Archive for September, 2004

A. We only post material publicly for a period of a week after which it is moved to our archives. The archive is pretty big (20 GB+, growing at 1-2 GB a month) and our bandwidth on the public folders is huge, so only mixers or folks who donate towards our bandwith have access to mixes older than a week. Information on donating can be found here.

We recommend that you use a download manager to download.

2. Submitting a mix

Q. I have a mix. I want to submit my mix on b00mb0x. What do I do?

A. We currently accept mixes uploaded to our server by FTP. FTP will work with Internet Explorer, but a dedicated application like CuteFTP will allow you to resume and do other fun stuff. New mixers can get the ftp upload details by emailing us @ admin@b00mb0x.org. Please take note of the following restrictions.

Just mixtapes please, please use the oodles of remix/bootie sites out there for your bootlegs remixes and send the record companies your beautiful original creations. If you don’t know what a mixtape is (!?), just look at what other mixers have posted, it pretty much explains itself.

In the interest of trying new things, b00mb0x now accepts video mixes. If you want to enter into this time consuming and frustrating process we accept up to 250 MB per video mix in the avi and mpg formats. If you are familiar with Sony Acid, you can use Sony Vegas for your video content, it works along the same lines.

You can do a full length mix made up of remixes but not a full length mix of stuff you made yourself. If there’s confusion about whether a mix is a mix or a remix, we’ll make that determination.

Please do not upload more than 1 mix a month. This is a new one. Its tough for us to deal with when people are constantly sending multiple mixes. We want to remain an open site so please hang back on sending your next mix until the following month. It’s because we have limited storage and resources and we need to be fair to everyone.

125 MB size limit per mix

MP3s only

Please don’t ask use to listen to your mix and decide if it’s good enough. Show some balls, man (or if you’re a woman, whatever the female equivalent of balls are).

Most mixes are between 20-80 minutes and encoded at 256kbs or lower (I recommend lowest quality variable bitrate with min/max bitrate set at 32kbs/320kbs if using CDex or RazorLame).

Most mixes have covers. Covers are considered an important part of the mix (like any good mix tape or mix cd) but are not required. Check around the site for peoples covers to see examples. We appreciate a tracklist for any mix.

You can now include a print quality cover if you wish along with your mix along with a cuesheet. Neither is required.

You basically need to 1) contact us for the upload server details 2) Run a google search on FTP tutorials so you know what you need to do 3) email us, letting us know your mix is there so that we can post it. If you haven’t contacted us regarding a mix that’s been uploaded and there for a while, we delete it.

3 .Delay between uploading and your mix being posted on the site.

Q. I uploaded my mix X minutes, days, weeks, months ago. If you didn’t like my Ukrainian ghetto-style, why didn’t you just say?!

A. If you have emailed us and received a response, it WILL be posted, it just a matter of time. We generally post mixes in the order in which we’ve received them.

4. Spam

Q. Why is somebody offering to extend my penis size in the comments under my mix? Is there some charge for this extra service?

A. Movable Type, the system we use for the site, is particularly attractive to spamming scripts. We maintain a blacklist of spam sites, but a few, sometimes a dozen or more, get through on most days. If you respond, you’re responding to a script. It feels no love, no hate, no human emotion at all. We usually delete whatever spam we get daily and any reactions to the spam. Sometimes we delete kosher comments by mistake when deleting spam.

5. Moderation

Someone is being mean to me! Make him stop!

A. We delete spam. You are entitled to say any mix sucks, just not over and over again.

6. b00mb0x

Q. What is b00mb0x?

A. b00mb0x is a mixtape competition site. It started off in an IRC channel in 2000, when assorted and I decided to see who could make the better mixtape (assorted’s was better). Since then we started hosting bootlegs and added things like the blog, but basically we are an online mixtape site, so we’ve gone back to our roots in that respect. All mixes are welcome, not just DJ sets (although they are very welcome) and the more imaginative they are, the better. Sometimes. We put mixes to the public vote once a year, around November and December.

