I'd like to start a thread here on the BBS just for fun.

I'd like folks to list cool things they've done/noticed/experienced related to the Empeg. For instance, someone posted on the BBS recently that they got extra work out of a British Telecom technician because he was interested in the Empeg. Another said he got out of a traffic ticket because of the Empeg.

I'd like to continue in that vein, but open it up to anything cool or unusual, not just "getting extra stuff".

Here, I'll kick it off with this one:

The band They Might Be Giants has one album with a unique feature. Their 1992 album "Apollo 18" contains a section of 21 separate tracks titled "Fingertips". These tracks are all tiny little humorous songlets, each about 10 seconds long. They are written so that they can flow into each other or into any other song smoothly. The idea is to use shuffle-play on your CD player so that these tracks get mixed up with the regular songs on the album (in fact, the album's liner notes state this specifically.)

Well, with the Empeg, these tracks get shuffled in with your entire playlist. So you could be listening to several regular songs, then suddenly get a 10-second songlet, then regular songs again. It's great because passengers in your car will go "what the hell was THAT?"

It's almost as if the band was predicting the digital music craze back in '92. Sure, it works when you use shuffle-play on a CD changer, but it's not as funny because there's a pause as it switches discs. With the Empeg, the song switches are instantaneous, so when the "Fingertips" tracks get played, they really make the listener do a double-take. It's great.





-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

A few things in my experience:

- coming home to find a small white box waiting for me after tracking it's delivery to my house, and the feeling of being a little boy on Christmas day coming to me so strongly that it was almost real

- standing in front of the unit that evening with my neighbours, in the dark, watching the blue glow of the graphics playing over their faces; the frozen, hypnotised grins on everyone's face

- sitting stalled in a traffic jam in the rain, in the dark, when someone recognised my empeg sticker in the back window and got out of his car, ran over and knocked on the window to have a look at the real thing

- the buzz I get every time someone comes round to see a demo

Wonderful thing!

I don't even have an empeg (yet) but I have already gotten a lot of vicarious enjoyment from listening to the lucky 400 talk about theirs. But most of all, I have benefitted from and enjoyed corresponding with dozens of helpful, unselfish people on this bbs. Altman. Rob. Mac. Cambscar. Schofiel. Verement. Tfabris. Mafisto. BasicGuy. Bonzi. Dmoore. Jazzwire. The list goes on and on. There are some very good people indeed on this bbs. If you compare the general level of civility and intelligence displayed on this bbs to that of other public forums, you will quickly come to the conclusion that this is indeed a special place.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

If you compare the general level of civility and intelligence displayed on this bbs to that of other public forums, you will quickly come to the conclusion that this is indeed a special place.

Agreed. It'll change a little bit when the Empeg "goes big" in a few months. A large population sampling is always bound to have some bad apples. Anyone remember the day that AOL opened up Usenet to its subscriber base? Newsgroups have never been the same since.

Fortunately, this BBS caters to a special group: Owners of the Empeg Car, which by virtue of the product's price point, will keep the user base reasonably well-filtered.

OK, that made me sound like a snob. I should talk. If the Empeg owners are an "exclusive club", then I'm a gate-crasher, having obtained my membership second-hand.

So who's got more Empeg stories to relate?

I've got a couple other ones to add:

After scrounging some extra power supplies and audio cables, I now have three indoor stations where I can easily plug in my Empeg: 1) Next to my computer at home. 2) Next to my computer at work. 3) In my home entertainment center in my livingroom. I don't have to reach behind anything or cart cables from place to place. And I still have the original power supply that shipped with the Empeg, all packed up nicely in its carrying case, so if I find myself at a friend's house, I can plug it in there if I want. I highly recommend this to anyone who owns an Empeg. It literally makes it so that you can bring all your music with you wherever you go.

Here's another:

Make a playlist named "Test Audio" or something like that, and drag all of your favorite audiophile tracks onto the list. You know, the ones that really test your speakers and amplifiers to the limits. That way, when you want to make adjustments to your system (or show it off), you just hit that playlist and go to it. Now someone like tanstaafl would probably have a specific test CD for this purpose, but I just make do with plain old songs from my collection. Here are some examples of tracks I've put in that playlist:
- Tori Amos: Liquid Diamonds (from the album "From the Choirgirl Hotel"). This opens with some serious subsonic bass sounds. A bit dirty, but great for testing overall output.
- Madonna: Substitute for Love (from "Ray of Light"). 40 seconds into the track, there are some really great clean low electric bass notes that will show you just how tight and accurate your system's low-end response is.
- Madonna: Ray of Light: That whole album is great for testing stuff, but the title track specifically has some synthesizer filter sweeps that go all the way from subsonic to hypersonic. Great for testing the whole range.
- Peter Gabriel: Red Rain (from "So"). A very well produced track with a wide range of sounds and textures. Great for testing overall tone and feel.
- Dire Straits: Why Worry (from "Brothers in Arms"). The last section of this song has some very delicate sounds and textures which let you test how well your system delivers the proper warmth during the quiet passages.
- Rush: Cut to the Chase (from "Counterparts") the second verse has an incredible energy with some very powerful high-volume rhythm section hits across the whole spectrum. Crank this one up and see how hard your system can hit.


-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

"Make a playlist named "Test Audio..."

