Audio Lunchbox: Music with no DRM 322
An anonymous reader writes "MacCentral just posted an article on Audio Lunchbox, an online music store dedicated to music by independent artists and labels. ALB offers all of its music in DRM free MP3 (192 kbps) and Ogg Vorbis (Q6) formats with iTunes style pricing and a completely web based and platform independent delivery system."
$0.99 ?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one who doesn't bitch about 99 cent pricing? Bitch about the DMA all you want (I'll be right there with you) but don't bitch about the pricing.
How much work do you think goes into writing the average book? A new hard cover typically goes about $20-$40.
I'm not suggesting that it's as hard to make an album as it is to write a book but there's at least as much creative talent
Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself. (Score:2, Interesting)
For a buck a track I want some nice artwork, maybe some printed lyrics a piece of plastic that I can out into a player. That way I can rip the songs myself and CHOOSE what bitrate to use.
Some occasional free posters and stickers would be nice too. Music buying has sucked since the death of the 12" vinyl album. Consumers are getting less and less while paying more and more, and record compani
Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself. (Score:2, Interesting)
Are you serious? Even with dialup you should be able to download most songs in under 30 minutes. How much are you paying for electric that 30 minutes of computer usage is an issue?
For a buck a track I want some nice artwork, maybe some printed lyrics a piece of plastic that I can out into a player. That way I can rip the songs myself and CHOOSE what bitrate to use.
Then your going to have
Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself. (Score:2)
Couldn't agree with you any more.
But still, if you truly want to be able to recoup all those "costs" and make some money over and above the cost of the music you purchase by sharing it.. try Divendo [divendo.net]
Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself. (Score:2)
What part of "I'd rather get digital music direct from the artists" was so hard to understand? Did I say anything about Wally-World or iTunes?
Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself. (Score:5, Interesting)
But don't believe me, see for yourself [audiolunchbox.com]
Re:$0.99 ?? Not if I have to DL it myself. (Score:2)
I listen to and enjoy music, I don't care to sit around and look at a PR poster of the people that made the music.
I do agree about the bitrate and/or ripping method but only on something recorded REALLY well like some of Telarcs [telarc.com] releases like this one [amazon.com] (and I do not like the real Beach Boys at all). 95% of non independant music and even a higher % of independant music is recorded with "average" quality that encoding to MP3 at 192 would not make much of a difference to the
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason people download music and not books is that it is cheaper and easier to download and burn to a CD. If you buy a hardcover for $40, you're paying $35 for the medium, not the content.
With peer to peer, the medium has been made enormously cheap. Why are we paying $.99 for a track (equivalent to store prices) when their distribution costs are all but eliminated (bandwidth + servers are much cheaper than stores, staff, shipping, and packaging).
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind you, this is a technical book from a major reputable publisher (Addison-Wesley), so it got the luxe treatment. Fiction would get a different treatment.
Here is why... (Score:3, Insightful)
While some of you probably think the mastering stuff that comes with protools is swell (even though you are mastering in your bedroom over cheapo Genelec monitors) and even though you think you can use SM57's and built in preamps for recording everything, generally consumers like music that is recorded in a sonically well-architected environment by a talented engineer, mixed in a equally go
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, bullshit.. (Score:5, Insightful)
B) While $.99 may be necessary to cover the cost of Marketing Blitzes, Big Budget Studio time, Advertising, Printing and Distributing an album to your local record store, I think its feasible that independent artist spend considerably less on promotion and 'the machine'. If everyone adopts prices that don't reflect the actual costs involved in bringing the music to market we just end up with a new version of the old system. A lot of artist still are focused on GETTING THEIR MUSIC HEARD so this whole money argument is marketing talk as far as I'm concerned.
