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Hardbopjazz

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10 hours ago, David Ayers said:

You could investigate the free, ad-supported version of Spotify and if you like it go to the $10/month version with full functionality. 

Oh, OK.  I thought you were referring to some services (Soundcloud?) where you could post music and send links to people.  One problem with services such as Spotify is your friends need to be on it too.  Also, picking from their library, rather than from your own, seems a little too easy, not as personable (at least to me).

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2 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

How do you expect your friends to listen to files on your computer--unless you want to turn it into a server and leave it on all the time?

But that's why he's lamenting the fact that nobody has cassette decks any more. 

I always find these (recurring) threads where people seem to think (gross simplification) that all the things you could do with plastic 700 MB storage devices that were easily damaged are now impossible in the streaming society to be backwards-looking.

I will have to note, though, that I have seen album disappear - and sometimes reappear - on Spotify several times. 

Edited by Daniel A
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If Taylor Swift or ECM disappear from Spotify that only leaves about 395,000 more albums on Spotify that I will never have time to listen to in the rest of my life. I can grab a few ECM CDs if that ultimate tragedy occurs.

It is much better to cook all dinners in the back yard over an open fire, than to use an indoor stove and oven. What will you do if the power goes out? It would be an unimaginable horror. Thus it is best to never get an indoor stove and oven. 

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To make my own position clear: I really don’t care what disappears. I just listen to what is there, and I figure that labels and artists will mostly conclude that they need to be there. 

 

That said, some stuff does go awol, and (maybe) at a certain point some users would be irked by that. Oh and missing tracks - don’t get me started...

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7 hours ago, mjzee said:

Oh, OK.  I thought you were referring to some services (Soundcloud?) where you could post music and send links to people.  One problem with services such as Spotify is your friends need to be on it too.  Also, picking from their library, rather than from your own, seems a little too easy, not as personable (at least to me).

WeTransfer.

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On 9/13/2019 at 3:41 PM, mjzee said:

We actually have it better than film buffs - I can stream my music all over my house from iTunes on my computer, but studios don't even allow DVDs to be ripped to a home server.  (Studios definitely need to make that accommodation, if they want to stanch the loss of DVD sales.)  

I'd venture that the fact that studios don't "allow" DVDs to be ripped to a server has stopped very few film buffs with home servers, and they're not losing any sleep over the legal ramifications of doing so. Yes, there's a bit more involved than there is when ripping a CD, but it's still not an overly complicated process. 

I don't think studios care much about DVD or Blu-ray sales anymore - as an example, look no further than the drastic staffing cuts in the home video divisions of practically all the major studios over the past couple of years. The studio heads are probably almost rubbing their hands with unrestrained glee, because the ascendance of streaming and the accelerating obsolescence of physical media will allow them to return to a pre-VCR model where they once again have near-complete control over how, when, where, and how often movies are viewed, and consumers that want to gain and maintain access are forced to pay a subscription fee. The studios thus gain a recurring per-user revenue stream in perpetuity, instead of the one-time purchase of a physical disc.

The big software companies like Microsoft and Adobe are well ahead of the studios in this regard, having shifted their cash-cow applications from one-time license purchases to the monthly/annual subscription model over the past few years. Many people hate subscriptions, but enough of them capitulate that it more than offsets the lost revenue from those who refuse to do so. The same thing will happen with movies, probably even more so as people are acclimating quickly to the idea of streaming services as a (for now) less-expensive alternative to cable television. 

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The main problem with streaming, music orfilms, is that rare stuff outside of the mainstream probably will not make it to those services. We jazz buffs are among those specialists. You will get Miles and such any time, but anything not yet transferred to digital at this point will be lost to that world. And since information about the music decreases along that process, how do learn to get interested and how to do research? It's even worse with all the early music stuff I listen to. The big companies played their part inruining the market by throwing cheap reissues on us instead of inversting in new recordings of rarely heard music. 

