How many here can still play a CD?

[58kites]

My fancy new cell phone currently has 17,085 songs on the SD card (which is about 150GB out of a possible 256GB)
I have a couple old buddies who I haven't spoken to in a while, they each had about 40,000 record albums in their basement music rooms.

 

[Lukeam101]

I have a CD changer at home, but not in my car.
My band just finished recording and is having the extract same discussion. Leaning against CDs because no one has a player and it's an extra cost to buy the CDs and then really just have them in a box in our house forever unsold. I might just burn some CDs at home to just give away or mail to friends/family.
Funny enough, a few local bands only have their music available on cassettes.

 

[TomB]

I know this is about CD’s. I have a ton and listen sometimes, and I noticed some folks learn new material from them, but as a bassist working in multiple bands, YouTube is my friend. Most of my time is spent there absorbing new material. It’s pretty easy to navigate. The ads can be annoying but I’m quick with a mute button - and I suppose I could subscribe - just too lazy and cheap, I guess. Am I alone in this?

 

[LBS-bass]

I do, but your point is a valid one. I can't imagine buying a CD at this point unless it was a local artist.

As a local artist who is starting to plan a future release, I've been asking myself this question too: is it worth it to print CD's? Streaming is a bigger market and more convenient, unless you are an audiophile.

For my genre, I'd be more tempted to print a limited run of LPs and offer streaming as the alternative, but I doubt that the economics of that would work out.

For context, here is the post that gave me the thought to create this poll:

The Mediocre Bassist Club

It was discovered a couple of weeks earlier that five out of five of us do not have a way to play a CD. We wanted to do that because the keyboard player has been asked to record a song for her pastor that he has on CD; they want a female vocalist to do it and we all said we'd do it for him. But nobody is able to listen to the song. The drummer says he can rip one with a special device, but that hasn't happened yet.

Then, this week, the discussion in the post above occurred with the same band. I'm right there with you on the fence about whether producing a recording has any sort of merchandise value. People I've asked about it say that they give their CDs away at shows because people don't buy them. Does that make a difference? Does anybody listen to them or do they end up in the dusty pile? I don't know. I know that's where they end up at my house. I also know I can produce and sell T-shirts with a lot less effort.

There are lots of reasons to record and produce music, and there are lots of reasons it winds up being a waste of time. I'm not sure where I want to go with this at this point, because mostly I feel used when people assume that being a part of their band means I'll provide free session work. But if it's clearly beneficial to all of us to do this, and if the production process doesn't turn out to be a massive PIA, it can be fun. I just don't really know what the end game is.

 

[swink]

You have a SD card reader in your car?

You don't?

 

[LBS-bass]

There is not a single person IRL that I know who is able to play a CD.

TB is inherently biased since it's full of old people AND musicians to boot.

This is what I also believe. And I'm one of the old people

 

[swink]

I buy CDs for the same reason I buy books made of paper: No digital rights management. Nobody can take it away from me. Given the current fad for rewriting older books that suddenly contain "offensive material," it seems more important than ever.

For that reason I have two 1984s in the house, You never know they might find a system that causes them to go into auto-newspeak-mode.

 

[LBS-bass]

I'm eagerly reading responses here because the band I'm busiest with is having the same discussion. We've recorded 4 CDs that have sold quickly at gigs, but we're wondering if they really ever get played given the increasing scarcity of CD players, and whether we should go to the trouble of producing a fifth. Maybe next gig we'll conduct an audience survey. If we do, I'll update this post to let you all know.

That would be great. I'm intrigued because you say yours are selling. I know I will buy CDs from my friends, but I can't listen to them; I do it just to support them. But maybe some of them are being heard. Thanks!

 

[58kites]

Bear in mind that most people on this board are older so they probably still have their CD collection and CD players from the 90s-00s.
I don't think the results in the poll are accurate for the general population, not one bit.

I like physical media

My age definitely has a lot to do with me still wanting to have what I think of as permanent physical media.
When my son and daughter had all their music on computer hard drives, I kept saying...what happens when your hard drive dies and your music is all gone?
...forget about the concept of it all being in a cloud.
My son has had to drag me forward in technology concepts for decades.
Letting go of something that I started purchasing and wanting to build since I was about 12 years old has been mentally difficult to do.
Many years ago, after I had duplicated a good amount of my record collection on CD, I was shipping my record albums to my brothers who didn't have CD players yet.
Later, I sold a lot of remaining record albums to a local Austin record store for way too cheap, at that time they were not paying much for record albums.
Many of those record albums are now worth way more than I paid for them when new.
When I started buying a lot of record albums I was sixteen (1975) and I worked in a music store that sold tons and tons of records, they cost me $3.60 each.

 

[nickpc]

My 90's Sony CD Changer has started having issues so I picked up a DVD player with analog RCA audio out jacks on the back as a backup plan.

