September 20, 2000

The Wall Of Sound Soundbooth is in public beta! I love this thing, probably one of the most exciting things to come from this company. The music is streamed, but on a track-by-track basis, so you can pause or skip a song. The pre-set stations are great, with albums and tracks chosen by real music lovers (the first time I've seen a decent Classical section). The most exciting part, I think, is you can create your own station from categories, specific albums, or specific tracks. (Alas, you can't have a custom station with just one song to temporarily listen to a particular song then ditch it.) And it's free (with a short audio ad every half hour or so).

It is a beta, and I've heard of some Mac and Netscape problems. So you can wait for the full release if you like, but do give it a try.

(Am I naive? Are there other music sites out there that provide this level of control over streamed music?)

comments...

pater, September 20, 2000 10:01 AM:

A decent classical selection, it seems, but I could only hear one movement of a piece (chosen at random?) before it became something else. Prokofiev suddenly shifted to Mozart. Reminds me of those collections of "greatest moments" in music. Admittedly, I did not register or anything. Will the finished site allow one to hear a complete piano concerto or symphony, etc? Or am I doing something wrong? (Is this what they call usability testing?)

pater, September 20, 2000 10:17 AM:

I take it back. The selection sucks. Listening to the "classical" track of a Mozart piano concerto while reading the NYTimes online, I suddenly heard all this distortion in the sound. So I looked at the site and discovered I was hearing "A Different Mozart"--some godawful "improvement" on Mozart, created by adding the usual array of pop background instruments, some synthesizer, and a New Age sensibility. Blechch. If they must play this stuff, surely it could be put in some other of the many genres of "music" listed.

Dan Sanderson, September 22, 2000 1:47 AM:

Yeah, I had to revise my comments when talking about this elsewhere. The "selection" is poor in that it's contaminated with garbage discs. Pop classical that opens with nature sounds and crap.



What I was impressed with was the stations divided by period. I've always wanted a stream of nothing but Late Romatics (never a garbage track in that collection). But their Classical Piano channel is just too random and crappy. And yes, when it's splitting CDs by track, there's no chance of hearing an entire symphony, thanks to randomized obfuscation required by the media companies. (Track-on-demand scares them too much.)