It seems perplexing as to why emusic's TV ads shout "we are 'indie'" ...and yet, those same ads mostly only feature famous/known artists.

Well, despite my predeliction and apprehension that it might be very BAD idea, my curiosity killed my cat ...I bit the bullet, and signed up for a "25 free-download trial" a couple of days ago.

The GOOD news is that emusic DOES NOT use DRM. They actually DO give you plain old un-infected .mp3 downloads. It seems that emusic really is as claimed, they are nothing more than a subscription service! Once signed up, the downloads you choose are very quick and of "high-quality" audio-wise. (That is, if you can call ANY 128k-192k .mp3 file "high-quality" ...lol.)

The BAD news is that it seems to me that emusic is VERY expensive. Sure, you get un-molested .mp3 files... but (IMHO) who would ever want to pay money for a stupid .mp3? (Are .mp3's not supposed to be nothing more than promotional ads for the full quality recording anyways?)

==========

My personal over-all oppinion of emusic is that they are NOT "evil" per-se. As far as I am able to tell, they probably actually DO pay the arranged/agreed upon money to the artists/bands/copyright holders. (Unlike that Russian website/service: allofmp3.com ...which is cheaper, but likely IS "evil".)

...but emusic is simply TOO damn expensive of a place/way to get quick and easy .mp3 files. (Well, I know at least that I can't afford them beyond this "trial period".)

The "big name/famous" stuff they feature as a DRAW are tunes (and albums) from currently "industry-ignored" artists that emusic was able to aquire cheaply. (In itself, that fact is not a good thang, nor a bad thang.)

========================

Of all the big-name/known "pay" services out there, emusic is
probably the best choice. (That's why I allowed myself to be 'dupped' into their free "25 tune" music trial.)

But you still have even BETTER choices.

Dmusic
Iuma
Garageband
MySpace
etc.
etc.
etc.

=========

(Someone remind me to cancel my emusic subsription in the next couple of days before they charge me on-demand for that first regular monthy charge! My bank account is already skirting zero!)

...and, I do NOT want to get caught up in any "record-club" type scam as per was found in the back of the old TV guides. (I can't say for sure, but emusic's business model MIGHT be based upon THAT --we'll see I suppose!)

=================

(...truth be known, I think emusic's plan is to ride the wave of DRM resentment until one of the mega-major entities buy them out as a "brand-name".)

See:
On The Web, Media Giants Keep Grabbing--Not Building

just giving you folk my humble opinion
--Shmoo

Oh, someone will most definitely remind you.

Curiosity killed my cat and I wanted to actually experience one of these "pay" service offerings on my own.

(I chose emusic instead of Napster or iTunes or any of the others for my experiment because I deemed them to be the least harmful to my own self and computer.)

I do NOT endorse them NOR any other online music "pay" service.

I am an emusic subscriber, and I like them. At about $0.25 a download I don't see how you can call them expensive.

Anyway they have a lot of out of print or hard to get stuff (I replaced all my Gentle Giant that I used to have on vinyl), and some great jazz, rockabilly, blues etc.

I checked them out, they are legit and I think this is a pretty sound business model. No DRM, the artists get paid, and I'm not supporting RIAA.
I'll quit now before this sounds like a commercial.

Thanks for the info, brenthannah!

This sounds like something MUCH closer to what we have been suggesting as a reasonable download service. Although many here may still complain that lossy mp3s aren't worth two cents, the 4 for $1, unrestricted downloads seem fair and they even seem to be offering some out of print stuff, as brenthannah indicated.

If I had the choice, I think I would rather have a la carte purchasing as opposed to being forced into a monthly subscription, though.

If enough people buy into this, it may give the labels pause to consider revamping their demands for high pricing and DRM schemes...but only a slight pause, I'm sure.

brenthannah,

you DID sound like a commercial

(...but I did too with my own review.)

==========

Since Dmusic (leflaw) owns the rights to all those "Lost Gold" recordings...

(Nevermind, BAD thought.)

You need to subscribe for a year to get the kind of pricing that figures out to 25¢/track. Am I right?

I'm not opposed to it, but I'm not sure I could find that many things I wanted to download in a year's time.

'fess up now, Shmoo. What did ya download?

Actually I got an offer in my email in February for 100 free tracks for a trial. I didn't try it though. I'd rather spend time archiving my vinyl.

"fess up now, Shmoo. What did ya download?"

I spent about an hour poking around...

4 "B-side" songs from CCR (Several years ago someone broke into my home and stole my family's record collection... I wanted to have those songs again.)

Frank Zappa's "Yellow Snow" (For some reason I never recall having owned a disck with that track, even tho I know we used to have a couple of Zappa and Mother's of Invention.)

Gary Neuman's "Cars" (So, sue me. I always liked this DeVo-ish sounding song.)

A couple of tunes from the Shirelles that I thought my mom would enjoy. (But, probably not as much as me.)

A Johnny Cash tune,

A Ricky Nelson tune,

And a few Indie tracks by nobody none of you have yet heard of.

