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Someone recently told me he has over 101 days of music in his iTunes library. I'm sure that just about all of our readers have monstrously large music collections. Where do you buy your music?
Each Tuesday we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.
Do you purchase your music as digital downloads? Do you buy your music from the iTunes store, Amazon or somewhere else? Which codec do you prefer: MP3, AAC, WMA or something else?
Or do you purchase your music on physical media? Do you prefer CDs, cassettes or records? Do you play your music on the physical media, or rip them to your hard drive? Do you purchase your music online, or go to a "real" store? Which music store do you prefer?
And if you want to, you can boast about how many hours of music you have in your iTunes library.
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )George September 29th
I buy all my music from http://rapidshare.com. $10 a month.
( )Chris September 29th
i like that this happened.
( )West September 30th
I prefer to have all my music in a lossless format – WAV, AIFF or ALAC. If the music is more for ‘fun’ than critical listening, I use Amazon and iTunes – the 256kbps stuff is passable.
RealWorld Records has a few lossless albums. Aside from that – if I want a high quality, lossless recording – the only option for most of what I listen to is to buy the CD.
I really wish more sites would start offering lossless downloads.
Joel Falconer October 2nd
It’s awesome that music pirates are reading Audiotuts+!
Because if you keep it up and send all the musicians out of business, you’ll need to create your own tunes every time you’re in the mood for music.
( )Anon October 5th
haha, that’s rich, when the corporate labels stop making money, suddenly all human creativity in music is switched off – riiight.
Manuel-M September 29th
Hi people,
Rapidshare is a filesharing service , not a music shop….Or just for download hacked artists albums or old unknown cd releases…
For digital shops ,beatport / junodownload / itunes / amazon…
Format : Mp3 320 or wav (for Ep’s/digitals labels/just one track in an album)
If I’m interested for a full Lp,
I buy cd’s @ amazon (for complete albums).I prefer to have the physical object in my hands to be inside the universe of the artist.
After listening it , I copy it in my hard drive.
Bye
( )the real napster September 30th
If I’m interested for a full Lp,
I buy cd’s @ amazon (for complete albums).I prefer to have the physical object in my hands to be inside the universe of the artist.
Download for free……..burn on CD……which rhymes.
( )I'ts a name September 29th
I buy music at djdownloads.com, beatport.com and djshop.de
I prefer MP3 for downloading..
( )Paul Millar September 29th
I have a napster subscription which satisfies all of my musical needs which costs me £9.99 a month. If napster doesnt have a song I want -> iTunes.
( )Laurent September 29th
Mmh, and how much of it goes to the artists?
( )Jason September 29th
I buy from amazon
( )harry September 29th
boomkat.com, as well as, SACD or S.Ed.CD’s whenever they arise.
( )EGY99 September 29th
@ George. Then you steal music. Appear that your very proud of it.
( )Eugene September 29th
I only “buy” music on vinyl, mostly on http://decks.de/
( )Esben Lorenzen September 29th
i buy most of my music as CD’s and them rip them to my HD as flac and ipod as *.mp3.
( )Normally, before buying an album, i download it, listen to it, and if its something i like, i go out and buy it.
norrinradd September 29th
eMusic (http://www.emusic.com/). Because of where i live, iTunes and other shops does not work; even a lot of artists are unavaible from emusic. But still they have a lot of good music.
( )Alex Leonard September 29th
I’ve got a 100 track per month subscription to eMusic. Stuff I can’t get on there I buy from a variety of places such as Bleep, JunoDownload.
If I’m really stuck I’ll order a CD from Amazon and rip to FLAC, but I try to avoid that if at all possible.
( )Algy Strutt September 30th
I buy (and sell!) all of my music from http://www.beatport.com Its got the most comprehensive collection of electronic music avaiable on the web, with a seriously helpful cross referencing system to help you find little known gems!
Can be pretty pricey though, especially if you want to use .wav files. Sometimes better to find music on beatport, then try and buy it somewhere else….
If you can be arsed.
( )Joshua Bogart September 30th
iTunes…….or directly from Radiohead’s website.
( )MMI September 30th
I too have a 100 track/month eMusic sub. I also typically buy up all the CDs I can when I go to gigs and immediately rip to my ipod. The CDs are then put on a shelf to collect dust.
Over a period of over 10 years, I appear to have accreted over 10,000 tracks. Amazingly, about 130 of them are my own.
