This is what I looked like on September 19, 2008 during a vacation. Duluth is in the background.

What is your history like?

Last updated: Nov 21, 2006 (level 10 update)
Level 3 update on Jan 12, 2007 - section 1.11.4 added, other minor changes
Level 1 update on Jan 24, 2007 - new paragraph and screenshot added to section 2.5

So, you've managed to listen to that song for 20 consecutive times and thought that was impressive. 20 times is hardly even a start for me and it's quite common I go on for over 1000 plays spanning multiple days. Yeah, one thousand plays. Yet, even 1000 plays is still only a small bite at my record. By changing the speed, often to slower-than-normal speeds, and utilizing equalizers, I can add variety, but even these aren't changed often as I can still go for hundreds or even thousands of plays without making a change. This section explains my history with music in depth to the best I can including my stunning records.

1 History

1.1 Elementary school music class

1.1.1 Music class

At times during my elementary school years, I went to music class. Although I don't recall the details that well, there were several things I recall well. Learning music notation (what quarter notes, staffs, clefs, rests, and other things like that), how to sing lyrics, the 4 types of intruments (string, wind, and probably precussion are the only three I recall with the third having 70% certainty), and other things you may expect. One thing involved playing a simple instrument, a recorder as I believe it's called (with 95% certainty). I very vaguely recall the details, but they often were a very light grayish-yellow in color, something like E0E0D0.

1.1.2 Book of songs in different languages or eras

It was my first direct exposure to foreign languages. The class supposedly learned various songs from all over the world. I vaguely recall this. Another example was that of music from the various decades like the 1920's or 1960's. Again, this is vaguely recalled.

1.1.3 Memorizing songs for a stage act

Near the end of my 4th, 5th, and 6th grade years, I learned to memorize various songs, usually a set of 9 or so. Each year involved a different theme. Although I don't know the order, one of the themes involved the days in America before the Constitution (such as the ships sailing to the Americas during the 1600 and 1700's. One song I recall is something about the grass being greener, but I don't know the name nor a single note of the entire song. Another involved drugs, the bad kind, supposedly as some way of telling kids not to use them. I recall one song being called "Moody, moody" or the like and was one of my favorites due to the instrumentals. The third theme is indeterminate. One song involved a cat that died and got revived. Another had "sunrise, sunset" repeated several times, but vaguely recalled.

During one of these stage acts, I wanted to record the instrumental parts from the player that had the songs on it. I recall doing it with two of the themes, the one not included is the one for the early days of America. At least, I don't recall doing it for this one. I recall the teachers wondering if it would cause problems. Due to my extreme amount of recording tests I've done (explained in great detail in section 1.3.2 below), I knew it would work without any problems. As from the Talkboy, I slew the songs down. During the memorizing/practicing phase, I otherwise never sang, except silently in my mind. Before the performance, there were some test performances where we performed on the school basement's red-carpetted stage in front of no audience. There were about 80 or so students that were doing this. Although not certain, the practice performances went on for one or two school weeks with a final near the end of it.

1.2 Video game music

1.2.1 What started me at video game music

Early in my history, I was extremely involved with video games. At times, I even played my games at night when I wasn't supposed to and my parents got upset about it. I wanted to try fooling them by recording the video game music and have it playing while going to bed. I thought my parents would think I was playing my video games when I should be sleeping, but that turned out to not be the case. Ever since then, I've been going to bed with my video game music playing from cassettes. Since then, I've always had video game music playing while I went to sleep.

1.2.2 My first songs

At the time, I was heavily involved with the Sega Genesis game "Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind". I don't recall whether it was Desert Zone or Out Where the Lake Is as being the first song I recorded, but for high certainty, it was one of these two. The third most likely candidate is "Sluminda" from Zeliard's final cavern series, the ones after the fire caverns. Desert Zone, at the time, was my top favorite song and I once filled an entire 90-minute cassette with nothing but loops from this song. Out Where the Lake Is, however, only had the intro, the entire first part, and 3/4 of the second part (where a long series of sixteenth notes were) where it suddenly stopped. It was many months later that I finally got the full version of it and once I caught on to the bass part of the song, the series of many quarter notes, I suddenly got heavily involved with OWTLI. I think it was during this time that I set a record of 22 days straight without changing songs and this record remained untouched for a little over a decade where it was more than doubled. With very few songs available, I easily logged thousands of plays. I rarely got any new songs and as a result, I changed songs to what little I had.

By the time OWTLI was at about 300,000 plays or so, I began getting more songs on my tapes. More songs meant a better variety. By 500,000 plays or so with OWTLI, I had 20 or so songs on my cassettes.

1.3 Talkboy tape recorder triples the variety

1.3.1 The start of listening to songs at different speeds

When the movie, "Home Alone 2" came out, there was a portable tape recorder with a slow motion feature in it. It eventually came out into stores and I wanted one. I, at first, used it for what it was meant for - recording your voice on the 15-minute cassette it came with then changing it by using the slow and normal speed settings. I then wondered if it could play one of my other cassettes with my songs on it, the 60-minute ones and the like. I popped one in and played it at normal speed. It worked very well. I then wondered what would happen if I switch into slow motion mode. The song played back slower but with a lower pitch and sounded much better and I was hooked on it. I tried it with other songs and I liked the effect. When I tried recording with it in slow motion then played it back at normal speed, the tempo was faster and the pitch was higher, but I didn't like it as much as the slower speeds. As a result, I've always been involved with slowing my songs down as almost every one of them sounded better in slow motion. For many years, I've stuck with the 3 directly available speeds - 80%, 100%, and 125% true speed (determined ten years later through using math formulas).

1.3.2 Obtaining more speeds

3 speed choices didn't seem like it was enough. I wanted more and wondered if I could play back the slowed down version recording it with another tape recorder then play the slowed down version in slow motion. It's tricky to explain without giving the procedure I used. I only needed the game console with the song playing two tape recorders and two cassettes to do it.

Place the tape recorder near the TV from which the console is using.
Get to the level the song comes from and before the music starts for that level, press record to begin recording and just let it run. Record at least two loops with some extra before and after it (usually 2 seconds). You must be very quiet to prevent from picking up ambient sounds in the background.
Rewind the tape until the start of the song being recorded.
Put this tape into the Talkboy tape recorder then put another tape into the normal tape recorder. Put the Talkboy's speaker right next to the microphone on the regular tape recorder.
Press record on the normal tape recorder (at normal speed), and press play on the Talkboy tape recorder. This causes the normal speed to be the slower speed. Again, you must be very quiet.
When done with at least two loops plus clearance on both sides (usually 2 seconds), stop the recording and playback. On the regular tape recorder, rewind the tape to the start of what was recorded.
Take out the tape from the regular tape recorder and put it in the Talkboy and slow it down. It now plays back at about 64% (2/3 for a simple, but close fraction) of the true speed. Put the cassette that was in the Talkboy tape recorder into the regular recorder. It does not need to be rewinded.
For even slower speeds, repeat steps 4 through 7. The next speeds would be 51.2% (or 1/2), followed by 40.96% (2/5), 32.768% (1/3), and 26.2144% (1/4).

For faster speeds I'd record with the Talkboy in slow motion while the regular tape recorder plays back at normal speed. Another tape swap later where the regular tape recorder plays back at the faster speed and the Talkboy is at an even faster speed. From 125% (5/4) to 156.25% (3/2), then 195.3125% (2/1) would be the speeds obtained.

1.3.3 The speed system

The pure instrumentals I had sounded great at many speeds. OWTLI could be slown down so much and still sound decent, I soon developed a speed system as a way of putting numbers into things, as I tend to do. Speed 5 was considered the normal speed. Why 5? That I don't know. Speed 4, being lower, was the next slower speed and speed 3 was even lower (and slower) still. Speed 6 was faster and speed 7 was faster still. I very rarely went beyond speed 6 but OWTLI went clear down to speed 0 while still sounding good. I tried -1, the next slower speed than zero, but it didn't sound all that decent. The formula for getting the percentage of the true speed based on this speed system, of which I didn't know algebra back then, is something like this:

speed_fraction = 1.25^(speed-5);

For speed 3, you'd have 1.25^-2, which gives 0.64 or 64% true speed. Fractional values of the speed system were not available. This speed system held for a very long time, until the computer and WinDAT came along.

1.3.4 Lyrics and speed changes

The pure instrumentals I had sounded great at many speeds. I wondered how a song with lyrics would be. I popped in a tape with songs with lyrics on it then played it back at slow motion. It sounded much worse. I tried using the speed up method and it sounded even worse than the slown down version. I tried another song that I liked, but the exact same thing happened. If the voice was factored out, the same thing occurred with my instrumentals - it sounded better at slower-than-normal speeds. Due to the lyrics otherwise "destroying" the potential for different speeds, of which never occurs with instrumentals, I've always had interests in instrumental music ever since. Almost every one of my songs sounds good at slower-than-normal speeds and rarely true speed. For songs with lyrics, the song must sound good at true speed otherwise it will not likely be liked or listened to. It turns out that children's songs and old music from the 1960's and earlier are the only real songs I like with lyrics to any significant degree. The most-liked song with lyrics is "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", of which has a compatibility around 130 times that of neutral, of which still pales in comparison to my record-holding instrumentals liked nearly twenty times as much as that at the most extreme end. Much above 100 is rarely seen. The Tertiary Status from my near-abandoned Status System explains compatibility in great detail. It is quite common for instrumental songs to exceed even 500 for compatibility as an average and 1000 for a peak, but it is rare for songs with lyrics to pass 100, even as a peak.

1.4 The computer and music

1.4.1 The start of music on the computer

With the Talkboy system of recording again and again, and the limited speed choices I had, I wanted more options available. At first, I had a hard time getting the songs on the computer as I didn't know how to record. I could get the program to record, but it was nothing but silence, even though the microphone was right next to the speaker. I soon, after about an hour or two, found out how and got my first glimpse at it. By using WinDAT's "change speed" option, I could change the speed to anything. The sound card, however, on the Windows 3.1 system, couldn't play odd sample rates and would only accept the common ones. I record at 22,050 and try playing it back at 16,000, both of which standardized speeds (16,000 being less common). This causes it to play back at 72.56% true speed, a speed almost halfway between speed 4 and speed 3 (closer to speed 4 though and by quite a bit (it's logarithmic, not linear)), a speed I never heard before. I tried others as well. I don't recall my first test subject, but it was probably Desert Zone or OWTLI, most likely OWTLI. Unlike with tapes, there was no quality loss at all, no matter how many speed changes I made.