Blu Ray players can also play audio CDs, but the audio output capabilities are more advanced, so hooking it up to your old Hi Fi system is a challenge.

 

[LBS-bass]

Yep. Should have a both option because I listen to both.

Nah, as I explained to someone else in a DM, this is a binary question from my point of view. You either have the capacity to hear a CD, or you don't. I put the car thing in because I knew someone would mention it. For me that's a practical "no" because there's no way my band is all hopping into my husband's old CRV to learn a song

 

[LBS-bass]

I had to vote carrots - I listen in my car AND at home.

In addition to the player in my car, I have CD/DVD players in my family room home theater set up, in my basement home theater, and in the PC in my music/practice area. I also have a USB CD/DVD player/recorder that I attach to our office laptop, but that mostly gets used for software installation or for makling backups.

The most common place I listen to CDs is in my car, but I do sometimes listen to them in the basement home theater while I'm working out.

That being said, I do use them less often these days because I have other ways of playing music that I didn't have 10 years ago.

If you can listen at home, that is your poll choice. Notice the car choice is for those who ONLY have one in their car.

 

[bfields]

That's what we used to do before we upgraded all our computers. The new ones no longer have slots for any sort of CD.

FWIW you can get a perfectly fine external usb cd/dvd player new for under $30, and it's handy for the occasional need.

 

[LBS-bass]

FWIW you can get a perfectly fine external usb cd/dvd player new for under $30, and it's handy for the occasional need.

Yeah, I know they are cheap. I just haven't really had any strong use for one. But I should probably do it.

 

[TroyK]

...

There are lots of reasons to record and produce music, and there are lots of reasons it winds up being a waste of time. I'm not sure where I want to go with this at this point, because mostly I feel used when people assume that being a part of their band means I'll provide free session work. But if it's clearly beneficial to all of us to do this, and if the production process doesn't turn out to be a massive PIA, it can be fun. I just don't really know what the end game is.

Yup.

What I think is really happening is that the music industry is at an inflection point. People are listening to music and people are making good quality music across genres. But, the commercial model is changing and we're trying to figure out to what exactly.

I don't think radio is going away (immediately), but it's hasn't been the primary way that people listen for while and it shouldn't be. It sucked waiting for the DJ (program director) to play what you want to hear while you wait out everything else + ads. We all have these devices that are capable of accessing ALMOST anything ever recorded and helping us find other things that we like.

Smart artists will find their way into that ecosystem.

I wasn't this far along in my impending release project, but maybe print up CD sized cards with album art, credits, liner notes and a list with QR codes of places to stream in order of which compensate artists the best and give them away in a display next to your tip jar.

Ideally people would take one and maybe throw a little something in there for the band.

How bassist get their cut of streaming revenue is something to settle among band members, I suppose.

 

[Naigewron]

I'm about 80% sure there's a CD player hidden behind the flip-up display screen in my car.

It's been about seven years since I last listened to a CD. That's when I last owned a car that didn't have bluetooth or an aux-input.

If we're talking about listening to a CD in my home, I have no idea. I think it must have been back in 2006, which is when I last lived in a house where I owned a CD player.

 

[gtmalone]

CD/DVD drive on three computers, BluRay player, CD in both cars.

CDs are being copied to the main computer. Not sure what I will do the the CDs, about 150 of them.

I have a few BluRay/DVD audio discs in Dolby 5.1 that I play on the home theater. It's a great way to listen but not many offerings available anymore and they have become pricey.

 

[dune]

I believe I could still listen with a DVD drive on one of my computers, but in general I consider CDs to be obsolete.

 

[58kites]

I just installed a replacement audio/video system in my truck.
It has a big screen on the dashboard that shows Google maps received through Bluetooth from my cell phone connected through Android Auto.
It also plays the music that is stored in my cell phone, it will split screen to have both showing.....super slick!

I stopped listening to radio completely the minute I bought my first car with a CD player in it.

 

[TroyK]

All that said, though, physical media isn't dead. I won't turn this into an audiophile discussion, but there is a market of people who invest in the playback quality of what they listen to. Record stores in Seattle are thriving, though way more square footage is dedicated to vinyl than CD at this point. Audiophiles are starting to embrace streaming too, but not on an iphone with ear buds. There is an investment either way.

What genre you're producing and where you live would be huge factors in what your perspective fans would want.

You know how when people get ancestry DNA test results they are all some percentage neanderthal? Well in Seattle, everyone is some percentage hipster. It might be a little or it might be a lot. I haven't personally been tested, but I spin records at home about...10 hours/week. CDs, maybe 2 hours/mo.

EDIT: I also stream. Mostly Tidal, where I pay for the base level hifi ad-free subscription, but also Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube.

Happy to join an audiophile discussion if anyone wants to crack that open, but I'll keep this to a discussion of what makes sense for local musicians to produce.