FREE/BARGAIN — Media Deals (non-eBook/non-audiobook)

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

It's downright obnaxos (no, I didn't misspell, that's a pun).

You should be pun-ished for that

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Okay. Now that I've learned what thread that I should be posting on (ha) . . . .

Has anyone seen anything on the Naxos Direct website that says how we'll be notified, or can otherwise learn, of the free weekly MP3 albums?

Another mistake (this just isn't my day ): the weekly free MP3's are not necessarily albums; in fact, I seriously doubt that they are. They're probably just tracks.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

You should be pun-ished for that

That's funny.

[GtrsRGr8]

EMusic's free daily download is Hard to Feel the Same about Love, by Curtis Salgado, from his album The Beautiful Lowdown.

I wasn't familiar with the artist or the song, but the song sounds good--it's definitely got good potential to be a hit, IMHO. EMusic/Curtis Salgado/somebody else has this song categorized as "Blues," but it seems more like a bluesy rock song to me.

Follow this link, if you are on eMusic's mailing list, in order to download the track.

[GtrsRGr8]

Classical-music.com's newest free-deal-of-the-week-that-seems-to-come-along-more-frequently-than-once-a-week-but-who's-complaining-not-me is available.

The track is Verstummt, Verstummt, ihr holden Saiten. It is "performed by Carolyn Sampson on a new disc of Bach Birthday Cantatas by the Bach Collegium Japan, conducted by Masaaki Suzuki."

Downloading is easy peasy if you have an account with Classical-music.com. While you are logged in, go to this webpage. There should be a red button on top of the thumbnail of the album cover that says "download now." Click on it.

[GtrsRGr8]

Alexander Street has the next one of their once-every-two-weeks free music downloads ready to be downloaded.

"This week's recording features a suite from Igor Stravinsky's (1882–1971) ballet Petrushka, performed by the Orchestre National de Lille under the direction of Jean-Claude Casadesus."

Here are the titles of the tracks:
Mvt. 1: Scene I: The Shrove-Tide Fair - Vivace
Mvt. 2: Scene I: The Shrove-Tide Fair - The Magic Trick
Mvt. 3: Scene I: The Shrove-Tide Fair - Russian Dance
Mvt. 4: Scene II: Petrushka's cell
Mvt. 5: The Blackamoor's cell - Dance of the Ballerina
Mvt. 6: Scene III: The Moor's Cell - Dance of the Ballerina
Mvt. 7: Scene III: The Moor's Cell - Valse
Mvt. 8: Scene IV: The Fair Towards Evening - Con moto

You might be able to download all of the tracks by going directly to this webpage. If not, start here.

You may notice, on the download webpage, that four of the tracks show 0:00 lengths. I don't know the reason for that, but when you start to download them you will notice that there definitely is something in the files.

You may remember that we had a problem with a track on a previous offering by Alexander Street. I have started listening to the MP3 tracks on this most recent offering, and if I detect any problems I'll let you know later this evening. I may not be able to listen to all of the WMA tracks tonight.

[GtrsRGr8]

EMusic's free download du jour is Laura Gibson's The Cause, from her album Empire Builder. The song is categorized as Alternative/Punk.

Here's the link to the download page.

[GtrsRGr8]

It looks like there may be an issue or two with the Stravinsky MP3 tracks.

They seem all to be clean and complete. One or two end very abruptly, but I checked one (Blackamoor's Cell, Dance of the Ballerina) by playing it on Spotify and it ended the same way.

However, I think that one or more of the tracks are repeated, but with different titles attached to them. I'll have to try to sort that out tomorrow--well, later today 'cause it's already Tuesday here. ha

I still have yet to listen to any of the WMA's.

[StewartM]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

It looks like there may be an issue or two with the Stravinsky MP3 tracks.

Yes, I think you are right!

The tracks that are listed with length "0:00" are repetitions but with different titles. No point downloading those.

(The non-zero tracks correspond to the versions on iTunes and Spotify – just search on "Casadesus Stravinsky" – but without the Firebird.)