1.4.2 New computer, millions of speeds

Now with a computer running Windows 98 SE, and newer hardware, I could record at any sample rate to 50,000 (since WinDAT wouldn't let me go any higher). I could play back at any integerical sample rate. This, in turn, allows for thousands of speeds. In fact, now that I know the WAV file format in the area I use to change, the actual number of available speeds is 4,294,967,296 (nearly 4.3 billion). However, sound cards are seemingly limited to about 4 million at the very highest. It plays back just fine at 4,000,000 Hz sample rate just fine (which is 80 times true speed), but it doesn't play back at 4,100,000 (or 82 times true speed) showing an error that there's not enough memory. The computer was since replaced by a newer one (of which was custom-built) and I got the older one all to myself. I began getting the songs on my computer. I had about 60 or so available at the time. Because 50,000 Hz sample rate was the highest WinDAT would directly allow me to record, and disk space was very limited at the time, I used 8-bit formats for almost everything I had. Recording in stereo didn't get me anywhere since I couldn't hear any detectible difference, so I've always recorded in mono since mono had a much smaller file size. Once the recording was done, I could play back the recording and soon change the speed. By playing it back at 40,000 Hz, I could simulate speed 4 in my old speed system, but I could also use 45,000 Hz, 35,000, and many others not even possible with the tape system. The cooresponding sample rates to the old speed system can be summed up quite well with this table:

Speed	Sample rate**	Speed	Sample rate**
5	50000	4	40000
6	62500	3	32000
7	78125	2	25600
8	~97656*	1	20480
9	~122070*	0	16384
10	~152588*	-1	~13107*
11	~190735*	-2	~10486*

Table footnotes:
* Since sample rates are restricted to integers only, these have been rounded to the nearest integer.
** Sample rate is based on 50,000 Hz being the true speed, not the usual 44,100 used with audio CD's.

The formula is as follows, for any given sample rate in terms of the old speed system (exact values):

old_speed_value = log(sample_rate/true_speed_sample_rate)/log(1.25) + 5; In this formula, the variable, old_speed_value, is the result involved with the old speed system. Log() represents the logarithmic function (the logarithm of 1000 is 3 as 10^3 is 1000). The division inside the first logarithm function must be done first before the logarithm is applied. You could simplify this if you already know the fractional value of the true speed (70% means 0.7). Sample_rate is the current sample rate of the song and true_speed_sample_rate is the sample rate in which is the true speed of the song. 70% true speed (35,000 Hz if 50,000 is true speed), one of my highest favorites as almost every song sounds good at this speed (and the general surrounding area) is that of speed 3.4 in the old system.

1.5 Audio CD's

1.5.1 Getting away from cassette tapes

At night, ever since I first began listening to video game music, I have to use tapes, which have only one supported speed, short of wasting batteries on the Talkboy. I wanted an alternative method that could utilize the computer's capabilities. Audio CD's looked very promising for this. I soon got a CD burner and began to make audio CD's. If I just converted a single song to a CD, I'd only get one speed and if I put multiple speeds on one track for one song, I'd have to listen to the entire song to get the speed I wanted. The answer was to have separate tracks for each speed so that way, I could just change tracks to change the speed (or the song). See the table at the end of section 1 for a comparison between the various types of media:

1.5.2 How the system worked

I used WinDAT to save various WAV files to store the music on then used Windows Sound Recorder to convert them to the quality standard needed for Audio CD's - 44,100 Hz, 16-bit, stereo. The speeds I chose were varied as I didn't have a standardized system. One system was where I used 60, 80, 100, and 120% of the true speed. Due to not being logarithmic, the difference between 60 and 80% true speed is much bigger than that of 100 and 120. The plus side was that the speeds were easy to deal with. At the time, I didn't know the speed ratio with the Talkboy. The other system was the logarithmic system, a 2-step binary logarithmic system. I had 50, 70.7, 100, and 141% true speed (after the square roots of 1/4, 1/2, 1, and 2). The difference in the way they sounded was the same, but the speeds were awkward to use.

On the audio CD, I had the intro and at least 2 loops of the song on the CD. I often had 4 or 5 songs on it, depending on how many I could get. It was very tricky getting a good balance of loops, song count, and availability of different speeds on such a tiny amount of space.

1.6 MP3 players

1.6.1 CD-based MP3 player

1.6.1.1 The many advantages convinced me

It soon became present that audio CD's weren't worthy enough and I wanted something else. I heard about MP3 players and soon wanted one. They had tons of advantages. Rather than 80 minutes of music, it was a week's worth crammed on the same media. I didn't have to use stereo and I didn't have to use 44,100 Hz either. Besides, since MP3 files are compressed, that adds even further. Because I could burn CD's, I wanted a CD-based one. I got one and began processing it. At first, I readily added several more loops, more songs and more speeds but encountered an annoying problem. The big downside to the MP3 player was that all tracks beyond 300 were ignored as if they didn't exist on the disk. I found this extremely annoying and I had to reprocess everything to include more loops for the better of the songs I included, and burn another disk. Another annoyance was that, at random, it'd suddenly turn off as if someone pressed the play button on it. This, in turn, caused me to have to start it up again, press the "next track" button over 100 times to get to the song and speed I wanted, then finally play again. At times, this woke me up in the middle of the night and I had to get up and turn it back on again, even if I only slept for 3 hours after having been awake for over 20.

1.6.1.2 Adjusting the entire system

Using my previous 2-step binary logarithm method for speeds, I could get every song on with plenty of room to spare, even with 15 loops per song. I needed to develop yet another speed system, one that was easy to remember, closely followed the logarithmic scale, and involved common speeds like 70, 80, or 90% of the true speed. I soon came up with such a system, the 17-step binary logarithm system that I still use today (as of Nov 20, 2006). After processing everything, I could get about 12 to 15 loops per song, about 10 to 13 songs, and about 25 or so speeds per song, usually from 60 to 120% true speed, outside this range for songs that sound good beyond them (like Target Zone for the high end and OWTLI for the low end). The speed system I developed, still in use today (as of Nov 20, 2006), is organized in this table:

12500	25000*	50000	100000**	200000
13125	26250	52500	105000	210000
13750	27500	55000	110000	220000
14375	28750	57500	115000	230000
15000	30000	60000	120000	240000
15625	31250	62500*	125000	250000
16250	32500	65000	130000	260000
16875	33750	67500	135000	270000
17500	35000	70000	140000	280000
18333	36667	73333	146667	293333
19167	38333	76667	153333	306667
20000**	40000	80000	160000	320000
20833	41667	83333	166667	333333
21667	43333	86667	173333	346667
22500	45000	90000	180000	360000
23333	46667	93333	186667	373333
24167	48333	96667	193333	386667

Table footnotes:
* From within this range is my default and most common. Some songs do go outside this range. Out Where the Lake Is goes toward the low end (even to the 15,000 mark), Target Zone on the high end (which goes past the 140,000 mark).
** Below here and above here are very rarely seen.

Why call it the awkward-sounding name of "17-step binary logarithmic system"? If you counted the rows, you count 17 rows. Now how, going to the right from that same row, is exactly double the speed (fractions have been rounded since fractions are not allowed in the sample rate)? That's where the name comes from. Because it keeps doubling, double meaning 2, and that it follows a logarithmic scale, and that there are 17 steps from one point to the next to when the doubling occurs. Although it doesn't seem readily apparent that it follows the logarithmic scale, it very closely matches it. It's easy to remember as there are tons of patterns in here. I can spot at least 6 of them. It certainly met all of my specifications I wanted. So, how closely does it follow the binary logarithmic scale? Look at the table and see for yourself.

Simplified	Actual*
25000	25000
26250	26040 2/5
27500	27124 1/10
28750	28252 9/10
30000	29428 2/3
31250	30653 3/8
32500	31929 1/24
33750	33257 4/5
35000	34641 6/7
36666 2/3**	36083 18/35
38333 1/3	37585 1/6
40000	39149 14/45
41666 2/3	40778 11/20
43333 1/3	42475 7/12
45000	44243 1/4
46666 2/3	46084 29/60
48333 1/3	48002 1/3
50000	50000

Table footnotes:
* Rounded to the nearest common fraction. See the FAQ page for details on what this is.
** This is the actual base value. The values I use are rounded to the nearest integer because sample rates don't support fractional values.

As you can tell, my simplified version is actually very slightly faster than the actual logarithmic value, off by about 2% at the greatest. The formula used to get the actual value is this:

2^S�17�B

S is the number of steps from true speed and B is the base from which true speed starts. A positive value for S is forward and a negative value is backward.

1.6.1.3 How the system worked

I still used WinDAT to change the speed by changing the sample rate, since no modern program like it could do it, and I used Music Match Jukebox to get the WAV files converted to MP3. I think it was version 6 or 7, but I don't recall. I used 32 Kbps, but tried 8 and 16. 8 wasn't all that bad, but distortions were clearly detectible. 16 was much more decent, but I could still hear distortions. I settled with 16 Kbps constant bit rate. Music Match tended to cut off the beginning and especially the end of a song. To process a song, I followed nearly the same procedure as I do today, only using WinDAT to change the speed instead of a hex edittor, and Music Match instead of Audacity to convert WAV to MP3.

1.6.2 My second MP3 player

1.6.2.1 Hard-drive-based MP3 player

If I made a mistake with the CD-based MP3 player, I had to reburn another CD which took nearly 20 minutes to do at the fastest (8x write speed, plus data verification), even if one measely song had to be changed. In addition, the random shut offs of the CD-based MP3 player and the 300-track count limit were all not really worth using it any more and wanted one of those with at least 1.5 GB capacity. I found the Creative MuVo2 player and I got it for Christmas of 2005, only 2 or so months late. Like the CD-based MP3 player, this thing had a few bugs in it as well. Unlike the CD-based MP3 player, the bugs were actually not against me, except having to run a 5-hour experiment. This MP3 player had none of the annoyances, except having to charge the battery every day and have it charged before I went to bed.

