by
Joseph Waters
Background
Back in 2004, I launched an effort to produce an MP3 CD
that showed off the capabilities of arranger keyboards and
arranger keyboard artists. This project took me much
longer than I thought it would; the first MP3 CD-ROM
wasn't available until February of 2005. However, the end
result was worth it. I believe most PSR or Tyros owners,
and owners of other keyboards as well, will find the MP3
CD-ROMs not only great entertainment, but a great learning
tool as well.
When
I first stumbled onto arranger keyboards and purchased my
Yamaha PSR-540, I was eager to hear what my new instrument
could do. Decades earlier, I had purchased a Lowrey Holiday
organ and had the same impulse so I bought any organ LP
I could find. There were plenty of organ records available.
And plenty of "free" concerts one could attend
to hear professional artists performing on the Lowrey and
other organs. But with the arranger keyboard, my search
for examples was very quickly frustrated. There just weren't
any examples to be found!
For
Chirstmas 2003, I asked Santa for an MP3 player. Santa asked
"which one?" and I didn't have a clue. I started
doing some research and discovered a whole new world of
MP3s and MP3 players. I opted for the Apple iPod (thanks
Santa!) and quickly became a convert. I put my entire CD
collection in my computer (using Apple's free iTunes
software) and then transferred it to my iPOD. It only filled
up about half the 30 GB iPOD (with 5,000 songs!). But I
could now easily carry my entire CD collection around in
my shirt pocket.
Among
that collection were some CDs mailed to me by various arranger
artists. They sounded great on my iPOD and I got the idea,
"Why not pull together a whole collection of MP3 arranger
artist samples and making them available to the PSR Tutorial
community?" A midi file can be easily downloaded and,
if played in the keyboard from which
it was created, it sounds just like the player meant
it to. Of course, on the computer, it generally sounds terrible.
An MP3 file, on the other hand, can be downloaded and sound
fine on the computer. But, MP3 files are much bigger
than midi files and take a very long time to download. What's
more, because of the length of time it takes to download
these files, samples found on the internet, to keep the
file size reasonable, are recorded at a lesser sound quality.
But, if the MP3s are on a CD, then there is no download
time and recordings could be of a higher quality -- folks
could hear what these arranger keyboards really could
sound like.
Creating
the CDs
The
project didn't seem like it would be that difficult, but
it certainly took longer than anticipated. I started collecting
the MP3 songs and contacting various artists to get their
permission to include the songs on the CD. Lots of emails
and lots of downloading and collecting. I then discovered
that the MP3 file could contain not only the music, but
also additional information about the music (song
title, artist, album, composer, etc., even a photo of the
artist!). So I collected all that as well and added the
information to each song. There were lots of contributions,
more than one fit on a single CD. So I had to decide how
to divide up the contents and which songs would go on and
which would not. With the songs collected and sorted, I
tried making a CD. Well, songs in a computer can be sorted
in all kinds of different ways. It turns out, they can be
written in all kinds of different ways to the CD as well
so it took some learning to figure out what arrangement
on the CD would be best. Finally, I was ready to produce
my first CD-ROM.
That
first CD led to more discoveries. The sound quality at which
an MP3 was recorded really did make a big difference. Some
of the MP3s that played fine on the computer, simply would
not play in a CD player or a DVD player. So, I then had
to filter out the songs recorded at a lower quality and
try again. The second attempt sounded better, but song volume
was inconsistent. Some songs were louder, others too soft,
some just right. The volume on the CD was reflecting the
original volume at which the songs were recorded and that,
apparently, varied widely. So the next challenge was to
figure out how to level the sound. Sound leveling is a built-in
option in iTunes when writing out an audio CDs, but it isn't
an option available when writing out an MP3 CD. I did, however,
eventually find a solution and was able to adjust all the
songs to approximately the same sound level.
So,
I was able to make the first pilot running of the MP3 CDs.
There were two in this first round since I had decided to
fill one with MP3s that were primarily vocals. This would
give people a chance to hear some of the performers they
knew so well from various online forums. But it did not
particularly highlight the arranger keyboards since the
performer's singing carried the melody. The second CD, therefore,
focused entirely on instrumentals where one could clearly
hear just want the keyboard could do. I sent both CDs out
to every participating performer to give them a chance to
review the results and make any corrections or suggestions.
Many did so and I then made the modifications suggested
to the song information. And so, finally, the finished products
were available..
The
Final Products
An
MP3 CD holds many more songs than a typical audio CD. On
audio CDs you can expect to find 12 to 18 songs, which will
play for about 60 minutes. An audio CD file is very, very
large, much larger than the MP3 file. MP3, in fact, is a
way of compressing the original sound file by sampling the
original sounds. You sample the sound wave many times per
second, leading to a better quality sample, but larger file
size, or sample the sound fewer times, producing a smaller
file size, but not as good a digital copy. The number of
MP3s files you can fit on a CD depends, then, on how high
the encoding rate was for the MP3. Encode songs at 64 bits
per second (bps) and you can fit many more songs than if
you encode at 128 bps or 192 bps. I used 192 bps as my standard
encoding rate where I could. (I received some MP3s already
encoded at 128.) This assured a reasonably high audio quality.
Even at this higher rate, each of the MP3 CDs contains
at least 160 songs and plays for about 9 hours. Anyway
you look at it, each CD holds a tremenduous amount of music.
About
a year later, I tackled a third MP3 CD-ROM. This project
went a litle faster since I now knew a bit about how to
do it, but it still took several months to collect, evaluate,
and put together the final collection of songs. Volume 3
included a mix of vocals and instrumentals..
