MX Linux Forum

I think us Linux users use offline players more than others. I might be wrong, but I see more discussions about Clementine and Deadbeef than Deezer and Spotify in all Linux fora, even the more "mainstream" distros like Ubuntu.

This time of the year is always a listening time for me, because I can purchase a Black Friday / Cyber Monday offer of a music streaming service, and listen to all the albums I've probably missed during summer when I'm really busy, and keep listening to new music until next spring. But I seldom listen to music from ad-supported services; I'd rather search through my (not so) old CDs and digital downloads. For a guy born in the '90s who mostly listens to '80s music, my digital download collection is huge compared to my cassettes and one vinyl; I wouldn't start to compare my physical collection to you guys after the age thread :D

Do you pay to stream music? Do you still buy albums in a physical form? At the moment, I listen to all my music in Tidal (even that which I already own), and probably won't buy any CDs because I haven't found something that good in new releases so far apart from that Igorrr album I shared in another thread (normally, I buy at least three new releases in CD every year since I was a kid).

Pausing my thoughts. As I was writing this, the algorithm did its magic and I think I found my favorite 2020 release (still have about 20 albums to listen to though). For anyone who is familiar with these bands, I don't know why would it suggest Vicious Rumors after Bonfire, AC/DC, and finally Stryper, but it was right.

Anyway, this isn't a thread to bash on "non-payers" or "romantics with vinyls", I just like to open my thoughts anytime I ask a question.

For the record, I listen to CDs and downloads on my computer, audio fed to a pair of Monkey Banana Gibbon 5 and/or Yamaha HS5, or a Philips MC-M570 with it's standard speakers, or a Laney LX12 guitar amp. I listen to cassettes on a Sony TC-WE475 fed through the same Monkey Bananas and Yamahas, or Sanyo boombox (no, it's not the M S400L)

Anyway, expand on music as you like. I think I'm just excited I'm listening to music they way I want to again, and the album I just discovered made me even more vulnerable to blabbing about music.

I don't stream, but have a huge CD collection which is stored in MP3 form in a drive that is shared across my home network.

Your comment about age interested me. I have never understood why it is automatically assumed that one must only like music from their youth. I'm 74, so grew up with The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Bob Dylan et al. I still listen to those, but continue to listen to newer stuff as well.

For example, the last album I bought, two days ago, was Plastic Hearts (Miley Cyrus). Before that, it was positions (Ariana Grande), and Infinite Things (Paloma Faith). I enjoy all of them.

Chris

chrispop99 wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:51 am I have never understood why it is automatically assumed that one must only like music from their youth.

This is something that happens, but it wasn't exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying that somebody who listens to '60s music, will probably have more LPs than somebody who listens to '00s music, who in turn will own CDs. Especially if they lived at that age. Also, that somebody in their 60s will have a larger collection that someone in their 20s, if they buy almost the same, just cause the one has bought X albums a year for a longer time.
What I find interesting when I look at my collection, is that I listen to '80s music (associated more with vinyl and cassettes), bought most of it in the '00s, but about 70% to 80% of my collection is digital downloads. I consider the '00s to be CD age, because digital downloads were never a thing here in Greece (at least not legal ones).

There's also, to an extent, that thing where certain generations are associated with music from a certain point in their youth. For example, people born in the '80s are "expected" to listen to music from their pre-teen and teen years, whereas people born in the '90s are expected to listen to music from our young adult years. This creates a gap in the early '00s, where no people are associated with it. But I have never put on an NSYNC tune while DJing and not everyone knew the lyrics!

radonrose wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:37 amI think us Linux users use offline players more than others. I might be wrong, but I see more discussions about Clementine and Deadbeef than Deezer and Spotify in all Linux fora, even the more "mainstream" distros like Ubuntu.

Well, I was a Windows user for more than 30 years (starting with the first beta version of the Windows SDK in the mid-80s) and I can tell you I'd never give up my offline players. I do have all my CDs and 100s of my vinyls digitised and streaming is just not an option, not least because I'm sometimes in regions where there's no internet, in fact no data connection at all. How I would survive that w/o my music on a player I don't know

Offline vs online music is perhaps (perhaps!) more an age thing with so-called "digital natives" being more comfortable with streaming than the oldsters.

And last album bought... Whoosh! by Deep Purple. Amazing that these chaps still produce music that's worth listening to (even w/o Blackmore who remains my preferred guitar slinger).

Honestly I almost never listen to any streaming except when in car with wife where she is always streaming Pandora. At home if I want to listen to music I will often just go to Youtube. I do use an offline player in my Windows system called VLC.

I'm between camps. I've grown up where having some kind of physical media is the norm and I still hang onto that to a degree. I tend to end up buying CDs of anything I consider to be very good. But, perhaps oddly, I then immediately rip them to flac files and play them locally from my computers/phone. I guess I just like having the CD as the "master" copy.