1.6.2.2 The helper bug

So what bug helps me out? It has 3 advantages but only one temporary disadvantage. The bug is that it does not play songs of low sample rates properly. 8000 Hz, a standard, caused the MP3 player to play it back faster, but with numerous high-amplitude distortions. Because many of my songs, especially the slower speeds, used 8000 Hz, I had to redo them. 11,025 Hz, the next best, and another standard, played back without distortions but slower than normal at 72.5665% of the true speed. I called the company to find out getting it fixed, but they no longer develop it and I recall mentioning that it wouldn't hurt to run a 5-hour experiment to find out what adjustment factor I needed. I ran the experiment and got an adjustment factor of 1.37804 from the experiment. In otherwords, to get the MP3 player to play back at true speed, I used Audacity to change the speed (which modifies the wave itself) with a factor of 37.804%. Without doing this, the MP3 player plays back at a slower than normal speed. A later rerun of the experiment, lasting nearly 16 hours, came up with a factor of 1.378046.

The bug, in return, has 3 advantages. Because the song becomes shorter as a result of speeding it up to counter the bug, and that I use constant bit rates, the file size becomes smaller. This, in turn, means a sense of just over 5 GB instead of 3.72 or so. This means more songs can be put on with more speeds and more loops.

1.6.2.3 The system

The system used is explained in great detail, including several screenshots, here. With the help of a program I wrote and the availability of ABR MP3 encoding, I've revised my system to using a 48-step speed system instead of 17 and is nearly twice as fast as my old method was. The current system is explained here, complete with 17 screenshots. Due to upgrading to Windows XP and that WinDAT does not work at all with XP (it's a program from May of 1994, from Windows 3.1), I had to find another method for changing the sample rate since I still can't as of today, find any program that can change the sample rates of WAV files to change the speed. A hex edittor and a little research into the file format of WAV files was the solution. To change the speed, I only change 8 bytes of data. Modern sound programs change the entire wave itself, millions of bytes, and from repeated changes, degrades the quality. By changing the sample rate, the speed can be changed indefinitely without any loss. Unlike with my CD-based MP3 player, I use 24 Kbps instead of 16 (or 32 during the days of Music Match conversions).

1.7 Upgrading the quality on the computer

At first, I actively used 8-bit, 50,000 Hz, and mono. I later went with 16-bit at 50,000 Hz. I wanted to go higher, but WinDAT wouldn't let me. However, I exploited a bug in WinDAT so I could record at any sample rate (even 1,000,000). I couldn't get anything beyond 100,000 Hz without odd distortions, so I stuck with 100,000 Hz. With upgrading to X-Fi Platinum (from Creative), I could record with 24-bit precision at 100,000 Hz, but still mono since there's no detectible difference between stereo and mono. I use Audacity to record since WinDAT only goes out to 16-bit quality at the highest. I've since rerecorded my highest favorite songs (and recording any new ones) as 100,000 Hz, 24-bit, and mono, 6 times the quality than what I started with initially.

1.8 Software programs

Over the years, I've used many different software programs to play my music in the background.

1.8.1 WinDAT

Changing the speed in WinDAT is easy to do

WinDAT, an old program from Windows 3.1, was one of my first methods. To get the seemless looping, I often had to use a lot of copy paste to get about 20 minutes' worth in loops. When the loops finished, I switched to the program and pressed the play button again. The downside to this was that I had to keep playing back the song again and again and it otherwise took a very long time to do the big copying I needed for loops. The upside, however, is that I can freely change the speed much more readily. The screenshot above, from May 30, 2005, shows what WinDAT looks like when I was running in Windows 98 SE. Here, I'm changing the speed of my song from 64 to 59% of the true speed. I just had to use the "change speed" option in the transforms menu, type in a new speed, then wait a few seconds for the updated file to be rewritten. When done, I could then play the new speed. If I didn't like it, I'd go to change speed again and put in another speed.

1.8.2 Internet Explorer

Okay, so what does a web browser have to do with this? By using the bgsound tag in HTML like this:

^bgsound src="file://C:\My Documents\Songs\Bubsy\Out Where the Lake Is (loopable version).wav" loop="infinite"^

The ^'s represent the < then the > since the browser would then interpret this as a an actual tag rather than displaying it as text on the webpage. By having this in my homepage, a file stored on my hard drive, I could easily get the browser to seemlessly loop a song as needed and it worked very well, as long as I had the browser open and running on that page. Since I was almost always online at the time, this wasn't much of an issue.

1.8.3 Winamp

I've used Winamp in two separate cases.

1.8.3.1 The first case - version 2 or 3

The first case where I got Winamp is vaguely recalled. I don't recall the reason why I got it (maybe as a way to get seemless looping?) or why I even abandoned it, but it lasted for some unknown amount of time.

1.8.3.2 The second case - version 5

Today, ever since version 5.0.3 of Winamp was released, I've used it as my primary player since. The play counts feature was the most interesting of them all to me. I originally wanted it as I wanted an equalizer. It also had to be free, so it looked very decent. I quickly caught on to the play counts feature as becoming one of my favorites. At first, every time I had to reinstall Windows for some reason, I lost all my high play counts. By using the Winamp forums, I found out how to backup the playcounts and things. Since December 20, 2004, I've had my play counts continuously backed up.

1.8.4 Audacity

Since Audacity lacks the all-important speed change feature where only the sample rate is modified rather than the whole wave itself, I rarely use it. Today, it only serves two purposes - recording and preparing my songs for processing for my MP3 player.

1.8.5 Music Match

During version 6 or 7, I used Music Match mainly to convert WAV to MP3, but it had many weaknesses. It wouldn't let me change the sample rate for starters, so it supposedly used 44,100 Hz when I'd have used something much lower like around 8000 or 11,025. I don't recall if it used stereo, but even at 32 Kbps, there were noticable distortions. With Audacity, I can use 16 Kbps and barely detect anything. 32 Kbps had more distortions than the 16 from Audacity, both of which a constant bit rate. I don't recall if I ever used it to listen to music with, however. In addition to greater distortions, the beginning half second or so and ending 8 or so seconds were cut off (deleted as if they didn't exist). I found this annoying.

When I got my upgraded printer (HP psc 1210v to be precise), it came with a Music Match CD, but it supposedly only contained the trial version since no registration code was given. It was more flawed than the previous version I used as it didn't work at all. I began looking for other WAV to MP3 converters and they were tricky to find as they either had trials or you had to buy it.

1.8.6 dBpowerAMP

As a quick fix so I can get another music CD for my CD-based MP3 player, I got dBpowerAMP . It worked very well, but it still cut off the last few seconds of the song. Due to the trial period, I had to go fast. Within the first two days, I actively used the program to batch convert everything. Beyond that, I otherwise never used it.

1.8.7 XVI32 - a hex edittor

Perhaps one of the most bizarre things as a sound program, outside using the browser, is a hex edittor. Why a hex edittor? Because all modern sound programs lack the ability to simply change the speed without affecting the wave itself (by changing only the sample rate), and that I had a bad feeling WinDAT wouldn't run at all on Windows XP as I wanted to upgrade from Windows 98 (it was January of 2006 and I still used Windows 98 SE), a hex edittor seemed the only last hope I had for doing what WinDAT, a program from May of 1994, could do that no other sound program could. As a consequence, I had to learn how to change the sample rate. I first did an experiment with WinDAT to look for the values that changed and only 8 bytes changed in the entire file. I noticed that the two values were exactly identical so I've had the two as being identical. However, when it came to using a 16-bit file, things were acting weird when they were the same as programs wouldn't play the song properly (for but one second or so), it'd convert to MP3 improperly, and other things. I had to research the file format to get the solution. The first value, at location 0x18, is where the sample rate is. At location 0x1C is where the "bytes per second" value is which is merely the sample rate multiplied by the bit depth multiplied by the channel count, divided by 8. For true speed of an 8-bit file at 50,000 Hz, the BPS value is 50,000, but if it was a 16-bit file, it'd be 100,000 instead, and the sample rate still 50,000. By making this change, it worked without any problems. Since I upgraded to Windows XP, it has been my only way of changing the speed by changing the sample rate. Until I find a program that supports this that can run on Windows XP, or until I get the programming skills to make one with this essential feature, the hex edittor is my only available method, but I need to be more careful. If I place the cursor at 19 or 17 instead of 18, I could damage the file making it unusable. Fortunately, I have backups of almost every song so if I make such a mistake, I could just use one of my backups and retry.

1.9 Shocking records

It is not uncommon for me to go a few thousand plays before I change songs or the speed, but some of my records are very extreme.

1.9.1 OWTLI - my top favorite song for ten years

Almost as soon as I reached the tenth level in the Sega Genesis game "Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind", I suddenly found a great interest in that level's music, especially the bass during parts 1 and 2. Combined with the great sound and peaceful feel as well as the fast action, this song quickly became my most listen to of all, towering over everything. When in schools, I frequently hummed it as I liked it so much. At one point, I set a record where I had it playing nonstop without change for 22 days straight, and I only had 2 speeds available, unlike today where I have thousands. I often switched between OWTLI and Desert Zone, both from the same game (Desert Zone from level 7 after stopping the train). I sometimes switched to other songs, but I preferred OWTLI much more. In fact, nearly 2/3 of all my cassettes (I have nearly 60 of them), have OWTLI on them in some form from the numerous slow-down experiments I've done.

For nearly a decade, OWTLI has been my top-ranked song, reaching right around one million life time plays in the 11 or so years I had it. Estimates, from an in-depth calculation, came out to be from 900,000 to as much as 1,200,000 plays. Desert Zone, my second-most-listened-to song, has from about 300,000 to 600,000 plays from what I can tell, but I haven't done in-depth calculations to really say for sure and thus the wider range (on the logarithmic scale).

1.9.2 Winter Land - move aside OWTLI!

Even until the start of 2006, more than a decade later, OWTLI was my all-time top favorite song. Suddenly, Winter Land came along and I soon went to 27 days straight without changing the song. This isn't the Christmas song, but the name I gave for the round 5-1 in the Sega Genesis game Ristar. It sounded best slightly faster than true speed. If 27 days seems a lot, it's barely halfway to my current record.

1.9.3 Battle Zone for 46 days - is that a joke!?

If you think 27 days straight is impressive enough, try 46 days. That's my current record. This isn't a joke either. Throughout half of May and almost all of June of 2006, I had the same song playing without end (even on my MP3 player when I went to bed. The only difference was that the speed was changed, but even then, I still went a very impressive 12 days without changing the speed, 60% true speed. This was due to the last 4 measures of the song where the highest recorded compatibility of 3190 occurred. The version on my MP3 player had the highest peak, but the one on my computer didn't sound as good as I had low-grade speakers at the time. It was this that caused me to lose my interest. Despite losing interest on my computer, my MP3 player continued on and then some. Yep, day in and day out, it was nothing but listening to Battle Zone, the battle music from Final Fantasy 9. The only time I wasn't listening to it is when my MP3 player's battery died and I was eating, or while I was shopping, the few, rare times it happens. In all that time, I may have had but 30 hours or so in breaks, much of which from eating and the MP3 player's battery being dead.