Add to your list the digitally re-mastered version of "Moving Pictures" by Rush. It's an oldie, but the production is exceptionally crisp and clean. (It is also the only rock and roll CD that I own...)

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

heh; I thought I was the only person that still had that cd:)sounds surprisingly sharp and crisp despite being a 128k mp3..
-m

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

Wow, Moving Pictures. Where do I start?

I don't own the digitally remastered version, but I do agree that Moving Pictures is one of the greatest-sounding albums ever produced. In fact, I do have a few tracks from my regular-mastered version in my test list. Not because they are particularly good for audio testing, but because I listen to that album so much (still) that they have to be in my test tracks as a "baseline".

That album is great on so many levels, I could start a whole separate thread on it. It was the first CD I ever purchased. It was my prerequisite for purchasing a CD player: I wouldn't buy one until I was sure I could get Moving Pictures on CD. It was also the first CD I ripped into MP3 format. I can play every note of that album on the guitar, including simultaneously playing the synthesizer-bass parts (I have bass pedals like they do). Can you tell I'm a fan?

Interestingly enough, the first copy of Moving Pictures that I purchased was one of the flawed ones. Their first pressing of the CD had the first second missing from "Tom Sawyer". That wonderful drum/synth explosion that opens the album had its first second cut off. I exchanged it, via mail with the record company, for a corrected pressing. That's the one I still own.

One thing I use the album for is stereo sanity-check testing. The opening synthesizer chords on "The Camera Eye" alternate between the left and right channels. Any time I work with the speaker or line-level connections, I play that cut to make sure I've got all my channels correct.

Do you have any notes on the comparison between the original pressing and the remaster? What are the differences in the sound quality?


-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

I recommend Song #2 No More I Love You's from BOCA Volume 3 (http://www.casa.org/boca_info.html). It's an Acapella track, which means no instruments and voices only. This particular one is all female, and has all the voices clustered in the high end. This song really stresses the ability of your sound system to separate out the 5 or 6 different voices in the song. I've heard this song on some lower end systems and you get distortion.

For low end testing, the IASCA competition CD has a couple of "unlimited SPL" music tracks that emphasizes the low end like you wouldn't believe...

Cleanly recorded vocals can definitely show an audio system's imaging capabilities. So can well-recorded solo piano or acoustic guitar.

Of course, with the MP3 format, these things also allow you to locate compression artifacts.

-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

Do you have any notes on the comparison between the original pressing and the remaster? What are the differences in the sound quality?

It's been a while since I replaced my original CD with the remastered one (following an unfortunate attempt at CD scratch repair) and about all I can remember is that the new one is cleaner, brighter, crisper. More dynamic range.

That wonderful drum/synth explosion that opens the album...

Ohhhhh, Yes! That is exactly why I use *that* track anytime I want to surprise/impress somebody with my stereo. They get in the car, look around, see absolutely no visible sign that there is a stereo installed other than a cheap Panasonic CD player, and then the explosion hits and they start twisting around and looking to see where all that noise is coming from and still can't see anything... The most common reaction is "Holy S**t!" I'm such a hypocrite -- I pretend to be an audiophile when I really get my enjoyment out of showing off my stereo. ;-(

As a general rule, I don't care much for Rock 'n Roll music -- Mozart is the god I worship. But I have to admit that my Rush CD actually has more hours of playing time on it than any other three CD's that I own put together. I use it to tune my system for competition, and once I get it in the CD player, I tend to leave it there for days at a time. (In my defense.... I am rarely in my car for more than 40 minutes at one sitting...)

So, how can I be an elitist, classical music snob when I *really* like that Rush CD? I guess I'm just a bit schizophrenic at heart....

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

One of the cool things I just noticed is that I can click on many of the songs that I already loaded on my unit, as I read about them here. Of course I looked all over for that Rush CD, and figuring it was lent out or lost, I just ordered one from Amazon. I guess I'm impulsive.

Rush
"Moving Pictures"

Regards,

Mark Miller



--> Get Paid
to Surf the Web!

I see nothing schizophrenic or hypocritical about liking both Rush and Mozart. I think that if Mozart were making music today, he'd probably be making progressive rock like Rush. Anyway, if there's one rock album in the world which could please the ear of a classical music buff, that's got to be it.

Question about the way that album sounds on your system:

The beginning of track 3, "YYZ" opens with a bell sound which pans left and right. When I am listening to the song on a perfect system, or on a really good pair of headphones, the bell sound doesn't just pan, it swirls in a circle around my head. And I'm talking on a stereo-only system, with no surround sound or Q-sound or anything like that. But the listening conditions have to be perfect for that kind of imaging. Have you noticed that, too?

(Interesting side note: The rhythm of that bell and the opening of the song are the morse code letters YYZ, which is the code for the international airport in Toronto, their home town. The song is called YYZ because, according to the band, "it's always a happy day when YYZ appears on our luggage tags".)



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

It warms my heart to know that our discussion just sold another copy of Moving Pictures. What a timeless album.


-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

heh; I thought I was the only person that still had that cd:)

You and over four million other people. I just checked- that album is certified multi-platinum.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

Question about the way that album sounds on your system:

No twirly sensation.... just very hard right followed by very hard left imaging -- no sense of the sound traveling or "panning" across. I think in a competition scenario the twirly bit would count against you. The idea is you should be able to close your eyes and then point to each instrument as it plays, and the judges have diagrams of the instrument placement when the recordings were made.

