The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Posted: **Sun Oct 03, 2004 6:32 pm**

I've just started checking out iPodding [podcasting], which uses RSS technologies to syndicate mp3 files as enclosures.

<a href="http://www.nbc4.com/technology/3772528/ ... ml">Here's an article about it</a>

My thought is this: my newsreader would essentially pick up the latest songfight when it is available. No more hitting the site(s) thousands of times on Mondays, etc. And it interacts with iTunes and gets staged to my iPod (it works with Microsoft audio and devices as well) transparently, as its own playlist.

Damn. I'm thinking that's pretty cool. If we could aggregate the various fights, sidefights and coverfights and use a common approach (including dealing with those pesky ID3 tags) we'd be one bleeding edge audio community!

Anyone else playing with this?

Posted: **Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:22 am**

It sounds a really good idea. The article is well worth reading, as before I read it I knew nothing.
Does it mean we would all have to master to a specific standard, set tags in the same way etc, or is it more flexible?
Any suggestions for a good site to learn about RSS feeds?

Posted: **Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:21 am**

RSS is hugely big and is the leading method behind newsfeed syndication on the web. Here are some links:

<a href="http://www.webreference.com/authoring/l ... ro/">Intro to RSS</a>

News aggregators/readers are what automatically keep you aware of new items and are typically a small client app but <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/blog/roymond">Bloglines</a> is a great web-based one. I used to use <a href="http://radio.userland.com/">Userland Radio</a> for my <a href="http://roymond.com/radio/">old blog</a> and news aggregator but had to go to a web-based tool since I work from three different machines. (I don't have much time lately so its more an illustrated bookmarking system than a blog)

Wired, The NY Times, Reuters, and thousands of other sites (most all blogs) have little "XML" or "RSS" links on their pages. Those are what feeds this system, and the URL of those links is what you use to subscribe to them.

What iPodding does is use this concept to distribute audio, creating custom, downloadable radio shows, in effect.

Posted: **Sun Oct 10, 2004 11:52 am**

To further explain, RSS is basically a simplified XML-based language, like HTML except it doesn't provide anything except for data, ideally time-oriented, like weblog posts and so on. Essentially it's the web, distilled into a format optimized for simple programs to go out and regularly retrieve a chunk of information.

One of the great things about RSS is that it's extremely easy to publish. Most weblogging tools come with RSS support out-of-the-box, and the format itself is pretty simple, if you already know how to make webpages (it's similar to HTML though it's a different set of tags). The format is intended to be script-generated, though, not hand-written.

The nice thing about RSS is that once you have a newsreader which supports it, you can queue up pretty much any kind of information which is published as an RSS feed, like weblogs, radio shows (like what Roymond is trying to do), and so on. The annoying thing is that you need to find a newsreader which doesn't suck, and so far I haven't found such a thing, and the format is different enough from HTML that you can't just use wget and a normal web browser to do everything. The version of Safari which will come with MacOS 10.4 will have built-in RSS support, though, and it looks pretty nice, though from what I've seen it still doesn't do the one feature that I actually want in a newsreader (namely showing everything as a stream of permalinks and summaries, sorted by time rather than by site). That and I'd rather have something web-based so I don't need a newsreader on every system I use and a copy of my feed list maintained everywhere, and iSync isn't a useful solution since I have to (gasp!) use Windows at work.

Anyway, PODcasting seems to be the first interesting use of RSS which doesn't just boil down to "here is another way to be notified that my weblog has updated."

Posted: **Sun Oct 10, 2004 12:34 pm**

So it's not particularly clear from that article, and more specifically, http://www.ipodder.org , but if I understand this right, it would be pretty simple to add support to this: just add a step to the fight update process that puts some new items into an rss.xml file. And all the information you'd need is there already, it's just something like

<item>
<title>I Like To Eat Paste</title>
<pubDate>Mon, 31 Nov 2004</pubDate>
<enclosure url="www.songfight.org/music/paste/charcoal_paste.mp3"/>
<enclosure url="et.cetera"/>
</item>

Heck, someone could do this with a little html screen-scraping.

The hard part, it seems to me, would be consistent mp3 tagging; wouldn't that have to be done server-side? I don't think anyone at Club Fightmaster really wants to do that, and I highly doubt that we can count on ourselves to either agree to a standard, or keep to it.

Posted: **Sun Oct 10, 2004 2:10 pm**

Theoretically, the ID3 tags can be programmatically set using a variety of code libraries. The only catch is that some of these libraries do it wrong, potentially rendering the mp3 corrupt and/or unplayable in some players (e.g. Windows Media Player can be fussy).

So backups and testing would be in order. If it were done at a mirror, or on the client side, there'd be less to worry about.

