If you’re unfamiliar with Sonos' fantastic products, go ahead and have a gander at their website.  Synchronized music, in multiple rooms in your home, wirelessly, and controllable via your iPhone.  Epic, right?  Unfortunately, at a price that’s out of range for many every-day music enthusiasts.  This article will show you a way to get similar functionality with existing equipment and some very cheap software.

Let’s say for example that you wanted to control music in two different rooms.  One room has an amp and speakers (i.e. Home Theater), and the other room has just speakers and no amplification.  Sonos’ cheapest bundle includes a controller and two-room system for $999.  Or, if you wanted to use your iPhone and don’t need a controller you could purchase a ZP90 ($349) for your Home Theater and a ZP120 ($499) for your speakers.  That’s still $848.

My system does nearly the same and only cost me $25 and two old laptops I had laying around (a Compaq Presario 1800T and a Dell Inspiron 8500).  You could use old desktops, laptops, even your iPhone or iPod Touch can act as a speaker (…or AirPort Express, or Apple TV, or Windows, or Linux, or Mac)!  It’s infinitely expandable, works flawlessly, and you can be up and running in as few minutes as it takes you to install some basic software.

My Compaq Presario 1800T was released Circa 2001 and has an Intel Pentium III that’s less than 1 GHz.  My Dell Inspiron 8500 was released Circa 2003 and has an Intel Pentium IV 2.4 GHz processor.  The point is, you can use old hardware that you have no other use for.  That Presario isn’t good for much else these days!

The trick to all this is actually quite simple, and this simplicity comes from a strangely named company Rogue Amoeba.  In fact, their tagline is “Strange Name.  Great Software.”  With this, I must agree!  So, on with the how-to:

Things you’ll need:

1. A music source (iTunes, Pandora, Web Radio, whatever)
2. If you’re using iTunes, an iPhone or iPod Touch will give you a nice remote control
3. To serve up your music: Airfoil for Mac or Airfoil for Windows
4. To listen to your music remotely, any combination of the following: a PC, a Mac, a Laptop, an iPhone or iPod Touch, a Linux Machine, an Apple TV, or an AirPort Express
5. About 20 minutes.  Seriously, this won’t take long.

My set-up includes the following, and is what I will be describing below:

1. Music Sources: iTunes Library, Pandora
2. Remote Control: iPhone
3. Server: Airfoil for Windows
4. Speakers: Compaq 1800T, Dell Inspiron 8500, and an iPhone connected to a music dock

What do do:

First, download your Airfoil Server (Mac or Windows).  This will eventually cost you a whopping $25, but the trial version will work fine for now in order to test (it will inject noise after a certain amount of time).  It should be installed from the machine that is going to be the source of your music (i.e. where your iTunes library is).  For me, it’s on my main office desktop.

Second, download Airfoil Speakers for whatever systems you’re going to be broadcasting your music.  Launch the application on each system.

Third, launch Airfoil Server and select the application you’d like to “hijack”.  Hijacking may require that Airfoil restarts the application so it may distribute the audio source throughout your Airfoil Speakers. 

Once launched, you will see a small control panel listing the speakers you can connect to.  In the screenshot to the right, you will see that my local server (Computer) is active as well as my Living Room (INSPIRONLT7).  My iPhone and Bedroom (COMPAQLAPTOP) are currently inactive and not transmitting (but they are turned on and available).  You can click the blue/black speaker icon on the left to stop/start a system from broadcasting.  You also have individual volume controls for each room to the right.

Fourth, if you don’t already have it installed on your iPhone download the “Remote” application from Apple, Inc.  This application allows you to remotely control iTunes from your phone!

Fifth, kick back and enjoy your tunes throughout your house.  You could be relaxing in the backyard using your iPhone to control iTunes in your office which is broadcasting to everyone at a BBQ located in your living room, outdoor patio, and kitchen.  No kidding!

I’m guessing that might have actually taken you less than 20 minutes.  <chuckle>  I told you it was easy!

