This is the modern world that I learned about… – The Jam
Back in early February, Amy and I made the leap into the brave new world of MP3dom. We were tired of having over 1000 CDs dominate our living room, watching the dogs knock over piles of CDs, and seeing CDs scattered amongst the living room, office (where I listen on our computer), studio (boombox), bedroom (clock radio/CD player) and both cars. Basically, we were tired of having fairly lousy access to a very good music collection. Granted, it doesnt rank up there with some of the all-time greatest social problems, but it was become more than an annoyance for two die-hard music lovers.
Several months prior, our friend Dave, a recording/mastering engineer of some note, bought an iPod and moved his sizable CD collection to iTunes. He raved and raved some more about it, and said he was now enjoying music more than he had in years. It’s not that I didn’t believe him — Dave is one of my musical gurus — but hanging out in his bar room one night showed just how right he was. We hung out for several hours and an amazing shuffle of Dave & Karen’s collection played the entire time. When he wanted to play something for me, he didn’t go looking through a stack of CDs, he clicked once or twice and dialed it up. This was good. The more I talked to Dave and read about it, the more intrigued I got.
But there were obstacles. First off, I’m a bit of a musical purist. Have you ever seen High Fidelity? I, and most of my friends, could easily be Championship Vinyl employees. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve blown a stack because someone (read, “Amy” — the dogs don’t have opposable thumbs, after all) filed Jason & The Scorchers under “S” instead of “J.” So the idea of moving this (generally) well-organized, tangible collection — and hey, I admit to enjoying when people come over for the first time and say, “wow, you have a lot of CDs” and “I haven’t heard of most of these bands” — to something the size of a pack of cigarettes was a little unnerving.
There was also the issue of (high) fidelity. CDs play at a bitrate of 320bps, but most folks rip their CDs at a much lower rate, somewhere between 128 and 192, in order to fit more CDs onto a player. (If you think the Israelis and the Palestinians have trouble agreeing, you should see the raging debates about bitrates, encoders, and such. There are High Fidelity music geeks and audiophile geeks, and I am absolutely not one of the latter.)
Last, there was the issue of effort. I’m an organized, pragmatic guy, and if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. Before committing to ripping 1000 CDs to MP3 files, you have to decide on your format (MP3, WMA, AAC?), bitrate, ripping/encoding software, naming format, and storage software. You can laugh, but you don’t want to get 312 CDs in only to decide you’ve done something wrong or stupid.
But Dave and other friends (hi Scott) I’d asked in the meantime continued to be enthusiastic. So we made the leap.
It’s heaven! It’s bloody freakin’ heaven! This ranks right up there with motorcycles, marshmallow ice cream topping, Ashley Judd, and the midrange jumper in the pantheon of Things That Make Life Worth Living. A shuffle that brings me the The Clash, OutKast, Ted Leo, Constantines, Lucinda Williams, Miles Davis, The Clash, and Fela in the same hour-long mix makes me downright weepy. I’m rediscovering old records I’d neglected, and enjoying hearing individual songs from records I don’t dig as a whole. It’s crazy how much I love this thing. I am not exaggerating when I say it has revolutionized how I listen to music. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what my pal Dave told me a year ago.
Now, our music collection can go anywhere. Instead of having CD players scattered all over the house, I use the Zen and a small set of speakers: two devices the size of cigarette packs give me access to over 500 CDs (I’m still ripping) no matter where I go. I use it in the gym, in the car, in a box with a fox. I’m in love. The inventors of devices like this should get a special category of Nobel Prize.
I’ve even started to download files instead of buying CDs. As I was ripping CDs, I realized how pointless most of the packaging and artwork is — why most bands can’t use the space to print lyrics instead of fuzzy photos the lead singer took from a camera hidden in his beret on his humanitarian journey to Burundi is beyond me. Why should I pay $15 for a CD when I can download it for $9.99? And then there are services like E-music, where I can download 40 files (approximately four records) for $9.99/month. So far, I’ve used it to download records by Eleventh Dream Day, Glossary, Mission Of Burma, Ted Leo, Dream Syndicate, The Go-Betweens, and The Ponys. No pointless packaging and no more CDs cluttering up my house. And the artists likely get a bigger royalty cut than they would from a CD purchase.
If you’re a music lover and you’re not convinced or are on the fence, give an MP3 player a shot. It’s a brilliant thing.