As there are loads of internet record shops these days, I though I would write a guide for the shops I have had experience with (obviously from a dnb perspective) for both newbie’s and veterans. It gives you an idea on all aspects: prices, delivery charges, selection (back catalogue, dubs and new releases), music clips, site layout and service. These will be the criteria I will be marking them all on. I will me marking them from personal experience as I’ve used all of them, but if any of you who read the reviews have any other comments about my review or from your own experience please don’t hesitate to add them below. Also I would like to make this a comprehensive list of all the sites people use so please add your reviews.
Red Eye Records (www.redeyerecords.co.uk) – Thought I would start off with the one everyone knows…..well if you don’t you should do. They do live up to their reputation as stated in their advert “The best records & service – ask anyone that knows…” and you’ll find the majority of people use this site. You ask most people these days and I find that most people in the dnb circles have bought or regularly buy off Red Eye.
Most people probably use Red Eye as they always get the most upfront promos every week from the biggest labels, but unfortunately because of all those trainspotters sitting online all day on Thursday pressing refresh you have to be damn lucky to get the biggest promos (don’t worry I’m not slating it, we’ve all been there…). Though I have noticed recently Red Eye have been changing the times they’ve been putting up the promos to give everyone an equal chance and limiting everyone to one per person (nice one boys!). They’ve even been spreading them out so not all of them are added in one go and are put up on 2 separate days. Even if you do miss them you can make sure that when it gets a full release that it gets to you as quick as possible by pre ordering a copy.
As you’d expect they sell just about every single vinyl from all the possible labels here, which is better than any high street shop I’ve ever been too (Red Eye have their own high street shop in Ipswich that I haven’t been to yet) and they always have masses of stock and rarely run out (apart from promos!). Also if they do run out you can usually ask them to order it in for you which is pretty cool of them. They also have a comprehensive back catalogue of old classics from back in the day to the present day. For all those with cd decks or those who listen to mixes there’s a good, but not great cd and tape pack selection.
Red Eye gives very competitive rates for vinyl and delivery, until recently I didn’t actually realise that you could buy a single vinyl from them with delivery for about £6! The delivery prices are on a slanting scale starting at a quid for a single increasing a little till 10 vinyl’s and then decreasing after that (details available on the site). This is great as often I’ve ended up buying too many vinyl’s just to make it worth buying them off the net. They also have sales quite often which is good for picking up that track you weren’t quite prepared to pay full price, but will happily pay a couple of quid for.
They have clips of all the tunes on their site including all the pre order tracks so you can make sure that promo you’ve pre ordered is the right one! They’re mostly around the 1:30 time and give you a bit of the intro the first breakdown (if there is one) and the first drop then the lead up to the second break. Its not the best quality and its not as long as other sites but it is mostly what I prefer as it gives you an instant idea of what the tune is like because its so quick (hence the lower quality), and when you’ve got a whole page to get through it’s a god send!! (especially at work : P). But technically this won’t be for everyone and you don’t get to hear the second break and the quality is not great plus albums only have at most 4 track to listen to.
The layout of the site is my favourite out of all of them: it’s simple, intuitive and very easy to use. The menu is piss easy and really obvious (you’d be surprised how many sites, not just record sites can get this wrong!), all the tunes are sectioned into logical sections so again piss easy to find what you want. And if you fail through this the search engine is quick and searches the entire site for any match possible. The pages where the tunes are listed are very nicely compact so you don’t have to scroll forever to look at a single page of tunes but is large enough to read with all the info you need on the tracks.
The service is very good: order your tunes at 1pm on wed receive them the next morning (as long as they aren’t Monday shipping), about as fast as you can get. Plus on the odd occasion they send you the wrong vinyl (does happen) send it back and they will refund you with the return postage and either send you the correct one or refund you the cash.
Prices 4/5
Delivery charges 4/5
Back catalogue 4/5
Dubs 5/5
New releases 5/5
Music clips 4/5
Site layout 4.5/5
Service 4.5/5
Chemical Records (www.chemicalrecords.co.uk) – Chemical Records is, through my experience and from what I’ve heard, the next best shop on the net. This is usually the second site I visit if red eye has sold all their promos as I’ve found there’s slightly less people using it so the promos stay up a little longer! They do get pretty much the same promos as Red Eye so it’s a relief sometimes that if Red Eye is sold out there still maybe a chance that you can get it on Chemical, but (don’t quote me on this) I don’t think they get as many as Red Eye (sorry guys if you do!).
Again they get all the brand new releases from all the labels. They also have a good back catalogue that is regularly added to, pretty much every week so there’s always something worth buying (unfortunately!). Other than vinyl again there’s a good (but not great) selection of cd’s and tape packs, you can get all the new artist albums and mixes but the back catalogue has quite a few gaps.