One thing I do notice on my system (he says, bragging) that is lacking on most stereos I have heard YYZ on, is that the bell sound (probably a triangle?) has definite tonality to it -- it is not a single point source frequency "tink tink tink" but each bell sound actually falls off in frequency as the volume fades "teeuunng teeuung teeunng".

I did indeed know about the Morse code. And YYZ may well be my favorite song out of all the music I have. Funny story here (probably boring to everybody else in the world but me...) One of my sons convinced me that despite my lack of enthusiasm for rock music, I might just like Rush. So I borrowed some Rush CDs and played them, and they were OK, nothing earth shattering.... and then YYZ came on. I can still remember pulling the car over to the side of the road and stopping, and punching the repeat-play button on the CD player, and I let it play over and over for the next several days. That was where I became interested in Rush. Their earlier works and their later works don't inspire me -- but the 1980--1983 stuff I kind of like.

Who would have thought that a 20 year old album would spark this much response on the bbs?

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Although this discussion has now become completely off-topic for this BBS, I'm having fun. If anyone thinks we should be continuing this elswhere, let us know...

I think in a competition scenario the twirly bit would count against you. The idea is you should be able to close your eyes and then point to each instrument as it plays, and the judges have diagrams of the instrument placement when the recordings were made.

I'm pretty sure that they deliberately intended for that effect when they produced that piece, and therefore it wouldn't count against me. The position of the instrument is supposed to move in 3D around you. There's more than just panning happening there (more on that below). Another clue: When they play the piece live, they do a special lighting effect during that introduction. They darken the stage and use a ring of tight-focused spots around the drum riser, sequentially lighting them in a circular motion as Neil plays the bell intro.

the bell sound (probably a triangle?) has definite tonality to it -- it is not a single point source frequency "tink tink tink" but each bell sound actually falls off in frequency as the volume fades

Oh yeah, I hear that, too. I don't know if the instrument is a triangle or not, but it sounds like one. The MP3 version I'm listening to now reproduces this faithfully when played back on the Empeg, although some of the ultra-high frequencies are lost-- a known limitation of the Fraunhofer encoder at the 128k bitrate. (Wow! He manages to write something on-topic!)

Though some of the frequency falloff, is, I believe, doppler shift. Listen through a pair of good headphones on your home system and see if you agree with me. I have no information on the recording of that particular bit, but I know that during the recording of the album, Neil experimented with different miking techniques to get more interesting drum sounds. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually rigged something physical with stereo mics in an attempt to produce the 3D circular effect. Remember, this is before Q-sound existed.

An example of the unusual recording techniques used on that album: Neil had long been complaining that his recorded drum sound, when played back, didn't sound like it sounded to him while he was recording it. He wanted to capture the characteristics of the drummer's listening position on tape. So when recording the song "Vital Signs", they actually taped a mic to his chest as they laid down the drum tracks. You can see this in the video for the song. I don't know how much of that track ended up in the final mix, though.

I can still remember pulling the car over to the side of the road and stopping, and punching the repeat-play button on the CD player, and I let it play over and over for the next several days. That was where I became interested in Rush.

Yeah, YYZ is one heck of a piece. It sure stands up to repeated listenings. It's a great example of how they can flaunt their technical talent but still manage to make good music while doing so. The fast ascending odd-tempo scale they play together (just before the first main theme) is amazing-- they are so tight as a band. Those little rhythmic stunts they pull are my favorite bits.

Their earlier works and their later works don't inspire me -- but the 1980--1983 stuff I kind of like.

Everyone who likes Rush seems to have a different favorite "era". That's my favorite, too. The stuff they were doing around then is special because they made a conscious choice to write tighter, more focused songs instead of drawn-out rock operas. The album prior to Moving Pictures contains their last long-format operetta ("Natural Science").

Don't discount 1985's "Power Windows" album, though. Every bit as powerful as Moving Pictures, but it's the first album where they decided to go for a big production. Up until that point, they refused to do anything in the studio that they couldn't actually play in a live concert. By 1985, synthesizer and sampler technology had advanced to the point where they could safely add extra parts to the live act without adding more musicians. That album marks the beginning of an era where they were no longer afraid to overdub extra parts in the studio. Now they spend a lot of time onstage stepping on synth pedals or triggering sampled background parts from a keyboard controller. I've heard 'em trigger samples late in concert before (the orchestral bit on "Manhattan Project", for example). It's not pretty.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

From my *cough* experiences, I've noticed that college chicks really dig the empeg.

Must be something about a guy in a Jeep with over 1000 songs at his fingertips.

Either that or all that beer........ ;)

(O|||||O)

Here's another cool thing about the Empeg...

If you have it next to your computer, and you plug its audio into your computer via your sound card's "line input" plug, then you can listen to its output mixed with your computer's audio.

The advantage is: You can listen to MP3s while playing video games.

See, most sound cards only let one program use them at a time. So if a game is running and using sound effects, WinAmp can't run in the background because the game has already got the sound card tied up. With the Empeg, you can play your MP3s at the same time as your video game, and have the game sound effects going at the same time as the MP3s.

Some of the new souped-up sound cards allow multiple programs to access them simultaneously, but even if you've got one of those, there are still advantages to using the Empeg instead: 1) WinAmp isn't running in the background eating CPU cycles and sucking away at your game's frame rate. 2) You can control the volume and the track changes without having to exit your game.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

Here's another cool thing...

