A kung fu fighter in a disco

Where DOES one buy legal downloads of normal pop chart tracks? I know about Beatport, Kompakt-mp3 and so on for the bobbins, but I've heard that the itunes store only sells 128-bitrate quality tracks (!!!!! - can this be true? how...unutterably rubbish) and I can't think where else sells mp3s.

I would buy a song online if I couldn't find it in decent quality anywhere else (most likely if I want to DJ with it - right now this applies to 'Bird Flu', which reminds me, Tom, could you gmail me your mp3 of it please?) and wasn't being sent a promo.

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128 bit rate AAC. these sound better than 128kbps mp3. for what that is worth.

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Yeah I've heard that though and it's far from the best - surely it should be a basic thing that if you expect people to pay money for an mp3 you should at least give them the option of having the v best sound quality available? I wouldn't pay money for a 192-bitrate mp3 either, even though I'd be happy with an illegal download of it. This is astonishingly rubbish. I mean, CAN you get 320-bitrate mp3s of pop songs anywhere?!

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you can get 320kbps stuff on the dodgy Russian sites inc. Allofmp3 and GoMusic. but it's rather random. there's a lot of VBR stuff too (VBR = variable bit rate where the quality changes depending on what is happening in the song i.e. higher for bass or whatever).

the argument re iTunes quality mp3s is that they do not present any discernible difference to the AVERAGE listener. but i do not usually buy from them on the DRM issue is nothing else. DRM sucks!

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I am not going to dodgy Russian sites. I don't know what DRM is. And seriously, fuck the average listener with sticks.

So you mean that there is actually NOWHERE to legally download music other than crap-quality/DRM itunes, dodgy Russian sites, or this e-music thing which has its own problems and which you have to subscribe to? Why do people do any of that?

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Lex do you really notice the difference between iTunes-quality songs and the CD original, on a device like an ipod or standard stereo?

many people wouldn't or just don't care about it. people have always tolerated quality compromise - before CDs it was forced on them by the medium itself (vinyl scratchiness, tape hiss etc.) after all.

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Well, yes, I definitely do! It depends what kind of song to an extent, I guess if you're into acoustic music you won't notice (and it'll already be clear you don't care WHAT crap goes into your ears) but being into hyper-modernist r&b and the bobbins, things like crispness of beats and deepness of bass are V V V V IMPORTANT.

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I have to say, skeptical though I was previously, I have been somewhat converted recently after having the opportunity to compare 128kpbs, 192kbps, and CDs on a real normal stereo. 128 is pointless for anything more than test drive; 192 is the absolute minimum, but I have begun to regret the fact that I haven't yet bought CDs for certain things I really like.

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I guess people were so tolerant of 128kbps 7 years ago because of the general excitement regarding the compression scale. It was touted as 'FM quality' and 'near CD quality' at the time. I still have so many mp3s of this bitrate on my PC it's ridiculous although the purge is well under way and the majority of my CD collection (not actually that big) is now encoded or re-encoded at 256 or higher.

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freakytigger.livejournal.com

Yeah even *I*, master of the shonky CD, am trying to avoid 128.

I have quite a few MP3s at 96 hanging around :(

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i have ripped about 40 of Alix's CDs to my laptop today - all at 256. i've now used up a third of the hard drive (although there was aready some large video clips on there too) :)

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atommickbrane.livejournal.com

Ha ha - I have some things at 64!!

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'So you mean that there is actually NOWHERE to legally download music'

you cannot download super chart-friendly pop/rnb/dance music at above 192kbps legally as far as i've found :(

it's been very frustrating when it comes to compiling Ultramixes and whatnot.

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freakytigger.livejournal.com

Does anyone know if bandwidth is getting cheaper, by the way?

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what i am struggling with at the moment = so much of my music from the past few years has been mp3s burnt to cd (original mp3s deleted to make room for new ones). and now I realise that re-importing them to new laptop - which I really want to do, to consolidate songs from various disparate compilations - means re-compressing them to an extent and they will sound even worse :(

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And you can get 320kbps and also some FLAC stuff on Bleep - but they don't really do Pop (they've got some dubstep, grime, american alt-indie, ed banger and more tho)

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sbp.livejournal.com

I work for an encoding house. I'll see which stores we supply with decent quality stuff.

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sbp.livejournal.com

Looks like it's mainly dance music places that want their stuff in 320kbps MP3. Most of the regular WMA stuff isn't better than 192.

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freakytigger.livejournal.com

Check yr gmail.

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I think the mp3 of Bird Flu that is going around is almost certainly a myspace-tap effort. Not that I'd know anything about that. Coff.

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i have been thinking of writing a DRM screed on my LJ - best place for it as i don't imagine anyone is that interested. i wouldn't want to take up FT space for it at least.

i am a bit scandalised about how much reckid ppl be ripping off their artists with a "digital discount" - ie that they end up getting LESS for digital stuff. boo.

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btw my screed is controversially "DRM DOES NOT ACTUALLY SUCK"

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piratemoggy.livejournal.com

I have a love/hate relationship with legal downloading; on the one hand, iTunes annoys the crap out of me by being vert restrictive about what you can do with your music once you've purchased it and often the download screws up whilst I'm purchasing something and the track will come down mashed. On the other hand, there's no 24-hour record shop near me and I do prefer to get hold of music legally when I can afford it.

