It did make me think that one thing I appreciate at emusic is that there are some free albums, and you can use them to test if downloading is working without using credit. It would be handy if Guvera had at least one track on the site somewhere that was just free as in public domain - even if it's the office staff singing Waltzing Matilda or something - so that it's possible to check if download issues have resolved without spending credits to test things.
Umm.......yes, I do realise that, but that's beside the point that if I'm given credits I'd rather not use up too many just testing if downloading is working. No grounds to complain about anything when the music's free, I know; just reflecting on a possible improvement.
I'm down to getting only 5 credits today after getting 19 a day for weeks; I feel almost a little bit relieved. I have a huge backlog to tag, load and listen to. Maybe I'll be able to catch up? (as long as I pass on that Mozart box at amazon...)
It seems to me I missed some "Guvera credits tips" post somewhere - having only recently joined, I think I've found maybe three a day, assuming I remember to check. Some of this might be self-limitations:
- For convenience, I logged in with my fb account, which may limit the types of ads I see
- Outside of 'liking' Guvera, I refuse to 'like' other stuff - I have a thing about signalling on facebook, so my account is only for limited sale (I'm not going to 'like' advertisers)
- For same signalling reasons, I'm not going to share Guvera fb posts, or tweet about it either
- I don't want to bother signing up for new accounts elsewhere, like instagram
I think I've seen a total of 6 or 7 different ads only, and with the limitations above, my daily credits come from the Guvera fb page and its blog. I haven't found other avenues I'm willing to whore for. Should I assume my constraints limit me to ~3/day, or are there other places to look?
I'll use them for ECM stuff. But downloading's a pita without a dl manager, and I do dislike the interface as mentioned earlier - as bad as eMusic's site is, I still like it more than Guvera's, whose sole virtues are the free tracks and the occasional label unavailable to stream elsewhere (like ECM).
@karg - Even if you don't have twitter, instagram, etc. accounts you can click on those ads and get the credits. I'm not sure that "liking" any pages has ever actually gotten me credits, though. There are also ways around spamming your friends with the Facebook ads, but I'll leave that up to you to figure out ;-)
I was getting 8 a day without sharing anything to facebook, and logging in through facebook, just from the front guvera page - now it's down to five. sometimes you have to be patient, and keep clicking on the blank adds a bunch of times before a credit shows up. just clicking the steaz or filtrate adds won't do anything to your facebook either, so you can click on them to get the other guvera ones to come up. I use the advertising ones too, but I don't give them any permissions for my account.
For those who missed out previously, looks like all the XTC tracks are back on Guvera. This includes the Coat of Many Cupboards (rarities) and Fossil Fuel (singles) collections, both of which are excellent.
@dddanmar: Could you ask the content monkeys to look at Pat Metheny's 80/81: three tracks, Two Folk Songs, 80/81, and Open, will stream but will not download?
There may be some new limits on downloading - I was unable to DL one of the 'Capitol Jazz Vaults' sets yesterday, after previously getting a couple of others in the series. The 'new' XTC album I tried is unavailable as well.
ETA: that XTC also won't stream, so maybe just a temporary glitch.
There are problems with one of the providers this morning, they are in the process of fixing the issue at the moment. Unfortunately I am unable to throw the maintenance message up, it just looks dead in the meantime.
@dddanmar, are you guys interested at all in tackling tagging issues (which I suspect are lower priority than many other things)? I seem to quite regularly be running into albums either filed under the wrong artist or filed under different artists for different tracks so that the whole album does not appear on the artist page.
The example I have in front of me is the album Ring by The Gary Burton Quintet with Eberhard Weber. Tracks 1-3 and 5-6 are on Guvera with Eberhard Weber as artist, and so appear under a search for him. Track 4 has Gary Burton Quintet as artist (which based on other sites should I think be the correct main artist for all the tracks) (Amazon link) (Discogs link).
It's not a huge deal for the expert user, but easy to get caught out and discover that an album you thought you downloaded has a track missing because you grabbed the album from an artist page and not all the tracks were under that artist.
An example where the whole album is under the wrong artist is Leosia by Tomasz Stanko, which is filed under Tony Oxley (again one has to know to search by album title just in case if an album is missing when one searches by artist).
Back to the question: is it any help to you for us to report these things? I am used to working around them, and by definition have figured it out for myself anyway if I can report the problem, so I have no need to nag if it's not something you guys plan to tackle any time soon. Some of them seem worth noting in case others are missing finding things, though.
Any of you longtime users happen to notice what the ECM release availability lag on Guvera is? I know that recent releases are not available, but haven't looked for the most recent available.
One thing I'm fixing with Guvera is that although I'm a 25+ year fan of Frisell, I somehow never grabbed his pre-leader sideman appearances on ECM (e.g. with Weber, Garbarek, and Motian), so those are nice holes to fill for cheap.
