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How the hell do I build a (legal) digital music library?

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Subscription service. I grew up in the same era, and now willingly and gleefully admit it was the Stone Age. I would never EVER go back. There's some annoyance for sure. I had a play count on an album probably over 100, and Apple deleted the album to replace it with an extended edition. I didn't know, went to play the original and got the dreaded grayed out. Confused I searched and saw the extended. Not a huge deal but now my play count is zero. And my likes/ratings are gone.

But small stuff like that is grossly outweighed by discovery, acquisition and access. GROSSLY outweighed. FWIW I would never even go back to torrenting/pirating music. Even that fails across those three criteria.
 
Guess Who said:
Depends on what format you want and what's most convenient for you. Google and Apple's stores are built into their phones. Amazon sometimes has better prices. Google sells in 320kbps MP3, Apple sells in 256kbps AAC, Amazon sells in V0 MP3. All three of these play on basically any computer or mobile device these days. Quality differences are negligible.

For lossless or high-def audio, I know a lot of people like HDtracks, but I don't have much experience with them.
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Im not so sure about that. I thought Amazon was stuck at 256kbps MP3. I don't really like purchasing there.

Google Music has horrible support. I dont really like purchasing there.

Apple is AAC. I don't really like purchasing there.

Now I buy cheap CDs on Amazon, rip V0 MP3's, upload to Google Music library, and stream mobile via app or desktop via Google Play Music Desktop.
 
borghe said:
Subscription service. I grew up in the same era, and now willingly and gleefully admit it was the Stone Age. I would never EVER go back.
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And I will never go "forward" to subscription services. I have access to Amazon's simply for having Prime, and it's kind of neat and I get to listen to random things I'm curious about, but good lord I don't ever want that to be the (or my) norm.
 
Another tip is go to the bands official website and see if theres links on their site to where they sell digital music.

If theres still the odd artist not on Digital like King Crimson you may want to buy those physical cd's, even if you buy them second hand and then rip them to hdd.
 
Syphon Filter said:
How come?
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I want to own my music, so subscription services are throwing away money in my mind. I also don't really want to support the idea. I'm really glad it's an option, especially for the people who do like it, but I worry about a future where all music is rented and you don't have an option to ever keep the things that you like.

Part of it is also that I listen to a lot of music offline, so in the early days when downloading songs to your phone wasn't an option (at least I didn't think it was), that made me never care. I know you can now, but I'm stubborn, so if it doesn't exist in my "Music" app it doesn't exist to me.
 
Syriel said:
1) Rip your CDs to MP3.
2) Upload to Google Play Music for free.
3) Easily stream your collection from the cloud (for free).

Buy new songs on CD from anywhere. Or buy new songs as MP3 from Google, Amazon, etc. Upload any new songs (not purchased on Google) to Google Play Music to add to your collection.

Done.
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Does your own music have ads on when you stream it on the free tier?

50,000 songs is a lot for me and this sounds great!
 
I use Spotify to make playlists and I can download those to my phone so I don't have to stream all the time. I have the paid Spotify version..
 
Honestly, I just use Spotify these days. Has most of what I want to listen to. Sick of buying & storing music in my place of residence, fuck that. And I only have so many hours every day to listen to music, so I don't need absolutely everything out there. So many options to find new and unique music there is no need to actually go buy an album anymore. That seems so old fashioned to me. And I get it, there will be those who like to old the album in their hands, like the tangible appeal of a record to spin. I get it. It's not for me and hasn't been for years. To the future!
 
Buy CDs and rip them.

Digital stores (Google Play, iTunes, Beatport, Juno, etc, etc, etc,)

Bandcamp

Free Soundcloud downloads

Daffy Duck said:
Does your own music have ads on when you stream it on the free tier?

50,000 songs is a lot for me and this sounds great!
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Nope!
 
I buy CDs, rip and upload them to Google Music (free to upload 50,000 songs). Pretty simple. I guess you can also buy digital albums downloads, but I've never done that. I still prefer to own my music physically, because a good album is something I keep coming back to. Even though I very rarely actually listen to the CDs themselves these days, who knows what Google decides to do with the free music locker in five years. My CDs will still be there, probably.

ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
Stay locked into a incompatible service for the rest of your life. One that will fuck with your access 5-10 years down the line.
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Yeah, that's something I'm having NONE OF. Google Music is just for convenience, it's not my master library. My CDs are, and I also have every ripped track on my PC.
 
