Music: Getting-Storing-Playing-Where?

[imoldernu]

When I read the music threads, and go into the Music Department at Walmart, I realize that the world has left me behind, and I don't understand a lot of what's going on. I can guess at some things, but others sail right over my head. Here are some of the questions, or things that I don't understand, as well a a list of things that I hear about, but wonder why they exist... and... who uses them.

Getting: I have to confess that most of my music is old, and most of that came from Napster, in the very early 90's. Now, what puzzles me, is where young people get the money to buy albums, or to download from ITunes etc. The specialty shops in the mall have tens of thousands of albums, and seem to do well. Do people mostly buy albums, or download singles? Do they trade? Do they copy? Do they get from pirate sites? When I see kids walking around with headphones, are the listening to online music? or music from MP3 Players? Do many young (and older) people watch and listen to the Comcast or Directv music channels? And what about streaming music services... Pandora etc. Since we mostly visit with people our age, or our kids, music doesn't seem to play a big part in their lives, as in listening to music in the background. For the most part, the "public" music we hear comes from our clubhouse parties (live) or as background in places like Applebees.

Storing: With fading memory, I long ago gave up on storing on the computer by Album or Artist, and created my own... Easier for me to find and alphabetical (artist and title). Is it more common to own albums and play the CD's? Everything I have is in the MP3 format. Do many people keep their collections in other formats? Where do you (people) store their collections? Computer? Hard drive? Same on Multiple computers or tablets or phones? I keep all of mine on a flash drive, and have copied the same to all of my computers, and to my MP3 players. Even that, though is a bit of a nuisance, as it takes several steps to find and play the music I want. Is there a better solution?

Playing: Where do you listen? Out for a walk or a run? In the Car? At home in the living room? When you have guests? Once a day? Whenever you're alone? When you're relaxing at night alone or with friend(s). Would you ever listen to music when you are at a picnic or sporting event, or even as you walk around shopping?
And what do you listen with, (or perhaps what don't you use to listen)?
ear buds, earphones, cordless earphones, the computer's speaker, played through an amp and speakers, a sound bar, the car radio speakers. And if through the car radio, with a CD Player, or a plug in MP3 player? My cars have Cd Changers, but no plug in, so I use the cassette player converter. BTW... I also pick up old cassettes for $.10ea and listen to them... Bit of nostalgia. (collection's getting too big... time for a Goodwill trip.)

Next to last question: When you listen to today's artists, do you know the words they're singing?... More than that, "How do you know the words?".

Last Question... How many hours a week would you guess that you listen to music (aside from the TV)? How many hours a week would you guess that a person under age 20 listens?

Pssst... later on, I'll reveal my secret for learning the words.

[Jay_Gatsby]

I used to rip CDs and store them on my home computer for use on my MP3 player. However, now that I have unlimited data on my iPhone, streaming Pandora and GrooveShark make keeping a large amount of music on my phone somewhat prehistoric. Mind you, I still keep a certain amount for when I'm on an airplane, but there I'm more likely to be watching a movie (on my phone) or laptop.

[Keim]

I still buy CDs and LPs. Usually from Amazon, but we do have a good local record store I sometimes buy from. None of my music is downloaded. I like to get a physical product for my money. None of my music has been converted to MP3, nor is it stored on the computer. I don't have any reason why this is so, I simply haven't taken the time to rip it from CD. I imagine if I travelled much I would make the conversion, I quite like what IPods can do. When I do travel I take my discman. People stare! I am a dinosaur in this way.

I have a large hand made home tube stereo that I greatly enjoy. If i am in the car, the stereo will be on. I don't enjoy music in the background at restaurants, etc. Makes it difficult for me to hear the conversation. I do enjoy it in the background at home when home alone.

When I listen to todays artists do I know the words? Sometimes. Depends on how often I've heard the song. I have no problems making out the lyrics.

How many hours a week do I listen? Hard to say. As background music as I perform other tasks around the house-many. I try to set aside a few hours per month for dedicated listening.

[FIREd]

We own no more CDs, tapes, or records. All our music is digital and organized in iTunes (some of it bought from iTunes, some of it ripped from CDs). We listen to it on our computers, iPhones, or AppleTVs. I listen to music while working on the computer, while exercising, and while driving.

[Midpack]

Our CDs are stored away (about 400), and (vinyl) albums and tapes were disposed of about 15 years ago. Haven't bought a new CD in years and probably never will again, just download new music. There are fewer and fewer physical places to even buy CDs every day.

Dismantled ancient "stereo" a while back and pitched or sold components, hadn't used it for music in many years. The half of our music library we care about is all on iTunes (about 80% ripped from our CDs, the rest downloaded mostly from iTunes or Amazon). We listen to MP3s/AACs on a Bose dock, in both cars or through earbuds connected to iOS devices (iPods, iPad, iPhone). YMMV

[Mulligan]

Just bought an record player that converts the album into iTunes or directly into IPod for $69. I have a friend who has probably a 1000 albums from the 60s-80s. I plan to cherry pick what I want of his, and stuff it all into a big itouch. That should suffice my needs the rest of my life as I have no interest in new music and listen to sports radio talk in the car.

