Compact Disc Collectors Lament

[SM Rollinger]

I hope this doesn't sound dickish or anything; I'm genuinely curious about this. As someone who has their fair share of mementos from shows (we're talking boxes and boxes of stuff from decades of working or attending shows), I 100% get the desire to have mementos. No questions there. But for something like a CD - what is it about opening it that would make it no longer be a memento? They're fairly resilient things; taking off an extremely thin layer of plastic seems like it wouldn't really cause any great degree of harm to come to it. Why the need to keep it wrapped and literally buy a second copy to listen to?

Not at all, it's cool. I'm just weird, I leave CDs sealed all the time, especially when, not encouraging piracy here, I have a digital copy already. (Said cd I gave the merch guy 20 bucks for a $15 cd, to clense myself of any alleged feelings of guilt related to downloading music).

But anyways, I have all sorts of other sealed stuff, music, video games, lots of action figures. I'm just a weirdo I guess.

I never even took my DE of Hesitation Marks out of the mailer it came in.

[theimage13]

Not at all, it's cool. I'm just weird, I leave CDs sealed all the time, especially when, not encouraging piracy here, I have a digital copy already. (Said cd I gave the merch guy 20 bucks for a $15 cd, to clense myself of any alleged feelings of guilt related to downloading music).

No joke: in the days of Napster, I remember going to see bands in midsized venues and it wasn't uncommon for them to say "someone just gave our merch person a bunch of money without buying anything, and a note that said 'sorry I downloaded all your shit'".

You're not alone in your cleansing ritual

[katara]

Finally picked up Mechanical Animals, so the Triptych is complete.

[NotoriousTIMP]

Finally got my hands on a copy of this CD after wanting it for 20+ years! This is THE ELECTRIC CHAMBER - Pieces in a Modern Style by William Orbit; a collection of classical tracks re-worked with modern day Synths, it's pretty awesome. This is the original 1995 release which was withdrawn from sale almost immediately when Arvo Pärt objected to its inclusion of his compositions Fratres and Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten. There was a later version issued in 2000 that replaced these pieces with works by Beethoven, Vivaldi, Handel and Mascagni. After years of watching this disc sit at or around the $100+ range, I finally managed to snag one for $7 on discogs!

[Soma]

Bought a few CDs for the first time in a couple years!
Just received Prince "4ever" and Kate Bush "The Other Sides" in the mail today, currently ripping disc 3 of the latter.
I also found a sealed copy of "Death Magic" by HEALTH for $0.98 on Discogs, almost like I just paid for shipping

[piggy]

Does it drive anyone else crazy when you get a CD where the booklet has tab dents from when someone closed the case without making sure the booklet was secure? It's honestly one of my pet peeves in life as a longtime CD user. Another one I hate is when the rear insert is perforated off-center and the spine doesn't look right.

[neorev]

Does it drive anyone else crazy when you get a CD where the booklet has tab dents from when someone closed the case without making sure the booklet was secure? It's honestly one of my pet peeves in life as a longtime CD user. Another one I hate is when the rear insert is perforated off-center and the spine doesn't look right.

Hehehe, yea, agreed. I hear ya man. Or sometimes when the spine is printed upside down.

[Jon]

Does it drive anyone else crazy when you get a CD where the booklet has tab dents from when someone closed the case without making sure the booklet was secure?

I'll add: when the booklet is almost too thick for its slot, so it ends up creating those tab dents (looking at you mid-90's Metallica releases).

[eversonpoe]

i always loved it when booklets were printed on that weird, rough, ink-smelling paper. like REM's "new adventures in hi-fi" (which is also my fav album of theirs).

[allegate]

I have a CD that came with a ton of pet peeves: it's got a cardboard sleeve that is the actual album art. There's a booklet that goes between the plastic case and the sleeve. And then there's another booklet inside the plastic case. On top of all of that the cardboard sleeve is signed by the band so I have to make sure I pretty much never touch the thing. This was an issue way back when - it's been 23 years since I got it - but since the advent of digital players I don't have to do anything other than look at it.

I wish I could say there's a cool story behind the signatures but they were signing everything you bought from their store. I ordered one of their albums and it came signed. I quickly ordered all of the available albums and so I have the bands first four albums signed.

