Archived music collections vs online streaming

[Thomas A. Fine]

On tonight's WAN show, @LinusTech said he's fine not owning music.  And I get it.  But, being older than much of this community, we own over 700 CDs.

 

The reality is that we weren't using them that much, so I spent a few months scanning small bunches of CDs into iTunes (at full quality), and then running a Plex server and investing in several Google Nest speakers.  It's been a fantastic solution.  We now use our music collection a lot.  And, while there's a lot of value in hearing new music regularly that you get with Spotify or whatever, there's also a lot of value in listening to an extensive collection of music that you've spent a lifetime building (or "curating" if you choose

the popular hipster speak).  (We own many LPs also, maybe a hundred or so, but haven't started on archiving those.)

 

I've never really given a service like Spotify a good chance.  I know they have a lot of stuff in there.  But I also not it isn't everything I own.  I haven't done a careful analysis of exactly what is missing.  And Google Play Music may have been an even better choice for me while it still existed, but I never actually tried that out.  Of course, it's not existing now counts as a point against it.

 

Note that I chose Plex because, while I'm a sysadmin, I've done enough software administration in my life.  I didn't want to admin a setup with jellyfin or whatever if I don't have to.  Plex has some flaws, but basically it just works and its free (unless you want to download stuff to the phone, but as the years go on there's less and less need for that).

 

For me, that collection was already bought,and yes, loading over 700 CDs was a ton of work (spread out across months).  But paying a subscription for music I own, just to avoid a little inconvenience of scanning it, was a deal breaker.

 

 

 

[8tg]

I simply won’t trade away control over my media for convenience of playback.

This is why I don’t use music streaming:

 

Can’t delist my flac and cd collection.

[Eigenvektor]

49 minutes ago, 8tg said:

I simply won’t trade away control over my media for convenience of playback.

This. Streaming is certainly convenient, because you can have access "everywhere" without any additional effort on your end and without having to carry around a playback device with enough storage capacity.

 

However, that is only true if (a) you have a (fast enough) internet connection everywhere you go and (b) the service continues to work for you (they remain in service, things don't get taken down, prices remain affordable, etc.)

 

I do remember us buying VHS tapes when I was a kid and in some sense it was a waste of money and space. We'd effectively never watch them more than once, so afterwards they just ended up taking space for no reason. But music is generally much more "reusable" than a video, so it makes more sense to buy and own a copy of it.

[Tea-Sir]

Most of my CD collection is old 90s Dance music, tons of stuff that just doesn't excist on streaming. Most of my new music is something I added while on streaming.

 

I use Spotify and their feature to add local files that I can download to my phone via their app. And it actually works pretty well most of the time.

 

That said, I have at times had some songs grey out, a few recently actually. And I hate when that happens, I love every song in my library. And it just doesn't feel like MY library, when things disappear.

And having to scavenge the internet (legag or other) for the song, just plain sucks.

 

But I also have to say, I love the discovery options on streaming. Playlists constantly made for you with new music or something to rediscover. I kinda wish someone did something that good for a music store. I would happily pay for my music, song by song, if it was still possible.

(hint hint, if you people have some tricks for me, I am all ears )

[Avocado Diaboli]

2 hours ago, 8tg said:

Can’t delist my flac and cd collection.

A collection also doesn't just get worse as the investors tighten their grip and demand more returns. The collection also won't suddenly introduce ads between songs because it needs to finally turn a profit after having undercut any competition for years in order to gain a monopoly.

 

 

I've been ripping my CDs ever since I've had an MP3-player and I've been using Plexamp to stream the music from my NAS to my phone pretty much anywhere I've ever been. If you have an internet connected device to stream music off of Spotify or Apple Music, you have a connection to stream from your own hardware. And these days, you can just buy stuff from Bandcamp and still own your digital files, no need for CDs just to take up space in your shelf, if you don't want to sacrifice the physical storage space. Not to mention that the artist also earns more if you directly buy from them compared to streaming, unless maybe they're the hottest shit on the planet right now and generate a ton of streams. So yeah, buy from smaller acts. You own your music, they get more money in return, win-win. Never cede ground to the people who want to tell you not owning something is fine.

[Needfuldoer]

I've got hundreds of CDs, and the vast majority have been ripped for convenience. The DVD and Blu-Ray collection is next but I need to build a couple headless processing machines for that.

 

Even with a full Plex library, streaming services have their place. It's a low cost way to sample something new that I wouldn't otherwise go out of my way to buy. I subscribed to satellite radio a couple months ago, and even though I've got a flash drive full of MP3s plugged into the car the variety is nice to have access to. (There are also no ads except for "station" bumpers, unlike terrestrial radio that's more ads than music these days.) 

 

[ToboRobot]

You need to archive all content to preserve it.  Movies and I am sure music will be changed to fit modern tastes and social movements.

[Doobeedoo]

I will never stream music, it's stupid. Have it on PC and have it on phone both locally. Don't depend on internet, iffy quality, ui, etc., also paying monthly for what I have? Nope!

[Blue4130]

I doubt any streaming services have my collection of Canadian prairie punk from the 90s. Until they do, my collection is the only way for me to enjoy some good ol Porksword or Oswalds walking connection.

[Monkey Dust]

6 hours ago, Tea-Sir said:

Most of my CD collection is old 90s Dance music, tons of stuff that just doesn't excist on streaming.

You could try Beatport, a much better selection of dance music than the other streaming services.

 

I've ripped all my CDs onto my PC, but I haven't bought any new ones for years. Still can't bring myself to cull my CD collection in the same way I culled my DVDs though. I still listen to most of my music on Spotify, though, even if I have it on my SSD.

