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Another Decent Music Site,


DennisD

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if you`re looking for something new to listen to, as well as some of the more popular artists and bands.

 

Listen to entire albums or single tracks, also videos. Lots I`ve never heard of, but also looks like the entire catalogue of people like:- Paul Weller, Stereophonics, Josh Ritter, Madness, Rickie Lee Jones and a guy I`ve listened to for years, Nitin Sawney.

 

Worth a look.

 

If you like singer/songwriters, scroll down and listen to "Hello Starling" by Josh Ritter. Simple but well crafted songs.

 

http://gb.v2music.com/site/audiovideo.asp

 

Regards

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Here's some more legit and legal websites to download MP3's, and stream videos:

 

Genres - Metal:

* Century Media Records USA

* Combat Records

* Ferret Music

* Metal Blade Records Europe

* Metal Blade Records USA

* Pagan Records

* Relapse Records/Release Entertainment

* Roadrunner Records

* Roadrunner Records UK

 

 

Genres - All:

* Purevolume.com

* Victory Records (Metal, Alternative)

 

Bands:

* Electric Punishment (Metal)

* Impaled (Death Metal, similar to Carcass)

* Machinae Supremacy (Alternative Metal, Game), get the OGG format they're better quality

* Mysticum (Black Metal)

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Andavari, I love music. That`s gonna keep me busy for some time. Thanks

 

Over the years I`ve listened to an unbelievable amount of dross from CD libraries and such, but occassionally you come upon an absolute gem that you`ve never heard before.

 

Makes it all worthwhile.

 

Regards

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Thanks for the links guys.

 

Andavari, you must be psychic giving me a tamer link.

 

I always listen as I browse through headphones, which are set at a decent level to listen to mostly accoustic music.

 

Your first link took me to a band which redefined the term "LOUD".

 

My ears are still ringing. :o

 

Eldmannen, your "Songbird" link sounds more up my street, although I haven`t tried it yet. Thanks.

 

I`ll give it a try when I can hear again.

 

Regards

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Thanks for the link Andavari.

 

I approached this one cautiously, :P . Great site. Full of artists I`ve never heard of. And I don`t mean that in a sarcastic way.

 

Spend a lot of time listening to different stuff, and if I find one gem out of a dozen rubbish albums, it`s worth the trouble.

 

I used to do all my trying new stuff through my local Library CD section. Time consuming, but still worth the effort.

 

Often stood in a big outlet like Virgin or HMV, and thought that there must be some amazing stuff in here if I could just find it. The internet has brought that possibility a little closer.

 

Regards

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I guess I missed this topic...

 

Anyway there are 2 sites I use almost religiously for music.

 

1. Is napster(don't laugh hear me out)

If you make an account you can listen to any song all the way through for free.(3 time limit) I have listend to whole albums before buying them(never online always at a store. I hate DRM).

http://www.napster.com/index.html

 

 

2. Pandora- This website is the one of my favorites of all time. What you do is you search for an artist that you like and it will play you songs similar to those artists/songs that you searched for. You can create your own radio station, listen to other peoples' with similar taste in music picks, and much more.

http://www.pandora.com/ (if your on dial up don't bother though)

 

With pandora I have widened my horizons greatly. I can't even count how many artists that I've found out that I liked and probably wouldn't have without it.

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The internet has brought that possibility a little closer.

Most of my favourite bands nowadays are solely "Internet bands" that don't have any recording deal and do everything out of pocket, which is a real bummer since they're not as likely to release that much material especially if wanting to do a professional or semi-professional quality recording that doesn't sound aweful quality-wise.

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Your right about the quality side of things Andavari, it is a shame that you can`t listen to your favourite music at best quality.

 

I used to have a thing about buying, or should I say not buying, Albums that were not recorded well. The improvement in recording technology has been astronomical over the last few years.

 

However, I`m more forgiving of bad recordings now. Would miss out on some good stuff if I wasn`t.

 

Of course, it also depends on how much knowledge you have of the people you listen to. If you know the story behind a song, or some good background on the artist or band you listen to, then it adds a whole new dimension to the music, and it compensates for the quality.

 

I`ve been listening recently to some really old recordings. And I mean really old.

 

People like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Simply because I came across something of their history and life story, and I had to have a listen to the songs.

 

This is getting way too serious now, and I`m leaving myself open for some choice comments.

 

Thanks for the links rridgely. Will give them all a try.

 

Off to play taxi for my daughter now.

 

Regards

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And if you don't mind filtering the bands you don't like out Yahoo Launchcast has kept me going for the last few year, havent been back in a while. You get low/med quality for free and if you live in the USA :( you can pay for high quality. Medium isn't bad, and I too have discovered other artists.

 

http://launch.yahoo.com

fireryone

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The improvement in recording technology has been astronomical over the last few years.