[Meadbh]

I still have a large eclectic CD collection and I like to play CDs in my 5 disc player when entertaining or sometimes in the evenings at home. But I no longer buy CDs. On rare occasions I have turned on one of the many Galaxie stations on the TV. In my car I have Sirius XM radio and my default stations are Symphony Hall and Pops. I have uploaded a few of my favorite CDs to iTunes and sometimes play them on my iPad, along with a few other albums that I have there. I have also uploaded those favorites to my Blackberry. Both mobile devices are useful on planes. Last, I have an old turntable and a few LPs from back in the day. I am too lazy to burn all my music to a new medium!

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mulligan Just bought an record player that converts the album into iTunes or directly into IPod for $69. I have a friend who has probably a 1000 albums from the 60s-80s. I plan to cherry pick what I want of his, and stuff it all into a big itouch. That should suffice my needs the rest of my life as I have no interest in new music and listen to sports radio talk in the car.

Ripping/converting CDs (and other formats) you own to mp3s for "personal use" or "fair use" has been generally interpreted as legal. However, it's not legal to share your content with someone else (or your friend to you) to rip/convert for their (your) use - it's considered copyright infringement. FWIW... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping

[Mulligan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack Ripping/converting CDs (and other formats) you own to mp3s for "personal use" or "fair use" has been generally interpreted as legal. However, it's not legal to share your content with someone else (or your friend to you) to rip/convert for their (your) use - it's considered copyright infringement. FWIW... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping

I never really thought of it that way. Any music I have recorded through the net has alway been purchased. But with album conversions, I guess I think of it in terms of what every one did in the old days. Record an album and convert it to cassette tape. We never thought in terms of copyright infringement back then. I guess the times have changed and I need to join, huh?

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mulligan I never really thought of it that way. Any music I have recorded through the net has alway been purchased. But with album conversions, I guess I think of it in terms of what every one did in the old days. Record an album and convert it to cassette tape. We never thought in terms of copyright infringement back then. I guess the times have changed and I need to join, huh?

You may have missed the ownership distinction? Nothing has really changed except the online aspect which made proliferation/sharing a big issue for recording artists and the recording industry. Back in the day me and my buddies immediately recorded all our vinyl albums to reel-to-reel or cassettes to preserve the original album, but we didn't record each others albums or make tapes for others.

[Jay_Gatsby]

Let's not have this thread descend into a discussion regarding the (il)legality of ripping (off?) music to digital format. The OP's question seems like a good one to ask for those of us who grew up with LPs and cassette tapes. My answer is that you need to find the music solution that works best for you. If you're an audiophile, listening to digital music might be abhorrent due to sound/data loss from the conversion. Likewise, if you're big into digital music, the idea of physically having to put a CD (or g-d forbid, an LP) into a player to listen might make you ill.

[Mulligan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack You may have missed the ownership distinction? Nothing has really changed except the online aspect which made proliferation a big issue for recording artists and the recording industry.

Oddly enough, there is a legal way around it since you can record your collection. I can buy these albums from my friend (which is legal). Record them for my personal use (which is legal), then sell them back to him.

[RunningBum]

I ripped my entire CD collection to mp3, and haven't bought a CD in a few years. I mostly download singles from Amazon, but will sometimes buy a whole album to download. I've ripped a few CDs from friends but my take on the law is that I would have to either show that I legally downloaded the music or physically own the media, so I don't do that anymore. I could be wrong and I don't see them coming after me but I feel better not doing it. I'd guess plenty of kids swap and share music but I don't know. I found that an iTunes or Amazon gift cert makes a nice gift for most kids for downloading music, you just find out which one they need.

I still have a 100 CD carousel hooked up to my home stereo that I listen to sometimes, but mostly I listen to music in my car or when running. I go through a Sansa Clip about once a year because they battery goes or the headphone jack connection goes, but I can find them pretty cheap so I can live with it. When I bought my '04 Pilot I bought an adapter that turns the optional CD changer that I don't have into an AUX port. In my Miata I just have the cassette thing because it's so loud that sound quality doesn't matter so much, plus I don't take it on long drives. Nearly every new car has AUX and/or USB ports and that would be a must have, or else I'd factor in the price of a new aftermarket stereo.

For words, I google the lyrics for the song. Sometimes I like to check songfacts.com for interpretations on the meaning of songs.