Even after owning the Empeg for over a month, the novelty hasn't worn off yet. I can't think of any other gadget (other than perhaps my computer) that has kept me so captivated for so long. I'm still playing with it the way a kid plays with a brand new toy. Sure, the software is still under construction- but I even enjoy reporting the bugs.

Today I finally got my subwoofer and installed it, and it was like getting the Empeg all over again, tweaking my EQ's and levels again, scrolling through my playlists as if I was listening to them for the first time. Just this week I discovered a new visual. I mean, I had always known it was there, but I never paid attention to it and just scrolled by it. Then just this week I stopped and looked at it and said, "wow that one's cooler than I thought" and left it up. And just think: pretty soon, they're going to ship a new version with even more visuals. Man, that's cool!







-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

And just think: pretty soon, they're going to ship a new version with even more visuals. Man, that's cool!

And just think, not two weeks ago you said "Personally, I don't think we need any new visuals." in response to a post that I sent asking for new visuals... ;)

More visuals more more! I can't wait for the visualization API to come out... we are going to see some really amazing stuff then.

(O|||||O)

Did I really say those exact words?

I probably meant that I'd rather see bugfixes and certain other features before new visuals. Fortunately, it's a moot point, because the visuals are supplied by Toby at Prolux: The development of new visuals doesn't have an impact on the other features (at least I don't think they do, do they?). Bring on the new visuals!



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

The advantage is: You can listen to MP3s while playing video games.

How about taking this one step further??

I have my empeg, 3 computers, my turntable, CD player, tape deck, drum machine and midi sound modules all routed through a mixing desk and my hi-fi.

Get them all going and I just can't stop in from sounding terrible ;-)

Maybe I should get out more!

Phil

First off, a little background: I'm big into whitewater kayaking. I own a Perception 3D playboat (red/purple fade) and can be found nearly every weekend on some section of the Chatooga River. (Or Nantahala, Ocoee, etc)

I've lived in Easley, SC (the home of Perception kayaks) for the past 12 years, moving 20 minutes away to go to school at Clemson University 5 years ago.

Not two weeks after receiving my empeg and putting my listing on the empeg registry (at http://www.empeg.mars.org I believe, don't have the URL with me), I received e-mail from a guy at Perception asking if he could drive up to Clemson and take a look at the empeg. I ended up asking him if it would be cool for ME to drive down to the Perception plant (where he works) and I'll give him a first-hand demo of the empeg, and in return he hook me up with a tour of the plant and maybe some free stuff.

So in the end, I ended up with a bunch of Perceptiong gear (t-shirt, stickers, frisbee, yo-yo, nylon bag, etc) and a tour of the place, and he got to sate his thirst for seeing an empeg in action first hand.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

(O|||||O)

I have had my empeg for about 2 months now and on 2 hour drive home today I noticed sometime really wild! I placed a few songs from a bass CD on the empeg just for showing the frequency response, and to make a lot of bass. What I never noticed was while playing a track called "bassgazum", a few of the visuals do some really neat stuff! the first 2 full screen ones are really wild and some of the others have a strange reaction to the continuous bass. The flat square that jumps with the music was doing things that made it look like a jelly flowing around. i was soooo amazed, I almost smashed my van!

Even if you don't like bass, Check it out!

i can't wait to see the new visuals

To everyone at Empeg, I enjoy your product more everyday, and to date, the unit has been working perfectly and I use it alot. You guys are great, keep up the awesome work!

Yeah, I just recently noticed that, too. Some of the visuals seem to be tuned specifically for bass, and do practically nothing with treble tones. It's really cool watching the patterns that are generated by different bass frequencies.

Here's a fun thing with the visuals: Turn on one of the linear spectrum analyzers, preferably one of the ones with really fine spectrum lines. Then play the Madonna song "Ray of Light". Starting around 3:28 there are some synthesizer filter sweeps that you can watch animated perfectly in the spectrum graph as they go from 22khz all the way down to low bass.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

I used to have mine hooked up in the office to another Linux box.
That way I was able to control it remotely from anywhere on campus
with the web page displaying the currently playing track and then a list of the
available tracks (from the CSV file exported from EMPLODE). I just need the
info on extracting the playlist info directly and the website will be completely
self contained.

It was also nice to be able to confuse visitors by having them wait in the office and continually change the music from the other side of the site.


David

Now that's cool!

-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

I like my Empeg; it does what it's supposed to do and I've only encountered one problem with it that the Empeg team nailed down rapidly. Exceptional for beta hardware and a new team supporting it...

However, what I like best about the Empeg has nothing to do with the unit. Instead, the fact that its creators actually listen to its userbase is what has to be the most interesting experience I've had in years. It's a declining trend in today's world, yet the Empeg team frequently does little, un-necessary (by other companies' stanrdards) things that make us feel like we're a part of that team...

It's rather interesting to see your questions answered by human beings instead of automated email systems. It'll also be interesting to see whose suggestions show up in the next batch of players, because those of us who frequent this BBS will be able to recall that tfabris (Tony) suggested this idea or schofiel suggested that one.

Unusual, optimistic, and very very pleasing...

