegegge at 11:12 AM on June 30, 2006

Also, if someone wants to do spoken performances--I'd love to hear some MeFi standup routines, for example--why should that get axed?

Considering that Odeo.com is already the place for podcasts and spoken word stuff, and hosting and bandwidth are costing me about a grand a month (with that sure to rise with lots of mp3s floating around), I would prefer if music was posted to mefi music and not plain jane spoken podcasts and standup comedy.
posted by mathowie at 11:21 AM on June 30, 2006

'd love to hear some MeFi standup routines...

"Hey, great to read you all here tonight! Woo! Always a pleasure to be here in 45.187444, -123.237145! Yeah!"

"Hey, what's the deal with those periods in obit threads? I don't know about you, but when my girlfriend gets her period, I wish I was dead! Am I right, fellas?"

"..."

"Wow, lotta lurkers here tonight... "
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:35 AM on June 30, 2006 [3 favorites]

This is great!

I dragged the RSS into iTunes and the Podcast came up with no problem. But then I have to click the "Get" button on each song to download it. Is there any way to get the Podcast to automatically download the songs?

If that can't be done, it would be nice to have the poster's name as part of the description -- it would make it easier to download only what I'm interested in (and save bandwidth).

Also, some songs ("The New One", "Trees and Herbs Just Got Easier", and "Scarlet Blues") won't download. Am I doing something wrong?
posted by fuzz at 11:55 AM on June 30, 2006

Extra info: for the songs that won't download, iTunes gives me "An unknown error has occurred (-50)".
posted by fuzz at 11:58 AM on June 30, 2006

The page design looks fucking stellar. I love the dark gray and the playback bars are really sharp.

Tiny nits when you get a chance:

1) favicon is AskMe green.
2) AskMe text under the comment field.
posted by team lowkey at 11:59 AM on June 30, 2006

MetaAudio?

I like that ... we could shorten it to MeAu, and then I can decide to pronounce it like "meow". It all comes back to cats, doesn't it?
posted by Godbert at 12:01 PM on June 30, 2006

Thank you mathowie!
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 12:03 PM on June 30, 2006

The RSS link in the HTML head points to AskMe.
posted by cillit bang at 12:10 PM on June 30, 2006

I am stupid. Cleanup on Aisle 35—I should have done some manual More Inside on most of that text.
posted by cortex at 12:12 PM on June 30, 2006

fuzz: I think the problem is those tracks have spaces in the titles. If you click the disk link on the comments page of each track, or just put %20 like this for each space, it should work.

Oh and whilst we're on bugs, logging out takes you to AskMe, a hangover from the old code I'm sure.
posted by Orange Goblin at 12:13 PM on June 30, 2006

I'm not sure that taking a microphone to a bubbling stream counts as music[?]

Perhaps true, but drawing the line isn't necessarily easy, especially if you don't have a wide range of exposure to ambient music (which can sound deceptively simple). I say this partly because if I were to upload something eventually, it would quite possibly be ambient. I'm not sure what to do about it, though, except make you aware of the issue (and maybe tell you to listen to some recent biosphere).
posted by advil at 12:18 PM on June 30, 2006

Another bug: if you switch to a tab with a non-Music page loaded, the flash player pauses.

Me too. Although it does make it feel just like Safari, since it pauses Flash on background tabs too.
posted by smackfu at 12:19 PM on June 30, 2006

What about allowing field recording and spoken word, only with separate pages for those who choose to narrow the field?
I'm not talking about tags- more like a required drop-down bar (very general) category, like in AskMeFi. The main portal could be for all uploaded material, and users could- if they desire- enter a more narrowed topic based on the categories. One music page for "music" (I'm assuming this would be the most populated), one for field recordings, one for spoken word, or whatever.
Problem with tags as they are not defined or required- a drop-down bar requires uploaders to uniformly specify what type of sound they are uploading, and the tags could be used for what kind of spoken word (poetry, comedy, etc), music (pop, dance, rap, etc), and so-forth.
posted by jmd82 at 12:23 PM on June 30, 2006

Can we get categories (like AskMe)?
posted by blue_beetle at 12:32 PM on June 30, 2006

Can Music please be added in the header alongside MeFi/AskMe/Projects/MeTa? And in the "sites" portion of the footer?

