for other people who have 80-90% of your music solely on your computer, can we go through life without losing it all at least once?

i guess this is more of a tech question but w/e

holy shit at you only owning 15-20 cds

dude for ppl my age it's totally not at all out of the ordinary

I haven't bought music in a physical format for at least a year, except as presents for my parents.

o_O

10-20 years down the line it will be the celestial infinite jukebox. You won't "own" any music anymore.

I hope.

fetch me a dream, puppy goo-goo

I get freaked out about this all the time, too. I guess you just keep backing your collection up.

I have an exact opposite fear - that one day CD players will become extanct and I have to convert my 500 CDs to my computer and listen to them as files.

i dont get this 'problem' - I haven't even looked at my hard drive from college in over two years, when i was living at home for a year after college my family's hard drive was packed full of songs i havent listened to in one year ... and now I have an entirely full hard drive on my laptop.

How many of those songs did you pay for J0rdan? When music is devalued as much as it is (in terms of $$$) its kinda hard to get all :'( about it disappearing

unlike the dinosaurs, i think we'll have some advance warning on that, rather than all cd players seasing to function overnight.

xpost

How many of those songs did you pay for J0rdan? When music is devalued as much as it is (in terms of $$$) its kinda hard to get all :'( about it disappearing

well, probably at least 90% of the music on my computer I paid for and/or own on CD, but I'd still be pretty freaked out if my computer crashed, if only because it would take a billion hours to rip all that music again and organize it the way it was.

summer 2006 my hard drive crashed and i lost all of my music (20-30 GB). i was in LA, and my CDs were on the other side of the country. it was a major bummer in terms of the time it took me to torrent everything, but in the end i probably only redownloaded 40-50% of what had originally been on there, since i rarely listened to half of it. now i have like 80 GB and 12k songs, of which ive listened to most at least once. i back up way more religiously now and it would suck if i lost all of it, but its not like having all your records stolen (especially w/ the advent of rapidshare and music blogs). i dont think ive bought a CD since then, actually.

but my living situation isnt conducive to having a huge physical music library, nor do i have a good enough sound system to really warrant it.

dumb thing is i probably spend more time backing up the music i listen to least because i need to make room on main PC for more stuff i actually like.

well, probably at least 90% of the music on my computer I paid for and/or own on CD, but I'd still be pretty freaked out if my computer crashed, if only because it would take a billion hours to rip all that music again and organize it the way it was.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Thursday, February 14, 2008 11:46 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

it would definitely be a pain in the ass, don't get me wrong

Ive lost all my music -- which was usually somewhere around 80 or 90 gigs at the time of the computer crash -- probably five or six times. It sucks a lot.

i buy music now for 4 reasons now:

1. to support the artist (recently: clipse, freeway, animal collective, lcd)
2. bcuz it's old and i can't find it on the net (first 2 cymande albums, some older cash money stuff)
3. no one cares about the band enough to torrent their stuff right when it comes out (recently: clockcleaner, gowns)
4. i have an itunes gift card (happens like 3-4 times a year)

so maybe 10-20% of my music is paid for?

so i guess my concern is over convenience, but even if that makes me sound like a dick i can't help but worry about it anyway. i would be pretty distraught if i lost like 30 gigs of music or whatever it is i don't own on cd

i was distraught for a minute but between torrenting and rapidshare it only takes like a month or two to get back most of the stuff you want

plus if you got boys you can just grab their music

i think we're the same age

this is why i (still) buy albums. plus I like to own shit.. but in case my HD crashes and my iPod dies I still have my music.

15 - 20 cds is prettty pathetic dude lol

im still in a mp3s-sound-shit kinda place.

LOLLLLL

i think there are a lot of people (read: "the real world") who think that having 500+ CDs is "pretty pathetic"

that is pretty pathetic

So...what number of CD's isn't pathetic?

143?

yeah i mean, and for most people my age we grew up like

14-15: spend disposable income on music or going out w/ friends OR download shit for free off kazaa/limewire
16-17: spend disposable income on music or going out w/ friends OR download shit for free off torrents

and by now i'm already so used to that that the idea of buying 80-90% of my music sounds literally insane to me

yeah that is kind of true i used to buy a lot more cds than i do now

last year I only bought around 20 or so

Sounds literally sane whatever age you are - these days, I mean (xp)

but Ive started buying used records which are dirt cheap so i'm still buying lots of music

though as ive gotten older my guilt has crept up on me and i buy more stuff now than i used to

i think there are a lot of people (read: "the real world") who think that having 500+ CDs is "pretty pathetic"

-- max, Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:14 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

too many or too few!!??

re disposable income blah-di-blah -- it depends how much you listen to your 80GB of music, really! if the object is to hear everything once, i can see why owning mp3s >>>>> buying.

i think there are a lot of people (read: "the real world") who think that having 500+ CDs is "pretty pathetic"

ppl have always thought this from the dawn of radio

i don't think they had cds in the 1920s, dan.

but i take yr point.

"How many wax cylinders you got?"
"15"
"That's pathetic, dude"

losing yr music collection: somewhat bummerz

losing yr ableton warp makers: MEGA BUMMERZ :( :( :(

sorry i just am loling at the idea that a dude with 15-20 CDs is "pathetic" (when most of the country owns not even that many)

that is not true

i know tons of people who aren't really "music" people but have tons of cds - for the car or whatever

people do actually buy cds in the real world

and they physically bought them new?

i mean i know plenty of ppl with ass loads of burned cds and shit

yeah.

and then there's that yeah

sorry i just am loling at the idea that a dude with 15-20 CDs is "pathetic" (when most of the country owns not even that many)

-- max, Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

i call BS! except for oldsters who haven't converted, but shit even my parents have more than this.

for other people who have 80-90% of your music solely on your computer, can we go through life without losing it all at least once?