1.9.4 107 days straight on a single source

107 days straight on a single source. You're probably thinking that the zero is a typo, but it's not. Although I lost interest on my computer, my MP3 player went on with the same song without changing it. The only thing that changed was just the speed and that, too, wasn't changed often and what changes there were, they were all in a very narrow range - from 55 to 65% true speed, most commonly at 30% true speed where the highest recorded compatibility occurred.

1.9.5 FF1 World - a close second

At 42 days straight, FF1 World, the music from the world map of Final Fantasy 1 (from Final Fantasy Origins), has become the second-longest span of listening to the same song. Although I changed the speed more often, it was a sudden video game addiction that prevented me from adding further to it as it could've reached close to or even beyond 50 days.

1.10 The pros and cons between the medias used

This table and the tons of footnotes, sums it all up very well.

Feature	Cassette tapes	Audio CD	Computer	First MP3 player*	Second MP3 player**
Available speeds	~3***	4�	4,294,967,296 (� and �)	25��	100��
Available songs	~30��	4 to 5�	100,000��	10 to 12�	200��
Number of loops	40��	2, rarely 3�	infinite��	12 to 15�	12 to 15�
Getting the music	Have a tape recorder on hand, the sound source, and just hit record.	Process, convert, then burn a CD	Same as cassettes, only a microphone, sound-recording program (like Audacity), and the computer near the source	Same as audio CD.	Process, convert, then a little copy paste using Windows Explorer
Fixing mistakes	Just rerecord over it, but may cause odd effects	Reprocess and burn another CD, or live with it	Just rerecord not saving the faulty one	Reprocess and burn another CD or live with it	Reprocess then reuse copy paste replacing the faulty file.
Adding or deleting songs	Record the addition and all the content after it.	Burn another CD with the adjustments made	Just rerecord or delete the file	Burn another CD with the adjustments made	Use some copy paste with new files or just delete old ones
Total song time	~220 minutes��	80 minutes	1011 1/3 days, or 2 5/6 years (�� and ��)	2 3/4 days	20 3/4 days��
Power supply	Plug or battery	Plug or battery	Plug��	Plug or battery	Battery��
Portability	High - just bring my Talkboy with me	Medium�*	Low	High	Medium-high
Changing between songs	Rewind and fast forward, a lot	Change tracks	Change files	Change tracks	Change tracks
Music quality	Medium-low	Medium-high	Very High	High�***	High�***
Loopability�**	Seemless until recorded over or the end of the tape is reached	1-second gap from reloading track	Completely seemless	1-second gap from reloading track	1/5-second gap from reloading track
Overall	3 - medium-low	2 - low	8 - extremely high	6 - high	7 - very high

Table footnotes:
* My first MP3 player was the CD-based one where the MP3 files were stored on a CD.
** My second MP3 player was the hard-drive-based one with 4 GB capacity.
*** Although otherwise infinite, 3 speeds are directly available and 8 is the maximum I used.
� Based on the even spread where songs, speeds, and loops are balanced as best as I could.
� This is the technical limit and I can use any of them. Sound cards limit it to about 4 million, but for a typical song, about 50 or so are used.
�� This is about the typical value, but ranges depending mainly on the song's best-sounding speeds. Sometimes, it can be as high as 40, but often around 20.
�� Currently, it's at 40, but if I use a different speed system having more stages, it could be higher.
�� This is the maximum. I quite often filled the entire cassette with one single song to work around the issue with rewinding the tape.
�� Limited only by hard disk capacity.
�� Not yet known.
�� In the case where I fill the entire cassette, this is about right for a 90-minute cassette (45 minutes per side), but depends on the song. Given my 8-seconds-per-loop songs, It could be over 300. Most songs hover around a minute.
�� By using Winamp or IE's bgsound HTML tag, the loop count is unlimited.
�� An audio cassette goes up to 110 minutes, from what I've seen during the times (I don't know if 120-minute cassettes existed or not or anything longer). By being able to play 2 different speeds directly, I could otherwise double the time.
�� This seems rediculous, but it's not a mistake. In one GB's worth in pure MP3's at my standard 24 Kbps, that's 4 days and 1 hour worth. Modern hard drives hover around 1 terabyte (1024 gigabytes) and you could hook up 4 or so of such hard drives (depending on the motherboard's available connections) to quadruple the capacity. With 4 terabytes of data available, that's 4096 times longer, 16,570 days, which is 45 4/11 years. I have a 250 GB hard drive (as of Nov 20, 2006), 1/16 as much, but that's still 2 5/6 years.
�� Although it has a capacity of 3.725 GB, a bug in the MP3 player, causing it to play back more slowly, allows for a sense of a greater capacity, about 5.134 GB. Because it plays back more slowly, I have to speed up the song when processing it, which, in turn, reduces the song's length and with constant bit rate in MP3 files, a smaller file size.
�� Because I don't use a laptop, this is my only option.
�� At the moment, this seems to be the only known way to get it to play and I have to constantly recharge it.
�* Due to the big and bulky design the one I had had, it was not easily portable, but still could be made portable as it ran on batteries, the D type.
�** Assuming the intro is not included and the original source was made seemlessly loopable.
�*** Although the devices allow for CD quality, I use a much lower quality, but due to the lack of any considerable difference between the original, and the 11,025, 16-bit, mono, and 24 Kbps that I tend to use for MP3's, I use the lower quality to get the best balance of quality, song count, loop count, and speed count. Although of a considerably low quality, it's rated as high due to the fact that there is very little difference from the original.

1.11 Loud music - no way!

1.11.1 Concerts

The number one reason why I hate concerts isn't the music, or the fact that it has lyrics. These are only minor in comparison to the main reason. The main reason why I don't like concerts is the fact that they're almost always very loud. The crowd is the second biggest reason. Anything much beyond even 60 decibels I'm not that comfortable with. Typical human conversations from about 3 feet away, are about 60 decibels, but the volume I have for my music is more like that same conversion, only from 15 feet away, about 45 to 50 decibels or so. Today, my motive for going to a concert is triple-digit negative, around -240, which simply means that it would take a huge amount of effort to get me to go to one. The music itself is generally around neutral so I could careless about it, as I neither like nor dislike it. The loud music, alone, adds about a monster -50 affector, huge in comparison with the next worse, the crowd, at about -5.

One event I recall very well, is where my parents went to some concert at the Fair. Not only did I dislike the crowd, but the music was so loud, I couldn't stand it at all and having to plug my ears wasn't enough. In fact, I had to get so far from the stand, nearly 150 to 200 feet or so from back of the crowd to get far enough to where the music is of a comfortable volume where I don't have to plug my ears. That's about 300 to 400 feet from the band itself and the whole stage was very small due to the great distance I had. At first, I was only 40 feet away or so which was far too uncomfortably close. Even at 400 feet away, it was still quite loud, but acceptable.

1.11.2 School band performance

I recall, during my elementary years, of a school band performing and someone was able to reproduce the reving of a car engine without a muffler, using nothing more than a trombone-like instrument (a wind instrument for sure). I quickly wanted to get distance as I seriously hated the loud music. I don't recall that well, but I tried some of my tricks to get away from it. Just as with the concert at the Fair where I needed several hundred feet of distance to get comfortable, that was not possible here so I had to use other methods.

1.11.3 School dances/parties

During my 7th and 8th grade years, the gym was where a dance occurred. In it was loud music. However, the walls blocked much of it. A similar thing occurred during my 9th grade year, only it was the school cafeteria area in the basement. Again, it was loud, but in order to even enter the area, I had to plug my ears. I mainly stayed in the upper area where walls and the floor muffled out much of the sound. Where I was at was more around 30 dB or so, even though I wasn't quite 100 feet away.

1.11.4 The move to ABR and the 48-step speed system

Since about mid-October or so of 2006, I've been tempted to using a speed system with more steps. However, doing that means spending hours converting songs and greater boredom with using the hex edittor. Since I was learning C programming at the time, I figured that, since this was within my level (just a bit higher), it would serve as great practice for automating the part with the hex edittor. Not only will this prevent the potential of making mistakes, it's otherwise over 20 times faster to process. It often takes about 3 minutes to generate 121 90 MB files, compared to about 15 to 20 minutes to do just 30 files of the same size. I wrote the code, fixed the bugs, and got it working the way I intended. The 48-step speed system matches the logarithmic scale far better than the previous 17-step speed system. Why 48 and not a round number like 50? If you understand the musical scale, you'd understand why. From C in one octave to C in the next higher octave involves 12 steps. If I used a 12-step speed system, the change would approximate the tone of the song increasing by one step, such as from C to C sharp within the same octave. The 48-step speed system involves one quarter such step and even then, I can still pick out quite a difference, but the difference is much more like the smallest typical speed changes I make on my computer. Compare the table in section 1.6.1.2 above with that of the 48-step speed system.

12500	25000*	50000	100000**	200000
12708	25417	50833	101667	203333
12917	25833	51667	103333	206667
13125	26250	52500	105000	210000
13333	26667	53333	106667	213333
13542	27083	54167	108333	216667
13750	27500	55000	110000	220000
13958	27917	55833	111667	223333
14167	28333	56667	113333	226667
14375	28750	57500	115000	230000
14583	29167	58333	116667	233333
14792	29583	59167	118333	236667
15000	30000	60000	120000	240000
15208	30417	60833	121667	243333
15417	30833	61667	123333	246667
15625	31250	62500*	125000	250000
15833	31667	63333	126667	253333
16042	32083	64167	128333	256667
16250	32500	65000	130000	260000
16458	32917	65833	131667	263333
16667	33333	66667	133333	266667
16875	33750	67500	135000	270000
17083	34167	68333	136667	273333
17292	34583	69167	138333	276667
17500	35000	70000	140000	280000
17813	35625	71250	142500	285000
18125	36250	72500	145000	290000
18438	36875	73750	147500	295000
18750	37500	75000	150000	300000
19063	38125	76250	152500	305000
19375	38750	77500	155000	310000
19688	39375	78750	157500	315000
20000**	40000	80000	160000	320000
20313	40625	81250	162500	325000
20625	41250	82500	165000	330000
20938	41875	83750	167500	335000
21250	42500	85000	170000	340000
21563	43125	86250	172500	345000
21875	43750	87500	175000	350000
22188	44375	88750	177500	355000
22500	45000	90000	180000	360000
22813	45625	91250	182500	365000
23125	46250	92500	185000	370000
23438	46875	93750	187500	375000
23750	47500	95000	190000	380000
24063	48125	96250	192500	385000
24375	48750	97500	195000	390000
24688	49375	98750	197500	395000

Table footnotes:
* From within this range is my default and most common. Some songs do go outside this range. Out Where the Lake Is goes toward the low end (even to the 12,500 mark), Target Zone on the high end (which goes to the 400,000 mark, the next one on this chart).
** Below here and above here are very rarely seen.

