Thinking about (GASP) going digital with my music collection

I have been a naysayer about this for years, like an old fuddy-duddy, but I am ready to let the physical CD collection (with the very small exception of a couple of bands) go the way of the dinosaur. Besides, I'm finding all kinds of good stuff on artists' bandcamp pages, which I am finding more convenient.

For those who follow this model, what do you do for backups just in case the inevitable happens (aka computer viruses, etc)? Right now, I'm putting my music on my mp3 player, and I'm also intending to get some flash drives to hold the files.

Um... please consider me if/when you begin to sell/give away your physical collection 

I was just talking about this on Facebook with Dean Stibbs...

Call me paranoid, but, ever since the great hard drive crash of 2002, I now own 4 externals: 1TB, a 1.5TB, and two 500GB, also 2 portables: a 750GB and a 1TB.
Each one contains either my complete or most treasured of my music collection (which is currently at around 650GB total). 
I have 2 externals at home, 2 small portables that I carry with me everywhere, 1 that stays at work, and 1 in the safe.
Again, call me paranoid, but I lost a bunch of stuff in 2002 - that's when I learned you can never have too many backups of your music.
I also took the time to make CD-Rs of about 500+ albums that I keep in my truck.

Also, be aware the when you tire of that new Lady GaGa download there is NO "Used MP3 Store" to trade it off to. 

Once you go all digital, you're stuck with it all, even the crap. I have no problem with digital I have a lot myself, but NO WAY would I go all digital.

2 years ago I ordered a Sha-Na-Na "album" from iTunes. It was a "new" line up that I wasn't aware of. Listened to it ONE TIME and never again. If it had been a CD I could have traded it off but now I am stuck with it.

The files I do have are on an external 500 gig hard drive.

I could see going digital.  It is getting harder to find a new computer with a CD/DVD ROM drive.  Oh, I know you can add one, but really who wants to have to buy a new machine just to have to retrofit it to your standards?  Regardless, when this change happens, why buy CDs?  Sure, I can play them in my truck, but I use my MP3 player mostly now.  I just have the CDs for backups.  The day could come when I would have no way to use those discs as backups.

Well, nostalgia is BIG business. The only "past" form of physical-music-delivery that has not been resurrected is the 8-Track (thank God !) [and and perhaps Reel to reel, but that was never really a musical thing per se].

Records, tapes, and CDs all have nostalgic leanings. I did the whole "digital only" thing a few years ago, with great success.

1. I had to purchase extra digital storage so I wouldn't lose any of the albums I paid so much for. Thus the reason I have so many external HDD in so many locations. A friend once told me she lost hundreds of dollars worth of music cuz she stored her entire digital-only collection on ONE computer ! We had a long talk, trust me !

2. There is an ethical issue (as another thread here has covered)- If you were to rip all your CDs to a digital format, the "letter of the law" says you need to keep those CDs in storage. Otherwise if you sell or even give away those CDs, you are suppose to erase the digital copy off your hard drive. (I do not subscribe to this issue personally, but that's just me)

3. Depending on how strong your nostalgic portion of your brain is, you will grow to miss the feeling of the album, the smell, the lyrics/credit sheet, cover art, and depending on your "ear" for music-you will miss the raw sound of an original album uncompressed.

After several years of digital-only, I became nostalgic and (though I still had some vinyl) I began re-collecting everything and more. 

So, I gave the whole digital-only thing a try, but being the nostalgic person I am, it only lasted a few short years.

I went digital two years ago. I won't get rid of the discs, I just put them away. Since almost all of my listening is on my smartphone,  I keep an extra sd card, as well as the computer, and a cloud storage. Who'da ever thought we would see phones that can hold 128Gb.

I am intending to buy flash drives as backups. So if my puter ever gets infected, or I get another one, I'll just transfer them from the flash drives back onto the new hard drive.

Also, I have a philips GoGear 8 MB MP3 player. But the jack that plugs into it is not a USB, and so I am curious if cigarette lighter adapter exists for that particular model so I could play it in the truck. Can anyone help me out here?

