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- Hacker News
- Thanks for the Triode recommendation. I've been looking for a clean and lightweight internet radio player. Will be checking it out.by pmbeld
- Check out Shortwave if you are on Linux.by WD-42
- I'm with JKCaloun on having owned music for as long as I can remember. From the late 90s until the early 2010s I routinely bought CDs and ended up with a library of... 1200 or 1600 or so? A bunch of years back I made a concerted effort to rip all of them to a lossless format and then play that because, frankly, it's simpler.
Since then I've bought music digitally (Bleep, Bandcamp, etc), saved off copies of live sets (thanks, yt-dlp), or when needed bought CDs and ripped them.
It's just so nice having the library. Yes, tagging was a big pain. And yes, I need to have a backup strategy for it. But, I've ended up with a pretty substantial and well-curated library of stuff that requires no streaming services. I currently use Plexamp (via Plex) to listen to it because the system works well, but also because it's a directory of files I can eventually move to something else.
There's just so many hassles with streaming systems that, outside of discovering new music (which you can do other ways) I don't find them worth it. From dead spots while traveling to stuff that's been pulled to weird versions (or not being able to find weird versions) it's just nice to have My Collection when I want it.
I'm also really liking this Triode app [1] from the article. Sometimes I just want to listen to different things but without using some station-specific app... Here we go.
Old writeup on my CD ripping workflow, excuse the broken images: https://nuxx.net/blog/2016/01/17/full-cd-collection-ripping-...
by c0nsumer - Somebody needs to introduce this man to Bandcamp. Pretty much all my music buying is through there now, I don't miss the "sometimes iTunes/Music adds two copies of your purchases to the library" bug at all. I do miss Old Itunes though, Music has so many little problems like the fact that hitting command-L to go to the currently playing track's info is broken from a lot of views, and none of my visualizer plugins work any more. RIP Aeon.by egypturnash
- Not sure if you missed it in the article, but the author acknowledges buying from Bandcamp in the article
> Buy music on Bandcamp or download it from Soundcloud, stick it in the Music app, and you're off!
by disposition2 - I buy everything on Bandcamp... when it's available there, which is increasingly not the case. It's a real shame, even bands that used to upload to Bandcamp don't even bother anymore. I pray to all the gods that Bandcamp will experience a renaissance, but it's getting rough up there.by freedomben
- Pretty much. As a consumer, it's where I can find the cheapest albums to buy (for digital releases). As a musician, it is the only platform where I have seen any money – albeit, still not much :P
If something isn't available there, usually my next choice is Qobuz. At least both of those sites let you download files and listen to them however you want.
by bpev - Hijacking this thread with this question: What's the modern equivalent of the classic WinAmp that runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux? I want to just point the app at a folder of music and have it do its thing.by runjake
- Foobar2000, but I'd recommend hosting something like Navidrome and using a browser for playback these days depending on your setup / householdby Spastche
- For Windows & Mac, you can do foobar2000.
For MacOS, you can use Vox, https://vox.rocks/mac-music-player
I personally use MPD (or something like moodeAudio), and then use clients to listen on various platforms.
by disposition2 - > modern equivalent of the classic WinAmp that runs on Windows
WACUP — originally Win Amp Community Update Project, although they have distanced themselves from any mention of the original for legal reasons. It's literally Winamp, and it rules: https://getwacup.com/
Get the 32-bit version for now if you want to use the “Modern” (Winamp 3 & 5) skinning engine that has not yet been ported to the 64-bit ver. Worth it because I really really love the “Classic Modern” theme it includes: https://www.deviantart.com/victhor/art/Winamp-Classic-Modern...
