What to do with old CDs?

[kcowan]

I'm into jazz big time - are the CDs in the bottom drawer of your picture regular store bought issues?

I'd be interested in those, not so much the MP3 downloads to CD-R.

Thanks!

And I only want the downloaded ones because it makes my 6-CD auto player capable of playing well over 300 songs without switching them out. I would like them shipped by USPS to my PO Box in Texas. I can do Paypal or Visa transfer. They have to be MP3s not WAVs.

 

[David1961]

I have many CDs and CD-Rs that I keep in boxes. Don't really want to get rid of them, sometimes I may want to read the liner notes. And this way, I always have the original CD in case I need to access it again. I have found that sometimes the ripping software I use causes errors, so I can always go back and rip again.

 

[Major Tom]

David1961 - give Exact Audio Copy a try. It's known for giving good, accurate rips. I scan all my CD booklets, tray liners and even the CD itself at 300dpi, then get rid of the CD. I've gotten rid of ~5,000 CD's this way so far.

 

[calmloki]

Recreate the end of the Deathstar?

THE BEST CD In Microwave - YouTube

 

[martyp]

I have a couple of drawers of CD's just like yours. My CD's are still there and will probably be there for a while. Maybe when my DW ER's she will want the drawer cleaned out.

 

[TromboneAl]

And I only want the downloaded ones because it makes my 6-CD auto player capable of playing well over 300 songs

I saved to standard Audio CD format, so that won't work (that is, it's not CDs with MP3 files in data format.

I'm into jazz big time - are the CDs in the bottom drawer of your picture regular store bought issues?

Yes, but it's pretty eclectic, with a number of local bands, and bands from local jazz festivals. You can get a feeling from this picture. The left side of the drawer has Lena's CDs.

 

[NW-Bound]

I have many CDs and CD-Rs that I keep in boxes. Don't really want to get rid of them, sometimes I may want to read the liner notes. And this way, I always have the original CD in case I need to access it again. I have found that sometimes the ripping software I use causes errors, so I can always go back and rip again.

David1961 - give Exact Audio Copy a try. It's known for giving good, accurate rips. I scan all my CD booklets, tray liners and even the CD itself at 300dpi, then get rid of the CD. I've gotten rid of ~5,000 CD's this way so far.

It took me a long time to digitize my audio cassettes, and I should be starting on my CDs soon. Of course CDs are lot faster to rip. Regarding cassette and CD labels, I do scan them and use MP3Tag to store the artwork as tags inside the MP3 files. Some MP3 players can display the art as the music is played.

 

[gcgang]

I've been cashing in my CDs cuz the interest rates are so low.

 

[BBQ-Nut]

Thanks for the picture - there are some CDs I'd definitely be interested in if you decide you want to part with them.

 

[TromboneAl]

Thanks for the picture - there are some CDs I'd definitely be interested in if you decide you want to part with them.

OK, give me a few months to make sure I won't ever need them again, and I'll send you a PM.

Adding them to iTunes is quite easy, just put the CD in the computer and iTunes figures out (in most cases) the album name, artwork, and track names. I use iSyncr and the Rocket Player to get the music over to my Nexus 7.

And I'm typing on my Minisuit keyboard with my Nexus here in Starbucks -- works great. I could easily write a whole book this way.

 

[BBQ-Nut]

No problem - take your time.

I appreciate your sharing.

Have a great weekend!

 

[steelyman]

I remember the first CD I bought: it was an impulse buy along with my first CD player after a margarita happy hour. It was by Swing Out Sister and had a catchy tune called "Break Out". People were doing some pretty serious bass slapping in the late 80s.

I still have it

I think I may have posted this before (oops!). But when I watch it, it makes me think of all the stuff you have to keep track of when you sing (if you do, you know what I'm saying... with an instrument, you just hit it). Your hands, smile, body all matter. That girl nailed it!

http://youtu.be/nnivOKYyWLY

 

[calmloki]

Something else to do with old CDs. Frankenstein version.

http://i.imgur.com/TWMiLJp.gif

 

[seraphim]

Those little things? I got boxes of CDs that are MUCH bigger than those, made out of something called vinyl. Any of you old goats out there got any ceramic CDs?

 

[NW-Bound]

Something else to do with old CDs. Frankenstein version.

http://i.imgur.com/TWMiLJp.gif

The high-voltage electric arc literally vaporized the metal layer of the CD, which is aluminum I think. So, where does that aluminum go? Into somebody's lung?

 

[jebmke]

Those little things? I got boxes of CDs that are MUCH bigger than those, made out of something called vinyl. Any of you old goats out there got any ceramic CDs?

I have boxes and boxes of vinyl in good condition. No idea how to get rid of them. Some might be valuable but how to tell?

 

[GrayHare]

I have boxes and boxes of vinyl in good condition. No idea how to get rid of them. Some might be valuable but how to tell?

I've used http://www.musicstack.com/ to price records and CDs.

 

[movaly1]

swapacd.com You can earn credits that are interchangeable between swapacd.com,swapadvd.com, and paperbackswap.com

 

[W2R]

Thanks, Al. You have motivated me to start going through my CDs to see which ones I want, and which ones I should get rid of. This is something I have put off doing for years and it really needs to be done.

 

[seraphim]

Thanks, Al. You have motivated me to start going through my CDs to see which ones I want, and which ones I should get rid of. This is something I have put off doing for years and it really needs to be done.

If nothing else, they make dandy targets.

 

[W2R]

If nothing else, they make dandy targets.

So true!

I finished going through them, and decided I only need 5% of them. The rest are history! About half of the keepers were my (few) music CD's, which I probably don't really need either but will keep for now.

The treasures I found but do not want include backups from 2002, the free software that came with a computer back in 2000, and games and utilities from the 1990's that won't work on modern operating systems at all. Nobody else would want these either. If Frank doesn't want them for target practice, they are going in the trash tonight. They are enough to overfill a big box so this is a good, easy step in the task of eliminating excess stuff in general.

 

[TromboneAl]

This is an interesting example of how technology changes. Those CDs seemed so modern and so much better than cassette tapes or records with a little needle being jostled as it rode in a groove on a plastic record.

But now it seems so inefficient to have a whole drawer used to hold the same information that is now on my Nexus.

 

[HFWR]

I plan to keep my CD collection and my vinyl collection, even though they've mostly been replaced by mp3. Still want the source material, [-]for when[/-] in case hard drives and computers crash...

 

[braumeister]

Some people go to even greater extremes:

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

Cylinder recordings, the first commercially produced sound recordings, are a snapshot of musical and popular culture in the decades around the turn of the 20th century. They have long held the fascination of collectors and have presented challenges for playback and preservation by archives and collectors alike.

 

[sengsational]

I only had a handful of factory recorded CDs. I started an exercise like in the OP, but the first disk turned out to have market value, but mine was bootleg (looked factory, but had the wrong set of songs). Then the next few CDs I checked seemed not to have any market value. Since I had ripped them all a long time ago, they all went in the trash.

If I want to listen to a song, even one I have in my collection, I can usually just find it on you tube faster than finding it in my online archives. So I'm not even sure its worth having the stash of mp3s! But those bits are pretty small, so I might as well not throw them out.