The rates for vinyl’s and delivery are again very competitive. The price of a single vinyl is about the same after VAT, little bit more as usual for promos. Delivery is not great unless your buying more that 3 or more as the delivery is £2, the great bonus though is that this is a flat rate so it you buy a load you can save some money which is always puts a smile on my face.
The clips of the tunes are by far the best on any site I’ve been on. Quite often I find myself listening to tunes off the site while doing work, surfing or posting as the quality and length are outstanding. The clips are about 3.30 so you get a proper listen to the intro, first break, first drop, second break and second drop and the quality of the clips are very good for streaming. Even works well without broadband which is surprising, does take a little longer to buffer though. My only gripe is that because of the higher quality it does take a little longer to buffer than other sites. For albums you get clips of every single track, which I find very useful as won’t buy one unless I hear all the tracks. This is even done for the artist mix cd’s which is very rare on any site.
The layout of the site isn’t my favourite, but obviously that’s my own personal opinion. It not as quick to use as Red Eye, I have my favourites go straight to new releases on my PC which means I can instantly look to see what has been released (very useful on my Pocket PC as time is money). With Chemical there are a number of pages to scroll through as its all flash based. As the site is set to a 800x600 resolution I find it does not make use of the space provided, as most people these days have it set higher. However you can still clearly see all the information clearly and its set out alphabetically on the back catalogue so is easy enough to find a track…..when it loads up! As the entire back catalogue is loaded on a single page so can take a while, without broadband your better of searching for it. The search engine is fast and effective apart from the slightly irritating fact that when searching the search engine excludes all tracks in the forthcoming section. I do like the fact that all the brand new tracks added for that day are placed in the “new in” section, makes it quick and easy to check what’s brand new, though after that day they get placed in the new release section which is pretty big so the same problems as above apply. I knows doesn’t seem like a massive deal but the colouring of the site is not right, it is not good web design ethic to use a dark background with light coloured text.
The service from Chemical is very good though they are processed pretty much instantly and will deliver your tunes for the next day, though they don’t always arrive the next day. They also keep you informed of all the stages of processing via email so you know exactly what the score is, so if royal mail make another f**k up you know who to blame! They are also very friendly when dealing with miss orders too and again will reimburse you with any postage and vinyl cost.
Prices 4/5
Delivery charges 4/5
Back catalogue 4.5/5
Dubs 4.5/5
New releases 5/5
Music clips 5/5
Site layout 3/5
Service 4.5/5
[Continue]
Red Eye Records (www.redeyerecords.co.uk) – Thought I would start off with the one everyone knows…..well if you don’t you should do. They do live up to their reputation as stated in their advert “The best records & service – ask anyone that knows…” and you’ll find the majority of people use this site. You ask most people these days and I find that most people in the dnb circles have bought or regularly buy off Red Eye.
Most people probably use Red Eye as they always get the most upfront promos every week from the biggest labels, but unfortunately because of all those trainspotters sitting online all day on Thursday pressing refresh you have to be damn lucky to get the biggest promos (don’t worry I’m not slating it, we’ve all been there…). Though I have noticed recently Red Eye have been changing the times they’ve been putting up the promos to give everyone an equal chance and limiting everyone to one per person (nice one boys!). They’ve even been spreading them out so not all of them are added in one go and are put up on 2 separate days. Even if you do miss them you can make sure that when it gets a full release that it gets to you as quick as possible by pre ordering a copy.
As you’d expect they sell just about every single vinyl from all the possible labels here, which is better than any high street shop I’ve ever been too (Red Eye have their own high street shop in Ipswich that I haven’t been to yet) and they always have masses of stock and rarely run out (apart from promos!). Also if they do run out you can usually ask them to order it in for you which is pretty cool of them. They also have a comprehensive back catalogue of old classics from back in the day to the present day. For all those with cd decks or those who listen to mixes there’s a good, but not great cd and tape pack selection.
Red Eye gives very competitive rates for vinyl and delivery, until recently I didn’t actually realise that you could buy a single vinyl from them with delivery for about £6! The delivery prices are on a slanting scale starting at a quid for a single increasing a little till 10 vinyl’s and then decreasing after that (details available on the site). This is great as often I’ve ended up buying too many vinyl’s just to make it worth buying them off the net. They also have sales quite often which is good for picking up that track you weren’t quite prepared to pay full price, but will happily pay a couple of quid for.