For a (somewhat) cool story on a signed CD I have, I saw No Doubt back in 2004. They were touring with Blink-182 and Phantom Planet and at the time I was on my third copy of the Phantom Planet album The Guest because I kept giving it away to people because I really liked it. Their newest was out and I took a copy of it to the show just in case. They played a great set and announced that they would be setting up a table while No Doubt setup. I ran over there and got in line and talked to the guys while they signed my album. In particular I praised the drummer for being so awesome. It was a little awkward because, you see, their drummer was one Jason Schwartzman of the "I Heart Huckabees" and "Rushmore" fame. What I didn't know was that he wasn't touring with them because he was filming the aforementioned "I Heart Huckabees". Luckily I didn't call him Jason, that would have been really weird.

Oh yeah: the copy of the album that I brought was a double disc with the new self-titled album and also The Guest on the other. I asked them to sign The Guest since I liked it so much. They were like are you sure? and I confirmed it. So they signed the disc. When you see the picture you'll understand why they asked. It wasn't my best day, I gotta admit.

Also I cannot for the life of me remember seeing Blink-182 at that show. And it's obvious that they were the ones setting up after the opening act but until I saw that Wikipedia page I assumed it was No Doubt setting up after them.

[piggy]

Another pet peeve for me is when a case isn't the same size/shape as my jewel cases and I would have to store it differently. There have been times when I've gone out of my way to find a jewel case version, even if it's an import, of one of those albums.

i always loved it when booklets were printed on that weird, rough, ink-smelling paper. like REM's "new adventures in hi-fi" (which is also my fav album of theirs).

Oh man, I love the smell of certain inks and paper stocks that are used for making CD packaging. Like, my copy of Small Craft On A Milk Sea by Brian Eno smells AMAZING. LOL.

[SM Rollinger]

What do people use these days to rip cds? I finally got a new pc after years of running windows xp. New one is windows 10.

(And DVDs too, I want to start digitizing my collection)

[neorev]

What do people use these days to rip cds? I finally got a new pc after years of running windows xp. New one is windows 10.

(And DVDs too, I want to start digitizing my collection)

I use EAC Exact Audio Copy for CD ripping. It's free too. Many swear by it.

[armogi]

I use EAC Exact Audio Copy for CD ripping. It's free too. Many swear by it.

same here, I recently realized it’s even been updated

[SM Rollinger]

I use EAC Exact Audio Copy for CD ripping. It's free too. Many swear by it.

Cool thanks!

[neorev]

same here, I recently realized it’s even been updated

Oh, damn, really? I did not know. Update time.

[neorev]

Cool thanks!

It does tests and calibrations to make sure your disc drive is working properly. It lets you know how perfect of a copy it makes, any error corrections. It takes longer to rip than say iTunes, but that's a good thing. Some ripping software is all about speed, but speed is actually a bad thing (same for burning CDs). The faster your burn or rip, the more chances for errors.

I use Foobar2000 for converting files on my PC. I still have an old version of iTunes, but I only use it for easily tagging and attaching artwork to files. Does anyone know a better for all for the PC for tagging and attaching art?

On my phone, I have Poweramp Pro as it can play hi-res files without downgrading the audio to 16 bit (as long as the device you have can play 24 bit audio).

OH!
And check out this other free app for the PC...
https://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/

This app lets you search all the official digital stores and album art sites for cover artwork so you can find and download the largest and highest quality album cover art.

[allegate]

honest question: why do you need large artwork? I understand a pdf document that pseudo-replaces the booklet but an art file? And it balloons the size of the actual file adding that metadata.

I use Ben Dodson's website because it is useful not only for album art (don't worry about the "May not work" disclaimer, it works 99.9~% of the time) but also books (calibre) and audio books (iTunes) and movies (also iTunes). Also you can switch territories for alternate releases and whatnot. you'll figure it out.

Second point on album art: the hi-res player I have won't show art over 800x800 resolution so the Dodson site works well for me as it defaults to 600x600.

I use dbpoweramp for ripping CDs. It's powerful but also you have to pay for it but again it's powerful. Tons of built-in stuff that I will never use but the stuff I do use is there and easy. It's also a conversion software so if there's an album that is in a weird format I convert it there. The only thing it can't do so far is dts but that's rare enough for a CD that it's not that important.

[henryeatscereal]

What do people use these days to rip cds? I finally got a new pc after years of running windows xp. New one is windows 10.

(And DVDs too, I want to start digitizing my collection)

I still use iTunes

Also is it just in my country or CD's are getting way expensive?

Last couple of years they were getting cheaper and suddenly they are raising their prices just like Vinyl, it's bullshit...

