Hmm: mixwit is less Apple/Web 2.0 in its design, but far more robust. Tomorrow, I’ll have to try creating versions of my earlier blogswap mixes. It’d be nice to have archives of these things.

Oh, how nifty!

Wow, the design of Mixwit turns me right off. Too bloody perky. I like the looks of Muxtape, though, and I believe them when they say they’re gonna be adding more features double quick. I’m definitely gonna put one up there when I get a chance.

Comment here when you’ve got one up, yeah?

Also: I like hearing people’s responses to design; it’s interesting that Mixwit’s turned you off so immediately. Design is tough.

Most of my music is on my other computer, so it might not be until the weekend.

Mixwit reminded me of Snapfish, for some reason. It doesn’t seem to be a shill site or anything, but it has the same sort of glossy blandness to it.

It’s too bad neither Mixwit nor Muxtape allow mp3 downloads, but I suppose that would be too much to ask.

I’ve been using project playlist (I have a playlist of all the songs I could find that I’ve been listening to while making LiveJournal posts at the top of my journal), but Muxtape wins for letting you upload songs since I never find the ones I really want using the search engines on these things. This makes me wish I had my music in MP3 format, but I uploaded it all into iTunes and left my CDs with my parents when I moved. I just have the music with me that I’ve bought since then. So you’ll get my mix tape from multiple sources.

This song should come first: http://youtube.com/watch?v=u6uRg9aslZg

I managed to sneak a poem into these ones, though the poet’s last name is misspelled and you might rather skip over the poet’s commentary on publishing at the end: http://www.playlist.com/node/29527439

And this should be the last one: http://annieamaryllis.muxtape.com/

I love this kind of thing. Thanks for sharing your mix tape, Nate. It’s nice to listen to some familiar songs and others that are beautiful and new to me.

Also, with Mixwit it appears you have to host your own files (or link to them on someone else’s website, which is rude). That’s much more bother than what Muxtape does. If you have enough space to host them yourself, why not use Art of the Mix and let people download them into the bargain?

Amanda,

That’s right — I remember your mentioning playlist.com before. By the way, if you have music in iTunes you can still upload it — just find the folder with your iTunes library. The iTunes format (I forget what the extension is) still works for Muxtape. Muxtape also just added RSS feeds, so as soon as you get one up I’ll add you to ye old Bloglines.

Thanks for listening to my mix! I feel slightly embarrassed to have someone who’s known me as long as you have see how little my music tastes have changed… I still love many of the same artists I always have. On average, I think I come to like about two new artists/bands every year. At most.

http://nepomuk.muxtape.com/

Fafner, I think project playlist is pretty lame for reasons you’ve mentioned above about mixwit: the rudeness of linking the files from someone else’s website and the design. And project playlist is even worse because of all the advertisements.

Nate, it’s great to know iTunes files will work with Muxtape! I’ll put a whole playlist up on there later.

We often tend to latch onto certain artists, but I don’t think this needs to be seen as a fault. To some extent this can be about sticking with what’s comfortable, but when you look at artists like the Smashing Pumpkins and how diverse their catalog is, it’s also about going through a process of growth and change with a favorite musician. But as you know this is from someone who still considers Mariah Carey one of those artists who has helped me grow and change, so think what you will about my opinion! Ooh, maybe I’ll work something of hers into the playlist. I hope everyone wouldn’t skip such a song.

I don’t branch out and discover new artists enough either. MySpace has been a place where I have found more new music than I ever would have ventured to find before, so whatever the site’s flaws, it’s been wonderful for me in that way. I’ll try to include some less well known artists who I came across on that site in my playlist.

I tend to have the fault of listening the the same album over and over again when I really find myself in a place where that album is speaking to me and resonating with my life. Right now that album is Saul Williams’ The Rise and Inevitable Liberation of Niggy Tardust. It’s fucking brilliant the way he works with African American history and draws on literary as well as musical influences—how many albums could I envision myself teaching alongside both W.E.B. DuBois’ writings about double consciousness and Richard Wright’s novel Native Son? I’m a bit hard-pressed to think of any besides this one. But the album’s hardly an exercise in pedantry and can certainly be appreciated without familiarity with those references.

Nate: Muxtape is pretty awesome. I’ve figured for a while that something like this had to exist, but I just didn’t know where to look. Thanks for posting on it.

Nope, I get an error message saying that the site only accepts MP3s at this time. At least that seems to suggest they’ll try to support other file types in the future. So I made a mix from the music I have with me here, though it’s not terribly cohesive. http://annieamaryllis.muxtape.com/

They have RSS feeds now. Also, this: http://hb123.muxtape.com/

http://memoriesofearth.muxtape.com/

Amanda: You should be able to convert the iTunes AAC/MP4 files you imported from CD to MP3s. Disclaimer: this works in iTunes 7.5 on a Mac. It should work for recent Windows versions as well. I may be missing something. YMMV.

In iTunes Preferences—Advanced—Importing set ‘Import Using’ to ‘MP3 Encoder’ and change the import settings to your liking. Then right click on a track or tracks in iTunes and select ‘Convert Selection to MP3.’ You’ll end up with two versions of a track: the one you started with and an MP3 copy. Right click and ‘Get Info’ to see which is which.

‘Transcoding’ MP4s to MP3s like this I’ve had good results setting the MP3 encoder to: Setting: Custom; Stereo Bit Rate: 192k VBR; Quality: High; Stereo Mode: Joint Stereo. Again, YMMV. If you leave ‘Import Using’ set to ‘MP3 Encoder,’ things you later import to iTunes from CD will be MP3s.

Thanks Mike G, I made the playlist I wanted and procrastinated on the poems I should be writing.