This is awesome. Thanks for the brilliant idea, Matt. And thanks everyone for your music. This made my week.
posted by raedyn at 12:58 PM on June 30, 2006

This is one thousand kinds of awesome.
The site acronym? HiFi, surely.
posted by boo_radley at 1:06 PM on June 30, 2006

I'd actually like to hear MeFi stand-up comics so put a vote in from me for spoken word as a separate category. jonmc always wanted to try it out and I've always wanted to hear what he sounded like irl.

(plus I can then sneak my bees poem on).
posted by longbaugh at 1:35 PM on June 30, 2006

How long will comments be open?
Is there a way to see all submissions by user X?
posted by raedyn at 1:37 PM on June 30, 2006

Can we get categories (like AskMe)?

Categories for what exactly? I thought about this a lot, but in the end, I don't think genre could ever have enough categories and tags offer a more flexible way to describe things (and you could have a podcast of just the folk tag eventually).

Can Music please be added in the header alongside MeFi/AskMe/Projects/MeTa? And in the "sites" portion of the footer?

As I said in the original post here, I'm still very much testing it out and tweaking it live. I'll wait a week or so to add it to the global site nav.
posted by mathowie at 1:43 PM on June 30, 2006

As time permits, it'd be nice to see a user's contributions to music in their profile, as well as their playlists.

So awesome.
posted by boo_radley at 1:55 PM on June 30, 2006

I suspect my bandwidth bill will be bad enough already

You could distribute the bandwidth and reduce this bill. First, by allowing an optional link to MP3s hosted elsewhere, like somesongs does. As a poster, I would do that because it would allow me to replace MP3s with newer recordings as I make them. Second, by adding BitTorrents of the MP3s. As a listener, I would use that for faster downloads.
posted by scottreynen at 2:00 PM on June 30, 2006

New front page just added, with a separate page for longer charts of favorited and playlisted stuff.
posted by mathowie at 2:04 PM on June 30, 2006

Yeah, mefi music contributions will end up on your profile page soon.
posted by mathowie at 2:05 PM on June 30, 2006

This is super bitchingly fantastic, mathowie. Thanks.
posted by melissa may at 2:08 PM on June 30, 2006

also, please escape playlist titles and descriptions or retards will embed javascript in them.
posted by boo_radley at 2:19 PM on June 30, 2006

I just got a jrun when I tried to flag an insulting comment in the "making me nervous" thread. is that just a fluke, or is there some reason flagging comments in HiFi doesn't work?
posted by shmegegge at 2:45 PM on June 30, 2006

THE BEST EVAR!!!!!!! How am I gonna keep up with the posts? Holy shit! Huge thanks Matt and pb.
posted by snsranch at 4:54 PM on June 30, 2006

Neato!
posted by ludwig_van at 4:55 PM on June 30, 2006

Here's the javascript playlist. this is really not good. :|
posted by boo_radley at 5:03 PM on June 30, 2006

Totally cool.

Is it intentional/desireable for the music to stop when you switch tabs in firefox? I'd like to be able to play metafilter music AND read metafilter threads simultaneously, and this, sadly, prevents it :(
posted by duende at 5:05 PM on June 30, 2006

Actually, it stops whenever the flash bar leaves view, including scrolling down.
posted by duende at 5:06 PM on June 30, 2006

It's been said, but this is great. Thanks!
posted by dan g. at 5:09 PM on June 30, 2006

Yeah, the flash player behavior in Firefox is odd. I've been popping up a new browser for listening, off to the left side of the screen.

Noticed no issues at work with IE.
posted by cortex at 5:15 PM on June 30, 2006

[ah, crap - I started writing this and then got dragged out of the house for a few hours, and now I'm back the discussion has moved on and my comment isn't really relevant anymore. Heh.]

I figured it wouldn't be long before we had the 'what is music' debate. My personal belief is that all sound is music if it's presented as such, and I don't like the idea of a community music portal that is sufficiently narrowminded to only allow verse chorus verse or 'chords and notes'. I don't consider myself to be particularly far out, but a lot of my favourite music has neither chords nor notes.

Besides which, not all field recording is bubbling streams captured passively by a microphone - the environment is an instrument just as much as conventional musical instruments, and there's often a lot of playing going on, either simply in terms of selecting the location/time/conditions (Chris Watson, Jeph Jerman, Toshiya Tsunoda), actively using it for sound creating (those rocks don't ring of their own accord - I went round the park with a stick and a crowbar banging them myself) or post-processing (Francisco López, Andrew Chalk etc).

