I think there are more annual members complaining than you might think. A number of the other complainees have cancelled and been given free months, discounts, etc. People are going to continue to complain until they are completely done with the service or eMu fixes things.
I'm still there on an offer. I'm not overly miserable about the whole thing anyway. It was interesting talking to greg and brighternow about the differences between US and other markets. (broken hearts thread). It seems like I've come across more than one snippy Canadian who says "what's the big deal" while sitting on a 90 per month grandfathered plan.
Them snippy Canucks. Not to be a snippy jazz fan, but the loss of the Indies affects me not one whit. With my bonus, I can accept the price increase, and I have lots of new things I am interested in getting. I am hanging back to see what happens with the bitrate business....
But all that Fantasy/Prestige/etc. stuff that used to be per-track pricing is now album-only for 10 plus minute tracks - that has to have some effect on snappy jazz fans.
Snippy, very snippy. For all my vetching I had to get a booster last night to top off Rockin' The Paradiso by Robert Gordon and Chris Spedding - got the remaining 23 tracks for about $3.50 I think. Of course the weirdness continues - although I somehow got credit for the previously downloaded tracks to complete the album, in my Download History the album is credited to Robert Gordon & Chris Spedding ( or was it the other way around?), which has no album art in my iTunes, and the current one has artwork from some other band . Can anybody explain this? Where's Cathy?
As to those Fantasy/Prestige etc. now I'm waiting for some more measly credits from Guvera for some of those tracks. Even at $1.59 a pop they could be cheaper to just download there. I need one of those long tracks from Saxophone Colossus, after I make sure I don't have it on another release.
I got my pick of those Prestige bargains, believe me! I think I got most of the output from 1957-58. And a substantial chunk of Prestige (eg, most of the Coltrane catalog) was already album priced. Like BigD, I'll do some cherry-picking on Guvera, if credits and inclination permit. Bottom line is, even at $5.99, the price is better than anywhere else out there right now. There are still track-priced bargains to be had, and some album-priced bargains too. Fix the bit rate, bring back the missing Fantasy titles, and I am good to go....
Well lookee here - I don't know, this might be a crap reissue but 7digital has this for $8.99 - 4 Classic Albums by Sonny Rollins including Saxophone Colossus, and no album only tracks. One never knows, do one.
There's nothing like sticking it to the man. Sorry, I was having a flashback.
If you have a Half Price Books around, you might find those CDs and a few more titles from the same series for about the same price, if you'd rather have a physical release.
Speaking of Half Price books, the ones around us have gotten a buttload of 3-4 CD sets (British Imports) of 50s rock, R & B, and Jazz for around $8-$15 - all sorts of stuff that has fallen out of copyright on the other side of the pond. I picked up a really good 3 CD rockabilly comp for about $8 a few weeks ago.
If you are in Massachusetts, Newbury Comics sells most OJC for about $4.00. Of course, if you're in Massachusetts, you also need to trek out to Northampton to buy at Turn It Up!
Newbury Comics cut the price of many of their OJC's to 1.99 or 2.99 - the Manchester, NH store has the best selection (less picked over than the Boston or Cambridge store, and a larger selection than the Portland. ME store - I always seem to find more good bargains in Manchester - I travel some for work, and my son lives in Cambridge). They also have/had many box sets very cheap - I got Sonny Rollins' The Freelance Years (5 CD set) for 14.99. Booker T and the MG's 3-CD set for 9.99. Good times.
The Amherst store wasn't big, but it could hold a few interesting things. I haven't been in Newbury Comics since I move Summer 2009, so I don't know how their prices have changed, but I always felt it was one of the most customer friendly stores. Do check out Turn It Up, if you can, as well as Raven Books, which used to be in Amherst but is now in Harvard Square.
I took a peek at the message board for something called hydrogenaudio.com in looking up opinions on the encoding issue, and it made the eMu MB look fairly tame, which being fairly limited in my MB exposure I found surprising.
