Speed MP3 Audio Player

“Who else wants to triple the amount of audio content you consume in less than half the listening time…”

Are you looking for a way to speed up your audio MP3 files, audiobooks, podcasts, speeches and lectures?

Look no further.

Simply download a copy of my XLR8 Media Player and begin listening to your audio content at 2x, 3x, 4x, or even 5 times the normal speed of playback. And if you want to be able to load the audio onto your portable iPhone, iPod Touch, no problem. It comes with a built-in audio mp3 batch converter.

Features:
- Change speed of MP3 files
- Changes the speed without changing pitch
- Combine and accelerate audio from files together
- Batch file conversion
- Super easy to use, and many more…



Simply enter your name and email below and you’ll instantly receive a free copy via email with download instructions.

Ground Breaking Progress

Wow! I've decided to crack down and create my own MP3 Player. I must have spent at least 30 hours searching and testing almost every piece of MP3 software and sound editing device on the market. None of which did exactly what I wanted.

You see there was a combination of about 3 different pieces of software that I've been using to this point. However they range from FREE all the way up to $299. So it wasn't very likely YOU would want to be investing in these. Not to mention that some of them are so complicated it would be like taking your "Private Jet" just around the corner to the grocery store. It's just not really necessary to have that many features.

So I've decided to create my own software to take care of all these great features.

Well two days ago I was able to get started on the project. I've worked out some of the preliminary specs and mockups and spent the last two days creating an Interface (SKIN) for the mp3 player.

Check it out below.

So I'm hoping that you can give me some feedback and I'll look forward to getting this player out to the public in the near future.

I'm not sure how long it will take but I'll be sure and keep you posted on the progress.

Cheers,
Segovia

The Search for a Quality MP3 Player Continues...

So after spending almost an entire day searching online for a new MP3 player that had all the features I needed, I still didn't find what I was looking for.

Oh, I came pretty darn close on a few occasions. I got so fed up with all the partial desciptions and reviews online. I just drove down th FRY's and bought several different models and brands.

Here are my thoughts.

The Creative ZenExtra and all other related products aren't very userfriendly and I didn't like the software. They advertise that they have this great feature "Innovative EAX™ Technologies" that allows has Time Scaling to speed up or slow down an audio track with no distortion.

Not quite! The distortion was horible. And it only goes up to 1.5x (150%) which still is pretty slow.

iPod
and iPod-Mini: While the rest of the world seams to be completely taken by this sleek, sexy little player. I have my own opinion. It's lacking in features and the navigation and folder structure is a little bit too MAC for my taste. Besides that it's missing almost every feature that I would look for in an MP3 Player. They have some kind of a "Speed Study Mody" however it only goes up to 1.25x (125%) which is so slow you might as well not even use the feature.

The Smaller Creative Muvo N200 looked great. After all my research I thought it would be a winner for sure. It even has the Audio Input line which I absolutely must have because I record so many teleseminars and client coaching calls. However when I busted it out of the case I was dissapointed to find that they have a smaller input line jack that is not universal. I didn't have time to go hunting for some crazy adapter so I had to write it off imediatly. The other part I didn't like about it was the screen size. While the player is small and could fit almost anywhere without detection. They have such a small screen for navigating through various menues that it takes a lot of getting used to.

The Sony HiMD (Mini Disk Player) I picked one of these up in December as I was in a pinch and needed to be portable with my recording. I went from Analog Audio Casettes to Digital. Now I was quite happy to come out of having to deal with tapes so I guess I was just in a good mood. However after I had recorded about 60 hours worth of phone calls on several 1GB disks I tried to transfer them
and speed them up to 4x using SoundForge. Well would you beleive it, Sony had to go and create their own Proprietary format called .OMG which of course doesn't work with anything else but Sony.

I spent about 7 hours seaching for some kind of software program that would convert the format to an MP3 and only came up with one solution which did work but for how long it would take me to convert the files over and then speed them
up. It was rediculious. I might as well take that task on and make it my full time job. So I basicly just use it for Music and that's it. I liked the quality of the audio and it had both Line in and Mic in jacks which was nice.