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

Recently I've started using a popular streaming service with the free option mainly as a way to check out gaps in discographies and some new bands. BTW, the browser webpage filtering plug-in "ublock origin" can improve your web experience in many ways. Ultimately though, as I've said, I will most likely be buying anything awesome that I find. I am finding new bands, but generally from similar spin off and crossover genres to those I grew up with (approximately centred on metal).

This seems to be one area where I am happy for some kind of corporate owned algorithm to go at it on my brain.

Is there such a thing as addictive, but unsatisfying music?

I don't pay for a streaming service.

I like to listen to my large CD collection (ripped to flac) but I do have a few favourite internet radio stations (ie streaming but free!) that I also listen to. I have made small donations to a few of those stations.

And I do purchase some music as flac downloads from certain independent artistes, e.g. Charlie Hunter, Lari Basilio.

Last CD purchased: Drumatica by Kiyo*Sen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyo_Sen

But most recent CD I got was a birthday gift: Dave Bainbridge's prog-rock band, Celestial Fire, live in UK.

I use Spotify, mostly for jazz. But I also use internet radio for international and classical.

alexjack wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:57 amIs there such a thing as addictive, but unsatisfying music?

Well... I am a great fan of a 70s/80s electronic music wizard called Klaus Schulze. My wife finds his music addictive, but still she doesn't like it when I put him on. Go figure...

thomasl wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 1:03 pm

alexjack wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:57 amIs there such a thing as addictive, but unsatisfying music?

Well... I am a great fan of a 70s/80s electronic music wizard called Klaus Schulze. My wife finds his music addictive, but still she doesn't like it when I put him on. Go figure...

You'd get on well with my brother, he has every Schulze and TD album ever released (vinyl and CD) including many 'duplicates' where there is different cover art or boxed sets etc. He also has hundreds of other other krautrock albums. I saw TD and Schulze back in the 70s - a lifetime ago now - although my tastes have always beene much broader.

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!

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..

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.

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.

Durhammer wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:33 amONE 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

alexjack wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:57 am 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?

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.

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

Durhammer wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:33 amI 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.

Durhammer wrote: 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.

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.

Durhammer wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 1:16 pm

alexjack wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:57 am 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?

Sorry I don't know. Never looked though. I'm happy with AntennaPod on my phone.

JuhaT wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:35 pm 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.

I agree about finding music new and old... I love that all ages and styles and genres are there in this big ocean of music to be discovered whether it's an old dog like me finding an exciting new artist or my kids discovering somebody like Neil Young for the uhm.. ahem.. 'first' time. My kids and I are on the Spotify family plan, it is great to send each other song links through texts and share playlists. I laugh when my son sends me songs and groups that are 'so cool' from 50 years ago like the Velvet Underground and he's surprised that i know all of it from high school..lol

If you're thinking of a new turntable some of the new ones have Bluetooth so are very portable to use anywhere with a Bluetooth speaker, don't listen to any of the scientifically incorrect stuff around the internet about the Bluetooth streaming degrading the uhm 'quality' of turntables it is total subjective BS.. I love having the portablity to bring my turntable out the the patio or anywhere with just a good BT speaker..

timkb4cq wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:23 pm

Durhammer wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:33 amI 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.

Durhammer wrote: 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.

Thanks, Tim. Yep, I know about Wave Cleaner, it's all just something that takes time to do. What I need to do is figure out just WHAT of my collection I can't find on the interwebs. Even weird stuff like the Soft Machine is available, but gems like "Subway Tokens" recorded live in Raleigh by Carol Sloane and Paul Montgomery probably not (guess I'll have to look now!).

[Update -- I should have known! The entire, fabulous LP is preserved track by track on Yew Tewb! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... DVoNRT7CAu Not to be missed, Jazz aficionados! If nothing else, the last track!]

And yep, I was quite pleased to find the latest version of Cantata here! Craig might not be adding enhancements anymore, but what he does fix makes that jewel of a music player soooo much better that I can't see giving it up. I AM trying to warm up to Quod Libet, but it still seems to be a work in progress (can't play two of my radio streams, and the UI doesn't have the fine features of Cantata, so I might fiddle with it on the side until Mr. Drummond finally pulls the plug on Cantata when he's done with his new project).

alexjack wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:58 pm

Durhammer wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 1:16 pm

alexjack wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:57 am 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?

Sorry I don't know. Never looked though. I'm happy with AntennaPod on my phone.

I've been playing with it. Their podcast support, such as it is, is in their "Audio Feed" mechanism. You already have to have the podcast RSS URL (though maybe not if it's on iTunes?) and plug it in. No discovery service, but it works except for one (the iTunes 'cast).

And yeah, I had AntennaPod on my phone for a while. Switched back to Deezer when I figured out I could fool my 2013 F-150's Microsoft-supplied "SYNC" system to think Deezer was one of its sanctioned apps (Ford and MS dropped support for the apps, but the stubs are there, so you can still use Deezer as a Sync "app." Sorta.).