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How do you primarily listen to your film scores (2021 edition)?


Josh500

How do you PRIMARILY listen to your film scores?   

36 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you PRIMARILY listen to your film scores?

    • On my phone.
    • On my digital music player (separate from phone).
    • On my PC.
    • On my CD player.
    • Other (specify).
      0


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I considered making this multiple choice, but there are only 4 real options anyway. So pick the one option that applies to you most of all. The keyword here is PRIMARILY.

 

Also, do you listen to film scores on your phone at all? Meaning do you have such files stored on your phone? Yes or no.

 

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Primarily iTunes on my PC, where my whole collection is at. Occasionally streaming on Spotify, but only for sampling (I don't have a subscription). On YouTube if I can't find it on Spotify. Often in VCL when I'm sampling new digital promos, before I decide whether I'm importing it to my iTunes collection or not. My iPod when I'm out and about. I never use my phone for music listening.

 

I intend to play both my old CDs and LPs more prominently in the future, but I'll need to wait untill I have a new apartment where the setup is just right.

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Personally, I have my go-to High-End Digital Music Player from Sony, so that's what I mostly use for everyday listening (my entire music collection is on it!), but since I got a 256GB micro SD card for my phone, I've decided to transfer a portion of my collection onto it. The Best Of, so to speak. So I can also listen to the highlights on my phone... :)

 

 

 

 

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Maybe it's because I'm ancient, but I've never understood the appeal of listening to music on one's phone. I use my phone for....well, phone stuff (texting, calling, occasionally some out-and-about social media and map functions).

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9 minutes ago, Thor said:

Maybe it's because I'm ancient, but I've never understood the appeal of listening to music on one's phone. I use my phone for....well, phone stuff (texting, calling, occasionally some out-and-about social media and map functions).

 

There's no special appeal about it. It's just convenient, that's all. You always have your phone with you, but maybe not always your music player...

 

It's like most people taking pictures with their phones these days, rather than carrying around cameras to do so.

 

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PC by default, phone if I'm in the car. I don't do any fancy syncing though, I just plug in and copy when I get something new.

 

While I understand people using a CD player, I just can't personally imagine the inconvenience of finding the CD and putting it in the player. I change what I'm listening to every few minutes in some cases - I need everything to literally be a click or two away.

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1 minute ago, Richard Penna said:

While I understand people using a CD player, I just can't personally imagine the inconvenience of finding the CD and putting it in the player.

 

Well, that's what we all used to do, back when I was a teen in the 90's... :D

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Well yes, in the 90s, but once I'd started to establish some sort of actual interest in music (beyond the typical stuff of the time) it was the end of the 90s and I was doing it on my PC.

 

That my first score purchase was Sleepy Hollow is an indication of how much time I spent in the mp3 world of the early 00s. (I genuinely didn't realise that you were meant to buy scores on CD, like regular albums)

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It mainly has been phones for the past couple of years, but I still have a great affinity for portable music players. The FiiO X1 and SanDisk Clip+ had served me well, but there's imperfections in both devices.

 

Recently, I've regrown a greater interest in iPods, after that one YouTube channel making rounds. I own two now (a 30GB 5.5 gen Video and a 160GB 7th gen Classic), so I hope I can find more use for them (even if a phone has greater advantages if you know what you're doing).

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Phones are convenient, but they will never be my main music player.

 

Equally, PCs have their uses, of course, but for listening I dare say they're not ideal, unless you happen to be sitting behind your desk. Simply too stationary.

 

A dedicated portable digital music player is the way to go, I believe. At least that's my opinion. iPods are the most well known and mass produced and sold, of course, but there are tons more that are better and more high-quality....

 

 

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I listen mostly on my computer via iTunes connected to my stereo system. I used to listen to quite a bit of scores from my phone as well with headphones when on the go, but recently I've done that less.

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11 minutes ago, Josh500 said:

Phones are convenient, but they will never be my main music player.

 

Equally, PCs have their uses, of course, but for listening I dare say they're not ideal, unless you happen to be sitting behind your desk. Simply too stationary.

 

A dedicated portable digital music player is the way to go, I believe. At least that's my opinion. iPods are the most well known and mass produced and sold, of course, but there are tons more that are better and more high-quality....

 

There's enough players and add ons in the phone realm for it to be very viable for music playing. In particular, the Apple USB-C dongle + USB Music Player Pro is absolutely great for any audio enthusiast.