Here it is on Windows 11 on my Framework 12 :D https://i.imgur.com/teYadOi.jpeg
> modern equivalent of the classic WinAmp that runs on Linux
Probably Audacious. Its modern defaults don't look very Winamp-ish, but it's a descendant of XMMS (a straight-up WinAmp clone from back in the '90s) by way of Beep-Media-Player: https://audacious-media-player.org/
> modern equivalent of the classic WinAmp that runs on macOS
No idea :)
by Lammy - I maintain my own library too where I spent a while ripping my CD collection back in the early 2000s (and then again maybe 6 years ago when storage was cheaper to a lossless format). The CDs are all boxed up safely for archival storage, and most of my recent music has been purchased from wherever I can get DRM-free stuff. I fiddled with various self hosted servers but I’ve mostly stuck with iTunes Match since it lets me access it all from my phone, and then I just back up the library from my Mac to my NAS. I just don’t have the time or patience to play sysadmin at home anymore. I use Apple Music streaming for stuff I don’t care about potentially vanishing, but for the stuff that I really love and would be sad to lose, I buy it and put it in the archive. It does happen occasionally that stuff I don’t own that I found on Apple Music disappears, which can be annoying.
I think for most people this is overkill, but for music nerds like me where the collecting and curation is a big part of the enjoyment, maintaining your own library makes sense.
by porcoda - I have a music folder 45000+ tracks and counting dating from as far back as 2003. I sync this 450 GB folder to two computers using syncthing and then use rsync to synchronize a subset of these albums (folders by format) to SD Cards inside iPod's. I use Strawberry player for listening (a fork of Clementine) and a combination of beets and MusicBrainz for tagging. Then, I scrobble my listens on ListenBrainz. When I'm in the car or on mobile, I use YouTube Music and it scrobbles to ListenBrainz as well.
I probably should use navidrome or a similar technology to serve the files. I already do this for audiobooks and podcasts and use Tailscale to access it when I'm not on my local network.
by _-_-__-_-_- - Nice to read, nice to see this message going out more.
I'm old enough (61) that owning music is what I've known most of my life. I have to say I've never not owned my own music. I went from vinyl to CDs—and then ripped the CDs digitally. The ripped tracks I have kept on hard drives, in the cloud. (I am continually adding music as I discover it so that it grows.)
Even though I eschew CDs these days for new music, I buy the digital tracks of the highest quality from Band Camp and add them to my storage locations.
For really top-notch albums, I still buy vinyl as a way of supporting the artist, I guess. I do infrequently put on vinyl (although I still think it is better than CD—it took The Muffs to convince me of that).
by JKCalhoun - I see this sentiment a lot, and I appreciate it. However personally the fewer things I own the better. The thought of having these things that I bought and have to remember I bought and then keep track of them brings me more anxiety than joy. I'm 64 and I grew up when music was scarce and options were limited. The only thing I want to own now is a playlist that points to songs I like. I'll then move to whatever service I like best and has most of the songs I like. Streaming services should cost much more than they do today so that artists can get compensated.by doug_durham
- I understand the sentiment. The problem is that if too many people adopt it, the alternative may disappear or be paywalled.by m463
- They could compensate the artists already but choose to line their own pockets instead.by soperj
- At which point do you draw the line where you abrogate ownership of something?
Music is something you can easily live without if the internet or cloud vanishes on you but my music will still stream from my FLAACs at home that I made from CDs and DVDs years ago. I also have it converted to .mp3 at bit rates that make sense for a phone and ear plugs used by a middle ages bloke with tinnitus! The whole lot fits on a modern phone easily.
I bought records and tapes at first, then CDROMs. I also accidentally bought the same CD/tapes twice or a well meaning prezzie duplicated one I already owned. Also you have "summary" or "collection" efforts etc eg Led Zep "Remasters". I have already paid the music industry a couple of times over.
Now that is my personal collection - some of it is unavailable elsewhere, sometimes without being illegal. I can augment my stuff with pay per play just as you do but the Deep Purple CD rip with a digitally smoothed over scratch part way through "Smoke on the water" is personal because I know what caused that scratch.
You are a few years older than me but we both know the joy of buying a new single, stacking LPs for an extended hands off session, the horror of scratches and a cheap D60 tape turning into a weird concertina. Remember those blocks for removing dust from a record when it was playing and accidentally nudging the needle.
