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Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

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121–130 of 452 posts

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#121
post #95
post #31

I honestly prefer Spotify. The reality is that I have 1014 songs on my playlist at the time of writing, and it sets me back the equivalent of about $5 PM (Converted from ZAR), and I get to be picky about what I listen to frequently. In an album from someone, odds are that I might like 2 of the songs at most, so buying a CD for only 2 songs is a pointless activity for me. This means that to collect 1000 songs that I l…

Does Spotify notify you in any way if any song that you have in your playlist is removed from their library? I have playlists on GPM and sometimes songs just disappear because they've been removed from the service. No notification or anything, I just realize the song's gone after I check for it. I'm considering switching and if this is implemented better I'd definitely go for it.

Though they don't explicitly notify you, they keep the song on your playlist, they just gray it out. That way you can know when it's been removed, but unfortunately it's still inconvenient.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#123
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a high-end gaming PC Is gaming a thing on Linux now? I was given to thinking that if you're into PC gaming you're really stuck with Windows ...

With Valve (steam) involved and wine much improved, it is a thing now, but you are still very limited compared to windows.

Agreed. The only major problems right now are alternative clients and anti-cheat engines (many of which inject themselves into the Windows Kernel, yeah...) not working. Seems Valve may be leaning on publishers to fix that though.[0]

[0] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/apparently-valve-are-...

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#124
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can not find the songs only alternate versions from other people who made a cover version of the song. Try some jazz like Coltrane or Miles Davis. It seems they never stoped issuing albums - remastered, Coltrane for lovers, Miles for cooking. It is next to impossible to find original album or remastered original. Yesterday on Youtube Music oldest Coltrane album was from 2015.

> Try some jazz like Coltrane or Miles Davis. It seems they never stoped issuing albums - remastered This is only done to prevent copyright expiration and having the album become public domain. You’ll see they only do it for “oldish” albums. It’s quite a scam.

I thought copyright had been extended long enough that they don't need to do that? For example you don't see the same thing quite so much with other genres of music and music of the same age in those scenes haven't fallen into the public domain.

(this is a question rather than statement)

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#125
post #17

I mostly buy my music via bandcamp nowadays and from time to time I buy a vinyl. I don’t believe in the idea of the superiour vinyl sound, but I like that it makes listening a concious ritual. Because I DJ from time to time I like to have the stuff I like on my drive and so it ends up beeing either a download or vinyl. CD has totally fallen out of favour with me..

I once was chatting with a producer who worked for Disney for around 15 years. He said the so-called “warm” tone of vinyl vs the “harsh” sound of CDs is really that the vinyl format acts as a partial low-pass filter. So it’s really just that you’re hearing less high-freq sound on vinyl than on a CD.

Perhaps. I have heard they also master differently for vinyl since it can't provide the same dynamic, frequency, or stereo range as digital. Some listeners find the result more appealing.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#126
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't buy through itunes because of drm iTunes does not have DRM and is the only reason i buy albums through them: after i download the album, i have a bunch of m4a files i can play with any player i want, in any device i want and store on my own external drive.

I have purchased some albums in the past on itunes and discovered with disgust that they had DRM. They were only playable on itunes. I returned them (a not very user-friendly process). I have googled it a bit and it seems that DRM is not used any more on iTunes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay#iTunes_Store_DRM_chan...

Yes, an album with DRM is not a purchase, but a loan. The law should prohibit this term abuse in order to protect consumers.

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#129

A couple years ago I took all my music back out of google music and restored from physical backups where necessary. Now, my audio player is an old laptop running linux, hooked up to some very nice speakers. (it can play podcasts too!) The laptop just uses Rhythmbox, but you could obviously use whatever player you like. It's the best setup I've ever had. No terrible UI, no syncing, no garbage. I control what music is…

So, do you buy each song separately digitally or physically? Also, after buying, how do you move it to your setup? For physical copies (CDs or Vinyls), do you rip and convert them to .flac or .mp3? For digital, do you remove the DRM?

Re: Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms

#130
post #94

What bugs me is that quite a lot of things are not available. I ripped my entire CD collection and uploaded into Google Music (not sure if that feature still exists). I have all this music available but I can not find it on other peoples google music. So if I share a song, they get an error. Most of this music is nothing special and quite mainstream but if I search on other peoples devices I can not find the songs on…

This is why it's so important that we resist pressure to upload everything to the cloud. Buy a 64 or 128GiB flash drive and put your whole collection there. (plus one probably for backup). Copy it to all your local machine(s). Copy the important stuff to your mobile.

Missing my 160GB iPod Classic honestly. But nowadays oddly enough Google Play Music has most of the music I want and when they dont as OP does I upload them. One thing I do is buy the music and download it locally. Google Play Music gives me proper high quality MP3s compared to Apples m3a or whatever those were.

Licensing deals are stupid. Also I do see smaller artists on Google Play Music being lumped together with half a dozen other smaller artists. I cant believe how broken that is and sometimes the artists songs I am looking for doesnt show up cause they dont even show albums featuring that artist in their album listing.

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