-- Bleys



"If you would judge, understand." -- Seneca

I'd like to chime in (a few months late ) to say the coolest thing about my empeg is it has brought my CD collection to life.

Like anyone else, I've collected a number of CDs over the years, but it seems I rarely listen to any unless a particular song comes to mind and then I dig around for the CD containing it. The exception of course is immediately following the purchase of a new CD.

I've only just recently (!) started to encode all of these CDs and put them on my empeg. In the process I've come across quite a number of songs I'd forgotten about -- and now they're instantly available any time I want to hear them!

What a marvelous invention.

-v

I totally agree with this.

Another cool thing is the fact that I've been buying more CDs lately than I was when I just owned a CD player. There's something about encoding a new album and uploading it to the empeg that's more satisfying than just sticking in the CD.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Okay, here's one I noticed just last night.

I went out to my car to get something. It was parked in the garage, and it was pitch black in there...

Except for this pulsing green light shining out of the car windows, illuminating the walls of the garage. It looked like one of those effects in a bad sci-fi/horror movie, where you were supposed to assume there was an alien or something inside the car.

I was able to navigate to the car, get what I needed to get, and get out of the garage without turning on the light...

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

I've just recently registered for this BBS because I've been tracking the empeg for some time now. Unfortunately my registration number was somewhere around 11,000 or so. So I'm not going to get one anytime soon. And to make matters worse, when my time comes I'm not even sure if I'll have enough money to purchase one. :( But I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts on the empeg, it almost makes me feel like I own one. I've got some odd 1300 mp3s on my HD right now, and fortunately a burner so I can at least compile all the songs I want on to custom CDs. But I think the best thing about the Empeg (And I don't even own one!) is that you no longer have to lug around 30 pounds worth of CDs, you don't have to worry about your favorite song skipping during your favorite part either. And as far as making driving more pleasureable, mp3s have made sitting at my computer much more enjoyable. If any of you are overly wealthy :) and would like to upgrade to the Mark 2, I'll wash your car if you can sell it cheaply. I've been eating Ramen noodles for months now to save money for an Empeg. How bad is that? Enjoy your Empegs and most of all, the music that is plays.

It's now how far you go, it's how go you far.

If any of you are overly wealthy :) and would like to upgrade to the Mark 2, I'll wash your car if you can sell it cheaply.

Have you done a search on this BBS on the word "sale"? There was one being sold about a month ago, and just last week one was announced as going on sale on ebay. I got mine on ebay, so I know it's not impossible.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

I've been eating Ramen noodles for months now to save money for an Empeg. How bad is that?

Not bad at all. Ramen is good. Where else can you get 5 bowls of delicious ready-to-eat food for 1.00$? I got so hooked on Ramen through school that I have to have a weekly Ramen intake or else I don't function properly.

Keep saving up those pennies, bud... The empeg is well worth every last one of them.

(O|||||O)
6Gb Blue

Like mine for instance....

I have a 10GB blue for sale. email me at pa@ediblehedge.com if you are interested

Phil

Parking in the middle of a field, with no houses or lights within 10 miles, turning only the empeg on, and listening to Little Fluffy Clouds with some Funnelweb visualization kickin....

Mesmorizing.

(O|||||O)

Using the empeg as background music at sporting events and knowing it will last the entire day without pauses.

Being able to stack up songs on the fly using the append mode. (Desparately needed in the playlist menu)

Being able to see track names etc while driving. If only radio stations did this too!

____________________________
Murray

> Being able to see track names etc while driving. If only radio stations did
> this too!

Some of them do. RDS includes radio text - this is the bit that scrolls across the bottom of the screen in tuner mode - and it can be updated quite regularly. Although most stations only transmit details of the current show, some actually update for each track. An example in the UK would be Classic FM - of course their tracks tend to be longer than 3.5 minutes so it's not as much hassle for them to do this.

Unfortunately those of you in countries slow to adopt RDS (which is now a rather old technology!) miss out on all of this.

Rob

Are you saying that the Empeg displays this data right now, and that I'm missing out on seeing this? Darn radio stations. Doug, do something about this.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Yes, the car player displays the radio station ID next to the frequency, and the radio text scrolling along the bottom of the screen next to the time of day. Preset names are also filled in automatically from the station ID.

If your local stations don't broadcast RDS you don't get to see any of that, sorry!

Rob

Last time I tried the tuner both the station names and radio text did not work (I think I last tried with beta10). Admittedly I still haven't got the unit fitted to my car, so the attenna I was using was far from idea, however they worked in earlier versions and they don't appear to now.

By the way, are we expecting full RDS functionality any time soon (in particular auto tuning and time codes) ?

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

You do have to have Info turned on before switching to the radio for it to work, though. You should get an RDS warning indicator on the screen if your station is sending with RDS.

We've not heard of any problems with RDS - works fine for us, both in the car and on a home antenna.

I believe that more complete RDS functionality is scheduled for release 1.0, very early in June.

Rob

Hmm Our local stations often seem to send long Strings that the empeg does not display correctly ... I do not know HOW long the empegs maximum is, but *very* often the sent text is only displayed partially ...
( Just imagina a slogon or announcement, that kind of texts ... so empeg only shows a limited amount ( 40 ?? 80 ?? ) of letters and then starts with letter #1 ... )


Nils

I've just done another test (on beta10), even though I have several stations with full signal indicated and the stereo indicator on I don't get any radio text or station names (I do get station names for a couple of frequencies, but they seem to be stored from when I did get station names to work).

