Music On Demand(Oct 6th 2001)
Ever since I first sat by the radio with my fathers reel to reel tape recorder and a microphone to record 'Top of the pops' I have always loved to have music around me. I used to frequently by vinyl singles and albums. I was never a great fan of tapes, it didn't take very long for them to stretch and distort no matter how well you looked after them.
You can imagine how I felt when in 1983 I got my first CD player (still have it to this day but it's a bit worse for wear).
Slowly the amount of CDs in the local stores took over the amount of vinyl records and so too in my own collection.
While I was single it was manageable to have any one CD playing at a time and then put away when I've finished with it.
I tended to buy a CD after hearing one or two tracks from it. Increasingly those one or two tracks were turned out to be the only ones I liked and I spent most of my time changing CDs rather than listening to music. The first step to help cure this problem was to get a 5 disc multiplayer.
The 5 disc player worked well since on full random you could bear listening to some of the 'other' tracks since your favourites would frequently pop up.
Eventually the price of the 100 disc multiplayer came within the range of my budget. With in excess of 200 CDs I should really have waited for one of the bigger players to come along.
In the past couple of years spending more time with children I've come to learn that CDs are not indestructible as they were first advertised to be on TV. Suddenly, having 100 of my prized CDs in an easy to open player in the living room doesn't seem like such a good idea.
Over the past couple of weeks I've been converting all my CDs to MP3. To do this I use a program called "Easy CD" by Poikosoft .
Now with most of my CDs converted I can use jukebox software like Real Jukebox or Winamp to play any selection of music.
This system has its advantages but it's problems too. Some advantages are there are no DJ's, no commercials, very few songs that we don't like. Some disadvantages are, no regular news bulletin, no new music.
To complement the MP3 files I'll sometimes listen to Launch.com . This Internet radio station allows you to rate the music as it's played. Rating the music means that the station is tuned to your music choice.
When mobile I need traffic reports so listen to my local radio station Millenium FM.