i doubt it, but honestly I like an online swap much more than a cd swap. No dumbass USPS to get in the way.

The online swap idea is a great one - the last postal swap I did, (cmonkey's unofficial MeFi version) three of the CDs I sent out got lost in the post, and two of the ones I was supposed to get never arrived. As much as I love product, and the tactile thrill of material objects (not to mention the excitement of things arriving in the post), and as much as I'm suspicious of purely digital media, at least the online way things can't get lost. And it's less wasteful when it turns out that you all hate my music - you can just delete it, rather than having to throw it away :)

I absolutely love the online swap idea - the other way's too much trouble. This way, with the password system, the only way you get to download is if you upload, which seems fair. It's really a shame people put so much work into the CDs and don't get back what they put into it.

I signed up but I haven't gotten the confirmation email yet. Therefore I declare it a complete waste of time.

Another nice thing about what we're doing online is that we get more than five cds based on how many are uploaded. But I signed up for Dreama's also because I like the idea a lot.

I like the online swap for the reasons others stated, but there's something really nice and old-fashioned about a mix cd that someone actually made sitting in your little hands.

online is much easier, and Dreama totally copied us.

matilda, you can still have that--just burn it.

that's why we're including cover art, no?

Some of you are, p&c.

After much fiddling, the MeFiSwap is back, bigger, brighter and better than ever with a new administrative system that will (knock wood) eliminate all of the human delays which have plagued it to date.

Did you read how she is selling it? Good call matildaben! :)

Um, when is the deadline for submitting songs for the Metachat swap?

I like the physical swap better because a) I get CDs that I can take whereever I go (primarily car and work, both places my computer doesn't go) and b) frankly, the "science" behind the on-line swap was just beyond me. I don't do much with mp3s (however I do listen to a lot of streaming radio for new music), and it took me forever to just learn how to burn a decent sounding audio CD. I understand that I'm not the norm for MeFi/MeCha players, but (believe it or not) I find all this "Modern Audio Technology" hard to follow. Plus, I have no idea how to .zip a file, and doubt I own the right software to do it.

I've had nothing but good experiences with the physical CD swap. I have about 20-ish great mixes which are my primary music at work (where I can't listen to .mp3s).

I sometimes feel guilty and awkward that I hang around these sites but am not an early adopter or otherwise on the bleeding edge of technology, but there you are.

not for a few weeks, i hope. (was there a theme or no?)

are you windows, anastasiav? there's this, which has instructions--it's not hard at all.

"bleeding edge"...
some of us don't even bleed monthly
afraid i may know who propigated that catchphrase
i made an offer in the main thread to burn disc

"i don't bleed, i burn"

not for a few weeks, i hope. (was there a theme or no?)

ehh, the deadline is a week from the 6th. which would be tomorrow....or saturday. i'm not really sure. anyway, you should probably get that done. or ask dodgy to extend the deadline. either one.

wow, that should be sunday. not saturday.

amberglow, I "am windows" [**shudders**] and that's helpful, but it still doesn't solve my "doesn't own an .mp3 file" problem.....

... I'll stay over here with the Grandmas until I figure out this whole "downloading music" thing I guess ...

Lest I sound like too much of a loser, I do have Shareaza on this machine, but am unable to use it since we installed the hardware firewall

sunday i can do, esp since i finished my corpse thing tonight. : >

The deadline is Monday and the cut off time is 7pm UTC. The e-mails will go out shortly after that. Upload early to avoid disappointment!

anastasiav, there's a freeware prog for Windows called WinDac (windows audio digital copy) that you can use that is VERY easy...so easy that even I use it. It's a very basic little program, y2karl recommended it to me a few years ago, and it does the one thing I want it to do - it takes a song from a CD and converts it to an mp3, very easily. You pop a cd in and open WinDac. WinDac displays a list of the tracks on your CD. You find the track, type in the artist and the name of the song for the track you want to convert, and click on 'copy', and in about 2 minutes you have an mp3. You can get it here - I just downloaded the wdac154.exe version a few days ago - (I had to reformat my hd) - works fine. If you decide you want to try it, let me know and I'll send you an email of exactly what to do to configure it and all.

I sometimes feel guilty and awkward that I hang around these sites but am not an early adopter

Until I actually started participating in MeFi (rather than just checking a few front page links and leaving) I thought I was pretty up on computer skills. Perusing through MeTa for a while and I feel like a complete technical numbskull.

That's why I'm sort of forcing myself to do the MeCha swap - to make me learn how to wrangle at least the basics of converting files to mp3, zipping files, uploading, etc. My first reaction to this swap was "I like trading mixes the old way better", but already I'm seeing that this is the way to go.

I'm sure I'll listen to all the mixes in the swap but only end up burning a few of them to disc for repeated listens. I've been in about 15 swaps over the years (the power pop ones topped out at about 30 mixes each) and I've discovered lots of great bands through them, but there are only a handful of mixes that are still in regular rotation in my car. Vive le mix!

My MeCha mix is very summery and happy; my MeFiSwap mix is darker and more mysterious.

Is this where I can apologise for welching on the last MefiSwap? I got the CDs from the others, but there was just so much crap going on in my life at that time, I never got to sending mine out. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I won't be signing up for another one, because not much has changed and I don't want to risk welching again.

i did too, dg--i'm not signing up for the MeFi one either...

*changed mind after figuring i'd have to edit the whole thing together to mix in the jokes
although i do love a reason to play with media aspects i neglected*
*may try later*