One exciting thing for me about the music section is the thought of discovering people doing unconventinal stuff - in the same way that some people have little interest in politics posts on the front page, or Mac posts, I have little interest in conventional songs, just as much as others will have no interest in unconventional songs. But I fully support their existence.
posted by nylon at 5:22 PM on June 30, 2006

Weird, in Mac/Firefox it plays fine behind other tabs.
posted by mathowie at 5:34 PM on June 30, 2006

This is so so so great! Thank you!
posted by LeeJay at 5:52 PM on June 30, 2006

I just want to put in my vote for letting field recordings and other more... experimental? stuff stay (I HATE describing any art as "experimental" but whatever. The meaning comes across, I guess). When I'm making noise, it's found sound/ambient/noise/soundscape stuff, and I like to listen to it, too.

Nylon, those ringing rocks were beautiful.

And mathowie, this kicks ass.
posted by ruby.aftermath at 6:13 PM on June 30, 2006

This is most excellent. Thanking you, kind sir!
posted by malocchio at 6:44 PM on June 30, 2006

Late to the party but: WOO!
posted by rhapsodie at 6:46 PM on June 30, 2006

I would vote μFi if there was a referendum. Great stuff, thanks Matt & pb !
posted by peacay at 7:02 PM on June 30, 2006

WOW WOW WOW! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!

Ahem.

This is really great, I look forward to being obsessed with it.
posted by pealco at 7:07 PM on June 30, 2006

finally an outlet for my pent up creative frustration. danke!
posted by saulgoodman at 9:19 PM on June 30, 2006

What a great idea.

Technical Feedback: Interface is terribly, crazy, super slow on Internet Explorer v7 Beta 3. Scrolling down the page, you can see each line refresh itself. Trying to page an entire page or two gives a few-seconds pause. Scrolling with the mouse wheel is almost nonfunctional.

On Firefox 1.5.0.1 very quick, no noticeable slowdown during scrolling of any method.

Specs: WinXP, 3ghz dual core, 2gb ram

There's *GOT* to be an efficient way to do this without it hosing Matt's bandwidth. You just need somewhere to park a file. Any way to handle it via podcast/itunes/odeo/gmail/blogger/yahoo/something?? With Odeo, which I still don't think I understand fully at this point, you could even embed their silly player.

Also, it just has to be MuFi/μFi.

I don't know that I can support spoken word being disallowed, but yeah, I can see Matt not wanting to become a podcast hosting service (see above). But, some legitimate performance would fall under that heading. Hmm.

If the site is going to be limited to "just music" then at some point the "what is music" question will have to be addressed. Of course, the easy answer is "What is music? Whatever Matt and Jess think is music".

I also think screening beforehand is going to be a requirement within a couple of days.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:27 PM on June 30, 2006

I think both the pre-screening issue and the spoken-word-and-other-unamerican-activities issue would be best handled initially by a responsive rather than proactive approach—we've anticipated the possibility of bumps, but why not wait to see if they actually appear, and deal with them then?

Part of what seemed to be an issue last time music.metafilter.com existed was that Matt got stuck as a bottleneck to additions. This iteration is better—he's not manually uploading files, for one thing—but anything that requires per-item review should be approached with caution. Flagging and the occasional Metatalk post may prove sufficient control and feedback.
posted by cortex at 9:53 PM on June 30, 2006

It's playing behind tabs in Firefox for me now, although it wasn't this afternoon.

And I'd like to repeat what many others have said... fantastic. I love it.
posted by arcticwoman at 10:01 PM on June 30, 2006

Hmm... scratch that. Some tabs are ok, some are not. Wierd.
posted by arcticwoman at 10:05 PM on June 30, 2006

I can't believe Pretty Flowers isn't on here yet.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:28 PM on June 30, 2006

Matt: the autodiscover link in the points to AskMe: link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://ask.metafilter.com/rss.xml", which buggers the Add Live Bookmark thingie in Firefox.
posted by signal at 6:13 AM AKST on June 30 [+fave] [!]

Just wanted to reiterate that.
posted by rhapsodie at 10:46 PM on June 30, 2006

I can't believe Pretty Flowers isn't on here yet.

