Happy Birthday, Les Paul!

I was wondering the same thing.

My guess is iPod and devices of that nature. I went from reading books to listening to books on CD and now it is pretty much using a Muvo (poor mans iPod)

My guess is iPod and devices of that nature. I went from reading books to listening to books on CD and now it is pretty much using a Muvo (poor mans iPod)

Yep. Ipod, flash media, downloading music...it's getting to the point that having a hard copy of your music will be a thing of the past completely. This scary thing is that all of the new technologys for music center around being able to erase music, which is a little scary to me.

...it's getting to the point that having a hard copy of your music will be a thing of the past completely. I think that's premature, and I don't expect it to come to pass in the foreseeable future. The sound quality of no-hard-copy music will surely improve over what it is today with MP3s, but before hard copies become obsolete they'll have to do a lot to improve the transferability and permanence of the music. If this "copy-protected CD" stuff keeps going, though, they'll obsolete themselves. I won't buy them knowingly. They won't play on too many CD players, and dammit, I have a right to make myself a backup copy.

You're probably right about it being premature, but I was just talking about the direction that everything seems to be going. Many people own Ipods, many people use Itunes or other computer music players, lots of people have MP3 players in their car, they're talking about putting out albums on flash memory (I believe there is already one slated, but I dont remember who it is)....I'm not saying soon, I'm just saying thats which way things seem to be headed.

The problem with these new technologies is going to be longevity. Things like vinyl will last for ever, if it's not worn away. Tape tends to suffer "write-through" after a certain amount of time - the magnetic recording affects the magnetic material on the neighbouring layers of tape, eventually reducing the quality of the recording. CDs are still relatively young and, contrary to the original claims, are very susceptible to scratching and mechanical wear, if not kept in a jewel case or whatever. The permanence of a recording on CD is also questionable - that's not my statement, it's what the manufacturers say. DVD is probably no better, in fact the density of recording (and the multiple layers on higher density DVDs) makes it more likely that damage to the carrier will cause serious reading problems.
What the projected life of flash memory is, I've no idea, but I can't see it being "permanent"
This would mean that you will no longer have a recording "for life", like with vinyl. How would you react to discovering that your favourite old record no longer plays, because it has deteriorated, whilst sitting in it's case? You're not likely going to find the recording industry talking about it, though.

This is amazing.I never knew that les paul is infact a human being and if he is then he plays Les paul himself.

I simply love these pics -

This is slash right ??

Oh and paul mcartney, (the adjacent is his wife right :wink: )

Yeah, that's his wife.