I realise that my antenna is inadequate (I'm touching a screw driver to the antenna terminal)...

However, I have seen this RDS stuff work before in the same circumstances (on an earlier version of the software, back on beta8 or something). Does anyone else have problems getting RDS data ?

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

Speaking of RDS, I think it gives my Empeg the ability to have a clock. But for some reason it only works if I turn it on by my house, even if I listen to the same radio station else where, it will not come up. Its pretty neat because once its there, it stays there even after leaveing the area of that radio station. It also runs in a 24 hour mode instaed of am/pm

I love my Empeg

Over in another thread, Dionysus made a comment about the difference between CD players and the Empeg. I realized it deserved its own "cool" entry. In fact, it's really the root reason I bought an Empeg in the first place. It's sort of the whole point of having an Empeg, but I don't think it's really been verbalized in these terms before.

If you own a car CD player, or even a changer, the physical act of choosing and swapping CDs becomes a chore. I tended to go through this procedure:

1) Decide I was bored of the 6 CD's I had in the car already.
2) Promise myself I'm going to pick 6 new ones tomorrow before work.
3) Forget about step 2 until I'm pulling out of the garage.
4) Go to step 2.
5) Eventually, get SO sick of the CDs and break out of the 2-4 loop. This can take up to three weeks (I'm quite absent-minded).
6) Bring the 6 CDs into the house and put them back in my collection.
7) Stare at my collection for ten minutes, trying to decide which 6 cd's I'm willing to listen to for another three weeks (because, although I am absent-minded, I'm still aware of steps 2-5).
8) Finally, I decide upon the 6 CDs I want to take with me, and invariably, they're 6 of my favorite albums. Ones I know I like and that I've already listened to over and over again. Because I know I've got to live with them for three weeks, they have to be the cream of the crop. As a result, I end up cycling through the same 20 albums in my car. I never get to hear the rest of my collection.

The Empeg, of course, breaks this cycle and lets you hear parts of your collection that you didn't even know existed. It's like your collection becomes new music all over again. Most of the albums have really good songs that you never heard (or at least never listened to closely). The Empeg lets you rediscover the music you always had.

Try this. Count the number of CDs in your collection. Subtract the number of CDs you listen(ed) to regularly (such as the 20 I mentioned above). The remainder of your CDs are more or less "wasted". Multiply that number of "wasted" CDs times the average price of a CD. That's how much your "wasted" CDs cost you. For instance, if you own 220 CDs, and you only listen to 20 of the regularly, that's 200 "wasted" CDs. Times about $16.00 per disc (depending on where you buy your CDs), that comes out to about $3200.00. Compare this to the price of the Empeg, and the Empeg sounds less like a luxury toy and more like an inexpensive investment in keeping your CD collection alive.


Tony Fabris
Empeg #144

Try this. Count the number of CDs in your collection. Subtract the number of CDs you listen(ed) to regularly (such as the 20 I mentioned above). The remainder of your CDs are more or less "wasted". Multiply that number of "wasted" CDs times the average price of a CD. That's how much your "wasted" CDs cost you. For instance, if you own 220 CDs, and you only listen to 20 of the regularly, that's 200 "wasted" CDs. Times about $16.00 per disc (depending on where you buy your CDs), that comes out to about $3200.00. Compare this to the price of the Empeg, and the Empeg sounds less like a luxury toy and more like an inexpensive investment in keeping your CD collection alive.

---

I like your logic:) except in my case, I have a single-cd player.. which meant carrying a 6-10 disk cd-case in the car, and switching out the single cd about every other week:)
-mark

...proud to have one of the first Mark I units

I'm gonna put it in my yacht (a 30 ft racer / cruiser) and spend the entire weekend out of range of local radio stations and with my entire music collection with me. Perhaps I can rig some servos to the com port: "Empeg! Trim the genoa in!" Hmmm. Empeg + GPS + Autohelm. Can anyone write a moving map display for me?

Cheers
Jon

How about this?

Having the Empeg playing quietly at my desk with the "Tripping Prisoner" visual running and no info text. A new song starts up with a super-quiet fade-in intro, and I can't hear any of the song yet (it's noisy in my office and the Empeg is playing very quietly).

Looking at the visual, I can tell which song it is. The rhythm of the visual clues me in. As the song fades in louder, I start to hear it, and my guess was right. (In this case, it happened to be Robbie Robertson's "Fallen Angel".)

___________
Tony Fabris

That's like my ability to tell what connection speed I'll get out of my modem from the 'pling.pling' noises it makes.

My girlfriend thinks that it's geeky.

.

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

That's like my ability to tell what connection speed I'll get out of my modem from the 'pling.pling' noises it makes.

I haven't mastered that yet; I'm still learning the V.90 connect sequence. It goes through the usual connect jumble and then gets this clear part, which gradually increases in pitch (like phase distortion getting narrower) but I can't pick it yet.

It's still geeky though.

Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.

I don't have a choice - my modem is old and has one volume setting BLOODY LOUD.

I think that my neighbours can tell what speed I connect at too .

A total pain in the [censored].

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

Don't tell me - US Robotics?

Scary, but very very true.

