New decade, end of the CD?

I don't care, honestly.

If the CD's disappear I won't spill a single tear.

The old technologies are dying out, but they won't go extinct  - at least no so soon. If there are turntables and cassette players around, CD players will be too. I have a device to play my CD's, and I will. But it's all digital data - so it doesn't matter if it's a floppy drive, CD, DVD, BluRay (what an annoying name), USB stick, hard disk, digital cassette, zip drive, jazz drive, mini-disk or something else.

Personally, I would like vinyl to prevail because I like it and I think it's charming. If there's no physical copy, only digital data, it even doesn't have to be on my hard disk. It can be nested on some server in Arizona or Poland and streamed on demand, for all I care, as long as it is available and cataloged properly.

Vynil still exists... and even cassettes (but this one has really problems of function, the speed of the revolution and the problems with the tape always makes me mad) so CD will exists as well... the problem with the unphysical media is that now we don't have a standard time in a record, so the concept "Album" is in doubt... we can have an "album" that can last 3 hours or 2 minutes, so it's bad for the musicians, how many music you should bring in a recording...??? but I hate the mp3 and worse the m4a... I love CD's and while I have a good music system with CDs, I'll be fine...

^ I think that minimum lengths in formats make a lot of sense though. For example, movies are typically at least 90 minutes, music albums are typically at least 30 minutes.

I wouldn't be comfortable with calling a 20 minute release of music an "album" ... it's definitely too short. In the other direction it makes less of a difference ... there are movies that take several hours, or albums that take more than 90 minutes.

clarke2001 wrote: jampa17 wrote: the problem with the unphysical media is that now we don't have a standard time in a record, so the concept "Album" is in doubt... we can have an "album" that can last 3 hours or 2 minutes, so it's bad for the musicians, how many music you should bring in a recording...???  I couldn't disagree more. Art should be bounded with imagination, not technical abilities. Whether an artist will compose an entity that is long 5 or 500 minutes, it's artistic freedom. I prefer a certain length, but that's only my preference...which is in many ways imposed upon myself through brain-washing years of "getting used to", but it's purely artificial. In a same way we will frown upon one's consumerism, preference to generic "beats" and "structure" instead of trying to get into more elaborate music, which will most likely be rejected by a pop consumer because it does not sound ordinary, we should also "think outside the box" and admit everything is allowed in art, and should be encouraged. By accepting the wider picture, although we don't have necessarily to like it, we will broaden our own perceptions and consciousness as well.

jampa17 wrote: clarke2001 wrote: jampa17 wrote: the problem with the unphysical media is that now we don't have a standard time in a record, so the concept "Album" is in doubt... we can have an "album" that can last 3 hours or 2 minutes, so it's bad for the musicians, how many music you should bring in a recording...???  I couldn't disagree more. Art should be bounded with imagination, not technical abilities. Whether an artist will compose an entity that is long 5 or 500 minutes, it's artistic freedom. I prefer a certain length, but that's only my preference...which is in many ways imposed upon myself through brain-washing years of "getting used to", but it's purely artificial. In a same way we will frown upon one's consumerism, preference to generic "beats" and "structure" instead of trying to get into more elaborate music, which will most likely be rejected by a pop consumer because it does not sound ordinary, we should also "think outside the box" and admit everything is allowed in art, and should be encouraged. By accepting the wider picture, although we don't have necessarily to like it, we will broaden our own perceptions and consciousness as well.   Well.. I was thinking like a musician... we are planning to record an album in the middle of this year and we have enough material to a 40 minutes production... so for me it's kind of tough to think what is the good amount of music to bring out in your debut CD... don't know... I understand the artistic freedom and we do have short songs about 3 minutes and other of 6+ and links between several songs... but it's still confussing to know or to decide how many music is good enough...

I understand. I was talking from the idealistic point of view. Of course, recording time in a studio could be expensive as hell, as well as releasing of medium (I'm a musician myself).

I'm in a similar situation. We recorded an album - it's about 40 minutes of music. It's not released yet. And now we're not satisfied with one song, and perhaps will throw it out. Which will cut the length to 36. We're wondering if we should record perhaps one or two songs more, but then again, they won't sound the same  in a different studio and different instruments and line-up (we were recording far from home, in Berlin). Now we're unsure what to do...is it a good idea? Is it necessary at all?

My gut feeling is: do what you like (and you can). Some people will like your music, some will not, anyway. Some people prefer shorter albums, some longer ones.

If only money is not an issue!! Oh, what ideas we have! I would like to publish literally an album (like a photo album) - a collection of vinyl singles bidden in a fat book, rather than a LP, or combination of LP and CD in one unit for a double albums or to release an EP on 10 floppy discs...

Oh well, I guess I'd be lucky if anything got released

SaltyJon wrote: Finnforest wrote: It's my last format.  When it goes, I start buying used CDs only.  When they're gone, I find a new hobby.  So NOT interested in downloading and Ipod etc.  I enjoy having my Zune, because it's more convenient to carry with me at college than my entire CD collection, but having the physical product beforehand is important to me, gives it a sense of value that I still can't attach to downloads.  I just hope that I can manage to get all the music I want before CDs disappear if they do (which I hope they don't for a long, long time).

I like my digital music player, too (a Zune as well).  At first I thought it would be just a novelty, but now it's an essential piece of my music listening equipment.  Also like the ability to play videos on it.  Most of the stuff on it is from my CD collection.  I still carry a CD case with me in my truck so I can pull the disc out and read liner notes and enjoy the artwork.  The only thing that would spell the death of CDs for me would be a player that could holographicaly project artwork to either CD or LP size.  I still have a few LPs, over half were ruined by a recent flood.  And I may sound like a broken record (an odd term when you think about it as it meant a scratched one)  in these threads, but I grew up with LPs and other than the artwork, I never cared for the needle noise and scratch vulnerability that came with that format.  Being able to carry around your whole collection on a device the size of a deck of cards is a beautiful thing.  I don't see CDs being phased out in the new decade.  I do wonder if they do eventually get sort of phased out if they'll make a comeback like LPs.  Probably, people are strange.


Edited by Slartibartfast - January 07 2010 at 14:45

Regarding price/availability of component CD players:  go check out Best Buy online (not that I'd buy from them).  They have a total of 11 available, most of which are very low end or really nothing more than novelties.  This tells me there is not much demand for these players any longer.

Henry Plainview wrote: chopper wrote:  There are still some people releasing music on cassette! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8441839.stm That's kind of dumb.

"You can make funny noises with cassettes," says Mr Turner, a lifelong cassette enthusiast. "You can do all sorts of things. It's just cute. Kids love them. And not just kids. I'm 55 and I love them."

okay...

I'm pretty sure there aren't many people who can play an 8-track cartridge these days!

If artists only release material as Mp3 files, or any other kind of cyberspace format, I won't be buying it. I need something physical. I am buying up on CDs while I can, coz I don't know how much longer the format will be mainstream, and not a niche market for collectors.