Posted: **Sun Oct 10, 2004 3:28 pm**

I can vouch for the simplicity of RSS feeds-- I managed to build one for my website, highlyderivative.net, and I'm a moron.

P.S. Fluffy, have you tried Newsfire in OS X? I haven't found any problems with it-- it's the most lightweight RSS reader I've found and the only problem I have with it is the lack of "folders" for groups of feeds, which is apparently a feature that is coming in the near future.

http://www.newsfirerss.com

Posted: **Sun Oct 10, 2004 8:30 pm**

My <a href="http://trikuare.cx/code/sfgrab.sh">songfight mirror script</a> does a great (IMHO, of course) job of fixing the id3tags of the fights.

I haven't heard of NewsFire... does it provide that unified single-stream aggregation view I want? And, does it let me also access it as a CGI script remotely so I can still benefit from it when I'm away from my computer?

Posted: **Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:54 am**

I have started a podcast that discusses independent content networks - sort of creating a true network distribution system out of indie material that can operate effectivve in spite of, and in competition with, corporate ones. More than that it features awesome music by you folks. The second segment should go out tonight. Details and background will be posted tomorrow. However, I need some instrumental music for under the talk portions. Not only is it dry without some great textures going on, but I am a bit sucky as a DJ and need the crutch.

If you have some cool stuff that I can use, please post it here or PM me. I'll credit everything I use.

Thanks!

Posted: **Mon Oct 11, 2004 1:51 pm**

mr roymond, if you want instrumentals, peruse my website...
almost all of my non-songfight stuff is instrumentals.
-bill

Posted: **Mon Oct 11, 2004 5:04 pm**

roymond wrote: However, I need some instrumental music for under the talk portions. Not only is it dry without some great textures going on, but I am a bit sucky as a DJ and need the crutch.

If you have some cool stuff that I can use, please post it here or PM me. I'll credit everything I use.

Thanks!

this has hoblit's name written all over it.

Posted: **Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:27 pm**

The second segment of ICN is up <a href="http://roymond.com/icn/">here</a>. I'm playing with podcasting, and I suck as aDJ, but am forcing myself to do this to produce content and be a part of the podcast distribution model.

I'm piecing together some plans for a larger Independent Content Network concept, which will offer full frame video, high resolution audio and other media types over broadband and delivered via subscriptions as enclosures to RSS feeds. All this needs to be aggregated and offered in a consumer-friendly way. Why can't an independent network essentially replace the commercial ones for those who want it?

I explain on my <a href="http://roymond.com/icn">blog</a>. Go to iPodder.org and podcastcentral.com to read up on podcasting and to download the clients that will automatically stage shows like this to your iPod or other portable player. It's very cool.

I subscribe to public radio station WGBH's for their morning segment and the Gilmor Gang's geek talk show. Keeps me busy during the commute.

Let me know if you have any comments on this stuff. Also if you want to contribute to my ICN shows. I'd like it to be varried and entertaining, and feature the best of indie music.

Posted: **Tue Oct 12, 2004 7:26 am**

roymond,

i think this is a very cool thing you're doing.

i'm listening to the 2nd issue (or whatever you call it) now. you have a great voice for this kind of thing.

i don't sync my ipod often enough to take advantage of the ipodcasting aspect, but i just subscribed to your blog.

keep up the good work!

-craig

Posted: **Tue Mar 15, 2005 3:18 pm**

Not to dredge up an old topic, but...IS there a podcast somewhere that contains all of the songfight songs for a given week, perhaps with a bit 'o commentary? I'm on the fence about buying an mp3 player, and this would probably push me over.

Posted: **Tue Mar 15, 2005 3:38 pm**

There are four, one for each color:

http://songfight.org/cyan/stream.m3u
http://songfight.org/magenta/stream.m3u
http://songfight.org/yellow/stream.m3u
http://songfight.org/black/stream.m3u

Granted they're in m3u format, not RSS, but the idea is the same (and simpler, and better-done).

Actually I've been meaning to rewrite my various grab-and-tag scripts, and while I'm at it I could make it put out an RSS feed as well.

I think you can just drag an m3u file onto an iPod and it'll download all the songs and upload them, but I'm not sure. (I've never tried it.)

Posted: **Tue Mar 15, 2005 6:38 pm**

MintyHandy wrote:Not to dredge up an old topic, but...IS there a podcast somewhere that contains all of the songfight songs for a given week, perhaps with a bit 'o commentary? I'm on the fence about buying an mp3 player, and this would probably push me over.

