Continuing with CDs?

though I v. rarely buy new vinyl and when I have bought new vinyl which "comes with a download code" I think about a third of the time there's been no download code and it's no use emailing anyone because they're all just like "well I guess it doesn't come with a download code after all, maybe we'll update the blurb next week, bye" (3rd party sellers) or "no you can't have another download code because we definitely put one in all the sleeves and nothing could possibly have gone wrong with that process" (direct from the label) so eh

On the other side of that, it's kind of annoying as a label when you get people who've blatantly picked up (or been given) promo copies of a record mailing and asking for download codes, but at the same time it's not enough of a big deal so I tend to just send them a code because w/evs, glad you're enjoying the record.

the biggest inconvenience for CDs anymore isn't the CDs or the packaging, but the fact that it is vanishingly difficult to find a laptop with a CD/DVD drive. I finally gave up and bought an external drive, which in practice means I never rip any CDs because I can never find it when I think to

"here! have a touch screen that in practice picks up every breeze or speck of dust as an interaction and that has a way of spontaneously re-enabling itself no matter how many times you disable it. but a basic disk drive? NO, FUCK YOU"

though I v. rarely buy new vinyl and when I have bought new vinyl which "comes with a download code" I think about a third of the time there's been no download code

I wonder if you've had particularly bad luck because most of the used recent vinyl I pick up still has the download code (and sometimes a CD) intact

I feel the same way, except it makes a lot of sense that the disc drive would eventually phase out. Lots of moving parts and space (more applicable to laptops) to account for when including it.

xp

I'm listening to a CD right now!

Yeah I don't think I've ever had a missing download code when it was promised.

Don't most scanners, printers need a disc drive to install the necessary software?

I use a CD player to play CDs. They work like a charm.

Guess how much the CD player I have at the store weighs. Go ahead, guess. Give up? 25 pounds. That's around 11 kilos for you Canadians.

My laptop's external CD drive sits on a shelf in my office, right next to the external hard drive where I store my AAC files. I can lay hands on either one of these items in seconds when I need them. If someone was, say, a hoarder living in a garbage house, though, I could see how keeping track of things might be difficult, and cause one to just groan loudly and throw up one's hands when it came time to rip a CD.

I don't live in a garbage house but I do live in 60 square feet and a common area I'm not allowed to spend more than an hour per day in

it must be nice to have such a thing as a "house," a relic from the good old days when there were also such things as "jobs" and "paychecks"

What's the best free CD-burning software these days? (Or should I buy something?)

Which label decided to get rid of download codes? Was it Numero Group? Anyway, there was some amazing stat that like less than 5% of people cashed them in. So they got rid. I assume it'd be the same with CDs.

No disc drive is a royal pain in the arse, but we'll adapt, I guess.

I've lived in the same one-bedroom apartment for over 10 years. Decadent luxury, I know.

a one-bedroom apartment would be the height of luxury at this point, but until then I'm OK resenting the neverending shunting of basic functionality to peripheral devices

You're both making me feel well off for a change, but rent buys a lot more in the "War Zone" in Albuquerque than it does most other places. (Not nearly as bad as its name suggests, though I wouldn't walk far at all at night.)

I'm on my second external optical drive at this point -- went and got a handy Samsung Blu-ray drive last year that plugs directly into a USB port on my MacMini, no other power source needed. Very helpful and add in a third party software thing to actually use Blu-ray on my Mac as a bonus and I'm set (and lucky, per K's comments in general).

Oh good! Thanks for the info I'd been wondering if there was a nice, mac compatible blu-ray supporting external drive out there.

It is but as mentioned, you'll need to get separate software. I went ahead and bought this, does the trick just fine.

http://www.macblurayplayer.com/

yeah to be clear so far I have no complaints about the quality of the external drive I'm using, just the fact that it has to be external

Agreed there.

Ripping cds is technically illegal here in the UK. Wasn't for about a year, but is again now. So i'd like cds to come with a download code, but they mostly don't.

Often buying things on bandcamp will get you a download code when you pay and another included in the physical version when it turns up.