The general pattern is otherwise the same as it is with the 17-step system. Another considerable difference is how closely it follows the logarithmic scale. Compared to it's simplicity, it almost exactly follows it going no more than 3/4 of a step's worth off the actual. Given the fact that it is a "simplified" system (note that there are two times within a column that the rate of the speed increases differs) and that fractions are rounded off to the nearest integer (since WAV files don't support fractional values for a sample rate, only integerical values, a 32-bit unsigned integer to be more precise), I would've expected this. In some areas, the speeds are ahead a bit, but in others (particularly just before and just after a change in the rate of the speed increases), they get behind. The 17-step speed system was always ahead and would only break even on the row with true speed.

Plus, with the assistance of the user "gaekwad2" from the Winamp forums, I got a batch converter that utilizes a commandline-driven program called lame.exe to convert the source WAV files to ABR MP3. ABR is for "average bit rate" which combines the plus sides of constant bit rates (predictable file size and more flexible quality control than either CBR or VBR) with the plus sides of variable bit rates (directing more bits toward the more complex parts of a song and fewer bits for the simple areas (like silence) - this, in turn, leads to a smaller file size (about 2/3) for the same quality). I've been wanting to use ABR for a long time, a few years even, but couldn't find any program that met my needs or, if it supposedly did, it didn't work at all. The conversions are nearly 5 times faster than what Audacity does.

2 The present

2.1 The computer

At the moment, any time I use the computer, except when burning a CD, upon startup/shutdown, when not processing songs for my MP3 player, or about to change speeds, I have my music playing. With the seemingly unlimitted number of speeds available, and the use of a hex edittor readily available, I can change the speed at will and it takes but 20 or so seconds. To do so, I just take out my hex edittor, XVI32, stop the music in Winamp, my player, then open the file in the hex edittor. By stopping the music, I prevent possible conflicts. I then edit the sample rate and "bytes per second" areas of the WAV file's header data, as explained in my article in section 1.6.2.3 above, save it then click the play button in Winamp to preview the change. If I don't like it, I stop Winamp and try another speed by reopening the file in the hex edittor and making the change retrying the change in Winamp when done. If I do like it, I close the hex edittor and continue on. I can usually go two or so ten-hour days of the same speed before changing it and sometimes a week or two of the same song before changing songs.

2.2 MP3 player

Every time I go to bed, I turn on my MP3 player and play the song I had running. If I want to change speeds, I just change the track. Since the speed is the first thing I see, I can tell what the speed is right away so I can quickly sort through the tracks to find the speed I want. The article in section 1.6.2.3 above explains the file-naming system and everything in depth for transferring speeds and songs onto the MP3 player. If I want to change songs, I just change the folder in the MP3 player, from which the various speeds are stored.

2.3 Equalizers

What do you use an equalizer for? To me, I have no idea what they are generally used for, but I use them to amplify my favorite instruments and parts of the song and deamplify the least liked parts. Frequencies from 800 to about 1200 Hz are my highest favorites. However, much above 2000 is strongly disliked and beyond 4000 is where I minimize the equalizer. Much below 300 Hz for the bass is often not liked much. Some songs, however, like OWTLI have the best part at 200 Hz and others, like FF1 World, have the best part at 2000 Hz. For OWTLI, I often increase the equalizer value from the 150 to 300 Hz area, where the best part is, but since from 300 to about 800 is not liked as much, I have them deamplified. From 800 to about 2000 I have amplified then a sharp decline starts from here to the frequencies above that.

2.4 Looking into a more extensive speed system

The 17-step binary logarithmic system currently used (as of Nov 20, 2006), is decent in many ways, but the difference is too noticable and I've been looking at another speed system with a higher step count, like 24, 30, or even 36. Although the difference between the 40,000 and 41,667 Hz speeds doesn't seem like much, there is a considerable difference between them. I once tried a 24-step system, but I didn't like it as much. Intead of 26250 being the first speed after 25,000, it's 25,833 1/3. Unlike the previous system where 2 adjustments are made, there were 3 here as I tried to include 32,000 as well, after speed 3, but it didn't work out nicely. With a 30-step system, the difference is reduced to about 2% and would be more worthy. The next speed for the 30-step system would probably be 25,666 2/3, but is not yet decided on. 36-step is even finer and the first speed after 25,000 would probably be 25,500 or something. I'm looking into a more extensive speed system allowing for more speeds.

2.5 Current habits

Ulillillia's play counts in Winamp as of Jan 24, 2007

These details are accurate as of Nov 20, 2006. When I use the computer, I have Winamp playing almost all the time continuously adding plays to the play counts. In a typical day where I actively use the computer, 500 loops is quite normal for my songs, of which are typically a minute per loop. When I go to bed, no matter what I did that day, I unplug my MP3 player from the wall plug since it's been recharged, then start it up. After starting it up, I let it run while I sleep. When I wake up, I keep it running to let the battery die. If I turned it off, it would suddenly stop after even 6 hours and I'd wake up very drowsy having a hard time getting to sleep. When the battery dies, I hook it up to recharge and continue on. When I go to bed again, I unplug it and the process keeps on continuing. See sections 2.1 and 2.2 above for a more in-depth look.

My play counts in Winamp are something to be amazed about. Do note that there are many variants of songs (8-bit, 50,000 Hz, mono is one format along with 24-bit, 100,000 Hz, mono as another and there's also loopable versions, whole versions containing the intro, test subjects on occasion, and other such variants). Shown in the screenshot above is the song I've had playing for 2 days and the equalizer settings that make it sound the very best. Note the sample rate of 67KHz. For this song, that's 67% true speed. Day in and day out, often for 12 hours a day, I'm listening to the same song, even the same speed and equalizer settings. At the time of this screenshot, Jan 24, 2007, this is the second day in a row with these settings and knowing how much I like it, it wouldn't be unusual for me to go on unchanged for another 2 or more days, 12 hour days that is (then there's my MP3 player where I still keep at it and it plays nonstop while I'm sleeping as well and thus I may only get an hour's break from it every day, more if I go grocery shopping or forced to do unwanted housework.). Note all the 5 and 4-figure play counts - that's more than almost anyone would do in their life times, but I can get that in under a year.

2.6 Rarely any new songs

It is actually very rare I get any new songs nowadays. The main reason was my major loss of interest in video games since 2003. I got 60 songs within the matter of 2 or so years, but only 10 in the last 3.

3 The future

In the near future, I don't see myself upgrading my MP3 player any time soon since it meets pretty much all my needs and for the equalizer since it drains the battery 23% faster (from my numerous battery-life experiments), I can just use Audacity for this, which gives me much greater control over it, allowing for thousands of different equalizer channels (however many columns of pixels I can get displayed is the actual value).

Later on, I'd likely get some music-creation program that allows me to create my own songs and I already know of such a program - FLStudio. At the moment (as of Nov 20, 2006), motive is negative and thus I have little intentions on getting it. For my game development stuff, especially for George Game 13, I'll need to be able to do this.

I may also write a software program that gets the very feature WinDAT has that no other known sound program like it has, and be able to test drive the various speeds, eventually saving the output WAV file without the need of a hex edittor. It may be one of the first nongame programs I make.

In the far future, I may upgrade my MP3 player to include more capacity or more features. But I don't see myself needing a full 10 GB until I get many more songs or use a very high step count for the speed system. MP3 players may even include a speed change feature eliminating my need to create various speeds and thus even 500 MB is a bit much, even for 100 songs. Then, if seemless looping is used, 100 MB would seem a bit much for 200 songs and by then, compression and quality would be even greater allowing for 500 songs in just 50 MB at the quality level I use with MP3 (consider 768 bits per second instead of my standard 24 Kbps (which is 24,576 bits per second for comparison)).

4 Music FAQs

FAQ question list:
1 Speed changes
1.1 Why change the speed?
1.2 Why edit the sample rate?
1.3 Why use a hex edittor?
1.4 This program has a speed change feature, why not use it?

2 Loops
2.1 Why listen to the same song for hundreds of times in a row?
2.2 Are you sure on one million loops of OWTLI or a half million on Desert Zone?
2.3 If you speed up a song, wouldn't that mean 10,000+ loops in a day?

3 Equalizers and effects
3.1 Why do you minimize all frequency bands 6 KHz and above?
3.2 Why do you use Audacity for an equalizer for the MP3 player when it has one?
3.3 Why do you dislike lyrics?

4 File formats and MP3
4.1 24 Kbps for MP3? Why so low?
4.2 Why not use higher sample rates than 11,025 Hz for your MP3 player?
4.3 Why use constant bit rate when average bit rate and variable bit rate are available?
4.4 Why is 50,000 or 100,000 Hz true speed instead of 44,100 Hz?
4.5 Why not use stereo?

5 General
5.1 What is your top favorite song and what genre is it?
5.2 Why get them from video games?
5.3 Why bother running all those battery life and time-syncronization experiments?
5.4 Do you download music?
5.5 How many songs do you have?
5.6 WinDAT doesn't work with XP - what happens?
5.7 Do you memorize any of these songs? If so, which ones?
5.8 Do you make your own music?
5.9 How do you name your songs?
5.10 Can I hear any of your songs?
5.11 What songs do you have?
5.12 What sample rates will you use in your games you make?

4.1 Speed changes

1.1 Q. Why change the speed?
A. By changing the speed, I can add more varieties. A typical song usually has about a 30% range of a very good speed range, often with one or two distinct ranges. OWTLI, for example, sounds best not at true speed, but from 62 to 72% of the true speed. It also sounds decent, but not as good, around 80 to 88% of the true speed. Desert Zone doesn't sound decent at this range, but it does from about 85 to 104% true speed. Some songs have a narrow range, such as Winter Zone (from 70 to 80%), and others have a very wide range (such as Target Zone which is decent from 110 to 130% true speed and from 160 to 320% true speed). The wider the range, the more variety I can get with that song. Just the typical 30% otherwise counts as about 10 songs' worth. The difference between 62 and 66% true speed doesn't seem like much, but there is a noticable difference between the two and from 66 to 72% is about the same case. This is about 3 songs' worth for the 62 to 72% true speed range alone. After changing the speed, I often change the equalizer settings to keep the favorite part amplified and disliked parts deamplified.

