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This is why I still maintain a digital music library -- backed by a physical media collection that sits in my real live analog house -- that I sync to an SD car

This is why I still maintain a digital music library -- backed by a physical media collection that sits in my real live analog house -- that I sync to an SD card in my phone. In 2018, Bandcamp seems to have solved the digital music sales problem that the iTunes music store never could (DRM-free album downloads in lossless formats for less than the retail price of the CD or LP). Everything that isn't there can usually be found on Amazon music in a lossy format for a decent price w/ no DRM (sometimes free if you have Prime). If I have to rent music, I'm doing it from Spotify. Another half-baked Google service that they'll give up on in six months plus an obnoxious marketing campaign fronted by an old Warner executive? They might want to consider paying people to use it.

setquk 9y ago
After several months of Apple Music and disappearing tracks this is what I’m doing now. I’m not renting anything any more.
- manmal 9y ago
  May I ask, why not both? I‘m pretty sure you will not buy 20mio songs, rather a couple thousand. With Match you get your own collection online and available everywhere, and augment it with the Music subscription. I’ve done it like this but only rarely need the Match fallback now, because most of my library is available on Music or Spotify.
  - setquk 9y ago
    Two reasons: cost and that I like things in one place and format.
- kahnpro 9y ago
  Ugh this was also what got me to stop my Apple Music and then Spotify subscriptions. Songs or entire albums can disappear simply because the licencing changed.
poelzi 9y ago
I only buy music on bandcamp these days. Usually 200-300 Euros a month, because I know the artists get most of the share. I really really really must be needy for some song that I go to beatport or some other service. I find it unbearable to pay extra for flac - seriously, bandwidth and storage is so cheap these days, 1.5 Euro extra for flac - absurd. Secondly, I'm a DJ and even if I would not be able to hear the difference, there are people with certain hear impairments in which the psychoanalytic model does not fit. It's my job to bring the best possible sound quality. But I hardly buy physical media anymore, it's just using up space of something I don't use and with the saved buck I just buy more music :) My backup is done through git annex and my library is duplicated over many PCs and harddrives - it works quite well and I'm able to carry only a part of the library but still see everything. A simple "git annex get ..." will get the requested files. My girlfriend has my library as well and when I add new files, a quick "git annex sync [...]" will update her copy as well.
abxy 9y ago
I do this too. Not only do you save money by not subscribing to streaming services each month; chances are that you can downgrade your data plan as well. The money I save I spend on CDs.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Yeah, I use about a gig of data a month. All of my music is stored on my car.
loudandskittish 9y ago
Frankly, I'm moving back to vinyl. I'm aware that most albums have finally been properly remastered to be in a digital format, eliminating the disparity in sound quality, but I feel like something purely analog with zero possibility of any DRM is more permanent, crazy as that may sound. Plus, Bandcamp is nice. Artists I've discovered through there frequently have a vinyl pressing available, which entitles me to download the lossless digital version as well.
- knaik94 9y ago
  Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on? The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor (hearing the amplified sound of the needle pushing the vinyl during supposed silence, as well as random pops). I am curious to know if that's seen as a feature and not a bug.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    That sounds like vinyl crackle. It's such a sought after thing that people make entire sample libraries of it.
  - squarefoot 9y ago
    "Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on?" Many CD are remastered if not remixed, so they aren't perfect equivalents of the original vinyl; they usually also add compression to raise the perceived average volume (sometimes beyond clipping!), which kills the original dynamics and quality of the media. Some early CDs may have been direct conversion of the master into digital form, but if we take an old record and the equivalent CD issued recently, they're not the same thing anymore. "The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor" That's because of the needle friction and other interference by motor and other mechanical parts etc. all noise which is getting amplified. They've made miracles with pickups, RIAA preamps and other stuff, but we can't make a mechanical device that doesn't generate friction otherwise we would have invented perpetual motion. So yes, records are more noisy and have a much smaller dynamic range, although most modern overcompressed music would falsely suggest the opposite. A search for "loudness war" can bring some interesting information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
QasimK 9y ago
Doing a search on Bandcamp for songs that I like.. I was able to find none of them. I'd argue if they only solved the problem, then they solved the subset of the problem which excludes the songs that I would be after.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  There's nothing to solve. Bandcamp is for finding music you'd probably never hear on radio or streaming. Here's what you can do: 1: Find one album you like. 2: Click through the profiles of people who bought it (those icons under the album cover). 3: See what else they like. You can also check out Bandcamp's blog and click through the tags on posts for genres you like: https://daily.bandcamp.com/ https://daily.bandcamp.com/
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  Yeah, they've solved the problem brilliantly for people who either don't want record company involvement (and I don't blame them) or would never get a record deal (me). But it will only ever be a supplier of niche(ish) content.
tehwebguy 9y ago
> In 2018, Bandcamp seems to have solved the digital music sales problem that the iTunes music store never could (DRM-free album downloads in lossless formats for less than the retail price of the CD or LP). Until it’s inevitably integrated into YouTube Red (they bought Bandcamp)
- mitchellshow 9y ago
  You're thinking of BandPAGE - Bandcamp is still privately owned.
  - tehwebguy 9y ago
    Whoops, you are correct!

