Laptop in class?

You can do this easily as long as your stereo tuner has RCA Composite inputs
and your laptop has a soundcard with atleast a headphone output. You will need
the cord to go from the "Audio Out" on the laptop which is one connector very
similar to a pair of headphones and then splits into 2 cords, a right and left
(Red and White) RCA Composite connector on the opposite end. You can get this
cable at any Radio Shack for about $9.95. Once you connect the output from your
laptop to the input of your stereo tuner put the tuner on "Aux" and play a
file, that usually does it. I have used this method quite a bit in the last
year or so and have a little over 200 MP3's of ballet class accompaniment on my
local drive separated by category. It is really great because you don't have to
do the CD juggling thing in between combinations. Also, if you download the new
Windows Media Player series 9 they have a control for the speed at which you
want the music played back at. If you put it too high though it will sound
strange because there is no pitch control. The 1.4 speed setting is pretty good
to take the tempos up a bit for petite allegro and such from their original
tempo. I have also heard that WinAmp is capable of the same tempo control but
have not had a chance to test it out.
Another great use for playing music in the studio through a computer is
rehearsals. You can cue up to a specific place in a track of music you are
using with a simple click regardless of the length of the music. This is great
fro pieces of music that have 20 minutes of music per section and more. On a CD
you have to do the track advance thing and how many times have we all
accidentally let that stupid button go so the next track starts playing and you
have to do the whole process all over again from 0:00.
Anyway just my two cents, give it a try, you will like it.

I have used a similar device for transmitting audiobooks from my iPod to my car
radio. It worked best in areas where the signals were stable (ie not driving
around having channels going in and out). It's definitely worth a try for you,
I think!

Cathy P

<< I'm replying to myself now, but I was just looking through the
MacConnection catalog, and right there on their cover is something
called a "Tunecast mobile FM transmitter" that plugs into the
headphone jack of your laptop or any other audio source, and
transmits it to a nearby FM radio. This I have to try--if it works,
it would mean I could play music through the typical studio sound
system's FM radio. And at $27.95, it's probably worth a try.

Greg
>><BR><BR>

wrote (Sat, 2 Aug 2003 14:18:22 +0000 (UTC)):

I'm replying to myself now, but I was just looking through the
MacConnection catalog, and right there on their cover is something
called a "Tunecast mobile FM transmitter" that plugs into the
headphone jack of your laptop or any other audio source, and
transmits it to a nearby FM radio. This I have to try--if it works,
it would mean I could play music through the typical studio sound
system's FM radio. And at $27.95, it's probably worth a try.

Greg

Trog Woolley <
Well, since I posted the article I spent a few minutes on google and
found several reasonably powerful USB speakers, but what I really want
are fairly powerful *portable* speakers because I tend to walk to the
studios where I might use this system with my accoutrements in a
backpack.

Yes, there are sound systems everywhere, but I feel a bit hesitant to
wire up my laptop to them, and most (all?) of the ones in studios I
use are those off-the-shelf component systems and I'm not sure they
even have external input jacks.

There are plenty of .wav/.mp3 players with variable speed playback,
and of course with midi this would be trivial.

Greg

While stranded on the hard shoulder of the information super highway typed:

This is an interesting concept Greg. Most PC speakers are wimpy,
cus they are meant for personal listing, not for public address.
You could feed the soundcard output into an amp and use that to
drive speakers; an old domestic hi-fi would be more than adequate.
I don't know how a PC would go about playing music back at
slower or faster speeds. I suppose if used to play hard disk images
(eg mp3) rather than cd-rom images it could be done. Two of my
teachers still use cassette tapes; their ancient tape players both
work well and have speed control, so they see no need to upgrade.
Of course, nothing beats a class done with a live pianist.

--
Trog Woolley | trog at trogwoolley dot com
(A Croweater back residing in Pommie Land with Linux)
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