A farewell to CD’s

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May 30, 2010
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For me the biggest hurdle is plain old inertia. Ripping an entire collection into a drive one by one gets me tired just thinking about it but I know the reward of convenience waiting at the other end of the tunnel. It's a good time for a new enthusiast to get in but for those with songs in the 10s of thousands on CD the transition is daunting.

I also feel the same. Something that haunts me is just to have to change the way I choose a CD or LP to play. I usually think about the type of music I want to listen and I take a general global look at the shelves in a few seconds and then narrow my choice. Most of the time I pick something that is was not exactly my initial intention, or pick several recordings that I store temporally near the player.

BTW, I still prefer to handle the big, colorful LPs covers in my hands than browsing a site with the images. Some rituals are part of our life...

But as these days are ending soon, I hope to learn from the experts the best way of changing.
 

Johnny Vinyl

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May 16, 2010
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I also feel the same. Something that haunts me is just to have to change the way I choose a CD or LP to play. I usually think about the type of music I want to listen and I take a general global look at the shelves in a few seconds and then narrow my choice. Most of the time I pick something that is was not exactly my initial intention, or pick several recordings that I store temporally near the player.

BTW, I still prefer to handle the big, colorful LPs covers in my hands than browsing a site with the images. Some rituals are part of our life...

But as these days are ending soon, I hope to learn from the experts the best way of changing.

So very true, and I can't ever see myself part with that ritual.

I am however becoming (slowly) very interested in putting together a PC based system for some of my musical enjoyment. My 2CH room is analogue only, and despite my love for the format I sometimes want easier/quicker and at my fingertips access to music.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Jun 30, 2010
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There is no joy in holding a cracked plastic CD jewel case in your hand.
Personally, I don't. I kept hundreds of cd cases in boxes in the attic for about a year after I set up my server, then I finally threw the last of them out.

The artwork is crap and you can't read the liner notes unless you have great lighting, 20-20 vision, and you have been drinking your carrot juice.

The internet is my liner notes. The best stuff comes from sources like allaboutjazz.com, allmusic.com and wikipedia, but there are also numerous sites dedicated to archiving album art and liner notes. I even have an iTunes plug-in that reads the metadata for the track being played, searches, then displays options for articles, art, even videos. It's a brave new world. Of course I understand there are those who believe that such background activities destroy fidelity, but A) I have good computer/DAC isolation and B) I found that fretting over the things that live in that grey zone between inaudible and insignificant was the single most destructive force to my listening pleasure.

Tim
 

Phelonious Ponk

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I also feel the same. Something that haunts me is just to have to change the way I choose a CD or LP to play. I usually think about the type of music I want to listen and I take a general global look at the shelves in a few seconds and then narrow my choice.

There is no reason why you can't keep doing that. Most digital players will let you search track/artist/album/genre/composer. In the mood for a bit of jazz? Type in "jazz" and look around. In the mood for some Michael Jackson? Put in his name, then pick an album or a cut? Not sure what you want? In iTunes you can pick a track you like then hit the genius button and let it make a mixed playlist for you. The more music you have in your system, the better it works.

Tim
 

Vincent Kars

WBF Technical Expert: Computer Audio
Jul 1, 2010
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...I take a general global look at the shelves in a few seconds and then narrow my choice. Most of the time I pick something that is was not exactly my initial intention..

Most of the time I use the search box of my media player.
If I type “beet” I get all composed by Beethoven but "Roll over Beethoven" too.
Using this pseudo fuzzy search technique I get a lot of “false” positives.
Often this is a nice surprise as I see something I had completely forgotten.
 

mep

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Personally, I don't. I kept hundreds of cd cases in boxes in the attic for about a year after I set up my server, then I finally threw the last of them out.



The internet is my liner notes. The best stuff comes from sources like allaboutjazz.com, allmusic.com and wikipedia, but there are also numerous sites dedicated to archiving album art and liner notes. I even have an iTunes plug-in that reads the metadata for the track being played, searches, then displays options for articles, art, even videos. It's a brave new world. Of course I understand there are those who believe that such background activities destroy fidelity, but A) I have good computer/DAC isolation and B) I found that fretting over the things that live in that grey zone between inaudible and insignificant was the single most destructive force to my listening pleasure.

Tim
Tim-good points that you made and I understand that you can find all of the data that is contained on the cover/inside of an LP or CD on the net. However, I don't think that most people have a computer at their listening chair (and I may be wrong) that they can scan that info while they are listening to the music. That is one of the reasons why LPs are cool. You can hold the cover in your hand while you are listening to music, enjoy the artwork, and actually read what has been written. When you listen to the digits you simply can't do that. Like you said, if you have a computer at your listening chair, you can scan the net and look at the artwork and read liner notes while you listen. For many people, probably none of this matters anyway.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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However, I don't think that most people have a computer at their listening chair (and I may be wrong) that they can scan that info while they are listening to the music.

