Hammond Music

Posts Tagged ‘mp3’

The Napster company had something of a rocky start as a place where music fans could find each other and, using the Napster software, trade their music files over the Internet.  No money was ever exchanged.  In a way, it was just like selling illegal bootleg compact discs except that nobody made any income from it.  In fact it was the free part of the model that bothered the recording artists and record labels.  Eventually Napster settled with the recording industry, with a huge financial award at Napster’s expense.  They learned their lesson well enough to completely change their business model.

Napster.com, the same company that started as just a vehicle for peer-to-peer music exchanges, has transformed itself into the holder of the largest music catalog on the entire Internet–over seven million titles and still growing.  It is still a terrific bargain, even though it is no longer free in the days when it was in hot water with the music industry.  They offer various plans, but the best all around deal is a three month membership, which can be renewed if you still haven’t satisfied your music thirst.  Three months will give you a good sense of what the service has to offer, and I strongly suspect that you’ll decide to renew.  A lot of people have maintained a membership for years.

For a remarkably low price, you receive five download credits and special bonus download credits as a subscription bonus.  Included in the plan is the reason that most people subscribe in the first place–unlimited (!) streaming music.  You can listen to the entire catalogs of your favorite artists or, if you prefer, entire albums of a variety of artists.  There are also over a thousand interactive, genre playlists.  They even have a streaming radio station.

The downloads you choose can be played on any MP3 compatible device, including a number of lesser know brands plus the extremely popular Ipod and Zune players.  In fact, if you cell phone has this option, you can even carry the music you’ve downloaded from Napster on that, as well.

With your three month membership downloads, you receive unrestricted rights, so you can put your music onto various of your players.  You can even burn a CD for yourself.

There is a huge list of musical genres.  I’m sure you’ll find your favorite on the list, unless you are like me and listen to music from a wide variety of genres.  The list is huge, but a few of the genres are jazz, pop, rock, Christian, children, comedy, country and the list goes on….

You can surround yourself with your own selected music and never repeat a song for three months for only fifteen dollars at Napster.com.  Where can you find that much pleasure at that price?

One of the best things about the Internet is that you can now download music. often times for free, and add it to your MP3 player in just seconds!There are some good free sites, but be careful when downloading from a free site, the quality is not always great. And sometimes those “free” sites include spyware or malware with your download.For free downloads, BeeMP3 is a good site.com for free downloads.And great quality, too.

You might feel more comfortable paying for music downloads if you want quality and peace of mind. Amazon has a terrific selection and the price is not too bad, $0.79 to $0.99 per song.

(A Note:  I am only talking about MP3 downloads and Windows-based products and information, sorry to all the Apple fans out there!)

There are other free sites out there that I have used to download music, but they are not quite legitimate, and one of the sites I like is always getting into legal trouble with their government for copyright issues  (the site is based somewhere in Europe).  So, I am a bit leery of recommending or linking to that site, or any other sites that are questionable. 

And my recommendation for the best MP3 player on the market today is the Zune from Microsoft. There are plenty of MP3 products on the marketplace today, and there are products that are cheaper than the Zune, but they just do not have the capacity nor the ease of use that the Zune offers. And this is especially helpful for music fans who want to build a huge musical library for your computer and your MP3 player. I have maxed out my 80 GB Zune, and in order to add more songs, I’ve had to delete some files. Maybe next Christmas I’ll get the 120 from Santa.

And if you are a bit confused with all the technical jargon, I’ve written an e-book about how to create a digital music library on your computer and on your MP3 player.  This e-book makes it really easy to collect a state-of-the-art digital music library that is ultimately inexpensive, completely portable, and will occupy very little space in your home.

Enjoy your new music collection!

For several years now, Apple’s ipod has been the leader in the digital media player (DMP) market. Understandably so, ipod is a good music player with many great features.

But Microsoft’s introduction of the Zune, the company’s MP3 DMP player, Apple is facing some serious competition. Microsoft released the Zune in late 2006.The Zune has become very popular over the past two years since its introduction.Also, the Zune and the ipod are priced about the same and they both have many similar features.  However, there are some things that the Zune has that the ipod does not:

Below are the list of features supported by Zune and not ipod (based on a comparison of a 30GB Zune and a 30GB ipod:

• Landscape video
• Preloaded Audio and video
• Built in FM tuner
• Social networking
• Custom background

In addition, the Zune features file sharing and Wi-Fi (wireless) support.Zune is set up to wirelessly share and play videos, songs, and photos with other Zunes. The 30 GB Zune can store up to 25,000 photos, 100 hours of video, or 7,500 songs.  Microsoft will definitely take a big chunk of the MP3 player market form Apple, especially since a lot more people use a PC than a Mac, so that may be a big factor in how well the Zune performs in the marketplace.

I highly recommend the Zune, I have an 80GB and I love it!My 80 GBs have already been maxed out.  Recently, Microsoft introduced a 120 GB Zune

Other nifty features include the subscription-based Zune Marketplace, which allows you to access an online database of new music without having to download it first to your computer. Zune is one of the first real portable media players. Also, Zune Marketplace allows users to download as many songs as you want for a flat monthly fee.

For more information about product reviews, check out the Nostalgia Guy Music website.