Topic: The Music Thread

I'm a bit of a technology dinosaur, so my music was mostly copied from my own CDs. I used a Spotify premium trial years ago and liked it, but in recent years have taken advantage of the free trials of Amazon Music that they throw about like candy. I had three months free when I was in hospital a few years ago, which basically kept me sane. I now use Apple Music and for the most part am pretty happy with it.

@RogerRoger @Th3solution I don't use Spotify, but Apple Music is mostly terrible with its recommendations. After a song in my library finishes, it then auto plays something it thinks I'll like. And it never is! I'll listen to a classic rock song, or some '80's crap, and then it will decide to play country music, which is honestly one of my least favourite genres.

@Th3solution I wasn't sure if I was the only one who thought their predictive algorithm was just decent. Like, it's not horrible but I mostly get the same artists I know over and over and I usually have to make a concerted effort to find new stuff.

That said, Spotify is a life changer for me. I was constantly trying to organize and curate an ever growing music collection with thousands upon thousands of songs for an entire household and now I just pay a monthly fee and it's (mostly) all there and done for me (and my family). I could never go back.

@mookysam I wanted to try Apple Music (because though I like the idea of what Spotify is I whole-heartedly believe someone could do it better) but for a family account I needed an apple device to register for an iCloud account or something and I've never owned any Apple stuff so we found ourselves at a bit of a standstill, Apple and I. Bummer.

@zupertramp @mookysam @RogerRoger Amazingly I’ve not found Apple nor Amazon’s music streaming to be superior to Spotify. Like you say, it’s remarkable that no one’s done it better yet, but it’s great for instant access to the music library and experimentation with random songs. Interestingly I found Pandora to be better at predicting my tastes, but it wasn’t very good otherwise and didn’t have near the depth of library or breadth of options.

In Spotify, another issue which is challenging is searching for songs is sometimes an adventure because a song may have a dozen versions of it out there as well as cover versions, acoustic versions, radio edits, live versions, etc and sometimes it’s not very clear which is the version you want.

Also, I don’t know what the overall experience is for the audiophiles, but the compressed streaming might not sound up to snuff for those who like playing from CD and vinyl. For me though, it’s perfectly clear and I can’t tell the difference in my phone or Bluetooth speakers.

@zupertramp @Th3solution Gosh, it's annoying that they make you own one of their products to get the family subscription, but they seem to want everything in their own ecosystem. I use the Android app on my phone, which isn't amazing, but gets the job done, and it does sync well with my other devices. The Apple Music apps on their own products could use some improvements, and I know this is an area competitors are better at. Apple Music is generally good value, particularly with their Apple One subscription that also gives you cloud storage, TV and Arcade for £6 cheaper than it would be separately.

They recently introduced HD streaming Sol, which is quite a nice upgrade as almost everything is now CD quality or better. Amazon charged extra for better quality streaming (I don't know if they still do), but again I found it a noticeable improvement. It's definitely perceptible with good quality headphones. Hopefully Spotify will do something similar.

@Th3solution @mookysam I think I recall Spotify offering a lossless subscription tier in some particular market as a test. I have quite a lot of lossless in my digital collection but honestly never had the equipment to take advantage of it so lossy is fine by me.

@zupertramp Ah, lossless was the word I couldn't think of to describe it! It sounds like an utter rigmarole to take advantage of the highest quality setting (192kHz?), as I think you need some sort of digital-to-analogue converter and a pretty expensive rig. I'm just amazed I can notice the difference at all with headphones, because I'm partially deaf in one ear and get a lot of tinnitus! I'm better with certain frequencies than others, so maybe that's why. I'm finally getting my hearing aid next week, which I'm really looking forward to.

@Th3solution @mookysam @zupertramp Before I started using Spotify’s ‘Extreme’ setting for quality, there was a noticeable layer of compression using a decent pair of headphones. Now, it’s honestly as good as streaming can get for now. Barely noticeable at all!

@Th3solution you might say you have a spotty-fy usage history 😅. The shower is a good shout actually, I sort of remember these waterproof radios when I was younger but for the life of me couldn't work out why I'd want to listen to the radio in the shower. Especially when I do my own singing 😂. Maybe listening to some good songs might help instead of disc jockeys discussing what they had for breakfast and laughing hysterically about a piece of toast -_- lol.

I think it's just a matter of practical application for me. I already use my phone for a lot of things such as e mail, WhatsApp, Playstation/Xbox apps, MS Office for various things, YouTube, Photoshop, the internet is obviously a big thing. I duno, streaming has rarely been on my radar, especially on mobile data though to be fair, my data cap has slowly risen to like 9gb/month and I barely get through more than 3 gigs of it.

And this is to @RogerRoger too as a quasi reply to the MGS thread (I guess we will let it die for a while until one of us finds something cool on YouTube to share 😅).