[armogi]

Oh, damn, really? I did not know. Update time.

lol, i was shocked too, i can't honestly tell how old my version was so it may have been updated years ago.
i just noticed it wouldn't connect to freedb anymore and sure enough the update fixed it

[neorev]

honest question: why do you need large artwork? I understand a pdf document that pseudo-replaces the booklet but an art file? And it balloons the size of the actual file adding that metadata.

I like having the largest, highest possible quality artwork the same reason I want the highest quality audio. Try to be as future proof as possible and allow me to convert to smaller files if need be. I like to have a high quality cover for backup and attach a smaller cover art to my files. Professional digital stores and pressing sites usually want 300dpi and nothing smaller than 3000x3000 pixels for cover art.

As for file size when art is attached to a music file, be more worried about the DPI rather than pixel size when it comes adding file size bloat to a music file.

With Album Art Downloader, Qobuz is store is usually best for getting the largest size without too much file size. iTunes seems to be the worst when it comes to actual file size as they must be a higher DPI. GooglePlay comes in 2nd. A 3000x3000 cover on iTunes may be 6MB while on Google Play it's more like 1 or 2MB and with Qobuz under 1MB. The file size is different with each release, but iTunes is usually always the largest file size.

A 3000x3000 cover art under 1MB is not gonna add much to a music file's size. I mean, if you're all about lossless and hi-res audio, file size has kinda gone out the window, am I right? A 24/96 album is already 1GB+ and you're worried about several MBs added?

Also, with some players, you do not have to actually attach the art file to a music file. It just picks up the art if the file is in the same folder as the album and listed as cover or folder. The player will just associate the cover art to the music. Winamp does this.

[armogi]

I still use iTunes

Also is it just in my country or CD's are getting way expensive?

Last couple of years they were getting cheaper and suddenly they are raising their prices just like Vinyl, it's bullshit...

not only that but the packaging is also getting crappier, no or meager booklet, cheap flimsy digipacks, unreadable shrunk vinyl artwork...
It sucks because they do all these limited vinyl releases and since it's short runs it could certainly be done with CD as well but sadly it's more often the basic minimum.

[armogi]

Winamp does this.

who else still uses winamp?
I just can't replace it, after all these year it's still perfect for me.

[neorev]

who else still uses winamp?
I just can't replace it, after all these year it's still perfect for me.

I love WinAmp

[MrLobster]

I love WinAmp

It really whips the llamas ass...

[Erneuert]

honest question: why do you need large artwork? I understand a pdf document that pseudo-replaces the booklet but an art file? And it balloons the size of the actual file adding that metadata.

I use Ben Dodson's website because it is useful not only for album art (don't worry about the "May not work" disclaimer, it works 99.9~% of the time) but also books (calibre) and audio books (iTunes) and movies (also iTunes). Also you can switch territories for alternate releases and whatnot. you'll figure it out.

Second point on album art: the hi-res player I have won't show art over 800x800 resolution so the Dodson site works well for me as it defaults to 600x600.

I use dbpoweramp for ripping CDs. It's powerful but also you have to pay for it but again it's powerful. Tons of built-in stuff that I will never use but the stuff I do use is there and easy. It's also a conversion software so if there's an album that is in a weird format I convert it there. The only thing it can't do so far is dts but that's rare enough for a CD that it's not that important.

I used to always resize all my album artwork to 120x120 pixels, lol.

[allegate]

A 3000x3000 cover art under 1MB is not gonna add much to a music file's size. I mean, if you're all about lossless and hi-res audio, file size has kinda gone out the window, am I right? A 24/96 album is already 1GB+ and you're worried about several MBs added?

Also, with some players, you do not have to actually attach the art file to a music file. It just picks up the art if the file is in the same folder as the album and listed as cover or folder. The player will just associate the cover art to the music. Winamp does this.

fair point.

and my player is an actual hardware unit, not software. One of the Sony HD walkmen.

[henryeatscereal]

not only that but the packaging is also getting crappier, no or meager booklet, cheap flimsy digipacks, unreadable shrunk vinyl artwork...
It sucks because they do all these limited vinyl releases and since it's short runs it could certainly be done with CD as well but sadly it's more often the basic minimum.

Even jewel cases are getting crappier, they are not as hard as before and are getting flimsier

[r_z]

I try to only buy digipaks at this point...

[henryeatscereal]

I try to only buy digipaks at this point...

Love how they look, but they are designed to get beaten up so fast, but i do prefer them over Jewel cases.