I am looking for a good site to download music from. The obvious ones like iTunes & Spotify are no use as you cannot actually purchase music from them -you are simply renting it. I have "heard of other people" downloading music from Youtube in the past, but does anyone know if this is still an option, and if so recommend a file to MP3 converter? I use ipod for walking, Carplay for driving, but also use Win based laptops (I've a Chromebook knocking about somewhere too) so these renting music sites are no practical use at all as you cannot move the music about, presumably since you never own it. Once you stop subscribing, all paid music vanishes, presumably until you start renting it again... So its fins an alternative or start buying Cds and coping it across - not the end of the world but perhaps someone here has already perfected a better solution?
Interested to see what answers you get to this, but with regard to format. I have a huge collection of CDs which I like to play in my car when on a long journey. My 65 plate discovery has a CD player luckily. It has a really decent Meridian Fibre Optic system as standard with 14 speakers, a huge Amp under the drivers seat, etc etc, If added to one of the lesser trim variants it was a £9K option. I can upload 10 CDs to the memory, which sound great, but it takes a while to do for each one. I tried ripping CDs to MP3 and playing them via a memory stick plugged into the USB socket, and they sound crap as the top and bottom end is lost, and I've tried streaming from Spotify, but nothing sounds as good as the CDs, if you can even find some of the more obscure stuff I have. Classical just isn't the same. My next car won't have a CD player, but if I go for what I plan it will have an even better sound system. So, will be exploring any options people give you to see what formats they are using.
Ps: it does however mean the mp3 tags are not in place...just a filename. And as your mp3 player needs the tag to allow searching (artist..song.. album..etc) you will need a tag writing software too. I've been using mp3tag for years.
I've convinced myself that MP3 are OK. If you rip your cds to FLAC format, you can then replay them on iTunes as ALAC -iTunes does the conversion. That way you retain the music at high quality and you can use a system to access the music easily. Now you will need a bigger hard drive on your iphone to store it all, or a bigger drive on your Mac book or Windows laptop.. Plus a handful of USB as a back up or to use with a different player system. Or like me you can turn it up louder, with the car window open a bit and convince yourself that it sounds fine. And you might be successful!
the way forward is digital, over a period i copied hundreds of CDs on to macbook with iTunes, and now have two 32GB memory cards in the car, its organised and the artwork comes up on the cockpit thing it takes a while but once on its easy to manage by just drag and dropping, create files and rename with album etc and drag over i also have loaded a load of flac files on them as well and they are better, play Tuesday Morning by the pogues and there is no distortion whatsoever just loud crisp music. i believe tho its a bit pointless getting too anal over sound quality in a car with seats etc and road noise, maybe in roller or a bentley. you can play flac files on an iphone with a VLC player, but really negligible especially if over bluetooth downloads on YT have to be paid for for subscribed to
Though I have heard some people simply do it anyway? I imagine they didn't realise they weren't supposed to do it...
When I recently bought my Alfa Lorry, I found myself with no CD player. As I despise everything Apple and am no way going to pay for music that I already own nor do I want some AI bot telling me what I might like, I needed to get something to play my CDs on. I did a reasonable amount of research and settled on a second hand Astell & Kern AK120 Mark 2 and A&K CD ripper. I have been ripping CDs onto the AK120 (with artwork etc automatically installed by Gracenote) so now have a number of CDs ripped to FLAC on the little machine. Plug into USB in Lorry and it displays on the Telly and can be controlled by the Alfa system. Works for me.
I think you lose access to purchased iTunes songs/ tracks when you stop paying the Apple Music subscription? Its 100% certain that you cannot play songs/tracks you purchased from iTunes on any non Apple equipment. To me this is more akin to renting music than owning it despite "buying" it. Now it does depend on you definition of "buying" and I'm sure in the small print Apple confirm that anyone buying music from them does not own the songs / tracks in the full sense of buying as we know it.
None of those formats allow you to own a copy once you stop paying into their service. I stream music through Spotify, I’m a little lazy as such and just allow it the play whatever it does after I’ve made an initial selection. I’ve pretty much given up listening to radio in my van as I found the playlists too repetitive. I realise that I’m possibly missing out on hearing all of the music within track but as I have tinnitus anyway i’m possibly not missing out on that much.
I dont have any subscription and never have. Subscription only started with apple music which is a streaming service essentially. iTunes has been around for more than a decade. Once files are downloaded onto a pc or mac, am able to put onto cards/stick, burn to disc etc and play anywhere else. File transfer off an ipad or phone is a bit more complicated but is still possible if thats where you hold your files.
Just search youtube to mp3 converter. I used to have several thousand downloads* this way. *different countries have different ‘rights’ protection and laws regarding this. Thing is, a lot of the music I had already owned on vinyl or cd… Due to phone changes and a computer crash I lost a huge back catalogue. Now using spotify
Thats too bad about the tinnitus... Its hard to get really definitive info from Apple re iTunes and Apple Music plus Apple Match and additionally purchases and use elsewhere, all pertaining to whether Apple have sold, licenced or rented the song... Plus technically we never own the songs they remain owned by the writers. Ugh. Searching the web brings every possible answer... I have about 35Gb of music that is my own. I mostly listen to it in the car when I'm not listening to the radio. Apart from odd trips the journeys are not very long and the music could play for weeks and weeks without hearing the same song twice. But then Carplay came into my life and thats the only way to hear my music on the road. I don't want to buy music that I will/ could lose. Hence the desire to download it from a source other than a streaming site, so that there is no issue. I will use iTunes the way I use their word processor and then they will no more have a right to my music than they do my letters & emails! As an interface its pretty handy -perhaps thats because I've got so used to it and can't be bothered to learn another. LOL.
Letting the ‘BOT’/AI suggest new songs is a great way to discover new music - I found if I skip anything I’m not keen on, it soon learns and starts playing new stuff (to me) based on what I’ve alllowed to play. I’m not a fan of a lot of new music (i.e. that which you hear from the radio or the kids bedrooms), so apps like Spotify are great for me to find new stuff I DO like.
I buy my music on iTunes and in the past burnt them onto cd to play in the car. My girl has something she plugs into her cigarette lighter and listens to her iPhone music via that
The last time I used iTunes (on Windows tho') was at least 10 years ago. I set iTunes up so that everything I ripped from CD was saved as MP3, so it was easy to get it all onto another platform when I stopped using iTunes. Can't remember whether anything I 'bought' from iTunes had this option. Still prefer to use my iPod Nano plugged into an amp to listen to the old stuff as the navigation just seems better than all the free phone apps (yes - probably 'cos I only use free stuff!)...