A month ago I wrote, "Back at the beginning of June I got an offer of one month for $0.99, but didn't take them up on it before it expired on June 30th." Now I see that they're offering to people who download a free sampler via the NPR Web site a $25 bonus. I guess that tells me how badly they want long time subscribers to come back.
This is the offer they sent me When you re-start your emusic subscription,here's what you'll get:
Plan: eMusic Basic
Price: $11.99 every 30 days
Value: $11.99 every 30 days
Returning Member Bonus: $10.00 in your first 30 days
This is a special limited time offer only for prior eMusic members, good only until September 5, 2011. And remember, if you're not happy with the service, you can cancel any time by visiting https://www.emusic.com/account/cancel.html online and the songs you've downloaded are yours to keep.
And actually with the new sample player, I've stopped shopping there. It hangs up my computer something awful, both at work and at home (Mac and Windows). They've made it very unpleasant to use that site.
Which is a shame, because it was the tool I used to help search down intriguing jazz to feature as the AAJ dotd. Now I've got to find a better site for sifting through the indie jazz releases amongst all the other crap.
I nearly cancelled yesterday - I managed, once again, to get my balance down to exactly $0.00, mostly so that when I went to the account-cancellation page I could have a nice laugh at seeing how I would "lose my account balance of $0.00." Still, I'm obviously a total wuss, or else I just haven't come across a cheaper way to buy MP3s... yet.
The sample player thing is really sad, if you ask me, and I don't even object to the new player itself... They seem to be trying to play catch-up with recent trends in site design, social-web, and streaming technology, but they don't understand that the e-Commerce aspect of their operation (which includes site reliability) has to take precedence. Or else they just don't care! Either way, multi-configuration testing and pre-release user feedback is absolutely essential for things like that, and they just whiffed right past it like it didn't matter in the slightest. Like they thought it was no different from changing the icon image for the "play" button.
When I do ultimately cancel, I don't care what the "please come back" offer is, I'm just going to ignore it.
Yeah, I saw that "expired" message but decided to try it anyway. I got the sampler and the $25 offer. You expect something associated with emu to work as advertised?
Does anyone know how to get emusic/J to work with Google Chrome? It works for me in Opera and Firefox, but I just switched to Chrome and instead of triggering emusic/J I get prompted to save the .emx file.
I figured out the answer to my own question. I was puzzled because I have the default file associations set to associate .emx and .emp with emusic/j, and Chrome did not seem to have any "open with" option. I did finally figure out the workaround though:
1. Click on a download link on emusic.
2. When prompted, save the .emx or .emp file.
3. The downloaded file should appear in the downloads bar at the bottom of the browser, with a little popup menu button on its right.
4. Pop up the menu and select "Always open files of this type".
5. Subsequent downloads will open the .emx or .emp file and trigger emusic/j.
New glitches today, and none of the old ones fixed yet, but they found time to add new buttons - Radio beta, and then on the album pages Add To Queue. I'll have to wait to get home to my computer from this decade to see if they actually work. I'm getting so tired of this. I console myself with the knowledge that numerous items in my SFLs now have a small entry in the Comment box -"7". Damn good thing I listen mostly to moldy old music, but it's bound to run out someday.......
I definitely like the intent of the new sampler player 100%. But the execution of it stinks.
Their new sampler has stopped this customer from using the site. That can't be what they intended, and yet, here we are.
same here, jonah. but something must have happened, because the new sample player isn't messing-up/slowing-down my internet experience today. hope it's working better for you now, too.
I don't know what sparked the memory exactly, but I had nice laugh this morning recalling older posts describing the testing methods used on emusic/j. The imagery of pulling cords and purposefully crashing the computer midstream still draws a laugh from me every now and then.
I noticed several jazz new releases from small label or unsigned acts whose albums went at .79 and .89 per track with no upper limit, thus creating an album cost of over ten bucks and making the album either slightly less or slightly more than the cost at Amazon.
If emu isn't going to enforce some sort of pricing restraint, then they need to stop promoting themselves a cheaper alternative. Of course, "should" doesn't go very far at emu.
Seems to me they have essentially moved from a model where distributors give them music and emusic determines the price structure (asiTunes does) to one where they offer a marketplace and let distributors choose the price (like Bandcamp). Perhaps not that surprising (if maybe in some cases shortsighted) that a bunch of distributors are choosing the higher prices. Not that I like it any more than you.
I tested the player at work today and had a much much improved experience. I did my thing where I go through nearly every new jazz release, hitting the first sample, sometimes hitting the forward button to get to the second sample, sometimes letting it get there by itself, sometimes moving immediately onto the next album while scrolling down the page, heading over to the next page then back to the previous suddenly.
I did this for about a half hour. In previous sessions with the new player, the longer my session went, the worse the lag became, until it finally froze my system and crashed it. That didn't happen this time, any of it.
I'm gonna try it a few more times before emailing them about it. Previously, I've had okay experiences at first, then they'd get progressively worse. I'm gonna keep my optimism in check for the time being.
But today was pretty good.
By they way, there's a new release called, shit, I don't have list in front of me, has the word cinemascope in it, I think. Hell, hold on...
Nils Berg Cinemascope. He does that folk-jazz thing that Jeremy Udden did so well on Plainville. I haven't investigated further than the emu samples, but damn it sounds promising.