I'm terrified of this, so I still stick with CDs for the time being.

Even if I download an album I like, I burn it to a CD and shelve it.

nrq idk how old you are, but w/ a few exceptions most ppl my age buy like 2-3 cds a year MAX

I don't know about 2 - 3

maybe like 10 or so

on average

Even if I download an album I like, I burn it to a CD and shelve it.

this isnt a bad idea and idk how it never crossed my mind

whats more embarassing than owning 15-20 cds is that apparently those cds are by clipse, animal collective and lcd soundsystem

lol zing

lol music nerd age gap

that's ethan's first non-lazy zing at me in like 6 months

nrq idk how old you are, but w/ a few exceptions most ppl my age buy like 2-3 cds a year MAX

-- J0rdan S., Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:33 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

27, but with a weird non-relationship with new music. i still buy about 10 cds A MONTH.

I accidentally formatted the wrong partition of a drive in 1999 and lost most of my mp3s. I actually had a record of what I lost, but I never bothered to rebuild the collection. So now when I hear something from that lost collection that I listened to a lot way back then, this huge wave of nostalgia rolls right over me. I still get a little teary-eyed whenever I hear something from Chef Aid... lolcollege.

cds are way cheap now.

ur ancient tho

lol yeah they are, a lot of new Cds are $8 and Sony recently re-released like 10,000 catalog albums at $8 a pop

yeah now is really the time to get new cds

best buy routinely sells shit for $8.99 the first week it comes out

nrq idk how old you are, but w/ a few exceptions most ppl my age buy like 2-3 cds a year MAX

-- J0rdan S., Thursday, February 14, 2008 1:33 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Are you 16?

19

it wasn't til like jr. year of high school for me that napster showed up

this CD divide is kinda blowing my mind

lol napster wow

i share my mp3s w/a friend we trade new ones every few months so if a harddrive goes to shit itll be backed up that way. ive been compulsively hording mp3s for like 5 years now and no crashes so far - tis inevitable tho

i used to buy kinda a lot of music i prob have like 800 cds + records and i never buy any music anymore <3 <3 <3 bittorrent

maybe i don't hang out with enough ppl who really love music or maybe i'm underestimating but most ppl i know just torrent/p2p

yeah napster was waaaaaay before my time

most of my friends/ my sisters don't really do torrents or really listen to whole albums.. they're more about individual songs.. but they buy a few albums a year from like big artists/artists they really like

^^yeah this

i'm probably underestimating ppl buying shit off of itunes

I've bought more cds directly from bands at live shows in the past 6 months than I've bought from any kind of store in the past 3 years.

i mean, it makes sense, i still have hundreds of cds at home but i don't buy many these days. only jazz and non-label stuff really (ie stuff that's not available online or that i want to support directly).

i am also super lazy with the backing up, btw.

xp

i have about 250 cds but a lot of them are $5 mixtapes or dollar bin scores... i didnt start downloading til 2005

I'd still rather pay cover and buy your t-shirt and download your album, though.

most people i know buy mp3s from itunes

when i was in HS i only ever bought budget-section stuff but i lived in a town with one of the best record stores on the east coast so i was able to stock up pretty big

most ppl I know (myself included) think that paying for mp3s is retarded

^^^OTM

i think the real divide here is maybe people who have friends who arent huge aspie music nerds and people whose friends are all huge aspie music nerds

Seriously I don't think I'll ever wrap my head around it. Every time I look at a mp3 single or whatever on Bleep or Boomkat, I'm just like do I really want to spend money to stuff this on my unstable labtop and I just say fuck it and open up SLSK instead.

yah people come over to load up their ipods all the time

I just still love CDs as a medium. Plus now I'm an adult with a job and can afford to buy used shit on Amazon all day.

If I was 19 and broke, I'd probably be downloading like a motherfucker

Yeah "everyone I know" coming from a bunch of people who post on the internet all day is pretty LOL

i've only ever bought 1 song from itunes : Beast Boys - Ch-Check It Out

and it was free because that was when pepsi was giving away free itunes downloads

I've lost my music collection twice. The most recent being last month where I lost about 5,400 CD's. Its actually a bit refreshing. I'm already back up to a 100 or so.

I live in fear of this, and I don't even have an external drive. I'm really asking for it. My Dell never crashed in 5 years. I've had this Macbook for a year, and so far so good...

Side question: When you drag files from your internal hard drive to an external one, what sort of downgrade in quality happens to the files?

heres whats on the shelf in front of me and how/when i remember buying it

music from the motion picture trespass - dollar bin, couple years ago
the very best of chic - columbia house one penny cd purchase - this is how we got free music back in the day, young'n!!
tragedy khadafi - still reportin - i think i paid like nine bucks for this used
jay-z - vol 3 - bought new in 2000 i think
pitbull - m.i.a.m.i. - purchased on clearance for like five bucks
big pun - endangered species - purchased new at cd wherehouse i think on store credit
kingpin skinny pimp presents - da syndicate - dollar bin
e-40 - loyalty and betrayal - paid like eight bucks for this used
james brown - star time disc 3 - $20 for the whole box set, purchased from former ilxor j blount on 9/11/01
fat joe - loyalty - purchased new on release date lol
positive k - the skills dat pay da bills -- pawn shop find in high school
nas - illmatic - purchased new in 9th grade
v/a - off tha tank compilation - dollar bin
no limit soldiers compilation - we cant be stopped - bought in london for a pound
big moe - purple world - found at christian thrift store for $3 i think
mos def and talib kweli are black star - bought in charlotte NC in 1998, full price
dmc - its dark and hell is hot - stole off friend in h.s.
in the mix with kool dj knight - local mix cd, bought for probly $4-$5 in 2003
erick sermon - music - got this as a free promo actually
kelis - kaleidoscope - bought new
belly soundtrack - dollar bin find back in high school

lol dmc = dmx

Side question: When you drag files from your internal hard drive to an external one, what sort of downgrade in quality happens to the files?

nothing, wtf!

