the future of recorded music

[ongakublue]

hello all,

today i posted an interesting review with the head of the Naxos label. He was talking about the sales in CDs as opposed to mp3 downloads and so on. I wonder what people feel about these issues...

do you love your 'hard copy' or have you moved exclusively into mp3s, transferred your CDs and ditched the originals?

do you see yourself as a collector? how important is it to 'own the music'?

i was particularly taken by the streaming aspect. one can subscribe to Naxos library and listen to CD-quality music from thousands of composers with the click of a button, not downloading anything. It would mean no more music as possession just a subscription but with the possibility of anything just a click away including undiscovered composers and works to enjoy at any time. interesting esp for those of us who are not wealthy.

thoughts and feelings most welcome 

Jamie

[Harry]

As long as one can get cd's I will stick to them. I've got over 25.000 already, and I am too advanced in years to chance my habits. But when space really becomes a issue, I simply stop buying them. Got enough to last me the rest of my mortal life.

[springrite]

As long as one can get cd's I will stick to them. I've got over 25.000 already, and I am too advanced in years to chance my habits. But when space really becomes a issue, I simply stop buying them. Got enough to last me the rest of my mortal life.

I am have merely collected 15% of what Harry has and on top of that, I plan to live even longer -- greedy greedy me. So I have a long way to go. CDs are like books. Even if all of them are online, I would still like to hold one in my hands.

[False_Dmitry]

how important is it to 'own the music'?

I find this thing about "I own xxxxx recording" quite irritating. 

It's like taking a living butterly, catching it in a net, killing it with chloroform, then sticking it on a pin.

[Todd]

The trend for recorded music seems clear enough.  Downloads and streaming will be the primary methods of content delivery at some point.  Physical media will stay around for those who want it; people can always burn their own discs when they want.  My hope is that MP3 dies and is replaced by lossless formats and plain old uncompressed files.  Storage is dirt cheap, so who cares about compression anymore? 

I prefer the convenience of being able to grab a CD and use it any number of places (home, car, work) with ease.  I find most UIs for most digital players or PCs to be cumbersome and slow to use, especially with a large selection.  Physical media is now and will continue to be my preference, just like with books.  To the extent some recordings become available only as downloads, I will rely on downloads when necessary.  I will probably favor downloads over paid streaming in such instances; with all the free radio stations online, I don't know if I'd pay for streaming.

It is worth noting that some recordings will most likely never be available for download or streaming.  There are thousands (and likely hundreds of thousands) of recordings in all genres that have never been transferred to digital, and while making music now available on CD available as a download is much easier and cheaper, I very seriously doubt all music now on CD will be available for download or streaming.  That's another reason physical media will stick around.

I'm not sure what "own the music" means.  I own lots of recordings, but I do not own the music. 

[Gurn Blanston]

The trend for recorded music seems clear enough.  Downloads and streaming will be the primary methods of content delivery at some point.  Physical media will stay around for those who want it; people can always burn their own discs when they want.  My hope is that MP3 dies and is replaced by lossless formats and plain old uncompressed files.  Storage is dirt cheap, so who cares about compression anymore?

Storage isn't the issue with compression (for me). It's download bandwidth. Not all of us live in areas where there is virtually unlimited bandwidth and speed. I have 3 terabytes of storage, but what good does it do me if it takes me several hours to download even 1 album in FLAC (my compression of choice).

I buy the CD, rip to FLAC for archival purposes, then convert to MP3 for my various players and store the CD. That's seeming to work well. AN average, single disk "album" in FLAC, with PDF booklet scans, is about 350 megs, BTW...

[Todd]

Not all of us live in areas where there is virtually unlimited bandwidth and speed.

This is true now, though over the course of the next 5, 10, or 20 years, I'll bet that improves. 

One thing I like reading in various magazines and newspapers is how comparatively slow America's internet service is in general.  You need to go to South Korea and Japan if you want smokin' fast service.  This disparity has of course led to people talking about a bandwidth gap; America is not only behind other countries in bandwidth, but dangerously so.  Yet my life seems so pleasant . . .

[Gurn Blanston]

This is true now, though over the course of the next 5, 10, or 20 years, I'll bet that improves. 

One thing I like reading in various magazines and newspapers is how comparatively slow America's internet service is in general.  You need to go to South Korea and Japan if you want smokin' fast service.  This disparity has of course led to people talking about a bandwidth gap; America is not only behind other countries in bandwidth, but dangerously so.  Yet my life seems so pleasant . . .

Yeah, I read one last week about S. Korea. They'd go apeshit if they lived where I do!

I would love it if the infrastructure would improve to world-class standards, but my belief is that by the time it reaches the world standard of today, the rest of the world will have doubled in speed. We have a bad habit of accommodating antique technology for years longer than we should. Look at televisions and you can see that. It's a major error, sad to say.

[ongakublue]

Interestin.. I myself have dumped all my CDs and have my hard-drive full of mp3s. I agree flac is better but I was late realising that and now mostly I have the mp3s. The download speed for me, for flac is not so bad although I live next to nowhere (I can see it from my window).

I like itunes coverflow - i can see what comes on - simple to operate - it is enough for now. I am sure none of this will last very long.

Streaming radio is one thing but being able to listen to even naxos' complete catalogue (or close to it) online under a cheap paid subscription is very nice. I will pay for it next month and review my findings. My speed is not great but good enough for this service - most times of the day. itunes are slow to do it but they may well do and that would mean all the big companies would be allowing it - might take a bit before sony, emi, dg, philips etc would allow that but it seems fun to be able to listen to a vast collection of full tracks without downloading them and paying buttons

Collecting is interesting - one never has everything but can boast about having more than others if they are that way inclined. I also don't overdo duplicating. I have heard La Mer maybe 300 times. I don't want more than a couple of versions in my possession.