7. b00mb0x email

Q. What’s the webmail link for?

A. Because we love you, anyone who contributes to the site can have a b00mb0x.org, bootbox.org, bmbx.org or mixes.b00mb0x.org email address, accessible via the web or an email client. Just let us know what address and password you want (you can change your password via the mailboxes link.)

8. Helping out on b00mb0x
Q. I’d like to help out on b00mb0x any way I can, what can I do?

A. We need people to write for the blog. Blogging is fun. You can write about anything you want, you don’t even need to be a mixer. You can link to cool stuff you found online or post your own images.

We’re on the lookout for tutorials on various mix related software. Abelton, Traktor, Cubase, ACID 5 all spring to mind. You can perform screen captures by pressing alt+print screen and then pasting the clipboard into your image editing application. We will be eternally grateful.

We also appreciate people submitting covers for the front page. Please don’t just take another image from the Internet and slap b00mb0x on it. That’s sucky. That’s not saying you can’t use “found” images in some context, just try to show a modicum of creativity.

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Tue 21 Sep 2004

Very Basic Acid Tutorial

Posted by naz under Uncategorized
[12] Comments

Using Acid Pro as a mixer by naz

Note: this is a very basic Acid tutorial. If this isn’t of any use to you, try fucking yourself

Like Soundforge, Acid wasn’t designed as a mixer. It’s a sequencer that happens to perform very adequatedly as a mixing program. As it is professional software, there is a learning curve when trying to use it for mixing.

Part One: MULTITRACKING

Use the view > explorer option to display the file explorer. Drag a sound file into the centre of Acid. The beatmapper dialog will appear for long tracks. You can skip ahead to the beatmapper part of the tutorial now or later. For this part I cancelled the beatmapper wizard.

A track will appear on the left part of the work area. To start your mix, click the pencil icon and click and drag the waveform right. This can take a while and its quite awkward. To multitrack, load a second file into Acid and start dragging where you want to start the overlap between tracks one and two.

Part Two: ENVELOPING

A volume envelope allows you to control the volume levels. Right-click a track, Insert Volume Envelope. A brown line will appear. Right click the line where you would like to begin a volume transition, select add point. Add another point where you would like the volume transition to end. Drag the points to manipulate volume.

Part Three: BEATMAPPING

When you load a large file into Acid, the beatmapper dialog appears. Beatmapping your tunes allows you to seamlessly mix tunes that around the same tempo. Sometimes. Firstly, Acid will attempt to locate the first downbeat. This, to me, means the first strike of the standard beat of the tune. Acid often gets it wrong. The below picture depicts a minimalist techno track, you may have to find the downbeat yourself.

After the downbeat has been defined, Acid attempts to create a loop. A properly beatmappedloop, if played continuously, will sound natural, no clicks, in time. Sometimes. The best way to get used to mapping the length and tempo of a loop is by experimenting with a dance track. When you have defined the loops correctly, proceed to the next screen. Inspect a few loops, to see if it remains in time. If so, click next and select Preserve Pitch.

The bottom left of the work area contains the tempo control for the entire project. If the project is set at 120 BPM and you beatmap a tune at 80 bpm, the tune will run at 150% of its proper tempo. Set the project tempo to whatever your mix material has been beatmapped at. You should aim to mix tunes of similar tempos together for the best sounding results. To change the project tempo half-way through a mix use Insert>Key Tempo change.

Part Four: EXPORTING

File> Render As. Have
fun.

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Sun 19 Sep 2004

History

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
No Comments

History

boombox (also known as cdmixathon also known as b00mb0x) began as a friendly competition to see who could make the better ” mix cd tape. ” It has grown to include a wide variety of mixes & compilations by an eclectic, talented, and growing group of people. A great & interesting range of musical genres can be found there. Go
visit, look around, download and have fun!Due to having too much time on our hands, b00mb0x has expanded in the past months to include remixes, original electronic music, and a weblog. And as of this year we are starting our first awards, to make it an ACTUAL competition (but still friendly!). We’ll see how well this stuff turns out. Hehe.

written by assorted

See
our first web site from 2 years agoSee
the forum thread that started this silliness

See
our old forum

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Wed 15 Sep 2004

Tehru

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
No Comments

tehru.org – Filesharing community that a number of past (and some current) contributors can be found.

vbulletin3_logo_[dark].gif

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Wed 15 Sep 2004

Naphoria

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
[7] Comments

Naphoria – P2P community that some of our past contributors belong to.