Industry music may be a different story, but I love and am VERY familiar with independent music and artists. I've got no trouble with sending 10 bucks off to support an artist I like, but I usually get a fancy printed album and what-not that added a little more value. If a download (of a 192 bit track?) is going to cost some money, fine, just don't charge me as much as you would for a CD, after all, its not the same thing.
depends... (Score:3)
That said, if Outkast were not on a major label, and if they had a place where I could buy merchandise - whether it be cds or other "stuff" - I probably would throw some bucks their way. Maybe so with Pink as well, although probably not wit
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Informative)
You have to hunt for the good stuff, but overall, Emusic isn't bad. No DRM, either.
Re:$0.99 and Emusic (Score:2, Informative)
After looking at the Punk and Rock sections of the audio lunchbox offering. Emusic has a very large number of those releases that are being offered at cheaper rates. Not to mention the site design and features are much better. I don't think the audio lunchbox people even started to look at an effcient site design. So far browsing it has been akin to pulling teeth.
Emusic also does not use DRM. Their files are "alt-preset standard" LAME encoded mp3s.
For anyone looking for indepe
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Informative)
If you're already an emusic.com customer, and you find emusic.com's "My Collection" page to be a slow, tedious, pain in the ass, and you'd prefer to download to your local harddrive an HTML page showing every album you've downloaded from emusic.com with links back to each album page at emusic.com, get this free program for Windows, Mac, or linux:
Get Collection [diffenbach.org].
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Funny)
Get yerself in enough of a trance and you won't notice....;-)
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely!
The problem is the same one that kept me -- a fan of classical music -- from ever making many impulse buys of classical music in record stores.
It's difficult to tell a good CD from a bad CD without first listening to it.
With Indie music, the problem is compounded: a bad recording of Bach's The Goldberg Variations is still a recording of Bach's The Goldberg Variations. A bad recording of a bad Indie composition called "Crumpetty Crumpetty Bug-a Lug-a Bomf" is an irredeemable waste of 99 cents.
Back when eMusic.com allowed unlimited downloads, this wasn't a problem: I could try out an artist I'd never heard of, and if on listening I didn't like his work, I was out nothing more than the time to download that album. Now that eMusic.com limits me to 40 tracks per month, I'm stuck with the same problem as in the record store: how do I apportion my limited resources without getting burnt?
The safe answer to this quandary is to only purchase music that you know well, or is popular, to some definition of popular. "Popular among listeners of folk music" doesn't result in my getting pablum as bad as "popular among 15 year-old girls", but using either definition of popular means that newer, less knowm and Indie artists won't even be considered for purchase.
The other answer is to spend a lot of time reading reviews, asking advice of other listeners, and otherwise doing research; the problem is that that's costly, in terms of time, too. How much, exactly, is getting good Indie music supposed to be worth to me?
So when I see stuff like Audio Lunchbox or MagnaTunes, well, I like the idea but I'm inclined not to part with my money, for fear of buying bad music. Since I already know that anything by Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger or Wilhelm Furtwangler will be good, my inclination is to spend my money on CDs by these well-known artists.
As a consequence, I'll avoid the bad Indie music but I'll also miss the good Indie music.
But I'd be far more willing, as the parent poster suggests, to take a risk on Indie music if the risk were smaller: at $2.00 per album I'd be able to get five albums for $10.00, as opposed to one for $9.99. If the odds are that one of those five would be good, then I'd have the same number of good albums for the same price: one good album for ten bucks.
And having found a good album, I'd be willing to pay somewhat more for another album by that same artist -- though I still probably wouldn't be willing to pay what I'd pay for Bob Dylan.
So... (Score:3, Informative)
You could also listen to radio stations which play those sorts of music. Blatant plug: WMBC radio, in my sig, plays a good deal of it. We also have shows that suck, of course, but
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
But if people will pay $5-15 to eat out when they can have subsistence at home, then what's up here?
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Albums at $10 is the right price point, you're seriously suggesting that an album should cost less than a magazine or a big mac meal at McDonalds? Less than half of the cost of one ticket to the movies?