Cheers,

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

Coolest thing I have done with my empeg (#73): My then fiancee and I used it to play the music at our wedding reception. We made two track lists, one for dinner, and the other for dancing. We used the pin numbers to jump straight to a few specific songs. Between that and the remote, who needs a dj?
Course, it sold her on getting the Mk 2 so she can have one in her car, too!

Oh, how cute! Rob, did you see that? That one is so perfect, it has to go on the new web site.

In fact, you should round up a bunch of testimonials from all us fans. Whaddya think?

___________
Tony Fabris

We'll have enough material for an empeg soap soon :-)

Rob

I will be using mine to play at my cousin's Wedding. She has given me a stack of CDs, which I'm ripping and will put them into a separate set of playlists. she has specific songs to play at key points which i will fire off with PINs.

the best part is that we drive down in my Empeg equipped car (5 hours) and then get to use my Empeg at the wedding & reception and drive back the next day (5 hours).

Rockin!



____________________________
Murray

Hey, is playing music off the empeg at a wedding legal? hmm!! Can you see the RIAA busting a wedding, complete with guns and men in black suits?

Calvin

Sadly yes...

Hey,

I use my empeg at parties all the time.

People have even asked me to take it along (only reason I get asked ) to their parties....

I just hope this isn't true. I'm soooo scared of the RIAA. (especially since I live in the UK).

Cheers,

Pul

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

I used mine at our wedding too. I created a 5 second blank mp3 file to put between each track so that my brother (who was controlling the empeg during the service) had a fighting chance of not playing the next bit of music too soon.

We walked down the aisle (together) to Cher singing the Shoop-shoop song, don't ask (it was great fun though).

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

Okay, here's something I'd always said the Empeg would be good for, now I've actually done it myself and I was right.

I've recently gotten into desktop audio production. Using Emagic's Logic Audio (an awesome piece of software by the way), I'm mixing down and producing live multitrack recordings of myself and some of my friends.

(Note that I'm using the word "Mix" here in its original context: combining multiple tracks of acoustically-recorded audio of singers and instruments playing an original song. Not the newer definition of "Mix", i.e., not the recombining and beat-matching of preexisting material.)

After the final mixdown of a piece of music, you need to preview it on different pieces of consumer audio equipment to make sure it sounds good. Because even if you use the best set of monitors when you mix down, you should still listen to your mixes on various reference equipment to hear how it'll sound in the real world.

Two nights ago, I mixed down a set of songs which I thought were perfect. Then I MP3'd them at high quality, squirted them into the Empeg, and listened to them in my car, no CD-burning needed. I can also take the Empeg to any stereo with line inputs and preview my mixes. I'm glad I previewed these mixes in the car, because there was some subsonic stuff happening in the mix which I didn't notice until the car's subwoofer kicked in. So I was able to fix the anomolies before wasting any actual CD-R media.

For my purposes, just being able to MP3 my mixes is fine. But for some people, they'd need raw .WAV support in the Empeg if they wanted to do this seriously. So that's one good reason to fix the .WAV support in the Empeg...

___________
Tony Fabris

Funnelweb.

'nuff said.

___________
Tony Fabris

Funnelweb.

http://empeg.comms.net/cgi-bin/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=empeg_general&Number=2346&page=2&view=collapsed&sb=5&vc=1#Post2346

;)

(O|||||O)

Wanna know one of the coolest things about the Empeg? On the Empeg discussion BBS, the Wish List forum has about 800 more posts than the Bug Reports forum. That's a very good thing! It means people are spending more time suggesting improvements than they are reporting things that don't work. Something of an "approval rating" for the Empeg. Just a random thought..

...Looking through the Crutchfield catalog and knowing that your car stereo is cooler than every single one of the stereos they sell.

___________
Tony Fabris

Stopping by your local stereo store to pick up an RCA cable and having the guy say "Whoa! What kind of stereo is that?

Seeing Tux everytime you turn it on.

-Trevor

-----
Mk 2, Green 12GB 080000349

Hi,

There is only one thing better than owning an empeg, owning two


_________________________________________
John, (MK1 114-20G, MK2 15-36G).

I love the way drunken mates just can't help turning the lights off in my house and staring at the visuals.... ;)

-------------
Empeg MK II Owner SN: 118
(Owner of too Many Toys, and a large Debt)

Having a cop who pulls you over for an expired registration (which isn't really expired) ask what all those flashy lights were that were coming from the car before he pulled me over.

||| loren.cox
||| 080000446
||| 12GB blue

Last week, I took a long trip with the empeg. During one leg of the trip, I needed to drive alone late at night while I was very tired.

On this leg of the trip, I made an interesting discovery: My "low key" playlist of mostly quiet music keeps me awake better than loud music. The empeg's playlist features allowed me to make this (arguably important) discovery.

___________
Tony Fabris

Having your boss turn all colors because he didn't register in the queue like I told him so and now has to watch me drive the same company car he has (Cars in Holland cost 20 percent more then the they do in Belgium, he is Dutch and can just barely get a BMW 320d in his salary grade, I am 2 grades lower then he is but live in Belgium and can get the same car as him because it is cheaper in Belgium) except now mine has an empeg.

He never expected it to be THIS cool see ...

Why don't these guys ever listen to me, I always am proven right in the end.

