Mid-Year Music Update: Streaming Is King as Downloads Fade Away

Okay, so what's your opinion on it?

I'll give you mine: It is what it is. Nobody wants or needs to own actual music files at this point. And as people replace their aging computers with tablets and switch from old phones to new phones, none of the files they've accrued over the years are going to make the transition from the old device to the new device. For one thing, the new devices all use flash-based memory... they're fast, but they're expensive and don't hold as much as a standard hard drive does. The other reason is that there's just no reason to do it.
I've got eight large plastic tubs in my office closet - it's the collection of CDs that I personally loved, but didn't need for DJing (I've got eclectic tastes). Figuring that hard drive space was cheap, earlier last month I decided to (finally) rip some of those CDs to enjoy at home. I've got a Sonos system with speakers in my living room, bedroom, basement, dining room and backyard, and I love having access to everything.

I got halfway through the first tub in two weeks' time - a couple hours spent each night ripping CDs - and I gave up. The content on the CDs was great, but my time was too valuable. I signed up for Spotify, got instant access to anything I could ever want to hear, and I'm hooked on it. Farewell, my CD friends.

By the way... Spotify integrates beautifully with the dJay2 app for iPad and iPhone... so good that it's what I'll use at my events when someone requests a song that I don't already own. Farewell, iTunes and Amazon.

The only service I'll hang onto is my PrimeCuts subscription. At $40 a month, it's worth having for the clean versions.

P.S. - Rolling Stone should be writing a "Mid-Year Magazine Update", but it'd be too embarrassing for them. The magazine gets thinner and thinner with each issue that arrives, and Matt Taibbi was the only contributor with stuff worth reading.

If you have compact discs do not get rid of them if you can get content on cd from you subscription service (Promo Only as an example) get it. For personal use at home streaming is great, to get that song that a client needs instantly its ok too but for dj physical files are always better.

No way I can rely on any streaming service for content. Just not enough of the venues have free wifi or internet at all... It's cute that an iPad app looks like a DJ program and can even stream... As a professional I will never put any faith in its use... Except as a backup for an extreme situation where my real backup also fails.

dunlopj said:

Once I can use Sotify in my car, then maybe I'll drop Sirius and leave the I Pod at home...

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Sirius also has an outdated business model - the sound quality is abysmal and they've turned off half of their terrestrial repeaters - we used to get a clear signal when driving around, but in the past year the signal drops out even when we're far away from trees and nowhere near an overpass. If they didn't give away subscriptions with every new car sold, they'd be toast... Millennials don't have the desire to own cars like Gen Y'ers (and every generation before them going back to the birth of cars) and they can stream everything all the music they want to hear for free, so I don't envision satellite radio sticking around for much longer. At some point they'll turn off the satellites, quit selling radios and just offer their programming through their phone apps.

Spotify's got the right idea - stream everything, and sync your playlists for listening offline on up to three devices - if you've got an iPod touch, you're all set for listening in the car. Easy peasy.

drzinc said:

For personal use at home streaming is great, to get that song that a client needs instantly its ok too but for dj physical files are always better.

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I'm not sure it's better - the playing field is definitely leveling now that 4G is omnipresent and the cell phone companies are already working on the next iteration of wireless data transmission. If it works, sounds good and you can hear it, it doesn't really matter if it's coming from a locally-stored file on your hard drive or being streamed. Load a song from Spotify onto your DJay app and it's fully controllable the same way that your MP3 files are - the only difference is that you're not streaming it, you're playing a locally-stored temp file that disappears when you unload it from the player.

Of course, with no internet access, physical anything is going to be a better choice.

My CD's, vinyl and some sets of backup are all in a climate controlled room and ain't going nowhere. As new CD's and DVD's are ripped they gp in there and every 2.5-3years the whole collection goes into new drives and the old drives stay where they are. Have learned the hard way that multiple backups are essential. I've seen the download music in Sound Forge and it honestly scares me to see what the waveforms look like, downloads are not for me at this time and I love adjusting different things in my conversions to make things sound as nice as possible for my guests and myself.backups

It really is crazy how poor the sound quality of Sirius/XM is. I tried it for a while, because I had a used tuner laying around, but it really does sound like a 96Kbps (or maaaaaaaybe 128Kbps, but that's pushing it) MP3 stream. And when I had it anyway, the stations I liked were on about a 1 hour loop. No real variety outside of what played in an hours time, it seemed.

I was disappointed. I loved the idea of it, and even the idea of paying for it as a premium. But I'm not paying for sub-par quality.

I'm one of the dinosaurs...I still DJ from CDs. The next 'big leap' will be to all MP3, if I can get back to a point where my number of bookings justify it. Been a rough couple of years.

As long as Howard Stern and co. are around, Sirius isn't going anywhere. When he calls it a day, they will be toast. The guy is personally responsible for a large portion of their subscribers. Their music offerings aren't worth the time of day.

I can't believe how awful Sirius sounds...wayyyyy better quality streaming in my car with Spotify, Pandora, Songza, internet radio.

I also use Spotify for filling in the blanks (if they stump you with a song you don't have) while at a gig. Every once in a while if I'm lazy I'll make a playlist and use it for cocktail hour or prelude before a wedding...make it in spotify and have it download to my computer or phone. But almost everything I play is high quality mp3 through the laptop.

For my personal listening...I don't really buy music anymore. A few albums a year through Amazon or iTunes. Otherwise Spotify is my jam. Aside from The Beatles, Garth Brooks, and AC/DC it's got everything.

Wow, kind of odd how everyone is ragging on the Sirius, etc. We find that we'll pick up on music before it hits the charts, sometimes months ahead. As for quality, does it really matter that much when the windows are rolled down at highway speeds?

As for using a streaming service at an event, not on your life. The more stuff you put into your process, the more you're asking for something to go wrong.

DJ J Mac said:

Wow, kind of odd how everyone is ragging on the Sirius, etc. We find that we'll pick up on music before it hits the charts, sometimes months ahead. As for quality, does it really matter that much when the windows are rolled down at highway speeds?

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No, it doesnt... but when the windows are closed, your car is one of the best listening environments available. Sirius audio streams just plain suck. Even FM radio has better fidelity.

As for Sirius being first with new music, that's true to an extent - but it can also be a curse when you're playing songs at an event that you *think* people know, and what they want to dance to is everything that's not on Sirius.

Peugeot down here has offered WiFi in one of it's small variants (206 or 207) since 2012. More distractions for the driver watching pr0n

I can see Streaming working for some, like Wedding DJs or Jukebox style. DJs who Mix, Blend and Scratch will have little use for Streaming!