Nokia N900 is really nice multimedia device and can easily compete with iPhone, Adroid phones or any other so-called multimedia handhelds. Music was mentioned in many previous articles and for me N900 is really good for this purpose. Today I’d like to present Maesynth, simple but really nice synthesizer application.
Well, actually the keyboard shown on screen covers only one octave, but for simple melodies it’s good, maybe in time new version will include wider keyboard, I really hope so. Three different voices, piano, guitar and violin also look quite basic, but play nicely, sound is good for such simple application. Additionally there is option to compose and play simple 16-beat percussion background with desired tempo. With all of this features you can present your melody idea, include simple drums and for instance propose new song idea to your band when you have no guitar, piano or drum set nearby.
And again Nokia N900 reveals it’s multimedia potential. I realise that it may not look as professional software yet, but advanced and complex applications tend to develop for quite some time, therefore I think that in time there will be possibility to build good base for small bands, along with Guitar Chords, Maetronome or tuner. I’ll be waiting for next versions, maybe with wider keyboard, maybe more sounds.
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MJ

There are these days, when you have nothing to do (doesn’t happen to me recently ), then good concert or any music event is better than sitting back and watch TV. Nokia N900 and Gig Finder application will help you find such event automatically in just few seconds.
The main advantage of Gig Finder is geolocation, really short period of running GPS receiver that is completely enough to let application check where you are. After that application checks the nearest musical events according to data from last.fm, one of the biggest social websites for music fans. You may already know it from article about music on Nokia N900 where I’ve mentioned audioscrobbler, that allows you to add songs you’re listening to your personal database.
Now that you have such nice tool you can use your N900 not only to enjoy music wherever you are and share what you’re listening to but you can also be part of live events all over the world.
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MJ

Apart from being software developer at work and N900 fan in the mean time, I’m also amateur bass guitar player. If you share similar interests you know that practice is the best way to become better. As bassist I know how important is to follow the rythm and keep constant tempo and stay tuned. N900 is also a good tool to do it.
To keep the rythm and tempo it’s good to have metronome. In case of N900 we have Maetronome application. Pretty simple, single screen with basic settings of bitrate and time signature. Good thing is that first beat in each bar is indicated by beep and every subsequent by knock, so you can easily follow the rythm exactly.
Every guitarist also know that it’s good to tune the instrument before playing. For this we have Tuner application for N900 with features available in every digital guitar tuner. Just start the application and you can set base frequency and check weather your tune is similar to tones generated by on-screen keyboard. When you play a note on your guitar it will be taken by N900 microphone and you will know what note are you close to and how to correct the tuning.
This way you can replace two additional things in your backpack for just one N900 that you probably carry all the time. I think this is good solution.
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

When you know how to rip CDs for your N900 it’s easy to do so, but what about the files you already have without tags and you can see only ‘(unknown artist)’ at the end of your music list? There is way to fill this missing part without much effort.

Tagging application for Windows I like the most is Mp3tag. It’s free, simple and functional with many useful features. One of the most interesting is possibility to query few network databases for complete album tracklist and details, so tagging a bunch of files may be simplified to few clicks only. Mp3tag automatically shows full list of mp3 files in given directory, so it’s easy to spot missing tags in your collection and fill the blanks.

The finest (in my opinion) application for Linux I’ve found for now is Kid3. UI is simple and easy to use, similarly to Windows software. Here we also have possibility to search several internet databases for desired album not to type name for every track by hand.

When you have it done, you can enjoy having well tagged music collection and tagging is more common and it’s usefulness doesn’t end on N900, let’s play tag! You’re it!
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

Recently I received very nice present from very important person. She knew that I will be happy to get newest album of my favourite bassist Wojtek Pilichowski. Unfortunately my N900 doesn’t have a CD player , so I need to rip it (as many times before) to media files understandable by my portable player.

Under Linux there are a lot of CD rippers, but I use the one that seems to be default for Ubuntu – Sound Juicer, it has few profiles to choose, including loseless flac files. Good thing about this software is that it reads additional CD data like artist name and titles for all the tracks and album, which makes one step of tagging files less, but it also has option to download tags from MusicBrainz. Actually just after this simple process my mp3s are ready, waiting in music directory to upload to the N900.

When I use Windows computer I use CDEx, free for non-commercial use. It’s highly configurable but still you can use it out-of-the-box. It’s enough just to click and wait for results. It’s good to check preferences to see where files will go, for me it was ‘C:\Program Files\CDEx\my music’ directory. It also has ability to read additional data or to download tags from CDDB, so there shouldn’t be any problem with tags for your music files.

And practically it’s finished, it doesn’t matter if you have personal PC with Windows or Linux, you can freely play your new music on your N900.
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Wojtek Pilichowski and Fair of Noise are trademarks of Wojtek Pilichowski.
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

Music plays significant role in my life, there’s always something playing when I’m on bus, train, at home, at work, anywhere. N900 allows even more possibilities with built-in media player.
One of the very first thoughts after unboxing my N900 was that I want to test it’s media player, pack it with my favourite music, check files indexing by tags and subsequently use last.fm so-called scrobbler to keep track of what I’m listening to. I even wanted to write my own daemon or plugin to make it possible, but someone was faster than me. Right then there was a package called mafw-lastfm (aka. Last.fm scrobbler, available in extras-devel), and then it was still pretty buggy. Today I use it every day without any problems. Only thing you need to do after installing is going to settings, and put your login and password in Last.fm settings.

If it comes to music I don’t have good memory for titles, artists, albums and so on. Sometimes it would be nice if I could check what I’m currently listening to while browsing the internet in the same time. Lately I’ve found Now Playing Notifications (available in extras-devel), which pops info as for the mail or text message every time the next song is being played. One thing you should know before you start using this is the fact that every time notification is displayed and screen is not locked backlight will be turned on, so be careful with your battery life when using this stuff. After installing you will also experience N900 reboot, it’s normal in order to turn on new notifications.

This is what I find really good in Maemo society, some people think in similar way and I can get something I need just because someone thought the same.
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum