I'm thinking of getting my kids (ages 6 and 8) an MP3 player each for Christmas. They listened to one at a recent family gathering and really liked it. I would be getting them a cheaper one, probably $20-30 and I think that they are responsible enough to take care of it. They both love music! My question is where do I get the songs from and how much do they cost? I would want to load it with kid friendly songs before giving it to them. What sites do I use and what can I expect the additional cost of songs to be. I am fairly computer literate, but have never used an MP3 player type device before. Thank you!!!!
* Also - If I purchase a song from a place like iTunes, is it downloaded onto my computer to where I could put it on both MP3 players? Or would I have to purchase the same song twice to have it on both kids MP3 players??
a couple of options are to download itunes..they are around .99 a song..but other family members can get them itunes gift cards for christmas..or you can buy cds and copy them to your computer and then sync it with the mp3
I use I-Tunes because it's the whole kit and kaboodle (you can purchase, store and transfer all in one place) and songs cost $.99 - &1.29 per song. Plus you can get I-Tunes gift cards at almost anywhere which gives your family the ability to "purchase" songs for them as gifts.
This opens up the whole allowance / spending money debate (which you didn't ask) but I'll tell you what we do.... I don't buy her songs (except my sister pre-loaded the I pod with some of her existing CD's and bought her some new ones as part of the 'gift').
My daughter (10) does not have her own I tunes account so if I buy a song that is appropriate that she likes I will add it to her Mp3.... but if she wants a song that I'm not going to buy she either has to "earn it" or wait until she has money from a gift. This opened up a great new bribery (I mean reward) tool for her as she LOVES her music!!!!!
I use itunes. Its way too risky to use the free music websites. I saw some girl recently had some lawsuit filed against her for over $1million dollars for dowloading like 24 songs!
You can use a free music site (we use Frostwire). You download the songs you like (they DO have kid songs too) to your home computer and then sync them to the MP3 player.
This is the specific reason I don't own an IPod, IPhone, etc. Because from what I've seen, you have to pay for anything you want, whereas with a regular MP3 player, you don't.
You can purchase music from amazon.com/mp3. Single songs are $.99 but many whole albums are a lot cheaper than i-tunes.
The songs from Amazon are DRM-free, you can upload them to multiple devices from your computer and even copy them to and play them from a cd.
You are legally purchasing the music in this case and you can also get gift certs (like you can get for i-tunes).
It is my understanding that content downloaded from i-tunes only play on an i-pod, i-phone or on a computer with the i-tunes application running on it.
For kids music, when my dd was younger and now for my nieces and nephews (we got them inexpensive Sansa MP3 players for Christmas 2 years ago and they use them still...), they do alot of borrowing CD's from friends (they occasionally buy them as well..or free song downloads will come with the Disney movies my pre-teen niece will buy etc....)..and they buy online.
In our home, we are not Mac/Ipod or "i" anything as it is so proprietary....just not our gig...but we did get Zune Players (microsoft version basically)...but for our family of 3 its a great deal (16 yr old dd, hubby and me)...spent the $ on the players for holiday gift last year, then we pay $15 a month for all the songs we want, plus we get 10 downloads to keep forever, per month. WOrks for us.
But for young kids..lots of places online to get songs and likely about 99cents is the going rate anywhere......or you can buy CD's or borrow thwm from firneds (and share yours)...only takes a few minutes to download onto your laptop/computer and give it right back!
You can purchase songs from many places online, or you can use the free sites, we use 4shared.com. Once you download the song it's stored on your computer and you can copy the file to mulitple locations, so no, you don't have to buy it twice for two mp3 players. Keep in mind that the cheaper versions don't usually have much storage space though, so they might not hold that many songs. You don't have to buy it there, but I would go someplace like Best Buy and talk to the sales associate about your options, they can help you find the one that best meets your needs and probably give you a quick tutorial on how to use it.
