5 ms·

Back in the day when I used desktop music players on linux I cycled through a whole bunch: Audacious, Rhythmbox, Banshee, Amarok, Songbird(Mozilla!), Moc(Oh, so

Back in the day when I used desktop music players on linux I cycled through a whole bunch: Audacious, Rhythmbox, Banshee, Amarok, Songbird(Mozilla!), Moc(Oh, so minimal!), Cmus, mpd (server/client), and probably more that I'm forgetting now. Feel a touch nostalgic for the uncomplicated time when I had music on my devices, regularly "organized my music library" and could play whatever whenever, and shared them with friends. I can still rummage through my old disks and spin up some of that music from time to time. Mostly use cloud players these days; crazy to imagine that there's nothing I can do if my favorite song/recording today is not available ten years later!

nine_k 7y ago
Buy music, don't rent it. Pay for downloadable files, or for physical media if you are into it. This is rather widely available.
- RussianCow 7y ago
  It's significantly more expensive if you listen to a wide range of music. Buying albums, or even just individual songs, can very quickly surpass the $10/month you pay for Spotify. Maybe that's worth it to you, but I can't blame most people for just paying for a subscription.
  - KozmoNau7 7y ago
    The issue is control. Albums are regularly disappearing from the Spotify catalogue, sometimes reappearing later. Sometimes specific albums in a band's history are missing because that particular label doesn't have an agreement with Spotify. And you never know if it's a crappy modern brickwalled remaster. Not to mention the woefully bad curation, mixed up artists, incorrect genres/years, you name it. With music you buy, you are in control. It's about quality over quantity.
    - distances 7y ago
      Same with video streaming. With Netflix you aren't guaranteed the show won't suddenly just disappear before you finish it -- happened multiple times for me. I've been partly going back to Blu-ray for better availability and picture quality. Netflix is still very good for exploratory watching though, but Blu-ray is very very good for stuff like classic HBO series and BBC nature documentaries.
  - mehrzad 7y ago
    I've seen some people suggest buying one album per month and then pirating everything else (or streaming everything else). Best of both worlds, sort of.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    If you listen to a wide variety of music, likely some of it is more important for you, something you don't want to lose. This is the stuff to buy outright. Exploratory listening without such a commitment (youtube, spotify, bandcamp) is of course very important, and is a blessing.
- organsnyder 7y ago
  I bought my first music on Bandcamp a couple of days ago (they had a day when 100% of sales went to the artists). That seems like one of the best ways to support artists while still having a cloud-hosted library.
aasasd 7y ago
If your library of favorites doesn't amount to a couple terabytes like in, ahem, some cases, then it's pretty easy to dump the selected bunch with `youtube-dl`. Death of a couple sites with not-widely-available music, in the past few years, has distinctly shown which of those two terabytes should be more closely guarded. ‘It's all on the web‘, I've been told—well, not quite so anymore unless I upload it somewhere first.
- asveikau 7y ago
  Last I checked audio on YouTube is very low bitrate and sounds a lot worse than what popular online mp3 stores will give you.
  - mikem170 7y ago
    256k mp3 using youtube-dl. Works for me. To me 192k is borderline, 96k is very low. Prefer high quality lame vbr encoded, but I'll take what I can get :-)
    - speedgoose 7y ago
      It can be super bad because the YouTube video is a slideshow with a mp3, compressed before being uploaded to YouTube, and compressed by YouTube again. When it's an official video, I guess it's only compressed twice and they use high quality masters but still, YouTube isn't hi-fi.
    - lozf 7y ago
      Youtubes's best available audio is usually either 128kbps AAC-LC or 160kbps Opus -- both these codecs usually sound substantially better than MP3, and at these bitrates should be "transparent" with most material, (aside from whatever other processing YouTube does, or what was done before it was uploaded to them). Converting this to MP3 means a lossy-to-lossy transcode which can only cause further deterioration, and increasing the bitrate to 256kbps (or anything else) isn't going to fix that -- at best you won't be able to notice any audible difference, apart from having larger files for no benefit. Unless you need MP3 files for compatibility, instead of using the -x option to extract audio and converting to MP3, you'd probably be better off just using -f with the best audio format, and perhaps re-muxing in to a different container if required.
gilnaa 7y ago
Wow, Banshee. I liked it so much and no other player managed to replace it for me. What a shame that it died.

nine_k 7y ago

Buy music, don't rent it. Pay for downloadable files, or for physical media if you are into it. This is rather widely available.

