A while back, I developed a suite of plugins for WordPress and an Applescript for iTunes that allowed an easy exchange of data between the two. Essentially, the Applescript would create a zip file of specially formatted data from the selected iTunes items…this includes text data like album, artist, year, and also extracted artwork image files. This zip is then uploaded directly as-is through the WordPress Plugin backend and is extracted and parsed on the server.

WordPress takes each artist found in the zipped data and creates a new category for that artist and places all those artists’ unique albums in its own sub-category. If the artist already exists from a previous import, any new albums that are being added will appear underneath the pre-existing artist category (as would be expected). If a particular album has already been uploaded, it too is skipped, as would be expected. Album artwork gets associated with the the appropriate category/subcategory, uploaded to the server, and all data is accessible to the WordPress Themeing system with a collection of functions/template tags. Additionally, I built in a custom ‘commenting & rating’ system for each artist/album, giving visitors the ability to comment on or rate an artist/album. These comments and ratings are filtered using the Askimet API and can be managed just like regular wordpress comments, despite being housed on separate database tables.

All in all it was a pretty bitching accomplishment. One that I put aside, however, right after I got it up and running. Please leave a comment if you are interested in adopting/repurposing the work I’ve done with this iTunes/Wordpress project.

Screenshots

To produce an html page with a detailed listing of album information and artwork for all selected iTunes music items.

Here’s a script I hacked together from bits and pieces of Doug Adams’ excellent Applescript work. My modifications are inelegant, but got the job done for my purposes. The script can be pretty easily tweaked (with just a little scripting experience) to many ends. PLEASE NOTE: this script is just a snippet that might prove useful to some. It is not a final product and I cannot offer support with it.

Demo:

See an example of this script’s output.

Installation:

1. Download and unarchive.
2. Copy Export HTML list of Selected Albums [w/ images].scptd to: ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts . If the Scripts folder is not already present, create it and place the Export HTML list of Selected Albums [w/ images].scptd file in there.

Usage:

1. Open up iTunes. You should now see a script icon in the menu bar as pictured below.

2. Select a playlist directly or select multiple albums/songs from any playlist/source.
3. With your selection highlighted, click the scripts menu icon and then select “Export HTML list of Selected Albums [w/ images]” from the menu.
4. iTunes will ask you where you want to save this html index file. Navigate to the folder where the images and html index file should be saved, and click OK.

Thats it. iTunes will begin by writing the HTML file text. Then it will extract the album art from each unique album and place it in the folder chosen in step 4. A window will appear that monitors the artwork extraction progress.

Websites are a relatively new thing.

And people are still excited about them. “A website.” “Ooh, Aah.” “Social Media.” “Ooh. Ahh.” The buzz still lingers for many people. Its understandable then, considering the rags-to-riches success stories and the still shimmering buzz that surrounds words like ‘online’, ‘web 2.0′, and ‘social networking’ that some folks invest a larger-than-necessary portion of their energy dreaming up a website and not dreaming up their dream. Somehow, the website itself has become the dream. It’s a sad state of affairs and I’d like to offer my two cents for anyone out there with a website on their mind.

Putting the website in its place

A website is not like a magazine or any other real world object, really. It lacks that all important 3-rd dimension. You cannot pick up a website. You cannot touch it. You cannot turn it sideways or put it down. It is a broadcast of information that we must explore by sliding around a plastic oval and tapping at a rectangle (made of smaller rectangles).

And a website does not exist in any one true state either. Like any broadcast, a website is subject to interference in transmission and the qualities of the system which receives the broadcast and presents the signal as human-ready information. Each instance of a website is NOT the same. You cannot count on a website to appear in the same way in every possible setting. Browsers, computers, monitors, and network connections all dictate how the site will be rendered. The website is not a definite thing. It may be definitely intended, but it is not definite.

Less dress is truly better

Lets look at books, arguably a direct ancestor of websites. Can you imagine if the shape of a book was determined by its subject matter? Music books shaped like a G clef, automobile books shaped like cars, sex books shaped like genitals? Yeah, books in this imaginary world be pretty frustrating and hard to use, organize and interpret. Of course, some books in the real world do apply this novelty of shape. (I’m sure there are car-shaped books, guitar-shaped books, etc.) But in the world of books, this play on design is the exception.

