I’ve just purchased the Sansa Fuze. I have never used any mp3 player, ipod, etc I would like to get online music store recs or tips. Is there a best? I’m surprised to have to pay such a high monthly subscription. Is this a must even if an infrequent user? Appreciate any helpful info. Thks
Well, first off, iTunes is out - their format isn’t compatible with the Fuze. By April, they’re supposed to have a more open format that can easily be converted to MP3, but its extra effort for no real gain.
If you don’t get a lot of music, amazon.com sells MP3s (that work with everything) at a relatively reasonable price.
If you aren’t concerned with mainstream music, eMusic.com has a sort of subscription model where you subscribe to pay for a certain number of MP3s in a month…it comes out to about 25-30¢ a song. You can deactivate the subscription for up to three months…what I do is get a month with 75 songs, de-active for three months, get another month, etc.
.25-30 cents a song - tht’s pretty sweet. I’m new to this whoe mp3 thing too - so I’m learning about available services. I just checked out emusic and found a promo - 365 songs for free for downloading a toolbar. ( probably Google gathering data on your web use ). No malaware / spyware / adaware. No credit card needed
https://www.emusic.com/promo/exit.html
Is emusic a subscription service where the music is unusable when your sub is over - or do you actually own the music file after downloading it - like Amazon purchase? I’m going to be looking for some muisic download pretty soon here too.
Thanks
There are a few places out there, where you can get Free Legal mp3s. One of my Favorites is www.frostclick.com, also mp3.com, and iLike.com feature free stuff from underground or indie artists. I would really suggest starting with CDs you already own and ripping them to your pc.
@fireball wrote:
I just checked out emusic and found a promo - 365 songs for free for downloading a toolbar. ( probably Google gathering data on your web use ). No malaware / spyware / adaware. No credit card needed
Thanks
It’s emusic’s own toolbar. There are a couple of caveats, though. It’s one song a day (you can’t just download 365 songs at once, then uninstall the toolbar), and they pick the songs.
@gwk1967 wrote:
It’s emusic’s own toolbar. There are a couple of caveats, though. It’s one song a day (you can’t just download 365 songs at once, then uninstall the toolbar), and they pick the songs.
They pick the songs?
That blows :manmad:
@gwk1967 wrote:
@fireball wrote:
I just checked out emusic and found a promo - 365 songs for free for downloading a toolbar. ( probably Google gathering data on your web use ). No malaware / spyware / adaware. No credit card needed
https://www.emusic.com/promo/exit.html
Thanks
It’s emusic’s own toolbar. There are a couple of caveats, though. It’s one song a day (you can’t just download 365 songs at once, then uninstall the toolbar), and they pick the songs.
That DOES blow . . . BIG chunks!
Fireball, just what would you consider spyware? I’d say gathering information & data on your web use is EXACTLY that! I hate how everything you download these days want to ‘help’ you and offers to install a ‘toolbar’ for you by default unless you’re astute enough to uncheck the option.
How many freakin’ toolbars does one need? The one taht comes with your browser of choice is enough! 
@gwk1967 wrote:
@fireball wrote:
I just checked out emusic and found a promo - 365 songs for free for downloading a toolbar. ( probably Google gathering data on your web use ). No malaware / spyware / adaware. No credit card needed
https://www.emusic.com/promo/exit.html
Thanks
It’s emusic’s own toolbar. There are a couple of caveats, though. It’s one song a day (you can’t just download 365 songs at once, then uninstall the toolbar), and they pick the songs.
That DOES blow . . . BIG chunks!
Fireball, just what would you consider spyware? I’d say gathering information & data on your web use is EXACTLY that! I hate how everything you download these days want to ‘help’ you and offers to install a ‘toolbar’ for you by default unless you’re astute enough to uncheck the option.
How many freakin’ toolbars does one need? The one that comes with your browser of choice is enough!
However, if one is interested, by downloading Winamp (free version) E-Music will give you 50 free downloads with a 2 week or 1 month (I don’t remember exactly) trial membership. I found my 50 in just a few days. And you’re not limited to a certain amount per day. After about 30, I had to really start looking hard, as their selection isn’t on the same par with some of the other on-line services.
Still 50 free songs isn’t to be sneezed at. I said Thank You very much and cancelled my trial membership. They still occasionally bug me via e-mail trying to entice me back with 75 free songs now. I had a helluva time finding 50 there that I wanted, so unless their collection has grown considerably, I’m not interested. 
What about the original mp3 swapper - Napster. Are they a subscription service - or do you get to keep what ya download with them?
@gwk1967 wrote:
It’s emusic’s own toolbar. There are a couple of caveats, though. It’s one song a day (you can’t just download 365 songs at once, then uninstall the toolbar), and they pick the songs.
Well, yes, and its only while you have a subscription. Actually all you need is the URL for the daily download - you don’t really need the toolbar (I don’t use it). Does it blow chunks that they pick the songs you get for free? So does iTunes (except they just give one free song a week), or most anything legal.
As I mentioned earlier, eMusic sells music that is non-mainstream. If you’re into the music that Clearchannel is feeding the masses on the radio, don’t bother. A lot of the top-rated music (based on quality, not sales) is on eMusic, though - check metacritic.com, which aggregates ratings from many music critics. Its not a typical subscription service - you get to keep what you download.
Edit - Napster is now a subscription service ($12.95/month), and they say its compatible with the Fuze. Of course, you don’t get to keep anything when the subscription is over.