 

I definitely agree about PCs, since I never have gotten to a point where I would need to actively listen to music while on it.

 

There certainly exist more modern and feature rich devices, but boy are they expensive. iPods have the benefit of being so mass produced and mod friendly to have longevity (especially if whole communities exist surrounding it). In comparison, my aforementioned X1 started to have sound issues after a while, and the UI was pretty limited to begin with. You never know what might still be usable after all this time.

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1 hour ago, HunterTech said:

There certainly exist more modern and feature rich devices, but boy are they expensive. iPods have the benefit of being so mass produced and mod friendly to have longevity (especially if whole communities exist surrounding it). In comparison, my aforementioned X1 started to have sound issues after a while, and the UI was pretty limited to begin with. You never know what might still be usable after all this time.

 

You gotta do your own research. There's a whole group of audiophiles worldwide exchanging the latest info on music equipment and high-quality portable players, and trust me, that group is considerably larger than, say, a group of people dedicated to John Williams...

 

Anyway, this is the one I got. One of the high-end portable players from Sony. It cost me over 1,000 Euros, but I never regretted my purchase. With the right earpiece, the sound quality is just heavenly--indescribable. I have my entire music collection stored on it (orchestral scores in FLAC), around 240GB. It's a few years old now and still going strong.... I expect it to last for a decade and longer.

 

 

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Primarily on my phone, on the way to work and back, or in the evening in bed. I do have a perfectly personalised and organised collection on PC with all my CD rips and edits, only the edits and the CDs that needed no editing are copied over to my phone. On PC it's mostly picking and choosing some snippets.

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Either on my phone or my PC. Fallback option is on my Roku.

 

I used to have a spinning disc iPod (120GB?) that held most of my music. When that finally gave up the ghost the most economical solution was a big SD card and my phone. It certainly has its advantages.

 

I'm old enough that I hate having things only in "the cloud" but young enough that I'm OK with digital files.

 

Like most of us here most of the music that I listen to isn't on streaming services. Although I'm using Spotify a lot more when someone mentions a score I don't know that is actually there. Lots of studio releases which is nice. Not so much specialty labels which is less convenient but I hope it keeps revenue going to the labels.

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I think in 2021 there are a few different ways I might listen to film music

 

  1. An actual, physical, pressed CD
  2. An album streamed from Spotify
  3. A Spotify playlist of music from different releases, typically created by me, sometimes another person's playlist I come across
  4. A CD release turned into files (could be FLAC, ALAC, mp3, whatever)
  5. A bootleg or recording session leak (could be any format)
  6. My own personal edit / re-jiggering of an album (like my version of The Abyss that swaps in many bonus tracks versions instead of main program versions), always in lossless
  7. My own personal expanded version of a score combining an official release with additional music from some other release or a boot or leak, or ripped from the film or something (like a quick "album" I whipped up combining the Force Awakens OST and FYC), always in lossless
  8. Another person's edit of a score (IE, a fan edit), hopefully in lossless
  9. My own rip of music from a film's audio track for a score that has no release of any kind, like Earth Star Voyager or Locked Down, always lossless
  10. Then I guess there's all those times you check out something via samples on a specialty label's website, a composer's soundcloud or bandcamp page, youtube, etc.

 

For an actual, physical, pressed CD, there are 2 ways in 2021 I might play it

  1. played in my car.  I went many, many, many years without ever doing this, but lately I've been doing it again as I try to go through my physical collection and listen to everything I've bought at least once via its physical disc through an actual CD player.  The funny thing is we're trading my old car in for a new one sometime in the next year, and the new car surely won't come with a CD player!
  2. played in this little CD player/Radio thing I have on my desk in my office room in my house.  I dug this out when I started working from home when lockdowns started last year, and use it as my computer's speakers because I discovered my old computer speakers don't work right any more.  Most of the time though, I have headphones plugged into the player and don't use its speakers, for CD playing.

