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please could you give me your opinions on paying for mp3's.

i know a lot of dj's buy mp3/flac for playing out but what about albums etc.

thank you

when ive got a full time stable job and dont have to worry about paying off overdrafts etc I think i'll start paying for all my music downloads.

Until then though, i'll have torrents coming out my arse.But aye, for dj's who play .mp3's they need to have the highest quality and theyre only reeally available for download if you pay for em. unless you know the right spots .

yea the quailty issue is a big one, personally i only like listerning to 320's anything less is audioable.

torrent sites are getting better quailty wise, i think it just comes down to weather you class an mp3 as a product which alot of people dont.

i personally think im going to keep buying vinyl but pay for mp3's instead of cd's unless its a fancy handmade cdr, really nice artwork etc

Ive bought loads of mp3's. Used to be a vinyl fan but havn't got the space or money anymore. Mp3 is definately my preferred medium nowdays.
No clutter, no unnesessary plastic and all my music is organised and easy to find at the click of a button.

I know that if buy them from bleep they will sound better but the simple fact is so much stuff gets onto W*ffles, wh*t.cd etc etc way before it gets a release..

for example i grabbed marlow machine ages ago in the form of a vinyl rip when it first dropped (i bought the record as well but just saw it on there so didn't bother ripping my own copy which is just as illegal anyway) it took forever to appear on bleep but when it did i bought it as the one I'd grabbed earlier had a lot of crackle & pops

but i simply listen to a wider range of music these days & there is no way i could afford to feed my habit so instead i buy the ones i really like

i buy them all, i believe in supporting the music i love.

james fox wrote:i buy them all, i believe in supporting the music i love.

do you buy the vinyl as well?

james fox wrote:i buy them all, i believe in supporting the music i love.

Agreed.

I buy FLAC mostly of new releases that I'll be playing out/radio. MP3 320 where I can't. I am always buying CDs and picking up holes in my vinyl collection.

jackieboi wrote:when ive got a full time stable job and dont have to worry about paying off overdrafts etc I think i'll start paying for all my music downloads.

Until then though, i'll have torrents coming out my arse.But aye, for dj's who play .mp3's they need to have the highest quality and theyre only reeally available for download if you pay for em. unless you know the right spots .

Nice support of your scene there. Not like these artists are making the same profits as Hollywood studios is it.

Piston wrote:

james fox wrote:i buy them all, i believe in supporting the music i love.

do you buy the vinyl as well?

nope, i haven't bought vinyl in two or three years.

i suspect you're about to tell me that the artist sees more of the money from a vinyl sale than from digital. however, when you break it all down and take away the costs of pressing, transport, shop taking its cut and so on, the difference is hardly anything - often digital is actually better. i like to buy direct from the label or artist wherever possible, as this cuts out all the middlemen and gets the money to the people that matter the most.

can you tell i've had this discussion before

edit: hello mike btw

hey thanks for all the replys this is real helpfull stuff.

actully most musicans make the same if not more from downloads than hard copies...from research ive done with-in the honest indie label scene.

itunes and that junk i dont know about id imagine they totally rip the artists off.

james fox wrote:

Piston wrote:

james fox wrote:i buy them all, i believe in supporting the music i love.

do you buy the vinyl as well?

nope, i haven't bought vinyl in two or three years.

i suspect you're about to tell me that the artist sees more of the money from a vinyl sale than from digital. however, when you break it all down and take away the costs of pressing, transport, shop taking its cut and so on, the difference is hardly anything - often digital is actually better. i like to buy direct from the label or artist wherever possible, as this cuts out all the middlemen and gets the money to the people that matter the most.

can you tell i've had this discussion before

edit: hello mike btw

no it was just an innocent question actually

i was asking as i buy the record & sometimes illegally download it as paying twice seems silly & my ripping capabilities are limited and again..that's just as illegal as downloading..making an illegal copy n that

but again...if i want to play it out somewhere i may hit bleep if it's on there as scene releases don't generally sound perfect

i have no idea what the artist sees more from

alan wrote:
itunes and that junk i dont know about id imagine they totally rip the artists off.

yeah i think they get 5p per download or summit

Piston wrote:no it was just an innocent question actually

heh, i apologise in that case

Hello James.

dvnt wrote:

jackieboi wrote:when ive got a full time stable job and dont have to worry about paying off overdrafts etc I think i'll start paying for all my music downloads.

Until then though, i'll have torrents coming out my arse.But aye, for dj's who play .mp3's they need to have the highest quality and theyre only reeally available for download if you pay for em. unless you know the right spots .

Nice support of your scene there. Not like these artists are making the same profits as Hollywood studios is it.

Good point. However when i weigh up how much i'd like to support my favourite artists with how much i actually want to listen to their music listening to their music will always come first. As i said, when im in a better position financially i will start paying for all my shit - i'll probably start buying vinyl again too, but until then im not going to deny myself getting good tuneage because of a silly moral stance on the matter.

I pay for my downloads, i usually buy wav or flac, but i (personally) love the quality of iTunes plus releases, 256aac, it sounds better than mp3.

my personal experience with mp3 & cd problems. I pay for all these great tracks & my fucking external harddrive crashes. 120GB. Full. All gone. Ive also purchased mp3s at other people's homes & burnt them on mp3 disc. 6 discs full at 800mb a piece. So then my cd case gets stolen out of my car. Ive also taken a 150 cd case with purchased cds into a club only to not walk out with it. I've payed for cds only to have some stoned idiot drop it n my car & it comes out from under the seat scratched. I've lent expensive import cds in case to friends & never got them back. Even shit as simple as my girlfriend deleting the wrong damn folder & losing all my purchased drum & bass files.

That said, i have never had a vinyl lost, stolen, temporarily misplaced by myself or friends, deleted on accident or even dropped by friends with scratches as a result. I had to tell some tripping kid at a party to keep his hands off my tables but that is the worst thing in my 10 years of playing vinyl out. Also, I can go to my collection of vinyl & pick out any track or sample from any record of any genre. call it adikted. i dunno. Its as easy as my harddrive.


All that now being said, I do not normally purchase any music format other than vinyl anymore. I used to. And after adding up 10 years of pros & cons I've firmly decided my money goes to vinyl from now on.

I do still buy mp3s when i find tracks that will never make it to vinyl. Sometimes tracks that friends have released, like Abducted Dub's new sounds I plan on scooping up out of respect for D Min & the crew. Also some rare remixes.

But Ive found a general trend recently. More & more of the mp3s that i would actually pay for are being offered by the artist for free download. That makes me want to buy other things from them just to show appreciation!

Radiohead's 'How much do YOU want to pay for this' system was brilliant. I got the mp3s for free & the purchased the 65 dollar vinyl box set.



If i had enough money i would purchase everything. But you try having an extensive Dubstep, Reggae, DnB, Jazz, Funk, Glitch, Noise, Metal, Downbeat, Breakcore, HipHop, Oldie, Doowop, Blues, Indie, Electro, Japanese, Tabla, whatever else collection & still paying rent!

long live Soulseek. if it were not for them, my little Southern US brought up on country music ass would never even know Dubstep exists.