I've lost my music collection twice. The most recent being last month where I lost about 5,400 CD's. Its actually a bit refreshing. I'm already back up to a 100 or so.

-- Mr. Goodman, Thursday, February 14, 2008 1:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

More story, plz

I've lost my music collection twice. The most recent being last month where I lost about 5,400 CD's. Its actually a bit refreshing. I'm already back up to a 100 or so.

HOLY SHITS

i do buy off itunes because it's convenient, i have a job, i'm supporting the artist, and i'm kind of a torrenting luddite these days.

i am pretty lazy about backing up, but as long as my ipod and my computer don't go down at the same time then i should be cool. i've got some stuff on an external drive too.

"james brown - star time disc 3 - $20 for the whole box set, purchased from former ilxor j blount on 9/11/01"

!!!

lol

Jordan: I'm thinking that there'd be a loss, just like there's a loss when burning to CD: a certain amount of digital information is lost, and is then glossed over in playback. Dragging to another hard drive still requires the file to be "written" onto a new hard disc, right? I'm asking if the loss is negligible, or if it is noticeable after several transfers.

I don't think it's an obvious, or stupid question.

yeah i was broke but i had been eyeing it at the store for like a month so once shit started going down i said fuck it

xp

Jordan: I'm thinking that there'd be a loss, just like there's a loss when burning to CD: a certain amount of digital information is lost, and is then glossed over in playback. Dragging to another hard drive still requires the file to be "written" onto a new hard disc, right? I'm asking if the loss is negligible, or if it is noticeable after several transfers.

I don't think it's an obvious, or stupid question.

-- Usual Channels, Thursday, February 14, 2008 1:58 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

lol no

theres no loss when burning to a cd - you're actually converting from a shitty format to a much better format, and the reason mp3 burned cds sound worse than normal cds is that theyre always high-quality aiffs

copying a file is just copying all the 101010010101010 bits, those dont change no matter how many times you copy

here's whats in front of me:

gnarls barkley - st. elsewhere : it was a "featured selection" from a music club that I didn't want but once I got it I kept it and paid for it since I love that song "smiley faces"
tom waits - blood money : i bought this used from other music one day after school
jodeci - diary of a mad band : i don't remember when I bought this, a long long time ago
el michels affair - sounding out the city: i bought this last year, again from other music it was like $9 or something
the-dream - lovehate : bought it from circuit city the day it came out for 10 bucks
robert wyatt - cuckooland : bought this from mondo kim's for some crazy high price like $18 or something
alicia keys - the diary of alicia keys: bought this the day it came out after school from beat street
can - ege bamyasi : bought from other music for about $13 2 years ago or so
mary j blige - growing pains : bought this from target day of release
goldfrapp - felt mountain : other music used
erykah badu - mama's gun : i don't even remember tbh
r kelly - tp2.com - after school @ beat street
bjork - volta : day of, target
keyshia cole - just like you : day of, ciruit city

good idea for a thread

Usual Channels: p2p works because the digital copy of the original is never ever degraded. You have nothing to worry about. Back your shit up ASAP.

Sitting in front of me on my desk:

Max Romeo Open The Iron Gate 1973-1977 purchases used from Amoeba $8 when it came out
Moebius-Plank-Neumeier Zero Set $10 also used from Amoeba bought five years ago
Henry Flynt Hillbilly Tape Music $14 new from Amoeba last year or so
RVNG Prsnts MX5 Justin D bought from RVNG online shop for $5 or so

I've got some stuff on my iPOD (in my bag that I've paid for--various DJ /rupture mixes, some grime/dubstep stuff--but most of it was snatched off blogs/slsk.)

Thanks for the answers.

Right, right, right. I was thinking of the deterioration that occurs when storing media on CD-R:
http://www.auldworks.com/awserv/archcdr.htm

I have a friend who's a huge music nerd (owns thousands of CDs), and while he sometimes downloads random mp3s from Pitchfork or whatever, he doesn't ever download whole albums. He mostly buys stuff or gets burned copies from friends.

Part of his reluctance to download has to do with sound quality: whenever I tell him I can copy an album for him, he wants to know whether I'm burning mp3s or .wavs. (I don't have a double-drive CD burner, so it's always .mp3s.) But I wonder if this is partially because he wants to feel justified in having spent so much money over the years on CDs; he can at least console himself with the notion that all of the CDs he's spent money on at least sound better than their free, downloadable equivalents.

He's 32.

is this friend in your band by chance?

I alway really hated the clutter of having two or three dozen jewel cases strewn around my apartment and car so I'm glad to have my cd collection ripped to mp3 and boxed up in the garage.

Not that this has help my apartment be any tidier than it was during the regime of cds.

>>so maybe 10-20% of my music is paid for?

