auto

The law is there so they can go after people that abuse it on a grand scale. No one gives two shits if you copy you buddies' CDs.

davidh777

I disagree. No one is going to come after you if you copy your buddies' CDs, but they do care. The purpose of the law is to make people think about what they're doing. If they choose to make copies anyway, so be it. But the hope is that some people will choose not to. That's why they have ads on DVDs saying "piracy is not a victimless crime" etc. No one really believes the FBI is going to come after them, but the laws and warnings might at least change some behavior.

Mabuse

Yeah. THat all sounds like WORK. Browsing a record store was fun. Spinning records was fun. All that synching and backing up sounds like a job

davidh777

Apparently no one is old enough to remember the days of real-time recording an LP onto audio cassette. Or they're just blocking it out.

PhantomStranger

The labels aren't delusional enough to believe the FBI warnings stop friends from sharing their music. That really isn't the warning's intent. They've always been more worried about commercial bootlegging and big-time piracy. That is why Napster posed a problem since the labels had to go after individual consumers for the first time.

hdnmickey

I did that more than once. With speakers and the boom box setup to at least attempt to retain the two channel stereo sound. I also had more than one tape that was made of recordings from the radio. I used to be soooo cheap.

Oh wait, I still am. It's just all digital rips now.

BobO'Link

I did it all the time. When I'd purchase a new LP I'd also purchase a blank tape. As soon as I got home I'd spin the platter and make a tape copy at the same time. After that I'd file the album away and play the tape both at home and in the car. If it should get chewed up I'd simply make a new copy. I also bypassed 8-Track and had a car cassette deck in 1973 (Craig removable auto-reverse deck with a Craig Power Booster amp going into a pair of 8" Jenson's mounted in the rear deck of a Corolla - I also had headphone jacks wired in. Yeah... it was loud). A friend got in the car and was looking through the tape box (I carried everything with me at all times). He'd never seen cassette before and asked "Wow! Is *all* that coming outa that little thing?!?"

Mabuse

David h is implying that all that tape recording was a chore. I agree. I seldom did it.

Dan

Yeah, I did more than my fair share of radio-to-tape, tape-to-tape, and even cd-to-tape recording. Plus all that cd-to-cd burning I did. Am I "nostalgic" about it? Sure, I guess. A little. Do I wish that kind of thing on future generations? Fuck no. Just make a playlist on Spotify and go have some fun, kids.

EdTheRipper

I used to record every cd that I purchased to tape. Afterwards, I'd sell the cds and make a bit of my money back. I was a bit odd in my younger years, haha. I certainly don't miss the time I invested in doing so.

davidh777

Now we know why you call yourself EdTheRipper.

Rocketdog2000

That last part is only true about Computer Software programs, but not music CDs. There is no similar language in regards to them.

rw2516

I used to buy 12 packs of cassettes and record King Biscuit and BBC concerts. Also live simulcasts. With one deck it was a chore. Invested in dual deck so I could later edit out commercials.
Too bad the format wasn't more durable. I had a lot of choice stuff that has never seen the light of day since. Over time the tapes degraded. Bleed through from other side, bowing, spindles jamming, breaking.

B5Erik

Chain stores - the only thing close by at the time. There aren't any indie stores within 20 miles of where I live.

I miss the multitude of independent record stores - after all, I worked at one for 8 years and ran it for 5 of those years.

Rex Fenestrarum

Well, just copying an album or CD to cassette... yeah, that was a big pain. But making a mixtape was always a labor of love. Choosing not just the songs, but the exact order they appeared on the tape. The challenge of finding just the right song to end a side: not just on an emotional level, but a song of perfect length, too. Sometimes you'd add comedy bits, voiceovers or weird stuff you recorded off TV or someone's answering machine. Then, if you were making the tape for a girl, you had to design the artwork, too. I somehow ended up getting an offer in the mail for 12 months of Vogue magazine for some ridiculously low price (I think $7); I actually subscribed just so I'd have a huge supply of artsy pics for mix tape covers.

I started going to clubs when I was a senior in high school. I got in to dance and dance pop music. "Electronic Industrial" bands like NIN and Nitzer Ebb were coming on the scene. I actually paid something like $69.99 for a crappy Radio Shack mixer, and went out and bought another turntable. The mixer took my mixtapes to a whole new level: beatmatching, scratching, primitive mash-ups... taking a bunch of pre-recorded music and making a whole new living thing out it... was such a rush! People who say they don't understand DJs and DJ culture just haven't tried it for themselves. It's almost like a math problem sometimes: how can I take this one song, and make it seamlessly blend with that song? I actually got pretty good at it - I never did it live, but mixed mixtapes were recorded "live", so no margin of error. Sad thing was, a few years later, when "DJ culture" became a thing, I had totally lost all my skills. It's like me and golf: when I was young, my dad made me take golf lessons. I got good enough to regularly finish in the top 5 of local junior's tournaments. But then I hit a growth spurt and became too tall for my old clubs. And the next time I played, 5-6 years later... it was like I've never even seen a golf club before.

Was I the only one who ever taped radio stuff on video tape? I got super-excited the day my old VCR died, 'cos I was able to get new one with stereo inputs. I ran a line from the OUT on my receiver to the INPUT of the VCR, and was thus able to tape 8 hours of radio at a stretch. I could record huge blocks of college radio and dump the good stuff to cassette, or record long Atlanta Symphony radio shows, or record stuff when I wasn't home via the VCR timer. It actually sounded pretty good, too.

