a few old June Appal titles now digital

Subject: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: Man of Cow Hollow
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 02:50 PM

The Appalshop Archive recently preserved a dozen June Appal Recordings - several of which are now available for download (by album only so far) in Appalshop's general store at http://appalshop.org/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3_41

Of particular interest to this group might be:

Dutch Cove Old Time String Band - Sycamore Tea
and
Andrew F. Boarman - Mountain State Music

Subject: RE: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 04:44 PM

That's great news. I've always loved the Dutch Cove String Band album.

Subject: RE: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: Scoville
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:15 PM

We'll even treat y'all to a blue clicky.

Subject: RE: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: BanjoRay
Date: 24 Jan 07 - 05:53 PM

Thanks for that - just went to the site and bought Ralph Blizard and the New Southern Ramblers - Blizard Train. What a fiddler that guy was, unbelievable, and Gordie Hinners's popping banjo is a perfect blend for it.
Ray

Subject: RE: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 04:33 AM

You'll have to forgive me (or at least forget I said it) but NO. $12.99 for a 128kpbs download? No notes or cover art that I can see?

This should either be lower priced or at least a 192kpbs quality download. I will just have to stick with my old Dutch Cove lp under those conditions.

I just don't see where that is value received for your money spent. Of course if you don't have the old lp . . . and you need to have the album, I'd say rush right out and get it, or in this case, download it. They do have one other alternative, a cassette for $8.00.

To sum up my position. Give us a higher quality download, include printable quality PDFs of the cover art and album notes and only then will this be worth the money they are asking.

That Dutch Cove album is one of my all time favorites, though and I would love to have a wonderful new copy of it, but under these conditions, I will have to pass.

Subject: RE: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: Man of Cow Hollow
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 09:29 AM

Dale, I understand what you are saying about the cost and lack of cover art and album notes. This is June Appal's first step into the digital arena, and the fine tuning will happen as we figure out the technology and work flow. To be quite honest, we are an extremely under resourced outfit - and are doing the best we can. The fact that we can offer this now and have it available on the internet was a huge thing for us, rather than try to raise funding for the CD work and release, which likely just wouldn't happen period. So ... we'll keep working on getting the higher quality download and cover art up in the future. In the meantime, we are grateful for your input. Thanks.

Subject: RE: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 11:04 AM

Well, Man of Cow Hollow, I didn't realize you were connected with June Appal, but it wouldn't change what I think.

I realize all too well the tight, almost nonexistent margins that people like yourselves have to work with.

As far as the better quality sound, that would be a negligible cost as far as both coding and storage would be from your perspective. The cost of the downloads would of course be greater due to the increased amount of data that would have to be sent. I have to confess ignorance here as to what the actual cost of the download would be for you, but simple arithmetic would indicate that the difference between a 128 download and one at 192 would be an increase of 50%.

Where I work, our backup rate has gone from 128 to 160 and finally to 192 over the last few years as storage space has gotten both larger and cheaper. While ours is only MP3 rather than the ACC M4A that you are using to encode, we are certainly happy with the change from where we started six or so years ago.

As far as the cover art, that would be even better than the equivalent material on a CD since you could easily provide full 12x12 graphics. Once you get your scans done and converted to PDF (JPG or TIF could work as well)it would be a simple matter to ship those down the pipe to the purchaser. It seems to me that this part would be easy enough to include in your plans. All you need is access to a 12 inch scanner and the artwork, and I rather suspect you've got some lps lying around that you could use for that. It certainly would make it more attractive, even if you couldn't see your way clear to the upgrade to 192.

Best of luck on your venture.

Subject: RE: a few old June Appal titles now digital
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jan 07 - 11:06 AM

I also say this is good news!