Bookshelf Apps

Deutsche Grammophon now selling FLAC downloads

July 25th, 2009 2

On a recent iChat conversation I was told about Deutsche Grammophon’s new FLAC download store (news via ctnz on the Linn forum). Chris tells me that he may have helped move this process along as he emailed them recently asking about FLAC downloads, and now they’re doing it. Seems like they are one of the few record companies that do listen to their customers.

This also may be part of a larger experiment, Deutsche Grammophon is part of Universal Music, so I’m sure they are watching this new sales channel carefully. I guess there is also a reasonable assumption that classical music listeners are less likely to steal music.

You can take a look at their selection of FLAC downloads. They’ve got 184 albums on there so far, quite a selection really.

On the downside it’s a all 16/44.1 so far. If the started selling tracks at 24/96 that would be brilliant. It’s still a lot more convenient than purchasing a CD, even if the selection is small.

I’m starting to dislike the CD purchasing experience. Ripping is not hard, but it is a bit of a hassle, and then I’ve got the physical disc to store away forever, it’s a waste of space, but I do need to keep it for proof of ownership. I know it does form a sort of last resort backup, but with hard drives so cheap these days it’s easier to have a good disk based backup system.

For a sample of what 24/96 can sound like download this free Ryan Adams concert from the internet archive. It really is a more enjoyable listening experience at this higher bitrate.

SongBook touch 2.0 released – with Cara support

July 17th, 2009 9

The much anticipated 2.0 release of SongBook has been released by Apple after a somewhat long review process. Apple are very busy at present with app reviews so the timing of releases is somewhat unpredictable.

SongBook 2.0 has a largely redesigned user interface. The redesign was based on experience and feedback with the 1.0 release. Our major goal with this release was to make as much use of the screen space as possible, and I think the results are quite good. You may want to give it a bit of time before coming to any conclusions as change takes time to get used to.

I’m most pleased with the new horizontal play view. This shows a lot of information about the current track, including the format and bitrate. Not only is more information displayed, but you have more control of playback. On the progress display you can tap to seek to a point in the track. As before you can skip tracks by swiping left or right, and you can access play/pause using a single tap.

Screenshot 2009.07.17 12.02.19.png

The Rooms view has also been completely updated. Now each room section is actually a live view in to the room, you can alter the volume and see what is playing in all rooms directly from this single view.

SongBook Rooms.png

The album art loading has been improved in the Library section too, but the biggest update is support for Linn’s Cara firmware release. Cara is not officially released yet, so this support may need updating from time to time, but many users have already installed Cara and therefore need support for it in their control software. A number of Linn dealers are now demonstrating with Cara, so it is important that SongBook is available for them to demonstrate.

Existing users should see an update available in the Apple App Store application on their device, and they can download directly from there.