RussianCow 7y ago
It's significantly more expensive if you listen to a wide range of music. Buying albums, or even just individual songs, can very quickly surpass the $10/month you pay for Spotify. Maybe that's worth it to you, but I can't blame most people for just paying for a subscription.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  The issue is control. Albums are regularly disappearing from the Spotify catalogue, sometimes reappearing later. Sometimes specific albums in a band's history are missing because that particular label doesn't have an agreement with Spotify. And you never know if it's a crappy modern brickwalled remaster. Not to mention the woefully bad curation, mixed up artists, incorrect genres/years, you name it. With music you buy, you are in control. It's about quality over quantity.
  - distances 7y ago
    Same with video streaming. With Netflix you aren't guaranteed the show won't suddenly just disappear before you finish it -- happened multiple times for me. I've been partly going back to Blu-ray for better availability and picture quality. Netflix is still very good for exploratory watching though, but Blu-ray is very very good for stuff like classic HBO series and BBC nature documentaries.
- mehrzad 7y ago
  I've seen some people suggest buying one album per month and then pirating everything else (or streaming everything else). Best of both worlds, sort of.
- nine_k 7y ago
  If you listen to a wide variety of music, likely some of it is more important for you, something you don't want to lose. This is the stuff to buy outright. Exploratory listening without such a commitment (youtube, spotify, bandcamp) is of course very important, and is a blessing.
organsnyder 7y ago
I bought my first music on Bandcamp a couple of days ago (they had a day when 100% of sales went to the artists). That seems like one of the best ways to support artists while still having a cloud-hosted library.

aasasd 7y ago

If your library of favorites doesn't amount to a couple terabytes like in, ahem, some cases, then it's pretty easy to dump the selected bunch with `youtube-dl`. Death of a couple sites with not-widely-available music, in the past few years, has distinctly shown which of those two terabytes should be more closely guarded. ‘It's all on the web‘, I've been told—well, not quite so anymore unless I upload it somewhere first.

asveikau 7y ago
Last I checked audio on YouTube is very low bitrate and sounds a lot worse than what popular online mp3 stores will give you.
- mikem170 7y ago
  256k mp3 using youtube-dl. Works for me. To me 192k is borderline, 96k is very low. Prefer high quality lame vbr encoded, but I'll take what I can get :-)
  - speedgoose 7y ago
    It can be super bad because the YouTube video is a slideshow with a mp3, compressed before being uploaded to YouTube, and compressed by YouTube again. When it's an official video, I guess it's only compressed twice and they use high quality masters but still, YouTube isn't hi-fi.
  - lozf 7y ago
    Youtubes's best available audio is usually either 128kbps AAC-LC or 160kbps Opus -- both these codecs usually sound substantially better than MP3, and at these bitrates should be "transparent" with most material, (aside from whatever other processing YouTube does, or what was done before it was uploaded to them). Converting this to MP3 means a lossy-to-lossy transcode which can only cause further deterioration, and increasing the bitrate to 256kbps (or anything else) isn't going to fix that -- at best you won't be able to notice any audible difference, apart from having larger files for no benefit. Unless you need MP3 files for compatibility, instead of using the -x option to extract audio and converting to MP3, you'd probably be better off just using -f with the best audio format, and perhaps re-muxing in to a different container if required.

gilnaa 7y ago

Wow, Banshee. I liked it so much and no other player managed to replace it for me. What a shame that it died.