J

[springrite]

Collecting is interesting - one never has everything but can boast about having more than others if they are that way inclined.

I doubt most people who own lots of CDs and are called "collectors" by others but not themselves actually think that way --about boasting, etc.

[Gurn Blanston]

I doubt most people who own lots of CDs and are called "collectors" by others but not themselves actually think that way --about boasting, etc.

I agree with that, Paul. If I was hard-pressed, I couldn't give you even a good approximation of how many CD's I have (unless you can put something numeric to match "a pisspot full"  ), I don't really care, actually, about the physical number of them, only about whether I have a certain piece of music to listen to or not. Anyway, downloads have really shot that in the ass; if I buy a download, can I still count it as a 'disk'? Why not? I have the music and often have the notes too. Even though they don't physically 'exist'.

[Mandryka]

I've stopped playing CDs at home. I'm in the process of ripping my collection to FLAC on a hard drive. It's been tagged with dbpoweramp and it's piped to my hi fi with a Logitech Squeezebox. The DAC on the squeezebox has been bypassed for a superior one. I backup once a fortnight now.

The main advantage –and this is a MAJOR one – is that I can easily find and retrieve my music, and I can create playlists.

The technology works fine. The tagging is a chore, but not hard labour. The hardest thing is backup -- I haven't quite fathomed the mystery of that.

But you do have to be computer confident -- this won't work for you if you are going to panic every time you have a problem to sort out.

The squeezebox tells me that right now I've ripped 22,000 tracks, 1,500 albums, 1000 artists

I avoid downloading mp3 -- even at a high bitrate. I can hear the difference between lossless and 256kbps clearly, but my hifi is good. I prefer to buy the CD and rip it myself -- that way the hard copy is a backup of sorts and you get the literature (for what it's worth)

[ongakublue]

So we have a lot of music but we are not collectors, most of us? we are not addicts, we can stop anytime we want 

The only reason to buy a CD is so you can listen to it I suppose, perhaps more than once but I do think there may be other reasons, so you can say 'I have such and such'. I am not saying you folks are like that but I am very sure there are many extremely proud people out there who like to show off their wares.

Playlists are a great advantage alright with music on computer. I have things all neatly organised which suits me fine.

I do have a few DVDs of music and a few cassettes - I would transfer them to itunes too - if I knew how.

J

[karlhenning]

. . . If I was hard-pressed, I couldn't give you even a good approximation of how many CD's I have (unless you can put something numeric to match "a pisspot full"  ), I don't really care, actually, about the physical number of them, only about whether I have a certain piece of music to listen to or not.

Hear, hear. Or, as it may be, whether I have a certain recording of a certain piece of music (which I suspect is also true for the Gurnatron).

[ongakublue]

I agree with that, Paul. If I was hard-pressed, I couldn't give you even a good approximation of how many CD's I have (unless you can put something numeric to match "a pisspot full"  ), I don't really care, actually, about the physical number of them, only about whether I have a certain piece of music to listen to or not.

But you don't need to own and you couldn't own all the music you ever might want to hear on a given occassion and perhaps that is why streaming is the way to go in future. Even Youtube makes it possible to hear music you don't own - albeit in poor quality often. I am not for or against but it is interesting. How much does possession of the item matter. Must we 'own' the music?

[Brahmsian]

I love CDs, have ever since I bought my first CD in 1990 (back then it was rock music I was into).  I rarely by any CDs now, but only because I'm on a tight budget, and I already have enough CDs to keep me happy for the rest of my life.

I always have the library, which has a really large CD collection that I can tap into.

I'm just not really interested in downloading music, just not my thing and never has been.  However, I can see the benefit and the advantages of it for the people who like it, and the music companies.

I have had a subscription to Naxos on-line library for the streaming services in the past, and at some point I probably will renew it (when I'm back at work or get another job). I found the internet streaming very useful.  I much prefer the internet streaming and CDs over downloading.  My preference.

[karlhenning]

But you don't need to own and you couldn't own all the music you ever might want to hear on a given occassion and perhaps that is why streaming is the way to go in future. Even Youtube makes it possible to hear music you don't own - albeit in poor quality often. I am not for or against but it is interesting. How much does possession of the item matter. Must we 'own' the music?

For me, the matter is not one of ownership, strictly speaking, but of availability (and availability at better than YouTube-level audio).

[Todd]

How much does possession of the item matter. Must we 'own' the music?

What if a vendor's server goes down just when you really need to hear a piece?  What if the power is out where one is listening?  (This assumes some type of battery powered player backup is available.)  What if one is driving or riding in a car that cannot stream from the net (which as far as I am aware is pretty much all of them)?  Owning a recording, whether in physical form or in a downloaded form has certain advantages over streaming. 

[springrite]

Maybe preference is the word, I am not sure. If Googles has its way, no one needs to own books at all. But I suspect many people will still prefer to have the hardcopy to read. It is the same with CDs for me, and I don't need to do a psychoanalysis on myself about all the other possible interpretations of my choice. It is not about owning. Just because others may see it as about ownership, it really isn't. Take my word for it, not someone else's interpretation.

[karlhenning]

Maybe preference is the word, I am not sure. If Googles has its way, no one needs to own books at all. But I suspect many people will still prefer to have the hardcopy to read.

There was an interesting bit on NPR touching on this, this weekend past (or was it Monday?) . . . that there is a bundle of mental and neurological processes ("deep reading") which is established by a long-term regimen of reading and reflecting on books, and which is a core requisite to (well) intelligent thought and reflection.  If, in John Doe's life (and worse, if John Doe is a youngster in school) reading is altered into just one of a large menu of apps making up John's attention-deficit multi-tasking on a handheld device . . . the "deep reading" is lost.