setquk 9y ago

After several months of Apple Music and disappearing tracks this is what I’m doing now. I’m not renting anything any more.

manmal 9y ago
May I ask, why not both? I‘m pretty sure you will not buy 20mio songs, rather a couple thousand. With Match you get your own collection online and available everywhere, and augment it with the Music subscription. I’ve done it like this but only rarely need the Match fallback now, because most of my library is available on Music or Spotify.
- setquk 9y ago
  Two reasons: cost and that I like things in one place and format.
kahnpro 9y ago
Ugh this was also what got me to stop my Apple Music and then Spotify subscriptions. Songs or entire albums can disappear simply because the licencing changed.

poelzi 9y ago

I only buy music on bandcamp these days. Usually 200-300 Euros a month, because I know the artists get most of the share. I really really really must be needy for some song that I go to beatport or some other service. I find it unbearable to pay extra for flac - seriously, bandwidth and storage is so cheap these days, 1.5 Euro extra for flac - absurd. Secondly, I'm a DJ and even if I would not be able to hear the difference, there are people with certain hear impairments in which the psychoanalytic model does not fit. It's my job to bring the best possible sound quality. But I hardly buy physical media anymore, it's just using up space of something I don't use and with the saved buck I just buy more music :) My backup is done through git annex and my library is duplicated over many PCs and harddrives - it works quite well and I'm able to carry only a part of the library but still see everything. A simple "git annex get ..." will get the requested files. My girlfriend has my library as well and when I add new files, a quick "git annex sync [...]" will update her copy as well.

abxy 9y ago

I do this too. Not only do you save money by not subscribing to streaming services each month; chances are that you can downgrade your data plan as well. The money I save I spend on CDs.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Yeah, I use about a gig of data a month. All of my music is stored on my car.

loudandskittish 9y ago

Frankly, I'm moving back to vinyl. I'm aware that most albums have finally been properly remastered to be in a digital format, eliminating the disparity in sound quality, but I feel like something purely analog with zero possibility of any DRM is more permanent, crazy as that may sound. Plus, Bandcamp is nice. Artists I've discovered through there frequently have a vinyl pressing available, which entitles me to download the lossless digital version as well.

knaik94 9y ago
Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on? The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor (hearing the amplified sound of the needle pushing the vinyl during supposed silence, as well as random pops). I am curious to know if that's seen as a feature and not a bug.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  That sounds like vinyl crackle. It's such a sought after thing that people make entire sample libraries of it.
- squarefoot 9y ago
  "Have you ever found vinyl sounding different from its CD equivalent due to the equipment you play it on?" Many CD are remastered if not remixed, so they aren't perfect equivalents of the original vinyl; they usually also add compression to raise the perceived average volume (sometimes beyond clipping!), which kills the original dynamics and quality of the media. Some early CDs may have been direct conversion of the master into digital form, but if we take an old record and the equivalent CD issued recently, they're not the same thing anymore. "The few vinyl rips I have seem to have issues like a high noise floor" That's because of the needle friction and other interference by motor and other mechanical parts etc. all noise which is getting amplified. They've made miracles with pickups, RIAA preamps and other stuff, but we can't make a mechanical device that doesn't generate friction otherwise we would have invented perpetual motion. So yes, records are more noisy and have a much smaller dynamic range, although most modern overcompressed music would falsely suggest the opposite. A search for "loudness war" can bring some interesting information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

QasimK 9y ago

Doing a search on Bandcamp for songs that I like.. I was able to find none of them. I'd argue if they only solved the problem, then they solved the subset of the problem which excludes the songs that I would be after.

rainbowmverse 9y ago
There's nothing to solve. Bandcamp is for finding music you'd probably never hear on radio or streaming. Here's what you can do: 1: Find one album you like. 2: Click through the profiles of people who bought it (those icons under the album cover). 3: See what else they like. You can also check out Bandcamp's blog and click through the tags on posts for genres you like: https://daily.bandcamp.com/ https://daily.bandcamp.com/
zimpenfish 9y ago
Yeah, they've solved the problem brilliantly for people who either don't want record company involvement (and I don't blame them) or would never get a record deal (me). But it will only ever be a supplier of niche(ish) content.

tehwebguy 9y ago

> In 2018, Bandcamp seems to have solved the digital music sales problem that the iTunes music store never could (DRM-free album downloads in lossless formats for less than the retail price of the CD or LP). Until it’s inevitably integrated into YouTube Red (they bought Bandcamp)

mitchellshow 9y ago
You're thinking of BandPAGE - Bandcamp is still privately owned.
- tehwebguy 9y ago
  Whoops, you are correct!