Think about it in terms of value, an album can give you many hours, even years of enjoyment. If you can get CD for $10 in the shops then fair enough, do that. Most of us tend to find that CDs are more like $13-17 these days.
If you really care about the
Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:2)
True and actually more like hardly any improvement on the terrestrial retail model at all.
The real revolution in sharing music and retailing content online is coming from some of the smaller and more innovative (although little heard of) companies like Divendo [divendo.net] and Mercora [mercora.com].
Yay OGG! (Score:2, Insightful)
I didn't think I'd see it happen. THIS is a service I'll support simply due to that feature alone.
After the clamouring for ogg support that all other stores outright reject, I can see big things for these guys
Re:Yay OGG! (Score:4, Funny)
Yup, they will capture that huge Ogg Vorbis community. And it's mountains of disposable cash.
Re:Yay OGG! (Score:5, Funny)
(Actually, if I wanted a song from this store, it would not be a factor. 192 VBR MP3 sounds just fine on my iPod... but there's at least one of you OGG cheerleaders saying the exact same thing about your favorite codec on Every Single God-Damned iTunes Music Store and/or iPod Thread, so I figured I should return the favor.)
It had to happen sooner or later (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how RIAA will take notice (rest assured they will take notice)? Will they view it was a threat and try to buy out these independent artists to close this down, ignore it, or see that it actually works?
I'd like to think they'd know a good thing when they see it but I'm not that optimistic (or naive depending on your viewpoint). I'd lean towards them trying to buy out any independent artists who make it big using this method -- and with the way the current world works (money == good) they'll probably succeed.
Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:2)
Not much they can do about it.
Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:2)
They can buy them out. Money talks after all. That was my main concern. Would you put it past them?
Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:2)
Who said conspiracy theory? Great way to try and label me as a troll though. It would be good business to buy out the other labels if the RIAA members perceive that they are a threat to the RIAA business
Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:2)
The problem with this sort of tactic is that it is easily abused. If all it takes to get fat cash from the RIAA is to set up a website that sells music from independent artists then you can bet that there will soon be a landrush to create websites that sell music by independent artists.
If sites thut cut out the RIAA middleman become popular there is very little that the recording industry can do besides lower their profit margins and try to compete on price. There's room for markup in the music promotio
Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:5, Informative)
You can be sure that the music you purcase doesn't support the RIAA efforts.
Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:3, Interesting)
Hopefully the people involved in this program understand the politics of what they're doing as well as the monetary aspect. And if they do, I don't think they'd sell out to the RIAA. Y
Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure we'll see the usual gamut of heavy-handed tactics (as not so long ago seen with 'net radio) from them. From this brief conversation [magnatune.com] at least some of them seem pretty damned smug. It's a humourous exchange:
(No affiliation with Magnatune, I just
Smart move! (Score:2, Interesting)
With this, my good friend's band could have a revenue stream finally.
They need help (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing that will decide if they can stay in the fight is if their business model pays off. If it does, small, independant producers to nudge out the bastards that run the show right now. Which brings me to my next point...
Buy music from these guys! Find something you like and buy it. If you're not sure what to buy, buy from several bands and try them all. If you don't like any of it... buy a lot anyway! Help them give the boot to the established (bully) companies out there.
Re:They need help (Score:5, Interesting)
And here lies the problem. Some people enjoy gambling, some people don't. It never sat well with me that I could walk into a record store and gamble my money away on some unknown CD I have not heard. I dislike the idea even more now that I have seen the alternative in the former E-Music and peer to peer.
Simply put, I will spend X number of dollars each month. It doesn't matter how much music is out there, I have a set amount of money I am willing to spend. I don't want to gamble one wasting my money on things I don't like. I don't even want to bother researching the music to improve my odds. I simply want to listen on my own time, and if I find something I like, keep it instead of deleting it.
Until someone accomidates me I am simply going to follow the path of least resistance. E-music used to be that path. I happily shelled out my money and downloaded and listened when I had the chance. Since E-music when to their foolish new pricing plan I have simply gone back to peer to peer applications. The advertised service means nothing to me. I simply want to download music at a fixed price and forget about it. I don't ever want to sit there and make a judgement call as to if I am wasting my money by buying one song or another.
Hurray for independent labels and no DRM, but stuff like this is for someone else. I'll stick to stealing.
Re:They need help (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They need help (Score:2)
Have you tried Magnatune? (Score:2)
Try before you buy. Low prices. Seems worthwhile to me.
Re:They need help (Score:2)
I can finally legally get some of my fav. underground rap. They do have anticon, but no rhymesayers
Electronic Music Delivery (Score:4, Insightful)
In case you've forgotten, the record Labels are evil, because:
Re:Electronic Music Delivery (Score:2, Insightful)
Errr, they're there to make money for the company and their stockholders....Everything else is ancillary.
Re:Electronic Music Delivery (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the bands on my label would never see a studio if it weren't for the fact that we took and interest in recording their music and selling it. Our profit margins don't exist - few of our records break even, most lose and I unless I get lucky or sell out I will continue to work long hours at my day job.
All profits at your typical indie label are split 50/50 with the artist. This is hardly a rip off.
As far a new technology goes - well consumers are at least half the problem. Why would you want to lose even more money? That said I always release free songs even though this often irks the bands. I'd rather people hear the recordings I've worked so hard to bring into the world.
Please don't apply your mostly true observations about the majors to the thousands of indy record labels. We need your support to survive and thrive and that means being honest and even taking a few (gasp) risks...
Although I support the idea (Score:4, Insightful)
The quality of Ogg and MP3 is pretty good (certainly better than radio) but I want to be able to build an online music collection that is comparable in quality to my offline one; i.e., one that does not suffer from the high-end noise that the lossy formats have.
Otherwise, I might as well go back to vinyl.
Re:Although I support the idea (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that these things are to be downloaded, a full CD in FLAC runs in the ~300M (please correct me if I'm wrong) range, you are going to burn a lot of money on bandwidth like that.
Yes, see Magnatune (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Although I support the idea (Score:2)
Magnatune include FLAC (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps audiolunchbox can be persuaded to go the same way. Its certainly nice being able to burn full quality CDs of the music I bought online.
http://www.magnatune.com
Good deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good deal (Score:5, Insightful)
If you cut the margin in half and triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?
Plus, cutting the prices would allow you to market with "cheaper than iTunes/Napster"
Re:Good deal (Score:3, Insightful)
You can rephrase your statements to reflect that possibility?
When you cut the margin in half and if you triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?
That leaves an unspoken question, "What if you cut the margin in half and you *don't* triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?
Re:Good deal (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good deal (Score:3, Interesting)
If the incremental cost is less than I calculated, say 10 cents/song - you'd need
Re:Good deal (Score:2)
Opening my Audio Lunchbox (Score:4, Funny)
Let me be the first to proclaim (Score:3, Funny)
Magnatune (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Magnatune (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Magnatune (Score:3, Informative)
Not only that, but the artists get half of what you pay, not some miniscule percentage cut down by phony deductions such as for "lacquer breakage."
There is not a huge selection yet...
Agreed, but--in the field that I have a major interest in and a little knowledge of (early music), I can say that what they do have is damned good stuff.
Re:Magnatune (Score:2)
Just bought my first album. Recommend it for those who like techno with an edge. "Processor: Insomnia".
Audio Lunchbox looks good too, but their streaming is a bit broken (perhaps slashdotted) and I couldn't find much music I liked.
Thanks for the heads up.
HearsayMusic.ca (indie) shameless self promotion (Score:4, Informative)
Cheers,
Daniel
1 dollar Canadian (Score:2, Funny)
Re:HearsayMusic.ca (indie) shameless self promotio (Score:2)
Pricing problems with all services (Score:3, Insightful)
If they could implement a credit style system, pre-pay if you will, they will be able to avoid the 30 cent (or more) per transaction overhead and lower prices. Maybe if when you set up an account, you buy a $20 credit or so, similar to how iTunes does it with their gift certificates (which only makes Apple MORE money since they don't have to pay the transaction fees on gift certificate purchases -- and they don't pass the "savings" on to you....)
More options are always a good thing, especially with DRM-free formats.
Re:Pricing problems with all services (Score:3, Informative)
Works great. Very happy. (Score:3, Interesting)
They take PayPal too, so I didn't have to enter credit card info into... anything at all.
Magnatune.com is better (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way with Magnatune.com. This is just a really cool idea whose time has come.
Archive.org (Score:4, Informative)
Crap! (Score:4, Funny)
4. Can my cousin in Italy buy songs from you?
Yes. Anyone in the world can download tracks from us.
Damn I'm running out of excuses for not paying for music
Streaming broken? (Score:4, Informative)
If you have the same problem, save the m3u file, copy-n-paste the contents into your browser. It would then launch winamp and I could preview the songs. I don't know if it was Winamp's problem or not, but what a PITA. Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.
Now on the service, I wish it were a little cheaper, but I might check them out. I have been mass downloading songs from MP3.com, burning them to a CD, and listening to them in my car. (MP3 capable car CD player - best thing EVER) It is kind of cool to hear indie artists, but you do get a lot of garbage in there too, just guys in their basement. But it is still interesting.
Royalties upon Purchase (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if the vendors could figure out how to make money and when you buy the music you can listen to it however you like and not a simple one time download but its your to move to various media, always own, sell, etc.
I went though many tapes because the tapes failed over time. It seems I should own the rights to listen to the music upon purchase.
A dollar a pop to listen to a bunch of nobodies (Score:3, Interesting)
Free downloads make so much more sense for a band trying to reach a wider audience.
Most people will only pay for music that's already "made it". They like that song thats always on the radio, "who are those guys? Im gonna get that CD."
more legal alternatives (Score:2, Informative)
live recordings from artists who allow taping at their concerts, all free, all legal, & theres *some* big names in there too
www.magnatune.com
indie record label. their motto is "we're not evil" you can download music, or pay for it (you determine the price to a degree) and if i recall properly i first heard about it on slashdot
CDbaby.com (Score:3, Informative)
Plus, their shipping notice email is cool.
Quality donflict, and other options (Score:4, Insightful)
192 kbps VBR MP3 Audio Files
I'm confused...which is it? 192Kbps or VBR? And if it's VBR, what quality?
I'm somewhat disapointed that out-of-print stuff isn't available through here though. They distribute albums on Epitaph Records, but none of the albums no longer produced are available. I think this would be a great way to let people get ahold of those old albums they can't buy any more, since it involves 0 cost for the label to provide the mp3s.
Emusic [emusic.com] on the other hand offers at least some of the out of print albums in DRM-free mp3 form. Unfortunately, I tried their service once and found the quality of mp3s sorely lacking...one album I downloaded crackled audibly through the whole thing.
Artists get 65% of revenue. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice. (Score:3, Informative)
Audio lunchbox divides the music up so much better. It has hardcore, four metal subcategories, a bunch of rock categories and even a seperate punk category (these are just my tastes). iTunes, from the searching I did, would label all this "alternative/rock". By doing this, it was hard to find bands that don't have radio exposure and thus hard for me to buy music unless I wanted the radio top 40 garbage.
Re:Nice. (Score:2, Interesting)
iTunes's organization of Classical music is wonderful. It could be better, but there are plenty of subgenres for me to easily find what I'm looking for.
It wasn't always like that. I added a suggestion on how to organize their Classical selections and was surprised to see that they followed up on it (probably due to many others with the same suggestion).
If you want more categories, then click on that that little button that allows y
Try Mperia. (Score:2)
Reviewed on Breakdown (Score:3, Informative)
Read the review here. [breakdownindustries.com].
