Do you pay to stream music, and other blabbing

[Durhammer]

I try to not pay to stream anything. I'm 71, retired (former SAS software tech support), former hippie :-), played bass in R&R/R&B bands in the 60s/70s (still do, but on pause, of course), have a reasonably huge vinyl collection (LPs, 45s, and a few 78s) and CD collection. Have a decently-sized collection of MP3s stored on a free 20GB pCloud service. ONE of these days, I need to fire up Audacity and capture the best of my LPs, but then I'll have to massage them to de-clickify and such, which is why I have yet to do it....

I did use the early/free Pandora and Spotify but don't use any of those services anymore. What I use on my Linux laptop is the most excellent Cantata MPD music client, most of the time streaming internet radio from an excellent local (Raleigh, NC, USA) station "That Station" -- https://live.wostreaming.net/direct/cap ... amaac-ibc1 . (I can't remember if DeaDBeeF plays it, but Clementine does not, VLC does, but I cannot figure out its UI, and thanks to @alexjack, now I'll have to try Quotdlibet!) It's got one of the best mixes of content -- pop, indie, country & bluegrass, hard rock, oldies, etc., and quite often play entire recorded concerts (they love the Dead and Widespread Panic) and do a regular thing of playing an entire album on its 50th anniversary at noons (EST/EDT). GREAT station, highly recommend. Addictive.

I also have Cantata on Windows, but the last port that Mr. Drummond made for it was 2.2, so I use the excellent Windows-only music beast, MusicBee (it's too heavily dependent on Microsoft .NET to be easily ported to Linux, drat, but it's got everything I need/want). I've also tried Guayadeque, QMMP, and many other music players. So far only Cantata and MusicBee work for me to find and play my pCloud MP3 collection, find and play good internet radio stations and podcasts (I hate having to manually find and paste in a podcast or radio streaming URL, otherwise VLC and some others would be "OK"), and pop up artist info and lyrics. Looking forward to trying Quodlibet.

Great topic. Nice to hear your experiences!

[AVLinux]

I am a happy Spotify user (as a listener and as an artist..) I am an apolitical Linux User with no qualms about using a paid streaming service or a few bits and pieces of Commercial Linux software where they are needed... Freedom is freedom to choose IMHO..

[andyprough]

I used to pay for a Last.fm subscription about 15 years ago when it was $3 a month, and before music was otherwise widely available through youtube and other free services. Still have my free account.

These days I like to use Libre.fm, which is free as in freedom as well as free as in beer. They have lots of indy artists with songs for download under a creative commons license. I've found a lot of really good music there.

[MAYBL8]

I use free Pandora occasionally. I have stations on there that I like and shuffle them.
I had a Sirius subscription for a while . Nice for traveling in the car. They raised their price and that was it for me.
At home I have a MX Linux install I use for a mail server and music server.
I have Alexa My Media installed on it and stream my music collection wherever I want , in the house, on my phone, in the car with my phone and bluetooth so when I am on the road I can listen to my music.
It costs me $5 a year to stream my music anywhere I am.

[thomasl]

ONE of these days, I need to fire up Audacity and capture the best of my LPs, but then I'll have to massage them to de-clickify and such, which is why I have yet to do it....

I did that for most of my 300+ LP collection not long after MP3 came around (that was before the iPod hit the shelves)... it was a helluva job and if I had known then what I now know about streaming I'm not sure I would have done it.

I had a succession of Nomad and MuVo players from Creative, the last Nomad one with a (back then) unimaginably big 20GB HDD which I later replaced with a 60GB model. I still have some of these players... memories, memories.

Some good tips coming out of this thread

[Durhammer]

I've got approx 115 GB of music and use Deadbeef and Quodlibet on computers. Quodlibet is the one I keep coming back to.

Sorry to not stick to the topic, slap my hand and all that, but I can't find a plugin for Quod Libet to find/subscribe/manage/listen to podcasts. Do you know if there is one anywhere?

I sorta like QL's song info using DuckDuckGo embedded browser -- gets a helluva lot of stuff -- but wish the full lyrics would show. Any way to get that to happen?

[duane]

I don't buy much music anymore because I listen to Youtube often when I am in the mood.
I recently went online and bought some John Philip Sousa marches.
They remind me of my youth when they used to have more parades.
I just recently lost one of my computers.
Glad I had the CD's so I did not loose the music.

[PhantomTramp]

I stream when around public broadband, A tech friend showed me a site called Radio Garden (I think) that was fun to play with. There is practically no bandwidth at the shack so I rely on a huge CD and record collection gathered mostly from thrift stores and yard sales. I have refurbished old used audio equipment and have extra CD and record players. The old truck has a fine radio/CD player, I listen to WTJU when I am close to UVA. They stream, too, and have archives.

I am blessed to have worked w/ more than a few great musicians who will send me rough cuts and better to listen to. We trade our stuff like Tupperware; we can't really visit now and have "guitar pulls" like the days of old.

The Tramp

[timkb4cq]

I need to fire up Audacity and capture the best of my LPs, but then I'll have to massage them to de-clickify and such, which is why I have yet to do it....

Gtk Wave Cleaner does a marvelous job declicking and dehissing. I did my albums years ago.

I also have Cantata on Windows, but the last port that Mr. Drummond made for it was 2.2, so I use the excellent Windows-only music beast, MusicBee

We have latest Cantata (2.4.2) in the MX-19 Test repo. I use mpd on a mini itx machine connected to my Stereo to play my music from Ario, Cantata, or mpc.

[JuhaT]

I have payed for Spotify from the day it was released. I use it quite rarely though. There comes periods that I listen to my favorite music from yesteryears. Its nice to have all music in one place and find "new" old music I never heard before. I specially like their algorithm that gives suggestions based on what I have listened to, I find it surprisingly accurate.
Before that it was MP3s. I think it is 20+ years or so since I bought my last CD, or listened to them. Still have them somewhere in the closet though.
But I am contemplating buying a record player and listen to old LP's, I also have them somewhere in some closet. I remember that the sound was more pleasing or "full" so to speak than CD.