Alan Smithee

I used a Hi-Fi VCR to record my overnight shows on KDVS back in 1991, but I've been too afraid to listen to them! They went from 3 to 6 AM and I had to fight just to stay awake- I can't imagine some of the things I must've said on the air! Both Beta and VHS Hi-Fi had better audio quality than standard audio cassettes, though the tracking noise was annoying.

mike7162

I rarely purchase CDs anymore, and when I do it's usually to fill holes in my collection or something like a one-off movie soundtrack. Collecting used to take such an effort! Now I can plug a name into Google Play and see their entire life's work on one page! For an old fart like me, this is sorcery!

UAIOE

I have a few Blu-Ray's from the UK and the first message on there is "Thank you for buying this disc!"

I buy US Blu's and its that scary FBI warning/huge fine/years in jail stuff.

It felt nice to be thanked for buying a Blu-Ray, even though it was from another region.

Rex Fenestrarum

I know, right? I collected records in the 80s and early 90s, and you had to WORK at that shit, son. You had to subscribe to Goldmine magazine, make tons of phone calls to record stores all over the US and UK, and\or go to record collecting shows held in local hotel ballrooms. The best moment at record shows was when you'd stop by someone's booth for the hell of it and find some vastly underpriced record. Like, the guy at the one bluegrass booth somehow ended up with a British copy of The Cure's "Catch" 7" on clear vinyl, and had it priced for $8, compared to $30 at all the other booths. Or the heavy metal booth that had the Hong Kong picture disc of Madonna's True Blue album and only wanted $10 instead of the $50 the other vendors wanted. SCORE! The Internet has made collecting really easy (and cheaper!), but it's taken a lot of the fun out of it. The "thrill of the hunt" ain't what it used to be. I remember waiting months and making a couple dozen calls to find a British 7" of Duran Duran's "Planet Earth". It was my own personal Holy Grail. But now you can go to GEMM.COM and buy it with a few mouse clicks. It just ain't the same.

davidh777

Or how about hearing a song on the radio and wondering what it was?

Trevor

I remember often calling the radio station to ask things like that.

And setting my cassette player to record 90 minutes of airplay in the hopes of getting that hard to find song.

coli

I still buy CD's mostly because my musical tastes are Classic Rock (late 60's/70's), and Grunge 90's like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc.

So it still worth it to buy the complete CD as there are usually multiple good songs on them, as I just sync them onto my Ipod. Now I don't buy nearly as many CD's as I did when I was in HighSchool in the 1990's, as that is the bulk of my collection.

Lije Baley

This thread was a pleasure to read. I came to it after discovering how inexpensive classical CDs have become and wondering if that had been discussed. While there is no recent discussion (and none I could find using the "search" function) about classical music pricing, reading about the obvious decline and eventual demise of CDs was fascinating. Many of the posters have trod a path through records and discs similar to my own.

In college, in the late 60s, I obtained my first reel-to-reel tape recorder. I "collected" the music of everyone I knew, borrowing their LPs for taping. I had few LPs of my own, but hundreds on BASF and Scotch reels of magnetic tape. By the mid-80s, the distortions of tape hiss, sonic bleed-through, and stretching tape turned my attention to the newest medium and I started actually buying (!) my music on CDs. The reels of tape were put away in a garage loft, never to be heard again. My musical tastes centered on classical, rock from the 60s, and "world" music (Indian, reggae, South American folkloric, etc). In '08, I bought a car with an iPod connection, and, of course, bought an iPod (160 gb Classic). I was able to burn every CD I owned to the iPod along with dozens of books on CD from the public library (those books are great for long road trips, and can be deleted afterwards). The iPod is so much better in the car or when exercising than a memory card or a collection of CDs. Of course, that iPod has been discontinued as Apple moves away from recording and towards streaming.

Still, the mp3 sound is not as full as a CD when I listen at home. After not buying much music for years, I've discovered how cheaply remastered discs are priced in collections and boxes as the industry winds down. Five Jefferson Airplane or Byrds discs for $18. The music industry might still have customers if the pricing had been like that 20 years ago. Now, the classical music labels are selling their catalog titles for peanuts. Box sets with 50 to 55 remastered CDs, most of them filled with extra cuts, are available for $60 to $80. Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, RCA, Teldec, Erato, Decca, and many others have incredible collections available at prices averaging less than $2 per disc. Interestingly, Amazon Italy and Amazon Germany have much better prices than our U.S. Amazon; the Italian and German sites have different prices for the same inventory, so it pays to check both. Italy has higher shipping as well; determining the best price on a large order may take some time.

As a senior citizen, I prefer physical media. I don't need an internet connection to listen to my music, and I know my discs will not disappear when the cloud changes it rules. I prefer to listen to a CD all the way through rather than create a playlist, but will listen to Pandora through my home theater setup with Directv's feed. Music is the prerogative of youth (as a general rule) and today's younger people are calling different tune. As streaming becomes more ubiquitous CDs are going to more and more a niche product. They may survive as vinyl has, or they may join wax cylinders in the audio museum. When the time comes to clean out Dad's house, I don't expect my kids to have any interest in my CDs or LPs.

P.S. A "shout-out" to "Alan Smithee." KDVS has been a favorite for nearly 45 years. We live not too far from Davis and I've enjoyed its programming tremendously. I probably missed "Alan's" early morning show, but I'll bet my kids heard it in the 90s.

mndtrp

I've been slowly transitioning to purchased downloads into my ipod from cds. I find that I don't listen on my nice system hardly at all any more, so full-on quality isn't as important to me as it once was. If I can get the cd from Best Buy, I'll go that route. Unfortunately, that's rare, and I don't feel the desire to have one shipped to me.

PhantomStranger

For the moment almost all major acts are still releasing CDs. I've heard that many acts still like carrying around CDs to hand out as calling cards, if you will.

As a commercial format, CDs are still more viable in foreign countries. Europe with its more lax licensing fees and Japan with that country's physical media obsession keep the CD format alive for us collectors.