Do you buy lol? Or download illegally tsk tsk? I used oink.cd the BEST site to get high quality stuff online. They had the best/hard to find records I've ever seen. It was like stepping into the best record store imaginable. However, I did buy the records that I liked and gave my money to bands by going to their shows and buying their merchandise. If any of you guys do download, where/how/what do you use?
Usually I will buy vinyl I only buy CD's to play in my car, they usually sound better then burned mp3's I do sometimes use Serato to dj out just for convenience factor and for all my electro I go to www.hypem.com to search or www.palmsout.com for it. A lot are remix's that aren't released in any other form. If its mainstream rap stuff JamGlue.net its basically the only stuff I get asked to spin out that I don't want to buy. Just gotta check the bit rates and make sure the files are about 4mb or higher because if you try to playout an amplified crap file it doesn't sound so good, even if it pulls on your computer, or ipod if you own one of those ridiculous things.
I buy most of my music on CD. Some music, where I am willng to accept "down-loaded" music quality, I buy from iTunes. That's it for me. I have a probably medium sized library on my hard drive (about 61 days of muzak); of which about 11.5 days is music I have purchased from iTunes. I don't really have music from too many other sources, although I have downloaded stuff from artist's websites that I really like.
I am 100% against pirated music. buy it. if you dont want to support a big store, just about every band sells their own stuff on line or whatever.
Big time, but they were asking for it. For digital downloads, I rely on a combination of eMusic subscription (a great deal ... the mp3s are high-quality VBR, DRM-free, and totally licensed and legal,) and iTunes music store. Sometimes artist sites like Discipline Global Mobile (Fripp and King Crimson,) Charlie Hunter, Threshold House (Coil) and the Grateful Dead site. Again, DRM-free and legal. For streaming music subscription, Rhapsody. Hard copies: Amoeba Music on Haight in SF. Best music and DVD store ever.
Speaking of busted that single mother in the midwest got rolled for it too. 200k for sharing files, roughly 8k per song she had. Could have gone for a maximum of 250k per song but the record company was being "leniant" and figured it was a strong enough example to make as most of "common americans" can't afford 200k. I only download music I don't like hoping it will go away. That and Metallica oh wait, that falls under the first thing.
I'm with Frank. Buy it. I'll burn stuff for people (as they will for me) but that's mostly for the sake of finding out if I like it or not. If I enjoy it enough to listen regularly I'll go out and purchase it (as will most of my friends). Of course, I'm a musician, as well as an anal-retentive freak about cover art etc., but to me downloading whole LPs is like shoplifting from S7 - if you like it enough to own it, pay for the damn thing. Hell, I paid Radiohead for their new thing because I would have felt guilty otherwise, even though they're rich as Croesus in the first place.
I got a system. I'll download crap just to hear 1 or 2 songs, I don't take full albums. If said 1 or 2 songs satisfy me, I buy it. If not, I delete and don't bother again. I used to work at a record store, so I got to sample the music for free all day, but now I can't. I love owning the actual record/cd though, I got a thing about owning official things rather than a bootleg.
To me it doesn't matter if you download illegally (i.e. napster) , download or buy a cd. No one gave a shit about people who made mix tapes for people in the 80's but now there's a huge stink about it when you go about downloading a song. I personally buy c.d.'s. I don't have access to downloading because the only computer I own is my work laptop. I'm just not in a big-habit of being plugged into technology.
I dl music. Imo best way to find out new artists. I mostly buy vinyl records and go to bands shows and buy from them knowing the money goes right into their pockets. But most of the music I dl is speedcore
Buy vinyl or cd's cuz the sound quality of compressed files is, well, compressed. You can always burn the shit yourself after you buy it. I don't mind my MP3 player on the bus, but I need more at home.