Spotify and co are all a bit ersatz by comparison. I think music is way more than simply the medium, so context is important too. Unlike, say the progression from steam to petrol, which is simply a convenience.
by gerdesj - Call me boring, but for almost 20 years, my music library has been simply a NFS share on a generic PC host running Debian. I've never seen a need to complicate it further with iTunes-this and Jelly-that and Plex and radarr and sonarr and all the blah, blah, blah modern new software that keeps coming out to solve problems I don't seem to ever have.by ryandrake
- If that works for you, great. But I for one like to listen to music when I'm out and about and don't have access to an NFS mount.by hamandcheese
- I'm the same. For my use case there is little benefit in using those tools, and for security and privacy reasons I don't want to unleash all this software on my computers and network.by sequin
- To me that sounds like coding without version control. Sure you can do it but do you hate yourself that much?by haunter
- Tangential point: The song Terryfold has been removed from Spotify.
It's still available on Youtube if I want to listen to it, but the point is that it's not in the same place, if you're a Spotify user, as all the other music you listen to.
Yes, there's a whole thing with Justin Roiland that's controversial (putting it lightly, maybe he should be in jail, but that's not for me to decide), and that song has obvious elements that relate to the controversy, but, dammit, I like the song for the song.
The point this article is making, and the reason for the author's decision ten years ago, is still relevant and I can't ever see it being irrelevant.
by BLKNSLVR - Yeah, disappearing songs (or content in general) is the part that I HATE about streaming. I'm happy to pay for the service, but unhappy to have content yanked at any moment. Especially with songs I used to love, it's like having part of my identity erased against my will.
If anyone has any tips on how to "back up" a Spotify account (and systematically detect yanked content) I would love to hear them.
by hamandcheese - I’ve recently begun the same journey, except I skipped sync and went straight to Jellyfin (open source Plex) with the files stored on a home NAS. With Tailscale it means I can stream from anywhere. I’ve even been working on a native Linux client written in Rust and Gtk [1] which has been an absolute blast. I expect to have it on Flathub by the end of the month.
The whole process has made me more excited about music again. Part of that is listening to entire albums, another part is the feeling you get from directly supporting an artist when you purchase from Bandcamp.
by WD-42 - I've had the same iTunes (now Music.app) library since 2004, with only one botched library migration with an iTunes update in like 2013. It has 40,000 MP3s or so. I still keep it on my boot drive too.
It's a treasure. I understand why most people don't do this, but I will probably forever.
A really significant amount of it isn't otherwise available on streaming services. While I'm an Apple Music subscriber, I still acquire my own mp3s for most of the new music I listen to.
iCloud Music Library is an immense value here as well. Rarely it will sync the wrong version of something in my library, but usually it's on the money. The fact that it doesn't cost anything extra on top of an Apple Music subscription is a huge boon, and it doesn't count against my iCloud data either.
by skrrtww - I occasionally wonder, if I should just puchase 100-200 mainstream songs that I don't actually own--the money is trivial. But I generally end up at the point that these are not the sort of music I'd likely ever have trouble purchasing if I wanted to.by ghaff
- At one point, probably when I got a new computer, I spent a bunch of time cleaning out both music and photo libraries. Things had just gotten into a real mess over time with various merges, software changes, etc. to get the stuff I actually care about in some semblance of order. At some point, I probably need to do another pass but it hasn't been a priority.by ghaff
- I'm in the same boat as you, even with a botched migration about 12-14 years ago and am really passionate about this stance. I've lately been getting further enjoyment from thrifting CDs and ripping FLAC upgraded tracks to my library, overwriting old 128kb/s fuzz. Actually have been at this for about 3 years now and around 1200 ripped. I try now to only listen to those albums + bandcamp, etc purchases where possible.
- I’m similar to you. I started ripping my CD collection to mp3s around 2002, and I have them all on my boot disk and synced to both Dropbox and an external drive for backup.
Many of those CDs, which I started buying in 1986, are not available on streaming services. Over the years I have accumulated a lot of other nonstreamed music, including radio programs I’ve recorded, live music downloaded from the Internet Archive, purchased music from Bandcamp and elsewhere, and music I composed and performed myself for my own enjoyment.
It’s a bit obsessive, I admit, and the chances that my heirs will find the files and want to preserve them after I’m gone are slim. But I am happy I have them now.
by tkgally