A Better MP3 Web Browser

Related link: http://www.bleep.com

I once asked an executive from Columbia House how the giant record club picked the 30-second audio previews it put online. He said the system would just start recording at 60 seconds into the audio file, because that’s where the chorus usually hits in a pop song. Add a little fade-in and fade-out, and you’re ready to rip the next tune.

The problem, of course, is that the hook of the song may not come between exactly 60 and 90 seconds. Or maybe there are multiple hooks. Or maybe it’s an extended ambient piece with no hooks. That’s a big reason why browsing online music stores is unsatisfying and uninformative. At least in a used-record store, you can “drop the needle” wherever you want.

That’s why I was excited to find Bleep. Not only does this online music store sell files in high-bitrate MP3 and lossless FLAC format—neither hobbled by DRM—it also uses a slick preview system. When you select a song, the embedded Flash player draws a waveform for the entire song and begins playing the first 30 seconds. Clicking anywhere in the waveform will play a new 30-second clip from that point. By looking for changes in the waveform, you can get an idea where the music itself changes, speeding the search for interesting parts. Here’s a screenshot:

And here’s a condensed version of the player, embedded in this blog with an iframe. Click the green triangle to start playback, then click elsewhere in the waveform to jump to that point:

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the rest of the Bleep site as easy to navigate as the player, but in that one area, I felt like I was calling the shots again.