Not in the world of websites, however unfortunate. The exception in the world of websites is a site that does not dress itself up. A site that does not over style its information or functional elements. A site that presents its information in a simple and effective way, using color, image files, and complex layout only where these things are significantly and essentially helpful and do not interfere in the transmission or interpretation of the information.

I’m as guilty as the next guy

It was a mistake to theme my old business website (spacesuitgroup.com) around space imagery and colors. Did this space-theme make my information more readable? More digestible? No. This dressing up of my information abstracted my content on both technical and interpretive levels. This theming was a failed attempt to distinguish my site from other sites, an impossible effort made to convince prospective clients that I could transform a website into something else. Something more than a website. But, alas, a website is a website and not a colorful slice of deep space.

As producers of information bound for a website, its important for us to mind these limitations, these inherent qualities that make a website a website and not a magazine… a website a website and not a spaceship. And its maybe even more important to remember that we are the producers of information… not of website. Remember that website is a spot on the radio dial. It is a place to stand when you want to receive particular information. As the person behind these information broadcasts you should mind the transmission, craft the transmission, but keep the website, that virtual place to be, as transparent as possible.

This morning I came across a music technology article that really stirred me up. Its about a new version of the software suite “Melodyne” from company Celemony. See article.

The Old Stuff

Melodyne is nothing new. Its been around for almost a decade. In some cases, its the reason why some artists can sing like a god on CD but croak like a dying frog in live performance. In less extreme cases, it is used to nudge a slightly out-of-tune vocal take back into place. My favorite uses are of course those that intentionally call on an auto-tuner’s powerful manipulation engine to create a range of synthetic vocal qualities. Despite the creative possibilities of Melodyne/AutoTune’s powerful software engine however, it is used most frequently to de-crappify the vocals from an otherwise ordinary, out of tune, natural voice recording.

The New Stuff

So there’s the background on this software. Here’s the new stuff that landed this on the front page of reddit.com this morning: According to the article and the company’s website the newest version of Melodyne is able to dig into a mixed down, tonal recording and pull out chordal components, isolating the pitch material. It then allows you to manipulate each individual component pitch. This is POWERFUL stuff. It opens the doors to new sorts of experimentation and manipulation and on the other hand, hack performances disguised as pitch-perfect, steady handed musicianship. Many who, on account of earlier auto tuning plugins, had concerns about the integrity of modern music are now shitting in their proverbial pants with disappointment. Checkout just a few of the reddit comments on this article:

• “This is the most amazing bad thing that ever happened.” ~ ifm1989
• “I can see it now…people strumming lazily on one chord, then going to their computers and turning it into a masterpiece through trial and error.” ~ Duuuuude
• “I’m torn, being a tech geek, I think it pretty cool. Being a classically trained musician, I also think this is an abomination, learn to play and/or sing in tune.” ~ flycrg

The response is not all negative, however. Some responses focus on the technology itself and how many doors this sort of deep melodic access really opens.

• Even in the demo you could occasionally hear a bit of… i don’t know what to call it, “digital ringing” i guess. Miles better than auto-tune though, and with this sort of technology we could do some craaaaaazy stuff. ~ WinterAyars
• So this is basically like photo-shop for music? Cool! :D ~ Eugi
• That is fucking awesome. ~ appleaday

My humble opinion?

While I can appreciate where the haters are coming from, I think they are failing to see how this new technology will actually help the world appreciate raw, genuine, and un-autotuned voices. As more music employs technology like Melodyne’s auto tune and direct note access to ensure that squeaky-clean sound, more listeners will become desensitized to this homogenized, perfectly sculpted music. Think about how Americans have become increasingly aware of and thus unaffected by traditional advertising campaigns. Marketing teams have had to step up their game and in many cases this has meant a more honest, genuine approach; one that doesn’t assume the target audience to be a bunch of mindless idiots. Same is happening with music. Though there are more and more ways to hide a lousy performance behind a slew of star-making plugins, in the end, genuine, raw, and real will always outshine its competition. Have a little faith in the modern music listener to find the goodness out there. And have a little faith in the modern musiciain/music producer to use these tools in creative and explorative ways. Be calm, haters, genuine music is far from dead.