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Playing music in the car


Misterioso

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I spend about 90 minutes daily in my car. Good opportunity to listen to music. I extra ordered laminated glass with my current car. I use the time in the car to listen to CD box sets (and to talk with my young son about the music we are listening to). For me, box sets can be a bit overwhelming and as a result I often reach for single albums when listening to music at home. That's why I listen to CD box sets in the car. I change sets about every two weeks and stream them from my mobile phone. This has become my standard way of getting familiar with a CD box set. 

Currently playing: Woody Shaw - The Complete Columbia Album Collection.

Next in line: Miles Davis - The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965.

What's your habit of listening to music in the car?

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2 hours ago, Misterioso said:

What's your habit of listening to music in the car?

Sirius/XM.  Flip through my 12 preset stations in search of the perfect song for the moment or some gem I'm not familiar with.  Before that, I used to burn CD's of favorite cuts by an artist and play those.  I have a 20 minute commute to/from work.

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Until about four years ago I had a minimum 90 minute commute five days a week and that is where most of my listening took place.

Then my wife and I moved from south Florida to outside Tampa and I became a remote agent with a 20 step commute from couch to office. My driving plummeted which is great for saving on gas and maintenance, terrible for listening time.  I would occasionally play a CD while working but inevitably phone calls would come in, the CD would be paused, and it would never go back on.  And even when I was able to play uninterrupted I found I wasn't able to listen as closely as I can in the car. (Some shopping is a longer drive than before but one drive for one CD once a week is hardly enough listening time.)

So perhaps the silver-lining of getting fired in October (nine years in with the same company and with no warning whatsoever the "book of business" is sold to someone with no interest in keeping any employee on - and we all got the same one month severance regardless of longevity) is that my new gig looks to be the same 90 minute commute so that starting Monday I will have a full CD book ready to go with many discs I've only listened once or twice .... never thought consciously of keeping box sets for the car, and I also do sometimes have a thumb drive filled of LP transfers that I haven't burned to a CDR that I listen to in the car.

So I'm glad to have a new job, very glad to have new time to devote to listening, and even more glad that this gig isn't so far away as to involve I-4, I-75 or I-275. Just SR 60 to Brandon.

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I must admit that I don´t need the car to go to work, since my office is not so far away from my house. 

I use the car when I go fishing and during the drive to the river I listen to USB sticks. I record my LPs on USB, that means  About 30 LPs on one stick. Because at home I listen rarely to Vinyl, more to CDs, so I save my old Vinyl collection for trips with the car and can enjoy Albums I haven´t listened to for dozens of years…….

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10 hours ago, felser said:

Sirius/XM.  Flip through my 12 preset stations in search of the perfect song for the moment or some gem I'm not familiar with.  Before that, I used to burn CD's of favorite cuts by an artist and play those.  I have a 20 minute commute to/from work.

I'm about the same, although in more recent years I think Sirius/XM has a repetitive programming problem. It's very noticeable on multi-day drives which I do quite a bit of.

My current vehicle lacks a CD player (will never do that again) so, I finally gave into the playlist thing using my phone as storage. I go back and forth between it and Sirius.

 

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4 minutes ago, catesta said:

I'm about the same, although in more recent years I think Sirius/XM has a repetitive programming problem. It's very noticeable on multi-day drives which I do quite a bit of.

My current vehicle lacks a CD player (will never do that again) so, I finally gave into the playlist thing using my phone as storage. I go back and forth between it and Sirius.

 

I think you're right on Sirius/XM and the repetition.  Not sure I'm in for the long haul, but enjoying it now on the 15 months of intro rates.  We just bought a car, and I had to specifically shop for one with a CD players (2017 Honda Accord - that was the last year CD players were standard in them).  My wife would not be without the CD player, and I'm glad to have it.

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I uploaded (nearly) all of my (digital) music to Amazon Music before they discontinued offering that service.  So, when I'm driving, I use Bluetooth to connect the phone to the car stereo system and stream music that's in my library via Amazon's app.

I still have a CD player in my car, and I use it occasionally. But mostly I'm streaming music these days. (One note: It's music from my library, rather than a service like Spotify or Tidal.)

I also keep music on a micro-SD card on my phone, so I can listen to music if there's no connectivity to the internet. (For example, when my wife and I go camping, I usually just stream music from the micro-SD card on my phone.)  Also, since I can't upload any more music to Amazon, I'll usually just rotate new music on-and-off the micro-SD card after I've ripped it.

All above options are useful to me because my typical commute from the 'burbs to downtown Atlanta and back is about 2 hours per day -- sometimes longer and occasionally MUCH longer. :o

Edited by HutchFan
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12 hours ago, felser said:

Sirius/XM.  Flip through my 12 preset stations in search of the perfect song for the moment or some gem I'm not familiar with.  Before that, I used to burn CD's of favorite cuts by an artist and play those.  I have a 20 minute commute to/from work.

I recommend Little Steven's Underground Garage. 

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35 minutes ago, medjuck said:

I recommend Little Steven's Underground Garage. 

Yep, that's one of my 12 presets.  Beatles, Springsteen, Petty, 60's, 70's, Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, First Wave, Soul Town, The Bridge, Deep Tracks are the other 11.

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1 hour ago, felser said:

Yep, that's one of my 12 presets.  Beatles, Springsteen, Petty, 60's, 70's, Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, First Wave, Soul Town, The Bridge, Deep Tracks are the other 11.

Interesting.

For me, it is Classic Rewind, Classic Vinyl, 60s, 70s, 80s, The Bridge, Hair Nation, Ozzy's Boneyard, Liquid Metal and until recently Howard 100 and 101, but I've taken 100 off and replaced with Octane. When I eliminate 101 it will be replaced with First Wave.