Interesting. If I saw a CD with a download code a few years ago (when CD drives were still more common) I'd have been baffled. Ripping a CD to back it up just seems like such an innocent task. Distributing the digital copy to others is when legality comes into question.

like, great, I can play the CD while I'm in my living room, and if I really want to listen to it on my phone or at work I guess I can spend another 75% of the CD price for something I've already paid for, or I can dig out the old portable CD drive for my laptop and try to find all the cables and spend a while fighting with EAC settings and wait through 20 minutes of rumbling while it rips, or... yeah I'll just steal the thing I've already bought, fine

― a passing spacecadet, Thursday, December 22, 2016 5:14 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is me, many many times

lots of things to hate about amazon, but their autorip feature where you get mp3s when you buy a CD (sometimes for less than buying just the mp3s!) is pretty nice.

yeah that is cool

^^It's even cooler when AutoRip hooks you up with a nicer version of whatever you bought, as I rediscovered when I picked up the 2-disc Fleetwood Mac Mirage, and they threw in MP3s of the live disc from the deluxe box for free.

Now that's a nice bonus!

Autorip is a cool feature. I wish they'd make them 320 rips, though.

Seriously

you kids and your burning and your ripping...

Those space saving sleeves do work pretty well. I'm through about 700 out of a case of 1000 and it has opened up quite a bit of space on the shelves for other Cds. Mostly I have been putting them in the bag when I rip the CD as a uncompressed wav file into my library. I've been working on that for a couple of years whenever I feel like it and have probably have a aprox 1.7 tb uncompressed music ripped at this point. I'd figure that to be probably 2000-2500 CDs ripped and I probably got over 4000 at this point. It's pretty much pure lunacy, but I could not imagine having to keep all of this around in LPs. I only have a couple hundred vinyl records.

> a uncompressed wav

What about the metadata, though? Won't someone think of the metadata?!

I use abcde on Linux to rip to flac and ogg at the same time, flacs go into the archive, oggs onto the sansa.

All needs a massive reorg though.

I've been using dBpoweramp for a few years to rip my CDs which does apply an editable metadata on the files. That said, I don't really use a database reader for playback on my main music PC. I've been using Foobar2000 for quite a few years for playback, mostly as it's such a stripped down and efficient player and doesn't have all the bells and whistles. My music is in good shape organization wise and I keep a spreadsheet on it all, which is enough for me. I got a converter and a directory and will export wavs into MP3 every so often to put on thumb drives for external listening.

I'd perhaps ripped them as .aiff had I ever became a Mac person, but I have worked in IT with Windows for so long, I've never really crossed that line. Every time I price out a Powerbook or something, I go price out a comparable Windows laptop and I can't make the leap.

I carted off the giant floor-to-ceiling CD shelves I built in 2001 to Goodwill today. Made my choices awhile ago.

big fan of grabbing CDs at random from the world music section of the library, always end up with cool stuff.

Isn't it weird that in a near future most people may not own collections of music, movies and literature? They'll still listen, watch and read, but through subscriptions - there'll be no physical (maybe not even digital) collections to look at in their living rooms. Otoh there's only really been movie collections for what ~30 years or something. Personal/private music collections for ~100 years? Book collections must be the oldest, and perhaps the ones that'll last longest.

there may be another thread for this

Glad I've built up a substantial library of all three. I'll never trust downloads/streaming/subscriptions--whatever is given there can be taken away. Plus I'd imagine at least a quarter of what I listen to most isn't on any subscription service, probably a lot higher than that. Also besides the ethics, given that subscriptions/streaming don't seem to pay artists/producers a meaningful amount.

Really don't like the idea of people only having subscriptions. If you're a kid and you're parents won't pay for it, that would suck. Or people who love music but don't like the internet.

I just bought a physical copy of the Kehlani album #luddite

As long as there are physical CDs, I will be buying them. Books, too. DVDs and Blu-Rays, too, but in much smaller quantities 'cause I don't really care that much about movies - I see maybe five a year in theaters, if that, and maybe twice that many via Amazon or Hulu.

I've no doubt enthusiasts (and some people who grew up when blu-rays, cds, lps had value) will maintain collections - but I don't think coming generations are likely to

Apparently sales of eBooks have leveled off. Even my students tell me they look to them as escapes from the tyranny of the screen.

them = books

i'm ready to make a run for the border at a moment's notice.

https://scontent.fbed1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16388119_1736894629957515_1793370399160766769_n.jpg?oh=df9fcc467cb28d6168a70507a96a0028&oe=5949BF89

https://scontent.fbed1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16299497_1736896039957374_5411641323181886341_n.jpg?oh=a167a6529c0f205ea919fabd0cac11c9&oe=591B472F

You have two copies of Scream Bloody Gore! Good idea - in case anything happens to one, you have a spare. That album rules. Oh and you have two copies of South of Heaven too! Smart man.

I will always buy physical media, and will have a physical collection of music until the day I die, at which point it will probably all end up in a dumpster

noise, metal, old school hip hop ... and red house painters.