Hermes CD Creation Manual

From SnowcrashDigital Wiki

Contents 1 Opening the webinterface 2 Using the webinterface 2.1 Disc Projects 2.2 Uploading files 2.3 Using URL import 2.4 Track Store 2.5 Track List 2.6 Burned Discs 2.7 Album Script Delivery 2.8 Assigning artwork to a track 3 Settings for Hermes Charts 4 Hints and Tips

Opening the webinterface

Touch the Hermes MP3 WorkBench and Select Rez Album - This is your blank canvas, after editing an album script will be delivered to you for insertion.

Next - Select Edit and Login to create your album. After you have logged in, you will see your current project files and your account status

Using the webinterface

Disc Projects

This is your workspace, where you can create, edit and test albums prior to Burning them.

Uploading files

To upload files from your computer, click the "add track" button when creating a CD. You will get a little pop-up window, which allows you to browse to your track on your computer. (click "browse files"). Once you've selected the file on your computer, hit "add track", and you'll see a status bar showing the progress of the file upload.

Once the file is uploaded, the web interface will automatically redirect you to the "edit track" window. Our system automatically detects the name, artist and duration of the file when these data is available in the ID3-tags of the file. Please carefully doublecheck these.

If this data is not automatically detected (e.g. if the data wasn't in the file you uploaded), you can fill this in manually. You can also change this data once the track is uploaded, but do make sure that you fill in the exact duration of the track otherwise you may have problems with playback.

Last but not least, you can add a texture for each track to be shown on the MP3-player screen in-world. To do so, first upload the graphic to Second Life, then right-click on the file name in your Second Life inventory. In the menu you get, select "Copy Asset UUID", then paste this in the edit track window. After a few seconds the artwork on the right side should show your newly added graphic.

Once satisfied with your track, hit the "save" button at the bottom of the edit track window, and your track will be saved along with the data and the graphic into our system.

Using URL import

It's important if you're entering your URL to check that it's correct, and points directly at your MP3 file with no need to log in or click extra links. Our web server grabs the file directly from the web address you give - but it can't log in if there's a password to be entered!

Just like uploading directly from your computer, once our web server has grabbed the file it adds it to your trackstore - checking the ID3 tags if there are any. You can edit the information it shows for track name and artist, then click save to store it. This transfers the file to your track store, and the in-world players will play it from our servers - not yours. That's saving you a pile of bandwidth!

One of the reasons it's really important to check your URL is that we have a known bug in our music file grabbing system. If you give a URL to a file that isn't an MP3, or if the web server gives us any response other than just passing the MP3 file to us, it might result in a track that won't play in-world. We're working on a way to catch these odd problems, but for now, please double check the urls you give.

If you find that it's taking a long time for the file to be picked up, please be patient - our connection to your web server may be slow, or that track may be especially large. The limit on file sizes is a bit more generous if we're picking the file up from your web server, but please don't use a file larger than 20MB. Files larger than this won't be picked up by our system, and will probably result in a broken CD.

You may also wish to assign some artwork which will be displayed on the player during playback.

Once you have created your album online, you're ready to insert an album script into your blank disc for inworld playback, testing and distribution.

Track Store

This is your library of available tracks, you can drag and drop them into your current album.

Track List

This is the live list - ready to be burned onto a disc. The track list can be re-ordered by dragging and dropping them.

Burned Discs

These are completed discs that have been burned. Burned Discs are subtracted from your Album License allowance, if you need to top up with more blanks, use a Hermes ATM to credit your account.

Please note - the album script will only work in a suitable CD object. Do not give the script to your customers to add to other objects or the player as it will cause errors.

Album Script Delivery

From the album listing page, select “Redeliver Script” a named script will be delivered by one of our bots to you in-world. During this process please ensure your AV is not set to busy or away. NB: if Second life is busy this can take up to 10 minutes.

On delivery, edit your album using the following steps.

1. Right Click (Ctl click - Mac) on the album object and from the Pie menu and select EDIT
2. Open your inventory and select the named script from your Scripts folder
3. Drag the Script into the Contents Tab of your Album Object
4. At this stage, you may want to rename the Album object to something more meaningful to you i.e.: My Fab Tunes
5. You're done, you can now test your new work with the built in workbench player or any from the Hermes range.

Once the script is in place and the album named, you can now get to work on applying album artwork textures to your Album.

Assigning artwork to a track

Select a texture from your inventory - set its perms to Copy via the properties box then take a copy of its UUID by right clicking on it and selecting Copy Asset UUID (Mac users - Command Click) paste the value into the track texture field.

Settings for Hermes Charts

Some new settings have been added to the interface, specifically for use with the Herems Album chart once it's live. To find out more, visit Hermes Webinterface Settings for Charts

Hints and Tips

• When applying textures, ensure they are set to Copy and Transfer so you can sell / distribute your album
• Be watchful of the size of your texture - an object of this size does not need a bitmap any wider then 512 pixels at 72 DPI, remember the size of the bitmap effects the download / viewing speed, experiment with the optimum size for you.
• If stored on our server, The maximum size of any one MP3 file is 10 MB - if your file exceeds that limit, resample the track to a lower sample rate or use a weblink (max file size for directly downloaded files is 20MB)
• Test early, test often - repeat this mantra over and over again. Like so many things in SL, it's a really good idea to test your Album early, making sure your tracks are streaming in ok, the artwork is displaying, it's not full of typos etc - so please, please, please - do yourself a favour and test the album throughly before letting it loose. If you want someone to look and listen to it - get in touch with us, we are more than happy to assist you during the build and make you look and sound your very best.
• Keep backups of your work - Much as we love SL, it has been known to break occasionally, so keep backup versions of your work until you're 100% happy with the product.