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my colleague keeps telling me how good value it is. (and good bitrates too)

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byebyepride.livejournal.com

Do you want a trial subscription? I can arrange (I am a subscriber).

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i just bought a router thing that comes with a voucher for loads of free downloads, but i gather they give out free taster subs all the time anyway. i'll let you know.

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i gave up my subscription because i kept forgetting to download stuff from them. they should offer a pay per download scheme in tandem with set subscriptions bah.

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barrysarll.livejournal.com

It's good value for the stuff they have, but their coverage is maddeningly patchy. I'm keeping it for a while largely to get a load of eg old Cherry Red stuff; they don't get enough of the new albums I want for me to have it perfectly.
The lack of DRM is a definite plus, though.

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byebyepride.livejournal.com

I use emusic, mostly for downloading back catalogue stuff which is hard to find elsewhere (if you see what I mean). I subscribe because a) it's very very cheap and b) it's DRM free. But: it is a real chore looking through all the stuff on there because you really need to know what you're looking for, and there are very few reliable means of directing you to interesting stuff.

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and you have to subscribe (after the free trial has expired) right?

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awesomewells.livejournal.com

Staffed almost entirely by ILX mentalists as well!

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rly?

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i think ILX's Yanc3y is boss of the UK division (but still based in NYC) and before him it was Mat0s i think? anyway they've been able to cherry-pick ILX0rs to come work for them inc. Anna - and Tom did some album reviews for them recently too.

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I find it difficult to imagine I will ever consistently buy "albums" in electronic format. On the "positive" side, because I like the packaging and the physical object; on the "negative" side, because it really is quite rare to get a full album without a few duff tracks. "Album" prices would need to offer *substantial* savings over the $1/track price I mentioned above.

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I was attending a werk conference this morning mentioning these very things.

1) With my newly acquired technology I am in the position to capture streams on my mac straight off myspace or wherever. Anyone can do this with Audacity or freely available software. It's a bit of faff but no more than taping something off the radio. I tried buying a song off Tesco Downloads once and it wouldn't play on my old PC. *flicks the Vs at buying downloads*

2) A while back on here I attempted to remember the breakdown of yr 79p download; this morning refreshed my memory:

79p => 13p VAT + 8p to retailer + 47p to record label + 7p to artist + 1p to PRS + 3p to publisher

Our MD expects the price of a download to drop to about 29p in the next three years. emusic already offers it at around this level (say if you bought the maximum amount allocated to you for your monthly subscription) so it's not a ridiculous target. At the moment the big copyright tribunal is fighting over whether the above is reasonable or not (BPI are sueing PRS because they would like our slice to be more like 4-5p and their slice to be more like 50p).

There you go.

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Interesting. PRS money is for who exactly?

Capturing those myspace streams and bang! right into iTunes is great, isn't it?

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PRS money goes to the songwriters (eg Cathy Dennis) as opposed to the artist's slice (eg Kylie)

Grr I've got confused above about the Copyright Tribunal stuff - the figures should be percentages or something. No-one really understands what's going on with it, only that we're trying to settle out of court :-)

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urg, then where does the publisher money go? songwriter also?

you always hear how the people who actually make the money are the songwriters, and that breakdown (7 to Kylie, 1 to Cathy) suggests something different (Ringo gets 7/4p for playing drums on 'Let It Be', Paul gets only 0.5p for writing the song! (plus his 7/4p))

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The publisher money can go wherever the publisher sees fit! If a songwriting band member has an exceptionally good publishing deal (eg Radiohead) then they will see a fair bit of the publisher's slice as well as their artist slice, once they've paid their original publishing advance off. Alternatively the publisher will rub their hands with glee and buy an porsche.

Other non-digital royalty areas are EXTREMELY lucrative for songwriters. Kylie gets 0p for getting her song played on the radio/telly. Cathy Dennis gets £££many. Online stuff is handled differently - there are separate royalties for BUYING music (79p breakdown described above) and separate royalties for PERFORMING music (ie using Kylie song in the background for your website or myspace to encourage people to visit it). It's the latter bit that we're being sued about (apologies, I got mixed up earlier).

MCPS handles the Buying A Product side of things (CDs, DVDs), and this part of the music industry is going down the sh1tter. Sales of physical products are falling and there was no 'instant replacement' scheme for online royalties this time - unlike when CDs arrived and it was merely a matter of changing the shape of the case. It all works differently and the major labels are feeling the pinch because they didn't respond quickly enough.

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there's a Top 100 Trance compilation on iTunes for only £9 or so works out at around 12p a track i think. i didn't recognise much of what was on it tho.

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But you have to have the rubbish tracks as well, yes? Actually I'm not really convinced by the "downloads mean you can pick the tracks you want" argument. I buy albums because I want to hear tracks I wouldn't normally hear, because I don't know about them already & they're not on the telly.

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the main thing is that you get to hear (hopefully) enough of the tracks via preview option to decide whether you want them or not. esp. useful with albums.

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