Tweaks:

In my setup, I simply power up a laptop and it will automatically start playing music when loaded.  There are two simple steps to accomplish this:

• In Airfoil Server settings, tell it to connect automatically whenever a source goes on-line.
• On each laptop, teach Windows to log in automatically instead of prompting you for a username and password.

Jukebox, anyone?

Have you ever wished you had a jukebox in your house?  Your friends could simply select the songs they WANT to hear, and voila…the jukebox will play them.  I’ll one-up you on that request.  This is likely one of the greatest and least known/used features of iTunes and it’s called iTunes DJ.

Anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch can connect to your iTunes music library and “favorite” songs that they’d like to hear played (simply give them access to your WiFi and tell them to launch the Remote app).  Additionally, if multiple people favorite the same song it’ll rise to the top of the playlist!  It’s truly a fantastic party tool. 

Considerations:

• There will be a couple-second delay in what’s played from iTunes and what’s broadcast throughout your house.  This is so the system can buffer a few seconds of music in case there’s a hiccup (it can quickly recover while maintaining synchronization amongst all of your speakers).
• You can only play a single source of music at a time across your speakers.  For me, this is not a big deal, but might be an issue for some that want to have iTunes playing in one room and Pandora in another.

How do you handle your music distribution throughout your home?  Are you doing something similar, vastly different, or unique?  Tell us all about it in the comments!

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How do you organize your music?  Are you an iTunes or Windows Media user?  Do you not bother owning your own music, and use services like Pandora or Last.FM?  Do you create playlists?  If so, are they manual or "smart"?  Can your playlists evolve as your tastes in music do, or do they require you to make changes on your own?

Music happens to be something I spend a lot of my days listening to, and I've also spent a lot of time creating ways for my world to have my music in a form I'm interested in listening to it.  From my home, to my car, to my office, to my gym, to my phone...I've got most of them dialed in to what I want to hear, when I want to hear it, and how I want it organized.

There have been two recent software releases that triggered this post.  The first is from Pandora, where they've created a Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget for their service.  The second is from a service called Simplify Media, and the ability to Scrobble your personal music listening habits directly into Last.FM.  This post will surround these two new services as well as general discussion points on iTunes, Pandora, Last.FM, MusicIP Mixer, and Simplify Media...and how these services help you take your music with you, suggest new music, and organize music to your liking.

I used to be a Windows Media guy...because, well, the iTunes machine just wasn't for me.  Then I got an iPhone, and all that obviously changed.  It simply would be silly for me to not use iTunes.  Since I rank/rate my music, it was a difficult process migrating and I actually had to write software to move my Windows Media ratings into iTunes.  Regardless, the media player of focus here will be iTunes.

Pandora and Last.FM 

First, a bit about Pandora and Last.FM.  These are services that allows you to listen to a wide variety of music via the internet, iPhone, or other media devices.  You simply select a song, an artist, or an album, and voila...an instant stream of similar music is sent your way.  You do not own this music or get to download it locally, but you can stream all day long.  Pandora uses humans to categorize music by giving each and every song a "fingerprint" of sorts to be compared with others.  Last.FM uses more of an automated algorithm to do much of the same.  Some like one over the other...frankly, I like them both.  I've used Pandora for longer, so I tend to lean towards it...but really there's not a lot of difference in the quality of music selection.  There are differences in features and community connectivity, but I'll leave that up to you to discover on your own.

Pandora Vista Sidebar Gadget 

Don't have Vista?  Want the Sidebar gadget for XP?  Here's a way to get it!  Ok, back to Vista.  First, get the Pandora gadget.  Note, it will not work with 64-bit versions of Vista because it runs on Adobe Flash, and Adobe has not released a 64-bit version of Flash yet.  Tsk, tsk, Adobe.  There is a workaround, but it requires you to configure your system to use the 32-bit version of the Sidebar.  Once you're installed, follow the on-screen instructions, log in, configure your settings, and voila.  You're rockin' and rollin' from your sidebar.  A nice feature, for sure.  A couple images follow...

