Beatport File Format Costs

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Beatport File Format Costs

Hi Guys,

I tried to purchase an album from Beatport yesterday. I have never actually ever downloaded a full from them before, just the odd track here and there that i like.

I usually use AIFF files, because i like to add the album artwork to the ID tags, and i like using high quality files where i can. I also find it easier to spot certain tracks now that I use a computer in my setup.

Anyway, I saw the album i wanted, added it to my cart and went to the check out to pay for it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, i don’t mind paying a few £’s extra for the higher quality file format, but when i changed the format to AIFF, this happened.

Thats a bit steep!

Is this normal? It must be some kind of error surely?

Anybody experienced this?

Thanks,

Matt.

2

The mp3 price is a kind of ‘sale’ price - the album costs a lot less than the sum of the tracks. If you add them individually, your album costs £30.29. If you add the AIFFs individually, the album costs £60.59.

So there is discount coming off when you purchase the whole album. As such, I don’t think you’re gonna get it any cheaper than that from Beatport. IMHO this is a rip-off.

3

Lol at $36 you could have bought the vinyl and payed the shipping - total rip off.

4

But this is beatports doing isn’t it? Not the artists?

5

haha… since when do artists have control of sales… the artist is lucky to get a few pennies out of that :slight_smile:… yes its beatport ripping people off as usual

you are better off buying the cd and ripping your own AIFF out of this

6

Ok for me that would be paying $100 for a CD.

7

Oh god, don’t get me started on this subject! What beatport does is ridiculous and it is why I buy everywhere but beatport, if I can right now. If another site has the track, I’m buying it there until Beatport changes this ridiculous policy. It is actually causing DJ’s to buy shitty audio. The more people buy other places, the more it will help break the monopoly on the labels and then the prices will come down.

BTW, Trackitdown Pro is awesome. you pay a monthly fee, but get WAV’s for about $1.25USD. It works out awesome if I even have one gig a month!

8

WOW I had no idea Beatport priced their lossless this high… I’ve only ever bought mp3 tracks.

I’m stunned lol

9

Thanks for the info guys, I looked up the album on Juno Download, unfortunately it’s listed on there differently. It is split into 3 parts, but even if I were to buy the separate parts (wav format, as they don’t do AIFF) it would work out much much cheaper.

Strange…

10

Maybe Dr. Dre has purchased Beatport.

11

Beatport lossless is a joke example I added 32tracks to cart $78 for lossless just around $50 for MP3 you can’t tell me their storage space costs that much more but I don’t k ow it is frustrating but what else do you do

12

Vote with your dollars. Don’t buy from them and let them know why!

13

That’s mental, try here:
http://www.discogs.com/sell/item/215936141

14

Haha.

15

It’s an absolute scam.

Reminds me of how CDs were more expensive than vinyl, despite the fact that CDs were cheaper to manufacture!

16

it makes sense. People who care about loss-less files, typically audiophiles, are ok with paying a premium for a higher quality product.

its a very niche market, with a very niche customer.

yeah, vote with them. you can probably get that album pressed on vinyl for less.

17

For me, Beatport has simply turned into a great place to sample, get notifications on my favorite artists / labels, and use their hold bins before I conclude what other reasonable site I’m going to buy the track from when they become available.

18

This. Exactly this. Beatport is by far my favorite place to find new music and follow producers and labels, but before I buy anything from Beatport, I always do a search to see if I can find the same lossless file for cheaper. If not, then I just bite the bullet and get it at beatport.

19

You might check if Digital-Tunes has it…they have a really extensive DnB catalog, and a ton of underground techno and house…I switched to buying all my music from them over beatport. If they don’t have it, I’ll buy it from Juno or TraxSource, but I refuse to put more money in SFX’s pockets.

20

Thanks Chris, I will have a look at that.