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What bothered me with music in the car is that unless you have one of those superluxury and supersilent german sedans, doublebass lines are lost forever in the noise of the car and the traffic. When I had a car I used to listen rock music bluetoothed from my phone.

Edited by porcy62
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5 hours ago, porcy62 said:

What bothered me with music in the car is that unless you have one of those superluxury and supersilent german sedans, doublebass lines are lost forever in the noise of the car and the traffic. When I had a car I used to listen rock music bluetoothed from my phone.

This is why I bought an electric car. (Not really, but it sure is quiet and the bass lines sound great. ) 

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For bass in the car, you need a large stereo bass box in the trunk. Mine has a rich sound. Those tiny door speakers won't cut it.

With my nasty neighbors, I enjoy a car trip, when I can turn the music up. Mainly jazz, but also a substantial amount of house music. That neighbor even came out and griped because he could hear 90 seconds of house while I backed into my driveway (and then turned it off). One day he did that, and a buddy with him said "Ooh, that sounds great. Can I have a copy?" I nearly choked with suppressed laughter.

I am surprised that some cars no longer have a CD player. That would be a deal breaker, for me. Very occasionally, I plug my android cellphone into it, but CDs rule.

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1 hour ago, Shrdlu said:

 

 

 

I am surprised that some cars no longer have a CD player. That would be a deal breaker, for me. Very occasionally, I plug my android cellphone into it, but CDs rule.

I must say, I´m afraid the CD players in the car could do some damage to my CDs. I´m afraid the CD-Players in cars are not as good as the DENON-CD Player I have in my house. I noticed that two or three CDs I possibly played in the car got stuck in the last track (it´s Always the last track I don´t know why), so I had to re-buy them. 

I don´t have nasty neighbors , I´m lucky, but the strange Thing is as older as I don´t turn up that much, though my hearing has suffered . 

What´s house music, is this a kind of disco stuff, you see I´m only into jazz 100%......

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1 hour ago, Shrdlu said:

For bass in the car, you need a large stereo bass box in the trunk. Mine has a rich sound. Those tiny door speakers won't cut it.

I had one of those in my former honda, but still the noise of the wind over 80 Km/h was very annoying. Usually the engine in modern cars is quite noiseless, (Porsche's and Ferrari's apart), it's the aerodinamic and the soundproofing the problem IMO. Lately a friend lent me his BMW 520 for a week and I enjoyed jazz trios with the onboard music rig. I guess a Lexus or a Tesla should work as well.

Edited by porcy62
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Gheorghe, let me describe house music.

It is said to have originated in Chicago in the early 80s, but I've never heard anything from that time or place, and none of it is played in the clubs I have been to, or on radio stations.

It is a form of electronic dance music, played with two players and a mixer. It is (necssarily) all 4/4, in 8-measure sections. The speed (BPM) is usually between about 124 and 130, though some DJs go faster. The plan is that each track has an intro and an "outro" which are mainly simple, so that successive tracks can be merged seamlessly; there are no gaps in the music then. As one track is approaching its end, the next track is started and brought into the mix. It is obviously essential that the DJ be able to adjust the speed of each track. With vinyl (which is what they used at first), this poses a problem, because the (musical) pitch changes when you alter the speed. CDs solve this problem, and are much lighter to carry to the gig. House CD players are able to change the speed and keep the track on concert pitch, which is essential if a live musical instrument is playing along as well. The latest equipment can read the tracks off a USB memory card, but I prefer to use CDs.

While a track is playing over the speakers, the DJ starts the next track (heard only on the headphones) and blends it in with the current track on the mixer.

There is a lot of shallow rubbish dance music, obviously, but the best of house is cutting edge music in this era. There are several superb producers, mainly people with musical training. One of them I know (Jimpster) is into Weather Report, Gil Evans and Bill Evans.

If it's live, I prefer house to jazz, for one simple reason: most jazz fans today are argumentative old farts, whereas the audience for house is young and out for a good evening.

 

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20 minutes ago, Shrdlu said:

Gheorghe, let me describe house music.

It is said to have originated in Chicago in the early 80s, but I've never heard anything from that time or place, and none of it is played in the clubs I have been to, or on radio stations.

The original Chicago house was kind of crude, but Larry Levan started moving it ahead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Levan 

Good House Music swings. Great House Music (on either the cut or the overall mix level) has so many layers going on (both at one time and as part of the overall arc) that it can be listened to as seriously as it can be danced to. You won't be listening to conventional "melody and changes" songs, but you will be listening to moving parts out the ass being quite intentionally moved, and often enough, some really good/great vocals on top of it.

Above all, though, it swings.

 

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Yeah, Jim. The best of house swings like crazy. The only music that swings is jazz, Cubana Musica and Bossa Nova, and good house.

Gheorghe,  here are some excellent tracks, to prove my point. (No-one else may listen: only Gheorghe, lol.)

 

That is way longer than the average house track (they usually run about 7 minutes, including the intro and outro), but it is superb all round and has an excellent (unidentified) alto saxophone solo - repeated unnecessarily.

 

Dig the McCoy Tyner fourth chords on the piano on that.

 

Jimpster (Jamie O'Dell, from Essex, England) did a fine job with this, a samba.

 

 

That should be enough for now, to prove the point.

You can have music that is simultaneously groovy for dancing, and of a high musical standard.

 

Jamie is into Miles, Weather Report, Bill Evans and Gil Evans. I'm trying to get him to do a new version of Weather Report's "River People". I can add the soprano saxophone part - we would not be sampling the W.R. album.

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