What To Do With Old CD's?

I have about 500 CD's. They are in two tall racks in the guest bedroom. For the most part, I haven't listened to them for at least 2 years.

We had a garage sale yesterday and I sold a few there. Next I plan on going to the used CD store, but I'm sure they won't buy all of them due to MP3's. So, I'll have quite a few left over that I don't really care to have.

What should I do with them? Trash them? Donate them? Burn them in a Curse of the RIAA?

Atomm wrote:I have about 500 CD's. They are in two tall racks in the guest bedroom. For the most part, I haven't listened to them for at least 2 years.

We had a garage sale yesterday and I sold a few there. Next I plan on going to the used CD store, but I'm sure they won't buy all of them due to MP3's. So, I'll have quite a few left over that I don't really care to have.

What should I do with them? Trash them? Donate them? Burn them in a Curse of the RIAA?

I sold almost all of mine 3 years back, rather than schlepp them across country. First I tried the garage sale thing. . .sold 'em for $3 apiece, 2 for $5, or 5 for $10. I sold like 3 of 'em. Cheap fuckers, sorted though my Classic Rock collection and acted like I was charging an arm and a leg.

Next, I took 'em to the used CD/DVD store. They bought almost all of my disks, they loved 'em! I didn't get much per disk, but it added up to a few hundred dollars. I had ripped 'em all using Exact Audio Copy (EAC). Transporting about 10-15 DVD's across country was a lot easier than carting a few hundred CD's in jewel cases.

How to get the best encodes with EAC:
http://www.uberstandard.org/

Try to sell them. Money is money. If you can't sell 'em, offer them to friends and neighbors, then give the rest to someone like the Salvation army, or offer them on Freecycle.

To be honest, I'm not even ripping them. This is a side effect of just how sick I am of the music industry. I see it as my own little protest. If I can sell a cd to someone else, robbing the music industry and the musicians who refuse to even acknowledge what is going on of a few bucks, then I'm happy.

Yea, I'm tired of letting the musicians off the hook. They know what's going on and refuse to even acknowledge it. At least the lead singer of Slipknot had the guts to say something about music labels, but even that's not enough.

http://www.gamersradio.com/content/view/12974/1/

OK, so . . .what did you do?

If it's not too late, I still think you should rip them. That's a whole lot of time and money you invested in getting that music, and I just know you're going to be talking about the awesome collection you had, and wishing you could play this cut or that band for someone.

"yo mtv raps" and "blondie" don't constitute an awesome collection

Bubba, we're not talking about your CD collection.... Sheesh, it's always about you.... 😈

I sold a few at the Garage Sale. I have the rest boxed up ready to take to the CD store. I just haven't done it yet.

There's a big Used CD Chain out of OKC that I was thinking about taking them to the next time I'm in town.

As for ripping, I really don't want to take the time to manage all that music. Heck, I don't even want to manage the 6+ Gigs I have now. I don't know, but the whole music industry experience has changed me. I still love music, but I'm just not in love with music.....

Atomm wrote:Bubba, we're not talking about your CD collection.... Sheesh, it's always about you.... 😈

I sold a few at the Garage Sale. I have the rest boxed up ready to take to the CD store. I just haven't done it yet.

There's a big Used CD Chain out of OKC that I was thinking about taking them to the next time I'm in town.

As for ripping, I really don't want to take the time to manage all that music. Heck, I don't even want to manage the 6+ Gigs I have now. I don't know, but the whole music industry experience has changed me. I still love music, but I'm just not in love with music.....

Six gigs? It's like you don't even LIKE music. 😛 I've got over 120. . .I know, all your music is on that obsolete format that you're looking to ditch.

To make it easy, you'll need a lot of HD space. . .I haven't done the math, but 500 CD's at HQ VBR are gonna be (pulling off socks. . . carry the pinky toe. . .) . . .actually, I think it should be under 50 gigs, so that's not too bad. Less than 15 DVDs.

Once you do the initial setup of your ripper, all you have to do is throw a disk in the drive and run it while you're doing other things. . .it will rip, label, and name everything for you, and put the files where you specify, in a directory named for the CD and/or band. Once you've done all your disks this way, you start burning DVDs. You grab a sharpie, label them something like MUSIC 001, MUSIC 002, etc, and put them in a suitable container easy to access by disk name/number. I like these:

http://www.buzzillions.com/dz_732928_atlan..._n_roll_reviews

But I found them on clearance for $9.99.

I also use a regular disc box with sleeves like these:

http://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Double-Side...k/dp/B00005T3ZJ

I use a simple cataloging program called CATHY. Very small, and very fast. I put the disk in, tell it to read the disk, and in a second, it's read in the name of the disk and all the filenames. Later, if you want to find the disk that has, say, "Silent Lucidity" on it, type that in, and it'll tell you DISK 11, so you go to the box of numbered disks and pull disk 11. Fast and easy. You can search on the group name, or on partial matches as well.

It sounds like a big deal, but it's only a one-time ten-minute setup for EAC to select the settings and output directory you want. After that, you could put a box of unripped CD's near your computer, and do one or two every time your surf the net. It could be an easy, long-term project.

Ahh well. You seem pretty determined to be rid of them. I just hate to see someone discard something that's been a big part of their life for so long. The guy that runs Gamers Radio shouldn't be throwing away his music!

DocJon wrote:The guy that runs Gamers Radio shouldn't be throwing away his music!

I think this says a lot about how I feel about the Music Industry right now.

Atomm wrote:I think this says a lot about how I feel about the Music Industry right now.

But you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater.