Birthday Present

[securespark]

It will be late this year, but my idea for my BP this year is a good quality MP3/4 player, loaded with some choice tracks.

What brand player would anyone recommend & which sites are best for downloading music? I've been stung by a canadian co. in the past so want to avoid any "dodgy" sites!

Also, Not's thread on 80's music got me thinking. I am trying (from memory) to compile a list of my fave tracks, but it's difficult. You remember, one, then another one pops out of your mind. If anyone wants to jog my memory by suggesting their fave track by bands/ artists from each decade from 50-s - 00's, that would be great.

To get you going, I've got tracks like:

C/S/N - Our House

Lynard Skynard - Sweet Home Alabama

ELO - Evil Woman

Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellites

Kinks - Picture Book

Labi Siffre - Something Inside So Strong

Am I asking too much? Of course, but it's my birthday!!

(Don't look now, but I'm 41 on 10/08/07)

 

[davy_owen_88]

I can't offer any advice regarding MP3 players or download sites. I still use my ancient iPod and if I want music by a band I like then I prefer to buy the CD and rip it to my computer. If I only like one specific song from an album/band then I acquire the CD for free elsewhere *cough*

I had a look through my media player library and chose one song from the bands I particularly like and here they are:

Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Dream Theater - Any song they have ever written *cough*BEST BAND EVER*cough*
Focus - Hocus Pocus
Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench
Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
Guthrie Govan - Fives
Iron Maiden - Run to the Hills
Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien
John Petrucci - Glasgow Kiss
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Muse - Plug in Baby
Paul Gilbert - Muscle Car
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
Racer X - Scarified
Symphony X - Eve of Seduction

If you like more than 3 of those, then you get a gold star for your birthday

 

[poshman]

Ive gone OTT and bought a 30 GB Ipod 7,500 songs and thousands of photos also hours of video which i will never use oh and not forgetting Podcasts ( may need to go to night school to learn how to do that )
I have only downloaded cds on mine and havent explored any sites yet

Its a matter of taste re.. songs so i suppose the list is endless but heres mine from a 57 year old

All you need is love ...... Beatles

honky tonk women... Rolling stones

whisky in the jar.... Thin lizzy

like a rolling stone.. Bob Dylan

tangled up in blue... Bob Dylan

drive in saturday .... David Bowie

dancing in the dark... the Boss !

late in the evening .. Paul Simon

all the young dudes.... Mott the Hoople

magic time... Van Morrison

 

[tim west]

Hoots Mon - Lord Rockingham's XI

 

[FredFlintstone]

Davy,

You seem to have a very similar taste in music to me!

I love a whole range of music but ultimately, anything rock wil get me going.

Joe Satriani - there ain't many people who've heard of him really. He's ace. Banan Mango 2 is awesome too.

G'n'R, Metallica, Iron minden, Black Sabbath. Excellent, especially G'n'R.

Have you heard of Thunder? Fantastic group.

Poshman, nice selection too. Some in there that appear on my playlists.

Secure, as for what MP3 player to buy, the obvious choice is the Ipod. When I got my MP3 I went for a Samsung YP-K5 in the end. The reason I didn't go for an Ipod is because as much as i like my own music, I also like listening to the radio and Ipods don't have a radio built in (although you can buy an FM tuner add on). Also, the Samsung has a built in speaker which is surprisingly powerful although does make it bulkier due to the speaker.

TBH, I wish I'd gone for an Ipod NANO now. There is a distinct lack of additional accessories for anything that ain't an Ipod. The Samsung also has a few nigges. The touch screen annoys the hell outta me because I've got big fingers and also you can't charge it and listen to it at the same time! How daft. I should've got an Ipod and bought the FM tuner add on and some plug in speakers.

Regards

Fred

 

[Deluks]

Ive gone OTT and bought a 30 GB Ipod

Is your son friends with that smarmy little fat kid in the Werthers Original ads?

 

[Steve]

securespark, I do like Itunes. It allows you to copy songs to a MP3 player (of any description, but it prefers Ipods.) It lets you burn CDs for in car listening. You can create playlists, and the program has its own built in music store which it signs into when you load Itunes. Billing is done automatically (per day when you buy songs), but you can set up preferences regarding this. Songs are 79p each, albums normally £7.99. You can purchase album-only tracks (which you cant do in HMV!)

When you get a new computer, you have to de-authorise the old itunes, and authorise the new computer's itunes player. But you can authorise up to 4 computers at once. This is handy if you have several computers, as long as you dont mind them buying songs on your debit card!!!

The only bad thing about itunes is the format of the songs is ¿M4A? or similar, which some MP3 players wont recognise.

 

[securespark]

Thanks guys!

Crafty - can you save Itunes tracks as another format or not?

 

[Adam_151]

Thanks guys!

Crafty - can you save Itunes tracks as another format or not?

I think the ones you download from the Itunes store are stuck in the itunes format (unless you cheat!). but itunes will work perfectly well with mp3 tracks (this is how I use it, I rip tracks from CDs into MP3 [use a program called cdex to do it] and play these in Itunes and transfer them onto my ipod

 

[gcol]

I bought one of these a few months back http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Ze...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1186400820&sr=1-24

with a set of these headphones
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-La...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1186400820&sr=1-14

Had to send the first one back cause it died on day 1, but the replacement is fine and with the other headphones sounds superb.

 

[Richardp]

I got the new ipod 80GB for my birthday
and this is my collection so far.
Janis Joplin.........................................Mercedes Benz
The Orb.............................................Little fluffy clouds
Lou Reed...........................................perfect day
Dire Straits........................................money for nothing
Ian Van Dahl.....................................castles in the sky
Coldplay............................................the scientist
Frank Sinatra.....................................my way
Sid Vicious.........................................my way
ABBA................................................danceing queen
Johnny Nash
Paul Simon
Bob Dylan
The Incredible String Band
Van Morrison
Dion & The Belmonts
Prince & The Revolution
Elvis Presley
Shane MacGowan & The Popes
John Mayall
James Taylor

 

[Deluks]

Music collections get increasingly varied as we get older. Out of interest what 'were' you as a teenager. Mod, skin, teddy boy, punk, all of the above??

 

[Richardp]

I thought I was a Mod but looking back probably a beatnik.

 

[Hysteresis]

There is a site www.alltunes.com which is actually Russian based and is totally compatible with iTunes. The music availability is incredible and is updated daily. Just about any Albums are available for around about £1 and if you want, only individual tracks can be downloaded for about 10p. I believe the site is totally legitimate. Their library must have every track ever recorded since 1066. There is a problem paying as they do not accept visa, but it can be done using a third party www.xrost.biz where you buy i-card pin and i-card claim numbers. Now that is what I call cheap legitimate music.

 

[ellal]

Regarding the player, I'd recommend the Creative Vision M...either 30gb or 60gb