It was the decades ago. During my university years I knew a guy who was proud he had all the important classical works after buying some big LP box set from Zweitausendeins with a few dozen populat orchestral works. No idea about differences between performances or the whole wide world of lesser known music. I kept my mouth shut. 

The times they are a-changing. I, too, wonder what will happen to my collection when I leave this dimension of being. 

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47 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

The times they are a-changing. I, too, wonder what will happen to my collection when I leave this dimension of being. 

I'm guessing our children will sell our collections for next to nothing, assuming they have any value, or toss them. I'd guess the latter. 

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7 hours ago, Dave Garrett said:

I'd venture that the fact that studios don't "allow" DVDs to be ripped to a server has stopped very few film buffs with home servers, and they're not losing any sleep over the legal ramifications of doing so. Yes, there's a bit more involved than there is when ripping a CD, but it's still not an overly complicated process. 

I don't think studios care much about DVD or Blu-ray sales anymore - as an example, look no further than the drastic staffing cuts in the home video divisions of practically all the major studios over the past couple of years. The studio heads are probably almost rubbing their hands with unrestrained glee, because the ascendance of streaming and the accelerating obsolescence of physical media will allow them to return to a pre-VCR model where they once again have near-complete control over how, when, where, and how often movies are viewed, and consumers that want to gain and maintain access are forced to pay a subscription fee. The studios thus gain a recurring per-user revenue stream in perpetuity, instead of the one-time purchase of a physical disc.

The big software companies like Microsoft and Adobe are well ahead of the studios in this regard, having shifted their cash-cow applications from one-time license purchases to the monthly/annual subscription model over the past few years. Many people hate subscriptions, but enough of them capitulate that it more than offsets the lost revenue from those who refuse to do so. The same thing will happen with movies, probably even more so as people are acclimating quickly to the idea of streaming services as a (for now) less-expensive alternative to cable television. 

Well said.

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1 hour ago, mikeweil said:

The main problem with streaming, music orfilms, is that rare stuff outside of the mainstream probably will not make it to those services. We jazz buffs are among those specialists. You will get Miles and such any time, but anything not yet transferred to digital at this point will be lost to that world. And since information about the music decreases along that process, how do learn to get interested and how to do research? It's even worse with all the early music stuff I listen to. The big companies played their part inruining the market by throwing cheap reissues on us instead of inversting in new recordings of rarely heard music. 

It was the decades ago. During my university years I knew a guy who was proud he had all the important classical works after buying some big LP box set from Zweitausendeins with a few dozen populat orchestral works. No idea about differences between performances or the whole wide world of lesser known music. I kept my mouth shut. 

The times they are a-changing. I, too, wonder what will happen to my collection when I leave this dimension of being. 

There are jazz albums not on Spotify, but most artists have deep catalogues of albums, even obscure artists. For example John Hicks has a very long list of albums on Spotify. Sun Ra has an immense number of albums on Spotify, including many which I, a long time collector of his albums, do not own. Those are just two random examples which come to mind. 

 I use both Spotify and my CD collection in the car, grabbing a CD when something is not on Spotify and I want to hear it. Use of a steaming service does not mean that your physical music collection magically turns to dust. You can use both. 

44 minutes ago, Brad said:

I'm guessing our children will sell our collections for next to nothing, assuming they have any value, or toss them. I'd guess the latter. 

I agree. I can easily see my daughter trying to sell my collection when I am dead, despairing over the amount of work involved, and just having a trash service pick it all up to take it to the dump. 

Edited by Hot Ptah
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On 9/13/2019 at 3:41 PM, mjzee said:

Times have definitely changed.  I can't make mix "tape" discs for friends anymore....

I have an old iPod in my car, connected via USB.  

