Digital Music Player for Practice - Recommendations?

[fdeck]

I'm assuming you have wired Internet service at home. Get a cheap cell phone or tablet and use it without a phone plan. You can stick a huge memory card in it, and have space for gobs of songs.

For ripping CDs, which I still occasionally do, you can get a USB CD reader for 20 bucks on Amazon.

If you don't have home Internet service, it's slightly more complicated: You turn the laptop into a wireless file server. I think Windows makes this fairly easy, though I haven't tried it.

 

[tpaul]

Thanks for all the tips! I think I've got an old, decommissioned smartphone around here that I can dedicate as a music library/player using the wifi. It even has a headphone jack.

In retrospect, I guess this was the obvious solution. Thanks for helping a dinosaur out!

 

[skycruiser]

Yeah, I was hoping to avoid having to go to Apple products. As for using my phone, as I mentioned above, it's a company phone issued by my employer. I don't want to load it up with music files.

There must be a non-Apple product that works like an ipod. I guess I'll need to do some research.

You don't have to download/save audio files using Spotify. Set up your playlists, make sure you have a wifi connection, and have at it.

 

[mambo4]

There must be a non-Apple product that works like an ipod. I guess I'll need to do some research.

There are plenty at amazon, search 'personal music player' Some are 'offline' devices , some have streaming like Spotify etc. But I don't think you'll completely escape the tedium of file management. While Spotify is quite convenient, it is not an exhaustive repository by any means. Plenty of recorded material is simply unavailable on Spotify.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

OK, I like to play along with songs as a practice method (and for fun). I'm looking for a recommendation for how best to download, store and play the songs.

What I've been doing is to buy CDs and rip them to my laptop, then copy the files I want to a Walkman digital music player in MP3 format (or whatever). Alternately I might buy a song through Amazon, download it and then transfer it to the Walkman.

I then play the Walkman through a little headphone amp.

The problem is that the process is cumbersome and also, my new laptop no longer has a CD player; and the Walkman is an older model and no longer wants to interface with my laptop. Yes, I'm a dinosaur when it comes to this stuff, but obviously it's time for an upgrade.

What would be great would be a digital music player that I can download songs to directly from online sources, and cut out all the middle process. I've also considered subscribing to an online music service like Tidal, but I'd like to be able to download songs and I'm not sure they will allow that.

My laptop and phone are not really mine, they are provided by my employer, so I don't want to have to load them up with a lot of personal music files if I can help it.

Suggestions? I'm sure this has been solved in various ways. Looking for a simple, reliable solution that just works.

Chordfy app. You can run it off your cell phone. It has a library of 500,000 songs. They will even dig up, ones, like obscure versions if it’s not already on the list. I’ve been using it for years.

 

[31HZ]

I'm traveling at the moment, but I brought my practice setup in order to prep for upcoming rehearsals and gigs. I use Spotify, SoundCloud, and iRealPro. Audio out into a Café Walter HA-1A, cans are DT990 250-ohm.

 

[DWBass]

I use this. Has an aux in which I plug in my MP3 player. Plug it in my bass, plug in my headphones and I'm good to go. I d/l all the music I need for my band and load it onto my MP3 player. Easy peasy!

 

[Gopherbassist]

I've got a current Walkman and a HiBy R3II, I like them both.

I use an outboard DVD player to rip CDs, and save the music to an outboard 1tb hard drive.

The HiBy is the simpler of the two DAPs, but no media player that I've found recognizes it as a DAP, so all the files have to be put on it manually.

The Walkman has proprietary software from SONY, hook it up and with three clicks everything new can be put on it, and somehow it's faster than the manual file transfer to the HiBy.