Needs to be cheaper (Score:2)
So why pay 99cents per track , when if you want the whole album 12-15 tracks, you could end up paying more for a lossy format audio track that you might accidentally delete(unless you habitually burn CD's)
Me ? I'd rather buy an Actual CD , in a box with nice printed disc and inlays for about the same price. Great thing about having the actual CD is that I can rip
Re:Needs to be cheaper (Score:2)
At most record stores it tends to be more like $15-$20 when they aren't on sale.
So why pay 99cents per track , when if you want the whole album 12-15 tracks, you could end up paying more for a lossy format audio track that you might accidentally delete(unless you habitually burn CD's)
The whole albums are always $9.99, so an album with more than 10 tracks is che
A transcoding question... (Score:2)
When transcoding to 128kbps AAC, which source material suffers less degredation, 192kbps MP3 or Q6 Vorbis? This music site has decently high quality originals for a change, but not in formats suited to my player.
Also check out Magnatune (Score:3, Informative)
I've bought two albums to date (mrEpic and Brad Sucks) and recommend them both highly. Enjoy!
Re:Also check out Magnatune (Score:2)
Audio Lunchbox = gateway drug (Score:2)
Consider Audio Lunchbox your "gateway drug" to a cooler music scene. Mixed in with all the indie music are some more mainstream artists like Sponge and Pennywise. Soon, you'll be clicking away at all the "extra" bands they have - the real meat of the service.
I allowed Audio Lunchbox a few weeks worth of free banners at my site a little while back(they used to have an orange theme!), because I knew these guys were fighting the good fight.
What is surprising to me is the amount of new bands that they've g
But can non-DRM work when P2P reigns? (Score:2)
Re:Lets see now.... (Score:5, Insightful)
a) they are being slashdotted now, slowing down their site
b) They are INDIE artists, you won't be able to search for things that are "mainstream" and expect to find results. The idea is finding new artists here, rather than massively promoted RIAA ones.
c) Music isn't cheap to produce. I think their pricing structure is really quite fair, and they probably can't afford to lower prices. I'm more than willing to pay $1 a song for music I like. Music is music, is doesn't matter to me if it comes from a major label or not, if it's actually good.
Maybe this service isn't for you, but for a lot of
Re:Lets see now.... (Score:2)
Re:Lets see now.... (Score:3, Insightful)
First- is 192kbps a low bitrate? What music download service gives you a better MP3 bitrate than that? Heck, which one matches that? That's what I rip my own discs at...
Second- "Full Price"?!? Compared _maybe_ to iTunes... which is still probably the cheapest service when you correctly account for subscription prices and real-life buying habits.
And oh, did you notice no DRM at all, not even FairPlay's relatively user-friendly DRM flavor?
Oh, wait... I just noticed you w
Re:Lets see now.... (Score:2)
I'm all for alternitive groups getting a place to sell music
Ok... so you're all for alternative bands selling their music, but you don't want to buy it unless they have a major ad campaign to make sure you've heard of them. And you don't want to pay full price. Believe me, a lot of the bands on this site are not that obscure. If you are into indie music at all you've probably heard of some of these artists: Iggie Pop & the Stooges, t
Instant gratification .... (Score:3, Insightful)
You go to the site, look around, sample some tunes, and download/purchase the ones you want. Cuts out the whole, "go to amazon/ebay, purchase, wait for delivery" phase. Perfect for todays instant gratification based society.
Re:Flac (Score:2, Insightful)
Lossless does not mean the recording is lossless with respect to the performance; it means that once it is digitized, it has been compressed with no further loss of information. The whole point is that if you have a FLAC version you can convert it to whatever format you want without the transcoding artifacts you would get from lossy to lossy.
Re:Crap, 40% off! (Score:2)
Re:Non-standard iTunes: no more AAC! (Score:3, Informative)
I'm still in development on these things, but have t