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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player
for field playback of bird songs
Stuart Healy
Western U.S. Bird Guide,
Specializing in Southeast Arizona and the White Mountains
220 Stardust Street, Sierra Vista, AZ 85635
Tel: (520) 458-7603 Fax: (520) 458-7353
E-mail: stuarthealy@earthlink.net Web: http://www.aztrogon.com
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................3 Original Requirements ............................................................................................................................3 Compromises ...................................................
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 INTRODUCTION This document describes my experiences configuring and using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs in the course of my work. Topics covered include how I went about defining what I wanted, the compromises involved when I checked into what was on the market, the hardware and software that I ended up using, how I implemented the project and the prac
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 HARDWARE The Dell DJ 30 is a very compact and sleek unit that measures approximately 4 x 2.4 x 0.7 inches and weighs 6.4 ounces. I use it with an optional soft carrying case which increases the weight to 7.6 ounces. For output, I use a Radio Shack mini speaker-amplifier (catalog #277-1008C). The speaker-amp measures 3.5 x 2.75 x 1.4 (base), 1.2 (top) inches and weighs 5.4 oun
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 SOFTWARE The Dell DJ ships with two software components. Musicmatch Jukebox This is the main component that facilitates the conversion of CD tracks to MP3 files and provides extensive features to catalog and “tag” the tracks prior to copying them to the Dell DJ. I talk more about this in the implementation section. The Jukebox can also play CDs and MP3 files on the compu
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 IMPLEMENTATION OVERVIEW For me, as a guide, it’s imperative that I can access the song or call of a specific species as quickly as possible before an opportunity passes by. No point in having tons of material on the MP3 player if I can’t get to what I want quickly when the need arises. With this in mind, I set about designing and implementing a scheme that would meet my nee
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Before I got very far into the project, I looked at the Dell DJ features to see how they would fit with the way I wanted to work in the field. What I required was to be able to get to a particular species as quickly as possible after I turned on the player. I wanted to see a list of bird families which could then be selected to display a list of birds in that family. The m
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Looking at the results A picture is rumored to be worth a thousand words so I think it’s useful at this point to look at examples of Musicmatch and DJ display screens Musicmatch Screen 0 is a partial display of the Raw Birds library. The columnar fields are customizable for content, width and display order (I’ve scrunched up the columns to fit the page). © Copyright Stuar
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 DJ Screens 1-6 show the basic menus and navigation needed to access a specific species within a family. Getting to a bird All operations to select a bird are done with my right thumb; almost all operations are done with the scroll-select dial (SSD). 1) The main menu can be reached instantaneously no matter what state the DJ is in by pressing the home button. 2) Acc
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 SOFTWARE WORKFLOW This section describes in detail how I used the Musicmatch software to achieve my objectives. First, in order to efficiently evaluate the source material, I copied all the CDs to disk (in WAV format) and created a master library using Musicmatch. Once I had the library, I created a hard copy index so I could see at a glance all the species represented, du
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Before starting the copy, you can set the disk file format from the recorder settings window (I use WAV for ease of editing) and set the destination on disk from the Tracks Directory window. © Copyright Stuart Healy www.aztrogon.com Page 11 of 25
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Step 2 – Add source tracks to Raw Birds Library Adding tracks to a library in Musicmatch involves three basic steps: a) import the tracks; b) add tag information; c) name the tracks. Many music discs already contain the track names and other information that Musicmatch recognizes and tags automatically. If not, Musicmatch provides an on line lookup service (free) for name,
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 After the tracks are added, the library display appears as shown in Musicmatch Screen 3. Now the work really begins, it’s time to add tag information using “Edit Track Information”. Tags should be added in decreasing order of most tracks affected. First, the album name and disc # are added since they apply to all tracks. Thi
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Edit Track Information Checking the Album and Genre boxes in the “General Tab” allows data to be entered for those categories (values are memorized and can be accessed via drop down boxes in future sessions). The “More Tab” allows a specific disc to be entered in a multi disc set. Clicking OK applies the Album, Genre and Disc # data to all selected tracks (in this case, all trac
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Musicmatch Screen 6 shows a partial library display after assigning a family name to the first two tracks. Selecting a track with a right click will get you to the rename operation where the task of tagging is completed by typing a species name. Repeat, ad nausea. In my case, I had 9 discs to work through and, needless to say, it took a while! Unfortunately, even more work is
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Step 3 – Edit audio tracks. This is a relatively straightforward but very tedious task that has to be replicated for each track (twice or more per track if you separate songs and calls). As I mentioned earlier, I use Adobe Premiere -- other editors will differ in operation but should allow the same basic functions shown in the screenshot. In Premiere, I import raw tracks
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 I saved the edited WAV files in folder Audio Files/Birds-Edited and sub folders organized by family as shown in the following partial folder display. The MP3 format files subsequently created (see next page) are organized identically within the MP3/Birds folder . My naming convention for the species files is to use the four letter banding codes, adding “song”, “call” and any
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Step 4 – Convert edited tracks to MP3 format This is another fairly straightforward task which is simplified by the ability to select multiple files for simultaneous conversion. In fact, if you don’t organize files in family name folders as I do, all files could be selected and converted in one fell swoop. Not my style though. In the Musicmatch Screen 7 example, I’m conver
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 Step 5 – Add MP3 files to Birds Library Okay, now we’re getting close to creating a sausage after lots of handle cranking. This step is almost identical to adding the source CD tracks to the “Raw Birds” library. In fact, it’s actually the same library since, as I mentioned earlier, Musicmatch only supports one library. Operationally, adding MP3 files to the library is iden
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Using a Dell DJ MP3 player for field playback of bird songs. Rev A2, November, 2005 The Add Tracks window is shown in Musicmatch Screen 9. In this example I’ve selected View by Genre and collapsed the display to show the “pseudo libraries”. Copying tracks to the DJ is very simple -- expand the display, select all or specific tracks using the standard select commands (CTRL click and SHIFT click) to pick out whatever you want. Click OK and you’re done. The t