These two comments in your longer post interest me. Do many people still make mix tapes for friends, with so much music so readily and cheaply available for everyone? Or is it more of a hobby for the one making the mix tape, than a pleasure for the recipient? I used to make mix cassette tapes for friends, then burn CD-Rs for friends. Some of them recently confessed to me that they had never listened to any of them. (Just like the mix tapes in Nick Hornby’s novel “High Fidelity.” The fact that many mix tapes are never listened to was emphasized more in the book than in the fillm.)

Second, you can use an old iPod in your car? When I got s 2016 Honda Accord the music on my old iPod would not play when I tried to access it with the USB. I called Honda customer service and they said that only iPod models after 2013 would work in the car. 

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17 minutes ago, Hot Ptah said:

These two comments in your longer post interest me. Do many people still make mix tapes for friends, with so much music so readily and cheaply available for everyone? Or is it more of a hobby for the one making the mix tape, than a pleasure for the recipient? I used to make mix cassette tapes for friends, then burn CD-Rs for friends. Some of them recently confessed to me that they had never listened to any of them. (Just like the mix tapes in Nick Hornby’s novel “High Fidelity.” The fact that many mix tapes are never listened to was emphasized more in the book than in the fillm.)

I've made countless mix tapes for my classic cars (of 1958 to 60 vintage) and for my previous hack vehicles and I still use some of them in the cassette players still fitted to these classics.
But for a long time I did not do mix CD-Rs (there were more than enough CDs to be turned 1:1 into CD-Rs) but in recent years I have made quite a few for use for DJing (I don't DJ often but use both vinyl and CDs - and NO, sitting in front of a laptop and pretending to be a DJ spinning the platters just IS NOT IT!! NEVER! :g) to save on having to carry dozens of CDs of which you'd spin only one or two tunes during the evening. These self-mixed CDs also come in handy if you have a tried-and-trusted sequence of 3 or 4 "dancefloor filler" tracks at your fingertips to give you a moment of relief during the evening. (With the inevitable result that I had to copy one or two of the mix CD-Rs for very good friends.) I know many DJs in our circles who spin CDs carry a stack of self-compiled mix CDs to their events - probably for the same reasons (though I know some of them privaely do use streaming services).
And when a collector friend who is VERY much into hillbilly, western swing and related older country music I've compiled CD-Rs (at his request) of 30s to 50s Western Swing polkas for his "Western"-style birthday party.
So there are situations when your own "V.A." discs come in handy. ;)

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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Spotify and their ilk are fine for sampling and checking out new stuff but if I want a good sonic listen it is vinyl or CD all the way (or streaming via an equivalent unit via NAS, if and when I make that switch). Good vinyl remains the medium of choice (and in view of the other environmental thread it is pretty well optimum when one buys 2nd hand vinyl which might otherwise hit land fill ;)).

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43 minutes ago, Hot Ptah said:

These two comments in your longer post interest me. Do many people still make mix tapes for friends, with so much music so readily and cheaply available for everyone? Or is it more of a hobby for the one making the mix tape, than a pleasure for the recipient? I used to make mix cassette tapes for friends, then burn CD-Rs for friends. Some of them recently confessed to me that they had never listened to any of them. (Just like the mix tapes in Nick Hornby’s novel “High Fidelity.” The fact that many mix tapes are never listened to was emphasized more in the book than in the film

 

I still make CD-R mixes for myself to listen to at home or in the car, mostly as soundtracks for fiction-writing projects. I also made one for my girlfriend this summer, but that was a real spur-of-the-moment throwback project. I think most people these days if so inclined simply put together a Spotify playlist.

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29 minutes ago, Hot Ptah said:

These two comments in your longer post interest me. Do many people still make mix tapes for friends, with so much music so readily and cheaply available for everyone? Or is it more of a hobby for the one making the mix tape, than a pleasure for the recipient? I used to make mix cassette tapes for friends, then burn CD-Rs for friends. Some of them recently confessed to me that they had never listened to any of them. (Just like the mix tapes in Nick Hornby’s novel “High Fidelity.” The fact that many mix tapes are never listened to was emphasized more in the book than in the fillm.)

