ITunes, or something else?

[FoxyJama]

I'm a music junkie and I tend to get my music the old fashioned way, mostly because I like to have CDs in my car. I download specific songs from various acidplanet folks, but I've never subscribed to a music download service, so I'm not sure how to respond to the lady at work that sent me this:

I figured you could answer this one for me. If I were going to subscribe to a service to download music off the net, do you have a recommendation?

Thanks!
Martha

*I* don't have any recommendation, but do you guys? What should I tell her. I don't know of many other than ITunes or Napster. Martha isn't the most computer literate person in the world, and she's on dial up. Ease of use is key, but the cheaper the better! I have a feeling (having shared an office with her for a year) that she will be looking for country music, if that makes a difference.

[Zephem]

There's Napster and Realplayer has their own service as well.

Napster's are open mp3's I believe, no DRM, but I can't remember. It's either their's or RealOne's.

iTunes has DRM restrictions and a custom file format. She would be locked in unless she used software to break the encryption and convert it over to mp3 format. The thing with subscription services is that they all tie you down with DRM, and you have to break the DRM in order to exercise your right as a consumer, and do what you want with it.

[Maephina]

There's Napster and Realplayer has their own service as well.

Napster's are open mp3's I believe, no DRM, but I can't remember. It's either their's or RealOne's.

iTunes has DRM restrictions and a custom file format. She would be locked in unless she used software to break the encryption and convert it over to mp3 format. The thing with subscription services is that they all tie you down with DRM, and you have to break the DRM in order to exercise your right as a consumer, and do what you want with it.

I have an iPod shuffle and have used iTuens just to load it. And let me tell you the DRM and custome file format sucks a fat one. If I wanted to take the same iPod and load it from my PC at work, and I initially loaded it on my PC at home, it wants me to convert the iPod to accept music ONLY from the PC at work. What happens then is it deletes/reformats the iPod to work with the PC at the office. Really irritating and dissapointing to say the least.

I understand the reasoning behind it but it still sucks.
If anyone can teach me how to circumvent this problem I'd be very greatful.

[Tarryk]

Step 1: Get a sound recorder program (other than windows sound recorder), like Sound Forge or CoolEdit, and set it up to record at a decent quality.

Step 2: Set your sound card's record mixer to either "Record Master" or "What U Hear" (depending on drivers/type of sound card you have).

Step 3: Begin recording with program.

Step 4: Play song using whatever means.

Step 5: Stop recording, splice out the quiet bits at beginning/end of file, save out to mp3. Or if program doesn't save to mp3, save to wav and use something like freeripmp3.exe to convert it to mp3.

Note: You might want to run the song through a normalization filter before you save it to keep the levels even.

[Zephem]

magic
http://www.blacktree.com/apps/iTunes-LAME/index.php

[FoxyJama]

Tarryk, you used to set a tape recorder in front of the radio to record songs off of it, didn't you?

[Tarryk]

Tarryk, you used to set a tape recorder in front of the radio to record songs off of it, didn't you?

The old tricks never die, they just evolve.

[Vallikat]

Sound Forge or CoolEdit

Tarryk, you know I love you, but can I just tell you how badly I would like to have your children right now?

or maybe Foxy's children since she asked the question that prompted this response that solved my problem in such a totally simple way.

*runs off to play with her new toys*

[Aameul]

There's Napster and Realplayer has their own service as well.

Napster's are open mp3's I believe, no DRM, but I can't remember. It's either their's or RealOne's.

iTunes has DRM restrictions and a custom file format. She would be locked in unless she used software to break the encryption and convert it over to mp3 format. The thing with subscription services is that they all tie you down with DRM, and you have to break the DRM in order to exercise your right as a consumer, and do what you want with it.

I know that Napster doesn't use straight MP3's. They have a subscription model that, once yo ucancel your sub, your music doesn't work anymore. Personally I'd rather deal with the type of issues maephina was talking about with iTunes than deal with my entire mp3 collection depending on a $15 a month payment.

Not sure about Real's offering. I still mostly buy CD's.

From what I know and have heard, iTunes is probably the way to go for this woman. It sounds like she's a relative computer novice and is looking for something to cover up a lot of the nuts and bolts of digital music, which iTunes does pretty well. I've used it to get a few songs (free from the pepsi promotion a while back) and I had no problems getting it to work just fine.

[Maephina]

Omg omg omg check it!

Your Llama wants an iPod

[Crushproof]

This site is the shizzle.

http://www.allofmp3.com/

You pay by the megabyte (2 cents per) and all mp3's are copy protection free. You can get the files in your choice of several different encodings or bitrates.

The site has been featured on TechTV and by several other high profile news publications. I've used it myself and it works quite well. I've actually found the selection to be significantly better than Napster or iTunes. (and it's a hell of a lot cheaper)

[Crushproof]

Credit where credit is due... the boys from Penny Arcade turned me on to allofmp3.com. Their article can be found here... (in Tycho's first post)

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2005-02-25