Or Epsilon Rising. It's said that their vocalist and harmonica player has few equals.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:10 PM on June 30, 2006

The iTunes podcast isn't working for me. "MeFi Music" is listed, but the grey exclamation point indicates that something's amiss.

(FWIW I just ran System Update: OS X 10.4.7, iTunes 6.0.5)
posted by anarcation at 11:15 PM on June 30, 2006

The Podcast RSS feed isnt working for me, either. Boo!
posted by armoured-ant at 12:09 AM on July 1, 2006

Just thinking that it might be time to start cataloguing potential names for the MeFite bands that will doubtless emerge, rise to stellar heights and evemtially crumble into bitter infighting and rancorous departures as their charismatic leads forget that it's supposed to be about the music. Certain obvious ones spring to mind, like "Jrun-DMC" and "WTF Matt"...

But then it occurred to me that the work has already been done.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:45 AM on July 1, 2006

It would be useful to know how long the music tracks are.
posted by booksprite at 2:02 AM on July 1, 2006

...in advance, I mean.
posted by booksprite at 2:03 AM on July 1, 2006

iTunes is finicky about the podcast feed, but I think I can fix it later today.
posted by mathowie at 2:34 AM on July 1, 2006

A play count would also be nice for track creators (if not for the general public) in addition to "most playlisted"
posted by beerbajay at 2:46 AM on July 1, 2006

In firefox (windows) if even one pixel of any of the flash players on the MuFi page is visible behind another window, the song still plays. Once you cover up the final pixel, the song will pause.
posted by beerbajay at 3:03 AM on July 1, 2006

Holy shit, I finally got home from a long work day, and finally listened to some of the songs up there (which I never did on Version 1.0 of music.mefi for some reason), and holy shit.

This is approximately the greatest damn thing ever, and I wish like hell I had learned to make music with skills to match the passion I've got for it. But I'm happy to consume, and praise.

We've got some talented people here, by god, like I've always known. Man, this is good. I'm all giddy lately with the quality-enhancing stuff that Matt's been dropping on us.

Metafilter Renaissance, motherbasters!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:12 AM on July 1, 2006

The same number of syllables (2) and you can say Music without everyone wonder wtf you are talking about. I'll be saying Music every time as usual.

I get your point, but music is sort of a general term. Context might not always be there to make it clear what's being talked about. MuFi or MeMu are both cute, and mean (specifically) music.metafilter.com. Though the precendent has kinda been set with Projects. Which is clearly just called 'Projects'.
posted by armoured-ant at 3:28 AM on July 1, 2006

I militated vehemently (and activated embedded revolutionary cells) for 'Tell Me' as a Projects monicker, but failed.

In a similarly doomed spirit, I advance the proposition that the proper name for music.mefi should be 'Rock Me'.

I anticipate another namespace failure.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:44 AM on July 1, 2006

MePr? (mee-purr)
posted by beerbajay at 5:05 AM on July 1, 2006

Fuck it, I'm calling it HiFi.
posted by Eideteker at 5:19 AM on July 1, 2006

Another vote for allowing environmental recordings and such. I love that stuff.

I am concerned that ASCAP will want a performance rights license from you for allowing covers still in copyright.
posted by frykitty at 7:25 AM on July 1, 2006

woot! iTunes should work now.
posted by mathowie at 8:09 AM on July 1, 2006

On the popular tags page, the tags are too tiny to read.
posted by signal at 8:17 AM on July 1, 2006

tags page should be readable now, but everything's the same size since the tag pool is so new.
posted by mathowie at 8:29 AM on July 1, 2006

I'm calling it HiFi as well. you guys can call it whatever you want.
posted by shmegegge at 8:31 AM on July 1, 2006

Matt: The audio does not stop on the comments page for the song if the flashplayer is covered up by another window, but the audio does stop on the front page if covered up. What did you do differently?
posted by beerbajay at 8:58 AM on July 1, 2006

(firefox/winxp)
posted by beerbajay at 8:58 AM on July 1, 2006

beerbjay and everyone else -- I haven't touched the flash player, it was just a free one I found. It sounds like browsers are behaving differently even among operating systems and it's just the nature of how flash interacts on your system.
posted by mathowie at 9:31 AM on July 1, 2006

I leave for a couple of days and come back to find this. Excellent surprise, thanks Matt!
posted by sveskemus at 9:42 AM on July 1, 2006

Wouldn't it be cute if instead of comments, they were called "Notes" on our profile pages?

