Limewire Store

Sort

With my grandfather account about to go belly up at eMu, I've been considering different options. One is the Limewire Store. Granted, they don't have the two majors (not a major problem) or the selection of indie artists, I'm still impressed with how many of the same labels they have over there. Often times, labels post at both places at the same rate from their catalog. And the price is a far more reasonable fifteen dollars for fifty dls a month, the rate of an old eMu crack card.

Any thoughts, experiences? People have qualms supporting the company?

thomnottom

I've used them a few times. With the freebies they offer in the beginning it comes out to about the same per track as my grandfathered account - although regularly it would be more. So used them for a few 12+ track albums that didn't get the discount on eMu or 12- tracks that got the negative result.

No problems, even if it isn't an easy store to use/navigate.

Sort

Thanks. I'll check it out in a couple months. I've been thinking of maximizing free downloads: Fifty from Limewire, a free month from eMu if I quit there, then I quit again and wait a couple months to get the disloyalty credits, and then get the 100 free credits once I change to annual.

Oh, the lust we feel for our music...

jonahpwll

I would like to see updates on this thread. I have been on the brink of joining Limewire ever since the emu plan changes, but hesitating until enough guinea pigs chimed in that they were still breathing.

Plong42

I used Limewire when it first opened, took the fifty free and month after that. I had a hard time getting fifty I wanted, to be honest. Anything that was worth getting I already had via eMu. The selection at that time was like Amiestreet about a year ago. Although if Limewire gave me a disloyalty bonus to return, I certainly would.

Sort

Took the trial update:

Obviously, the negatives are that the selection is far more limited,but once I started digging, I found more than ample selection of quality music. First off, they do have some great labels: Soul Note, Clean Feed, Kill Rock Stars, Kranky. Second, they don't do the dumb album pricing so on certain types of music - jazz and electronica - you can do really well. They don't cap albums though, so it sucks on the other side. They don't have a download manager just for their store, so you have to manually put the songs where you want them or trust the dark side of limewire. Bit rates look the same as eMu, some in the mid two hundreds, more ambient pieces down low.

Here's what I pulled for my free fifty:
1) Mutually Arising by Greg Davis
2) Endless Falls by Loscil
3) All Is Wild, All Is Silent, by Balmorhea
4) Seperation Sunday by Hold Steady
5) Joyful Signs by Girlyman
6) Lisbon by Keith Fullerton
7) Tabligh by Waldada Leo Smith
8) Anima by Vladislay Delay

That's eclectic for sure, but fun, especially for a total sum of zero. Furthermore, I'd easily pay the fifteen bucks a month for that. So I'll see if it's a now and then or an every month thing.

amclark2

Aside from avoiding album pricing, there are a few cool things on Limewire that are not on emu - So far I've found Lightning Bolt's Wonderful Rainbows and Sleep's Dopesmoker (at 2 tracks!) - I'm definitely going to try out the free thing at least.

thomnottom

Whoa. I got Wonderful Rainbow during the Lala P4K decade sale, but Limewire also has their first album. Don't think I've even seen that before.

Sort

Here's my review:
Positives:
1) Unless your style of music traffics in high amounts of tracks per album, you simply can't beat the price. If you traffic in music like post rock, most jazz, and classical indian, you could be making out like a bandit. For seventy five credits a month, I usually get around ten albums, meaning each one is two dollars.
2) Navigation on the site is fairly easy and easier than Emu, though both are functional.
3) The VBR bit rate is higher than Emu, typically being around 240's. With my Shure530 and D2+, I appreciate the difference though on Ipods I can't imagine being able to tell a difference between VBR 192 and VBR 245.
4) Customer support responded within a day when I had a problem and easily fixed it.

Negatives:
1) Selection. Obviously there's far less mainstream music than Emu, let alone Itunes. Then on top of that, they don't have some of the majors among the "majors" among the "independents". No Merge records or Kompact let alone a Blue Note or Concord.
2) Not much reviews and no editorials. Now that I'm exclusively using Limewire, I find music at Emu and use Allmusicguide.com.
3) Downloading is all done manually though I've never tried downloading their other Limewire.

So this month I got Tallest Man's first, two classical Indian albums by Hariprasad Chaurasia, White Rainbow's latest, Bonobo's latest, Kissaway Trails, Josh Ritter's latest, Fight the Big Bull's latest, Tom Heasley's Palm Springs album, Frank Kimbrough's latest, and Alva Noto's Transform. If you don't know those artists, that's two classical Indian, two folk albums, two electronica albums, one ambient, one alternative, and two jazz albums.

jonahpwll

I'm about a month away from leaving emu and joining Limewire. I've found enough there to make it worth my while trying it for a few months and seeing what happens.

Doofy

Thanks for the reminder on this. More impressed than I expected to be. I loaded up on a bunch of Soul Note, plus the new Chris Lightcaps, plus "The Indestructible Beat of Soweto". So that makes a dent in my S4L, but plenty more that aren't over at Limewire (yet). I thought the search worked fairly well...true there is not much editorial content to peruse. DL'ing was a little tedious, as I was askeert to use their Downloader (even though I'm sure it's not P2P...right?).

thomnottom

When did Black Saint and Soul Note show up at Limewire? I swear they weren't there the last time I joined, and now I see a bunch of Billy Harper albums. Outside of Ropeadope, I seem to recall them being pretty crappy for jazz in the past. Maybe things are picking up.