============

(There,

...that was my "shopping list")

as far as pay services go...i use itunes...

w8!

i use the old version...just new enough to go with my ipod...4.somethin or other...

anywho...theyres actually quite a few indie bands on it...and y buy what i can get for free...i pay for the stuff out of respect for the band that made it...or i couldnt find it anywhere else...(Miser)

and as far as the whole .mp3 quality issue goes...whats the difference?

most of the time i cant tell the difference between a cd, aac, .mp3 or whatever the hell else there is

And there you have it, friends. Studies show that 95% of the public can't tell the difference between Whizzo Butter and a dead crab. Sound quality important, you say? Surely you jest! Let the age of sonic devo-lution begin.

Seriously though, some of the recording and mixing is sooooo bad these days that I can see why people don't hear a difference between an MP3 or an iTune and the CD. There is more sonic detail in Sgt. Pepper than there is in McCartney's latest album. The music industry seems to have followed George Martin's descent into deafness. The early Rush albums are sonically superior to the latest Rush studio album. (RIAA filth, I know, but my friend bought me a vinyl copy. What can I say?)

The cassette tape sound lives on in MP3/AAC/ogg/WMA.

You need to subscribe for a year to get the kind of pricing that figures out to 25¢/track. Am I right?

Nope, it's a monthly subscription.

ok... i saw the commercial on tv and i fell out of my chair!!! ok well i was at Laura's house i think and i saw it and was like WTF a d-music copy? but then i listened to the accual words and i was like oh ok.. D-music is still better!

OK I think the concept of DMusic is great, but every time I go on it I spend about 1/2 hour wading through crap hoping to find a nugget of gold. By this time I am frustrated and quit.
Seriously is there no way to search for people that can actually play? Is there a rating system that I just haven't found?

Hmm...So I'm not the only one having trouble finding something that won't hurt my ears or make my stomache upset on dmusic...

Brenthannah, when you find something interesting, please let me know.

A rating system for songs... great idea! Maybe a list of the highest rated songs... it would save a lot of time for casual listeners, and still allow everyone to browse through all the music that's available. Provided, of course, it's one vote per person, unlike the way some of the songs are downloaded ten times in a row by the same user. Or as was suggested in another thread, "gatekeepers" - people who listen and recommend new songs. Either one would help the listener who is short on time.

That whole concept of 'lossy' notwithstanding, take 5 big steps back.... This site, and the people that follow its cause, have chosen to take a stand against DRM, expensive music (however much they see as being expensive), are against the 'big-name' acts that buy the million dollar mansions for their pets, and are FOR the 'little guy' - the musicians who are out to try and make good music.

At the risk of sounding like another commercial (this must be a record for one thread), emusic fits that bill to a T. As far as the 'lossy' quality goes, I can't tell the difference between a 128k mp3, a 192k mp3, or a CD. One has to have the very good speakers to tell the different in any case - something I'll never have on my paycheck...

Finally, is paying a quarter for a song you can keep until your dying day that much to ask? A song that you can burn on any many CDs as you care, listen to over and over again without fear of it expiring or stop working? What if a certain song brings up a memory of somebody, something, someone - is bringing back that memory over and over again worth a quarter?

I'm surprised we're all not members.

It's not a quarter per track. (I personally would prefer that it was an ala carte with set price per track, and that the artist/copyright holder recieved at least half the profit.)

It's a subscription service. The price is the monthly fee and you are able to download up to a certain amount of songs per month.
...which means that emusic gets your money whether you want to download anything from them that month or not.

(And, I have no idea what the artists/copyright holder's get paid out of e-music's profits.)

I canceled my free trial subscription after trying them out for myself. I won't call emusic "evil" nor say that it isn't worthwhile for some folk. (There was a lot about it that I liked.)

But due to the manditory monthly subscription structure (the "expense-usefulness ratio") and the fact that what you "get" are mearly nothing but .mp3 files (I equate .mp3's to promotional "ads" for a song and probably not worthy of being commercial product in and of themselves)

...therefore, emusic just isn't for me.

"Hmm...So I'm not the only one having trouble finding something that won't hurt my ears or make my stomache upset on dmusic..."

1. Duh, dere is a raydio at da top right of page 1 of dmusic with many playlists.
2. Try listening to another users playlists. We have many of them
3. Go to sonsoface.dmusic.com. If it was good enough for Curtis Hanson and Fox Searchlight Films, it is certainly good enough for you.

If you can't find good music that way, you are tone deaf, which I figure you are anyway.

leflaw,

"If you can't find good music that way, you are tone deaf, which I figure you are anyway."

Laughing.... I wouldn't think I'm tone deaf, I just don't appreciate low quality music that sounds like shit, is all. To flip it, perhaps if you don't like riaa music, it is you who are tone deaf? That's what I "figure"...

"3. Go to sonsoface.dmusic.com. If it was good enough for Curtis Hanson and Fox Searchlight Films, it is certainly good enough for you."

I suspect we have different tastes in music. I don't personally like most of the movies released by Fox Searchlight, so they fact they do or do not use some particular sound track doesn't mean much at all to me. I could care less if it was good for hanson.