What a champ. Wisdom straight from one of the millions of Lords of the Flies.

cds are not that big.

get a shelf.

otm

um, it is called an external hard-drive. i would have lost everything in september had i not regularly backed everything up. they're relatively cheap and worth the investment.

my shelf is full.

is this friend in your band by chance?

Yes!

>>my shelf is full

That must be a real heartbreak.

haha, i knew it.

That must be a real heartbreak.

well, my apartment is small and cluttered enough as it is, so it doesn't make me want more cds.

Sell some!

i just sold like 150 cds last month! a lot of high school crap basically. but yeah, i should rip & sell some more for sure.

I started buying CDs at a MUCH more frequent rate in the past couple years that I've been a paid reviewer (and have had a good ass job), and consequently have outgrown the few CD shelves I had. Now everything's all boxed up and/or piled up everywhere, and I really need to save up for some nice shelves. I like owning CDs but I envy people who don't have to deal with the physical clutter of it all.

I have about 90% of my music on physical format, probably about 500 cds and 50 records. Of the other ten percent, probably half was obtained legally and half otherwise. I didn't have the internet at home until 2004, at which point I was 18 and already well entrenched in the cd format. I did use Limewire, and later Soulseek, once that happened, but I was in more of a "figuring out what to buy" mode than a "getting shit free" mode. I haven't even bothered downloading p2p software onto my laptop I got last year, so most of my pirated stuff is on my old computer that's being stored in my parents attic. I don't think the idea that ALL THAT MUSIC IS OUT THERE FOR FREE has ever quite gotten through my brain.

Having picked up a 1 TB drive last month, I am making plans to radically reduce the Raggettstacks by the end of the year.

TB?

tubercolosis? LOLOLZ

terabyte (wow)

how much is that excactly?

1 Taco Bell

You people.

1TB

1,000 gigabytes on the box

approx 40 megs actual size

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/1239117/2/istockphoto_1239117_scientist_shrug_on_gray_gradient.jpg

1000 Gnarls Barkleys

http://homepage.mac.com/edandhelen/iblog/C605282913/E20061024092136/Media/Carnac.jpg

What do you call the teethmarks left on Osama bin Laden's sandwich?

1000 TBs is should be a petabyte, but they're vegetarian.

SPACE-SAVING TIP

If you have four Neurosis CDs, put three of them (with the full artwork) in the little white data CD sleeves. Leave one in the jewel case to remind you there is other Neurosis nearby!

big moe - purple world - found at christian thrift store for $3 i think

lol

also lol at 1 Taco Bell

The Data Migration Thread

for more depressing info about the futility of most backup storage options.

this thread is better

most of my cds were purchased for 6-8 bucks @ 2nd hand tunes

I just got a 1TB drive for backing up, which makes me feel better about selling my CDs.

I had about 700, almost half of them, the ones a)I'd be most upset to lose if all my harddrives blew up at once and b)I'd most like to bring on long car trips with me went in a 325 CD binder. OF what's left, a third of them are going to go for sale on amazon.com now that I've researched what was left and found out lots of them go for 10->200 dollars. The overflowing milk-crate that is left will go to Other Music.

here are the cds i found on my floor

lil wayne/young jeezy- snow patrol - bought for a dollar off mixhut or something
the roots- game theory - bought at college bookstore for like 16 bucks wtf was i thinking total impulse buy
lil wayne- tha carter II- figured i better own it, bought a few months ago for 11 bucks or so
justice- † - 13.99 over the summer
the federation - it's whateva- sent to school's paper for review, never reviewed it
voxtrot- ep - bought at show when they opened for arctic monkeys, introduced myself to their lead singer at the merch table bcuz i had interviewed him a few days before, would've felt bad had i not copped something
animal collective - strawberry jam - supporting the artist, bought at best buy for 11 bucks or something
simian mobile disco- attack decay etc - sent for review, already had it
cash money platinum hits - bought for $18 bucks at expensive ass record store about a year ago A++++ would buy for $18 again
spoon- gimme fiction- idk
cymande- cymande - off amazon for like $13
hot boys- guerilla warfare - used off amazon for like $8 a while back
ugk- underground kingz- supporting the artist, i think it was $14 or so
kanye west- graduation - more important than the election fuk u 50 bought first week @ best buy

the roots- game theory - bought at college bookstore for like 16 bucks wtf was i thinking total impulse buy

this is worth 16 bucks

is that every cd you own?

no i'd say there about 8-10 at my parents' house or in my car

i cant imagine having no financial investment in owning music.

another thing is like, and ppl from miami will back me up on this, the existence of a place that sells decent used cds for 6-8 bucks is really foreign to me. the only thing w/in like 10 miles of my parents' house there is best buy, specs, circuit city etc

i cant imagine a music collection consisting entirely of indie rock, major label rap from the last 3 years, and blog house

yeah where are yr mid 90s movie soundtracks :D

i cant imagine a music collection consisting entirely of indie rock, major label rap from the last 3 years, and blog house

-- and what, Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:32 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/Item848/laptop.jpg

http://www.drownedinsound.com/resized_images/190x190/28531.jpeg

i cant imagine a music collection consisting entirely of indie rock, major label rap from the last 3 years, and blog house

-- and what, Thursday, February 14, 2008 8:32 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i'm sure there are some ilm threads that could make this seem very very real.