On second thought...
posted by Eideteker at 10:03 AM on July 1, 2006

what's the policy on uploading tracks from friends' bands (with their gracious permission) that happen to be nationally distributed acts with albums available at your local mall?
posted by carsonb at 10:06 AM on July 1, 2006

also, still getting a big bad error message on the flagging system in Music.
posted by carsonb at 10:08 AM on July 1, 2006

I am concerned that ASCAP will want a performance rights license from you for allowing covers still in copyright.

that's an important point ... and that can be a costly license to have ... and they DO check reasonably popular websites for this kind of thing ...

it would probably be best if you didn't allow covers ...

thanks for this ... i will be uploading some of my stuff
posted by pyramid termite at 10:19 AM on July 1, 2006

The iTunes feed is now working. Huzzah!
posted by anarcation at 10:36 AM on July 1, 2006

And, could there be some way to listen to just the mp3 from the front page? Perhaps inline or in an unintrusive pop-up? The flash player thing can get a little annoying.
posted by anarcation at 10:47 AM on July 1, 2006

stavrosthewonderchicken: This is approximately the greatest damn thing ever, and I wish like hell I had learned to make music with skills to match the passion I've got for it. But I'm happy to consume, and praise.

This is indeed awesome. Thanks.
posted by geekyguy at 11:13 AM on July 1, 2006

And, could there be some way to listen to just the mp3 from the front page? Perhaps inline or in an unintrusive pop-up? The flash player thing can get a little annoying.

Sorry, the streaming flash player is the best compromise. I'm sure someone could write a greasemonkey script to suck out the mp3 link inside the thread page and plop that on the main page, but the flash player is so much easier to use (you can quickly fast forward by just clicking on the little slider area)
posted by mathowie at 11:18 AM on July 1, 2006

also, still getting a big bad error message on the flagging system in Music.

me too, still.
posted by shmegegge at 11:18 AM on July 1, 2006

Matt... is it possible to make "downloading" optional... make a post and toggle whether or not you want the track downloadable or not?
posted by Witty at 11:45 AM on July 1, 2006

Nope, sorry Witty, that's kind of the point of podcasts and putting the music up in the first place -- so people can enjoy a copy of it on their personal players.
posted by mathowie at 11:55 AM on July 1, 2006

MetaAudio?
MeAu?
posted by whir at 11:55 AM on July 1, 2006

Bugs noted during use (no idea whether these have been addressed already):

- Clicking "add to favorites" displays a message that you've already added this song to your favorites

- The "Older Songs" can be clicked forever, with a slowly incrementing page parameter in the URL but no affect on the page content itself.

- It appears that files are persisted to disk using their original filenames rather than some sort of unique identifier. This presents an issue if, for example, two separate contributors upload a file with the same name (e.g. No.mp3)

Thanks for another kickass site, Matt.
posted by Danelope at 11:58 AM on July 1, 2006

Er, what Godbert said.
posted by whir at 11:58 AM on July 1, 2006

Danelope:

- Do you get this on the first time you add a favorite? If so, can you repeat it? I've never seen that happen.

- Yeah, I need to tweak the earlier/newer stuff

- filenames that collide are given new unique names by the server, usually adding a character at the end No2.mp3, No3.mp3, etc. I tested this by uploading the same file three times and it worked fine.
posted by mathowie at 12:01 PM on July 1, 2006

Do you get this on the first time you add a favorite? If so, can you repeat it? I've never seen that happen.

Yep, happens every time I +fav a song for the first time.
posted by Danelope at 12:05 PM on July 1, 2006

mathowie: beerbjay and everyone else -- I haven't touched the flash player, it was just a free one I found. It sounds like browsers are behaving differently even among operating systems and it's just the nature of how flash interacts on your system.

I don't believe you! (Rather, I don't belive that it's an inherent problem to flash) Like I said before; the single-player pages continue to play when hidden (tabs, windows, whatever) but the front page ones do not.

I looked at the source for each page. The single-player page has this:

config=http://music.metafilter.com/config.xml

as part of the flashvars param. Could you try putting this ont he frontpage as well to see if it resolves the playback problem?
posted by beerbajay at 12:21 PM on July 1, 2006

...the single-player pages continue to play when hidden (tabs, windows, whatever) but the front page ones do not.

