Tasumakan - The Sound of Fire

[EvanP]

Amazing what a person can learn when the volume's not muted!

D'oh!

[Burning Soul]

Awesome idea for a promotion.

[James]

Ok Tasumakan is now back on sale

Today's draw coming soon

[pepperonihead]

Hey every one. I introduced my self on the introduction thread. I will be continuously around. I have been taking lessons for two months and a couple weeks. It is coming along and I love it. Would love to have any other resources for learning. I was fortunate enough to do the workshop with Mamady Keita on Saturday at Motherland Music and got to watch some of Famoudou Konate's class. It was a great day which I am still buzzing from.

[James]

Today there are 2 winners, since I didn't draw one yeserday

[Michel]

Oh yeah! that's so nice! I never win something! Can't wait....
What happens next? I saw a new thread secured with a password....


Thanks so much

Michel

[James]

Hi Michel, I will send you a message real soon

[Waraba]

Anyone know why I can't transfer my video files onto my iPod Touch? it goes into iTunes just fine...

[bops]

Anyone know why I can't transfer my video files onto my iPod Touch? it goes into iTunes just fine...

Hi Waraba, I'll borrow my son's iPod touch when I get home and take a look. It should work ok... I'll let you know soon.

[michi]

The videos are 1280x720, which is too big for an (original) iPod touch or iPhone 3/3G/3GS. (They will work fine with the new iPod touch and the iPad though.)

For playback on an original iPod touch, you need to transcode to something smaller. (You may want to transcode even for a new iPod touch to save on storage.)

The original iPod touch has a screen resolution of 480x320, as does the iPhone 3/3G/3GS. The new ones have 960x640.

Popular options are to transcode for

• iPod touch at 480x272
• iPod classic at 320x176
• iPhone 4 and new iPod touch at 960x544
• iPad at 1024x576
• iPod classic at 640x352
• Universal at 720x400

Except for the last two, each of these takes advantage of the maximum resolution of the respective device.

Personally, I like the 320-wide option for everything, simply because the videos are reference material: the low video quality doesn't matter as long as I can recognise what's going on, and the 320-wide option results in files that are very small.

The universal option is useful if you want to be able to view the video on more than one portable device with different native resolutions because that resolution works for all of them (including an iPod classic). At the same time, at 720 wide, you can connect an AV cable to your device and view the video in very nice quality on a large screen. This gives you the best of both worlds, at the cost of larger file size.

The 640 option does the same thing, allowing you to view the video on both your mobile device and to display it on a larger screen at fairly decent quality, while reducing file size a bit more than the 720 option.

For a 2-minute video, the approximate sizes are:

• 320: 3.2MB
• 480: 4.5MB
• 640: 6.1MB
• 720: 7.1MB
• 960: 11.0MB
• 1024: 12.1MB

The exact sizes vary on how aggressively you compress the video, so the above is only a rough guide.

Cheers,

Michi.

[Waraba]

Holy smoke. You went right over my head. Michi, I am still trying to figure out the mechanics of ancient technologies such as djembes and mbira; you want me to change the resolution of a video? How does one even begin? Go slow for me, man. Doni doni.

[michi]

It's not hard to do. Go and grab a copy of Handbrake. It's free.

You point it at the source videos, select a destination directory and choose the resolution you want from the presets that ship with Handbrake. Press "Start" and, a few hours later, you'll find transcoded files at whatever resolution you selected in the destination directory. (Transcoding is slow--depending on your computer's speed, it may take overnight.)

Then drag and drop the transcoded files into iTunes and sync with your device.

Cheers,

Michi.

[James]

Soko, the latest installment of Tasumakan is out now.

These videos are the best yet and now come with complete notation for all parts including the solo.