Hey all, I've been wondering how something as complex as the empeg can be made accessible to the average user. How can every step of empeg ownership be made easier over its entire life cycle? The goal is to bring the goodness of empeg to more users. I haven't thought this through completely (which is why I'm posting for thoughts and ideas), but I'm thinking stuff like:
(and if this stuff exists, please point me to it)
(and as I'm writing this, I'm starting to think "there aren't enough new users to make any of this worth while")

Overview: Pulling it ALL together:
There's so many empeg resources. I've been moderately active in the community for almost a year and a half and I only know so little of it all.
Solution - Create a single site with links to all empeg resources, projects, to-be-created usage FAQ's, etc. Update frequently.

Preparing your mp3 collection for the empeg:
"Tagging all your mp3s" seems to frighten people I tell about the empeg. Is there an easier way?
Solution - Use Tag&Rename to do a simple "folder as album name" and "file as song name" rename work?

Designing playlist structure:
Then there's organization. I obsessed over mine, but what about everone else? Did anyone get by just tossing stuff on their in no real order?
Solution - Use existing folder structure (see above)? SOUP (see below)???

Uploading to the empeg:
Emplode is real easy for me. But what about jemplode and the other upload solutions? What ever are the other upload programs?
Solution - Jemplode SOUPs to auto-create organization based on genre (or something???).

Use in car and in home:
Pretty much easy as-is thanks to button-guide and stuff.
Solution - Link button-guide and to-be-created "manual" from a main site.

Adding software/hardware features:
If an average user is lured to the empeg by the promise of cool features, how can the user find them all?
Solution - Site with overview of currently available software and projects. Volunteers to write docs.

Fixing problems:
FAQ and BBS searches has that covered. And they're easy to find from riocar.org.

What other steps need simplifying?

This is a new thought, so if most of this is totally offbase and stupid, blame it on my "pie in the sky"ness. I'm just brainstorming.

I think the problem is that the empeg is far too much deck for the average user.

I see the average user wanting a three word description of it:

"It just works."

Which the empeg doesn't. It take a lot of love and care to make it do what it does the way it does. This isn't a slam on the software; 3.0A5 is plenty stable for me for everyday use. Once it's loaded and whatnot, the empeg does "just work". But it take a bit of work to get there, as you said; ripping, tagging, sorting, etc.

It's hard to convince the non-audiophile / non-geek that this is somehow better than slapping a CD in their dash and being done.

I think as the general public becomes more comfortable with digital music files, this will become much easier. Let's hope so, because I want that Mk3 with the color screen and the japanese support!

You also need to consider since the Empeg has been EOL'd if we want new users to eat up our potential replacement units! Most people who I talk to are daunted even by the install, so I do not think that making things easier on the software side of things will help out at all. I've had several people tell me that they intend on buying one, only to not follow through because they obviously did not want it bad enough. If they want it bad enough, they will seek out all the info they need. This BBS, FAQ and riocar.org are the best resources for any product I have ever seen, if they cannot find answers here they have a problem.

I agree! An owner friend of mine once described it as a labor of love..and that it is...there is no way that my wife would ever want to deal with the operational issues of the unit..although my daughter wants me to get one for her car....NOT

i find it to be an exceptional product due to its simplicity

(and as I'm writing this, I'm starting to think "there aren't enough new users to make any of this worth while")

New users of car-players? No, there aren't, not by a mile, but every other Rio product is going to have to solve these problems too, so any input from car-player users (particularly "less geeky" ones, though I guess they wouldn't be hanging around in internet forums anyway) would certainly not go to waste...

Peter

Yup, I'll have to agree with the others. Even my wife's Karma (which I think is simpler to use than the empeg) is not getting used to its full potential. She let me set it all up and she just uses the features she needs/is comfortable with.

I think the sad truth is that having all of your music accessable means that music has to be organized, and most people don't like to spend time organizing their entertainment. I mean, how many people have their Cds/DVDs organized by Title/ Genere, etc.? But you HAVE to do this in order to work with a large collection digitally. Granted software can do a lot for you, but you still have to take at least some time to run the software, and most people won't even want to do that. So it takes just that much to get a "simple" mp3 player to work; add the flexability of the empeg and I doubt you're going to be able to get people to play.