Yeah, well my intent was to podcast the best of each fight. I plan on getting back into the swing of it this week (or some swing of it, anyway). I am looking -Glenn- for some volunteers -Glenn- to do podcasts -Glenn- for various fights -Glenn- (not unlike the coverart is divied up).

As for buying an MP3 player, don't feel like podcasts are the sole reason you need (although it is freakin cool). As Fluffy has pointed out, staging all the songs to it isn't that hard.

I'll update this thread once I'm back on the mic.

Posted: **Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:18 am**

Finally put another podcast together.

Check it here and subscribe via RSS: <a href="http://roymond.com/icn/index.xml">[img] ... es/pod.gif[/img]</a>

Or just listen / download directly (in the meantime) in the first link.

ADD - Systematic Panic
Teaching Willie - Punk Bartender
Minty Handy - Our Love Violates Corporate Policy
Hostess Mostess - Our Love Violates Corporate Policy
Max The Cat - Devils Live in A Quiet Pond
The Special Relatives - Devils Live In A Quiet Pond[/img]

Posted: **Tue Apr 12, 2005 9:42 am**

From what I can tell, podcasting a songfight would mean joining all the songs together in one big file. Which is something we're just never going to take the trouble to do, I can tell you that.

Is this not the case? I haven't found any instructions that seem to describe making a podcast in the way you'd make a radio show via m3u, with separate files for each segment of the show. They're all like "make a big wave file, convert it to mp3, and add it to your RSS file. Voila! Podcast!"

jb

Posted: **Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:23 am**

That's not my impression of what would be done. Basically, in my mind, you'd have an RSS file that changes once per week. It would have one <item> per song, each with its own enclosure for the MP3 link. When the podcast scraper sees the new file, it'll download all of the MP3 files separately and copy them over to the iPod.

An example might help - I have a Podcast set up for all of my songs: http://www.joshwoodward.com/mod/song/podcast.php. There are 75 or so MP3s currently in the feed. When I post a new MP3, it shows up in the top of the list along with the others, and the podcaster scrapers know that there's a new one that they haven't seen yet, so they copy it to the user's iPod.

Posted: **Tue Apr 12, 2005 12:55 pm**

Exactly, Josh. And that's how my roymond podcast is setup as well. ICN is more a radio show where I embarrass myself by playing DJ.

JB - there's podcast the "radio show" (see above) and podcast the delivery mechanism. As for Songfight, I was refering to the delivery mechanism, which would delivery all the songs individually. It creates as many enclosures as there are links to songs.

Posted: **Tue Apr 12, 2005 1:37 pm**

So how would that wind up if we did it for sf? Can you make an example of what it would look like as a .rss file? Maybe just use Rule of Thump as the example.

jb

Posted: **Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:22 pm**

This treats each song in the fight as a separate item, and just has one feed per fight. Adding more fights to the single feed is straightforward (just have multiple <channel> blocks). I don't see any easy way to have multiple enclosures in a single fight which would also provide the artist names.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

<rss version="2.0" 
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/"
	xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">

<channel>
	<title>SongFight</title>
	<link>http://songfight.org/</link>
	<description>Feed</description>
	<language>en-us</language>
	<dc:creator>fightmaster@songfight.org</dc:creator>
	<dc:rights>Copyright 2005</dc:rights>
	<dc:date>2005-04-12T16:27:40-05:00</dc:date>
	<admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://songfight.org/" />
	<admin:errorReportsTo rdf:resource="mailto:nobody@example.com" />
	<sy:updatePeriod>daily</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<sy:updateBase>2000-01-01T12:00+00:00</sy:updateBase>

   <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://songfight.org/magenta/" />
		<item>
			<title>Rule Of Thump</title>
			<link>http://songfight.org/magenta/</link>
			<description>Abjure!</description>
			<guid isPermaLink="true">http://songfight.org/songpage.php?key=rule_of_thump</guid>
  			<content:encoded><![CDATA[]]></content:encoded>
			<dc:subject></dc:subject>
			<dc:date>2005-04-12T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
			<enclosure url="http://www.songfight.org/music/rule_of_thump/abjure_rot.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" />		</item>
		<item>
			<title>Rule Of Thump</title>
			<link>http://songfight.org/magenta/</link>
			<description>Abecedarian</description>
			<guid isPermaLink="true">http://songfight.org/songpage.php?key=rule_of_thump</guid>
  			<content:encoded><![CDATA[]]></content:encoded>
			<dc:subject></dc:subject>
			<dc:date>2005-04-12T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
			<enclosure url="http://www.songfight.org/music/rule_of_thump/abecedarian_rot.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" />		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Podcasting for Songfight!?

Podcasting for Songfight!?

Needed: ambient instrumental music

Re: Needed: ambient instrumental music