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Wed 15 Sep 2004

micheleamy

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
No Comments

micheleamy – Portfolio page of one of our site’s contributors.

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Wed 15 Sep 2004

Manriki

Posted by assorted under Manriki
No Comments

Manriki’s Home Page – Homepage for a b00mb0x contributor. Features mixes and bootlegs by him.

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Wed 15 Sep 2004

Dreamhost

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
No Comments

Dreamhost - Our site host. Cheap, reliable, good support, and we get a discount on hosting if you sign up from that link.

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Tue 14 Sep 2004

Deep Disco Force

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
No Comments

Deep Disco Force – Homepage for the website of a contributing remixer.

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Tue 14 Sep 2004

alkizz

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
1 Comment

alkizz has been with us from the very beginning and can still be found around these parts occasionally. His site, alkizz.net used to have links to lots of fun things. His new site appears to be developinghttp://b00mb0x.org. hmmhttp://b00mb0x.org.

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Tue 14 Sep 2004

Using Movable Type (blogging)

Posted by naz under Uncategorized
1 Comment

Using Movable Type

Movable Type is a content management system which allows the user to publish text and images to a website without having to use HTML.

Go to http://b00mb0x.org/movetype/mt.cgi to log on.

Login using your username and password.

In the Main menu, choose which blog you wish to publish to.
B00mB0x controls the main news page of the site; new mixes, remixes and intros for articles are posted here. B00MBL0G is the actual web
log, where the new articles are posted.

From the main editing menu you have access to most of the
publishing tools. To make a new entry in the blog, choose New Entry.

Fill in the Title field and enter the text of the new entry in the window called Entry Body. Select a piece of text and use the B, i, U and Url buttons to make the selection bold, italic, underlined or a link.
border=”1″/>
To upload and insert an image choose Upload File on the menu to the right. Use the browse button to locate the picture you want to upload on your computer. Leave the local archive and local site fields blank. Choose Upload.
width=580>
Choose SHOW ME THE HTML. If your image is very large choose popup image, if you want it embedded in the entry choose embedded
image.
width=412/>
Copy/Paste the code from the image window into the new entry.
width=412/>Finish writing and uploading images until your entry is complete. At the bottom of the page Choose SAVE occasionally. Make sure the dropdown menu is set to PUBLISH not DRAFT.

Your entry should now be on the site

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Tue 14 Sep 2004

Normalize Mix Volume with Cool Edit Pro

Posted by naz under Uncategorized
No Comments

The text on which this tutorial is based was originally posted by
Younglove on the Syntrillium board at http://www.audioforums.com/
A friend and I reworked the original instructions slightly,
hopefully to make it easier to follow. I do not pretend to understand all
this stuff. I asked a couple of audio guys if it made sense and they said
it did. RMS stands for Root Means Squared, so RMS Normalizing is
normalizing to the Root Means Squared (ha ha) rather than to peak (which the
Normalize function does). This gets the output levels sounding all the
same (close anyway). It works for me, and while a little tedious I find it
takes less time in the long run to do this procedure.

So, here’s the manual procedure for RMS Normalizing in CEP 1.2 and
CE2000:

If you wish, to save timehttp://b00mb0x.org.Disable Undo

Edit – Enable Undo
(click so there is
No check mark)

1. Bring up the cue list:

View – Cue
List

2. Open the first
track.

File – Open

3. Edit – Select Entire Wave. The whole wave should now be highlighted.

4. Press the Add button on the cue list window.

5. Open Append (not Open) (File Open Append) all the remaining tracks (now the whole compilation is opened as a single wave
file and each track will have its own cue range). Warning: if you select multiple files in a directory to Open
Append at once, CEP does not Open Append these in the same order as your selected list. If you want them in order, add them 1 at a time. (Or, after
the first track is loaded, starting with the last track, select each track one at a time while holding down the CTRL key. If you do this in
inverse order, last to 2^nd, they will all load correctly.) Otherwise youll have to listen to them all when youre done to put them in the
right order.

