Disklavier

A very nice alternative on Windows to both iTunes and WINAMP is the free
audio player Foobar2000 at http://www.foobar2000.org

In spite of the silly name, it has a clean, easy-to-use interface,
comprehensive codec support (including FLAC), and no nagging, ads,
spyware or malware built into it.  It is much less bloated than iTunes
and WINAMP, and it has a decent plug-in architecture.

I'm considering writing a plug-in for it to stream MIDI and ESEQ
material in formats compatible with the various player piano systems,
including Disklavier and Live Performance LX formats, eliminating the
need to pre-encode material with MID2PianoCD.  The main obstacle with
this approach is that MIDI and ESEQ files don't include the detailed
tagging (title, composer, pianist, album art etc.) that people have come
to expect when using jukebox software like iTunes, nor are there any
universally-accepted conventions for adding these details to such files.

For those who are willing to put in the effort, pre-encoding with
MID2PianoCD and then tagging the resulting MP3 files makes it possible
to embed as much information as you like using tools like mp3tag at
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html

Mark Fontana


On Sun, 2009-11-29 at 19:59 +0000, bcasey2010 wrote:

> I spent almost 40 minutes with an Apple tech going through the motions
> to get mine dialed in, using a 2Wire wireless router. There was so
> much done during the call I could never re-count it all. It involved
> Windows network settings, Mac router settings, encryption settings,
> and my firewall settings. Once done, it works fine with my new Live
> Performance LX.  I wish I could say iTunes works well delivering the
> data, but it is really unstable (it locks up, and often won't start at
> all). I use Winamp to play my audio tracks over my home theatre pc
> server--it works flawlessly and has amazing plugins available. There
> is a new plugin for Winamp called Airfoil I am studying that may
> hopefully substitute iTunes altogether. I am hoping it will deliver
> the accompanying music through my home theatre sound system.