Durrzerker said:
I grew up on cassettes, then CDs. I used to have a massive library of the latter until an apartment fire, and ever since, I've mostly just set up youtube playlists.
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Really sorry to hear. My apartment was directly under one that caught fire, so my entire place was flooded. The first thing I ran to was my wall o' music. By sheer luck, literally that 12" span of the apartment was bone dry and I was able to salvage.

Anyway: Bandcamp is a great suggestion. There's also HDTracks. And you wouldn't think it, but Amoeba Music has a limited selection of downloadable purchases as well.

Good luck!
 
Daffy Duck said:
Does your own music have ads on when you stream it on the free tier?

50,000 songs is a lot for me and this sounds great!
Click to expand...

No, it's just 100% free. The quality is up to 320 kbps I think, which is all human ears need. I guess Google probably learns stuff about you from what you listen to, like with all their free services, but that's something I gladly accept. Amazing service.
 
Wait how do you upload to Google music?? I currently have so much music on my hard drive that I would love to be able to stream from anywhere without having to rebuy it on another service, (I use Amazon music and Pandora for streaming)
 
Pretty much exclusively use Spotify Premium now. Can't beat the convenience of being able to save albums and playlists and listen to them on any PC, or my Stereo, plus they can be easily downloaded to my phone so I don't have to use data. For the few things not on there I'll use Bandcamp. The only thing that bugs me a bit is how impermanent it feels. If Spotify ever went down I'd probably lose a ton of great albums that I don't have saved elsewhere and wouldn't be able to remember.
Though I do buy the occasional vinyl record if it's an album I absolutely love.
 
Himynameischris said:
Wait how do you upload to Google music?? I currently have so much music on my hard drive that I would love to be able to stream from anywhere without having to rebuy it on another service, (I use Amazon music and Pandora for streaming)
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There's an upload button in the web interface. Or you can use their desktop music manager to do it. Very simple.

And yeah, being able to stream my library wherever I am (and not having to manually load music onto my phone) is so great. You can also make music available offline on your phone if you don't want to use data. And of course you can stream from any web browser, Chromecast, etc.
 
uncelestial said:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/4627259?hl=en
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Wow this is amazing lol ok so quick question if I upload it does it have to download to my phone/tablet or will it stream it?

RoadHazard said:
There's an upload button in the web interface. Or you can use their desktop music manager to do it. Very simple.

And yeah, being able to stream my library wherever I am (and not having to manually load music onto my phone) is so great. You can also make music available offline on your phone if you don't want to use data. And of course you can stream from any web browser, Chromecast, etc.
Click to expand...

Ah thanks you answered my above question, well I'm excited lol I'm going to spend all weekend uploading my music, I have about 25k...I'd want about 15 of that uploaded so it's going to take some time lol
 
Himynameischris said:
Wow this is amazing lol ok so quick question if I upload it does it have to download to my phone/tablet or will it stream it?
Click to expand...

It'll stream it, unless you specify that you want it to be stored locally. There's a "Downloaded" filter in the phone app that lets you see only the music on your phone vs. everything you've uploaded + added to your library from the streaming catalog. (Google Play Music makes no distinction between the two, really - they can all be in the same playlist, in your same library, and both can be played online or offline).

Playlists are good tool for keeping a certain section of your music "local" (on your device). You can also just spring for a 256GB card if you're on an Android phone and carry it all with you. Up to you.

Google Play really is kinda the best. They have UI problems here and there but the features are pretty unbeatable, and it pays artists the most, even more than Tidal.
 
uncelestial said:
It'll stream it, unless you specify that you want it to be stored locally. There's a "Downloaded" filter in the phone app that lets you see only the music on your phone vs. everything you've uploaded + added to your library from the streaming catalog. (Google Play Music makes no distinction between the two, really - they can all be in the same playlist, in your same library).

Playlists are good tool for keeping a certain section of your music "local" (on your device). You can also just spring for a 256GB card if you're on an Android phone and carry it all with you. Up to you.
Click to expand...

By default it caches what you listen to though, so you only have to stream it the first time. It automatically deletes cached stuff if your phone storage is running low. Or you can, as you say, "pin" stuff to keep it available offline. A pinned offline playlist (which you can manage from the web interface by just dropping stuff into it) is great, and I also have the automatic "recent additions" playlist pinned so that anything new I upload automatically gets downloaded to my phone when I'm on Wi-Fi.
 
Guess Who said:
Depends on what format you want and what's most convenient for you. Google and Apple's stores are built into their phones. Amazon sometimes has better prices. Google sells in 320kbps MP3, Apple sells in 256kbps AAC, Amazon sells in V0 MP3. All three of these play on basically any computer or mobile device these days. Quality differences are negligible.
Click to expand...