JUJ, my refresh came today. Every month I tell myself it's time to quit. It is wrong to keep spending money on music that I may never hear. Never hear? That's what I said. I have so much music now that hasn't been played even one time. I find I am waiting until the last minute to download my monthly allotment. I don't know why I haven't stopped, but I do believe it is time. I am always slow to cut the strings. Often wait too long. If I can't sway myself, how can I sway you?
I've happily gone through separation, withdraw, and can tell you I have barely missed emu. Now and then I pop for 75 on Mtraks for old times. Mtraks can give you tags in Chinese as well as horribly low, unlistenable dls (140's vbr).
Not trying to persuade anyone either way, just logging the alternative voice: I still keep finding things to spend my monthly allowance on at emusic that are expensive or unavailable elsewhere and I always listen to them multiple times. Really don't find myself sharing the terminal weariness yet. It's not as exciting as Amiestreet or as cheap as MTraks, the service is very trying at times, and I am supplementing more at other places, but it's still the best place to get a good chunk of what I'm looking for. If you're shopping for specific and less widely distributed things it's still a valuable place to shop.
I've been enjoying a $6.49 per month plan for a few months now. I meant to jump in and jump out, but one album, supplemented with amazon deals, the local used shop, and free stuff rec'd here, is just about right. I'm not spending a lot, I'm listening to everything I get, and I'm catching up on some old stuff in my collection.
So I say go for it- at worst it's one album for $.99, and at best you might find a low level subscription to be more enjoyable and less stressful.
still love emusic. now if they can ever entice the "major indies" back; add a bunch of cassette-only labels; add a streaming service that allows full-album samples at least one (and longer soundscans thereafter); and give me my own radio station to curate, things will be perfect.
Comments
**runs off to NPR**
When you re-start your emusic subscription,here's what you'll get:
Plan: eMusic Basic
Price: $11.99 every 30 days
Value: $11.99 every 30 days
Returning Member Bonus: $10.00 in your first 30 days
This is a special limited time offer only for prior eMusic members, good only until September 5, 2011. And remember, if you're not happy with the service, you can cancel any time by visiting https://www.emusic.com/account/cancel.html online and the songs you've downloaded are yours to keep.
And actually with the new sample player, I've stopped shopping there. It hangs up my computer something awful, both at work and at home (Mac and Windows). They've made it very unpleasant to use that site.
Which is a shame, because it was the tool I used to help search down intriguing jazz to feature as the AAJ dotd. Now I've got to find a better site for sifting through the indie jazz releases amongst all the other crap.
Oh well.
The sample player thing is really sad, if you ask me, and I don't even object to the new player itself... They seem to be trying to play catch-up with recent trends in site design, social-web, and streaming technology, but they don't understand that the e-Commerce aspect of their operation (which includes site reliability) has to take precedence. Or else they just don't care! Either way, multi-configuration testing and pre-release user feedback is absolutely essential for things like that, and they just whiffed right past it like it didn't matter in the slightest. Like they thought it was no different from changing the icon image for the "play" button.
When I do ultimately cancel, I don't care what the "please come back" offer is, I'm just going to ignore it.
Their new sampler has stopped this customer from using the site. That can't be what they intended, and yet, here we are.
1. Click on a download link on emusic.
2. When prompted, save the .emx or .emp file.
3. The downloaded file should appear in the downloads bar at the bottom of the browser, with a little popup menu button on its right.
4. Pop up the menu and select "Always open files of this type".
5. Subsequent downloads will open the .emx or .emp file and trigger emusic/j.
same here, jonah. but something must have happened, because the new sample player isn't messing-up/slowing-down my internet experience today. hope it's working better for you now, too.
I keep thinking it's improved, but it seems like the longer a single session goes on for, the more the user experience deteriorates.
But, as always, I remain hopeful.
Cheers.
I don't know what sparked the memory exactly, but I had nice laugh this morning recalling older posts describing the testing methods used on emusic/j. The imagery of pulling cords and purposefully crashing the computer midstream still draws a laugh from me every now and then.
If emu isn't going to enforce some sort of pricing restraint, then they need to stop promoting themselves a cheaper alternative. Of course, "should" doesn't go very far at emu.
I did this for about a half hour. In previous sessions with the new player, the longer my session went, the worse the lag became, until it finally froze my system and crashed it. That didn't happen this time, any of it.
I'm gonna try it a few more times before emailing them about it. Previously, I've had okay experiences at first, then they'd get progressively worse. I'm gonna keep my optimism in check for the time being.
But today was pretty good.
By they way, there's a new release called, shit, I don't have list in front of me, has the word cinemascope in it, I think. Hell, hold on...
http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/album/Nils-Berg-Cinemascope-Popmotion-MP3-Download/12771359.html:
Nils Berg Cinemascope. He does that folk-jazz thing that Jeremy Udden did so well on Plainville. I haven't investigated further than the emu samples, but damn it sounds promising.
I just got the $.99 offer and the $6.50 lite plan after the first 30 days
If I had time to obsess over stuff like this I would have been a little spastic about not getting an offer
But now here it is and I don't know what to do
Thoughts?
Craig
Having a subscription is worse than having job or a spouse, always something that needs to be done and having to worry about what didn't get done.
Cheap music is cool, but I don't have time to listen to the music I already have.
I was hoping you guys would be able to sway me one way or the other but right now I am seriously meh!
So I say go for it- at worst it's one album for $.99, and at best you might find a low level subscription to be more enjoyable and less stressful.
Craig