The rip/tag/rename issues are by far the nastiest (apart from car install issues, which don't matter for Karma etc..).

The software that comes with the unit MUST be able to create quality .mp3 files, out of the box. An absolute MUST for an MP3 player (duh!).

The CDDB style databases get things tagged only approximately, and from there things are difficult to clean up. Slight mispelling of an artist's name ("Red Hot Chili Peppers" vs. Red Hot Chilli Peppers" vs. Red hot chilli peppers" ... ) causes no end of troubles, and is very difficult to correct (I can do it, but not using the software that came with my player).

Retagging the music has to be made really really easy, especially for the most common case of "the tunes are already on the device".

Cheers

Slight mispelling of an artist's name ("Red Hot Chili Peppers" vs. Red Hot Chilli Peppers" vs. Red hot chilli peppers" ... ) causes no end of troubles

You know, if there were some smarts in the loading application you might be able to deal with situations like this in a fairly non-intrusive manner. If you find the same artist name/ album name but with different casing (or perhaps even a partial string match), you could alert the user and offer to automatically fix the problem. Another nice feature would be to identify inconsistent genre tags. So when I drag a "Caedmon's Call" song onto the player that got somehow tagged as "industrial gothic" (real case example of CDDB not having the right thing) it could tell me that all the rest of my Caedmon's Call is tagged as "Christain" and offer to change the genre for me.

The software that comes with the unit MUST be able to create quality .mp3 files, out of the box. An absolute MUST for an MP3 player (duh!).

Oh, and one point that shouldn't be missed here is the "out of the box". Basic users are not going to want to download/buy a separate tagging application; they'll want it all in the software provided. (Which is exacly what Mark said, but I thought it should be emphasized).

So when I drag a "Caedmon's Call" song onto the player that got somehow tagged as "industrial gothic" (real case example of CDDB not having the right thing) it could tell me that all the rest of my Caedmon's Call is tagged as "Christain" and offer to change the genre for me.

You'd need some pretty powerful "Don't show me this again" technology for that, though; if Caedmon's Call ever did perform some industrial gothic, perhaps at the MTV awards or something, it'd soon get annoying to have to answer the question each time. And if not Caedmon's Call, there are plenty of bands whose genre morphs pretty dramatically over the years: The Shamen, for instance, who went from indie rock to ambient to euphoric house.

Peter

...if Caedmon's Call ever did perform some industrial gothic, perhaps at the MTV awards or something...

Flashbacks of Jethro Tull winning the first Heavy Metal Grammy for "Crest of a Knave"...

You'd need some pretty powerful "Don't show me this again" technology for that, though.

Well presumably you'd only load this song/songs onto the player once. And even then after that it wouldn't be inconsistent anymore. The next time you tried to load one of the industrial gothic tunes it wouldn't ask because the genre would already be there. So then it would only ask if you did Caedmon's Call that wasn't either "Christian" OR "Industrial Gothic". (Which, BTW, is a really funny notion if you ever hear Caedmon's Call). Your only real problem would be groups that constantly genre shift (and I can't think of many of those).

The CDDB style databases get things tagged only approximately

i've been lately using mainly a tagger that scrapes allmusic.com, and musicbrainz for those singles that you don't exactly know the whole name of. works pretty well,m and better than CDDB/FreeDb.

i've been lately using mainly a tagger that scrapes allmusic.com, and musicbrainz

can you please tell me the name of that tagger?

cheers, Thomas

input from car-player users (particularly "less geeky" ones, though I guess they wouldn't be hanging around in internet forums anyway) would certainly not go to waste...

Oi! The man who had to buy a PC to work his Empeg hangs about here daily - no-one less geeky than me, I didn't know what a BBS was 'till six months in, and I still stare at some threads knowing that I will never understand them - The Cambridge gang must have dined out on my silly questions!