Single shot rifles were good enough for the army, Should we switch back to them?

RaidHHI, you are a RIOT in a can.

Dmusic DOES have "need of improvement" if you are a merely wanting to find that certain "top-notch produced" stuff right away without having to dig around a little. Maybe we DO need to kick leflaw in the rump a little and figure out a way to get folk like you who haven't the patience or inclination to listen to anything "but the best" to find it more easily.

But damnitall RaidHHI, you continue to MISS the whole POINT of what Dmusic is "all about"

Dmusic is NOT a record label. It is NOT an "A&R" service.

The only TRUE judge of "what is good or not" is and SHOULD be the listener.

Dmusic doesn't pretend to be a "filter" for what reaches your ears. (That's YOUR job!)

(Filters, as a "business model" are corruptable.)

Independent,

"RaidHHI, you are a RIOT in a can."

So they tell me.


"Dmusic DOES have "need of improvement" if you are a merely wanting to find that certain "top-notch produced" stuff right away without having to dig around a little. Maybe we DO need to kick leflaw in the rump a little and figure out a way to get folk like you who haven't the patience or inclination to listen to anything "but the best" to find it more easily."

I'd like to think i'm somewhat open minded with regard to music I've never heard.... I just have trouble finding good stuff to listen to on dmusic is all. I had similiar problems with the original napster too, but that was mainly the users who provided the.. ehm, low quality extremely low sampled, wtf blade encoder? shit I had to contend with. Really man, if I could just send you an album from a rip my group did, it would be more clear to you.

"The only TRUE judge of "what is good or not" is and SHOULD be the listener."

I agree. Tone Deaf aside. *grin*

Thank You Schmoo for risking the unknown and then letting us all know about your expirance. Emusic sounds much less evil then the average Riaa music scam, but they're not "Indie" to me.
"Indie" has differant definations depending on if yer glossery is written by the RIAA or by Boycott-riaa "Professional" also... buyer beware
Fiedility can be defined by audiophiles differantly also. I compress all of my CDs to 320k mp3s and use Winamp 2.7 to play em back. I would use .wav but their's no ID3 tag. I find CDs to be of a lesser format then vinyl but the average CD player of a better quality then the average record player was. An old mellow of mine had over $25,000 into his stereo with Eletrostatic speakers (they look like posters made of tin foil) and a turntable that sat in fluid. In Pink Floyd's The Wall you could hear someone plug in a guitar as the airplane crashed, just not possible with a CD...
The quailty of the recordings here at Dmusic vary. A lot of us record in our dining rooms. Some of us are complete amatures, some are pros who wish to avoid evil Riaa contracts. My postings are recording exparaments, The Vampire being recorded just a few days after buying CakeWalk and Ya Sure Ya Want Vocals being my best recording (altho not my best song written... The Vampire was a minor hit locally at the bars) With the purchase of electronic drums (easy to record) I may be putting down more orginal metal and attemt to sell some music.
I enjoy poking around until I discover a good band with a good recording. Many here are recorded as well as any CD at Walmart, many here jam out just as well as artist at Walmart.
One day a Dmusic artist will be downloaded more then Britney.

I have electrostatics ( quad ESL's) too powered by tube monoblocs and tube preamp. It is clear to me that sound quality is going down down down. The sonics of 40 years ago are clearly superior. They had subwoofers then too, and electronic xovers, and super tweeters, etc.

Anybody heard a Violin that sounded better than a Strad made 350 years ago? Nope.

Anyway, there is plenty of good music here. Plenty of crap too. Just like real life.

Anyone who thinks that there are objective standards to music is clueless. Thats why we have become a hip hop nation ( as opposed to a bunny hop nation).

Btw, I am considering starting a non-sequitor of the month contest. I nominate Raid.

OK I'm not sure if anyone is still listening but. I have found some great stuff on DMusic (Tim Sanders is brilliant for example). But there is a LOT of people on there who cannot play, and have no idea about recording. And they tend to post any random noodling no matter how incomplete. This fill up a lot of slots and makes searching very difficult.

leflaw,

"Btw, I am considering starting a non-sequitor of the month contest. I nominate Raid."

This is a bit unfair leflaw. If I respond in kind with your rhetoric, you spam my email account with validation emails. Perhaps ignoring you will have to suffice then?

brenthannah,

" But there is a LOT of people on there who cannot play, and have no idea about recording."

I'm surprised your not in leflaw's sites yet. He takes some things very personally, it would seem.

lot of asses in the news, im scared to come here lol...

Raid - I try to be nice about it. You know, attracting more flys with honey than vinegar and all that.

"Raid - I try to be nice about it. You know, attracting more flys with honey than vinegar and all that."

Yea. I'm not good with the bullshit aspect of it. PC never was for me.

My music site of choice is Magnatune. I choose the price per album starting at $5, the artists get 50%, I can get MP3, Vorbis, Flac, and Wave, I can sample things on streaming radio, and they make it easy to get licenses for re-use.

Their catalog is their own, but it's good enough that I don't care.