Linux Format forums

Re: Music Download & Storage

jase — Tue Aug 09, 2011 8:44 am

Author: jase

Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 8:44 am

Many thanks chaps

Re: Music Download & Storage

stuartpalmer — Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:47 pm

Author: stuartpalmer

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:47 pm

If you're looking for MP3s, two sites to check out are jamendo.com and emusic.com.

Jamendo is totally free (and legal) - the stuff on there is a bit esoteric, and only about 0.1% of it is to my taste, but with over 50,000 albums available, free is always worth a look-see.

E-music has a rather restricted catalogue - you won't find many top labels there - and a slightly claustrophobic subscription arrangement, but it's generally only about half the price of main-line download sites.

Re: Music Download & Storage

RedWillow — Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:25 pm

Author: RedWillow

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:25 pm

jase wrote:

How do I then back up tracks I have down loaded from Amazon? I will have them in Banshee, on my iPod but does it also store them in a file on my desktop so I can back then up to a remote hard drive?

RedWillow wrote:

The downloaded mp3 album will appear in your ~/Music folder

The mp3's are not actually "in" Banshee - they're simply added to the Banshee playlists - they're right there sitting in a folder in ~/Music ready to be backed up as many times as you want. I copy them to backup media and also to my NAS device so that I can play them on my network media player as an alternative to playing them in Banshee on my main computer. They're not drm'd - neither are U1 mp3's - so I can copy/play them wherever I want.

Re: Music Download & Storage

jase — Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:03 pm

Author: jase

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:03 pm

Excellent reply RedWillow, many thanks

So, just to check. With Amazon MP3 Store, I can download tracks direct into Banshee and then sync with iPod (I know you don't use an iPod ). How do I then back up tracks I have down loaded from Amazon? I will have them in Banshee, on my iPod but does it also store them in a file on my desktop so I can back then up to a remote hard drive?

Re: Music Download & Storage

RedWillow — Mon Aug 08, 2011 4:39 pm

Author: RedWillow

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 4:39 pm

If you use Banshee in 11.04 to purchase mp3's from the Amazon store, you don't need to sync them to Banshee. The downloaded mp3 album will appear in your ~/Music folder and will also appear in the main pane with the artwork, so you can play it straight away. I'm very impressed with the integration of the Amazon store and Banshee - it's much better, imo, than Amazon's own downloader app (for which you need a hack to get the Ubuntu version to work in anything newer than Karmic).

Ubuntu One Music Store almost as good. The search interface in Banshee is hopeless so I go to 7digital.com's site first in Firefox to see what's available and how much (7digital is the backend to U1 music store, at least in the UK). Having found an album that interests me I then see if I can find it in Banshee - which sometimes needs a bit of search-fu.

Purchased albums are sync'd to your Ubuntu One cloud storage first and then to your local machine, so there's more of a delay than with Amazon to get the mp3's onto your machine. The downloaded mp3's are tucked away in a hidden folder - ~/.ubuntuone - but are automatically added to your Banshee playlists as with Amazon stuff.

My experience overall:

Amazon - easier, usually cheaper, and quicker to get your mitts on the mp3s. Disadvantage - if the download goes wrong you have to email Amazon and ask them to unlock your files for re-download.

Ubuntu One Music Store - it can sometimes take many minutes before your local machine begins to sync with the cloud storage. Sometimes the cloud servers go on a go-slow and you have to come back another day. Advantage - if your download goes wrong, your mp3's are still in the cloud and can be dl'ed from the cloud again. As a last resort, you can log into your U1 account with firefox and download the mp3's manually.

iPod - sorry, I have no experience of iPods, and long that may remain so!

Music Download & Storage

jase — Mon Aug 08, 2011 4:09 pm

Author: jase

Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 4:09 pm

Thinking about music downloads & storage.

Currently on Linux Ubuntu 11.04, with Banshee installed as standard. Banshee also links with Amazon MP3 store. I have all my music on a 120GB Ipod Classic and also stored on my hard drive.

So should I use Amazon MP3 store for all future music purchases, can then sync with Banshee and my iPod?

Anybody used Ubuntu One Music Store? any good?

Later in the year when I upgrade from Blackberry to Android, the plan will be use use Google Music Manager. Still download from Amazon MP3 Store?

Or just forget all this and use Spotify?

What�s everyone else doing?