CD
Song Listing. I won't reproduce the song
list here. If you printed it out, it would take about 4
pages for each CD. You can, however, take a look
at the songs, including artist and keyboard used, by track
number. And now, Jan., '07, thanks to expansion of storage
space, I've been able to provide a PSR Tutorial Jukebox
that allows you to sample the various artists available
on each CD. Please do check out the song list for Volume
1 - "The Singers"
, Volume 2 - "Instrumentals"
and Volume 3 - "Standards"
CD
Artist Listing. You may also be interested
in the various artists included and the instrument(s) they
used and the songs they. I've created a web page for each
volume to display this information. The Jukebox also appears
on these pages so you can, again, sample the performers
right on your PC.. Click on these links to see the list
of songs by artist: Volume 1 - "The
Singers", Volume 2 - "Instrumentals"
and, Volume 3 - "Standards".
Playing
Your MP3 CDs
You
know what to do with an audio CD, but how do you play
an MP3 CD? Well, you have a number of choices. First of
all, all CD players may play a standard CD, but they all
DO NOT play an MP3 CD. Nowadays, most new CD players that
are sold are compatible with MP3 CDs. These MP3 CDs will
play on those CD players. They range from small portable
CD players (I originally purchased a Sony Atrac3Plus MP3
for this project) to very high-end players like the latest
BOSE Radio/CD. They will also play on some DVD players.
I was happy to see that these MP3 CDs played in my Toshiba
DVD player, which had no trouble reading the song index
and playing the music. On the Toshiba DVD, the tv screen
displayed two columns of 10 tracks each. The remote control
was used to move from song to song or page to page. Unfortunately,
it only showed the first few letters of the song title.
If
you place the CD in your PC, there are a variety of programs
available to read the contents and play the songs. The music
comes through your PC's speakers. How good it sounds depends
on the quality of your PC speakers. Alex Green assures me
that the sound quality of these CDs when played through
his BOSE radio is quite excellent. I created these CDs using
Apple's
iTunes program. iTunes is a free download and I recommend
it highly. You can use iTunes to copy songs from any CD
onto your PC and store it there in the iTunes library. You
could copy all these songs into the iTunes library and then
rearrange them in any order you want. When you play then
through iTunes, you can select a visualization option and
you will see not only the name of the song and the artist
on your screen while it plays but also a picture of the
artist. A similar functionality is available through Microsft's
Windows's Media Player, which you probably already have
on your PC. The MP3s can also be played with RealPlayer
and MusicMatch.
If
you have an MP3 player, you can copy the songs from the
MP3 CD to your PC and, since these are all MP3 files, transfer
them to your MP3 player. You can then take them with you
whenever you want.
These
MP3 CDs will introduce you to an extraordinary set of talented
musicians and performers. They will also give you many ideas
on how you might arrange your own songs as well as
various style and instrument combinations you may not have
thought of using. And, if you don't have an arranger keyboard,
or if you have an older model, these CDs will let you hear
exactly how these various keyboard sound. Originally, these
MP3 CDs were only available to charter and supporting members
of the PSR Tutorial. Now, anyone may order the MP3 CDs and,
by so doing, automatically become a "Supporting"
member of the PSR Tutorial. Revenue from the CD orders is
used to offset the ongoing costs of maintaining the PSR
Tutorial web site and forum. You
can order any of the MP3 CDs by clicking on the appropriate
button below.
|
 PSR
Tutorial Styles CD. Styles
are the lifeblood of any arranger keyboard. On this single CD-ROM, you
will find enough styles to keep you happily exploring for years (approximately
20,000 styles). Most styles are geared to the newer PSR keyboards (PSR3000/2100/2000,
Tyros1&2, Clavinova), but will also support earlier PSR9000s &
PSR740, etc.. Software is included that makes it easy to convert any of
the styles to your particular model of PSR. $30
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 PSR-Tutorial
CD-ROM
-- If you own a PSR, you will find this CD-ROM a great asset. This CD-ROM
is updated every month with the new styles, midi files, and other files
added to the site during the month. Here is a brief description of the
latest Contents.
$24
|
 Arranger
Artists #3: "Standards"
-- This MP3 CD is mostly instrumentals with some vocals included. It is
an outstanding example of the terrific music that can be produced by talented
performers on arranger keyboards. The CD includes music by 21 artists, 168
songs, over 9 hours of entertainment. Here's the Song
List by track number and here's a list of Songs
by Artist. Either of these links will also allow you to audition
some of the songs included. $18
|
 Arranger
Artists #2: "Instrumentals"
-- This MP3 CD is all instrumentals that clearly illustrate the quality
and variety of music that can be produced by talented players on arranger
keyboards. 24 artists, 174 songs, over 9 hours of entertainment. Here's
the Song List
by track. Here's a list of Songs
by Artist. ither of these links will also allow you to audition
some of the songs included..$18
|
 Arranger
Artists #1: "The Singers"
-- This MP3 CD, which can be played in your computer or on CD/DVD players
that accept MP3 CDs, is a great example of the performances available when
a singer and an arranger workstation are combined. 23 singers provide you
with 160 songs and 9 hours of entertainment. Take a peek at the Song
List by track to see what you'll get. Here's a list of Songs
by Artist. ither of these links will also allow you to audition
some of the songs included.. $18
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 Tutorial
Demos CD. New! They
say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, how about a little movie
showing off the features of these terrific Yamaha arranger keyboards.
This CD holds videos of the new Tyros II, the Tyros, the
PSR-3000, the PSR-2100, Clavinova, and more. It is
completely filled with demos films. It also has a number of MP3 demos
that will let you compare the voices and styles of the various leading
PSR keyboards. You can learn a lot about your keyboard by watching others
perform! $12
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