6. Edit – Convert Sample Type the compilation wave to
32 bit. When the window opens, on the right side, under ‘Resolution’,
select 32, then click OK.

When I started doing this I had a P2 400 and a full disc of
music was 70 mins. This step took approximately 20 mins. (Double
that with Undo on). Currently, with a P3 1 gig a full disc (80 mins) takes
about 8 mins. Most mixes are shorter, so the time involved will be
relative to the length of your mix or disc and the speed of your computer.

7. For each cue range (track), do:

A: select the cue range so that it is
highlighted

B:
Analyze – Statistics.

When you click on Statistics, a window opens and it
immediately starts analyzing. The first time, when it
has completed the analysis, set the RMS Window Width to 0 ms and
press the Recalculate button.
src="http://b00mb0x.org/b00mb0x_Cool_Edit_RMS_Normalize_files/image014.jpg" width=578 v:shapes="_x0000_i1031"/>

You’ll only need to recalculate the first time, once set to 0, it should stay.

Note the Average RMS Power of the louder of the left
and right channels (the one whose value is closest to 0 dB).
i.e. if one channel is -15.71 and the other -15.92, select
-15.71.

in this example, you would choose 20.59 db. Remember
(or write down) the number and click CLOSE.
C:
Transform Amplitude Amplify

by *minus* that many dB (the value to amplify by will normally be
a positive value, for example “minus -24 dB” = 24 dB; using our example
the number to enter is 20.59 db.
src="http://b00mb0x.org/b00mb0x_Cool_Edit_RMS_Normalize_files/image020.jpg" width=576 v:shapes="_x0000_i1034"/>

Make sure that the Constant Amplification button is
selected.

Make sure that the “View all settings in dB” and
“Lock Left/Right” boxes are checked. Click OK. (This
will temporarily grossly amplify your track – don’t worry about it: it’s
a 32-bit float!)
Move on to Track 2, do A, B, C, etc. etc. etc.

8. Having done step 7 for each track, the tracks are now

normalized to RMS with respect to each other, rather than to
peak. Now: Edit – Select Entire Wave.

9. Transform Amplitude – Normalize

Normalize to whatever value you want, say 98%. This brings the
levels back down without clipping or loss, and leaves a little headroom.

Fill in your number and click OK.
It will take anywhere between 2 to 5 mins before you see a
progress bar, be patient. This step will take about the same time as the
converting to 32 bit did.
10. Edit – Convert Sample Type – Convert back to 16
bit.

This time, select 16 in the Resolution window.
11. You can now use the Batch function on the Cue
List (highlight all the cues first: highlight the bottom one, hold the SHIFT
key, click on the top one) to automatically save the tracks to separate
files.

Make sure that Save to Files is checked. Enter a
letter of the alphabet, or whatever you want in the Filename Template.
Enter the number 1 in the Starting Index box.
Set a destination with the Browse button.
Make
sure that you select
Windows PCM (*.wav) for Output Format.
Click OK. Each file will then be saved in your
destination folder.
******************** ENABLE UNDO
***********************
When your done and you close Cool Edit, it will ask you if you
want to save the changes to Filename whatever which will be the first track
you loaded. Just say NO.
The procedure reads complicated, but if you try it, it’s really
quite easy, just a bit tedious because it’s a manual
procedure

tutorial by umboto

Tags:

Sun 12 Sep 2004

Basic Soundforge Editing

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
No Comments

Basic Soundforge Editing

# 1. Go to File > New and create a new
stereo file [Sound1] with a sample rate of 44, 100 Hz and a bit depth
of 16.

#2. Open the first song you want on your
mix by going to File > Open. If you can’t see the file you want where
it should be, try changing the menu selection on File Type to All Known
Media Files. Click the track. This will open a ‘waveform’, a visual representation
of the sonic properties of the track.

#3. Double click the waveform of the first song to select it, the background
will turn from white to black. Go to Edit > Copy and copy the waveform.
Select Sound 1 [if you can't see it, try minimizing the wavform window],
go to Edit > Paste to paste the song into the mix.