I have all my digital music stored on an 1Tb external hard drive.  I also have them backed up in DVDrs, but I think I am going to can the DVDr and use flash drives for my back up.

Samson wrote:

I am intending to buy flash drives as backups. So if my puter ever gets infected, or I get another one, I'll just transfer them from the flash drives back onto the new hard drive.

You must have a small coollection.

Anyway, if you're using flash drives I'd make at least 3 copies as they are not as robust as hard drives.

I'm pretty much all digital but keep the CD of the stuff I really listen to.

I agree on the use of Flash Drives. I've had a few die on me in the past, so I try to never store important stuff on thumb drives for a long period of time. Also had a powered 500GB HDD kick the bucket, as well as an early 250GB and a later 500GB travel storage conk out on me. Still have them just in case some day there's a way to resurrect them. Hard to just take a hammer to them and throw em in the trash. I always think, there's gotta be something that can revive them somehow, someday.

So if you go thru with this 100% digital only, make sure you have multiple backups. Unless the majority of your purchases are from iTunes - (sorry Alldat, I had to mention the "i" word) they will let you go back and re-download your albums years later.

Itunes? Really?

Tell me more. Do you have to have an Ipod to use Itunes? Because my player is a really ancient Phillips 8MB from like 2006.

Also wondering if they will have music that I'm interested in.

No, you can use almost any MP3 player with iTunes except for the Microsoft Zune.  Yes, I bought a Zune.  Actually, I now have three.  The Microsoft software and the iTunes interface used to crash the computer when opened at the same time.  So, I just don't use it.  Most of the stuff on iTunes I want is also available through other sites like Amazon, so I just get it there instead.

You have many options for this digital age, as Alldat pointed out, Zune is an excellent player, but has some limitations (however, those limitations can be overcome with some tweaking of iTunes settings or a free program. You can tell your iTunes to download in .mp3 format rather than .mpeg4 AAC .  Also, I have a great free program that converts  batch files of WMA, mp4, WAV, etc over to .mp3 -which is the preferred format for compressed music storage [320kbps is best for great sound without taking up all the space that Lossless files take]). 
Early on, I couldn't tell much difference between a song played from the source, and a compressed mp3. My "ear" has apparently gotten better over the years cuz now I hear a noticeable difference, and prefer to play my original cds over a ripped mp3.... anyday !

Oh and as for your question: Yes, iTunes is fantastic for hanging on to your music collection you purchased from THEM. My wife couldn't find an album she bought on her previous iPhone, came to me upset saying she thinks she lost that album for good when she traded in the iPhone for a Samsung Note 2 phone. I showed her how to authorize her phone for a iTunes account, where to go in iTunes to find EVERY album or song she's ever purchased, and download the same albums. She was able to re-download an album she bought over a year ago and add it to her new Android phone.
So for all the flack iTunes gets (and there's ample reasons to trash iTunes - very quirky program that I don't prefer, but still use)... it's nice to know they keep every album you purchase for future downloads on an authorized computer of phone.

All of my digital music is on my iPod. I also have Amazon immediately import my songs to iTunes when I download them so they are on both Amazon Player and my Music in iTunes. My prob is 32 gigs fills up fast! I still play CD's in the truck on occasion but most of the time it's my iPod. 

Still trying to figure out how to hook up my turntable in my truck 

Here you go: 

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

You have many options for this digital age, as Alldat pointed out, Zune is an excellent player, but has some limitations (however, those limitations can be overcome with some tweaking of iTunes settings or a free program. You can tell your iTunes to download in .mp3 format rather than .mpeg4 AAC .  Also, I have a great free program that converts  batch files of WMA, mp4, WAV, etc over to .mp3 -which is the preferred format for compressed music storage [320kbps is best for great sound without taking up all the space that Lossless files take]). 
Early on, I couldn't tell much difference between a song played from the source, and a compressed mp3. My "ear" has apparently gotten better over the years cuz now I hear a noticeable difference, and prefer to play my original cds over a ripped mp3.... anyday !

