I’m in a dilemma, I think ownership of media is important, but the convenience of Spotify and the algorithm of new music that it suggests has helped me find amazing artists that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise.
Fellow sailors, what are your thoughts, and how do you personally listen to music?
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I recently went through this decision. Firstly because I was getting saturated with so many services asking for subscriptions, secondly because I’m increasingly seeing songs I like becoming unavailable due to licensing on platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify.
And finally, when I gave YouTube Music a try, I had 500 songs downloaded for offline listening, but had an issue with my carrier in the middle of a work day which left me without an internet connection… And this freaking app didn’t let me listen to the songs I already had downloaded. Noped right out of there.
So here’s my solution: I created a free trial account on Deezer. I used SongShift to migrate all my songs from my previous streaming apps to a Deezer playlist. I then used deemix-gui to download the entire playlist of off Deezer, at FLAC quality, with lyrics, tags and album art built in.
I now use this library of FLAC files on Music Bee, a free software that looks awesome. When I connect my phone to my PC, Music Bee converts all songs to high bitrate MP3 and syncs with the phone - I then use an open source music player to listen to them.
I get lyrics, high quality audio, albums, artists, playlists… But zero issues with connectivity, streaming, songs losing licenses, subscriptions, and so on.
I had 500 songs downloaded for offline listening, but had an issue with my carrier in the middle of a work day which left me without an internet connection… And this freaking app didn’t let me listen to the songs I already had downloaded. Noped right out of there.
Dude that sucks! This is one of my greatest concerns as we enter web 3.0 and give control over to companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.
I now use this library of FLAC files on Music Bee, a free software that looks awesome. When I connect my phone to my PC, Music Bee converts all songs to high bitrate MP3 and syncs with the phone - I then use an open source music player to listen to them.
It must be a nice feeling having high quality flac files that you can play without any DRM nonsense when you want and how you want. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Maybe its a generational thing but I prefer having a Plex / Plexamp serveur with all my music as FLAC on my home server. I can better curate my collection and it’s available everywhere.
Plexamp is awesome, and the UI/UX is gorgeous in my opinion!
Exactly how I do it, Plexamp plays nicely across all my devices/car
I have Ampache running on a self hosted server, which has desktop and mobile apps.
I don’t know why you were down voted but thanks for this. I’m doing some research on it now. So here take this upvote
Local library. I don’t want to pay for things I don’t own. Streaming services also can remove/ disable music any time. I also don’t need recommendation algorithms I think they are biased. I can easily discover new artists on blogs
Nice! Any suggestions on what blogs I should go to for some recommendations?
Spotify to find artists
Plex/VLC/winamp to continue listening after discovering them.
I agree with OP that it is best to have DRM free files. For music recommendations, I use a Scrobber plugin for Last.fm.
Mixing and matching is the best option, mostly.
I like to have my personal favorite albums and non-streaming albums in my drive, but if i download something new, most of the time it will just stay there and i’ll never listen to it.
Streaming is wayyy better for discovering music (and also not making your hard drive full). If for every album you want to listen to you need to download, it sometimes lets you out of great music because of simple lazyness lol
Streaming for discovery, private tracker to get it in FLAC.
I stream because I like discovering new artists that I don’t know about. Otherwise keeping everything on a drive is probably better considering that you have full control over it.
Local copy for life. Streaming is just renting by a nicer name. I don’t want to pay for the rest of my life to access the same content. I’ll buy CDs and I’ll buy DRM-free FLAC files if available, but otherwise I’m pirating the FLAC copy or, if worst comes to worst, ripping the audio from YouTube (too many new artists/YT artists don’t offer lossless downloads). I’m not paying for something I don’t get to keep.
I stream because it helps me discover new artists, and makes it effortless. I do have my own library though.
https://github.com/Team-xManager/xManager/releases Free Spotify
Mostly, I’ve downloaded all my music and stream through Navidrome. But I’ll use above in a pinch.
Personal library is 0 compromise, except for the convenience. There are plenty of songs in my library that aren’t on Spotify or any other. All my music is FLAC. Uncensorable. I get star ratings and favorites.
I stream music because you can get just about everything with any service you choose at a reasonable price. I don’t do the same for movies and TV shows because that option isn’t available. If it was, my laziness may get me to stop pirating.
I’ve got a local library that I stream with using Subsonic/Airsonic-compatible APIs.
Give ViMusic (for Android) a try. It’s free in F-Droid. It’s like Spotify but uses Youtube Music for the backend.
I have a Spotify account and never use it anymore. ViMusic is great.
