Maintaining a Digital Music Collection

my big disk and its backup are fully encrypted...hmm what should i do, put the password in my will?

this thread gives me NAS drive death anxiety.
my little 4TB WD My Cloud is nearly 10 years old now.
i back it up every tuesday onto an external drive and so have a degree of fallback.
i just know that when it does 'die', the replacement device will be a bugger to set up, and cause several days of techno woes.

I've wondered in the past about who'll wind up with my music collection when I'm gone, and it's a nice thought to imagine that someone else will go through these idiosyncratic records I've thrown together and find that it... opens them to the world I live in, I guess. Stuff I've been able to discover, to understand, that isn't really represented anywhere else. I can't imagine that actually happening. I can't imagine whoever winds up with this clunky old black box, or whatever format it takes when I'm gone, will have genuine interest in this assemblage of noises.

I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it helps keep me from putting things off, from Bucket Listing things. Having something on my NAS doesn't make it any more "real" or permanent than having it streaming on Spotify does. It's not even more _accessible_ to me - more and more I'll get songs stuck in my head but not be able to remember their name or who did them or find them in any way. I don't use Spotify or streaming services, but this is more a matter of obstinacy than the belief that my way of doing things is genuinely preferable, even to me, as well as maybe a little bit of sunk cost fallacy. God, I still use iTunes. iTunes is terrible software, but migrating the whole thing to less garbage music library software is more effort than I'm willing to undertake.

Basically my digital music collection is _obsolete_.

That reminds me that I need to replace my seven year old 4TB WD My Book which died last month. It’s been my primary/daily backup drive for all that time; I have a secondary/weekly backup drive that I normally keep in another location but doing daily backup duty at the moment.

This might be better off in the Apple Music thread, but has anyone merged your local files with your Apple Music streaming account recently? I remember all the horror stories of scrambled libraries when they first introduced it so I’ve kept mine separate, but I keep finding myself wanting to remotely stream stuff that isn’t available in Apple Music. I have 35K+ properly tagged tracks that I’d hate to have messed up (though I guess could always fix with my backup) so wondering if those issues are mostly settled now.

haha i have honestly considered putting a note on my external drive saying ‘send to ned in the event of my death’ even though we’ve never actually met

This is a vision. I'd have to think about this!

Slightly more seriously, a few of us Of An Age were having a discussion elsewhere about collection maintenance in general and what might happen to it, and I'm not sure -- wearing my library worker's hat here, though I will note I'm not a professional archivist -- where that level of interest in the field stands. Certainly awareness of the necessity of digital archives has grown, but the combination of awareness about how so much 'stuff,' in whatever form or however defined, essentially ends up in estate sales or the like rather than anything permanent or cared for by someone else in combination with the fact that personal collections aren't professional archives unless you've realllllly organized them as such in advance tends to be a factor -- and of course there's the fact that people have done amazing histories with preserved written archives that have hung around for hundreds of years versus hard drives that, well, won't, there ya go.

Kate's way of looking at it is pretty sharp, honestly; it's an interesting historical moment -- which has no guarantee of lasting -- where even if the heavenly jukebox doesn't of course have 'everything' and never did, if the pleasure is there, well then.

As for me, I was talking in said discussion about how when it comes to actual physical releases, I consciously look for and hold on to three specific kinds of releases:

* archival reissues, compilations, collections etc that preferably have extensive liner notes and information -- these are research tools and I treat them as such; in the cases of bands or scenes that haven't warranted particular study in books, anthologies etc., these may be the only collected information at all about them, making it more valuable.

* notably rare and interesting things I've found along the way -- all the old Digitalis CDRs for instance, and really a ton of the 2000s CDR boom in general, but there's plenty of CDs I have that were only ever issued in very short runs

* very specific releases with sentimental value -- so I'll never give up my copy of Loveless I got back in 1991, for instance, that really is a marker point for me, but also I've been lucky enough to be named in various liner notes over time so of course I'll keep those.

Everything else I'm buying, digital only and zero regrets. I will happily trawl used CD bins for many cheap things but that's just to rip them (Apple Lossless, as I've been doing for years now) and then send them on in turn. And per early rejecter's question, I've held off on doing anything with Apple Music services for that reason -- think there's something useful in not keeping all my eggs in one company's basket, speaking as an Apple/Mac guy since 1987.

That reminds me that I need to replace my seven year old 4TB WD My Book which died last month.

i'm going to regrest asking ... but how old was the device early rejector ?
i use mine for streaming my music via my old Sonos Connect.
i.e. it's in use for many hours a day as opposed to just sat there and being accessed from time to time for a photo/file.
i think i am definitely pushing my luck with my device now.

as for when i die, then i'll leave it to my lads to decide what to do with my collection, both digital and physical.
i have set aside my FAX cd collection and have already advised them to check before binning them if there's still a demand.

perhaps this would be more appropriate for the I HATE APPLE thread, but this morning I discovered that all the playlists I made during many years of iTunes use are no longer present in the macOS Music application ... all the tracks are still on my computer, it's only the playlists that have vanished

apparently this is related to my never subscribing to Apple Music or turning on Sync Library?

a few of these playlists still exist on the iPod Classic that lives in my car, but most of them weren't kept on that device because of space limitations

thankfully this is more of a nuisance than a source of heartbreak, since I didn't have a huge number of extensively curated and treasured playlists (or did I? I don't really remember them all, so I guess I'll never know)

I suppose the moral of the story is to store playlist information in at least one non-proprietary format if you'd like to be able to recreate a playlist in some future era of different equipment and functionality

xpost It would've been 7 years old next month. If you're backing yours up every week you're probably in pretty good shape, though I always keep two backups now after having two hard drives fail in a single week many years ago. I shelled out $100 for Disk Warrior and was able to recover just about everything, but especially with photos being digital now I don't want to risk that again. I have physical copies of most of the music I really care about so wouldn't be devastated if I lost those files, but would hate to lose the last 10-15 years of family photos.

yeah, 7 years is about the average from what i have read, hence i think i need to start investigating my options (just a straighforward newer version i suspect).
i have most of my music in cd form as well, just that i have got very used to dipping and diving via my sonos thing ...
but now you mention it, i do have a large digital photo collection on it as well.
actually, i need to make sure that the directory is included in my weekly back up.
ta for the nudge.

i’ve always assumed 99 if not 100% of my digital life will be binned, lost or otherwise forgotten when i die. people are going to enter passwords, search for things in my hard drive? gtf. i’m certainly not doing that with my parents’ computers when they die.

as for when i die, then i'll leave it to my lads to decide what to do with my collection, both digital and physical.

Don't do that, speaking as someone who's had to deal with mountains of *stuff* after a loved ones' death. I know we can't time everything perfectly, but in general if you hit 75-80, start downsizing. Give away things to people who'll appreciate them. I'm prepared to ditch the thousands of CDs and comics I've got if my kids or future grandchildren aren't interested. As for my digital files, they can just toss it all, I have no expectations that my peculiar tastes will be of interest to anyone else. The family might want to keep all the digital photos and email (which serves as something of a diary at times). But that's it.

The more we prepare for the end, the easier it will be for those who have to clean up after us.

true enough GMB.
hopefully the cd revival thing properly kicks in before i kick it, so i can cash in.

The more we prepare for the end, the easier it will be for those who have to clean up after us.

Indeed. In various small ways I'm already thinking about that and I'm feeling better -- almost lighter -- because of it.

But don't be like my mother, throwing out treasured items because she didn't want us to have to "worry about them" later.

Had a conversation like this with Mom (who's 73) last night — not about a hard drive full of tunes, but an attic full of books. She's mailing me an old, unexpurgated Grimm's Fairy Tales I remember reading as a kid. If you've never read it, that shit was dark.

These days a text file with your whole collection listed on it is pretty much as good as a drive full of mp3s. Someone who really cares to can find anything online - either streaming or shadier means. Based on my own experience: For rare things if they have to work for it - they'll appreciate it more when they do eventually find it.

She's mailing me an old, unexpurgated Grimm's Fairy Tales I remember reading as a kid. If you've never read it, that shit was dark.

― but also fuck you (unperson),

not to derail the thread too much : but how do you know if unexpurgated ?
i have this version, and have no idea :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Fairy-Tales-Brothers-All-New/dp/0553382160/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=the+complete+fairy+tales+of+the+brothers+grimm

and yeah, the stories are deliciously dark.
not read it all as yet.
i read it for a few days at a time.

how do you know if unexpurgated ?

Well, it included the scenes where Cinderella's stepsisters cut off pieces of their feet to make the glass slipper fit, and it had the anti-Semitic stories.

Weird, Jaime Brooks published this today, which I'm looking forward to reading, feels relevant

https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/the-future-of-streaming-services-may-be-in-the-past/

Well, it included the scenes where Cinderella's stepsisters cut off pieces of their feet to make the glass slipper fit, and it had the anti-Semitic stories.

― but also fuck you (unperson),

blimey !
going to have to check re my version.

anyways, back to NAS drive chaos ..

is this why it was glass? ayeeee

A number of xposts to Brad C -- there's something else going on there; all of my iTunes playlists transferred over to the Music app with no problem, and that was well before I subscribed to Apple Music. And as noted above I've been wary about syncing my local library with Apple Music so still haven't flipped that switch.

I have a 1TB hard drive in a drawer, that represents the long long hours I spent in the 00s and 10s, buying, receiving (for reviewing purposes) and nicking stuff, then tagging, curating into playlists, sharing etc - and I access it maybe twice a year to find something? In truth, I've not found a way to successfully manage the transition to a 'one library' digital space - the infinity of that hard drive and the work it takes keep it accessible and navigable is too much; the possibilities are simply too broad and wide, and I need the anchor of physical media to help deal with the tyranny of choice.