 

A lot of new music, at least the kind of music I listen to, is rarely released on CD now. I could get most of it on 12" vinyl, but that would be both expensive and take up a huge amount of storage space.

[Flavius Heraclius]

I technically still have a Spotify account, but I'm probably going to cancel it soon as I don't really use it anymore. I started just buying music downloads (as opposed to CDs--saves me the ripping step). Sites like qobuz offer a wide (though obviously not complete) selection of music available either uncompressed or losslessly compressed, so you don't even have to put up with mp3 compression if you don't want to!

 

With that said, I am infamous for my... inflexibility... when it comes to media. I tend to have a small set of music/tv shows/movies/etc. that I listen to/watch over and over again, and which grows very slowly over time. So I don't have much need for streaming anyway--it actually ends up cheaper to just buy it once! I've been led to understand that this isn't the norm. Hell--I remember a friend being shocked that the Spotify playlists I used were hand-created by me, rather than just being ones that I found. I never once even considered using somebody else's playlist.

[Andreas Lilja]

I often stream my own music through Astiga. 

[starsmine]

13 hours ago, 8tg said:

I simply won’t trade away control over my media for convenience of playback.

This is why I don’t use music streaming:

 

Can’t delist my flac and cd collection.

private video because it wasnt theirs to upload, not because someone tried to take your music away. oh no Its not like you cant find the song else where from the people who made it. 

[8tg]

39 minutes ago, starsmine said:

private video because it wasnt theirs to upload, not because someone tried to take your music away. oh no Its not like you cant find the song else where from the people who made it. 

I don’t care, Spotify and pandora do the same thing whenever labels change hands with media or decide their music shouldn’t be listed anymore. 
The worst problem with YouTube in particular is that I can’t even see what it was. There’s a few items on that list of music which I don’t remember what they were.

And there’s a bunch there they don’t even go private, they’re just deleted. 
 

But like why even take the chance? One day all of them could vanish. 
So instead of that I have this here Walkman which has my music library, of 3k+ tracks all in at minimum CD quality, many of higher quality.

And then this is mirrored of my music library which has a few backups. And then behind that about a third of it is actual CDs:

 

Cant take that down. They won’t go gray one day, they won’t be taken down from some service because some label says so. 
There's more than a few albums in there too which you can’t find any legitimate streaming source for, if legitimacy is a concern. I have albums that the artists themselves can’t resurrect because they’re in legal limbo hell. There’s stuff in my music collection that is so obscure it doesn’t have another option beyond a cd. And there’s stuff in there which has CD exclusive tracks. Let alone audio quality in mind, no way in hell is any streamed version of Aesop rocks music for earthworms, which are illegitimate sources by the way, going to sound anywhere close to the CD I have.

 

Streaming music is convenient, but if you actually give a shit about your music you listen to. Own it.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, starsmine said:

private video because it wasnt theirs to upload, not because someone tried to take your music away. oh no Its not like you cant find the song else where from the people who made it. 

nah, then it'd be straight up removed and not private. this is private because the uploader wanted it to be private... 

[Thomas A. Fine]

16 hours ago, Tea-Sir said:

old 90s Dance music

 

"old".  That hurts.

[Thomas A. Fine]

I wanted to plug something that will be a future project here for my music collection:

 

Adding public domain (and copyright lapsed) music to my library.  Archive.org has a MASSIVE collection of music, in very high quality.

 

Just to scratch the surface, Boston Public Library has a massive LP collection, much of which is public domain.  Even some of the post-1928 stuff is PD because somebody failed to renew copyrights, back when the you had to renew copyrights manually.  I think there's a field in their metadata that says if it's public domain, but basically if you can download FLAC files then it is PD.

 

They also have an absolutely jaw dropping collection of 78 RPM records, donated by George Blood, lots of old jazz and blues.

[Mihle]

Buying music instead of streaming wouldn't really work for me as I don't really only listen to things I have listened before.

I am a big user of discovery/radio playlists on Spotify regularly (not always) to listen to music I don't specifically choose myself you can't really do that if you buy albums.

[Blue4130]

2 hours ago, Mihle said:

Buying music instead of streaming wouldn't really work for me as I don't really only listen to things I have listened before.

I am a big user of discovery/radio playlists on Spotify regularly (not always) to listen to music I don't specifically choose myself you can't really do that if you buy albums.

Compilation disks are great for that. I have found so many great bands by buying label samplers like Fat Wreckchords "Survival of the fattest" series.

[Mihle]

5 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

Compilation disks are great for that. I have found so many great bands by buying label samplers like Fat Wreckchords "Survival of the fattest" series.

But those dont automatically take in to account what I am listening to automatically, not do they give new playlist automatically per week.

 

Worth noting I listen to a lot of musik, 88k minutes last year.

[Avocado Diaboli]

7 hours ago, Mihle said:

Buying music instead of streaming wouldn't really work for me as I don't really only listen to things I have listened before.

I am a big user of discovery/radio playlists on Spotify regularly (not always) to listen to music I don't specifically choose myself you can't really do that if you buy albums.

You can still buy music you've discovered elsewhere. The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive.

[Tea-Sir]

20 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

 

"old".  That hurts.

Old gold then

......

 

I am not exactly digging myself out of that hole am I

[starsmine]

10 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

Compilation disks are great for that. I have found so many great bands by buying label samplers like Fat Wreckchords "Survival of the fattest" series.

buying a new compilation disk every week and then trying to track new ones down sounds both crazy expensive and time consuming. 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, starsmine said:

buying a new compilation disk every week and then trying to track new ones down sounds both crazy expensive and time consuming. 

Music is a hobby. Hobbies are expensive and time consuming.

[Mihle]

11 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

You can still buy music you've discovered elsewhere. The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive.

No point buying music if I am going to have, and use Spotify anyway.