Another poor feature that absolutly sucks about this player and most of the HiMD sony products is some that is set to start a new track when there is silance for a second or two. That's nice when your recording music, however if you are having a long conversation for 60 minutes and then have 283 tracks at the end. Not so good. Then you have to take about 15 minutes to manually merge all the tracks together on the player itself as this is faster than doing it with your computer. Ouch!

MPIO ~ Made by Digitalway: This little player had been good to me in some respects
but a nightmare in many other ways. There are a great number of features that it has that I absolutly love.

1) It has a removable / upgradable memory. Which is rare because so many of them have 40-80 GB now.

2) They actually have a "Study Mode" that will speed your audio up to 2x (200%) which is the only player I can find on the market that will do this.

3) They have a voice recording feature which is fantastic.

The only thing this is missing is the Line In recording capability. The software for this player is got to be some of the flakiest crap I've ever experienced. It hardly does what it's supposed to which makes it hard to get your media files on or off the device which really doesn't make it that helpful. Ive spent about 10+ hours installing the latest firmware, upgrading the software, and even trying 3rd party software and it's still pretty flaky.

So while this player has a lot of good features it's not very reliable.

iRiver: Good quality recording and easy to use.

So at this point, after having done several months work testing and pushing the envelope on all the above players. I like the iRiver the best. Simply because it's easy to use and it has Line In recording. There are no other real features to it. But the software works and it's reliable. The recordings are in Mp3 and you can adjust the bit rate and frequency of both the Voice and Line In or Mic In.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I will continue my quest to find a player that will speed up my audio and have Line In. Then I won't need to cary so many little gadgets with me everywhere. Either that or I'll just have to go to China and contract someone to make me a working prototype that will do everything I want.

Recording Phone Calls (The Exact Device)

Okay, I spoke about recording phone calls in an earlier post. Many people have said they were having a hard time finding the device needed.

So you can pick this up at www.RadioShack.com or phone a local store near you.

The part number is: #43-1237 (Mini Recorder)

The great part about this device is that it only costs about $15 bucks and it has a toggle switch for Recording / Play Back. This alone has some pretty nifty uses.

Let's say I have teleconference training that I'm holding on Monday, now I want to do the exact same call every Monday for new leads / audiences but I want to give them the convenience of being able to just pick up the phone (meaning I'm not just using Audio Generator to post it online).

Well what I can do is Record Monday nights call on any device (MP3 / Tape / CD). Then next week I just switch the toggle to Play Back, jump on the call and have everyone say where they're calling from with a little live interaction, then press PLAY on my mp3 player which is hooked up and VIOLA... I can now go have dinner while my recording is being played for the audience.

Because I know how long the recording lasts, I like to set a timer for 5 minutes before it's over and then come back from what ever I was doing (usually just multi-tasking with other projects) and open up the call at the end for a live Q/A session.

So that's yet another way to use technology and save you massive amounts of time.

Hope this has been helpful.

Posting on the fly....

So I'm posting this message while I wait to see the next close up show
at the Magic Castle here in LA. What a cool place this is, if you ever
get the chance to go, I highly recommend it. Apparently it's by
invitation only though.

I was recently in Salt Lake City working on some new software ideas to
help make mp3 conversion and acceleration much easier. I have a project
posted to RentAcoder.com so I'll have someone developing it soon. I'll
keep you posted.

Cheers,
Segovia Smith > Marketing Expert
http://www.SegoviaRecommends.com

Save time using simple phone tricks

Okay I was just down in San Diego for the weekend and when I returned I found that I had over 14 voicemail messages. Now I don't know about you but I tend to get a lot of very long descriptive VM's and it would normally take me almost 20 minutes to half an hour just to listen to that many.

However since I am such a speed audio guy I always find ways to do things faster.

So my TIP for you is, when listening to your voicemail from now on, press 6 three times to speed up the messages and burn through your Voice Mail in half the time.
Note: You can press 6 up to three times and then press 4 to slow it down again.

You will get the hang of being able to catch peoples phone numbers at that speed within a day to a week depending on your ability to adapt.