A discovery on Nov 23, 2006 is where a pattern was found. For very peaceful songs, like Target Zone, I tend to listen to them at faster-than-normal speeds, but for "active" songs, like OWTLI, I tend to listen to them at slower-than-normal speeds. Desert Zone is between peaceful and active and otherwise sounds good at true speed, although a bit toward the peaceful side. FF1 World is also like Desert Zone and Battle Zone is quite "active". This is the most common case. The other case is mainly accoustical effects, which, although not yet certain (as of Nov 25, 2006), causes multiple worthy speed ranges to occur. These statements have yet to be fully confirmed, especially the splitting part, but what I have seems very convincing.

1.2 Q. Why edit the sample rate?
A. If you were to modify the wave itself, quality gradually deteriorates. With 16-bit quality, making 100+ speed changes will cause a very noticable difference in quality. You won't be able to get the original either due to rounding errors computers have. To a computer, 7 divided by 4 is not 1.75 or even 2, it's 1 (except if floating point precision was used, of which my WAV files don't use). After a while, the rounding errors pile up to a great degree causing noticable distortions. This is why modifying the wave is a bad idea for changing the speed the way I generally do it. To counter the bug with the MP3 player while keeping the same sample rate system, this is useful, but only one change to the wave is needed.

By editting the sample rate, only 8 bytes get changed instead of millions. If I play back a song at 30,000 Hz when true speed is 50,000, it takes longer for it to go through one wave length with 30,000 than with 50,000. For a 100 Hz sound at true speed, you'd need 500 samples to reproduce such a sound. 50,000 Hz sample rate means that 50,000 samples are read every second. For a sound of 100 Hz, meaning 100 wavelengths per second, you'd need to fit 100 wavelengths in 50,000 samples which means that the wave itself would need to be 500 samples. If I reduced the sample rate to 30,000, it'd take longer to play back the 500 samples. If 100 Hz was reproduced with 30,000 Hz, you'd need 300 samples, but the wave is 500 samples. As a result, the wave would play back at 60 Hz instead of 100. Note that 30,000 is three-fifths of 50,000 and that 60 is three-fifths of 100. Because the samples are played at a reduced rate but the sample count is unchanged, the sound would take longer to play. There are 50,000 samples in the sound, but only 30,000 are played each second. In one second at true speed, all 50,000 samples would be played. At 30,000 Hz sample rate, only the first 30,000 would be played in the first second leaving 20,000 more to go. It takes another 2/3 of a second to play the remaining 20,000 samples. The same sound at 30,000 Hz would need five-thirds of a second to play. Note that that 50,000 is five-thirds that of 30,000. The same goes for speeding it up to 60,000 Hz. The sound would be 120 Hz and would last only 5/6 of a second. Note the similarities between pitch and length against the sample rate. If I change the speed to 30,000 Hz then back to 50,000 Hz, the exact original sound file is returned and there's no loss at all, unlike modifying the wave itself where you can't get the original back.

1.3 Q. Why use a hex edittor?
A. The only reason is because no other sound editting program I know of, outside WinDAT, supports changing the sample rate to change the speed. Yes, I've tried Audacity, but it modifies the entire wave itself. I don't know of any other programs with the capabilities WinDAT has. I looked into FLStudio, but even that doesn't have it as, again, the wave itself is modified instead of the sample rate. Why not use WinDAT? It doesn't work with Windows XP at all. As a consequence to this, the only known way of doing it is by using a hex edittor and it easier than it appears.

Hex edittor - important parts of a WAV file

At first, it looks like one huge mess. Computer use binary. Hexadecimal, of which uses 0 through 9 and A through F for numbers, is commonly used in hex edittors since only two characters are needed. Sure it looks like a mess, but I've highlighted the only areas I need to focus on. The 8 bytes on the far left of the highlighted areas, are the only 8 bytes I need to change. The first four are the sample rate and the next four are the "bytes per second" value. The other one does not get changed, but is used for determining the "bytes per second value" which is simply the sample rate multiplied by this value. I haven't worked with stereo or multichannel WAV files, so I don't know how different it is with such files. With mono, being one channel, the "bytes per second" value is unchanged by this. With stereo, you'd have to further double it. The screenshot shows me changing the sample rate to the value in the text box.

1.4 Q. This program has a speed change feature, why not use it?
A. I don't use it because it modifies the wave itself rather than only the sample rate. Audacity is one such known program. As a result, it doesn't fit my needs. However, if you find such a program (free preferrably), let me know either by E-mail or on my forum (see the main index for details). Until I either learn how to program it myself, find a program with this capability, or get WinDAT to work on XP, I'm left with the hex edittor as my only means of doing so. See question 1.2 for more details on why the sample rate is more important.

4.2 Loops

2.1 Q. Why listen to the same song for hundreds of times in a row?
A. Although not exactly certain, there are two reasons. One of which is my history with music. From playing video games, where the same song played numerous times, and from having to listen to the same song numerous times in school to memorize it for a later performance (see section 1.1.3 above for details), this may have played a considerable role. Another is my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD.

2.2 Q. Are you sure on one million loops of OWTLI or a half million on Desert Zone?
A. I'm not exactly sure on it, but according to my calculations, done more in depth for OWTLI, this seems to be the case. During the first several years of the song, I had few speed choices available, 80, 100, and 125% true speed. I mostly listened to the 80 and 100% true speeds, but 125% was also included, but considerably less. The song, at true speed, is 47.76327 seconds (�0.001 second). At 80% true speed, it's 59.704 seconds long. That means, in one hour, I'd have about 60 3/10 loops of it. In a 10-hour day, that's roughly 603 plays at 80% true speed. That seems like a lot, but imagine it going on for days on end like this, switching to Desert Zone for some time, then returning again. In 22 days of this, I would've logged a bit less than 13,300 plays, but, not all days were 10 hours and I didn't listen to just 80% true speed. At times, I had true speed playing. In one hour at true speed, that's 75 3/8 loops and in one 10-hour day, that's 753 5/7 loops. In 22 days at this, that's just short of 16,600 loops. At 125% true speed, the song is about 38.211 seconds per loop. In an hour, that's 94 3/14 loops and in a 10-hour day, that's 942 1/7 loops. In 22 days, that's just over 20,700 plays. Approximately 45% of my time was spent at 80% true speed, 40% at true speed, and 15% at 125%. Although much of my time with my tape recorders was spent at 80% true speed, the values are more skewed due to the game itself and that I was heavily involved with it for years. I even took my tape recorder along with me when I rode in the vehicle to go shopping. As I worked it out, about 30% of my 13-or-so-hour days were spent listening to music and about 40% of it at OWTLI. It's about 1.6 hours per day on average spanning about 125 or so loops per day and this continued on for years. At first, the rate was higher, but as I got more songs, the rate decreased. At first, it was not uncommon to go 10 days straight of the same song another 8 days later, and return to it, but later on, it slowly decreased and by 2001, the frequency had an increase due to losing interest in playing my video games and by 2003, nearly stopped altogether. Also, by 2003, increases were further present as I graduated from school. But other songs soon took over starting with Winter Land in early 2006. With the computer, I frequently hover around 62 to 72% true speed since that's where the best speed range is which allows for fewer loops per hour. As best as I can tell, as from figuring this all out, including from the game itself since I was heavily involved with it for years, I come to a value of about 900,000 to 1,200,000 million.

Desert Zone was less attractive than OWTLI. It lasts 41.5275 seconds per loop (�0.001 second) at true speed, considerably shorter than OWTLI, but this song sounded best near true speed and slightly faster. Due to the like toward the slightly faster speeds, plays could be tallied up faster. At 80% true speed, that's 69 4/11 loops per hour. At true speed, that's 86 2/3 loops per hour and at 125% true speed, that's 108 4/11 loops per hour. The distribution much more strongly favored true speed. About 20% of my time was spent at 80% true speed, 60% at true speed, and the other 20% at 125% true speed. Even on my computer, I tend to hover around true speed with Desert Zone, often slightly slower. As best as I can tell, the actual value is from 300,000 to 600,000. These two songs hold the record for the most life time plays and may not be unbeaten for years.

2.3 Q. If you speed up a song, wouldn't that mean 10,000+ loops in a day?
A. One question I've been asked in E-mails and even on my forums/other forums is that speeding up the song could give thousands of plays per day. It's actually very rare that I like songs faster than true speed and play counts are only based on the speeds I primarily listen to. Sure I could increase the sample rate to 2,000,000 Hz having it play back at 40 times the true speed, but the song becomes nothing more than noise at this kind of speed. In fact, the only two known songs to actually exceed 4 times the true speed and still sound okay are Target Zone and a varient of "Oh What a World". They barely sound good at triple the speed. Although I could still put it at 40 times the true speed and let it run while I'm away, I never do this nor have any intents on doing it.

4.3 Equalizers and effects

3.1 Q. Why do you minimize all frequency bands 6 KHz and above?
A. Frequencies much above 2 KHz are disliked. Depending on the song and the speed, there are times where I do increase that for 4 KHz above the minimum and very rarely even the 8 KHz band, but pretty much never goes any higher than zero. The most common setting is the minimum, but if not the minimum, it's about -10 dB rather than -12. Mountains So Far Away is one candidate where even the 8 KHz band is rather high, about -8 to -4, depending on the speed used. FF1 World is another such candidate. The top favorite part of that song is best from 1100 Hz to about 2400 Hz, and that's true speed. If this was the case, I may have the 6 KHz band set to -10, but that's rare. 1000 Hz is my favorite frequency band on equalizers as it really amplifies the best parts of almost every one of my songs - Desert Zone, OWTLI, Winter Land, FF1 World, and several others.

3.2 Q. Why do you use Audacity for an equalizer for the MP3 player when it has one?
A. You may have done research on the Creative MuVo2 and saw that it had an equalizer, or you just read my blog and noticed I wanted an equalizer. From the numerous battery life experiments I've run, I found that, instead of 18 1/4 hours of battery life, it reduces to 14 hours with the equalizer enabled. In addition, there are so few bands available and it doesn't fully follow the logarithmic scale. It has 100, 800, 3K, and 12K. 100 is the oddball as it's 8 times the difference instead of the usual 4 the others have. It would normally be 200 if the trend continued. As a result, I use Audacity's equalization function. It usually takes about 3 to 6 hours to fully process everything to maximize the effect. If Audacity had a way to remember the previous settings so I can fine-tune it or even be able to type in frequencies and an amplification/deamplification amount, I could cut the time to only 1 to 2 1/2 hours instead. Audacity, in effect, has an equalizer of 1800+ channels, way more than I really need.