I'm about to buy a 500 GB external for backup/storage. Most of my collection is digital, though I get a CD a month via YourMusic (basically the BMG Club thing but with a personal queue). I buy probably 3-5 LPs a month.

on my floor:

Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below - Christmas present 2003
Cool Breeze, East Point's Greatest Hits - bought used at Silver Platters 2007
Kanye West, Graduation - bought new at Fred Meyers (lololol only non-Walmart place in my town you can buy a cd at 7AM) the morning it came out
United State of Electronica, s/t - bought used, but still wrapped in the original plastic, at Easy Street 2007
Tony Toni Tone, Sons of Soul - bought used at Bargain CDs, Cassettes & Records 2008
Breakestra, Hit the Floor - bought new for ridiculously cheap in Tower Records meltdown 2006
Muse, Black Holes & Revelations - bought new at Best Buy 2007

Total I prob have roughly 200 CDs and maybe 150-200 records, about 15,000 mp3s (most downloaded).

why do you guys have cds ON THE FLOOR. CLEAN UR ROOMS.

I lost my last remaining copies of my 1998 techno album with my last computer and I have no fucking clue where the CD-R went

Well no I think I'm totally inflating my CD count. I had around 200, sold most of them during fucked up times, now it's more like 75-100.

xxp to self

I presumably still have the originals on a bunch of DAT cassettes in my desk drawers but no idea where to go to get the stuff copied off of the tapes

... DAT casettes?

oh, 1 more on the floor: Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... - bought new at Sam Goody 2004

PICK IT UP

lol

No wonder kids in the 2000s are more into fashion and party music and coke: they're not spending all their money at record stores like we used to. I envy you never having to convince yourself that your dinner of beans is, like, totally worth it, man, just to have picked up a bunch of random Slant 6 and Orange Cake Mix CDs.

Personally I have that obvious thing where I have shelves of CDs and boxes of vinyl trailing off around 2003, and then mostly mp3s and burned-off downloads from there on out. If I take my computer out of the room, it can look a bit like I bought an Ellen Allien album and never needed to hear anything again. The really sad thing is that I will frequently be sitting at my computer, think of something I want to hear from the shelves behind me, and then download it, just because it's simpler than turning around and finding the disc. So bring on the fashion and the party music.

PICK IT UP

-- The Brainwasher, Thursday, February 14, 2008 12:41 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

yes, mother

The really sad thing is that I will frequently be sitting at my computer, think of something I want to hear from the shelves behind me, and then download it, just because it's simpler than turning around and finding the disc.

can we have a ban on people somehow thinking this is an interesting story to tell

lol

that's been the most egregious thing said in this thread so far

how about we have a ban on people requesting bans because they find other posters boring (hint: you are all fucking boring)

what are DAT casettes?

any day now those chinese 16/32Gb flash memory key drives are going to hit the market -you can get them for 30 bucks on the street there, but they'll go for a lot more- and that'll be a great, cheap backup.

I love how the opening post reads like a Sarah-Jessica-Parker-as-Carrie-Bradshaw voiceover:

i own about 15-20 cds, the rest of my music is on my computer as mp3s. i have it backed up in two places: on an external hard drive and on my ipod (an inadvertent perk i guess and how i didn't lose all my music the first time my computer crashed). but looking 10-20 years down the line, and barring some popcorn movie uncrashable computer super-invention bullshit, I couldn't help but wonder: can i— or we— actually go through life without losing all of our music at least once?

what is kind of funny is that my cd collection now feels totally unrepresentative and wrong. it's like when you have a girl over you have to reassure them that the selection does not represent current tastes and trends

they already do that.

badu is releasing her new album on flash drive

nabisco, I have quite the opposite impulse. I HATE dealing with the computer to find music I want, other than just looking up something I haven't heard on youtube or whatever. I also hate listening to music on my computer either through the laptop speaker (which I would never even dream of, goodbye half of the frequency spectrum) or headphones (tiring after a while and doesn't sound as good as my stereo). When I got my laptop I ripped a bunch of music from cd to the laptop, but I ended up deleting most of it because I'd rather listen to it on cd.

what is kind of funny is that my cd collection now feels totally unrepresentative and wrong. it's like when you have a girl over you have to reassure them that the selection does not represent current tastes and trends

-- s1ocki, Thursday, February 14, 2008 8:47 PM

yeah i totally hide my cds in a closet now

anyway what I have learned is that all music is totally expendable except that which you make yourself

if i could snap my fingers and wish it, i'd totally have a physical version of everything on my hard drive.

slocki otm!

ya but you lost your own album xp

my cd collection probably represents my taste a lot better than a lot of the bullshit on my computer

since i end up downloading a lot of bullshit just to check it out and hating it but not deleting it

yes slocki that is how I learned the lesson that I posted.

jesus.

and waking up after reading ilx while drunk and finding out that i downloaded like brother ali or something

thinking about the amount of money i spent on so many unnecessary cds is like :-/

esp since im in so much debt right now. ughhhh

x...xp

You must have really poor taste if even girls pick on you. Or sleep with some cool girls.

I have never seen anyone point that out before, E. Also I didn't realize this was meant to be an interesting thread.

Reverend: I wouldn't keep any music on my computer at all, if I didn't have it running out through a good sound card, good amp, and big speakers! Doing the bulk of your music listening on cheap desktop speakers is ... I don't know how people do it. And if you're pirating everything, you can probably afford decent speakers.

The peak days of used CD stores were really great, though, for those of you who didn't get to benefit -- it's a fun approach to acquiring music that's just leagues away from powerful search algorithms, and guides you different. You walk into a good store with $40 to spare, start flipping around, and come out with 5 or 6 discs with a little randomization to them: albums you always heard were good but never checked out, albums you loved years ago and lost and were geeked to see again for $4.99, random good prices that made you think "hey, I really don't listen to any salsa, this comp will be interesting to try" ... I think it contributed to people liking a wider spread of different stuff, because you'd more often give a chance a random stuff that you wound up loving, odd little finds of your own.

my cd collection probably represents my taste a lot better than a lot of the bullshit on my computer

-- and what, Thursday, February 14, 2008 12:49 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

since i end up downloading a lot of bullshit just to check it out and hating it but not deleting it

-- and what, Thursday, February 14, 2008 12:50 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

Yah, same here.

