Amazon MP3s are DRM-free, and are of course MP3s. iTunes is increasingly DRM-free, depending on the label - you want to look for "iTunes Plus" status - and uses the AAC format, which is standardized as part of the MPEG standards and is rapidly getting widespread support beyond the iPod.
Transfering records...tc_tickOctober 12 2008, 19:12:11 UTC
I have 55,000 tunes (13,000+ albums (or pieces thereof), but I still have a cabinet full of albums that are not on my iTunes -- I'm not sure it is worth the 100's of hours it would take to transfer them (partly due to the condition of many of the records, partly because I have 183 days worth of music already on iTunes and I haven't made it all the way through the 60 hours I have on my iPod.
I too like having the physical CD's, but I've run out of room for CD shelves, and many of them are now sitting in boxes in the garage -- not likely to be played anytime soon, so I've mostly given up on the physical media and just make lots of backups of the database (about 260GB worth). Great to have cheap, large, external hard-drives.
Re: Transfering records...cellioOctober 12 2008, 21:03:02 UTC
Yeah, we decided our spare time is worth more than the cost of the CDs, even if we were willing to settle for the lower quality that we would get versus the CD.
Some of our albums/tapes are definitely in the category of "if we ever decide to care we'll buy it then", but others are ones we would actually listen to if we had a convenient format and don't now. Most of my Eric Bogle is still on vinyl, for instance, and there's some wonderful stuff there.
Looming in the distance, and I'll delay this as long as I can, is dealing with the roughly 40 hours of recordings I have of Clam Chowder concerts. Much of this material made it onto their albums and later CDs, but I know that in there somewhere are some gems that I'm going to want to rescue. This would be a lot easier if I had a cassette deck in my car. I might have to get a cheap boom box (they still make those, right?) so I can play those tapes in my office while I'm doing other things.
Re: Transfering records...jducoeurOctober 14 2008, 20:29:38 UTC
Yaas. I'm in the process (very slowly) of ripping my Clams tapes over to MP3 so that I can listen to them again. I'm uncomfortable about passing those around due to copyright considerations (ripping my own tapes for personal use is one thing, distribution another), but we might want to talk to the band about it sometime and see how they actually feel about it...
Other places to look are eMusic.com and RhapsodyMusicService.com. (I haven't taken more than a cursory look at either, so don't know how the prices compare or what DRM might be in the way.)
You can, btw, un-DRM iTunes tracks: burn a CD or DVD from iTunes. The quality takes a hit, though.
Going with local stores is a good idea and most will special order.
I find CD Baby to have a fair selection. My go to place for cast recordings is Footlight Records in NY. (They do mail order, too. If I go in person, I have to go with only cash and only as much as I am willing to spend.)
Alas, I have a lot of stuff that is never likely to appear on CD and one of these days I will get around to digitizing it. That seems more urgent for the tapes than the vinyl, actually, as they seem more likely to deteriorate. I have also found that there are a surprising number of recordings where I want only one or two tracks.
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Amazon downloads are DRM-free, BTW.
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A good source for CD's is used CD stores and even better are pawn shops.
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http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
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I too like having the physical CD's, but I've run out of room for CD shelves, and many of them are now sitting in boxes in the garage -- not likely to be played anytime soon, so I've mostly given up on the physical media and just make lots of backups of the database (about 260GB worth). Great to have cheap, large, external hard-drives.
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Some of our albums/tapes are definitely in the category of "if we ever decide to care we'll buy it then", but others are ones we would actually listen to if we had a convenient format and don't now. Most of my Eric Bogle is still on vinyl, for instance, and there's some wonderful stuff there.
Looming in the distance, and I'll delay this as long as I can, is dealing with the roughly 40 hours of recordings I have of Clam Chowder concerts. Much of this material made it onto their albums and later CDs, but I know that in there somewhere are some gems that I'm going to want to rescue. This would be a lot easier if I had a cassette deck in my car. I might have to get a cheap boom box (they still make those, right?) so I can play those tapes in my office while I'm doing other things.
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You can, btw, un-DRM iTunes tracks: burn a CD or DVD from iTunes. The quality takes a hit, though.
Reply
I find CD Baby to have a fair selection. My go to place for cast recordings is Footlight Records in NY. (They do mail order, too. If I go in person, I have to go with only cash and only as much as I am willing to spend.)
Alas, I have a lot of stuff that is never likely to appear on CD and one of these days I will get around to digitizing it. That seems more urgent for the tapes than the vinyl, actually, as they seem more likely to deteriorate. I have also found that there are a surprising number of recordings where I want only one or two tracks.
Reply
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