So, I've just showed you how to save at least 6.5 hours at minimum over the next year alone (or almost an entire week, yes that's 7 days over the next 25 years). Don't worry though I'm not expecting anything in return. I just hope you use this tip.

Example of time saved:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Average of 3 voicemails per day
x 6 days a week
x 1 minute average length
===
15 minutes of voicemail per week
x 52 weeks
===
780 minutes
divided by 60 minutes
===
13 hours
divide by 2 (if you listen at xTwo speed) by pressing 6 three times
===
6.5 hours of your life back (use that time wisely)
x 25 years
===
162.5 hours
divided by 24 (hours in a day)
===
6.7 Days (now you can take weeks vacation thanks to all the time I've saved you! :-> )

Use Your Cell Phone to Capture Invaluable Testimonials

Okay, this is something I've been doing for several years now but recently became much easier to duplicate and leverage for your own personal use.

Let me start with a case study.

As you can probably tell that I'm not only an information junkie but I also consider myself to be a major seminar junkie too! I was attending Mark Victor Hansen's MEGA Speaker Empire event and at the end of the seminar I was asked to come on stage and explain to the entire audience that we were looking for testimonials to publish on the web site that was being launched to sell the recorded version of the entire event.

So, I essentially had everyone pull out their cell phones and write down the number to Marks Audio Generator testimonial line. Then immediately following the conference dozens of people went outside into the lobby where they were able to record a 60 second to 3 minute testimonial.

The power in this comes from the fact that they were Doing it in the MOMENT! While they were still jazzed about the 3 day event we just completed. Their energy was awesome and these make for the best kind of testimonials.

Applying this to your business:
Now you could do this on a similar level if you do a lot of public speaking in front of either a live audience or even on a teleconference. However let's say you just happen to be attending an event or even simply having lunch with a client and want to get a single testimonial from one or two individuals, you could ask them to leave you a testimonial and then dial your number and hand them your cell phone. This works extremely well.

If you do not already have an Audio Generator account I suggest that you get one immediately. This would provide you with a toll free phone number to store in your PDA or cell phone, which allows you to record and digitally encode these voice messages for further use online.

Once you get back to your office you can then use your Audio Generator account to send these testimonials via email, audio postcards, or even publish them on your web site.

Audio testimonials like this are so incredibly powerful and can help to increase your selling power on a web site by up to 300%+.

Other Reference Materials:
The following is an article I wrote with further examples and other technologies to accomplish the same function. http://www.interplicity.com/articles/PhoneWiz.asp

Welcome to My Audio Blogg

This is where I will be publishing any ideas, resources and new ways to learn and consume information via my "Accelerated Audio Learning Strategies".

I've opened this Blogg up so that anyone may post a reply or give comments and feedback. If you have not already visited my original article about accelerated learning you can read that by going to http://www.SegoviaSmith.com/Audio

I spend on average of 6-8 hours per day listening to, recording, archiving, enhancing and consuming digital information. I know this may seem a bit excessive but I am able to do this while I multi-task and accomplish many other things.

Because of the sheer number of hours that I've spent over the last six months doing this I've not only been able to listen to a lot of incredible information, but I've also spent a lot of time researching various ways to getting things done. Everything from how to record from your phone to both analog and digital, to how to convert cassette tapes to digital format and everything in between. (*No I didn't try records or an 8-Track)

One of the most common questions that I get from people is "How can I record phone calls?"

There could be several answers to this. For a quick and inexpensive answer you can record them to a cassette tape using a device found at Radio Shack and other electronics stores. This device is called a "Call-Corder" or "Record-A-Call". If you want to read a complete article on how to do this and what all the logistics are you can read the following.

I will post more instructions later to outline the process of recording direct from the phone to your computer. It generally requires more hardware which begins to cost more money. To get a general outline of how to get started you can visit InternetAudioGuy.com. He has all the fancy toys to record audio like a pro.

If you have any specific questions about anything related to audio or high speed accelerated learning I would be more than happy to answer them for you.

Send your questions to: segovia/at/richandsuccessful.c*m
Or please call me directly: 604-924-2387 (I'd be happy to chat)