#4. Select the part of the song [usually
the end] that you want to mix the next song over with. Do this by click
in a region of
the waveform and dragging, the mix region will now be the black backgrounded
part of the waveform. Preview the mix region by pressing
the spacebar.

#5. Open the next song you want to use in
your mix and copy the waveform. Go to Sound 1, Edit > Paste Special>
Mix.

#6. Preview the mix by pressing preview
and change the volume settings to suit yourself. Click Cancel if the mix
doesnt sound like
you want it.

#7. Repeat steps 2 – 5 until you have finished
your mix.

#8. Save the file by going to File >
Save As, choosing .mp3 file type and change the template to 96 or 128
kps. If you’re planning on using cdex to optimise the compression, use
a higher setting or something.

#9. Wait for the file to save, then try
opening it with winamp. Listen. Enjoy.

naz

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Sun 12 Sep 2004

Removing Light Hiss With Cool Edit Pro

Posted by assorted under Uncategorized
No Comments

REMOVING
LIGHT HISS IN 8 EASY STEPS

by
umboto

So, you have a song on tape which you really really want
to include in your next mix. You record it onto your hard drive, and give it
a listen. It’s pretty good, except for that pesky tape hiss. This little procedure
will clean up the hiss with very little signal loss. We’re going to reduce
the track to nothing but hiss, save the hiss to a clipboard, invert it and mix
paste onto the track. When it plays back, the inverted hiss will cancel out
the hiss you hear. If you wish to stay on the safe side, work with a copy of
the track, keep your original just in case. OK, here we gohttp://b00mb0x.org.

1. Open the file you wish to clean up.

src="http://b00mb0x.org/CoolEdit_How_To_Remove_Hiss_files/image002.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025"/>

2. Edit – Convert Sample Type (we’re going to work with a
32 bit float).

When the window opens, on the right
side, under ‘Resolution’, select 32, then click OK.

src="http://b00mb0x.org/CoolEdit_How_To_Remove_Hiss_files/image004.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1026"/>

3. Transform – Noise Reduction – Hiss Reduction

Or, this shortcut:

src="http://b00mb0x.org/CoolEdit_How_To_Remove_Hiss_files/image006.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1027"/>

Select ‘Light Hiss Reduction’. If you are dealing with a lot
of hiss, try either ‘Standard’ or ‘High’ reduction, but keep in mind the more
aggressive you are, potentially you will lose more actual signal. (Losing some
of those highs and lows) So be willing to experiment.

Check ‘Keep Only Hiss’

src="http://b00mb0x.org/CoolEdit_How_To_Remove_Hiss_files/image008.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1028"/>

then click ‘OK’.

4. Edit – Copy (Save to clipboard)

5. Undo the hiss reduction

6. Edit – Mix Paste

Make sure ‘Lock Left/Right’ is checked

Check ‘Invert’

Make sure ‘From Clipboard’ is checked.

Make sure Overlap (Mix) is checked.

src="./CoolEdit_How_To_Remove_Hiss_files/image010.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1029"/>

Click ‘OK’.

7. Edit – ‘Convert Sample Type’ (back to 16 bit).

This time, make sure ’16′ is selected
in the ‘Resolution’ window.

src="http://b00mb0x.org/CoolEdit_How_To_Remove_Hiss_files/image012.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1030"/>

Click ‘OK’.

8. Save the file, you’re done!

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Sat 11 Sep 2004

By The Light

Posted by naz under Naz
[9] Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: Acoustic, Country, Downtempo

Thu 9 Sep 2004

How to compress a mix

Posted by naz under Uncategorized
No Comments

How to Compress Your Mix for b00mb0x

Ingredients

You’ll Need
-

CDex (freeware)
a mix

I should mention at the front of this tutorial that if your mix isn’t compressed enough for the site, we’ll compress it for you. So if you don’t want to learn this; please go about doing whatever you’ve been doing. If, however, like the young moth who yearns to cocoon in study so he may one day flourish like a butterfly, you would like to learn this yourself and save us the timehttp://b00mb0x.org. well here ya go:

When saving your mix in whatever program you have used, you want to save as a WAV file. NOT as an mp3 file. Save this file somewhere temporary where you can find it. It will be quite large.

