A review: IPod Classic 6th Generation

By Jeff Copperthite:

A great MP3 player for an average price.  If you run out of room on this thing just storing music, then you have too much music.

One thing that people that know me can tell is this.  I love music.  I love playing it.  I love listening to it.  I love reading about it.  It’s no surprise that, even in my other hobbies, there is a tie-in to my love of music.  So it’s no surprise that, like so many people around the world, I had to have a portable MP3 player.

In 2003, I drove to Greenwich, CT for work, which was a near-30 mile drive for me in one direction.  Thankfully, my car stereo had an auxiliary input (this is a 1/8″ stereo connection that basically allows you to connect any music device to your car stereo), which fit my (at the time) brand new Creative Zen Sleek MP3 player.  Combine that with my Sirius Satellite radio, and I was good to go for those long trips when I was stuck in traffic.

Just over 5 years later, I am inserting the paper clip I have bent specially for the act of resetting the Creative player.  I knew it was on its last legs.  The player would no longer show the title of the song being played, and every time it booted up it had to rebuild the music library.  Furthermore, it was only storing 8 GB of its original 20 GB capacity.

Time to upgrade!

After a long 3 days of deliberation, review reviewing (sounds weird), and asking all kinds of people – including my students – I decided to buy the IPod Classic 6th Generation 120 GB in Black.

I ordered this and a carrying case, and received it from amazon.com (which is really the only store I buy online from) about 4 days later.  Out of the box, I could tell how well it was constructed with the stainless steel backing.  The whole unit felt smooth and sturdy.

Loading songs onto it was a cinch.  I already had all my MP3 files sorted out in Itunes on my laptop.  All I had to do was connect the Ipod, and sync the library to the Ipod.  It did take a while considering I have over 5,000 songs in my collection.  When I was finished, the capacity indicator wasn’t even 20% full.

Now that’s what I call storage!

Listening to the music you’re looking for is just like any other MP3 player.  You can create playlists in Itunes and put them on your Ipod, or you can select by artist, genre, or album.  You can also tell it to shuffle the whole Ipod and play all your tracks in random order.  Remember, this was my first Ipod, but I quickly got used to the controls on the unit.  Center button selects, rotate your thumb around the touch wheel to scan songs, or lower the volume, or scan a track.  It’s very easy to get used too.

One thing I didn’t do immediately was use the included ear buds.  I’ve heard various things about them but I can tell you the sound quality of those ear buds is minimal.  Once I put on my Sony studio headphones, the Ipod sounded fantastic.  It even sounds great hooked up to my surround system.  But please, if you’re an audiophile like me, pick up a better pair of headphones.

This particular Ipod has other features previous Ipod classics didn’t have until recently.  For instance, you can store photographs and view them as a slideshow, or just browse through them with the touch wheel.  You can also store video (although you will need all 120 GB of storage space if you’re looking to put a lot of video on this thing) and watch it.  I myself have not used this feature.  Perhaps if I ever go on a long train ride in the future i’d consider it.  But after all, I did buy this Ipod because it was the best one for music.  I figured if I wanted video and some other games, i’d have gotten an Itouch or even an Iphone.

This Ipod also comes with a few neat games that I discovered sort of by accident.  One game is called Vortex, which is a breakout game viewed like it’s through a pipe-like tunnel.  The paddle rotates around the outer edge of the screen, and you control it with the touch wheel.  There’s standard solitaire, but I wasn’t impressed with the touch wheel controls of this game.  It takes a while to get to different piles and to select specific cards you want to move.

The really cool and innovative game that is included is called iQuiz, and what it does is it makes a quiz show out of your song library.  This was further motivation for me to input as much information about the songs as I could in the ID3 tags.  It’s really need how the iQuiz game does this.  For instance, one question could be “Which album was this song off of?”, and it’ll play the song in the background.  You’ll have to pick from four choices (and for the most part, the choices are albums that are in your library).  It’s a really cool game to play, and will help you remember some of the songs you haven’t really listened too in a while.

I think if you’re looking for a great but straightforward music player, I highly recommend the IPod Classic 6th Generation.  The storage space is more than enough for any music lover, although you will be strapped for space if you plan on storing a lot of video files.  I think this unit will last me a long time, and possibly longer than my previous Creative MP3 player.  It is a greatly priced ($224.95 on Amazon.com, as of 3/5/09) unit as well for the storage space and features it provides.

“Redemption Song” (Bob Marley Cover)

By Jeremy Hammond:

My cover of “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley.

**  EDITOR’S NOTE: **

Originally released on the 1980 Bob Marley & the Wailers album Uprising, “Redemption Song” is the final track on the final studio album release before Marley’s death in 1981.  It is also significant for having been hailed as an acoustic folk classic by many fans and critics.

Jeremy Hammond, continuing to bring great new bands to the Laptop Sessions blog, plays a heartfelt version for you in this post, complete with a nice fingerpicking section on the intro to the song.  And, please don’t adjust your screen or worry about what you’ve been inhaling… that’s a purposeful visual effect on Jeremy’s video!  🙂

We hope you enjoy this latest installment of the Guest Sessions with our favorite contributor, Jeremy Hammond.  May it help to bring hope and peace to your holidays!

“Lady Picture Show” (Stone Temple Pilots Cover)

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening to you. I hope you had a great and fulfilling weekend, and that you are starting off your week right by visiting us here at https://guitarbucketlist.com/!