Verified.
posted by Witty at 12:25 PM on July 1, 2006

Yep, happens every time I +fav a song for the first time.

Correction: It displays a "you have added this as a favorite"-type message and is immediately replaced by the "already added" message. Some sort of post-add redirect gone awry? (Logging out and clearing cookies had no effect.)

New issue: The "Login" link from the Music front page 404s.

beerbajay: I am seeing single-player pages pause while in the background, but only intermittently. I believe this behavior is endemic to the Macromedia Flash 8 plug-in or Gecko-based browsers in general.

I ran into the same issue earlier this week, while testing an unrelated Flash application at work, and have yet to find a solution.
posted by Danelope at 12:40 PM on July 1, 2006

After listening to some of the tracks, maybe WhoaFi is more apropros.
posted by Eideteker at 1:13 PM on July 1, 2006

Weird.
posted by beerbajay at 1:26 PM on July 1, 2006

Tags look fine now, in FF 1.5 windows.
posted by signal at 1:43 PM on July 1, 2006

MetaMusic sounds like it is good for, um, what ails you.
posted by Cranberry at 2:36 PM on July 1, 2006

...the single-player pages continue to play when hidden (tabs, windows, whatever) but the front page ones do not.

Not getting the same behavior here. Firefox 1.0.7, Flash 8.

So far as I can tell, the song from either the front page or a song page keeps playing so long as some Flash thing is visible and active on whatever tab I'm viewing.

For example, if I'm playing a song and I tab over to (random example via Google) this page and have scrolled down so that the yellow bird animation is visible, play continue. However, if I tab over to My Comments, play ceases until I tab back to a page that has some Flash going.

Very weird.
posted by cortex at 2:48 PM on July 1, 2006

filenames that collide are given new unique names by the server, usually adding a character at the end No2.mp3, No3.mp3, etc. I tested this by uploading the same file three times and it worked fine

say matt - is there a way to replace the original uploaded file with, um, say, a far superior, cleaned up, noise-free and remixed version?
posted by quonsar at 2:52 PM on July 1, 2006

I suppose I should add edit capabilities to update songs and info.
posted by mathowie at 3:31 PM on July 1, 2006

I'm also loving this lots.

Is there a way to give the song a title and ALSO an artist name?
I've always hated my username, but I can live with it for comments and posts, etc.
However, when I see "Song X, by chococat" it makes me cringe.
I have my artist name in the mp3 data for downloads, but can we title it that way in the post, too?
Small nitpick.

But this rocks, and I hope leads to collaborations and fun. I remember being excited like this about the original mp3.com.
posted by chococat at 4:05 PM on July 1, 2006

I see you've put the tags into the rss feed with a category tag, but I can't see any way to display that information in my rss reader (Thunderbird). Would it be reasonable/desirable to append the tags to the description? With music, it's often much easier to know what you're getting into based on the tags rather than however the artist has chosen to describe it.
posted by team lowkey at 4:20 PM on July 1, 2006

Is there any iPod-friendly way to export our playlists? Perhaps as mini rss feeds? I'm going through and shunting everything into five or six "mood" playlists that I'd love to be able to pick from on my iPod as needed.
posted by cortex at 4:45 PM on July 1, 2006

team lowkey, other readers handle tags ok, so I won't be stuffing them into the text.

cortex, I could look at maybe doing zip files and playlist files on the fly, so you could pull down the songs you need.
posted by mathowie at 5:20 PM on July 1, 2006

Honestly, I'll probably already download every goddam track into iTunes. I'm wondering if there's a way to just grab literally the individual playlists as rss/podcast feeds in the same way that (as I understand it) the global feed works. That way (I think?) I'd not need to download the files again if I already have 'em.

But I may be stating the obvious or missing something. I am extremely new to my iPod.
posted by cortex at 5:43 PM on July 1, 2006

Late to the party - am I the only one who doesn't like the "bumble bee" colours? Can I suggest a nice deep purple (#303) for the background (or #603 if you want something a little redder)? Was going to suggest these whan projects was blood-red, but it's now the teal.

Otherwise, some nice listens. What a groovin' bunch here!
posted by hangashore at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2006

June 30, 2006 12:07 AM Subscribe

June 30, 2006
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