Message Edited by bdb on 01-25-2009 06:12 PM
@bdb wrote:
As I mentioned earlier, eMusic sells music that is non-mainstream. If you’re into the music that Clearchannel is feeding the masses on the radio, don’t bother. A lot of the top-rated music (based on quality, not sales) is on eMusic, though - check metacritic.com, which aggregates ratings from many music critics.
Edit - Napster is now a subscription service ($12.95/month), and they say its compatible with the Fuze.
Message Edited by bdb on 01-25-2009 06:11 PM
hey hey hey dot bash clear channel. I work there. Granted I am peeved at them for cutting me back from fulltime to part time but… I am also my clusters director of underground, indie and progressive music. I used emusic all the time for new stuff. Just because most CC stations are dinosaurs does not mean that they all are. So instead of clear channel maybe you should say:
As I mentioned earlier, eMusic sells music that is non-mainstream. If you’re into the music that most of Mainstreem Radio is feeding the masses on the radio, don’t bother. A lot of the top-rated music (based on quality, not sales) is on eMusic, though - check metacritic.com, which aggregates ratings from many music critics.
FYI CC let 1800 people go in 1 day last week. It might be a subjsct to avoid for a while.
You don’t have to use an online store to put music on an MP3 player. If you have CDs lying around your house, you can use Windows Media Player/iTunes/WinAMP/whatever to rip the songs of your choice onto your computer and then you can drag and drop the songs onto your Fuze. However, on a few occaisions, the tags will be wrong.
To give an example of what I mean by “incorrect tagging”, let’s say I have a CD of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light and I want to get “Once in a Lifetime” onto my computer. Likely, when I put the CD into my computer it will either read something like
TITLE ARTIST ALBUM
Once in a Lifetime Talking Heads Remain in Light
Or
TITLE ARTIST ALBUM
Track 4 Unknown Artist Unknown Album
If you get the bottom fields, simply left click and chose edit to correctly title the title, artist and album (and if it suits your fancy, year and genre) to the correct titles. And then select which tracks you want to rip (that means copy the songs on the album to your computer) and press “Rip Selected Tracks” or whatever it is for Windows Media Player or whatever you use to play music on your computer.
If you already own music, there’s no reason to buy it again on Rhapsody or iTunes or eMusic.
fireball wrote:
Is emusic a subscription service where the music is unusable when your sub is over - or do you actually own the music file after downloading it - like Amazon purchase? I’m going to be looking for some muisic download pretty soon here too.
Thanks
No. The subscription (at various levels) is for so many songs per month. You get mp3’s without any restrictions. They work on any player and as long as you have file in hand they work even if you cancel your subscription. If you do still have your supscription, and you lose the files, you can download them again free. Rhapsody is a different subscription model where you can access ALL their songs, but they stop working as soon as you quit the plan.
One downside is they only have track credits. If I like an album with >20 short tracks that’s more than a month’s allotment, so I couldn’t even download the whole album in one month. Plus it costs more without having any more music than one with fewer long tracks.
@docstrange wrote:
If you have CDs lying around your house, you can use Windows Media Player/iTunes/WinAMP/whatever to rip the songs of your choice onto your computer and then you can drag and drop the songs onto your Fuze.
Just make sure you do a few songs before you go all-out with ripping. iTunes and WMP don’t rip to MP3 by default. iTunes’ default ripping format (they call it “input format”) isn’t even supported by the Fuze.
Yes i know, this is considered illgeal sometimes and yes it is not honest, but some music i just can’t get without this.
Limeware. Or you can use www.beemp3.com which is pretty good.
@mc_hammer wrote:
Yes i know, this is considered illgeal sometimes and yes it is not honest, but some music i just can’t get without this.
Limeware. Or you can use www.beemp3.com which is pretty good.
I’ll take issue with the statement that sometimes the only alternative in getting music you desire is by stealing it. Besides being a musician, I am also a music collector and have never found a piece of music that I couldn’t get legally. And I’m sure some of the music I’ve obtained is harder to get than the norm. (Edison Diamond Discs, Shellac 78’s, transcription LP’s and the like) Yes, sometimes it takes a bit of research, leg work and effort, but it can be done. Also, if worse comes to worse, you can contact the library of congress and they have a wealth of recordings of historical value.
Do you have a local library? I do, and I can check out cd’s 7 per day, Now I am not a Pirate, But I do know that Limewire is such a bad risk, I build and repair PC’s, and Everyone I know in the business won’t touch limewire with a 100 foot pole. It is riddled with spyware and viruses, not to mention porn…
You can pruchase a program for 20 dollars called ARES, it will get you all the music you need legally.
And Itunes is compatible with Fuze, the ACC format as well as MP3, trust me, I download podcasts from itunes then load them with windows media player to my sansa.
Yes i know limeware is a bad music source, however, there are cases that I CANNOT ABSOLUTLY, AFTER WORKING MY BUTT OFF, CANNOT FIND, so i use limeware than, and only download ones with correct tags and seem right. I use www.beemp3.com which is an okay site, and there is a subscription option for that too.
@creamywet67 wrote:
Do you have a local library? I do, and I can check out cd’s 7 per day, Now I am not a Pirate, But I do know that Limewire is such a bad risk, I build and repair PC’s, and Everyone I know in the business won’t touch limewire with a 100 foot pole. It is riddled with spyware and viruses, not to mention porn…
You can pruchase a program for 20 dollars called ARES, it will get you all the music you need legally.
And Itunes is compatible with Fuze, the ACC format as well as MP3, trust me, I download podcasts from itunes then load them with windows media player to my sansa.
Not entirely correct. ACC is not compatable. You need to convert them. Podcasts Download as mp3 in most cases.
I am not familiar with what audiobooks and podcasts are. Can anyone mind explaining to me. I have never used these before.