I'll take a properly recorded CD from the 1980's over the crap they release today which is so damn loud it's full of clipping. A quick Internet search on clipressed audio in modern recordings (well from the early 1990's till now) will enlighten all who think today's recording technology is so grand - trust me it isn't quality-wise.

 

Some of today's releases are so awful quality-wise due to clipping that some of it actually sounds like a very s***ty mp3 to me.

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I'll take a properly recorded CD from the 1980's over the crap they release today which is so damn loud it's full of clipping.

 

I must confess, I`ve never heard of the term "clipressed", and will check out your link.

 

Been well aware of compression for many years, because it`s been the bane of radio broadcasted Classical music listeners for as long as I care to remember. To alter the dynamic range of any music has always been nothing short of criminal.

 

However, must disagree (respectfully of course), in part about the quality of modern recordings. I`ve a reasonable collection of music, covering a large span of time, and some of the older recordings suffer from things such as, lack of bass presence, percussion that sounds like damp squibs, and probably worst of all, sibilant emphasis, the unbearable nails down the blackboard effect that completely ruined many vocals.

 

Add to that narrow soundstage, lack of depth, poor instrument and vocal separation, and I think I would prefer more recently recorded music to the shortfalls of older stuff.

 

However, when you really start to analyse recorded music, there are so many different influences between the master tape and your sound system, including your choice of equipment, that it all boils down to the simple question, "Do you enjoy what your listening to ?" And in my case, the answer is yes. :)

 

Regards

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However, must disagree (respectfully of course), in part about the quality of modern recordings.

I did mention "properly recorded". As soon as they compress it too much it's ruined in my opinion and I have several audio CD's that are so full of clipping they're very annoying to listen to.

 

There was a demonstration on YouTube that had a nomal 80's style track where you could easily discern different parts of the music - then it was compressed to today's standards an all of a sudden the quality was crap. Ah I found that

.
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There was a demonstration on YouTube that had a nomal 80's style track where you could easily discern different parts of the music - then it was compressed to today's standards an all of a sudden the quality was crap.

 

Must admit, that was interesting, and I have heard that type of lacklustre sound, and put it down to poor engineering technique, or a poor engineer.

 

That effect, I would imagine, is more prevalent, or more noticeable in heavy Metal, or any Rock music. The "pursuit of loudness" evidenced in that video, just seems to be a completely unnecessary tampering, for the sake of itself.

 

It`s wrong that any music can be "doctored" like that, detrimental to the original sound.

 

You just about lose everything I was talking about before. The energy has been sucked out of it. I`m fortunate that the stuff I listen to doesn`t really lend itself to being made louder, but I do have the occasional dip into something heavier, and thankfully,there are still a lot of good recordings.

 

Correct me if I`m wrong, but I would guess that this practice is down to certain companies, and not right through the industry.

 

Regards

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Correct me if I`m wrong, but I would guess that this practice is down to certain companies, and not right through the industry.

Just about any commercial audio CD produced nowadays will be compressed (actually things from the 80's were also compressed to a somewhat sane degree). Of course it's up to the sound engineer (or who ever is telling him/her what to do) with how badly things will get compressed and clipped.

 

Although certain music styles don't lend themselves well to being overly compressed (I'd say all) for the sake of someone who uses a boombox as a listening device. And no it isn't just a problem of Heavy Metal, any Pop CD, R&B, Rap, etc., can also suffer from the same consequences. As a whole it is a recording industry wide problem from major big labels to lesser known smallish labels most people have never heard of.

 

Edit: A simple browsing of the web about clipped audio, loudness race, etc., will result into some rather alarming findings. Don't blame me if it ruins your favourite audio CD you thought sounded fantastic.

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Don't blame me if it ruins your favourite audio CD you thought sounded fantastic.

 

You must have guessed my response, and yes, it does pay sometimes to be left in blissful ignorance.

 

But as I was saying before, so many influences on a recording, you just have to be realistic, and choose a sound system that gets as near as possible to your own preffered sound, quality of the recording not withstanding.

 

And lets be honest, a poor system can cause a lot more damage, for want of a better word, than any compression methods.

 

And no, this knowledge will not spoil my favourite CD. I`ve been into listening for a lot of years, and have changed my system over those years into something that gives me the sound I like. And I have a system now that still knocks me out every time I listen to it. And that`s what it`s really about in the end.

 

But that didn`t mean spending a small fortune, because hi-fi equipment is one of the best examples of diminishing returns there is. And I`ve known guys who have spent lavishly on gear that would fill a stadium with sound, and then wondered why it don`t sound right in their front room.

 

We could go on for ever with this, (and why not), Vinyl over CD, the toyed with idea years ago to introduce video tape for audio recording. This I read at the time would have introduced a new level of quality. I actually recorded a few albums onto video tape, and the sound was good.

 

Only problem was finding what you wanted on a 3 or 4 hour tape. Definitely a non starter.

 

Whats gonna come next ? Who knows, whatever it is, it ain`t gonna match the magic of being in a stadium with the bass vibrating through your body.

 

Regards

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