Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

Fucks sake ipod post malfunction sorry

Hi Ned!

But irrationally (?), I do not want to downgrade the quality of my audio...does Amazon allow lossless files? Does any other service?

i'd guess (based on the way apple upgrades your files) that these places would replace any common files with its own copy - no need for it to store a million identical copies of madonna's greatest hits, say, when it can store only one.

that said, this replacing is a non-trivial problem what with remixes, deluxe editions and per-region releases.

I've been using Google Play Music for about 3 years to stream my own music, but not using the paid service where I can stream anything a la Spotify. I've uploaded about 16k songs and the quality is great as long as the "mobile networks stream quality" is set to High in whichever app I'm using to play it. For playing via a browser, I think it defaults to high quality. I use android and have a chromecast and GPM integrates well through those, plus they recently released a dedicated iPad app (before only iPhone). I was concerned long term about the 20k limit, in so much as I'd have to start pruning a bit over time but with the new 50k limit I don't think I'd ever hit that. Uploading is easy as you can set Google's music manager application on your pc to point to a folder or to iTunes and it will automatically upload anything added, or you can manually upload. A nice part is that I can on the fly download tracks to my phone or iPad if I'm going to be on a plane or somewhere without connectivity, or download tracks to a PC and then share them with someone (via email, dropdox, etc.) All free!!

here's an answer to 'does [Google] allow lossless files?' question above (it's basically "No", they get resampled to 320 mp3s):

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1100462?hl=en

booo

xpost I assume Google's "track limit" must have a file size equivalent; I ask as someone who listens to tons of classical music where 5 tracks often equals 150 MB of MP3 320...

i wonder whether google storage is enough? 15GB for free. their prices for 10TB are a ripoff though - 10x1TB is 9c cheaper...

https://www.google.com/settings/storage

I need 2TB, I want to stream lossless. The iTunes experience gets worse and worse every year. Feeling like I have to keep on waiting.

after far too long I upgraded to a new computer and now iTunes actually works. On my 2008 MacBook it was technically functional but sometimes you'd have to wait 30 seconds or more between each action (switching tracks, adding to playlists, etc.). I don't know whether it's because of the increased processor speed or the solid state HD but now there is zero lag on a 600 GB library. I'm still using a traditional Lacie external drive to host all the music.

I basically spent 2000 dollars on a jukebox but what an amazing jukebox.

So here's a good read:

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/03/411666224/digital-underground

nice, thanks

it's so good

it's like the actually competent version of my hobbyhorses

well written and thorough; ann powers is a good writer.
This covers my thinking neatly:

"As a teacher of music history, it has been downright incredible to be able to assemble playlists on YouTube or Spotify, of pretty much anything that's been recorded," Marshall wrote in a recent email. "But I don't take this for granted or imagine that it will always continue like this. On one hand, there is definitely a pressure to monetize and hence to wall off some of this culture from people who can't pay for it or refuse to surrender their privacy in exchange. If Facebook owned YouTube, I might not be able to use it anymore. On the other hand, there's a 'genie out of the bottle' phenomenon here, and people are assembling their own media archives, off the cloud, which will serve us when we inevitably need to reconstitute them after the next round of corporate failures. Enthusiasts and artists have different motivations than corporations. That gives me hope."

after the next round of corporate failures

yeah I hate how people act like Spotify or iTunes are just going to be around forever

it's too much time + effort to be a FLAC collecting completionist tho. i used to feel like i needed a copy of everything i liked just in case spotify disappeared or whatever but at this point i find it much more enjoyable/healthier to get things as i need them (ie bc spotify doesn't have them) and if spotify ever disappears i'll reconstitute the new stuff i'm missing elsewhere. i'm not trashing all my music bc i now have spotify, but i can't buy/store everything.

people are assembling their own media archives, off the cloud, which will serve us when we inevitably need to reconstitute them after the next round of corporate failures.

translation plz

external hard drives filled w/ lossless music

the underground tends to flourish when there's not a corporate option; i believe public libraries both online and brick and mortar are doing the same
the presumption is that the infrastructure is in place so that when spotify is bought out and spiked, we have the ability to rebuild... stronger... faster...

when Spotify and iTunes cease to exist or transform into something new, we'll be really glad for all those people who continued accumulating music. This is important at a societal level for making sure that music doesn't simply disappear in the future.