Now, download, install and run CDex.
This is the program you will be using to compress your mix.

We need to adjust your encoding settings (how the mp3 will be compressed). This will be one time only if you will only be using CDex to compress mixes for our
site:

Select Options from the top menu, then select Settings. (Or just
hit your F4 key)

Select the Encoder tab (it should be auto-selected the first time this window opens) and change the settings to look like below:

width=719/>

CDex Configuration Settings for b00mb0x

Thread Priority – Normal - Normal should be fine for you. Setting this higher will allow your mp3 to encode fast, but at the expense of the rest of your computers performance.

Encoder – LAME MP3 Encoder

Check ‘don’t delete ripped WAV after conversion’ if you want to encode your mix at a higher quality for some other use.

Version - MPEG 1

Bitrate Minimum - 32kbs – this is
important. you will be wasting precious file space if you set this higher.
Also, there is no degredation in sound quality by setting this low.

Max – 320kbs – same idea. You can set this as high as you want. All you are doing is giving the program latitude to do
what it does best (which is make these decisions for you).

Mode – J-stereo - J-stereo will encode identical left/right audio track sections as Mono, again saving precious file size with no difference in sound.

Keep private, checksum, Original and Copyright
unchecked. Most of these are silly copyright protection schemes;
except Checksum; which may degrade sound quality so leave it alone.

Quality – Normal (q=5) – Since your encoding at a lower bitrate, setting quality to High might actually HURT your sound quality. DO NOT set quality to low. It will be. Low quality, that is.

Uncheck – On-the-fly-MP3 Encoding - This has no bearing on what we are doing as it only refers to when you are ripping from CD (you are encoding from a WAV file right now). But it’s best to keep it unchecked in general unless you are very low on hard drive space.

VBR Method – VBR-MTRH - I’m not getting into explaining this. Just select that one. I’m right and you are wrong.

VBR Quality – VBR9 - This is the most important setting. VBR9 is the lowest quality setting for variable bitrate and the
only setting that is guaranteed to make your mix small enough for our site
(as long as it’s under 74 Minutes that is). VBR9 sounds totally fine. I
wouldn’t pump a VBR9 through your local stadium show, but for us serving your mixes it sounds totally cool.

For the record, if you want to save your mix at a higher quality for your own purposes, all of these settings apply for the most part. A decent higher quality setting without giving away the file-size cow is to keep all the above settings, but change Quality to High (q=2) and change VBR Quality to VBR 2. For super-bestest-ever quality change to VBR 0 but at that point, why not just keep the WAV file you freak?

Now hit the Filenames Tab.

Next to Wav–>MP3, hit the triple dot button (http://b00mb0x.org.). Select
the folder where you want your mix to be saved once an mp3. Pick somewhere you can easily find it (like Desktop).

width=705/>

Now you have your settings ready. Click OK.

You now want to select, from the buttons on the right side, the fourth large button from the top (the third from the bottom). The popup text will say for this button “Convert WAV File(s) to Compressed Audio File(s)” (Below pic – 1.).

A windows will popup where you now must find where you saved your WAV file. Hit the triple dot (http://b00mb0x.org.) button next to Directory (Below pic – 2.).

Find the folder your WAV file is in and select it. All WAV files in that file will be shown now in the window below. Highlight your mix and hit the large
CONVERT button on the bottom (Above pic -
3.)

If you have an ancient processor like mine (300mhz Celeron), go get some dinner as this will now take 2 hours.

Tutorial by assorted

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Tue 7 Sep 2004

Music2Defrag2

Posted by naz under Bong
[8] Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: Downtempo

Tue 7 Sep 2004

Filthy Gorgeous

Posted by naz under LeMont Blanc
[3] Comments

Mwude dit: J’adore un peu de french house. Filthy Gorgeous fait exactement ce qu’il dit sur la boite: salle comme ta mere et belle comme la mer. Il faut telecharger cette pute maintenant. M鬡nge par LeMont Blanc

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Mon 6 Sep 2004