I think I'd want a dedicated music gadget for the amount of music I'd want to put on there, which would be everything I own. I really do need and probably will look into both a home music system and portable system when my cashflow is less tight. Seems like a worthwhile thing to spend some money on, at least once!

Regardless of how lame I think Apple is, there is something inherently cool about an iPod. I really loved mine. It was black, had a colour screen, had tons of music on it. It even had a game made by Harmonix called Phase or something that like made guitar hero tracks out of your mp3s and you'd have to press 3 of the face buttons in time to a guitar hero-esque rhythm game. But yeah, it broke in 2007/08 I think and I never replaced it 😭. I've been back on the CDs ever since 😅.

It probably sounds like I'm making excuses to not get Spotify but I think I'm just a bit too picky in terms of music I like so CDs are a better option for me! This seems less true for other people but I seem to be stuck in an era with music. It's quite a large era but it ends at about 2011.

I mean, I do have game pass and I do have Disney+ and if a cheap and extensive music streaming service comes around then maybe I will make the jump instead of just paddling my feet!

Also to Rog, in terms of remixes. I love that Smooth McGrooves guy who does the acapella versions of songs. They are awesome!

@mookysam @nessisonett pretty much the only time I use headphones is when I mow the lawn and it's with some janky earbuds that I don't care about so that's probably why I don't perceive much difference between bitrates.

I didn't even realize there was an extreme setting. I think I have it set to the lowest largely due to data caps and limited phone storage.

@mookysam anything that improves your quality life is something to celebrate so good for you on the hearing aid. Hope it helps. You lose hearing over time or was it spurred by something, if you don't mind my asking. Cause if you do mind that's quite alright.

@ralphdibny Haha! Yeah I noticed how I put the “spotty” usage of Spotify together like that but decided to leave it and see if anyone noticed the unintentional alliteration. 😅

Data usage isn’t something I’d considered, because that would definitely affect my willingness to stream media. I have an unlimited plan, so I don’t even think about it.

And Smooth McGrooves is a perfect example of how I use Spotify. I just searched him and sampled a couple of his greatest hits. I quite like good a capella every now and then. I’ve been known to pull up Pentatonix from time to time.

Despite being into music in a pretty big way I've never been technically minded enough to be able to tell when I'm listening to lossless or flac or whatever. Spotify's streaming quality sounds absolutely fine to me and I can't make out any difference with CD or vinyl versions.

Spotify suits me because of the way I like music. One of my favourite things to do in the days of old was to make mixtapes and later mix cds. I'd make compilations of my favourite tracks by my favourite artists, and then ones that mixed artists but followed a similar theme etc. And Spotify lets me do that easily and then organise them all nicely on my profile. That suits me down to the ground, and I suspect that my profile is probably way more organised (read: sillier) than most peoples, but I get a lot out of doing that so it works for me.

I absolutely get the appeal of Spotify but I almost never use it. I like to support bands by actually buying their stuff but haven’t bought a CD in ages now.

I used to buy lots of my music in physical form to also support record shops I like but CDs feel pointless now as all I do is buy it, import it to iTunes, and then it goes on a shelf. Plus, the disc and packaging seems a waste of material to me now.

I tend to get most stuff off bandcamp or digitally through the label’s shop (very little I buy is from major labels). I do still buy vinyl to support the shops but also if it’s something I really like the artwork for. Or sometimes just because I can.

Recent purchases though;

I picked up these bad boys from my local record shop last weekend. The Daniel Avery one doesn’t even come with a download code

The Jon Hopkins one is only four tracks but utterly beautiful.

Then I picked up the latest Wavves album off bandcamp and also one by JOHN (TIMESTWO) after hearing their latest song on 6 music a fair bit.

@Th3solution Of course; I didn't think of how useful Spotify would be for tracking down "that one song" on a whim. I apologise if my previous post inadvertently accused you of being a casual music fan!

***

@mookysam Yeah, I've heard similar stories about Apple Music's sketchy algorithm. My partner stopped using the service after it always ended up pointing him away from his tastes. My inner optimist interpreted it as a mandated attempt to broaden people's tastes, but the reality is that it was probably based on which artists or labels had entered into a sponsorship deal with Apple that month.

***

@ralphdibny Despite also kinda hating Apple, I agree with you regarding the iPod. I had one for a while (it was second hand from a friend) and even had an Apple account (before China hacked it) and all things considered, it was a quality gadget, to be sure. Mine had Brickbreaker on it. Sorry to hear your old one broke but yeah, if you're looking for a dedicated portable music device, you can't really go wrong with an iPod. They just take quite a bit of saving up for, because Apple.