I think many who use servers either have a computer or an iPad, or some such device, at their listening chair, but I could be wrong. Sometimes I just have my iPod Touch, which is my remote control. It's too small for cover art/liner notes, though. Gotta get me one of those iPod thingies...

Tim
 

mep

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Tim-I do have a music server, but I don't have that missing link which is the remote interface. An I-Pad would be a cool toy. I bought my wife one for Christmas and she didn't like it and returned it. I should have kept it for myself.
 

JackD201

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Apr 20, 2010
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Tim-I do have a music server, but I don't have that missing link which is the remote interface. An I-Pad would be a cool toy. I bought my wife one for Christmas and she didn't like it and returned it. I should have kept it for myself.

It was the reverse scenario for me. She got me one for my birthday, then kept it for herself ;) ;) ;)
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
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BTW, I still prefer to handle the big, colorful LPs covers in my hands than browsing a site with the images. Some rituals are part of our life...
Well, you build up new capabilities there you didn't have before. Take a look at this screen saver in Zune and Windows Media Center interface:



This is the album art for all of your CDs, gracefully and smoothly moving slowly. Once in a while, the big one which is the one playing shift around. If you have a larger library, the first time you see that colorful display, it gives you a great feeling!

You get to do other cool things. I assign ratings to my tracks and then am able to build playlists using that. When I got my new car, I made a playlist of all "5 star" songs (the ones I like best). I then plugged in a USB memory card, and Windows Media Player automatically converted all of them to WMA from WMA Lossless which my library is encoded in. I pulled those hundreds of songs and put them in my car. Since they are all my favorites, I don't have to keep changing tracks while driving. I have so much music that I discover new music that way I had forgotten about (I rank them the first time I play them) :).

Going back to library, searches are done instantaneously. So if I type "m" I get everything that starts with "m." Often type that brings up other albums you had not thought of playing.

But as these days are ending soon, I hope to learn from the experts the best way of changing.
The learning curve is really, really low. Almost everything is automated. After all, first music jukeboxes came out some 13-14 years ago!
 

Johnny Vinyl

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May 16, 2010
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Well, you build up new capabilities there you didn't have before. Take a look at this screen saver in Zune and Windows Media Center interface:



This is the album art for all of your CDs, gracefully and smoothly moving slowly. Once in a while, the big one which is the one playing shift around. If you have a larger library, the first time you see that colorful display, it gives you a great feeling!

You get to do other cool things. I assign ratings to my tracks and then am able to build playlists using that. When I got my new car, I made a playlist of all "5 star" songs (the ones I like best). I then plugged in a USB memory card, and Windows Media Player automatically converted all of them to WMA from WMA Lossless which my library is encoded in. I pulled those hundreds of songs and put them in my car. Since they are all my favorites, I don't have to keep changing tracks while driving. I have so much music that I discover new music that way I had forgotten about (I rank them the first time I play them) :).

Going back to library, searches are done instantaneously. So if I type "m" I get everything that starts with "m." Often type that brings up other albums you had not thought of playing.


The learning curve is really, really low. Almost everything is automated. After all, first music jukeboxes came out some 13-14 years ago!

Yeah..and to this day I'm still peeved that Yahoo got their paws on MusicMatch and messed it up beyond all recognition. I haven't found a jukebox since that equalled MusicMatch!
 

Old Listener

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Jul 18, 2010
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naturelover.smugmug.com
laptop as a remote

I think many who use servers either have a computer or an iPad, or some such device, at their listening chair, but I could be wrong. Sometimes I just have my iPod Touch, which is my remote control. It's too small for cover art/liner notes, though. Gotta get me one of those iPod thingies...

Tim

I grew up listening to 45s and AM/FM radio. No album notes there. I read my share of LP album notes in the late 60s and the 70s. Now there is a wealth of information available on the net. I don't need the liner notes to the same degree now.

I use a 4 lb. laptop with a 13" screen as a remote. I have the full J. River Media center UI on that screen and I can browse whatever web sites I want to as I listen. Some Ui screenshots.

http://naturelover.smugmug.com/Other/misc/8915115_aSrUm#691098968_mitFe

Touch screens have been the "next big thing" for decades. My fingers are a bit big and clumsy for selecting text from lists on a touch screen. Viewing album covers doesn't work for me either. The album covers aren't especially meaningful for most of the classical music I own. And browsing through album covers doesn't scale well for my collection of a few thousand CDs.

