Mtracks
So with The Wire shutting down, I looked at Mtracks. Any reason I shouldn't sign up? The jazz selection is thin, but I've found enough now to keep me busy for at least a few months. Someone on another thread mentioned its CBR (instead of VBR); should this stop me from joining?
Any other input from people who are members?
Any other input from people who are members?
Comments
Meaning that you didn't have much to choose from or some other meaning?
While Limewire felt like eMusic a year or 2 before Sony came along and spoiled our fun, mTracks feels like eMusic 5 years before Sony. Maybe I'm wrong, but so far I've found too many artists there with blank pages.
Also, I agree the number of new releases is very disappointing.
Selection: From my early searches, I'd say this leans more heavily toward finding solid electronic. For jazz there are some labels from Europe and Clean Feed, for those free jazz folks. There is not much here though, for having two million tracks. Signing up for 75, which I did, means you're willing to go DJ in record basement and find some hidden gems. They do at least let you differentiate between Signed and Unsigned, a basic free upload fest.
Layout: Not much in terms of searching, and the only real path to new artists is to find some artists on there you dig and then go through similar artists search. Likewise, you can find a good label like Fat Cat Records or Kranky, both of which I enjoy.
Price: This is actually significantly more expensive than the 27 cents they advertise and especially compared to the defunk Wire. Every track over ten minutes costs 2 credits. Lots of examples too of album pricing for few-tracked albums. Still, now that the Wire is audios, this is the best deal assuming you find music you dig.
Downloading: Pain in the butt one at a time, you have to set up everything. Plus, two of my albums were tagged in Chinese. Not on the same level as Guvera, but a close second.
Sound Quality: Mediocre VBR 1. In my book, VBR 0 Lame is significantly better on any quality cans and hardly takes up more space, so this is disappointing. And one of my dls was CBR 192, even more wretched.
For free, I got Darkstar's North, Pan America's For Waiting, For Chasing, Polmo Polpo's Science of Breath, and Tanakh's Ardent Fevers.
They can have my twenty bucks for so-called 75 downloads, but I can't promise anything after that. Except that I will be hoping for a new start-up to take pre-Sony eMu's place in the universe.
But I know this group is fairly adept at moving past those roadblocks, and I recommend the service. The great European jazz, American electronica, and Canadian alternative I've found at the site have easily made it worth the twenty bucks a month for an average of eight or nine albums, depending on your style of music.