Second, you can use an old iPod in your car? When I got s 2016 Honda Accord the music on my old iPod would not play when I tried to access it with the USB. I called Honda customer service and they said that only iPod models after 2013 would work in the car. 

I have a friend with whom I exchange mix "tape" CDs once a month.  I guess it's an extension of when we were both on our college free-form radio station.  We do listen to each other's CDs; he's very into reggae and world music, while mine veer more towards jazz, classical, and rock, though categories never interested either of us.  I feel fortunate, because I find the process of making the discs an outlet for my creativity.  

The process, at least for me, is different than in the old days.  I have all my music digitized.  I create a folder for this month's disc in iTunes, and assemble it there, listening and reworking the order of the tracks there, with an ear for the segs and the flow.  I also keep an eye on the total time.  This is very different than in the old days, where if something wasn't working, you'd either have to accept it or start over.  Then, I open all the tracks in Amadeus Pro, using "join files."  There, I adjust the volume levels and edit down the silences between tracks.  I can even fade one song into the next, similar to what we used to do using the pots on the radio board.  When I'm satisfied, I burn the disc from Amadeus Pro.

As for the iPod in the car, I plug it into the USB port, and choose aux on my 2015 Subaru's stereo.  It works well, and it works similarly well on my wife's 2012 Acura, so I'm not sure why it doesn't work in your Honda.  This iPod is old, my guess is 10 years old.

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Say ... considering the flow of this discussion, do any of you Americans drive any GEN-YEW-INE U.S. cars anymore? ;):lol:

 

 

17 minutes ago, mjzee said:

  I feel fortunate, because I find the process of making the discs an outlet for my creativity.  

 

Quite true. You can spend hours and hours experimenting not jsut with selecting the tracks in the first place but above all with the sequence of tracks, trying to find the optimum way of seguing one after another to keep up the flow and momentum of the music and its energy that gets to you without things getting monotonous and repetitive but rather taking you effortlessly along on your playlist.
 

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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I did til this last one. My wife bought a Nissan Juke and I fell in love with it. When I was in the market for a new car I looked at the closest US equivalent, a Buick Encore, Found out it was designed by Opel and built in South Korea, so not much of a genuine US car there. I test drove one and it was okay but no Juke. So I ended up buying a Juke NISMO, a remainder from the year before just as the new models were coming out, got a great deal and love it.

Edited by jazzbo
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11 hours ago, mikeweil said:

The main problem with streaming, music orfilms, is that rare stuff outside of the mainstream probably will not make it to those services. We jazz buffs are among those specialists. You will get Miles and such any time, but anything not yet transferred to digital at this point will be lost to that world. And since information about the music decreases along that process, how do learn to get interested and how to do research? It's even worse with all the early music stuff I listen to. The big companies played their part inruining the market by throwing cheap reissues on us instead of inversting in new recordings of rarely heard music. 

This is certainly true (and it's why most of the Blu-rays I buy are non-mainstream titles that aren't available on any streaming service), but streaming is in its relative infancy now, and it's invariably the case that whenever a new format/delivery method comes along, whether audio or video, it's always the warhorses that get released initially. It takes time for a format to mature, but once it does, that's when the esoterica starts becoming available. 

Also, consider that for every audio format since the dawn of recorded music, there have always been titles that never wind up getting released on a newer format once it supersedes the previous one. Think about the music that was only available on wax cylinders and hasn't been made available again since then. Or 78s. Or LPs (God knows *that* list is near-endless). Or CDs. And inevitably, there will at some point be music that has only been released as a digital file, or via a streaming service. 'Twas ever thus.

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The new Criterion Channel is off to a VERY promising start. Lots of great films that you won't see anywhere else in addition to special features. It's about $10/month, but worth it if you're looking for quality foreign and domestic features.

It's easily accessible with an Amazon Fire Stick which you can get for $20-30 when they put them on sale. I got a 2nd one for $15 at the last Prime Day!

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