Simplify Media and Last.FM Scrobbling

Simplify Media is a service I've been using for some time.  On it's own, it's a fantasic (I repeat, FANTASTIC) application.  Install it on your desktop and point it to your iTunes Library, Winamp Library, or just a general music folder...and voila, accessibility to your music just increased dramatically.  Not only can you install the same application on other PC's, but you can also install the iPhone version of the application.  What does this allow you to do?  STREAM your music to you...wherever you are.  You heard it right, I can be in my car driving down the freeway streaming music from my home computer, to my iPhone, and into my stereo.  I do the same from my work PC (minus the driving part).  My playlists, my music, as if I were in front of my computer.  BRILLIANT.

What's better than that?  You can share your music with up to 30 (that's THIRTY) of your friends, and you can connect to any number of friends that are also running the application.  You have complete ability to play their music, their playlists, directly from their libraries.  And yes, it's all quite legal.  Better yet, it even uses the iTunes interface to access your or your friends' music (not sure how Winamp functionality works).  Amazing.  Get this software and spread your wings a bit.  Seriously.  Some nice screenshots of the application are located below (plus a few more here).

So, they've recently added a new feature in Simplify Media 1.2 that allows you to Scrobble from your iPhone.  What is Scrobbling?  Simply put, it attaches your media player to Last.FM, so it knows the last music you've played via whatever music player you use.  For the desktop, it's been available for a while and can be downloaded here.  The beauty of what Simplify Media did is that you can now also Scrobble from your iPhone...so all music played there gets transmitted to Last.FM.  Good times!

Apple iTunes Genius Playlists 

What's next on the discussion list?  How about Apple's new Genius Playlist functionality.  Personally, I'm not a fan of this and have explained why in this article.  They do, however, work great for certain types of music libraries (i.e. those where you enjoy all the music in your library).  For me, I have too many full albums that I only like a few songs from...and unfortunatly Genius includes songs I've ranked 1 or 2 in it's "intelligent" recommendations.  I digress...on to the beauty of it.

Aside from a fantasic marketing tool for Apple (lookie, more music for me to buy from you!) it actually does work great for many.  You can select a song and it will create a new playlist of similar music for you, based on that particular song you've selected.  As well, as mentioned, it will also provide you with a list of similar music you do not own...can preview...and then quickly purchase if you wish.  Of course, this is built right into iTunes and works nicely for most.

MusicIP Mixer

MusicIP, and their Mixer Product is more of an unknown...but I've grown to like the application.  Since I have issues with iTunes Genius Playlists (really, I wouldn't use MusicIP Mixer if I didn't) it plays the part of creating similar-song playlists based on my selections.  Then, I import these into iTunes and other systems.  The problem here, similarly to Genius, is that MusicIP Mixer typically isn't aware of your ratings and will mix songs you don't like or even hate into it's playlists.  Since I've been using this for nearly a year now (well before Genius was released), I spent some time developing a little bit of software to take my iTunes ratings and merge them with the MusicIP playlists in order to create playlists that actually have similar music that I like.  Yes, more than what the average bear can tackle...I know.  But, it's worked for me. 

Regardless, it's a fairly worthwhile application that may prove benefical to those who don't use iTunes, don't rate music, and just want something to analyze their music and provide recommendations.  As well, it allows you to select a song, album, or artist...where Genius only allows you to select a song.  So, there are benefits.  It also has a very nice API for you developers who want to mess around with it's capabilities within your own applications.

Conclusion

Not sure I really have a conclusion here, or that this was meant to be a conclusive article.  But, I needed a header to separate from the last bit...so there ya have it.  I do enjoy the direction media manipulation is going in, especially when it comes to music.  I'm not a fan of manually creating playlists...never have, actually.  Finally, folks are writing software that is intuitive enough to play the right music for me.  Are any of the solutions perfect?  Certainly not for everyone...but many of the solutions hit the mark for many of us.  Some, in combination, really close the gap.

Logo/Image Credits: Apple iTunes, MusicIP, Last.FM, Pandora, Simplify Media