News Archive for 07/05/29

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PayPlay offers DRM-free tracks for $0.88

05/29, 2:20pm

PayPlay takes on iTunes

PayPlay.FM today began selling its catalog of 1.3 million audio tracks in unprotected MP3 format for $0.88 cents per song, beating out Apple's iTunes Store which charges $0.99 cents per track while matching the Cupertino-based company's efforts to offer DRM-free music. PayPlay works with Mac, Windows, and Unix platforms by providing music without monthly subscription services and without advertisements or plug-ins. PayPlay's browser-based interface and buy-to-own model deliver music in 192Kbps VBR sound, higher quality than iTunes' 128Kbps tracks which cost $0.10 cents more. Apple's iTunes Store currently dominates digital music sales, however, providing iPod owners with an easy way to purchase, load, and listen to tracks on the portable device as well as from the home PC or Mac.

MoodMaker 3.5 adds background profiling

05/29, 11:55am

MoodMaker 3.5 released

NexTune today released MoodMaker 3.5, the latest release of the company's flagship digital music software that offers a slew of new features. MoodMaker 3.5 offers background profiling to retrieve song characteristics used to organize a playlist of songs based on tempo and flow. The digital music software is the first of its kind to playlist songs automatically based on characteristics of the specific song selections, according to NexTune, which offers its own song level online music recognition database exclusively for MoodMaker users. Membership is priced at $30 per year, and includes unlimited use of NexTune's MoodMaker software.

KaraTunes 3 supports synchronized lyrics

05/29, 9:50am

KaraTunes 3 for iTunes

Ideographer.com has released KaraTunes 3.0, a major update to the personal lyrics database application for Mac OS X. The new version supports the LRC format, which is a lyrics format with time tags. With the LRC support in KaraTunes, users can listen to their songs and watch synchronized lyrics in a window or in full-screen mode. The new synchronized lyrics editor lets users create and edit synchronized lyrics for their songs. KaraTunes 3.0 also has better support for the iPod so that users can organize lyrics by artist or album when they upload them to the iPod. KaraTunes is an add-on for iTunes that allows users to place all of their lyrics data into a single database which can then be saved, modified and searched with an easy-to-use interface. It is a Universal Binary application for Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and is a free update for all KaraTunes 2 registered users. The software costs $13.