They actually have one of the best models, because not only do they have the monthly credit offerings but people can buy albums for regular prices, too. And their album-only tracks tend not to make the price skyrocket. As an example, Relapse records is there (they left eMu a while ago). The last Zombi record cannot be d/l'd with credits, but is available for $4.95 for 5 tracks (even though 3 of them are over 10 minutes).

Doofy

So. Limewire looks to be on the way out...presumably the Limewire Store is a separate entity, though I guess I don't really know that. Hope not, the Store seems to have promise as an eMu competitor. Especially with the court decision, you might think the "Limewire" name would be a disadvantage.

thomnottom

I hope that doesn't take the store, too. It seems like they've been increasing the content over there and it's a solid alternative.

Doofy

To my own surprise, I re-upped for a month. Plenty of modern jazz to be had, what with BS/SN, Clean Feed, and Nimbus West, among others. I went for the $15/50 credits plan...the lack of album pricing makes this especially worthwhile. Doubt I will go into next month but didn't think I'd do this month, so....

I am still scared of their downloader!

Doofy

Well, it was fun while it lasted...I did a month beyond the trial on Limewire, and got a bunch of great stuff on the labels mentioned above. Above and beyond the "how much music do you really need" factor, I've noticed many/most of the new additions have a 0.99/track price attached to them, with no option to DL using subscription credits. So they don't have the availability on subs that eMu does, and they have the same price as iTMS without the selection...

So I suspect we won't have the Limewire store to kick around for much longer. One thing worth checking out is their (quite extensive) set of "Ear to the Ground" samplers featuring bands from different cities. All free.

Plong42

Limewire owes 1.5 Trillion Dollars to RIAA, at least according to those crack smoking accountants at the RIAA. The Limewire store will have to charge quite a bit more per track to cover that bill.

amclark2

I just decided that the RIAA owes me 1.5 trillion dollars.

cafreema

Funny, amclark2 owes me $1.75 trillion.

Craig

amclark2

The check is in the mail. Please don't cash it until Montuwenthesday.

cafreema

Excellent. I was just about to start garnishing your wages.

Craig

amclark2

Parsley on my paycheck? Please no!

cafreema

Parsley? Please. I'm hardcore and only use lemons.

Craig

Doofy

One assumes the Limewire Store is a separate entity that could potentially survive the Limewire death penalty, but one might assume incorrectly.

Sort

That's hysterical. Like a five year old, "Well, yeah, then you own me billion gazillion dollars."

That said, I used my LW dls the first day this month, just in case they do owe a billion gazillion.

kargatron

> I've noticed many/most of the new additions have a 0.99/track price attached to them, with no option to DL using subscription credits. So they don't have the availability on subs that eMu does, and they have the same price as iTMS without the selection...

Not having subscribed, is there any way I can see which tracks would or would not be available? Browsing, I can see both $0.99 and 'album-only' tracks - are some available to subs and some not? This might impact my trying out the service.

IODA has gone album-pricing at emusic, so that's even more incentive for me to try out limewire, unless large subsets of it are unavailable to subscribers...

jonahpwll

I'm revisiting the idea of joining Limewire. Looking through their catalog right now.
Do they have a referral bonus? If so, if there's an emuser here who has a Limewire account and is also seriously hard up for cash and whose life would be happier for some free limewire dls to help get through the hard times, let me know and I'll put your account in as the referrer.
If no one qualifies, then I will take bids for Amie St. download purchases of the song my wife and I are going to drop there sometime in the fall as trade for the referral.

Sort

You know, I've only encountered one album that had the ninety nine cent rule (the new Konono Number One) that I wanted. But there isn't a way to see which is which, I'm afraid, until you get credits. No referral program either. No disloyalty credits either. And they owe the United States deficit.

frogkopf

It looks like they got rid of the annoying reroute to induce you to download their client everytime you try to download a single track.

Now it only does it once per album.

I picked up the Fabulous Diamonds II and Emeralds' What Happened for 5 credits each - both are 12 credits over at eMu.

Sort

Maybe it was always there and I somehow missed it, but looks like Merge records is now at Limewire.

Thanks goodness they fixed that redirect. It was getting annoying to say no to the darkside with every dl.

frogkopf

EAR TO THE GROUND: NO DEPRESSION - free 26 track sampler at the Limewire Store




Harlem River Blues — Justin Townes Earle 2:48
Let Freedom Ring! — Chuck Prophet 3:15
Low Rising — The Swell Season 4:47
I Understand Now — Patterson Hood 3:23
Only As The Day Is Long — Sera Cahoone 3:56
Time Is Right Now — The Maldives 4:32
Kiss Me Again — Jessica Lea Mayfield 3:19
The Valley Town — Elliott Brood 3:40
Hickory Wind — Charlie Louvin 2:50
The Running Kind — Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers 3:07
Nana and Jimi — Dave Alvin and The Guilty Women 3:22
All Her Ghosts — Star Anna 3:58
Maybe — Kristen Ward 3:42
A Perfect Day To Chase Tornados — Jim White 6:07
Crop Comes In — Chatham County Line 4:23
Cherokee Grove — Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands 2:58
Long Time — Betsy Olson 3:02
Heavy Load — Deadstring Brothers 3:29
Love Lost — Mindy Smith 1:32
Ball and Chain — Lindsay Fuller 4:15
Midnight in Mississippi — Blue Mountain 4:15
Bohemian Wedding Song — Shannon McNally 5:49
Wasted Star — The Old Joe Clarks 3:01
Waco Express — Waco Brothers 3:24
Travelers Song — Hem 2:02
Beverly Cleary's 115th Dream — Vandaveer