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Post by eusebios on Oct 8, 2021 18:09:01 GMT -5
I'm interested in hearing about people's preferences with regards to music release formats!
I've been thinking about it a lot lately - for background, I find that I have a "collector's mindset" that leads me to develop strong preferences for buying/owning music. With self-awareness I don't tend to take them particularly seriously (in that I recognize their essentially capricious and arbitrary nature), yet I find myself almost religiously adhering to those preferences. For example, I am only interested in buying/owning thrash/death metal on original pressing vinyl or digitally, no in-between. For first wave/traditional/nwobhm stuff I want cassette or digital only. For DS, ambient, and black releases I was trying for a long time to adhere to a "digitial only" collection, but the allure of physical media was too strong. I had a negative reaction to the tendency (as I perceived it) of the scene to focus on/favor limited cassette releases for a couple reasons - I don't like how quickly cassettes wear out (learned through unhappy experience with my previous collections), I don't like how portable cassette players sound (which limits the convenience factor of enjoying the music outside of my living room), and I felt like the cassette focus seemed too self-consciously "retro". That last personal reaction was the most interesting to me, as my desire for a physical collection is itself anachronistic, and the draw of CDs was at least in part (aside from the form factor conveniences of being easy to store in comparison to vinyl and tape, relatively durable in comparison to vinyl and tape, and sounding reasonably good on a portable player) precisely because I'd always overlooked buying CDs (as the record collector in me always thought of them as vaguely "inauthentic" and "pedestrian") - that the format now possesses it's own nostalgia that inheres in memories of buying boxed computer games in the 1990s adds another layer.
This is extremely meandering - I don't mean to denigrate cassette, I think it's fine cool and good, I've just noticed a tension between my desire to collect, my self-imposed preferences about what to collect, and the availability of a given release on my preferred format.
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Post by Daytol on Oct 8, 2021 22:41:35 GMT -5
There's a lot of factors involved, I think.
For instance, I'm 52 years old and grew up on physical media. Unlike you (heh), I prefer cds. Never had a big vinyl album collection and, like you said, tapes wear out. At least the good thing about places like Bandcamp is that usually when you buy a physical product like a cassette you'll get a digital copy of an album, so that can save on the wear and tear of tapes.
For me it's either cds or digital, which it's probably going to be the latter for the most part, as it seems to me not many dungeon synth artists release cds. I haven't bought a cassette in about 30 years and pretty much the only time I see myself buying an actual tape is if I'm at a concert and I'll get one so the artist can autograph it (as long as the inlay card isn't black!).
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Post by thekeeper on Oct 9, 2021 2:51:10 GMT -5
Always interesting to hear people's opinions and preferences with this stuff since everyone has some sort of path they go on and it always evolves in different ways. At the moment, I'm really only buying CDs of things I think are must-haves (or if I would buy the digital anyway but the CD is only a few bucks higher) and digital for the majority of things I care to download but don't feel the need to have a more archival copy on the shelf. These days I'm listening to a lot more music in the car than anywhere else, either from my phone via bluetooth or CDs. CDs always sound cleaner to me since they're not streamed and they're not contingent on any connection or service I have. I can be out in the middle woods and still playing a CD while driving (often the case).
I used to have a very big DS tape collection but I've pared my entire collection down to 200 tapes in total (for all genres). At one point it got to be too much shelving and I would say the majority of them I played from bandcamp or something anyway. I don't get a whole lot anymore from the whole "putting on physical media" experience, but I still really appreciate physical art and it is nice to look through a CD booklet or tape j-card, read lyrics, stuff like that. I've also sold the majority of my vinyl since I just don't listen to it. Rarely by tapes anymore unless it's like from a friend of mine. I did get a somewhat high-end mp3 player so I can load it up with all of my digital collection. Been a long process of getting all the id3 tags sorted out.
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Post by windgeist on Oct 9, 2021 3:50:56 GMT -5
I own a huge CD collection, some vinyl and just started collecting a few tapes. I don't buy as much physical media anymore as I did when I was younger. I try to just get stuff I really like a lot. when it comes to my listening behaviour, I almost never listen to music from a physical medium. Even back in the day before things like bandcamp, I just listened to a new cd once or twice before ripping it and putting it into a shelf. For me collecting is much more about owning a physical representation of music I like. Owning something that I can actually touch feels so much more satisfying then just getting a new item for my digital bandcamp catalogue. Buying a digital album is more loke making a tip for a musican you like.
This said, I have really no strong preference for one physical format. If I really like the coverart of an album I usaly want it on vinyl. Tapes are a new thing to me but I think I like their vintage aestethics as well as their compact size. It feels good to hold one in the hand. Furthermore do I think that their rectangular shape allows a few interesting choices for cover design.
