Spotify – What is it and how does it work?

I’ve heard of it but never looked into it.
Mrs D suggested it last night, going for the Premium stuff.

Can some kind soul enlighten me on what it is and how it works? For example, can I download music to my iPod to use in the car?

Not a download as such to put on whatever device you want, but you can create “offline” playlists which are downloaded and can be played without net connection. I put them on my phone for use in the car

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify

Spotify – What is it and how does it work?

It’s Witchcraft and works using magic?

Consider Deezer, Google music and Apple Music too. Apple do a family subscription which might work out cheaper.

You can try it out for free but that won’t allow you to download stuff, there are occasional adverts & you can only play stuff on shuffle.

I used it for about 4 months or so without paying, but they did an offer around Christmas that was something like 3 months for £3. I’ve been using the paid service ever since, but probably don’t get the most out of it in terms of offline downloads and stuff.

Basically, it’s a massive online music library. There are pre-configured playlists, or you can make your own.
Like I say, the free version only lets you stream music, so you either need an unlimited data allowance or use it only over Wi-Fi.

Once you pay for it, you can download what you want and it is available on your device for however long you pay for it. Once you stop paying for your spotify subscription, you lose access to that downloaded music.

Simply, it’s a streaming service with access to massive amounts of music but only when you are connected to the internet*.

Think of it like renting all the music you can imagine. When the contract stops, you loose access.

They do a 3 month trial so give it a go for free.

* you can manually manage downloads to store some stuff locally, but that cannot be copied across devices and expires when your subscription stops.

Basically they fire random music up into the air. If you pay them, they supply you with a special magic hoover to suck the music back out of the air and into your mobile device

It’s the best damn £5 that I currently spend a month. I have a mini-laptop connected up to my home hi-fi and it means I can play pretty much any music I can think of, at any time of the day, however many times I want, and with no adverts. Apart from Tool 🙁

Shame the don’t have Taylor Swift any more…..

Sounds like it could be worth a go..I like the sound of a magic hoover 😀

It’s like .. radio for the 21st century… with no DJs..!

(Hang on, did I say I didn’t like it?!)

It’s great if you like a lot of music, just think of the £10/month as what you’d spend on CD’s anyway, with the added advantage of being able to listen to anything you like. And it’s far more convenient than carting wallets of CD’s around or curating a playlist on a USB stick for the car.

I’m not fussed about the lack of permanence to the downloads, the more listnend to CD’s in my collection are 20 years old and scratched, and the hard drive I spent hours/days ripping them onto long ago died, and 2nd hand CD’s are near worthless and take up huge amounts of space so I’m not missing them.

Downside, the recommendations are nowhere near as good as Pandora was. It seems biased towards niche/unsigned bands (or maybe that’s just my taste) so it’ll throw random stuff in when all you want is a greenday/nofx/offspring/blink/Jimmy eat world sing-allong in the car.

wilko1999 – Member

It’s the best damn £5 that I currently spend a month.

How so £5? Are they over-charging me…?

or curating a playlist on a USB stick for the car.

minus points for gratuitous use of the word curating…no pudding

How so 5? Are they over-charging me.How so £5? Are they over-charging me.

Used to be £5 for PCs, £10 for mobiles with offline playlists IIRC

Its also £5 for additional family memebers, so if anyone you know has it already club together and make some savings. Note, if you/family cancel in future im pretty sure you would lose any playlists created in the family package, but thats the only downside i can see.

My mate manages Foxes & Powell & some new act that everybody is fighting over called girli, he swears by it & it has radio stations very very frightened.
The music industry is putting everything on spotify the minute it’s played on air so in effect you can then go to any radio station playlist then find all the tracks on spotify & create your own upfront playlist but without the dj.

It’s when you decorate your mirror with your two fingered zit pinched offerings

Are they all compressed files?

I’ve still got an ancient NAD hi-fi and play CD’s 😳

I’ve never tried any of the streaming services

Premium is ace, i get shed loads of use out of it, in my car via iphone

Once you stop paying for your spotify subscription, you lose access to that downloaded music.

So, £120 a year (at today’s prices) forever more or you lose your record collection? Sounds like the more playlists and downloads you make, the tighter the clasp gets around your hazelnuts.

yes they are compressed. Spotify premium is 320Kbps OGG Vorbis I think.

Downside, the recommendations are nowhere near as good as Pandora was. It seems biased towards niche/unsigned bands (or maybe that’s just my taste) so it’ll throw random stuff in when all you want is a greenday/nofx/offspring/blink/Jimmy eat world sing-allong in the car.

on the flipside, this is EXACTLY why I love the spotify recommendations and think it’s the best thing since sliced bread. I’ve discovered loads of great stuff from the Discover playlist – just today it through up a Mahavishnu Orchestra track, in which i spotted a bit that had been sampled by Massive Attack on Blue Lines – being a nerd i love shit like that 🙂

jools182 – Member

Are they all compressed files?