Most people I know have stopped buying music completely because of Spotify, and many of them also sold off all their CDs. What happens if Spotify raises the price to $20/month? $50/month? They won't have access to anything. My CDs and hard drives are not exactly heirlooms but they are a great insurance policy.

I think it's more likely that Spotify gets bought out and killed (as forks suggests), rather than pricing themselves out of the market in an attempt to turn an actual profit

Agreed... and that would be even worse for the people who have stopped building music collections.

idk what's gonna happen with iTunes (no one's gonna kill Apple any time soon) but I could see them terminating or seriously curtailing the service in an attempt to drive customers to their own streaming service

guys i'm not sure we have a problem of under-archiving our popular media in 2015

tell that to all the people who equate Taylor Swift not being on Spotify to not being able to listen to her music at all: https://twitter.com/search?q=taylor%20swift%20spotify&src=typd&vertical=default&f=tweets

the problem isn't really the "popular" media, it's about what has a chance to become popular. (although it happens for popular artists, too -- the other day maura mentioned on twitter that one of Robyn's mid-2000s remixes is completely unfindable now)

people like us will obviously find a way without much trouble. But there is a whole new generation that grew up with this stuff that will be totally lost if it goes away.

got no response from jill sobule on that internet track btw kat

not sure if the article goes into it, but what's more threatened isn't the music per se but the website as an archive. also with less visible music, on bandcamp for instance, there is more of a threat of loss.

frankly i think people have an obligation to find ways to "rip" any music that interests them that exists only in streaming form. otherwise you have no guarantee of being able to hear it in a decade, a year, a month, tomorrow. the same goes for visual media.

without getting into details, there was briefly a service sold to major libraries that streamed very rare television shows from the 1940s-60s. it was a gold mine of stuff you'd otherwise find only in assorted archives (on 16mm prints) or not at all. however the site abruptly shut down a few years after it got started, and everything i wasn't able to "capture" (by being resourceful with some freeware) i now have no access to whatsoever. of course, i have no rights to this material and so i would never think of trying to monetize it or even share it publicly. but when i think about that site all i think about are all the shows i was not able to record before it went belly up.

the very same thing could happen with whatever service--itunes, soundcloud, bandcamp--you rely on now.

i don't trust the cloud one bit. i keep a ton of stuff on hard drives which i upgrade/migrate every so often.

If all the music I listen to suddenly became unavailable, I'd probably just find something else to occupy my time. Probably not an option for most of ILM though.

i dunno, i've always been used to the idea that lots of recorded music might be rare, or hard to get, or impossible to get. that's how the music collector game has been for like 95% of its existence tbf.

there is a reflexive leverage of the idea of loss whenever preservation comes up, digital or otherwise, that i have an ambivalent relationship with. nonetheless i can't help but wonder exactly how and in what form researchers 50 years from now will understand culture and the internet when so much documentation and context is disappearing and will disappear. on the one hand, tech enables so much more of it. on the other, the amount that can just disappear after an acquisition or w/e is just staggering. the numbers on both ends are hard to get a handle on ime.

xxp yes gratefully there are countless ways to be an asshole

and i hardly think that justifies ripping digital copies to keep forever if you haven't paid for them. i mean, we've all done it, but it's still not right if there's any avenue for getting a legit permanent copy.

xpost

compared to previous eras in history we must be producing, even just non-digitally, a tremendous amount of record, right? like just all the published books alone. it's hard to imagine losing all that information in some kind of modern library of alexandria fire.

yeah i don't think singular event loss is the most accurate way of thinking about how the fragility of digital information manifests itself, it's more scattered / in smaller increments / at the edges / more streamlined as part of other processes imo.

and i hardly think that justifies ripping digital copies to keep forever if you haven't paid for them. i mean, we've all done it, but it's still not right if there's any avenue for getting a legit permanent copy.

tracer, i was clearly referring to cases where there is no way to get a "legit permanent copy." read again.

fair enough!

sorry to be grouchy. i just thought i had made myself pretty clear.

i feel like having as we do the theoretical capability to save everything makes us very loss-averse. was reading about a vector of this with the internet archive guy talking about video games, which have a bigger problem than music, because music, when you record it, it's there, it's done. video games now on steam, the code is constantly changing. and even more than that the community. look at something like tinymud. we're trying to figure out what it means to "archive" that, but you can't. you can't archive community. loss is part of life; you can't save everything. and none of us can know what's going to be "valuable" a hundred years from now, what experiences people will be able to learn from. i can imagine someone going, in 2115, "why did they put so much effort into those fucking grateful dead bootlegs instead of telling us what we actually want to know?". (not pickin' on the dead, just a random example.)

don't know where to put this so I'm putting it here since streaming paywalls and the perishability of online services were discussed above http://www.stereogum.com/1806026/leaked-contract-confirms-soundcloud-is-plotting-a-subscription-service/news/

the other day maura mentioned on twitter that one of Robyn's mid-2000s remixes is completely unfindable now

ok, off-thread i know, but i'll bite.

which remix ?

back in the mid-00s i got sent a lot of robyn cd-eps with remixes on them.

you never know.