Bill
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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We have touch screen PCs in our showroom. Normally we sort by album covers using our fingers (Windows 7):



But we can easily put them in artist view which gives you big fonts to pick from:



There is neat navigation for going through a ton of artists. If you hold the remote button it will scroll rapidly while showing the first two letters of the alphabet (not visible here)

Slower than mouse and click to be sure but workable.
 

mep

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Apr 20, 2010
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And if he's selling copies of your music collection to other buyers. You buy the product, and he sells it to others. You pay him to do it.

Lee

I guess I was right about digital paranoia Lee. I never even thought about that angle. Which now you have me thinking. Anyone that needs backups made for the their R2R tapes please let me know. Uh, I will make your backups for free. Yeah, that's the ticket.
 

Old Listener

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Jul 18, 2010
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Amir,

I understand the visual appeal of album covers. If I were selling gear, I'd use an interface like that in a store. It's like decking out a model home in a new housing development. Great for the 20 minute tour. When I use an interface like that for real browsing, I get frustrated quickly. yesterday, I was using an iPod with a tough sensitive wheel to scroll through composer and artist lists. While the iPod was doing the sort of accelerated scrolling you described, it wasn't fast or precise. And going up and down menu trees to switch between Composer and Artist (first) searches gets old fast.

The screenshots you provide are the sort you see on 10 foot interfaces for home theater servers. By necessity, there isn't much information visible at any time. I much prefer a 2 foot interface that lets me see much more information on the screen and have no menu tree to navigate. I see lists of all the tags I use at the same time. As I select a value for one tag, I see the lists for other tags reflect the effect of my choice. If I want to change any of the tag selections I have made, I can do so without navigating a menu tree. I also see the list of actual music files matching the tag selections I've made. For genres like pop songs or jazz, I can put the song titles themselves in a browser pane. The player s/w is robust enough to handle a list of several thousand tag values and the scrolling mechanism is effective for such a large list. My UI lets me scroll around to see what's in my library. I often browse around trying various approaches before I select music to play.

Tiny screens and 10 foot interfaces share a periscope problem. You are looking through a small opening to see what's in your library and make choices. If something isn't where you expect to find it, you don't have powerful tools to solve the problem. With more screen real estate, you can make an interface that shows you what's in your library. It remembers so that you don't have to.

Bill
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
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0
Seattle, WA
Let me clarify that I use the same set up at home. The reason I mentioned the store was the touchscreen aspect of it so that we can show that you don't need an expensive dedicated music server to have touchscreen navigation.

Personally, I just search for what I want and then hit play. I don't navigate the tree as you are. Perhaps classical music pick and choose is very different and that would not work. Do you not know the keywords that would identify what you want to hear? I can type Mozart and see the collection and quickly drill into the specific version, all in album view. Here is what stacks look like in Windows Media Player:



Even when navigating with a mouse and keyboard on my den workstation, I find the above method to be highly effective and eliminates the need to use a tree view (which we used to have in WMP and got awful reviews and poor usability scores). I just can't imaging sitting there reading the text for everything to find something to play.

I am sure I am missing something in how you navigate or the type of content you own :).
 

Scott Borduin

WBF Technical Expert (Software)
Jan 22, 2011
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Amir,

I understand the visual appeal of album covers. If I were selling gear, I'd use an interface like that in a store. It's like decking out a model home in a new housing development. Great for the 20 minute tour. When I use an interface like that for real browsing, I get frustrated quickly. yesterday, I was using an iPod with a tough sensitive wheel to scroll through composer and artist lists. While the iPod was doing the sort of accelerated scrolling you described, it wasn't fast or precise. And going up and down menu trees to switch between Composer and Artist (first) searches gets old fast.

Bill

I use pretty much exactly the same setup - J River Media Center with a Dell Mini 10 (fanless, SSD) netbook as a full-interface remote, and for the same reasons. Classical music, in particular, stresses the simple user interface paradigms of most media players, in several ways - and I'd suggest that it's not only Classical music that suffers.

First off, Classical has many categories of relevant metadata. Composer, Work title, Sub Genre (Symphony, String Quartet, etc etc), Performer/Soloist(s), Instrument (Piano, Violin, etc), Ensemble, Conductor, recording or performance date, record label, Movement, Key (C Major, etc), and Era (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc) are just some of the categories by which you might want to search for and organize your music. Most media players start with the assumption that almost all music will fall into the Artist/Album/Song hierarchy, and grudgingly allow for Composer to fit in there somewhere too. And most do not allow you to define tags for all of those other categories of information at all, much less use them in searches.