They are compressed, but if you pay for premium you can choose the ‘quality’ of the streamed files & also the downloaded files. I am not sure what the compression rates are, but it will probably be on the FAQ’s for Spotify website I would think.

jools182 – Member

I’ve still got an ancient NAD hi-fi and play CD’s

Snap. But, you can do that and use Spotify too. I’ve got a 3020i in the living room with a Luxman CD player and some RTL floorstanders that I refuse to get rid of, despite my Wife’s protestations.
I should probably get some kind of wireless connector to use spotify from, but I just have a headphone socket to line-in cable permanently connected & plug my phone or tablet into it.

It’s basically an incidouus means of copting users into a contrived sense of infinite choice – incrementally eroding their capacity for critical appreciation … Just another facet of what’s known in some circles as The Scientific Dictatorship ..

So, £120 a year (at today’s prices) forever more or you lose your record collection? Sounds like the more playlists and downloads you make, the tighter the clasp gets around your hazelnuts.

15 years ago i was spending £120 every couple of months on CDs. I reckon it’s a bargain

It’s basically an incidouus means of copting users into a contrived sense of infinite choice – incrementally eroding their capacity for critical appreciation

riiiiiiight…

I play Spotify our of the iMac’s headphone socket into the stereo and the sound quality is excellent – as good as a CD.

15 years ago i was spending £120 every couple of months on CDs. I reckon it’s a bargain

It’s a brilliant business model.

couple of questions please. ive tried spotify before and always stop using it, but every now and then i think of a way i might use it more and try again. at the mo im ‘borrowing’ my brothers acc to see if i can get this idea working…..

1. ive got bbc playlister with around 200 tracks ticked. it lets me open that playlist through spotify. this is good. at the mo im on my chromebook, playing my 6music playlist through spotify, cast to my tv/hifi through a chromecast.
ive looked at cutting out the middle man (spotify) and just playing my playlist through the playlister site/app but it doesnt seem possible. i have to export and play the songs through something else such as spotify/deezer/youtube. is that right?

2. could i play this playlister through my phone in the car? phone connected to aux, open playlister and export to spotify again and do same thing? and if so do you know how much data i would use for say one hours spotify streaming? i spose id always need a signal too wouldnt i.

3. theres no way of saving this playlist to spotify is there and playing it offline?

thanks

noltae – Member

It’s basically an incidouus means of copting users into a contrived sense of infinite choice – incrementally eroding their capacity for critical appreciation … Just another facet of what’s known in some circles as The Scientific Dictatorship ..

I don’t even understand what this means….

theres no way of saving this playlist to spotify is there and playing it offline?

Not sure about migrating playlists to Spotify, but you can save playlists to an iPhone etc and play offline when you have no signal etc.

Trailrider Jim – Member

So, £120 a year (at today’s prices) forever more or you lose your record collection? Sounds like the more playlists and downloads you make, the tighter the clasp gets around your hazelnuts.

Your current record collection doesn’t explode. Well, mine hasn’t.
You can subscribe to Spotify & still buy music in whatever format you like, if you wish to.

It’s £10/month to listen to as much music as you could possibly imagine from as wide varied a source as you are likely to find anywhere.
I know people who pay around £40/month for a phone contract so they can get an iPhone & pay £70/month for a Sky subscription but think I am crazy for spending £10/month on a readily available catalogue of music, the likes of which I would never otherwise have access to.

So, £120 a year (at today’s prices) forever more or you lose your record collection? Sounds like the more playlists and downloads you make, the tighter the clasp gets around your hazelnuts.

Only if you treat Spotify as your record collection. Personally I use it as a way of finding new stuff and a way of listening to cheesy poop that I don’t want to buy.

When I find stuff I actually want, I generally find that by then it’s cheap as a CD plus Autorip on Amazon.

I wish they were all better at finding new stuff, though. None of them even seem to have come up with the hideously obvious and trivial to implement idea of a “just play everything at random” button.

It’s a brilliant business model.

it’s actually a fairly poor business model; spotify has, apparently, never made a profit so far

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/spotify-financial-results-streaming-music-profitable

Some thoughts from my recent experiences….

Tidal allows you to download as many tracks as you like onto your device while Spotify restricts you to 3333.

Microsoft’s Groove Music has the largest collection at 40 million.

The Spotify app has been around for ages. It will even work on old devices by using an older version. I’ve used it recently on a 2nd generation iPod touch where few other apps work.

Google Play Music and Tidal give you access to music videos.

Qubox has the best collection of jazz but is less great for other stuff.

Use soundiiz.com to transfer playlists across services so you can use all the free trail periods.

^^^ cheers. Some good info there!

Shame the don’t have Taylor Swift any more…..

Lets keep it that way eh.

Reading this with interest. We have a decent 3 yr old Denon DAB system with an Onkyo iPod dock, wharfedale speakers and all our music on an old iPod classic 150mb thing. The Denon isn’t Bluetooth or WiFi. What’s the simplest way to get and play Spotify stuff through the system ? We have iPhone 5’s

So what are the benefits over youtube?