If this is the tweet... https://twitter.com/maura/status/605575281345183744 then that track is easily available for purchase as a digital file or on discogs.

ahh .. and of course, i don't have this one.

well, just wanted to see if i could help.

"why did they put so much effort into those fucking grateful dead bootlegs instead of telling us what we actually want to know?"...

― rushomancy, Wednesday, June 3, 2015 7:31 PM

You make some very good points but i have a small issue with the perspective. One of the major issues that might alter the precepts of your discussion is the nature of being "connected" or not. Many people use social apps to coral their real friends, others for their fake friends, layers and levels for those in-between, and even more for those unknown future connections. But what of those un-connected? Sure, their are those who only converse via direct face-to-face, hand-written letters or telephone; maybe a few of these people can be cajoled into texts or emails, but they tend to be migrants from their traditional mode(s) of communication.

The "opinions" of these non-connected people is just as lost to history as is the whimsy of any given online community. Example: I have this friend that i have known forever and have shared many experiences (and music) with, yet, nowhere does their exist any tangible evidence of the "why". The historic confabs are lost to the ether and the exchanged mixtapes are of no directly defined origin -- but we both "know" who the other is and our friendship is of a definably important nature.

My point is that unless i someday write a book that defines the nature of the relationship i have with this friend, that archive will be just as lost as any given droplet down a river. So, one could argue what's going to be "valuable" a hundred years from know is the same as what is valuable today -- it depends more on the individuals and the "editors" who sift out the chaff for the more salient and relevant details. Also noting that people many times need to let old things go before they let new things in.

A hundred years from now historians will likely point out how the general populace was so distracted by their "connectivity" that they lost the forest for the trees. Even more than that, answering "what we actually want to know" 100-years-hence assumes that the question doesn't change over the same duration [end of tangent].

I treat my digital music the same as my material music -- i don't keep it unless i like it but i still keep some titles simply for their "importance". I'm not quite as picky with the expanse of my digital stax because the space is so affordable; still, i keep everything tagged, properly annotated, and always with cover art -- and, in general, just as organized as i can reasonably manage (given the inherent difficulties of the format). I have 2 hard drive back-ups and zero intention of ever saving it to the cloud -- so, i still await tech to catch up with my desires to make a truly archival copy of my 0.7 TB digital collection.

Another new one at NPR

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/04/411795140/looking-for-a-connection-in-an-infinite-jukebox

"why did they put so much effort into those fucking grateful dead bootlegs instead of telling us what we actually want to know?"...
because what you need to know, man, is how sweet garcia's tone is on this "franklin's tower" from '75! the answers are all there!

if there's one thing archival science has taught us pretty conclusively over the past century it's that the informational value of something kept is unknowable, albeit in some knowable ways.

paper is actually a very "sticky" way of representing memory and a book doesn't have to be written to save the possibility of discovery of someone or some relationship, in many cases a decision just has to be made to not throw away a filing cabinet or box or receipt and/or keep it somewhere dry and/or entrust it to someone else. in many cases what these archives / personal accumulations document never becomes "opened" as a subject but until someone makes the active decision to get rid of them the potential is there. they have the potential to be human readable for hundreds of years. (depending on the composition of the paper; newspaper is notoriously short-lived for example.)

thinking more about this, maybe the threat of digital "loss" today is overstated since what we're talking about in many ways is an increasingly complicated form of archaeology that is abstracted from but still inescapably rooted in the physical, and digital forensics is a very new burgeoning field iirc.

in some ways what digital information is doing is modifying our concept of memory, changing its utility from something that used to be more or less practical to something that has an increasingly ideological air about it imo, something that is feel-y, marketable and maybe only indicative of a certain end-of-the-world neurosis about loss. xps

don't know what i was thinking when i typed "albeit in some knowable ways" above as it's unknowable, full-stop!