I Want My MP3

Downloading music is the hottest thing going on the Internet--even hotter than sex. According to a survey conducted by industry analysts at Jupiter Communications. Net surfers plug "MP3'' into their search engines more often than they do that other three-letter word. For those of you who are new to cyberspace (or who are wondering what could be more enticing than playboy.com). MP3 is a compressed digital audio format that produces near-CD-quality sound. We're high on MP3 for a couple of reasons: First, it allows us to store the equivalent of ten albums on a single CD. And second, it exposes us to a new world of independent musicians who previously had no way of reaching the masses with their work. Of course, if it were up to record companies. MP3 would go the way of the eight-track. They hate the format, claiming it breeds piracy (not to mention a loss of cash, if musicians can offer their tunes directly). "It's the wild, wild West,'' says Ann Greenberg, senior vice president of marketing and business development at CDDB, the most comprehensive music database on the Net. The suits, musicians and dotcoms are shooting it out to develop a copyright protection standard that will benefit all parties, including music fans. Greenberg says. The effort, labeled the secure digital music initiative by the Recording Industry Association of America, is expected to be wrapped up by the year's end. In the meantime, there's plenty of digital music for the taking (and buying). In fact, with a little patience and the right software, you can turn your PC into a veritable jukebox. A few things to know before you get started: There are several downloadable digital audio formats. MP3 is the most popular, with more than 500,000 tracks available on dozens of websites. (See Where the Tunes Are on page 150.) Other options include Liquid Audio, A2b. Microsoft's MS Audio and Sony's Atrac3. Although (concluded on page 150) I want my MP3 (continued from page 112) many big-time artists offer tracks that can be downloaded, most of the tunes you can grab are by bands you've never heard of. Obviously, you're going to have to endure plenty of junk to get to the jewels. And downloading is not always an easy process. Using a 56kbps modem, a single file took an hour to hit our hard drive, compared to the one-minute download time for the same tune on Playboy's Tl lines. (Our guess: The serious audio downloaders are not the most productive employees.) Internet ramps aside, enjoying music on your computer requires special software. Although there are separate products for playing and decoding digital audio files, we recommend the all-in-one programs MusicMatch Jukebox and Real Jukebox for the PC and SoundJam MP for the Mac. These programs not only let you download and play back digital music and spoken word files efficiently, they also let you copy tracks from compact discs onto your hard drive, a process know as ripping. Until we all enjoy high-speed access to the Net, ripping is the best reason to get onto the MP3 bandwagon. With a few mouse clicks, you can compress ripped music files to less than half their original size. That means you can store huge amounts of audio on your computer without eating up much hard-drive space. Connect a pair of multimedia speakers, and that jukebox scenario becomes a reality. Of course, you can also free yourself from the computer with one of the many portable MP3 players on the market. Although some, such as Sony's 64-megabyte Music Clip, offer only onboard storage, most combine internal memory with removable storage cards (priced at $50 for 16 megabytes and $100 for 32 megs). Either way, you'll need at least 32 megs to enjoy an hour's worth of tunes on the go. Getting the music from your hard drive to a portable player requires more software (usually supplied with the gear) and more patience. It can take a couple of minutes to copy a song from one device to the other. We recommend a player that connects to your computer via USB cables. It will speed up the download process, leaving more time for the hunt.

Where and how to buy on page 154. Online: try editorspicks.playboy.com.