3.3 Q. Why do you dislike lyrics?
A. Section 1.3.4 above covers the reason in great detail. For short, changing the speed of a song with lyrics causes it to sound much worse than that of pure instrumentals which seriously reduces the variety. See question 1.1 for details on why I change the speed. A rare, but less impactive reason is the case of bad words, things word censors would often blank out with a beep.

4.4 File formats and MP3

4.1 Q. 24 Kbps for MP3? Why so low?
A. Some think that 96 Kbps is very low for MP3, let alone 24. In fact, with 24 Kbps, there's no detectible difference from the original. Sure, using mono can save on space, but even then, 48 Kbps seems very low grade, let alone 24. So, how do I get it to sound very decent at such a low Kbps? The trick is to have the codec use the least amount of data possible. CD quality is 44,100 Hz, 16-bit, stereo. By going with mono, you cut the amount of data needed by half. Stereo involved 2 waveforms placed side by side and requires twice as many bytes of data. There's otherwise not much difference between stereo and mono so by using mono, you cut the amount of data by half. As a result, you can reduce MP3's from 128 Kbps, the common one I hear about, to 64 Kbps. Furthermore, by reducing the sample rate from 44,100 Hz to 11,025, but keeping the same speed (and thus about the same length), you cut the amount of data to 1/4 that of the original. The only downside to this is the fact that harmonics of frequencies beyond 5512.5 Hz are lost. Due to the fact I hate high frequencies, this doesn't bother me at all. I do give a 4x leeway meaning that, if the highest frequency is 2250 Hz, that of FF1 World, I'm good to go with 9000 Hz sample rate and above allowing a maximum pitch of 4500 Hz. 11,025 is a standard one that works with my MP3 player so I've long adapted it. By using 11,025 Hz, 16-bit, mono, you have 1/8 the amount of data and thus the bit rate can be reduced to 1/8. Strange as it seems 24 Kbps is is clear as 192 Kbps in the standard CD quality in terms of the losses posed by the MP3 codec. Even with 16 Kbps, there's isn't much of a difference although I can detect the distortions the MP3 codec causes. This is the only reason why I went with 24 instead of 16. There's no 20 Kbps so I couldn't use it, and thus only 16 was possible. By using the low Kbps, I can fit more songs (loops and speeds included) in the same sized space than I could with, say, 96 Kbps.

4.2 Q. Why not use higher sample rates than 11,025 Hz for your MP3 player?
A. Part of this is mentioned in question 4.1 directly above. Because of the bug in my MP3 player (covered in depth in section 1.6.2.2 above), I'd have to retest everything if I were to use a higher sample rate. I've been debating whether I should use 16,000 Hz, another standard one. This allows a maximum pitch of 8000 Hz. If I do use another sample rate, I'd need to not only increase the bit depth to likely 32 Kbps, but if the song's speed does not match, I'd have to rerun the 15-hour experiment to resyncronize the time to find what adjustment factor I need. If there are distortions (as with 8000 Hz), then that sample rate is not available. I have yet to test if I can use odd ones like 14,000 Hz, but I don't know if MP3 allows it as 14,000 Hz is not a standard sample rate (although it plays fine on my sound card). Only a test would tell for sure.

4.3 Why use constant bit rate when average bit rate and variable bit rate are available?
A. The only reason I do is because I have no way using anything but constant bit rate. I'd love to use average bit rate, but Audacity only supports constant bit rate. From the Winamp forums, I've been told of lame.exe or even using DBpowerAmp to do it, but neither of these work properly as they error when I do. Audacity meets every single one of my needs:

It must support 8-bit and now 24-bit WAV files - I have plenty of 8-bit WAV files. 16-bit is a standard with MP3 and cannot be changed, but the format is easily changed (and I even know the algorithms for changing 8-bit to 16-bit). When I load a WAV file into Audacity, it is already preconverted (to 32-bit though instead of whatever I had).
It must support odd/unusual sample rates like 39,712 Hz or 117,893 Hz and convert them to 11,025 Hz or whatever I use for MP3. Audacity does this quite well.
It must not cut off any bit of the beginning or end of the song. This gets very annoying and even a tenth of a second is way too much. Audacity does not do this at all.
It must be free or very low cost (maximum: $10). If free, it must not be a trial or be restricted. Audacity meets these needs in full as it's free and has no known restrictions, other than constant bit rates only. Lame.exe seemingly fits this, but it doesn't work as it errors, but not likely from limitations.
Of great use is a batch converter, of which Audacity does not appear to have. If I load multiple files in Audacity, they open separate windows, but I can only save one file at a time manually.

These are my needs as far as I can tell (as of conditions as of Nov 21, 2006).

4.4 Q. Why is 50,000 or 100,000 Hz true speed instead of 44,100 Hz?
A. Section 1.4.2 covers much of it in detail. Both 50,000 and 100,000 Hz are simply easy to work with. If I wanted 70% of true speed, I'd just multiply 50,000 by 0.7 to get 35,000. Note how 35 is half that of 70. If I wanted 60% true speed, I'd use 30,000 as 30 is half that of 60. If I stuck with the 44,100 Hz used with CD's, it's quite tricky to deal with. 70% of 44,100 is 30,870 which is very complicated to work out in my mind (I can still do it in my mind, it just takes a much longer time). The same reason goes with 100,000 Hz, but is much easier. 70% means 70,000 and 63.2% means 63,200. It's easier with 48,000 Hz than with the 44,100, but since 50,000 was the highest WinDAT could record (until I exploited a bug in the program to allow for much higher recording sample rates to up to 100,000 Hz, the highest the sound card I had could take).

4.5 Q. Why not use stereo?
A. Because I can't tell much of a difference between mono and stereo, I see no need to use double the disk space for stereo when mono is otherwise about the same. Further details about this and my MP3 player are in question 4.1 above.

4.5 General

5.1 Q. What is your top favorite song and what genre is it?
A. I have several. For over a decade, it was Out Where the Lake Is, level 10 from the Sega Genesis game "Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind". It was until early 2006 that Winter Land (round 5-1 from Ristar, another Sega Genesis game) surpassed it, but not by much. Battle Zone came along (the battle music from Final Fantasy 9) and I shattered my old record nearly doubling a record held for a decade. When played on my MP3 player, I encountered the highest recorded compatibility - 3190 times better than neutral. FF1 World (the world map music from Final Fantasy (from Final Fantasy Origins) came along shortly after with one part causing me to get very comparable with Battle Zone. Both Battle Zone and FF1 World are the two highest favorites. Winter Land, is at a very distant third with OWTLI slightly behind at fourth.

As to what genre they are, other than being purely instrumental, I have no idea. I cannot easily tell what genre a song is by listening to it. I don't know much of a difference between Jazz and Country. I wouldn't know if a song was pop or not. I rarely get any more than 40% certainty. The only known song, Bahamas Zone (from Croc 2 in the first world where you need to get a key to unlock a cage and placed in the jungle), to pass 50% certainty is of Reggae, but not in my top ten list, although I've still logged over 10,000 lifetime plays. Nature in the Rough (from Jumping Flash 1 and world 1-1) has 40% certainty in that it is a Scottish song, but the exact genre is unknown. I don't know what genre Desert Zone, OWTLI, Winter Land, FF1 World, or Target Zone is and my certainty is below 10%. As a result, I can only make mere guesses to many of it.

5.2 Q. Why get them from video games?
A. The only main reason I get my music from video games as they almost always have instrumental songs. Almost every CD that I know of has lyrics and otherwise no interest. There are instrumental CD's, but from what others have had, nothing even makes it much beyond 20 times better than neutral ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight", a song with lyrics, is liked about 6 times better). Because I don't know the true names of the songs, downloading them is not possible and since I have the game readily available, it's the better method. Plus, I can get the 100,000 Hz (or 50,000 in the case of the past) sample rates instead of the confusing-to-use 44,100 Hz often used.

5.3 Q. Why bother running all those battery life and time-syncronization experiments?
A. The reason for the time-syncronization experiments was because of the bug in my hard-drive-based MP3 player. If I left the songs as is, the MP3 player would play back true speed as 72 9/16% true speed instead. A quick guess would've yielded 75% at the closest, but it'd otherwise be off some and if my computer played the same speed, I'd notice my MP3 player slowly coming out of sync, if even started at exactly the same time. By running the experiment, I could otherwise eliminate this slow-down effect the MP3 player causes due to the bug. Sure it took over a half of a day, but I got an offset value of 1.378046 as a result with a margin of error as a tiny 0.000003, so accurate that, if it could play for 4 days nonstop, it'd only be off by 1 second at the end. That is, to get the MP3 player to play back at true speed, I need to speed up the song in Audacity (yes, it modifies the wave), increasing the speed by 37.8046%.

As to the battery life test, I wanted to find out how to maximize the battery life. The advertised 14 hours was pushing it rather low since there are times, though rare, that I sleep for 16 hours. At the maximum, I came out to 18 7/8 hours, far beyond the advertised value. I've learned how to run experiments from watching Mythbusters and it since became a common thing. First is setting up the control. After the base time is set, I make a change such as the contrast of the display and see what difference there is. There wasn't any detectible difference. I set the contrast back to what I had and try using a slightly lower volume setting, of which I expected to cause the battery to last longer due to the fact it takes much more energy to produce louder sounds than softer ones, but to my surprise, it had no effect at all. Again for the equalizer (which had a huge impact), bit rate (no impact), file type (WAV was worse off than MP3 as it caused a constant reuse of the hard drive whereas MP3 doesn't). Even the songs themselves were varied and no noticable effect was found. In fact, the only way I could get even close to the advertised 14 hours, was to enable the equalizer. The difference between the volume of 16 and 20 was none (and the base (aka control) was 18 and the max is 25). Some results, like with the volume, were unexpected, but others, like the contrast were as I was expecting.

5.4 Q. Do you download music?
A. No. The primary reason isn't the legality concerns, but the fact that I don't know the names of any of the songs to even begin with. Searching for "Out Where the Lake Is" may yield something completely unrelated to the song as I know it. In addition, such songs would often be as MP3 (MP3 can be converted to WAV) using 44,100 Hz, which is simply confusing to work with when it comes to changing the speed. Besides, since my games are readily available, they're the best known way of doing it and I get more control as well.

