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replacing albums
Dear LazyWeb,
Dani and I have a lot of albums and cassettes that we don't play any more, so we have begun the process of figuring out how to upgrade to digital media (while culling the stuff we don't care about any more). Some albums exist as CDs or downloads; others we'll have to burn ourselves (we have hardware for that). Mostly we're replacing albums, we think, and not just grabbing the "good tracks". But not all albums were reissued as CDs, so there are some individual tracks in our future assuming we can find them. (We're only through "folk, A to C" so far so expectations could change, but this is what it's looking like now.)
Even though most of this is going to end up as MP3s anyway, I prefer to buy physical CDs where we can. Yes, it's extra work to then burn them and we have to store the CDs, but I want both the liner notes and the security of knowing that some digital nanny isn't going to prevent me from moving that album to a new computer or iPod. It's also easier to browse; cover art and location on the shelves are meaningful guideposts for me, and iTunes' "genre" is not nearly rich enough for sorting; I need multi-level catagorization.
First questions: where besides Amazon should we be looking online for reasonably-priced CDs, some obscure? Is anybody beating Amazon on price consistently enough to look into? (I realize that the Amazonians among my readers might not want to answer that. :-) )
Now, about downloads. We haven't bought much music in this form before. We want it to be as easy as possible to play whatever we buy on multiple computes and iPods, including future ones and future tech. Sometimes this is prevented (DRM, I presume) -- I bought a song from iTunes and we were unable to play it on Dani's computer. Other times things appear to work fine -- Dani bought a song from Amazon and I could play it just fine. Next questions: are these typical experiences for those two vendors? Are there other vendors we should look at?
Thanks.
Dani and I have a lot of albums and cassettes that we don't play any more, so we have begun the process of figuring out how to upgrade to digital media (while culling the stuff we don't care about any more). Some albums exist as CDs or downloads; others we'll have to burn ourselves (we have hardware for that). Mostly we're replacing albums, we think, and not just grabbing the "good tracks". But not all albums were reissued as CDs, so there are some individual tracks in our future assuming we can find them. (We're only through "folk, A to C" so far so expectations could change, but this is what it's looking like now.)
Even though most of this is going to end up as MP3s anyway, I prefer to buy physical CDs where we can. Yes, it's extra work to then burn them and we have to store the CDs, but I want both the liner notes and the security of knowing that some digital nanny isn't going to prevent me from moving that album to a new computer or iPod. It's also easier to browse; cover art and location on the shelves are meaningful guideposts for me, and iTunes' "genre" is not nearly rich enough for sorting; I need multi-level catagorization.
First questions: where besides Amazon should we be looking online for reasonably-priced CDs, some obscure? Is anybody beating Amazon on price consistently enough to look into? (I realize that the Amazonians among my readers might not want to answer that. :-) )
Now, about downloads. We haven't bought much music in this form before. We want it to be as easy as possible to play whatever we buy on multiple computes and iPods, including future ones and future tech. Sometimes this is prevented (DRM, I presume) -- I bought a song from iTunes and we were unable to play it on Dani's computer. Other times things appear to work fine -- Dani bought a song from Amazon and I could play it just fine. Next questions: are these typical experiences for those two vendors? Are there other vendors we should look at?
Thanks.
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Amazon downloads are DRM-free, BTW.
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iTunes
(Anonymous) 2008-10-12 06:56 pm (UTC)(link)A good source for CD's is used CD stores and even better are pawn shops.
Transfering records...
I too like having the physical CD's, but I've run out of room for CD shelves, and many of them are now sitting in boxes in the garage -- not likely to be played anytime soon, so I've mostly given up on the physical media and just make lots of backups of the database (about 260GB worth). Great to have cheap, large, external hard-drives.
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You can, btw, un-DRM iTunes tracks: burn a CD or DVD from iTunes. The quality takes a hit, though.
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It's very inexpensive per cut, and the stuff is completely free of restrictions, i.e., you can burn it to a CD without feeling like you're going to be entertaining visits from RIAA in the middle of the night. We play it through our house music server and on our Radio Shack mp3 players with no problems.
Re: iTunes
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
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I strongly urge you to look into local indy record stores near you. Here in Portland we have a Maine-based chain called Bull Moose Music and their prices beat -- by far -- anything that Amazon sells; we know we're buying local; and the stores are staffed by nice and very musically knowledgeable local musicians and artists. I can't imagine that a larger city wouldn't have something similar.
Re: Transfering records...
Some of our albums/tapes are definitely in the category of "if we ever decide to care we'll buy it then", but others are ones we would actually listen to if we had a convenient format and don't now. Most of my Eric Bogle is still on vinyl, for instance, and there's some wonderful stuff there.
Looming in the distance, and I'll delay this as long as I can, is dealing with the roughly 40 hours of recordings I have of Clam Chowder concerts. Much of this material made it onto their albums and later CDs, but I know that in there somewhere are some gems that I'm going to want to rescue. This would be a lot easier if I had a cassette deck in my car. I might have to get a cheap boom box (they still make those, right?) so I can play those tapes in my office while I'm doing other things.
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I find CD Baby to have a fair selection. My go to place for cast recordings is Footlight Records in NY. (They do mail order, too. If I go in person, I have to go with only cash and only as much as I am willing to spend.)
Alas, I have a lot of stuff that is never likely to appear on CD and one of these days I will get around to digitizing it. That seems more urgent for the tapes than the vinyl, actually, as they seem more likely to deteriorate. I have also found that there are a surprising number of recordings where I want only one or two tracks.
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Walmart.com is my first stop when shopping for mp3s: nice background downloader, no DRM, easy payment, but limited selection.
Would you consider paying iTunes for the DRM-song, and then downloading an mp3 from an "off-shore location"? I do not consider this unethical, but YMMV. It is more convenient than burning the song to a CD, then ripping the CD, and the end result is the same.
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There are freeware programs out there to change .m4a to .mp3, or you could just burn a CD with iTunes & rip it with CDex.
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Re: Transfering records...
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And as a rule of thumb, I always buy from Amazon in preference to iTunes, simply as a statement about DRM. When iTunes is really DRM-free, they'll start getting more of my money again. (As it is, they're probably losing about $25/month to Amazon from me.)
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