Music on Special Offer Thread?

Posted by: sjt on 14 December 2016

I am wondering if it would be legit to have a thread in here dedicated to music album downloads from legitimate retailers that are currently on special offer.

As an example I was just looking through the what are you listening to mega thread just now and came across the Melody Gardot record because someone was listening to it. I have wanted this for a while but it was always expensive (about 20 quid). On a whim I went over to a place I usually go to buy music downloads and by a blind stroke of luck it was on special offer at just over half price. Deluxe edition is cheaper than the standard edition! I bought it straight away.

So I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread dedicated to posting albums that are on special offer at the moment with not-so-subtle hints as to where you could get them from, when the offer expires and how much is knocked off etc, so people could see instantly anything that was on special. It would certainly be a thread I would come back to often.

I did a search and couldn't find anything like this in the forum, but usually the searches on these forums are rubbish so this is not a guarantee!

There might need to be a few rules, e.g. the poster has no affiliation with the seller, only legitimate download shops / sites etc.

Just a thought still in the half-bakery...

 

Posted on: 22 January 2017 by sjt
docbot posted:

Just finished retagging the Callas box set. This looks like a wonderful collection - 39 full albums in total. The three pdf booklets, including Libretti, are also great.  I extracted the individual album covers from one of the booklets and tidied up the tags to fit in with how I store my classical CDs rips/downloads.  I am in for a "cultured" evening!  :-) ...   

Mucho thanks for the heads up on this. I think this is the top prize for the best bargain so far! Listening to La Traviata at the moment. There is much I don't know in this set so its years of education!

I have to wonder why Qobuz does these bonkers prices? Error? Some kind of strange marketing plan? I am not complaining mind you!

Posted on: 22 January 2017 by Bert Schurink
sjt posted:
docbot posted:

Just finished retagging the Callas box set. This looks like a wonderful collection - 39 full albums in total. The three pdf booklets, including Libretti, are also great.  I extracted the individual album covers from one of the booklets and tidied up the tags to fit in with how I store my classical CDs rips/downloads.  I am in for a "cultured" evening!  :-) ...   

Mucho thanks for the heads up on this. I think this is the top prize for the best bargain so far! Listening to La Traviata at the moment. There is much I don't know in this set so its years of education!

I have to wonder why Qobuz does these bonkers prices? Error? Some kind of strange marketing plan? I am not complaining mind you!

Must be error, I can't imagine it's serious pricing. And especially not because on other countries the price is at least 10 times more...

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by hungryhalibut

I decided to go for the Callas box set, and have embarked on adding the original covers, some of which are just great. I hadn't realised that you can very simply use the snip tool to extract jpegs from the PDF booklet, until my son told me. It's a bit fiddly working out which album is which and due to the fiddling I've only had time to listen to one track, but it did sound delightful with a nice lush orchestra and wonderfully clear singing. It's still on the site at £7 for the 96k - I'd expect them to have spotted it by now, but it seems not. It's most certainly the best bargain so far. 

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by SamS

I bought a few of the individual Callas' when they were released a year or 2 ago - also on sale (but nowhere near this level).

I remember reading that a lot of care went into the reissues, and they do sound very good.

I don't think it is a pricing error, as with others that have been put on very cheaply they say the following:

Special price : Only 27 days left to take advantage

and the days do tick down.

Let's hope they keep these promotions coming.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Hmack

I have also just purchased the Maria Callas disk set, although unfortunately missed out on the Lou Reed set offer.

However, in order to obtain the offer I had to set up a new Qobuz account (My main account is an original 'French' account).

I have never had any problems downloading music files from Qobuz using the Qobuz downloader in the past, but the downloader picks up only items purchased using my 'French' account. The only options I see for the download of my Maria Callas disk set are:

A) download the files manually (individually) - for obvious reasons I would prefer not to do this

B) Use the Qobuz Desktop App - I have downloaded and installed this. However, although I can access and play files from the Mraia Callas set, for the life of me I can't find a way to downloaded the files using this app.

Can anyone help?  

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Innocent Bystander

As far as I can work out, this being the first time I have used it, the Qobuz installer runs from the link on their website while requiring the app installed on the computer, and you can't download purely from wothin the app. Your problem would appear to be it defaulting to your French account when selecting download from the website (Inpresume that is despite having logged in to your UK account)

i wonder if either the French account is something set in the app's settings, or it is using a cookie on your computer in the process, and finding the French one. Donyou have a second computer you could try, one that you havent used on the French account? If so it may be simplest to try that, otherwise it could be worth first checking all the app's settings an options to see if it appears there, or searching to see if there is a Qobuz cookie on the computer you could remove.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Harry

I had an identical scenario when I went for the Lou Reed set. In the end I downloaded them individually. Actually in batches of five tracks at a time.  In some ways it was useful because rather than having the lot in one bucket I put them into album folders with the original art. So I got a bit of a workflow going with tracks arriving every couple of minutes.  I tried downloading the big file and failed three times. It just stopped at some point and sat there. I did spend some time trying to fiddle about with the downloader before realising that I could be using the time to download my music the old fashioned way. Inelegant but effective.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Hmack

Thanks Harry & IB,

The Maria Callas download is huge (even by comparison with the Lou Reed one) so I'd rather consider downloading manually as a last resort.

The suggestion of another computer is a good one. I'll give this a go.

Unfortunately my Broadband download speed is only around 3.8 Mbps, and so I am in for a very, very long download session.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Camlan

HMack

I have a similar situation to you in that I have a French account in my name and the UK one in my wife.

Qobuz have advised me that the downloader will only work from the French site so you will need to use the Desktop App.

