What is the best cd printing software for os x?…

While that’s definitely true for something like, well, every one of Beethoven’s symphonies (or as it happens probably everything by Beethoven) it’s not as true for less well known stuff. When I get to know a piece a bit I usually ending up googling “blahblahblah program.notes” to find more information about it (since it seems like one of the best online sources is concert programs that people have put up) but I often find that these are lacking in comparison witht he ones provided on the CD.

Maybe what we really need now is a central repository for them. Wikipedia is getting pretty good at that, these days.

On the issue of providing liner notes, it seems to me that one can get much more information about most compositions on the Web than conventional liner notes provided. What liner notes do give you sometimes is information about the specific performance and performers of a particular recording, but even that is often available on the Web.

When it comes to the information about the composition and composer, liner notes give you only what one particular authors thinks, whereas the Web will tell you what anyone who happens to have put their thoughts on the Intertubes has to say.

Another odd complaint, by the way, is that of the frequent lack of album cover art on iTunes Music Store, etc. For rock albums, the LP cover art might have had some significance; I don’t know. But classical LPs usually were either graced by head shots of the performer (hey, I already know what Fischer-Dieskau and Schwarzkopf looked like, thank you) or by glorious scenes of Mother Nature, or abstract paintings. All of these, again, are available on the Web in great profusion, so you can choose any ones of your preference to print out and hang on your wall.

Yep, they can burned to a CD easily, and with the correct settings can be made gapless as you describe. The major differences for me between the Amazon and DG stores are that:

1) Amazon uses 256kbps bitrate, DG uses 320kbps. Admittedly, when it gets this high these should both be pretty much indistinguishable from CD quality audio, but it’s still nice to be as close to lossless as possible.

2) DG has a platform independent download system. That is, on Amazon you need to download special software to get a full album, whereas on DG it’s handled through a pure web interface. This is vital for me as I run Linux and Amazon don’t have a client – so I can only download individual tracks.

3) DG gives you the liner notes for the CD, in the form of a PDF. As far as I know Amazon gives you nothing.

Can these be burned to a CD easily? I’m concerned about works which are broken into several tracks even though there is no break in the music, for instance opera or movments iii and iv in Beethoven’s 5th.

How is this different than the new downloads from Amazon, which are a little cheaper?

I haven’t given much consideration to a ‘digital’ music collection (yes I realize CDs are digital too, but you know what I mean), but I’m beginning too. I do hope DG lowers their prices a bit. If you shop around and take advantage of free shipping offers you can get actual CDs for $12, not to mention used but like-new CDs available from Amazon marketplace and ebay. On the other hand, I am very impatient waiting for things to come in the mail.