That's not surprising - most web forums (including hydrogenaudio.com) are completely anonymous, whereas the eMu forum isn't, at least to the eMu staff. They know who you are, so if you say something libelous about someone (including the eMu staff), presumably they could impose some sort of sanction on you, such as canceling your subscription with no refund (I doubt they would, but the typical subscriber might not assume that).
If people knew they could bitch and moan with total impunity, we'd probably see more bitching and moaning. Either way, a lot of people are angry more because of their perception of the eMu situation and not the reality of it, and while that can certainly be grating for realists, it's hardly unusual.
Just to provide a slightly similar example, I get my cell phone service from U.S. Cellular. At the moment, U.S. Cellular is touting something they call the "Believe Plan," and they've been running all sorts of ads trying to get people to switch to this. The benefits of the "Believe Plan" are that you get "bonus rewards" (similar to those of most credit card companies these days), you get a limit on "overage penalties," and... well, that's about it. Meanwhile, the average price increase for "upgrading" to the "Believe Plan" is about 10 percent, with no difference in actual quality of service whatsoever. So what are we supposed to "believe" about this? Nothing they're offering actually costs them any more to provide; they're just upping the price, and trying to put a PR spin on it as a "service enhancement" - only the enhancements are of (at best) negligible value, or (at worst) totally bogus.
Some people would tell me I should switch from U.S. Cellular to another provider, but will another provider be any better when it comes to treating me (and everyone else in the world!) like an idiot with PR spin? I seriously doubt it. And there's also a good chance the other providers' coverage will be worse in my area - that's the reason I went with U.S. Cellular in the first place, and that situation hasn't changed.
Just to conclude here, for the same reason(s) I'm not going to "switch" from eMu to some other retailer; I'm either going to maintain my (now minimal) subscription or stop buying MP3's online completely (unless it's from the bands themselves). Most likely I'll stop completely, given what I've been seeing lately. Not that this should matter to anyone else, of course - I'm just saying that's what I'll probably do.
I should have done it already, but the new Dears album is supposed to be out soon!
I'll definitely check out Raven Books - will be in Boston for Xmas. Don't get out much to the Amherst area, but the last time I was there my wife dragged me out of Turn It Up (I never would have left) - the marks from my fingers dragging along the walls as I'm being pulled out are probably still there.
Scissor Man: Drums & Wires yes! I always forget how good XTC was (sorry, off-topic)...your comment makes me wonder if the final irony of this thread might turn out to be how many of us give up mp3 downloading altogether and go back to buying the physical artifact (whatever the format: I await the return of 8track and reel-to-reel tapes at any moment) of a given recording...and, if we're lucky enough to have one fairly near, from an actual store.
Well here is something I am truly flipping bloody flabbergasted by - on the front page the eVil eMpire hawked the return of the Rolling Stones (little late considering the 7dig $3 sale) back apparently unchanged from their 3 day stint in April of 2008. I say unchanged because I was checking some of the pages for pricing and when I get to Aftermath does it say Download Album in the black box? Nooooo, it says Complete Album in the orange box. Two and a half years later somehow the robot monster still knows I DL'd the 11 minute Going Home back then, although of course the orange box is the only indication now because it's an Album Only track (no download button to turn blue). And get this the track I downloaded in 4/08 is in Fraunhofer just like all the dreck they're peddling now. It also knew the 2 tunes I had downloaded from Aftermath UK, also in Fraunhofer. This means most of the UMG dump is the same, and given all the change in distributorship problems we have all experienced through the years - vanishing albums, 0 album artists, 0 track albums, etc., - these albums have to be exactly the same for this recognition to occur, as the releases delivered by Universal two and a half years ago. So I think the question of whether this drop is old goods has been definitively answered.
Oh, and notice that the albums that were there before all have the We Say/They Say blurbs that none of the new drop came with, and I guess the member reviews are old too.
Looks like we can learn as much from her silence as her pronouncements. Last week she gave the excuse of the Thanksgiving Weekend (a valid excuse) for not answering questions in a timely fashion. This week she appears to have totally vanished. One almost wonders whether this sort of a post and run approach enables her to avoid the tough questions that come once people realize there is a person to answer questions or is it just a way to not answer questions she promised she would get back to us on?