However, I have downloaded some MIDI files from games such as Final Fantasy 4 and 8, but MIDI is so low grade, I otherwise never listen to them, since I can't change the speed. I got the ragnarock music from FF8 (whatever it is - I haven't done much beyond the fire cave as I don't like the game) and one other song I don't recall. They're shown in some of my screenshots of Winamp with very few plays. I don't recall when I did it, but it was likely in 2003 or something around there. Even as of Nov 21, 2006, they've only got but 5 plays since Dec 21, 2004. Some of my songs (including varients), have ten thousand times as many plays.

5.5 Q. How many songs do you have?
A. About 75. I have about another 15 to 25 more to get yet. Winamp may show a much higher count, but Winamp includes varients I have (such as 8 and 16-bit versions, loopable versions with those having an intro and two loops, and other such things). Even test files and sound effects are included.

5.6 Q. WinDAT doesn't work with XP - what happens?
A. The play button doesn't work, I can't record, and a white patch where the intro is displays (showing the version and stuff) and everything is either slow, or just doesn't work at all. It runs, but it just doesn't work properly. It works just fine in Windows 98, however.

5.7 Q. Do you memorize any of these songs? If so, which ones?
A. I memorize several of them. OWTLI, Desert Zone, Winter Land, Nature in the Rough, Winter Zone (both versions), Oh What a World (the world map music is the main one, fully memorized, but the other variant isn't all that well), Battle Zone, Arctic Zone (World 7 in Felix the Cat from the NES), Mountains so Beautiful (World 5 from Felix the Cat), Target Zone, and probably another 5 or so others on top of that. Yet, these are the ones fully memorized. There's about 10 or so others that are mostly memorized, but not entirely (Haunted Castle, World 6 and 7 from Super Monkey Ball 2, Carnival Night from Sonic 3 (Act 1's version - I don't like Act 2's version), Tree climb (level 13 in Bubsy), Angelisland (the first area of Act 1 on Sonic 3), and some others.

5.8 Q. Do you make your own music?
A. At the moment, no. I don't have decent software for doing this. I have, however, transcribed one song in full - Winter Zone. I've made many attempts at it and thus many variants. Unlike the original, I used different instruments and somewhat different general pitches, but the notation has little change. My remake sounds almost 8 times better than the original. Short of this, I otherwise don't. However, when it comes to making my games, I'll need to do this, and I have sufficient enough skills for doing so.

5.9 Q. How do you name your songs?
A. I use a 5-stage system for naming the songs, in this order:

If a level name was given and it's liked, I use the level name. "Misty Bog" (From the original Spyro), and "Cactus Point" (from Frogger, the Playstation version) are great examples of this.
If a level name was given and is not liked, or if no level name is given, I then use the basic name of the world if it's liked. "Nature in the Rough" (from Jumping Flash), and "Noki Bay" (from Super Mario Sunshine), are great examples of this case, both of which due to the levels themselves not named.
If a world's name was not liked or not present, then I use the theme of the worlds. "Desert Zone", and "Out Where the Lake Is" are two such examples. Desert Zone is of a desert theme and OWTLI is supposedly a river theme, but I originally considered it a lake instead of a river. "Out Where the River Is", doesn't have the catch to it either.
If I can't come up with any names based on the theme or any of the above methods, I then base it on the actions involved with the particular level or world. "Tree Climb" is the best example as you climb trees, lots of trees.
If all the above fails to yield anything, I either make up my own name (as with Sluminda*, from Zeliard's final cavern or "Go Sailing Along" from the expert course in Super Monkey Ball 2's Monkey Boat), or just give what the source is (as in the case for "world 7" from Super Monkey Ball 2).

If the second stage was all I needed, stages 3 through 5 are not done. Let's take the case for Desert Zone as an example. There is no level name, other than "chapter 7" (or 8 or 9) or "into the canyon" which has little in the way of meaning. Stage 1 does not apply so I go to stage 2. Since no name of the world is given, stage 2 does not apply and I go on to stage 3. The theme is a desert and "Desert Zone" caught on. With the name set, stages 4 and 5 do not need to be used.

5.10 Q. Can I hear any of your songs?
A. Only very indirectly. You can listen to Out Where the Lake Is by playing "Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind" at level 10 (use the passcode MSFCTS) to get there. This is as close as I'm going to get. I've mentioned many of the sources on this page, you just need the game and system to get it.

5.11 Q. What songs do you have?
A. Although the list is not complete, this is the list. It is quite a detailed list.

5.12 What sample rates will you use in your games you make?
A. Sure I may use 11,025 Hz and the such for my MP3 player, but for my games, I'll certainly use a higher quality. For GG13, I may use something like 48,000 Hz or even 96,000 Hz, possibly using stereo and 16 or 24-bit (depending on the hardware around during the time I release it). This hasn't been decided on yet (as of Nov 21, 2006). Downloadable games, however, will likely use a lower quality, an 8x or, rarely, 16x leeway space instead of my usual 4x. The target is around 22,050 Hz, another standard. If I used CD quality sounds, the file size of the download would increase a lot and would otherwise strain the server. My 2D game, for example, uses about 4 MB of space as of the first release (as of Nov 21, 2006). If I used CD quality sounds, 20 MB would be too large for reasonable downloads of such a simple game. Of course, this is based on WAV rather than MP3 (legal issues prevent me from using this), and OGG. I'll certainly use higher quality than I do with my MP3 player.

4.1 About me home - General overview and background
4.1-1 What this is
4.1-2 My current life
4.1-3 The future
4.2 Dream journal - My dreams I get while sleeping - contains over 500 dreams and grows rapidly
4.2-1 Introduction
4.2-2 Special notes
4.2-3 Dream stat descriptions
4.2-4 Dream statistics
4.2-5 The categories
4.3 Favorites - What I like and dislike most
4.4 Imaginary friends - Learn what my imaginary friends were like and their special abilities
4.4-1 History
4.4-2 In depth descriptions
4.4-3 The future
4.5 Video games - My history with video games and the many bad things they caused
4.5-1 The beginning
4.5-2 Too much video game playing
4.5-3 Making my own games
4.5-4 The future
4.6 School - Learn what school was like for me, how the classes went, and other events related to school
4.6-1 Elementary school
4.6-2 Middle school
4.6-3 High school
4.6-4 Filling my need for education
4.6-5 My education future
4.7 Special events - Learn about how YMCA camp, tours, and other special events went for me
4.7-1 Triangle YMCA camp
4.7-2 Touring my home state with my friend
4.7-3 Shakespearian play
4.7-4 The state fair
4.7-5 The antique car club
4.7-6 Trip into Canada
4.8 Math skills - I can work wonders with numbers and perform calculations in my head at a blazing fast speed
4.8-1 Well beyond most everyone else
4.8-2 I became unforunate
4.8-3 Super fast mental math
4.8-4 If object gets numbers, I get a formula
4.8-5 The future
4.9 Special abilities - The special capabilities I have outside mathematics
4.9-1 General
4.9-2 Hypercount
4.9-3 High-speed, high-accuracy mental math
4.9-4 High-res vision
4.10 Developed systems - Status System, Spell System and other systems I've developed
4.10-1 My Status System
4.10-2 My Spell System
4.10-3 Color system
4.11 Stories - The birth of my story-writing efforts
4.11-1 The "Wonderful Adventure" days
4.11-2 The "Rise of Atlantis" days
4.11-3 One other story
4.11-4 No more story writing
4.11-5 My sources of ideas
4.11-6 The future (general)
4.12 Online activities - The history of my website and the usage of online forums
4.12-1 Online forums
4.12-2 My website
4.13 Music - My history with music - learn the origins to why I listen to songs at different speeds for thousands of loops at a time
4.13-1 History
4.13-2 The present
4.13-3 The future
4.13-4 Music FAQs
4.14 Major fears - My list of fears, problems, and obsessions, both past and present
4.14-1 Introduction
4.14-2 Current fears
4.14-3 Old fears that have been overcome
4.14-4 Current problems
4.14-5 Old problems that have been overcome
4.14-6 Current obsessions
4.14-7 Old obsessions
4.15 Major issues - Major issues I have in my life at the moment
4.15-1 Fears, problems, and obsessions
4.15-2 Sleep-wake cycle
4.15-3 No transportation
4.15-4 Showers are rare
4.15-5 My annoying nose
4.15-6 Limited choice of foods
4.15-7 Getting a job
4.16 TV and movies - How I am with watching TV and movies, both past and present
4.16-1 History
4.16-2 The present
4.16-3 The future
4.16-4 FAQ
4.17 Food and drink - My history with food and drink, including past meals I made, as well as the present and future
4.17-1 History
4.17-2 The present
4.17-3 The future
4.18 Travel and vacations - Past vacations and travel, as well as the current case of 6+ years without a vacation, including places of interest
4.18-1 History
4.18-2 The present
4.18-3 The future
4.18-4 FAQ
4.19 My senses - Things involving my 5 main senses - strong, high-res vision, but very weak smell to name some
4.19- [document yet to be created]
4.20 Doctors and meds - My past involving doctor visits and meds to fixing my issues as well as the present
4.20- [document yet to be created]
4.21 Hobbies - My hobbies, including things I was involved with in the past not in any other category
4.21-1 History
4.21-2 Computer
4.21-3 Sports
4.21-4 Collecting
4.21-5 Television
4.21-6 The present
4.21-7 The future
4.22 Game design - My history of game design as well as the present and possible future
4.22-1 History
4.22-2 The present
4.22-3 The future
4.23 Noncomputer games - Backgrounds on various noncomputer games, such as throwing cards to play Hit-a-bump and other things, including past games not listed on my website, as well as general evolvements and what caused me to create them.
4.23- [document yet to be created]
4.24 Other memorable events - General events I recall unusually well, but not anything special
4.24- [document yet to be created]
4.25 Other things - Dates, marriage, having kids, friends, religion, holidays, and various other things
4.25- [document yet to be created]
4.26 Myself in the year 2050 - How I envision myself and a day in the year 2050
4.26- [document yet to be created]
4.27 My greatest wishes - Activities I would love to do

Footnotes:
* Pronounced as "sl OOM _n dah" or the "sl" in "slide", the "oom" in "broom", the "an" in "instant", and the "do" in "dot". See the FAQ for further details.