Cheers,
Hans


Mk2 - Blue - 080000431

When I'm tired loud music tends to start droning to me. I no longer listen and it becomes a white noise, which is trouble.

reg#15786-red

Another thing:

Knowing that no matter where I take my Jeep, or what I drive over that the music will never skip

Looking like a zombie at work because you didn't get any sleep and all because you spent all night trying to catch up on all the new messages on the unofficial empeg BBS but each time you thought you had read them all you did a reload of the main index only to find 10 more new messages entered for you to read.

Pardon my grammar, it is late (reason, see above)

Hans

Mk2 - Blue - 080000431

Having your girlfriend who initially couldn't fathom why you payed so much for a stereo... actually use it, and now cutely call it hers and not want to give the remote back when we're in the car. She figured out the interface and remote buttons with no help from me whatsoever! Lucky for me we have the exact same taste in music, so now she's the dedicated playlist programmer =].


|| loren.cox
|| 080000446

i completely agree. when i first got my empeg back in august, it was a huge waste of money. no reason to hve that much music. first she wishes i remembered to bring it on the honeymoon, now she wants one for her car.

as for a playlist programmer, i am in the same boat. whenever my wife is in the car, she basically takes over the empeg operation. not so good for me though. we like alot of the same stuff, but she hates stuff like the misfits and slayer. she has pretty much managed to grasp the entire interface though.

go figure.

jeremy

12 gig, green...

she has pretty much managed to grasp the entire interface though.

Hmm.
Time to add the Wendy Filter an have it include an 'interface randomiser', making it nearly inoperable.

Murray 06000047
____________________

Seredipity in the shuffle.

Occasionally, when doing shuffle-play on the whole unit, the Empeg will choose a couple of tracks to play next to each other that happen to go together particularly well.

For example, I hadn't heard any of the songs from Alex Lifeson's solo album in a while, and the player just now sandwiched one of those Lifeson tracks between two tracks from Geddy Lee's solo album.

(For the uninitiated, those are two members of Rush, who, as a band, have been on extended hiatus since 1996 because their drummer had some personal tragedies he needed to recover from. Good news is that they will get back together and begin writing a new Rush album in the next few months.)

___________
Tony Fabris

LIstenning to The Hunt For Red October in the dark with Star Dust visual. Imagine those aren't stars, but bubbles and dust under the ocean.... Yeah, I've got an overactive imagination. But it's trippy.
Also, I work at Intel. People here get a weird look when I tell them my car stereo runs and Intel processor. : ) 'Doesn't yours?'

I don't know if anybody has noticed but the key press delays and popup window disappear times are really good.
I have a CD player in my dash too and to turn the thing off (after radio or CD) I have to hold a button in for 3 seconds. I know that it wasn't designed to be a secondary unit but 3 seconds is a *really* long time on the road! it seems like an eternity before it turns off.
Empeg got the button delays pretty well spot on. Just adds to the great UI.

____________________
Murray 06000047

I don't know if anybody has noticed but the key press delays and popup window disappear times are really good.

I agree with this for 99 percent of the stuff, they've done a great job. There's one delay time that I think is too long, but one of the features in 1.1 will take care of that complaint for me.

You see... when a new song starts playing when I'm in full-screen-visual mode, sometimes I like to press and hold the bottom button so I can glance at the song title. But the message at the top of the screen that says "Info:Track" covers up the song title and hangs around too long. (I know I can turn off the message completely, but I don't want to lose the visual-names-when-switching feature to do it.) Anyway, since 1.1 will have a "flash track info at the start of a new song" feature, I won't have any more reason to complain because the player will do this for me automatically without covering up the song title.

___________
Tony Fabris

YES! ... I've had that exact thought too!!

-CHiP

but one of the features in 1.1 will take care of that complaint for me.

Cool isn't it? we know about the feature to some extent _before_ it comes out.

____________________
Murray 06000047

Bumping this thread to the top, just so the new blood can see it.

Don't have anything to add to it right now, anyone else have anything along these lines?

After having my unit in the car for a while I finally got rid of my home stereo and got a nice big amp setup for my empeg. Up until then, my son (currently 18 months old) could only work power on/off and volume (usually volume UP!!) but now he's able to skip tune or go back to start of tune if he really likes one. Okay, he doesn't change playlists often - only down, down, down - which is good.


I guess my point is - superb user interface! So simple even a toddler can use it. Although admittedly he is a bit of a techie - has his own PC and laptop and walkman. Guess he takes after his dad.



And obviously the visuals can silence a grouchy child in seconds!


Frog51

And obviously the visuals can silence a grouchy child in seconds!

Okay, now that is cool.

Works on cats too, at least the ones I've tried it on. I've seen one lie still for more than an hour looking at funnelweb (1.03 days). Never saw him blink once...

/Michael

You can take it to work and mesmerise your cow-orkers. As they dribble on about some impending project deadline, just sit there flicking thru the visuals. Eventually they get distracted and forget what they were saying. Works on evil HR managers.

I can picture one putting a dandy scratch on your screen. :-D

Calvin

So can I, but so far it's only been a few soft "boxing" style manouvers...
And of course the one that lay down on top it (liked the warmth I guess), tilting her head to the extreme to keep watching the screen. Her I did remove, as I saw no need for insulation of the player, nor a load of cat hair

Cats are weird...

/Michael

I wonder if they make Toasty Bears for cats e.g. filled with catnip. Then your cat can have fun and stay warm.

Calvin