Back to normal here, I bring you another song by Stone Temple Pilots, bringing the total of STP songs we have covered for the sessions to 5. This will be the first cover from STP’s third album “Tiny Music Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop”. We’ve had long song titles before, but not long album titles. I look forward to hearing some even longer titles.

Well anyway, tonight’s session is a single from the album called “Lady Picture Show”. Always a favorite of mine. I always thought this song and album were underrated. The track selection is unique and unlike anything from their library, and produced two of their best singles “Big Bang Baby” and “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart” (speaking of long song titles…).

This song translates well as an acoustic cover. My voice was a bit tired from baseball this weekend though (a whole lot of called strike 3’s can be tough on the vocal cords). I also said one wrong word in the final verse. It should be “she hides behind the bedroom door”, but I said “she hides behind the bedroom wall” instead.

I hope you enjoyed “Title Track” week, and if you found our series as a result of our article in the Record Journal today, we welcome you and hope you enjoy our series so much that you come back every day.

Also, as a side note, I crossed 15K views on Friday night, and this video marks my 60th Laptop Session! Don’t worry – there are plenty of acoustic cover videos to come from Chris, Jim, and myself!

Stay tuned for Jim’s latest and greatest session tomorrow. Have a great day!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Must Be Santa” (Bob Dylan / Christmas Cover)

For Christmas songs chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

It’s official: the Christmas season is upon us yet again!  I, for one, found it difficult to concentrate on the work I brought home this weekend, choosing instead to listen to Christmas music — specifically that on Bob Dylan’s new 2009 holiday album Christmas in the Heart (see my review here!) — and playing some of my favorite seasonal songs on acoustic guitar.  One of my new favorites is a song written by Hal Moore and Bill Fredricks titled “Must Be Santa.”

Now, before you get too excited, I should begin by making it very clear that tonight I am covering Bob Dylan’s rendition of “Must Be Santa” and NOT the performance “popularized” by Mr. Music and the Cool Kids Chorus.

Please don’t be disappointed…

Seriously, though, if you would like to hear that rocking version, you’ll just have to download it for yourself.  Or the versions by Mitch Miller, Raffi, Point Sebago Resort, Glen Burtnik, Miss Lisa, Miss Molly, The Friel Brothers, The Angel Choir, The Holly Players Orchestra, The Hit Crew, Mary Lambert, Bob McGrath, Kids Sing’n, the Pokemon Christmas Bash band, or Lorne Greene with the Jimmy Joyce Children’s Choir — good luck finding that last one.

If you’re craving a good polka, then don’t miss out on the Brave Combo version (which, ironically, is the closest in style and arrangement to Dylan’s).

And who could forget the Kids Rap’n the Christmas Hits version?

These cover songs range from boring to funny to vomit-inducing and back again.  This brings me to the Bob Dylan version, which is a breath of fresh air when played beside these other covers.  Dylan’s “Must Be Santa” is a frantic, polka-inspired three minutes of Christmas spirit, accordions, and bright choral vocals built up around Dylan’s gruff lead.  Recorded nearly half a century after Mitch Miller first recorded the song in 1961, it is interesting to see how our image of Santa and the general sound and style of Christmas music (i.e. both sets of chord changes as the song progresses a la so many other seasonal favorites) really haven’t changed much in all this time.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Dylan’s album — and his recent work in general — is an homage to a simpler time in American popular music.

That is perhaps why Dylan’s new album, time-ravaged vocals and all, has slipped in so quickly among my favorite Christmas albums of all time.  Although it was recorded earlier this year, there is a sense of nostalgia and even timelessness in each of its tracks.  Somehow, he has managed to record the songs in a style that seems very natural from his current studio band.  Indeed, Dylan has seemingly reached further and further into the past for the styles of his past several albums.  In this sense, 2009 was the ideal year for him to record an album of traditional favorites and holiday songs from earlier in the century.

I don’t think any music will ever usurp the positions that The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album and the Moody Blues’ December currently hold in my heart.  The Barenaked Ladies’ Barenaked for the Holidays, Brian Wilson’s What I Really Want For Christmas, and America’s Harmony are certainly the next runners up.  Some of my attachment to this music is admittedly due to my own personal memories, such as listening to the Beach Boys each year as my family decorated the tree and attending a Moody Blues Christmas concert with two of my dearest friends several years ago.  That being said, there is also a universal element to the music on these records that I can’t imagine any fan of rock music being able to deny.  Somehow, these aforementioned bands have managed to incorporate religious hymns, classic rock Christmas songs, and originals into unified works that I look forward to dusting off each and every year.

For now, I’m wading into the music of season via this new Dylan album.  After all, this is the punchline of a joke I’ve been making for as many years as I’ve loved Bob Dylan — “Imagine if Dylan recorded a Christmas album!”  My friends and I would laugh, but I was always privately jealous that their favorite bands — the Beach Boys, the Moody Blues, etc. — had recorded Christmas albums or at least a Christmas song or two.

Now, I have my secret wish, and I couldn’t be happier!

Yes, Dylan’s voice is rugged, and truth be told, I was a bit hesitant to embrace this album when I gave it one listen upon its release a month ago.  However, it only took a second listen for me to get hooked.

Whatever music you may enjoy listening to at this time of the year, I hope you’re enjoying it, and I hope you’ll come back throughout the week for Jim’s music video tomorrow, a guest session(!) on Friday, and another installment of Weekend Review.

See you next session!