Worth noting that while quality differences are negligible, AAC (iTunes) will give you better quality at a smaller file size than MP3. I wish the other stores would switch or at least offer an option. The space savings add up a lot over an entire music library.

AAC is also supported by basically everything, there's really no reason for stores to be using MP3.
 
RoadHazard said:
By default it caches what you listen to though, so you only have to stream it the first time. It automatically deletes cached stuff if your phone storage is running low. Or you can, as you say, "pin" stuff to keep it available offline. A pinned offline playlist (which you can manage from the web interface by just dropping stuff into it) is great, and I also have the automatic "recent additions" playlist pinned so that anything new I upload automatically gets downloaded to my phone when I'm on Wi-Fi.
Click to expand...

uncelestial said:
It'll stream it, unless you specify that you want it to be stored locally. There's a "Downloaded" filter in the phone app that lets you see only the music on your phone vs. everything you've uploaded + added to your library from the streaming catalog. (Google Play Music makes no distinction between the two, really - they can all be in the same playlist, in your same library, and both can be played online or offline).

Playlists are good tool for keeping a certain section of your music "local" (on your device). You can also just spring for a 256GB card if you're on an Android phone and carry it all with you. Up to you.

Google Play really is kinda the best. They have UI problems here and there but the features are pretty unbeatable, and it pays artists the most, even more than Tidal.
Click to expand...

Wow really robust, can't believe I didn't know about this ;_; thanks for the help!
 
Amazon is where i have bought my music for years. All of their stuff is DRM-free so you can easily back it up and move it between all your devices. For reference I mostly listen to European power metal and symphonic metal, where it is sometimes hard to find physical copies of what I want. Amazon hasn't had what I've wanted digitally maybe twice since 2009?
 
Nickle said:
What type of music can't you find on popular streaming sites?
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lots of independent electronic music not on the big 3 either. There's a good selection if you combine the big 3, but paying for 3 subs and having 3 separate libraries is annoying.
 
I'm a shit and do the youtube thing myself. I don't even make my own playlists any more. I just search for ones from other people.
 
This thread has been enlightening. So buying on Bandcamp and streaming on Google Play Music seems like the best way to go for both user experience and artist revenue?
 
Bandcamp is the best, just try to make sure you're buying from a legit source. Occasionally people will make fake accounts and that sucks

Conversely, nothing is worse than an album on Bandcamp that can only be downloaded with a code from a vinyl or cassette. Why
 
Durrzerker said:
I grew up on cassettes, then CDs. I used to have a massive library of the latter until an apartment fire, and ever since, I've mostly just set up youtube playlists.

However, I recently [finally] got an SD card for my smartphone, and I'd like to have a library of music on it for when I'm driving. Aux it up and such.

Thing is, I literally don't know how one even amasses a legal library of music anymore. I'm aware of iTunes, but it's missing the overwhelming majority of the songs I want.

Obviously, I'm not looking for free music. I want to support the artists. I'm just wondering if it's even possible anymore to have an actual library of music files that rivals my 3000+ song youtube collection.
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I am of the opinion that you bought the fucking music once (or apparently multiple times). Just because it burnt in a fire doesn't mean you shouldn't be entitled to the copy you could have otherwise created had you had the drive to do it before.

I am not advocating for piracy, but the licenses to your music didn't burn up in the fire, did they?
 
jambo said:
They literally did =P
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I call bullshit. Not on that "fact" but the idea that the physical version could be irreparably damaged would legally force you to delete the digital versions.

Download whatever you originally purchased. No one is going to come after you and you already gave the artist and record companies their money. You don't need to do it again.

The only reason I could see to re-buy it would be if they remastered new versions, had alternate takes, etc.
 
I have this same problem. What can you do when you almost exclusively listen to video game music? Most games don't have soundtrack releases (and if they do they tend to be super exclusive and only released in Japan), and in many cases the only way to have a game's soundtrack is to turn to game rips since no official soundtrack even exists.
 
How do iTunes, Google Play etc. handle an album leaving the store? Because Bandcamp will just remove the album from your library so you can never download it again, which is fucking horrible. What's the point of buying from a site like that if I still need to download everything ASAP and store them myself just to be sure?
 
NumberThree said:
How do iTunes, Google Play etc. handle an album leaving the store? Because Bandcamp will just remove the album from your library so you can never download it again, which is fucking horrible. What's the point of buying from a site like that if I still need to download everything ASAP and store them myself just to be sure?
Click to expand...

What is the alternative?
 
rip your cds, upload them on google play music. Listen to your cds anywhere.

Edit: in your case, you'd be morally in the right to just download whatever you owned.
 
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