Why play a music CD? No ads, no privacy terrors, no algorithms • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by rchaud » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

I'm definitely on board with physical media. Almost all the vinyl I've bought comes with a download code anyway, and album artwork shines on a 12" x 12" canvas much more than it ever could on the tiny thumbnail you get on a music player app.

That being said, indie music stores like Bandcamp are digital only, but offer one-click DRM-free MP3 downloads for purchased songs/albums. The UX is focused on buying music first and supporting individual artists, rather than commoditizing their sound into an algorithmic playlist where they're lumped in with everybody else.

I honestly find Spotify and Apple Music bad for music discovery if your tastes aren't really adjacent to Top 40 (is that even a thing today?) style pop music. Back in the day, Last.fm used your iTunes/Foobar play history to show you bands you'd like. The algorithm was based on user-submitted tags, and the recommendations weren't limited to bands that had deals with the platform. I discovered a ton of new music across very different genres there. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the site is very active these days.

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

#262

Post by apt-get » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

swtrs wrote: post #132

apt-get wrote: post #90

I listen to a lot of japanese doujin music (self-released albums produced by amateur circles at conventions). This is often a couple hundred albums every year, between Comiket, M3, and other smaller conventions. The overwhelming majority of it simply isn't available as a physical release on typical online marketplaces, much less on streaming services. Importing the physical release + ripping or relying on community d…

Is there an online community for doujin? Sounds similar to the vapor/future/chillwave community on Bandcamp.

Officially, not really. The 'scene' is a tad too big for that, although some circles publish on bandcamp sometimes (mainly those who can't attend the physical convention).

In the west, there used to be forums (like doujinstyle) dedicated to sharing new releases after every event, which turned into large discord servers in the past year. Otherwise, a lot of the releases can be found on Asia-oriented private trackers as well.

These are often the only way to get a chance of actually listening to the album, since there's generally a limited number of physical albums available for sale at the event, and reprints during the next edition of the convention are uncommon.

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

#263

Post by guggle » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

edpichler wrote: post #136

sschueller wrote: post #24

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…

Man, I lost my precious childhood videos after "saving" on the cloud. Google deleted it because of some seconds of the background music of AC/DC's on the radio.

Flickr lost all my photos when it was acquired by Yahoo, so I'm with you on this one... The cloud is useful... but don't trust it too much.

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

#264

Post by mirrorlake » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #250

My daughter got a record player for Christmas last year and it caused me to think about my relationship to music. After she got the record player, I've taken her to the record store a few times and it was like stepping out of a time machine. I loved everything about it (Waterloo Records in Austin is pretty fantastic). I ended up buying a CD player and pulling my collection out of the attic. I had forgotten how good m…

I had a similar experience last winter when I popped a CD into my desktop. Probably the first time I had heard music with a bitrate higher than Spotify’s 320kbps in a few years. Within a day I was off buying my favorite albums on FLAC and making a CD wishlist. Made me remember why I bought nice speakers in the first place.

And I’ve thought this for a while: With gigabit internet connections spreading, video streaming services that soak up bandwidth (10-20+ Mbps all day), WHY are companies stingy about audio bitrate? My connection can stream multiple 4K videos, yet audio is the same (or worse) bitrate than what I burned on CDs in 2003.

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

#265

Post by amelius » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #249

amelius wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also for research purposes?

Fair Dealing is extremely conservative. Could you expand on what you mean, give an example of the research situation and scope? AIUI the CDP would probably allow you to do format conversion for private study if the matter wasn't available to buy in a format you needed for that study; they'd probably want to see some outputs to show it was study and not entertainment (remember in tort the consideration is balance of p…

> Could you expand on what you mean, give an example of the research situation and scope?

Well, if someone wanted to research a music discovery algorithm, then they would need to a have a large collection of music to test their algorithm, for example. Or perhaps someone wants to research differences between music preferences based on ethnicity, using some automated data analysis technique. This would also require a large collection of music.

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

#266

Post by jayshua » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

raehik wrote: post #158

Where are my Rockbox users at? My tiny plastic Sansa Clip+ MP3 player has been going for years, I'd be nothing without it. >10hrs playback, supports >128 GB microSD, plays OGG/FLAC/MP3/AAC/anything. The Rockbox firmware is still being developed, albeit at a slow pace. By far the best combination of hardware+firmware I own. Unlikely to replace it for another few years. Sadly not produced any more :(

I once had a little red mp3 player manufactured by ilo. One of the most reliable pieces of hardware I every owned - the thing just worked. Drop some files on it, and it played them. That simple. Wish it were as easy on my smartphone.

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

#267

Post by x3haloed » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

This headline smacks of fear mongering. Privacy TERRORS. ALGORITHMS! Walking, talking murder bots! Seriously?

Please. If you pay for your streaming service, you don't have ads. Privacy concerns are an abstract existential concern that don't have practical effects at least in the context of music streaming. And algorithms? I don't understand what the fear is here. Just a general anti-technology sentiment? Why not make a playlist of your own or simply listen to and album from beginning to end?

Maybe we've lost a little something moving into the realm of the purely digital, but that is the essence of change. It involves tradeoffs. And change is inevitable.

Face change with courage - not by dearly holding onto everything that was.

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

#268

Post by rchaud » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

athroway wrote: post #248

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it was not your intention but your comment reminds me of the infamous HN comment on why dropbox is useless and would never be successful.[1] :)) "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in…

Dropbox has been operating at a loss since its creation and is currently not making a profit, so the jury is still out on whether it is actually successful (or just a VC-subsidized service that got advertised a lot).

You are correct, but the metrics of success have always been different in tech. Regular businesses would be considered failures if they had 10 years in the red. But if you get a "unicorn" valuation and manage to IPO without even making a profit, well, that's the dream for a lot of HN'ers. If somebody out there makes you a multi-millionaire based either on faith in your company or in their ability to shift the risk to the next sucker, who're you to say no?

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

#269

Post by scurvy » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #206

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it was not your intention but your comment reminds me of the infamous HN comment on why dropbox is useless and would never be successful.[1] :)) "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in…

Actually, I'm rather shocked that there isn't an all-in-one solution like what I've cobbled together. It's not like there's any super secret magic involved; you'd just need a nice user interface on top of it all. There are even music streaming servers that you can deploy on a VPS (or locally) pretty easily. Pop in a little rsync script to move your converted lossy files to the streamer and you're set. It's just that…

Media Monkey does all of the things you mentioned, and with a GUI. Rip, store, convert, transfer.

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

#270

Post by poelzi » Fri, May 17, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #261

I'm definitely on board with physical media. Almost all the vinyl I've bought comes with a download code anyway, and album artwork shines on a 12" x 12" canvas much more than it ever could on the tiny thumbnail you get on a music player app. That being said, indie music stores like Bandcamp are digital only, but offer one-click DRM-free MP3 downloads for purchased songs/albums. The UX is focused on buying music first…

Badcamp has physical media as well. It's up to the artist to produce and deliver them. Since I find mp3 unacceptable audio quality, especially on PA sound systems, I collect flac only. Many shops have a shitty policy on lossless, thanks bandcamp for being proper.