Agreed Biff but not everyone has audiophile ears. I've actually heard people say they can't tell the difference between a 128kbps mp3 file and the CD source. Yikes. Many portable players can play "lossless" formats such as .wav, .flac, .ogg, Apple Losslees etc. The file sizes are much larger than what "lossy" compression formats yield, but some of us are a little kooky for audio fidelity and will do what it takes to hear recorded music sound its best. Now that large capacity storage and terrabyte HDDs are more reasonably priced I prefer lossless digital formats whenever possible. Even if it's an old ethnographic field recording, I want it to sound like the source. I know that this sort of obsessiveness about sound quality is not for everyone.
the majority of what I buy is available on vinyl. So if given the chance I will do that. I personally will only download something Ive already bought before. I'm lucky enough to live in richmond va where we have a pretty good record store 2 blocks from where I live. I also have a friend who runs a very good distro for punkand hardcore. He gets pretty much anything and everything current. cranky old men need not apply
I've had full albums leaked onto file sharing sites within days of mastering them well before the release date. That shit fucking pisses me off to no end. However, being a fan of shit like live recordings, demos, etc that doesn't get a proper release, I sometimes download these types of recordings myself. It would be great if there was a way to keep commercially available releases off these networks while allowing rare unreleased recordings to be posted and downloaded. This might keep actual BOOTLEGGERS from making $ off artists by making your favorite band's live shows, peel sessions, etc available. It's just too tricky a concept to work in real life. People that download, listen, enjoy, and don't buy should be forced to eat glass, and their younger sisters should be given to the bands they have stolen music from.
2/3 of my listening time is devoted to my XM radio, and I get a continuous mix of great new and old music through that. Sometimes I come across something I really like and buy a digital download, or (rarely) the CD. The remaining third of my listening time comes from my iPod. Half of that time is listening to podcasts, the other half is a mix of items I've downloaded through iTunes and the other half is my own CDs that I've loaded into iTunes. Most of the music I've downloaded illegally came from the RFSO Radio volumes, and I've treated those as "try before you buy" material. Thanks to RFSO radio, I got introduced to Stereolab, and every time they're on an XM channel my radio beeps at me to let me know. I like what I've heard so far there, and I've bought a few tracks through iTunes. A while back, Amazon was giving away free MP3s from Lou Barlow, Air, Beck, and others. Are they still doing that now that they've launched their own online music service?
i work in a record store so i just put what i want on the order and wait for it to come in. i like the actual cds/records because i like to look at the art work and liner notes. it's also nice just going to record stores and flipping through the stock.
I do both. I buy most of my music on vinyl, and then try to source it on the blogspot sites so I can hear it on my iPod. The more i hear the songs the better it'll be for my mixing so having that is handy. I am starting to buy less and less popular music. It doesn't appeal to me as much. Maybe it is just the quality of music released is getting worse and worse or my taste have changed. I delete more than I keep when I download. I rarely keep a full album. Also I download to get the latest dance stuff so I know what to buy when it gets released a few weeks later and what to avoid. I buy mainly from Phonica Records, Juno, Turntable Lab, Dusty Groove and the local HMV store. I sometimes buy the Japanese import CDs that end up in Hong Kong. It must be stock that they throw or sell to China (most probably shipped to China to destroy). They're usually promos or second hand, but it's usually in brand new condition. I have found the most unusual and highly unlikely groups and compilations. I love that kind of digging in those shops. eg. a few months ago I found experimental electronica from the analog days. Also I scored the original Astro Boy soundtrack still unopened! Oh there is also another record shop in Sham Shui Po. This dude who rides a harley has been collecting vinyl since the 70's and have basically collated all the thrown out vinyl in Hong Kong, from closed discos to private collections. I have found an amazing amount of good sampling records, old disco/funk tracks and jazz. It's very dirty but whenever I go up I take an empty record bag and buy about 50 records there... The guy also has a huge warehouse too which I have not been, but apparently is the shit. Apart from old stock from the shop, I have about 3 large ikea shelves of vinyl at home that is my own collection.. One day I will need to transfer these digitally in case I need to move to another country. Unfortunately, I don't think I will take my vinyl with me.