This happened to me about 4 years ago, but my music library was far smaller then. It took about a year to make up for my losses and get everything organised again.

My CD collection is also a lot bigger now, so I've got the really crucial stuff in a physical format.

i actually bought ludacris- word of mouf and trick daddy- thugs are us for a combined $5 over the summer at some stuffy garage sale in some rich ass stl suburb where my friend lives

"i'd be glad if you took my son's old rap cds off my hands"

My current backup system is this: Keep procrastinating about getting the modded Xbox reconnected to the LAN, so instead of playing media on the tv/stereo via the network, I have to burn it to a DVD first and then put it in the Xbox. So now I have a whole bunch of dvd-r backups of random divx movies I want to watch while I'm using my laptop for something else, and mp3s whose bass I'm interested in.

my itunes has a lot of bizarre out of print shit from god knows when, plus stuff i dl'ed to check out. if i really liked it, i bought it and deleted it. if i didn't, i deleted it or it's still sitting there because i'm lazy. i need to get rid of lcd ss and a few others asap.

Pile analysis:

Soulja Boy Tell 'Em - Souljaboytellem.com
Bought new after hearing "Yahhh!"
Boredoms - Super Roots 3 and 6
Got at Kim's used for $7.99 each
Susan Christie - Paint A Lady
Sarolta Zalatnoy - Sarolta Zalatnoy
Goatsnake - Crippled Lucifer
Low - Drums And Guns
Liars - Liars
All promos
Brazil 70
Tangerine Dream - Zeit
Lounge Lizards - Lounge Lizards
All bought new at Other Music
Seige - Drop Dead
Bought new at Generation
Naked City - Radio
Xmas present
Mia X - Unlady Like
Bought used on Amazon
Kid Frost - Hispanic Causing Panic
Busta Rhymes - When Disaster Strikes
I have no idea how I acquired these records.

haha I knew who was posting after the first cd you listed.

I envy you never having to convince yourself that your dinner of beans is, like, totally worth it, man, just to have picked up a bunch of random Slant 6 and Orange Cake Mix CDs.

ha, replace "beans" with Mac and Cheese and that was me^^

except for the Orange Cake part, i have no idea who that is

90s dreamy-twee synth-pop that I would consistently find used at the Reckless Records in Evanston

A big problem with listening to music on my comp is its tendency to slow down and stop playing the music at random moments. (cue rest of conversation: "get a mac" "stfu")

i kinda hate listening to music on my computer cuz it's impossible to concentrate when the speakers are like 2 feet from my face. and i don't really like just hanging out in headphones.

Reckless Records in Evanston

-- nabisco, Thursday, February 14, 2008 3:08 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

RIP

i dont know if other college kids feel this way but ive avoided buying up a lot of new stuff because i know im moving far away really soon and dont want to have to lug it all over the place

Seriously, dudes: like $200 can get you a good-quality I/O card, and $3 at Radio Shack will get you a cable into the auxiliary input on your amplifier.

link to recommended I/O card?

yeah i plug my dinky mac mini into my big-ass stereo speakers (although the connection's bad in one of them so I get some kind of weird mono effect a lot of the time lately)

$200 is a lot of money.

Laptop or desktop? I have an Echo Indigo in my laptop, and that's for recording quality purposes, probably more than you'd need for just listening. You can get something perfectly fine for a lot less than $200.

General suggestion just being: geez, it is really not hard or necessarily expensive to run a line out from your computer to your proper stereo / speakers!

My Mac stopped playing CDs! It only rips data now.

I had to buy a discman and hook it up to my office speakers :(

thread got boring

i listen to everything thru shitty computer speakers i got when my roommate moved out a couple years ago and it sounds fine

does anyone know if you lose significant quality playing thru over speakers wirelessly

I listen to everything though beat-up 60s speakers I found in the basement of my old apartment and later realized I may have stolen from people who were moving out and left them out for a second while loading other things

how much quality does a cd lose every time you play it?

I do have a line out, but for some reason it only plays through the left channel when I hook it up.

(So if you were ever moving out of a building by the post office in Evanston and turned around for two seconds and your great speakers were gone, I apologize, they were lying around and looking like fair game.)

i listen to almost everything through my car speakers.

i listen to everything through headphones and im pretty sure im gonan go def in like 4 months

DEAF

: ( My old car had much better sound than my new one.

J0rdan goin' def like '86

Gonan Go Def sounds like some kind of Israeli hip-hop record

yeah i started buying cds because my car doesn't play burned ones but the cd player is all fucked up now and takes 90 seconds to change songs

no i am also signing to so so def feel free to download my cd

I listen to everything through biamplified studio monitors

I do have a line out, but for some reason it only plays through the left channel when I hook it up.

Two possibles - either you're using a mono jack, or else check your sound settings; quite often the default is all the way over to the left - sometimes mine (a mac, even) resets itself like that for no discernible reason

On the thread - I only started d/loading about two years ago quickly had about 2,000 songs in itunes, at which point the laptop started to slow down a bit, so i bought a hard drive and dumped them over there ..... and never bother to hook it up and listen to them; much easier to find a record on the shelf

i dont know if other college kids feel this way but ive avoided buying up a lot of new stuff because i know im moving far away really soon and dont want to have to lug it all over the place

-- max, Thursday, 14 February 2008 21:18

Yeah this has crossed my mind. It's why I'm tryna digitize all my records in case I decide to sell before I move.

