The procurement of music

A (strange) part of me is interested to know about WATMM's music procurement habits.

Some months I end up spending too much on CDs, vinyl and occasionally downloads. I still prefer physical media, and I only seem to download podcasts or "free" bandcamp releases and stuff. I guess its down to my laptop being pretty crap, and my soundsystem being pretty decent - music sounds better on vinyl / CD so thats where I prefer to listen to it.

I sometimes go on purchasing "binges" - buy a raft of new releases, go a bit mad on ebay, scour charity shops etc... it is always music I enjoy but not always necessarily music I need. This sometimes occurs when I actually really can't afford to.

Note:- wanted to create an anonymous poll here to see how much people spend on music vs. how much people "illegally" acquire, and how high a % this is of peoples expendable income. Just out of sheer curiosity really. Can't find the option to create a poll - it used to be pretty obvious.

*edit*
FML wrong forum

Is this where you wanted it?

If you edit your post (use the full editor) then the poll manager should be in the upper right corner

Physical media for me, very rarely pay for digital files but can go digital if it's free. This of course is when I have some cash to spare. Which isn't often. But when I do, I splooge on stuff I wanted and stuff I just happen to find when I have cash burning in the pocket. Bought from online shops, my towns stores rarely have the stuff I am after and if it is available, it often cheaper to just order online.

Research using youtube, amazon samples, allmusic, etc.

CD's only, no digital download unless it's offered for free.

Same as above. I buy CDs, and pick up some free releases here and there. Paying just for a bunch of files feels weird to me.

I don't have much but spend most of what I have on vinyl/cd's/digital downloads. About a year ago I started buying a lot of Clone, Creme Org / Bunker releases (and trying to keep up with every Legowelt release), some of which were just not worth it, so that made me more conscious of what to buy. After that I had to set a no-vinyl/cd-buying rule for myself a few months ago to save up some money but I just couldn't resist when walking past some record shops. This years amount of great releases in every genre didn't make it easier as well, I've never bought as much music as this year I think...

I really didn't want to start with digital, but after the Rephlex shop opened I begin to see it more as a sort of donation and a payment for getting albums the easier way (instead of what.cd or slsk hassle), I really like bandcamp to support new/upcoming artists, and that's pretty much the only online platform I spend money on. Since this year I've been hardly downloading illegally because of the massive amounts of releases bought legally.

I just bought some Stingray 313 tracks from surus (NKKK4 2 is lovely). I spend loads of money on vinyl, and I think about 30% of it is shit I really regret buying. Also poured a lot of money in beatport back in the day. Now I'm just broke lol.

Yeah buying new release vinyl is murder on the wallet. That's pretty much off-limits to me, but I do buy a ton of CDs. Keeping it (mostly) to what I can find locally, and avoiding buying singles (both 12"s and digital singles) keeps the spending somewhat sane.

I will buy whatever the artist has on offer if I like them, when I can afford it of course. I do lots of youtubing to listen to things I am interested in and I might browse through bandcamp and see what's going on there. I'm noticing that lots of people don't seem to like paying for just digital files. I'm curious to know whether they would if there was artist whose release you liked but it was only digital, would they buy it or would they just find it somewhere else for free.

I don't mind buying digital, if it's FLAC, and i'm arsed to buy it. I'm just so used to just download stuff for free .. yarr

Years ago when Boomklart first came about, I used to scan it on a daily basis.. rarely would a couple of days go by without me ordering records/CDs from there. Same with Norman, Juno... you get the idea. I was selective - I wouldn't buy just anything and everything - but this was during my DJing days, when I found it hard to resist, thinking 'I could use that in a set' but never actually doing so most of the time. I do look back on a chunk of my collection from that era and think 'probably could've done without that, that, that (etc)', but hey.. c'est la vie.

I can't remember the last time I had a huge spending spree, which is probably a good thing. I still buy records, but nowhere near the amount I used to... have you seen the cost of them lately? I took a browse through the racks in a local store the other week, good luck trying to find new LPs for anything less than fifteen quid (£) nowadays. New/reissue Boards of Canada excitement aside, I struggle to go too mad with the spends.

CDs have come back into favour for me more than anything. Yes, they instantly get ripped to FLAC as soon as the plastic wrapping is torn away, but I still like having them around as a very last resort backup. That doesn't mean I won't buy digital, but again it has to be FLAC format or I'm not interested (unless something is really good and just unavailable in FLAC, which I'll make a rare exception for).

And I can always be swung by a nice tape or two every now and then. Always loved the format, always got some pennies tucked away for when a smart-looking tape is released.

vinyl and bandcamp basically. I kind of gave up on downloading music, as I don't have the patience for filestube anymore, and my What.cd ratio is permashot since I don't upload new releases ever. I pretty much just use what.cd or slsk if I am desperate for something that is impossible to buy direct from the artist or on vinyl/tape.

  On 11/15/2013 at 9:55 AM, feltcher said:

I sometimes go on purchasing "binges" - buy a raft of new releases, go a bit mad on ebay, scour charity shops etc... it is always music I enjoy but not always necessarily music I need. This sometimes occurs when I actually really can't afford to.

What do you mean by "music you need"? I'm doubtful such a thing even exists. Other than that I can relate, there are some subtle addiction-like traits in my record buying behavior, but nothing extreme.

I like physical releases too and that's pretty much cured me of my completist leecher phase that I had when I was a poor student. That ended around the time I registered here, actually. If something is available at a reasonable price I never download it before buying anymore, but I do stuff like downloading FLACs of a digital source for releases I bought on vinyl all the time. For real rarities like I don't know, AB5 or something, I say fuck it and gimme the files though.

Come to think of it, it sounds like a good thing that I don't fill my days with listening to music I didn't pay for anymore, but on the other hand it's turned me into more of an uploader than a downloader. Whoops.

I like formats in general, they're all pretty good.

A few years back, I used to buy 5+ albums a week, stocking up on all the 'classic' hip hop records from the 80s/90s.

I seem to collate more music than I can listen to in one time. I could often be hooked to a certain genre or sound for a week or so and still be going through a batch of releases. Then, I'll try something different and it will inspire another sound binge and I find that the albums I was listening to the week before weren't given enough time!

Now, I try and trim my buying and listening habits down to a few albums of the same ilk so I can tend to them more than I would.

The last physicals I bought were from Sister Rays about 3 weeks ago and I bought the new NRSB-11 and Dopplereffekt LP/EP

Doing Christmas shopping for everyone and I feel like in the coming weeks I'll spend more money on myself for music than anyone else's presents haha!

I buy FLAC/WAV from download sites (BLEEP, Juno, Bandcamp, Planet Mu, etc.) and if a particular release isn't available as FLAC/WAV I will buy a CD and rip the audio using EAC, selling the CD soon after. Some music is exclusive to vinyl and cassette as well so I have quite a few of those lying around waiting to be ripped to my HDD (I don't have the means to do that yet). My digital collection is organized to my specifications, is backed up on several externals and is light years more convenient than putting on records or CDs to listen to. I can empathize with those who value the fetish of the items over pure convenience, but if my music collection were physical (with the amount that I have now) it would take up the entirety of a small room and it continues to grow week by week.

I'm a lot like Sweguno above - only I still buy physical stuff constantly. I used to be a snob about formats more, and I'd only buy vinyl and cassettes for personal listening reasons. I downloaded everything else, because it's so easy to. As of January 2012, I resolved to never illegally download anything again, unless it was already in my paid-for collection and I was simply downloading it for the convenience of not having to rip it myself. Since making that change, I've since picked up TONS more CDs and CD-Rs, and I actually quite like that format again, if only for the ratio of cost to music runtime. It also doesn't help that I got way way into big band and early jazz music in the last couple of years, and tons of that stuff is widely and cheaply available on CDs...so I find myself going on binges in used CD shops a whole lot now.

Anyway, as much as I love sitting down with vinyl or playing a tape, I too have succumbed to the modern age (having a toddler to deal with makes this easier) so my physical collection is *exactly* and *meticulously* mirrored in digital form on external drives. Looking to buy a cloud server for the house soon, so I can access all my stuff via all of our computers, tablets, smartphones, video game consoles and my Grace digital internet radio box. That's gonna make everything super nice and easy.

I don't buy physical formats anymore (or at least I haven't for 2+ years), dunno what the point would be for me - I move (house) a lot, play all my music from a central stereo hooked to my PC at home, and I like the mobility of digital files, as well as the price. I mostly buy bandcamp releases from musicians I can contact and thank directly. Feels good man.

Slowly selling my old vinyl collection but it's mostly doom metal, soz wattm.

My voracious downloading binges ended gradually (couple HD failures helped) but streaming options were the nail in the coffin.

I only buy tapes, vinyl on occasion, merch like shirts...and I pay for shows/DJ sets of artists I really when they come in town. I used to buy CDs in high school but now with vinyl and tape coming back I don't unless the artwork and digipak are neat and/or its the only option. I really liked my copy of Cosmogramma for example.

My budget is so tight that I have a "wish list" currently. I plan to eventually buy and trade my vinyl and cassette collection (and stereo equipment) so I can keep my collection in flux and have money for new releases.

I live within 20 miles of a great record store and they get the goods in every week. So, I stick to buying shit from them and if they don't have something in stock that i can't live without then i'll just purchase it online. Occasionally I'll buy the digital version if I can't get it locally or don't want to wait.

  On 11/18/2013 at 3:24 AM, luke viia said:

Slowly selling my old vinyl collection but it's mostly doom metal, soz wattm.

Lots of doom fans on the wattm! What you sellin'?

Think I still have some Sleep, just sold my Boris + Merzbow 3lp... looking at my stack I can see a lot more garage rock and psych/noise than doom actually, guess I sold most of that stuff to friends already, sheesh (went faster than I thought!). Still some goodies in there, though: Caroliner, Sir Richard Bishop, Kinski, The Dead C, Jesus Lizard, Hospitals... and some other stuff watmm might dig... Fennesz, Dolphins into the Future, The Books, Pocahaunted, Cex...

edit: *shoulda PM'd modey*

Rob helps me procure my sound

i download quite a bit of music, but i try to offset that by buying more vinyl than i can really afford.

  On 11/18/2013 at 6:59 AM, disparaissant said:

i download quite a bit of music, but i try to offset that by buying more vinyl than i can really afford.

I do this, exactly. No guilt. Usually if I download something and I really like it, I end up buying a copy (vinyl if possible). I've also had insanely little money forever, and I'm very thankful that pirating has allowed me to expand my tastes and make my purchases more selectively.