What you must do is to download the App first (not from the download page) and then have it open prior to download. Select Download with App and on the Desktop App open Offline Library. You will see 2 tabs Offline Library and Downloads. Select Downloads and what you have requested will appear and start to run although you may have a few minutes wait, if you can play the tracks it may already be doing it unbeknown to you.

I've just completed the download and it took over 90 minutes on 45mbps download. Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Hmack

Well, I give up.

When I logged on to my new Qobuz account on a different computer I was not given an option to install the Qobuz download manager. When I copied the installer across from my other computer and installed it, the download manager does not show any available purchases for download.

Really annoying! I had never experienced any problems with Qobuz in the past. The Qobuz purchase website & downloader have just worked seamlessly for me up to now on my original account. Now I guess I understand the frustration that some people have reported with Qobuz.

I guess it's on with the manual download. Only trouble is, I don't think I like Maria Callas enough to be bothered to go through the pain!

  

 

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Camlan

HMack

I assume you have logged into the Desktop App as the account that made the purchase.

If so, check again, it can take a few minutes to show the downloads. I know because I have downloaded items twice in the past because of this

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Hmack
Camlan posted:

HMack

I have a similar situation to you in that I have a French account in my name and the UK one in my wife.

Qobuz have advised me that the downloader will only work from the French site so you will need to use the Desktop App.

What you must do is to download the App first (not from the download page) and then have it open prior to download. Select Download with App and on the Desktop App open Offline Library. You will see 2 tabs Offline Library and Downloads. Select Downloads and what you have requested will appear and start to run although you may have a few minutes wait, if you can play the tracks it may already be doing it unbeknown to you.

I've just completed the download and it took over 90 minutes on 45mbps download. Good luck and let us know how you get on.

HI Camlan,

I have the Desktop app open and logged in with the correct ID, but I don't see an option to "Download with App" anywhere in the desktop app (nor "Offline Library Nor Downloads" tabs).

I see a "My purchases" option, but when I select that I am just presented with the ability to view and play the albums I have purchased - no download option.

Any idea of what I am doing wrong? 

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Camlan

I'm using the MAC version but I can't imagine the Windows version is significantly different.

This is what I can see down the left hand column under the log in section:

 

If you open Offline Library, you should see the download tab.

 

 

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Hmack

That's strange> The options I see are:

  • My purchases
  • Favourites
  • My playlists
  • My local music

No "Offline Library" option anywhere to be seen.  

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Camlan

What's in my local music?

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Hmack

Headings of:

Tracks by Album, Tracks by Playlist, Tracks by Artist and Albums

but nothing whatsoever under any of these headings. 

 

 

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by hungryhalibut
Hmack posted:

Thanks Harry & IB,

The Maria Callas download is huge (even by comparison with the Lou Reed one) so I'd rather consider downloading manually as a last resort.

The suggestion of another computer is a good one. I'll give this a go.

Unfortunately my Broadband download speed is only around 3.8 Mbps, and so I am in for a very, very long download session.

It's 52 Gb if you get the 24 bit version. We have fast download but it still took quite a while. Out of over 1,000 tracks there was one error, which we downloaded separately. As said above, the key is to open the desktop app before starting the download. It should then trundle through from start to finish. 

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Camlan

HMack

I have checked online, you have the Windows desktop and it is different from the MAC but it must be there somewhere!

Leave it with me.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by hungryhalibut

When logged in, you'll see your user name at the top right. Press that and select my music - the first one on the list. This has the download buttons - choose download with Qobuz desktop.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Hmack

HH,

I have tried to do exactly what you suggest:

! started the desktop app & logged in (no problem there), then I went to the website, logged in (again no problem there), changed my preference from on the web page from the WMA default to FLAC and then selected the "Download with Qobuz Desktop" option.

This immediately switched me into the Qobuz Desktop, and into a page that is headed  "QOBUZ - My local music", but that page contains no information other than 4 headings ("Tracks by album", Tracks by playlist", "Tracks by artist" and "albums") and my download does not appear to start.

I think I must be doing something really stupid, but I'm not sure what that might be?

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Camlan

HMack

Just a thought. Have you checked your Qobuz downloads folder to make sure its not downloading in the background. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean its not doing it.

The MAC desktop does not take you straight to the downloads folder, that would be just too intuitive for a Qobuz app!

Have you done what HH suggested and opened the download on the App, can you see anything there?

Anyway back to the Metadata for me. The good news is I know how to do it, the bad news is it's going to take hours.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Innocent Bystander

I'm not at my computer at present so can't look to see what mine shows (and I don't have the French complication), but I spent probably best part of two hours between last night and noght before trying to work out how to download other than manually, with useless help pages. In the end it was, simply, download and instal the Windows app, which I think I  left open, then on the website went to my account, selected the album, chose the file format, and clicked the blue 'download with qobuz desktop' button. I then went to the app and opened different tabs to find  it had started to populate one with a list of tracks, and automatically downloading into the Windows 'my music' folder (I had done nothing to choose a location).

if you're not sorted by then I'll check later this eve to see if there's anything else visible that might help.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by docbot

How do I quote someone else post?  anyway, I do exactly the same as Innocent Bystander. This works all the time for me.  There was one of the Callas tract that failed download. I downloaded it manually and was fine - I think the track name was too long.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by Richard Dane
docbot posted:

How do I quote someone else post?  

Go to "Take Action" and scroll down to "Reply with Quote", pare back to whatever you wish to quote which will appear in a lavender/grey box above your reply.

Posted on: 24 January 2017 by docbot
Richard Dane posted:
docbot posted:

How do I quote someone else post?  

Go to "Take Action" and scroll down to "Reply with Quote", pare back to whatever you wish to quote which will appear in a lavender/grey box above your reply.

Lovely - Ta :-)