This probably says more about my daft brain than anything else but the move to digital is indicative of something, at least: how attics and basements have shrunk or morphed into digital space, and how much easier it'll be for the next generation to simply smash extant hard drives with a hammer and be done with it.

A Frightened Rabbit lyric comes to mind: "Well, here's the evidence of human existence/A splitting binbag next to two damp boxes/And I cannot find a name for them/They hardly show that I have lived" - swap out binbag and boxes for some form of obsolete tech and there it is.

otm

is there really nothing that'll just let you dump files onto a hard disk and let you play them through a stereo?

my pi Jukebox does the job, uses phone as a remote / display, but it's very ghetto

xp thanks early rejector

it seems to me my playlists came through the initial iTunes-to-Music switch just fine, so I wonder if their recent disappearance is due to a macOS upgrade (I'm running 12.4 now)

xp I've use a relatively inexpensive (<$200) DAC for several years and it's a fanatic low-tech solution. USB from your computer to the DAC, which converts the digital signal to analog and sends it to your stereo receiver using RCA connectors. No, it doesn't play everywhere in the house but neither did the stereo.

is there really nothing that'll just let you dump files onto a hard disk and let you play them through a stereo?

this is exactly what Sonos Connect, now Port, is all about.

a NAS and a receiver that support DLNA i guess would be the simplest non-brand-ecosystem way

other than an old computer connected to a receiver aux

Years ago I put my music collection on my server (which also presents as a NAS on the network). I have Plex for movies and Airsonic for music running on the server. Last year I bought a HiFiBerry and hooked it up to my receiver. To listen to music I connect my phone to the HiFiBerry and stream either from whichever app I need to. For one person used to listening on the phone, this is pretty elegant and simple. The backend is a little complicated, but I could definitely see it being set up in an easier way with, like, a Synology NAS or something.

The frustrating thing is nobody in my house knows the system, so any time anybody wants to hear something on the stereo, they come get me. I see this is a flaw in _my setup_ - it's not on them. I've been trying to think of a way to make it more simple. Maybe I just attach a low-end iPad to the wall near the stereo and just have the Substreamer app open on it all the time. Or get a record player and be done with it.

hifiberry........ can you add buttons to this rig, to the Pi's GPIO?

i have an even less powerful little ESP32 based "Squeezeamp" that I've hooked buttons (pause/play, next/prev, couple radio station presets) and a rotary encoder (volume) up to. Logitech Media Server stuff. I realize it sounds a bit much. But any active branded systems drive me up a wall. The thing with the "Logitech" is that they've pretty much abandoned it and it's open source and community maintained and is kind of a beautiful thing. Shame about the name!

What's the best way to store a bunch of digital music files in the cloud in a manner that's easy to stream from?
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GxOds0DpFDKtiQWFSqteioB1Co8z1-jm

I'd like to be able to put all this somewhere where I can stream it to my phone and play it in my car so that the albums will actually play as albums.

Roon 2.0 now offers this feature.

Rent a VPS with lots of storage, run a music server on it like Plex, Navidrome, Jellyfin, etc.

The 2TB Lacie hard drive I bought in 2017 only has about 75GB of space left, so I just bought a 4TB and will begin slowly backing up my collection over the fall and winter.

You listen to all 2 TB of that music you already have to the point that you need more storage?

Yup.

Not hard for me to believe at all.

A lot of my collection — at least half, maybe more — is promos I'm sent. I only keep the ones I listen to and like enough to consider writing about, and it still adds up to at least an album or two a day. That's before the stuff I buy or download from elsewhere, which adds up to somewhere around 5-15 albums more each month.

Honestly I keep all my promos. Then again keep in mind I've got a 24 TB drive (itself backed up). I never regret the investment.

You probably don't get as many black metal albums or self-released smooth jazz projects as I do.

More of the former than you might guess but as for the latter, I concede the field.

smooth jazz self releasing is my favorite medicine album

I'm closing in on 5TB now, will probably need to bump up a size in the next couple tears

wait until you decide to store your blu-ray collection on a plex server

thankfully I only own like four blu-ray discs, and have no idea how to rip them, so those will stay in the physical realm

F Hazel - any tips for that? I only have a few blu rays but I’d like to be able to stream them on Plex

Plex actually is pretty simple to use! Some learning curve with folder and file naming conventions but the harder part was learning to rip Blu-Rays (I use MakeMKV). I leave the raw rips since video compression is too complicated to mess with for me. My collection is medium-sized... around 500 discs.

Plex app is on Roku so watching stuff from my collection is a pleasure. It handles metadata really well, all I fiddle with is the movie poster choices.