I do all my vinyl listening w/Polk Speakers or the Grados (no amp!). Everything else is earbuds or the crappy 6-inch speakers that came with my new computer.

You graduating, HOOS?

magna cum HOOS

Yeah if all goes as planned (big IF with 18 hours of class + 40 hr workweek), I'll be done in May (with honors!).

HOnOrS

shit i gotta back this bitch uppppp

1,000 gigabytes on the box

approx 40 megs actual size

-- The Macallan 18 Year, Thursday, February 14, 2008 7:57 PM

wait what

I play most stuff in car on ipod using aux cable thingy. I nearly have a crash every time I drive tho.

This thread's making me think I need to buy a fucking external harrd drive.

I think I'ma get a 500 gig. It should be more than enough for all the musics, docs, and what few images & movies I have on HD.

lol 'raggettstacks'

it's never enough. xp

yeah 500 gigs is huge. I got two of them for various reasons. A friend just texted me he found a terabyte for $279 somewhere somebody gotta get on this.

wau wau

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151&CMP=EMC-IGNEFL111307&ATT=N82E16822136151&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL111307-_-HardDrives-_-E1R-_-22136151

??

not external though

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822204068 !

like my main criteria for an external is "if my apt is on fire can i unplug & grab this on my way out the door"

oh thats right it's costco and there is a 30 rebate i don't know if it's before or after that price.

the cats can go in my omgbag xp

you can get housings that turn any HD into an external, brody

one of my housings is on the fuh-ritz :(

i have a billion external hds, most of them were originally for video stuff but now i just buy them when i see them cheap, or make my own, and keepa rchives everywhere... i even have one in another province. as pretty much everything i do is digital these days (pics movies writing) i am SUPER paranoid about data failure.

like my main criteria for an external is "if my apt is on fire can i unplug & grab this on my way out the door"

my main criteria for NOT getting an external is "if someone breaks into my apt can they unplug & grab this their way out the door"

ya i'd def like password protection on any drive i got. i can't imagine it'd be that diff to implement.

my external is quite handy. i actually need to get it back from a friend who stole it two weeks ago to rape my collection.

and yeah, i really don't know anyone who buys CDs. records, yes. CDs, no. most of my friends are b/w 18 and 26.

at the moment, i have these CDs with me:
- the entirety of the belle & sebastian catalog up to 'dear catastrophe waitress'
- three NNCK CD-Rs, two of which are pretty much impossible to find outside of $30 and ebay
- the uk/worldwide version of 'feels,' which has a live bonus disc with two tracks that my friend recorded at a show i was at (still one of the best live shows i've ever witnessed)
- Rey Nols/No Rey Nols, which i have taken from the radio station (whilst slipping CDR copies into the vaults, mind you)
- Seal's greatest hits
- Everybody on Dance Floor volume 5, a 2007 collection of indian poppy progressive house i got as a present from my bf
- something by Nautical Almanac
- the best of New Order

so basically, i have just as few CDs as jordan in my immediate proximity. haven't had or wanted a CD player in three or four years. however, i do have all my other CDs stored in my parents house (about 600 of them) and another 100 or so hardcore/grind CDs in a box in a dank basement in oberlin.

that said, i have about...450 or so records at my disposal, and a mixer, and decent decks. so who the fuck needs CDs?

I've been getting by just fine on a 100 gig external and a 30 gig iPod, but I guess I don't listen to that much music these days.

i do have all my other CDs stored in my parents house (about 600 of them)

yeah, see, this was me until my folks moved. right before i was going to move into a new place, they came to town and dumped boxes of hundreds of shitty high school cds on me. :/

my main criteria for NOT getting an external is "if someone breaks into my apt can they unplug & grab this their way out the door"

-- Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, February 14, 2008 5:46 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

no one wants your shitty mp3s whiney

yeah my external is actually bootleg dvd of hottie or nottie so i'm not sweating anyone making off with it

Tape backup drive, if yr serious

It's a grand for a good one, but if you have a FUCK of a lot of music files, it's surely worth it.

500 gig external harddrives are worth like $200, why wouldn't someone walk off with that?

nobody's gonna check password protection before they jack your HD, hoos. and they'll just throw it out when they realize it's bricked.

Sure, but it's not the value I'm concerned about, it's the contents.

I can get a new external. I'm much more worried about losing my .pdfs of tax docs.

do you have like nuclear secrets on your external dude?

nope, porn

right but if someone jacked it and realized it was pword protected they're not gonna swing by your house the next day and drop it off

lol nah dude i'm saying i don't want a dude w/access to that shit. i've also got hard copies + my actual comp too.

Yeah, you don't want baddies getting into your tax data.

a thief stole my car stereo with kind of blue in it. i hope they didnt throw it away

Is it really so ridic that I don't want some asshole accessing important information about my identity?

No, not at all. Ignore them dumbasses.

information wants to be FREE dude.

January 2006 - http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/soulseeking/ipop-is-dead.htm

From an archival POV (speaking as a sort-of-ex-librarian) JUST having digital files in a lossy format and not backed-up (or even backed-up just once in the same format on an external) is mental.

My external hard drive is for backing up documents, photos, and software in case, as happened the other week, an internal hard disk on one of our computers dies. Also for carrying hooky films from work to home in my pocket. I have one of those Lacie Rugged things.