Second, most media players assume logical unit of grouping is the Album. For much Pop music, that is true, but Classical violates that assumption far more often than not. The usual case is for one CD to hold performances of multiple works, often even by different composers and in different genres. Whether those multiple performances are even intended to constitute any kind of coherent program is very much in the ear of the beholder. In other cases, a work (Mahler or Bruckner symphonies, most operas, masses, choral works) will span multiple discs. In any case, these factors make navigation by Album art even less useful.

What drove me to J River is that it allows me to define all of those different categories of information (tags) and use them in my own user-defined search views. So if, for instance, I want to find all 11 performances of Beethoven's Symphony number 3 in my library, select the performance by Leonard Bernstein on Sony (rather than the later, less intense performance on DG), and play just that performance, I can do so in a few simple, logical clicks. To do the same thing on iTunes is remarkably difficult - in fact, I found that after an iTunes library got to several hundred discs or more, I would sometimes have to wrack my brain and try multiple text searches just to find back performances that I knew were there. iTunes and its kin may be simple to use, but they are not easy to use if you really want to get all of the rewards of a computer audio source (aka "music server".)

I would also say that it is not only Classical music which benefits from more advanced interfaces. If you're a Jazz aficionado, and you want to find all performances of Take the A Train from the Bop era, how do you do that? All of my recordings that have Scott Lafaro playing bass? How about all Punk/New Wave Albums that had contributing artists who also played on Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True"? Or just have the same general styles and moods of that album? These are exactly the sorts of questions computers are ideally designed to answer for us, and which, IMHO, provide the most compelling justification for choosing a computer over a disc player as your primary source.
 

Old Listener

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Let me clarify that I use the same set up at home. The reason I mentioned the store was the touchscreen aspect of it so that we can show that you don't need an expensive dedicated music server to have touchscreen navigation.

I understand. I did not mean to suggest that a touch screen interface might not be a valid choice for some users in their homes. I have heard vendors raving about touchscreens in store displays for music servers for several years.

Personally, I just search for what I want and then hit play. I don't navigate the tree as you are. Perhaps classical music pick and choose is very different and that would not work.
Do you not know the keywords that would identify what you want to hear? I can type Mozart and see the collection and quickly drill into the specific version, all in album view.

I can always remember Mozart but I don't remember all the works and all the performances. I have a hard time remembering what Glinka wrote and what Gliere wrote. I never remember Kabalevsky until I see his name in the list of composers. When I play the Comedians Suite by Kabalevsky, it is usually because I saw his name or the work name in the browser pane list. I let the player remember this kind of thing.

I might want to listen to the Haydn Symphony No. 100 conducted by Otto Klemperer. I'd click on Haydn in the Composer pane, then on Symphony No. 100 in the Work Name pane and finally, click on Klemperer_Philharmonia in the Artist pane. I think that is efficient and direct.

On the other hand, I might decide to listen to a performance of the Brahms second symphony without having a performance in mind. I might see a performance in the list that I didn't remember we owned and play that.

Some evenings, I'll play a couple of hours of music of one genre such as early Rock and Roll. I might think of a song and play it. That song might remind me of something else and I'll browse to follow that thought. Then maybe I look at the list of Chuck Berry songs we have. I'd queue up a few and go on to the next idea. It is a very visual process, just one where I'm looking at words rather than images.

I often react to what I see and go in a direction I had not planned. The order in which I select tag values changes as I go along.

Here is what stacks look like in Windows Media Player:

JRMC has a similar mode of showing values for one tag at a time. The essential point is that you only see the available choices for one tag at a time. To see values for another tag, you need to be in a different place in the hierarchy of menus. (I see this kind of interface as one with levels of menus.)

I find the above method to be highly effective and eliminates the need to use a tree view .... I just can't imaging sitting there reading the text for everything to find something to play.

You may think in terms of albums and their covers. Neither is central to me. For classical music, I think in terms of Composer, Work and Performer. I also use Sub Genre and Version tags when necessary. Words are the natural way for me to see values for those tags and make choices. Images of LP or CD covers would not help me. I prefer picking from lists instead of typing.

I provided a link to screen shots of the JRMC player as I use it. For classical music, I have browser panes across the screen showing tag values for Sub genre, Composer, Work Name, Artist and Version. (like iTunes with much more customizability.) I find that I understand what's in my library much better with this interface as opposed to a one tag at a time interface.

I am sure I am missing something in how you navigate or the type of content you own :).

i see some differences: Images are not useful to me. I expect the player to remember what's in the library and remind me. I like to browse in a free form way reacting to what I see without the constraint of a predetermined menu hierarchy. I usually prefer browsing to typing a search string. I rarely play an entire CD's content except for Broadway shows.

Bill
 

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