Karg: a couple years at least, but even then seems spotty. I did get Michael Formanek's "The Rub and Spare Change" from 2010. Some more recent releases are there, but missing album-only tracks - eg, Abercrombie's "Within a Song." Good tip on the Frisell sideman stuff.
@karg - Nothing definitive, but poking around I found a couple ECM releases from 2010 and even one from early 2011. While some back catalog stuff is missing, it seems like there are relatively recent releases available. As for Frisell, do you recommend his early ECM albums, and what other releases involving him are you getting?
Just noticed they have a lot of primo Richard Thompson. The aptly named "More Guitar" can be found under the Richard Thompson Band, and it's a blistering live set. Also worth checking out: Rumor and Sigh, Mock Tudor, Amnesia, 1000 Years of Popular Music... hell, get 'em all.
And don't miss RT's cover of Oops, I Did It Again on 1000 Years of Popular Music - hysterical, yes, but curiously it really works too. Love it.
For the shred fans in the audience, a Guitar World online feature I just saw rated this the #1 shred album of all time - Rising Force by Yngwie Malmsteen (just ignore the question of whether he is truly a boorish megalomaniac or not for the moment for the sake of shred cred), and Guvera's got it (8 tracks). Damnable thing is when I went to Amazon to check it was all the songs on the album, they have the CD for $3.99 right now, and it's Auto-Rip, so for that I gotta replace that cassette copy and save my G creds for something else. Weird or what? FWIW most of the other Top Ten shred are on Shrapnel Records which is CD only alas.
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Ummmm... they're, like, all free.
I'm down to getting only 5 credits today after getting 19 a day for weeks; I feel almost a little bit relieved. I have a huge backlog to tag, load and listen to. Maybe I'll be able to catch up? (as long as I pass on that Mozart box at amazon...)
- For convenience, I logged in with my fb account, which may limit the types of ads I see
- Outside of 'liking' Guvera, I refuse to 'like' other stuff - I have a thing about signalling on facebook, so my account is only for limited sale (I'm not going to 'like' advertisers)
- For same signalling reasons, I'm not going to share Guvera fb posts, or tweet about it either
- I don't want to bother signing up for new accounts elsewhere, like instagram
I think I've seen a total of 6 or 7 different ads only, and with the limitations above, my daily credits come from the Guvera fb page and its blog. I haven't found other avenues I'm willing to whore for. Should I assume my constraints limit me to ~3/day, or are there other places to look?
I'll use them for ECM stuff. But downloading's a pita without a dl manager, and I do dislike the interface as mentioned earlier - as bad as eMusic's site is, I still like it more than Guvera's, whose sole virtues are the free tracks and the occasional label unavailable to stream elsewhere (like ECM).
ETA: that XTC also won't stream, so maybe just a temporary glitch.
Unfortunately I am unable to throw the maintenance message up, it just looks dead in the meantime.
Not too much longer...
The example I have in front of me is the album Ring by The Gary Burton Quintet with Eberhard Weber. Tracks 1-3 and 5-6 are on Guvera with Eberhard Weber as artist, and so appear under a search for him. Track 4 has Gary Burton Quintet as artist (which based on other sites should I think be the correct main artist for all the tracks) (Amazon link) (Discogs link).
It's not a huge deal for the expert user, but easy to get caught out and discover that an album you thought you downloaded has a track missing because you grabbed the album from an artist page and not all the tracks were under that artist.
An example where the whole album is under the wrong artist is Leosia by Tomasz Stanko, which is filed under Tony Oxley (again one has to know to search by album title just in case if an album is missing when one searches by artist).
Back to the question: is it any help to you for us to report these things? I am used to working around them, and by definition have figured it out for myself anyway if I can report the problem, so I have no need to nag if it's not something you guys plan to tackle any time soon. Some of them seem worth noting in case others are missing finding things, though.
One thing I'm fixing with Guvera is that although I'm a 25+ year fan of Frisell, I somehow never grabbed his pre-leader sideman appearances on ECM (e.g. with Weber, Garbarek, and Motian), so those are nice holes to fill for cheap.
Bill Frisell: The ECM Years (2011, all-about-jazz)
For the shred fans in the audience, a Guitar World online feature I just saw rated this the #1 shred album of all time - Rising Force by Yngwie Malmsteen (just ignore the question of whether he is truly a boorish megalomaniac or not for the moment for the sake of shred cred), and Guvera's got it (8 tracks). Damnable thing is when I went to Amazon to check it was all the songs on the album, they have the CD for $3.99 right now, and it's Auto-Rip, so for that I gotta replace that cassette copy and save my G creds for something else. Weird or what? FWIW most of the other Top Ten shred are on Shrapnel Records which is CD only alas.
Looked only partial on artist search, but whole thing comes up when you search by title. Discs 3 & 4 are a live set from 1979 that is otherwise OOP.