I point people towards this article, linked in my own above; http://www2.le.ac.uk/ebulletin/news/press-releases/2000-2009/2006/01/nparticle-wxc-b9c-7hd

give your cds/records half the abuse you give an external drive (ie, in use 24/7, dropped, thrown in a bag with no case) then youve got yourself a very lossy format (even in the case) as most of the cds i used to carry about pre ipod days will testify . ive a backup drive but i usually burn off a dvd with any new stuff on it every couple of months and then have a wallet i keep at home full of useful stuff for laptop deaths.

10-20 years down the line it will be the celestial infinite jukebox. You won't "own" any music anymore.

(cue ILM vernacular) ^^^this

when it comes to stuff i have on the comp i find its more the information wrt artists and songs that is more important than the music itself. i wouldn't mind losing the music, but i would mind losing the ability to scan thrrough my collection to help me remember all the great times we had together.

See, that seems mental to me - my pleasure comes in the point of contact, in the listening. If I'm not listening to it right now it might as well be dead to me. Names do nothing. Only actual music.

That... sounds kinda crazy to me. What about replaying music in your head? What if you're stuck somewhere with means of listening to anything?

Oh I might hum stuff or have it run through my head, aye, as a reflex action, absentmindedly. I'm not a robot! But to say you wouldn't mind losing the music as long as you kept thew list seems crazy. It's (almost) all about the listening, and always has been, for me.

Is there a better way to counter the MP3-hoarding generation than linking to an article that posits, "downloading music has dulled music appreciation"?

semi-xpost

i'm not denying that the most important thing is the listening, just that going through my collection (physical or virtual) is something i'm gonna miss when we get to the point of wirelessly streaming whatever music we want to our turntable emulator decks.

like often when i'm looking for a record i'll come across another record that exites me more. this doesn't happen so often when searching through amazon. i also hate the idea of music being tagged so reccomendations can be given to you, like today i was gonna listen to stimming funkworm on the computer and thought fuck it, im gonna listen to stockhausen stimmung instead.

i have around 40 GB of music on my computer that's backed up on an ext HD, and i also have a huge wall o' CDs numbering around 450 after selling off a couple hundred, 99% of which i never listen to. it's basically a large, heavy, cumbersome wall decoration. i can't bear to part with them.

Slice the spine off the inlays and make them into a large, less heavy and less cumbersome wall decoration.

heh, that would be kind of cool. an homage to a bygone era. this is how we used to listen to music, kids!

hoos got naked pics on his hard drive

i have!

oh.

I (clearly) have no problem with keeping huge, cumbersome wall decorations, but as it gets easier and easier to hear records you like as you get older (Rhapsody, downloading, promos), you should definitely sell off the things you don't listen to.

I (clearly) have no problem with keeping huge, cumbersome wall decorations, but as it gets easier and easier to hear records you like as you get older (Rhapsody, downloading, promos), you should definitely sell off the things you don't listen to.

-- Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, February 15, 2008 10:43 AM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i buy more records now than ever before

I've been having fun with Amoeba's clearance section over the past year -- lots of great discs at a buck each, which tells you all you need to know about music's relative value. But I'll probably start putting that by the wayside.

can i—or we—go through life without losing all of our music at least once?

Nope. If it doesn't happen to you (again), it'll happen to somebody (or somebodies) you know.

Say what you want about the space tangible music occupies, but the time intangible music steals from one—while one interminably steals and manages it—strikes me, as one learned writer might say, mental.

On balance, I'll take time over space.

i buy more records now than ever before

-- deej, Friday, February 15, 2008 11:46 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Me too!

I really can't bear to sell off much of my CD collection. Aside from instances where I bought the wrong thing or the disc was scratched, I've really only sold a couple dozen CDs back (out of thousands bought and kept) ever, and even then that was because I was broke. Aside from a small number of promos I didn't ask for and listened to once for the hell of it, I feel the need to keep everything for my collection. With the tiny obscure indie stuff I feel like if I don't give it a home noone else will, and it's not worth 2 bucks just to put it in a used rack until the end of time. And with even the shittiest major label rap albums, I end up looking at the liner notes years later and going wow, I didn't know so-and-so produced or had a guest verse on this, I'm glad I kept it.

Looks like I have about 130 GB on a hard drive. It's not backed up, and for some reason I'm not too worried about it. To me, mp3s are easy come, easy go. I feel like if I lost it I could get back everything I cared about soon enough, and if it took a while, well, then I'd have some things to look forward to. It might force me to put on one of the many CDs or LPs I never spent enough time with. Still, it would be an inconvenience, I should probably buy a cheap hard drive and back it up.

Hard to imagine at the end of our lives that we'll be listening to mp3s. Music may be digital, but it might not migrate to future file formats.

whateva
it will be an interesting experiment
like when your house burns down

yeah i still haven't transferred all my mp3s from old laptop to new desktop, so if all the shit went down tonight (say while i was at work)i'd lose everything :( :(

OK guys I just buyed a "Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini." I had to do some extra work (hour and a half of cluelessness, frustration & "oh shit did I just brick it") to get it up & running with Ubuntu Linux, but it's happening for real now.

This thing is smaller than the moleskine notebook I carry everywhere, is virtually silent, and it's packing 250 gigs. Not mind-boggling, but more than enough to start with given that my whole mp3 collection (which, btw, is 1,300, not 13,000 lol typos) is about 26 gigs right now. I'm also about to start digitizing my vinyl, so this'll be a great start I think.

Worst case I run out of room and have to--horror of horrors--buy a bigger drive.