We were doing so well, and then you had to mention a cappella music! [runs away screaming]

***

@Thrillho Ah yes, the one format that'll never die out, thanks to audiophiles. Great if you've got a vinyl player at home, less great if you wanna listen to stuff on the train! Still, those purchases look sweet!

@Th3solution I used to be on unlimited but my network would do funny things like restrict speed at peak times. I tracked my data usage one month and found I wasn't even coming close for it to be worthwhile so I switched to a cheaper plan with a data cap and no speed restrictions

I've not heard of pentatonix, I'll have to check that one out!

@RogerRoger I think mine had brickbreaker too actually. Love that game, it's such a classic. I had a version called Arkanoid on my PC when I was very young

Also sorry for mentioning a capella 😅. I totally forgot that must be a nightmare for you to replace all that beautiful instrumentation with voices!

@ralphdibny It's okay. I have "proper" music blaring out to heal the wound.

(Am kidding, of course; just because I don't like something doesn't invalidate it, and I still have huge respect for anybody who can carry a tune that well.)

@RogerRoger Oh, no apology necessary Rog because — first, I interpreted no suggestion of such an accusation and second, I actually am a casual music fan 😂. In fact I’m probably the epitome of casual fan. If there was a casual music fan Hall of Fame, I’d have my own wing. When you look up “casual music fan” in the dictionary it reads “see Th3solution”, etc, etc…

That said, I think I do have an ear for music, despite not being well schooled in the musical arts. I’ve often thought that if I’d had the opportunity as a youngling to learn an instrument or have voice lessons that I would have been competent as a musician. My ear can usually roughly detect notes, key, and rhythm, but I don’t know the ins and outs of how it all works. When I try to sing, I know that I sound bad at least half the time. I just can’t quite get my voice to do what I want it to do for it to sound on pitch.

Which brings me back to a capella. Sometimes it comes off as being rather cheesy or shallow when compared to a full array of instrumentation, but it just leaves me in awe of the amazing things some people can do with their voice box. I love the sound of vocal harmony. A perfect rich harmony is one of the most wonderful things a human voice can produce.

And now I’m the one at risk for casting judgment, so apologies if it makes me sound like critical or condemnatory toward anyone preferring instrumental music. I love good instrumentals too. I’m flabbergasted at how a group of people can all be in perfect concert with one another in a band or orchestra to each devote a small piece toward a larger work that then sounds like one cohesive movement. If only society was good at that in other ways! 😄

Anyways, it’s a fun discussion and something I don’t usually think or spend much time doing (delve into music, that is)

@ralphdibny Pentatonix is sort of your quintessential pop music a capella group. Occasionally they do mix in instruments, but I believe they mostly make the background sounds with voice. They do a lot of covers, which is their main gig, but I think they do original pieces as well. Try out their version of “Sound of Silence” and “Bohemian Rapsody”. The latter of which has pretty interesting sounding approach to the instrumental sections of that song. Also “Radioactive” although they do have Lindsey Sterling, the internet famous violinist, accompanying them in that one.

@zupertramp Thanks. The bones in my ear are brittle and fused. I've forgotten the technical term for it, but it's apparently the main cause of hearing loss in younger adults. I started noticing it a few years ago, but it got worse after I had meningitis.

While I really like lossless music, I can't say I'm a fan of the Dolby Atmos "spatial audio". It really messes up a lot of older songs. I listened to Revolver in Dolby Atmos recently, and found it just didn't sound right. The instruments are supposed to be heard in unison, given how they come together to create textures, so hearing them separated and coming from different directions wasn't great. I think it would be better for new songs that are built around the technology.

In terms of data caps, it's fine at home as I just use WiFi, but if I'm ever on 4G it's set to play at the standard lossy bitrate. I just got a 12GB data plan for my phone, which is probably still much more than I'd use in a month. I'm not sure I'd ever want to wear my headphone in public though!

@RogerRoger I'd like to think that the record labels of extremely random country artists from the '70s paid to promote their work, but it just seems a bit too weird. 😂 The strangest is when I listened to some Mozart, then afterwards it played Cher. I mean, I know she's ancient, but even that's a stretch. I can see why the algorithm would put your partner off enough to end his subscription. I dread to think what monstrosities it played him!

I loved my first iPod, but inadvertently broke it when I plugged it into an American socket without the correct adapter. My second one was so hardy and long-lasting it seemed like it would survive nuclear apocalypse.

@Th3solution A capella is so clever when it's done right. Some of the tones and rhythms achieved are incredible. It's not something I can listen to too much of in one go, though, as eventually it becomes uncomfortable.

@Thrillho Ooh that cover art is slick! I'd love to get a record player of my own, but don't have the space. The richness and warmth of the sound is lovely.

@Thrillho Man, I haven’t listened to Wavves in years! I was way into them in like 2012, even had my own t-shirt 😂