Regarding the sudden ends, that is as it should be – the tracks continue into each other.

But the big problem I'm finding is that the last track skips, e.g. at 1:56, 2:50, etc.

[koland]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

EMusic's free download du jour is Laura Gibson's The Cause, from her album Empire Builder. The song is categorized as Alternative/Punk.

Here's the link to the download page.

anyone get this one to download?

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by koland

anyone get this one to download?

Not moi.

First, it wouldn't download. Then before the track had been up very long on the download page, another one appeared; it wouldn't download, either. Then, when I did some playing around with things, the website started taking me to a webpage prompting me to set up a trial account. They wanted me to provide all of my credit card info. Wasn't gonna happen. I gave up.

I don't know if the free tracks thing was just a way to try to get new subscribers or if there is some kind of temporary glitch. Either way, I have no enthusiasm for messing with them anymore.

UPDATE: Okay. Just for kicks, I went to the download page and clicked on the download link. And it worked. I got the MP3, it plays, and it sounds great. This is the track that appeared shortly after the last one that I posted. The information:
Title: If Only Chords
Artist: Morly
Album: Something More Holy EP
Label: Cascine / Redeye
Genre: Electronic

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by StewartM

Yes, I think you are right!

The tracks that are listed with length "0:00" are repetitions but with different titles. No point downloading those.

(The non-zero tracks correspond to the versions on iTunes and Spotify – just search on "Casadesus Stravinsky" – but without the Firebird.)

Regarding the sudden ends, that is as it should be – the tracks continue into each other.

But the big problem I'm finding is that the last track skips, e.g. at 1:56, 2:50, etc.

Thanks for the confirmation of my suspicions and for doing the additional sleuth work.

I did not notice the track skips. However, on the tracks that had been duplicated, I quit listening after I had listened enough that I determined that they were, indeed, repeats. The skips may have been after the point where I stopped the playback on those.

As with the issue with the previous Alexander Street giveaway, they may learn about this issue and fix it.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to go ahead and listen to the WMA's. It seems like I remember that they were okay on the previous Alexander Street giveaway, where the MP3's were not okay.

[GtrsRGr8]

EMusic.com has posted today's free song:
Title: Up On Your Love
Artist: Boulevards
Album: Groove!
Label: Captured Tracks / SC Distribution
Genre: Electronic

However, it seems to have the same problem as the first one that they posted for yesterday. At least, it won't download.

Hopefully, eMusic either will fix the problem, or post another one, one that works, as they did yesterday. I'll keep checking and make a post if they post a song that can actually be downloaded. The webpage, again, if you want to check for yourself, is http://www.emusic.com/dailydownloads/toolbar/main.html.

[koland]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

...
UPDATE: Okay. Just for kicks, I went to the download page and clicked on the download link. And it worked. I got the MP3, it plays, and it sounds great. This is the track that appeared shortly after the last one that I posted. The information:
Title: If Only Chords
Artist: Morly
Album: Something More Holy EP
Label: Cascine / Redeye
Genre: Electronic

Thanks for checking. I played around as well, with as little success (different browsers, computers, etc). Finally downloaded their link to see what it was doing and I think that they were trying to load a file from their own local computers (probably the person that set up the page), rather than from the web server's directories. I did get the second one, later in the day.

[StewartM]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Thanks for the confirmation of my suspicions and for doing the additional sleuth work.

I did not notice the track skips. However, on the tracks that had been duplicated, I quit listening after I had listened enough that I determined that they were, indeed, repeats. The skips may have been after the point where I stopped the playback on those.

As with the issue with the previous Alexander Street giveaway, they may learn about this issue and fix it.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to go ahead and listen to the WMA's. It seems like I remember that they were okay on the previous Alexander Street giveaway, where the MP3's were not okay.

It looks like they have now removed the duplicate tracks from the download list – i.e. the ones that were showing as zero length.

The last track still has the 'skipping' problem; it is fine up to about 1:56 but then starts repeating a 53-second section fourteen times until the end.

This happens with both the MP3 and WMA downloads.

I have sent them an email about the problem.