By the way, the Sony MiniDisc, which I already own, supports playlists through a concept called groups. But to use this, you have to hold down a group button for two-seconds each time you want to select a group of songs. While this clumsy approach may be alright when you’re simply listening to music, on stage, two seconds is an eternity.
Because the MP3 player holds all of your music, you have the freedom to stray away from your planned set and play other music and perform other routines. The downside of an MP3 player is that you do have to look down and select playlists. And the MP3 players vary in the number of button presses that it takes to do this.
Buy and Buy
After shopping around, I purchased a SanDisk Sansa because it supported playlists and was on sale at my local office warehouse store. With rebates, the 1 GB Sansa cost about $60, which is some $90 less than the 1GB Apple iPod. I now have my playlists and songs loaded up through a program on my computer and will use the MP3 player in all my shows for the next couple of weeks.
I’ll report back in another story on how the MP3 player fared. I'm not ready to give up my Majiloon wireless system for my best shows, but I'm hoping that the MP3 player will replace my CDs.
Meanwhile, if you have experience using an MP3 player in shows, or have any questions, please visit the forum where I’ve started a thread .
View Part 2 of this story at The Magic of MP3 Players: Part 2.
-Wayne N. Kawamoto