I am play-pretending over these like as if "of course" they are going to fix the low-quality rips, whereas actually nothing would surprise me more. They may be really in trouble this time...ie, truly not have the resources to fix this and other problems on the site.
I firmly believe it is the latter, I always had the impression that they operate on a knife's edge technically. The smallest of changes or glitches seem to swamp them.
I'm pretty well convinced that the rips are not low quality - I haven't heard anything bad about actual sound quality - maybe they're scrambling to find believable way to explain that - which regardless of the actual quality, there's no way people are going to believe them. Why can't they just think ahead a little bit? Like say, "the new tracks being added are with a different encoder which allows a smaller file with no loss in sound quality" before adding the tracks instead of just letting people discover it.
But that implies they are operating in any other mode than crisis, for the last 7 years I have always been struck by how they seem to be purely reactive.
The fact is they are not industry standard. Perceived possible quality problem = quality problem, period. I'm already thinking I've got too much invested in these damn mp3's as it is...all I need is another reason not to buy more!
Chaos at any workplace, leaves one exhausted. The person comes home drained and feeling beaten up. It's a shame because usually constant chaos and firefighting can be avoiding by planning and establishing standards and policies. Planning in business is often the difference between success and failure -- It's like that Ben Franklin quote, "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail"
Heh. I worked at one place where the answer to every problem large or small was, "Put it in the procedures manual." We wound up with specific policies covering situations that would never, ever come up again in a hundred years, which was OK because nobody looked at the procedures manual anyway.
Comments
As to those Fantasy/Prestige etc. now I'm waiting for some more measly credits from Guvera for some of those tracks. Even at $1.59 a pop they could be cheaper to just download there. I need one of those long tracks from Saxophone Colossus, after I make sure I don't have it on another release.
There's nothing like sticking it to the man. Sorry, I was having a flashback.
If people knew they could bitch and moan with total impunity, we'd probably see more bitching and moaning. Either way, a lot of people are angry more because of their perception of the eMu situation and not the reality of it, and while that can certainly be grating for realists, it's hardly unusual.
Just to provide a slightly similar example, I get my cell phone service from U.S. Cellular. At the moment, U.S. Cellular is touting something they call the "Believe Plan," and they've been running all sorts of ads trying to get people to switch to this. The benefits of the "Believe Plan" are that you get "bonus rewards" (similar to those of most credit card companies these days), you get a limit on "overage penalties," and... well, that's about it. Meanwhile, the average price increase for "upgrading" to the "Believe Plan" is about 10 percent, with no difference in actual quality of service whatsoever. So what are we supposed to "believe" about this? Nothing they're offering actually costs them any more to provide; they're just upping the price, and trying to put a PR spin on it as a "service enhancement" - only the enhancements are of (at best) negligible value, or (at worst) totally bogus.
Some people would tell me I should switch from U.S. Cellular to another provider, but will another provider be any better when it comes to treating me (and everyone else in the world!) like an idiot with PR spin? I seriously doubt it. And there's also a good chance the other providers' coverage will be worse in my area - that's the reason I went with U.S. Cellular in the first place, and that situation hasn't changed.
Just to conclude here, for the same reason(s) I'm not going to "switch" from eMu to some other retailer; I'm either going to maintain my (now minimal) subscription or stop buying MP3's online completely (unless it's from the bands themselves). Most likely I'll stop completely, given what I've been seeing lately. Not that this should matter to anyone else, of course - I'm just saying that's what I'll probably do.
I should have done it already, but the new Dears album is supposed to be out soon!
Oh, and notice that the albums that were there before all have the We Say/They Say blurbs that none of the new drop came with, and I guess the member reviews are old too.
Heh. I worked at one place where the answer to every problem large or small was, "Put it in the procedures manual." We wound up with specific policies covering situations that would never, ever come up again in a hundred years, which was OK because nobody looked at the procedures manual anyway.