They have clips of all the tunes on their site including all the pre order tracks so you can make sure that promo you’ve pre ordered is the right one! They’re mostly around the 1:30 time and give you a bit of the intro the first breakdown (if there is one) and the first drop then the lead up to the second break. Its not the best quality and its not as long as other sites but it is mostly what I prefer as it gives you an instant idea of what the tune is like because its so quick (hence the lower quality), and when you’ve got a whole page to get through it’s a god send!! (especially at work : P). But technically this won’t be for everyone and you don’t get to hear the second break and the quality is not great plus albums only have at most 4 track to listen to.
The layout of the site is my favourite out of all of them: it’s simple, intuitive and very easy to use. The menu is piss easy and really obvious (you’d be surprised how many sites, not just record sites can get this wrong!), all the tunes are sectioned into logical sections so again piss easy to find what you want. And if you fail through this the search engine is quick and searches the entire site for any match possible. The pages where the tunes are listed are very nicely compact so you don’t have to scroll forever to look at a single page of tunes but is large enough to read with all the info you need on the tracks.
The service is very good: order your tunes at 1pm on wed receive them the next morning (as long as they aren’t Monday shipping), about as fast as you can get. Plus on the odd occasion they send you the wrong vinyl (does happen) send it back and they will refund you with the return postage and either send you the correct one or refund you the cash.
Prices 4/5
Delivery charges 4/5
Back catalogue 4/5
Dubs 5/5
New releases 5/5
Music clips 4/5
Site layout 4.5/5
Service 4.5/5
Chemical Records (www.chemicalrecords.co.uk) – Chemical Records is, through my experience and from what I’ve heard, the next best shop on the net. This is usually the second site I visit if red eye has sold all their promos as I’ve found there’s slightly less people using it so the promos stay up a little longer! They do get pretty much the same promos as Red Eye so it’s a relief sometimes that if Red Eye is sold out there still maybe a chance that you can get it on Chemical, but (don’t quote me on this) I don’t think they get as many as Red Eye (sorry guys if you do!).
Again they get all the brand new releases from all the labels. They also have a good back catalogue that is regularly added to, pretty much every week so there’s always something worth buying (unfortunately!). Other than vinyl again there’s a good (but not great) selection of cd’s and tape packs, you can get all the new artist albums and mixes but the back catalogue has quite a few gaps.
The rates for vinyl’s and delivery are again very competitive. The price of a single vinyl is about the same after VAT, little bit more as usual for promos. Delivery is not great unless your buying more that 3 or more as the delivery is £2, the great bonus though is that this is a flat rate so it you buy a load you can save some money which is always puts a smile on my face.
The clips of the tunes are by far the best on any site I’ve been on. Quite often I find myself listening to tunes off the site while doing work, surfing or posting as the quality and length are outstanding. The clips are about 3.30 so you get a proper listen to the intro, first break, first drop, second break and second drop and the quality of the clips are very good for streaming. Even works well without broadband which is surprising, does take a little longer to buffer though. My only gripe is that because of the higher quality it does take a little longer to buffer than other sites. For albums you get clips of every single track, which I find very useful as won’t buy one unless I hear all the tracks. This is even done for the artist mix cd’s which is very rare on any site.
The layout of the site isn’t my favourite, but obviously that’s my own personal opinion. It not as quick to use as Red Eye, I have my favourites go straight to new releases on my PC which means I can instantly look to see what has been released (very useful on my Pocket PC as time is money). With Chemical there are a number of pages to scroll through as its all flash based. As the site is set to a 800x600 resolution I find it does not make use of the space provided, as most people these days have it set higher. However you can still clearly see all the information clearly and its set out alphabetically on the back catalogue so is easy enough to find a track…..when it loads up! As the entire back catalogue is loaded on a single page so can take a while, without broadband your better of searching for it. The search engine is fast and effective apart from the slightly irritating fact that when searching the search engine excludes all tracks in the forthcoming section. I do like the fact that all the brand new tracks added for that day are placed in the “new in” section, makes it quick and easy to check what’s brand new, though after that day they get placed in the new release section which is pretty big so the same problems as above apply. I knows doesn’t seem like a massive deal but the colouring of the site is not right, it is not good web design ethic to use a dark background with light coloured text.
The service from Chemical is very good though they are processed pretty much instantly and will deliver your tunes for the next day, though they don’t always arrive the next day. They also keep you informed of all the stages of processing via email so you know exactly what the score is, so if royal mail make another f**k up you know who to blame! They are also very friendly when dealing with miss orders too and again will reimburse you with any postage and vinyl cost.
Prices 4/5
Delivery charges 4/5
Back catalogue 4.5/5
Dubs 4.5/5
New releases 5/5
Music clips 5/5
Site layout 3/5
Service 4.5/5
[Continue]
Last edited:
Please feel free to add anymore info to this thread. 