For Spotify albums & playlists, there are 3 ways in 2021 I might play that

  1. while sitting down at my computer, either through headphones plugged directly into my laptop or via the cd/radio's speakers
  2. playing through my nice living room sound system (our TV is a Roku one so the Spotify app is right there)
  3. playing from my smartphone, either through the phone's speaker (extremely rarely), some form of headphones, or through my car's speaker's thanks to bluetooth

For files, there are 3 ways in 2021 I might play those

  1. Using WinAmp, while sitting down at my computer, either through headphones plugged directly into my laptop or via the cd/radio's speakers
  2. Using Plex, playing through my nice living room sound system (there is a Plex app for Roku; the files sit on a home server in my basement so my laptop is not involved)
  3. Using PowerAmp, playing from my smartphone, either through the phone's speaker (extremely rarely), some form of headphones, or through my car's speaker's thanks to bluetooth

 

As for what out of all these options I primarily use?  Hard to say, but probably close to a 3-way tie at this point between the physical CD in my car, files playing off my phone with PowerAmp through my cars speakers, and my own files playing through WinAmp while I work all day.  Spotify is mostly used on Fridays to check out new releases, and occasionally otherwise for scores I like that don't have a physical CD release, like The White Lotus, Tom & Jerry, and Jungle Cruise for recent examples

 

 

Some older methods of listening to film music I no longer do in 2021

 

  1. Burned CDRs of existing albums.  I never had that many, but back in the 90s it was common for somebody to burn you a copy of an album they had that you didn't as a gift.  This was how I had "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves"'s score until the Intrada edition came out, for example
  2. Burned CDRs of some kind of bootleg, or a "best of" compilation, or whatever.  For example I had a burned copy of one of those old ID4 boots back in the day.  Now if I want to listen to that I'd just play the files in my computer
  3. An actual pressed CD playing through my living room setup.  I guess I could technically put it in my PS4 to play it, but I just never do that.  I haven't had a dedicated CD player in my living room setup since some time in the 2000s somewhere, and haven't had a dedicated DVD player in there since I got my PS4 in 2017 or whatever it was, when I pulled both it and my Sony BD player out of the setup.
  4. Vinyl records.  I never really did this for film scores, but I do technically own the original 1977 and 1980 2-LP release of SW and TESB.  I think I played them on my dad's record player once some time in the 90s or 00s I guess.  I got them each for like, a dollar something.
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16 minutes ago, Jay said:

Vinyl records.  I never really did this for film scores, but I do technically own the original 1977 and 1980 2-LP release of SW and TESB.  I think I played them on my dad's record player once some time in the 90s or 00s I guess

 

Oh dear. Are you that much younger than I am? 

 

That was a wonderfully expansive answer to the question. 

 

iTunes and the iPod have a terrific system where you can nest playlists in folders that I wish Poweramp had. What I used to use it for was I would have a folder for an album (Star Wars) and then I would have playlists for each side of the record. A silly thing, I know. But it really recalled how these records were meant to be heard. (It's almost a @Thorthing.)

 

When I was listening to Superman the other day I was acutely aware of where the side breaks were. As much as I love our abundance of riches with our more than complete 3 cd sets, it's nice sometimes to listen to a 15 or 20 minute program. 

 

I'm trying to figure out a good way to do this with PowerAmp. 

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I was born in '79 and remember records from my childhood; My dad's expansive LP collection he'd had from the 60s and 70s and probably somewhat beyond; a bunch of kiddie records my brother and I had like Puff the Magic Dragon or whatever, that free McDonalds one that came in the newspaper one day, the Ghostbusters 45 RPM single, random stuff like that.

 

By the time I was choosing my own albums I wanted to own, and either getting them as gifts or maybe spending allowance on them, it was all cassettes.  I know I had every Weird Al album from his debut through UHF on cassette, and I remember we had the Kokomo cassette single in the house; At one point my brother and I put tape over the top holes and recorded ourselves singing over part of the chorus.

 

I got my first CD player for Christmas of '91, and my first album I got was Too Legit To Quit by MC Hammer.  Off The Deep End was where I started getting Weird Al's new albums on CD.  The first film score related CD I bought was the 1993 Star Wars Anthology, which I bought at a Strawberries at the Searstown Mall in 1994. 

 

I no longer have any of my old records or cassettes, but have always kept all my CDs.

 

 

yea I wish PowerAmp could play playlists.  I end up re-tagging stuff as separate albums sometimes to handle the equivalent end goal.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

yea I wish PowerAmp could play playlists.  I end up re-tagging stuff as separate albums sometimes to handle the equivalent end goal.

 

Don't get me wrong, PowerAmp has playlists including some cool features like remembering where in a list you are. They're just all in a list so they're less manageable. But then I haven't found a single Android player that supports playlist folders.

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