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Post by crystallogic13 on Oct 9, 2021 10:47:54 GMT -5
I started way way back in childhood with tapes, Seventh Son was my first one, got a nice little collection of classics of the era, while also acquiring some vinyls for my LP tiny collection, again from classics... Around 1995 or 94 we got our first CD player so that was the line where I almost stopped from then on vinyls and tapes and only got CDs (up to this day, I prefer CDs for the many obvious reasons of being easier to listen,rip,harder to damage,easier to change songs and all quality of life improvements it brought if you lived through the previous techs.. Around 2000 I got a modern PC (after being with an outdated 386 for years) and then along with the new pc we got a 56k modem and dial-up at the ending era of napster.. Still, digital, even in low quality back then seemed GREAT to me since I love to have custom playlists in Winamp and also do not lose time listening songs (which you do in physical of course) and again, digital really upped the ante for Quality of Life improvements.. Years passed and mp3s were later more higher quality, faster DSL lines, also FLAC for archiving and I actually never looked back.. Digital and only digital for actual listening, but even these days I still get CDs from beloved favorites from time to time to build a "favorite masterpieces" collection (many genres).. Also still have my small collection of tapes and vinyls but I never listen to them, as with CDs, I just listen to them digitally but enjoy just looking at them, haha One of the most important things if someone goes digital, is good archiving. Well, even without going digital you have to be organised in physical collections, but in digital it really pays off when collections grow a lot with a favorite genre (as with Dungeon Synth).. I won't go at this time to the full workflow of listening and catching all my favorites in the DS genre, but I will tell the result I have written elsewhere : having a main favorite playlist (+ more) with more than 5000 songs, listening to it on Winamp with RANDOM SHUFFLE and In/Out Fadeout really really is like an adventure in itself, great favorite songs I liked and marked one by one, it's not coincidence I've named the playlist "Campaign" .. In the end though, it's all a matter of personal preference, but if you don't have great memory, lots of free time and a huge wallet, digital certainly can help make your life easier in all of the previous.. Just my 2 c.
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Post by mahrgdidj on Oct 11, 2021 12:24:35 GMT -5
Yup, I’m almost exclusively digital. Don’t own a tape player but I’ve picked up a few cassettes from favorite artists as a souvenir. I’ll still pick up vinyl too for the artwork, but I so rarely have the opportunity to sit and enjoy the experience, I’d rather have the music available in my pocket at all times. At least with Dungeon Synth I also appreciate the bandcamp experience, leaving a tip is a good way to put it. Also nice to be able to drop a review for instant feedback.
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Post by matt on Oct 11, 2021 16:16:15 GMT -5
I was born in 1977 and directly associate dungeon synth with the 80s and early 90s when I was listening to tapes, playing CRPGs, and reading AD&D books. The activity of listening to DS feels the best when it's coming from my cassette player. Preferred format is cassette w/digital code for archiving and cloud streaming.
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Post by disgustingcathedral on Oct 12, 2021 4:47:06 GMT -5
Cassette, but I never actually buy any DS cassettes because I already have toooo many Noise cassettes, boxes and boxes of them I have nowhere to even put out on shelves
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Post by mahrgdidj on Oct 12, 2021 7:36:40 GMT -5
How do folks feel about the potential for expanded digital content? I like how the bandcamp app is set up to display the lyrics next to the track that’s playing, I’ve seen some DS artists use that space to fill in details of the story (the latest Umbría does this really well). Or Desolation Plains did that whole app game with their album, that’s some real outside the box stuff. Where else could this go? Like a folder with Dungeon Synth desktop backgrounds? Would anybody pay for a special edition Mahr G’Didj screensaver?
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Post by Daytol on Oct 12, 2021 13:10:04 GMT -5
How do folks feel about the potential for expanded digital content? I like how the bandcamp app is set up to display the lyrics next to the track that’s playing, I’ve seen some DS artists use that space to fill in details of the story (the latest Umbría does this really well). I've always felt that's good, always looked forward to lyrics being printed in the inlay stuff with cassettes, albums and cds. Some people could care less about printed lyrics even back during the days of physical media (I'd heard an interview with REM once on the radio where one of the members said they lost respect for groups that had lyrics printed in an album insert; whatever) but I think that's in the minority. If you don't want 'em there's no point in hovering your mouse over their Bandcamp page and clicking. Would anybody pay for a special edition Mahr G’Didj screensaver? Probably! That's a cool idea!
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shalashaska
Squire
Croeso! Shalashaska dw i a dw i'n mwynhau dungeon synth.
Posts: 79
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Post by shalashaska on Oct 15, 2021 12:41:44 GMT -5
I love cassettes personally. I've never bought a dungeon synth CD but I certainly wouldn't be opposed to it, particularly if the music benifited from the clarity of the digital format.
As always, a digital release is a must! There's no way I could afford to buy everything I want physically.
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Post by Daytol on Oct 15, 2021 13:24:31 GMT -5
^Especially if it originates from a different country from yours. If it's far enough away shipping's a fortune.
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