An alternative to a CD swap?

[Sergio Paradise]

After burning off almost all of the 54 cd's at home and not even beginning to photocopy and cut up the covers i've been wondering if there isn't a more efficient to do the swap thing?

I don't know exactly how feasible this would be, but bear with me anyway ;-)

If we all worked out how much buying the cd's, plus postage and whatnot costs each of us would it not be possible to use that money to buy some server space and upload the mixes as MP3's? The server could be password protected so that only the contributors can access the music. After everyone has downloaded the music it could be cleared ready for the next swap, with those contributers paying for the continued use of the server space.

I'm guessing that an average mix would come to around 75-100mb once it's compressed to mp3 so we'd be looking at 4 to 5 Gb of space. Given that someone has to volunteer their time to organise postage of all the mixes etc. converting a few CD's to mp3 and uploading would be a breeze - i'm sure the majority of us could cope with that part of it ourselves anyhow.

Purely from an environmental point of view (hippy alert!) the saving of all those cd's that will surely end up in the bin, as well as the paper and ink would be pretty impressive.

Anyhow, I'm sure that some of you know better than me how realistic this idea would be so I might be fooling myself but I thought i'd open the idea up to the forum.

Apologies if this has been dealt with before.

Jamie.

[sport casual]

Now that is a grade idea. Me and the missus might have to partake in a bit of that.

[rolex baxter]

such a system appears to be contingent on one having access access to a high speed connection !?


personally I'm content with the current swap procedure, sure its bit of a task to get em done but I feel its worth it when that parcel arrives with all those spanking CDS and snazzy covers

[formigo]

Yeah, not much fun on 56k I suspect.

[emperor tomato ketchup]

I'd be kanckered on this one connection wise. Of course it could be done in paralell for thems that likes that sort of thing.

Not sure how many people throw out the CDs after the swap though. I certainly haven't with the last lot.

[john stapleton]

no good for me I'm afraid - I have a fast connection, but I'd much rather have the CDs - I'd like to be able to play them on my stereo, rather than on my crappy laptop speakers. And I haven't thrown any of them out so far!

[sermad]

No. The whole part of the swap is that you have to put a bit of effort in to get a MASSIVE amount of music back.

Plus some of the covers are ace and its the whole package innit!

[benjamin hatton]

No. The whole part of the swap is that you have to put a bit of effort in to get a MASSIVE amount of music back.

Plus some of the covers are ace and its the whole package innit!

yeah, seconded, i'm really looking forward to getting the cd's through for this swap...plus the downside of a file-sharing type swop is people might browse a tracklist, decide not to bother downloading the mix and then miss out on some really good music....

[The Divine One]

What's all this shouting, we'll have no MP3s here. This is a local swap etc etc

[Blighty]

You can transfer up to 1 gig via Yousendit.com so all the CDs could be compressed to high quality mp3s and then exchanged like that. That way you can still have decent quality versions of the mixes/comps that can be burnt onto CD and played on a regular CD player. Obviously this wouldn't work for people with slow connerctions but it's still a great way of sharing music. Obviously Soulseek is another way.

[The Divine One]

Am I being a total spazz here, or is the argument that by uploading your mix to a site, and then downloading 54 mixes with crap compressed MP3 sound quality you then burn the 54 mixes onto separate CDs and this...

...saves time???? Sorry for being such a luddite, but this sounds like a complete nightmare and I for one will not be signing up for any uploading MP3 malarkey...

[sermad]

Miss out the burning to cd step * 54.

[LDJB]

Am I being a total spazz here, or is the argument that by uploading your mix to a site, and then downloading 54 mixes with crap compressed MP3 sound quality you then burn the 54 mixes onto separate CDs and this...

...saves time???? Sorry for being such a luddite, but this sounds like a complete nightmare and I for one will not be signing up for any uploading MP3 malarkey...

What Mr D said for me too.

Much too complicated for an old codger such as myself. Good for the young 'uns with their ipods and all that but I'm strictly analogue when it comes to portable entertainment (and non-portable for that matter too).

[Sie Vulture]

What I'm most looking forward to from this, my first V V CD swap, is that I'll get over 50 CDR's to leave in my car to listen to whilst zooming around... No more buying 3 quid comp CD's outta Fopp to keep me going whilst belting up and down motorways!

I know Hadrian Elephant will be 100% same as me! ..

So, I'm with the Grumpy Old Scots on this one!

[tdlt02]

Keeping it on CD is fine by me as well.
I'm already pushing it to be part of the digital revolution with CDs!!!
The idea of receiving a package through the post with loads of CDs and their colourful sleeves (except mine, ran out of time to do a proper one) is much more appealing.