For storing, I keep everything on my computer and back it up, and have most everything on my phone with a high capacity card and an mp3 player with another high capacity card. My running mp3 has smaller capacity as I know what I like to run with and don't want to sort through the rest. I may clean up that other mp3 player as there are too many artists that I just don't listen to that I have to scroll through. I keep newly purchased music in it's own folder on my laptop until I've propagated it.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mulligan Oddly enough, there is a legal way around it since you can record your collection. I can buy these albums from my friend (which is legal). Record them for my personal use (which is legal), then sell them back to him.

Not legal or ethical, even if you give the albums away much less sell them. But this topic has been debated to death, you can read all about it - or just think about it from the perspective of the original recording artists. Who doesn't expect to be compensated for products & services they provide, no different for recording artists...

Maybe start another thread if you want to debate music copyrights?

Quote:

Basically, the way I interpret the current US law is that you can copy any CD you OWN, but the second you no longer own the CD, you no longer have the right to have a copy in your possession and your copies must be destroyed as they are now illegal.

Rip, Then Sell Your CDs? - Audiophile Review

[bltkmt]

I have all of my CDs ripped to MP3 files - close to 200gb of music. However, now that I use Spotify ($10/month), I hardly ever listen to them. I do most of my listening in the car via my iPhone and a Bluetooth connection to my car stereo. At home, we use a Sonos system and again can listen to either Spotify or my collection.

[Mulligan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack Not legal or ethical, even if you give the albums away much less sell them. But this topic has been debated to death, you can read all about it - or just think about it from the perspective of the original recording artists. Who doesn't expect to be compensated for products & services they provide, no different for recording artists... Maybe start another thread if you want to debate music copyrights? Rip, Then Sell Your CDs? - Audiophile Review

Enlightening! I actually must come across as a pirating music thief, but that wasn't my intent. My purpose in buying the converter was for my albums as I have a bunch I haven't heard in 30 years, most never receive any airplay and then thought about my friends collection after I ordered it. Something different that I found interesting in my album set, that I forgot I had. I have several albums of Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 from the early 80s. Seems in that era, the individual radio stations would receive copies of them in album form and play them whenever they wanted to. It has everything on them, and I guess the stations could stop the album whenever they wanted to insert their own commercials in. I had a DJ friend who gave me them back when I was in high school.

[David1961]

I have all my CDs in mp3 format. About the only time I actually play CDs is in my car, though. I use my iPod quite a bit. I have all my music files backed up on two separate external hard drives - one in my home and the other in an "undisclosed location". So if I have a natural disaster in my house or somebody steals my external drive, I will still have my music files (and photo files) in the other location.

And by the way, when I listen to modern music, I do not know the words. Guess I'm old!!

[ERD50]

I have read all my CDs with the computer and stored them in lossless format (FLAC) on a hard drive, and have that backed up. I've done some of my albums, but that is more work.

So now, I never really 'play' a new CD, it goes right to the hard drive. The players are so much more flexibly and convenient. I've taken the time to add my own special tags in the 'genre' section of many tunes, so I can make playlists of certain music types easily.

I copy/convert these lossless 'masters' to a compressed format if I need that for a portable player. But I always want that lossless master for quality listening, and so that I could re-encode from that master to some future format (or lower/higher quality as needed) w/o a further degradation in quality that you would get from re-encoding a digitally compressed file.

I don't listen much really. Since I love music, using it in the 'background' is sort of an insult, from my POV. If I'm listening to good music, it 'deserves' my full attention. So most of my listening is when I feel like sitting in front of my good speakers, or through headphones for a while. I don't multi-task when I do this, so just a few hours per week I guess.

I sometimes use Pandora for more casual listening - if I hear a group/album that intrigues me, I'll buy the CD for serious listening later. I don't download much, as not much is in CD quality format (the minimum quality we should expect in this day and age, AFAIAC).

I guess I mostly can hear the words, I sometimes google them if I can't.

-ERD50

[sengsational]

I almost pulled the trigger on a USB turntable so I could get access back to my large vinyl collection, but I didn't want to buy yet another bit of electronics that would end up in a landfill. So I'll occasionally get on IRC, find a couple albums at a time that I already own, and download them. I'm sure some people would say I'm breaking the law, but the ends are the same as if I had bought the USB turntable and ripped it myself, so I'm ok with it. A lot of my collection was already purchased twice (vinyl and CD), so they've been paid at least once, maybe twice. If you count the 8 tracks (that only lasted a couple of months in the car in Florida), there might have even been stuff paid for 3 times, hehe.

[gardenfun]

I have a question for you all: how does one "get" Pandora or Spotify in one's car, using one's iPhone for example? Or walking down the street for that matter?

Forgive my ignorance in this: wouldn't you be sending your data plan through the roof if you aren't connected to wifi?

I love all the music on my iPhone, but I still like to "listen to the radio" to discover something new or rediscover an old tune I had forgotten about. So I would love to listen to Pandora or Spotify when out and about (commercial radio stations are awful), but haven't figured out how you can get all that audio data when not connected to wifi. Am I missing something? thanks!