Oh and as for your question: Yes, iTunes is fantastic for hanging on to your music collection you purchased from THEM. My wife couldn't find an album she bought on her previous iPhone, came to me upset saying she thinks she lost that album for good when she traded in the iPhone for a Samsung Note 2 phone. I showed her how to authorize her phone for a iTunes account, where to go in iTunes to find EVERY album or song she's ever purchased, and download the same albums. She was able to re-download an album she bought over a year ago and add it to her new Android phone.
So for all the flack iTunes gets (and there's ample reasons to trash iTunes - very quirky program that I don't prefer, but still use)... it's nice to know they keep every album you purchase for future downloads on an authorized computer of phone.

Amazon also has a digital library. I've re-downloaded stuff I purchased.

Very cool ^

I wasn't sure about amazon as I've never bought digital only from amazon. We rent movies off amazon and any music I buy is always used CDs.
That's good to know though !

ishmael81 wrote:

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

You have many options for this digital age, as Alldat pointed out, Zune is an excellent player, but has some limitations (however, those limitations can be overcome with some tweaking of iTunes settings or a free program. You can tell your iTunes to download in .mp3 format rather than .mpeg4 AAC .  Also, I have a great free program that converts  batch files of WMA, mp4, WAV, etc over to .mp3 -which is the preferred format for compressed music storage [320kbps is best for great sound without taking up all the space that Lossless files take]). 
Early on, I couldn't tell much difference between a song played from the source, and a compressed mp3. My "ear" has apparently gotten better over the years cuz now I hear a noticeable difference, and prefer to play my original cds over a ripped mp3.... anyday !

Oh and as for your question: Yes, iTunes is fantastic for hanging on to your music collection you purchased from THEM. My wife couldn't find an album she bought on her previous iPhone, came to me upset saying she thinks she lost that album for good when she traded in the iPhone for a Samsung Note 2 phone. I showed her how to authorize her phone for a iTunes account, where to go in iTunes to find EVERY album or song she's ever purchased, and download the same albums. She was able to re-download an album she bought over a year ago and add it to her new Android phone.
So for all the flack iTunes gets (and there's ample reasons to trash iTunes - very quirky program that I don't prefer, but still use)... it's nice to know they keep every album you purchase for future downloads on an authorized computer of phone.

Amazon also has a digital library. I've re-downloaded stuff I purchased.

I have done the same with older Amazon purchases as well.  You can also load some of your ripped music to Amazon, but with limited storage....they are supposed to keep everything you have downloaded from them for you regardless of storage space.

I went digital years ago out of necessity. My music collection plus my wife's collection plus the kids VHS tapes just took up too much room.

Now it's mostly all stored on hard drives. But what bothers me is that hard drives might go bad or God forbid a house fire.

What's the alternative?
Duplicate everything on even more hard drives and then store them offsite?
Pay for Cloud service?

Hmmmm.......

I'm basically all digital.  I use Amazon and pay the $25 a year for the 250,000 song cloud service.  I like having an offsite storage solution, plus it allows me to stream the music or download it to my phone/tablet.  Amazon does have a limitation on formats it allows (basically mp3 only, no FLAC or .wma or AAC), but almost all of what I have is mp3 anyway.  Yes, it does store all of your purchases from Amazon and excludes those from your limit.  The uploading interface is really a pain because you have to download a stand alone program that uses Adobe Air to upload.  I don't understand why they can't just do a direct upload, drag-and-drop, or even map to folder on your hard drive like other cloud services like Onedrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive.

That's one reason we dumped our iPhones in place of Galaxy 3s Android OS = SO much easier. 
With iPhone/iTunes you have to have a degree in computer programming to figure out media transfer to and from your phone (I exaggerate obviously - but it has made for many frustrating moments) - compared to the simple "drag and drop" Android phones. Made my life much easier.