( )Tom September 30th
Generally in this order, depending on what’s available and who has it in a lossless and/or vinyl format:
1)Digital-tunes.net or redeyerecords.co.uk
2)Chemical-Records
3)Juno/Trackitdown/beatport/amazon
4)Local record shops
5)Amazon
Not counting netlabels and blog freebies of course
( )MKTuba September 30th
I get my royalty-free music from killer tracks. Killertracks.com
( )BOOM September 30th
I post and buy music of itunes
( )Jesse September 30th
I purchase all music from online retailers in CD format (usually Amazon). I rip to Apple Lossless and then transcode to a separate library for my iPod at 128kbps AAC.
I use grooveshark, iTunes, and Amazon to preview before buying.
( )Bob Jansen September 30th
I have a very large music collection, mostly downloaded from iTunes, and yes I’m very proud of it.
Oh, for all my stock music needs I go to http://www.musicdirector.nl. All the famous stock company’s are hosted on there. You can download it for free in HQ and if you’re going to use it in a production you fill in a sheet to pay for it. It’s a great service!
I really recommend it!
( )andro October 1st
I steal music
Very proud of it since i don’t believe in copyright no more. I’d pay any day to watch artists perform but i won’t ever pay for music again.
( )Ryan Leach October 2nd
@andro Would you steal a painting from an art gallery? Or a book from Borders?
If “that’s different”, please clarify how.
If you liked a song I wrote and produced, please explain why you would you not consider it valuable?
( )Anon October 5th
this assumes that the painting or book is immediately available for reproduction in a method similar to digital music, in which case you would see an incredibly high rate of “theft” from art galleries and bookstores. Music has value, art has value, there’s definitely no denying that – the exact value is debatable.
Luke October 1st
I personally buy my music at 7digital.com,bleep.com and junodownload.com. All are reasonable and DRM free, i think that bleep has a particularly good business model.
( )Louis Muloka October 2nd
online stores: Boomkat, Beatport, iTunes
directly from labels: Mood Gadget, Twisted Records, Erased Tapes, Public Transit Records
free downloads: SoundCloud, The Hype Machine
preferences: 320k MP3 or FLAC
other music recommendations:
http://blog.iso50.com/
( )http://last.fm/
http://creativecommons.org/audio/
http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos/
Filch October 4th
I still buy on average 4 CD’s a month. They are usually directly from the label themselves, but if it is not easily available, I’ll buy them on Amazon. I’ll rip them into FLAC and put the CD’s away.
( )Zineb October 19th
I think the question on where I buy music is more complex than what it looks like at first sight. Not all the music is available at Amazon or iTunes. If I am serious at music, I need to search the entire web. As an example, folk music in clearly underrepresented at the major web stores.
I found interesting music at http://www.ayndrylrecords.com (Voices from Edom, The Niah’s Crisis, Slirtha Blinati) that I never found elsewhere. And I definately prefer CDA over MP3, plus I love to hace the CD case, the lyrics, and the photographs.
( )toshfox November 4th
hellOoo
I buy music only when it’s wav format
Lossy formats were good when we had small hard disks and not fast connections. So pirate or not, i buy when lossless i download when no choice ..
( for me it hurts none coz i would have not bought it anyway)
I am fan of music from Trailers, like Immediate music, Two steps from hell..
( )They sold only for private companies, not for public… But since one or two years, they have been started selling to public (CD or lossy format) and I am the first to buy it !
But again, when u talk about amazon or itunes, No joke please
I prefer to be pirate and download the lossless version when no wav versions…
DId u already checked the frequencies spectrum of what they sell?
it’s not even 256 kbps… Please !
I am composer and I agree with what it was said :
“when the corporate labels stop making money, suddenly all human creativity in music is switched off ” , Ironic way of course…
Adrian Try October 5th
No, Anon – that normally happens when the artist starves. Or takes another job since no one will pay for his music.
Audiotuts is a community of musicians, and coming here and telling them you’re not willing to pay for their music won’t win you any friends here. Music piracy is wrong, and it doesn’t just affect the corporate labels. It affects the musicians you claim to love.
If you feel strongly about not wanting to pay for music, you’re in luck. The Internet is full of music that bands and musicians are giving away for free. Some of it is quite good. I suggest you limit your music listening to those songs – they seem to fit in with your life philosophy.
Now, back to the question at hand: Where do you buy your music?
( )Adrian Try October 5th
Well Anon, the “debate” ends here. You seem to think you have the right to tell musicians what to charge. That’s their right. You’re right is to decide whether you’re willing to pay it. You don’t have the right to steal it.
( )