For a man approaching '60, starting from scratch, I'm glad it wasn't that simple: between having to learn enough to work the Empeg, and getting tips from this BBS, I 've learnt more than I ever expected to know about using a PC and how better to enjoy the music that is my obsession.

Add to that the fantastic pleasure of putting names to so many faces from all over at Amersfoort, last year - and it's a whole piece of my life I'm happy not to have missed.

Anyone want a Sony 200CD Changer!!!!!!!!!!!

Flashbacks of Jethro Tull winning the first Heavy Metal Grammy for "Crest of a Knave"...

Hey, Crest was a great album. It's not Ian's fault that they shoehorned him into a category that didn't really fit.

I'm glad it wasn't that simple.

With respect, that attitude makes you a geek.

Peter

Hey, Crest was a great album...

Oh, no objection here! Remember, I had Thick As A Brick on my desert island 10... No, I just don't think it should have been categorized as "Heavy Metal". I do not think it fair to either Jethro Tull or the Heavy Metal genre.

Uhm.. in responce to the question in the subject line..

..why would we want to?
We'd have a whole bunch of yuppies and geek wanna be's hanging around here, going, "Hey! Dood! It'd be real cool if we could make it, like.."

(I stopped there. Mostly because I wanted to use an example of something that it would never, coule never do. What came to mind was:
1. Tracking our position on a mpa! Already done.
2. Singing along to the song! Could be done. We have lyrics, and we have Text2Speech.
3. Color screen. Not really done, but it was discussed, if I recall.)

So, I'm biting my tounge and not saying anything. This is sad. The empeg reall can do just about anything you would want for music in your car. And then some.

Me.

that attitude makes you a geek.

Bollocks, you've got me, I'll be blackballed by the golf club!!
Oh, No, I'm not a member: "I would not wish to be a member of any club that wished to have me a member" - Groucho Marx!!!!!!!!!!

can you please tell me the name of that tagger?

Tag & Rename v3.01

Thanks, i was using a very old version long ago, but i stopped using it, cause it had no id3v2 support.
Then i forgot about it and wasn't aware, that they now use allmusic etc...
I will definately give it a try again.

cheers, Thomas

... so much to say... all the ideas flowing around this thread makes my head hurt.

I finally used a Rio handheld from this decade for the first time (a Rio Nitrus). I was shocked to see how darn similar it was to the empeg; and how sadly UNDERused it was by the owner. So yes, Peter, maybe some ideas can help Rio users take full advantage of their players.

So, tagging (which seems to be a big hang):
What about some "Wizards" or tutorials to get people through some of the tagging?

When I installed the Nitrus software, I saw it build the Rio Music Manager database, but could that process be kicked up a notch? This is, of course, for "pre-first-upload" setups. Maybe when RMM finds new music on the computer, it could also offer the following options.

Say, have it ask the user if it should go out to allmusic or CDDB and fill in whatever tags it can. Then, it could assume each folder is an album and try to get tags for that "album".

It could even do advanced genre checking: If three albums with the same artist have two different genres, make the minority one the same as the majority. Maybe the same could go for inconsistant artist tags. But I'm a full-album guy; what about proper tags on single tracks?

However, all this cool tagging is moot if the user doesn't know how to take advantage of it. Maybe "Tip of the Day" in RMM (or even on the device) could show the user cool sort functions or playlist tricks. Maybe a little tutorial within RMM upon first install or after the first upload.

Maybe a little more marketing effort for software, showing that it really is (apparently) better than iPod; print ads, website ads, etc. I can picture a print ad saying: "Rio Nitrus Trip # 302: Sort by genre to suit your mood; in 1 easy step. Can your iPod do this?" Maybe tips on the website. Marketing marketing marketing. Get the chaps' hard work known to the masses.

And on the side:
Speedy67: I've been using Tag&Rename 2.1 for 1.5 years to rename 6,000+ songs. New versions seem buggy but I've never had a problem with this one. And it lets you use allmusic.com or freedb (which I use).

I've been using Tag&Rename 2.1 for 1.5 years to rename 6,000+ songs. New versions seem buggy

They have version 2.1.7.4 on their website for download. Is this one OK?

cheers, Thomas