Help: where to download music....

Ricardo

I got an MP3 player for my son for Christmas; now the obvious next step is load it with music...

I need some help with tips on what are the best/cheapest sites to download from; I'm looking for legal stuff....

I am new to this, so please share your learnings

heiney9

Well there are 2 ways to approach this (assuming it's not an iPod).

1. Rip .wav files of your own music to the HD and convert to Mp3 format then using the USB port uplaod them to the player.

2. Go to a pay site and DL Mp3's and pay for them, then use the USB cable to upload to the player. You may even be able to load them directly to the player w/o having to save them on the HD.

In regards to #2, it's silly to pay for stuff you already own on conventional cd's as you can convert to Mp3 very easily yourself.

If you have an iPod it's archetecture won't let you upload your own Mp3's they HAVE to be purchased from iTunes (the reason I will never own an iPod).

H9

Demiurge

heiney9 wrote:

If you have an iPod it's archetecture won't let you upload your own Mp3's they HAVE to be purchased from iTunes (the reason I will never own an iPod).
H9

Not sure if I am just misunderstanding this statement, but what you put on your iPod does not need to be purchased through iTunes. I use Soulseek whenever I download music and I also rip all of my CDs to my HD and upload them to my iPod. iPods are fantastic.

Are you saying that you can't use Napster, for instance and put the songs from it on your iPod? I've never heard of that before, but I guess that might be a legitimate gripe.

To HT, I tend to stick with actually owning my music by buying the CDs, which I guess with buying songs off the net you're not really privy to. I don't use iTunes, but my friends do and they love it.

What type of player is it?

Ricardo

It is one of those Creative, 1 GB players with built in FM; don't remember exactly the model now.

I am looking for download because he's 15 years old and he does not like 95% of the music I own.

Of all the paid sites, what's your experience? I've seen a few that cost 10 bucks/month; anything cheaper? I would like to get started with something cheaper, and then go from there..

Thanks.

Skynut

heiney9 wrote:

Well there are 2 ways to approach this (assuming it's not an iPod).

1. Rip .wav files of your own music to the HD and convert to Mp3 format then using the USB port uplaod them to the player.

2. Go to a pay site and DL Mp3's and pay for them, then use the USB cable to upload to the player. You may even be able to load them directly to the player w/o having to save them on the HD.

In regards to #2, it's silly to pay for stuff you already own on conventional cd's as you can convert to Mp3 very easily yourself.

If you have an iPod it's archetecture won't let you upload your own Mp3's they HAVE to be purchased from iTunes (the reason I will never own an iPod).

H9

Ok so my stepdaughter got one of these things (not ipod) and she was putting her ccd's into it somehow and it filled up.
Someone told me she must have done it as an audio file instead of an mp3 does this make sense?
She has 246 songs on a 1 gig mp3 player.
If she did it wrong then she needs to delete them and re rip the music as a wav file to take up less room?
Sound right?
Not trying to hi-jack, this could help HTrookie also.

Ricardo

I found this http://www.mp3review.info/?OVRAW=music%20download%20sites&OVKEY=music%20download%20site&OVMTC=standard

It has reviews of download sites; will pick one from here (the featured at $19.95 / yr sounds like what I'm looking for).

heiney9

Maybe I'm confused but I thought the iPod was proprietary.

Skynut, it sounds like the songs were loaded correctly. It depends on how big the Mp3 files are. A standard .wav file is going to be huge compared to an Mp3. 246 songs for 1 gig sounds about right. Figure out how big the files are. Minimum standard is 128kbps upto 320 kbps. The higer the bit rate the larger the file. FYI a standard .wav file is 1411 kbps which is significantly larger than an Mp3. Actual file size is determined by length in minutes/seconds etc. For example a 3:00 minute song ripped at each different bit rate has different file size, ie; the larger the bit rate the larger the file. The only solution is to reduce the file size (re-rip at lower bit rate) or add more memory.

H9

EDIT: There is no possible way to get 246 songs ripped as .WAV files to fit on 1 gig of storage. So that's not the problem.

Skynut

Thanks, I have a lot to learn about modern media.

michael_w

I use Torrentspy for my download needs. I belive it is only illegal to upload stuff and perfectly legal to download? With this site you need to download the torrent and open it with a client program like Azureus or bitcomet. It might be more of a hassel to download stuff but then again this ones free...

Willow

Micheal, I use torrents as well. I think in the US it is illegal, but in Canada it is not.

Before I got torrents, I would load music into my MediaPlayer and then transfer to the MP3 player in the form of WAV. But from what sites I couldn't tell you cause I use torrents.

http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca/Music/MusicNews/ContentPosting.aspx?contentid=ba0291e27d684fcb9f31c55b8ca21e19&show=True&number=7&showbyline=False&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc

bobman1235

A couple things here.

You can obviously load any unencrypted mp3 to an iPod. I'm not sure what happens if you buy it at a m usic store that is not supported by the iPod - I assume it will not play because the iPod would not know how to "unencrypt" it.

To Michael and Willow, downloading anything you don't own is illegal, sorry. They tend to only BUST people who upload, but that is merely to make people more scared to upload (if no one uploads the entire system falls apart). But if you don't pay for something which is supposed to be paid for, you're breaking hte law (in the US, and most likely Canada as well). Torrents in GENERAL are not illegal, just downloading copyrighted material that you do not own, or sharing copyrighted material to others.

Demiurge

HT...iTunes & Napster tend to be the top programs and are the most trustworthy. Friends of mine use both, sorry I don't have the firsthand experience with it though . I'd be leary of using any of the other programs. Both are pay sites. Since I don't own one of the players you have I don't know if it works with iTunes or not.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it DOES work with it. They'd be throwing away millions of dollars of revenue if they didn't make all of the other MP3 players compatible with their music store programs. You could always ask the place that you bought it or go to an actual Apple store and ask them if other MP3 players will work with iTunes.

Another thing to note...I think that once you delete a song or erase it from your player that it's gone for good unless you pay for it again.

Willow

bobman1235 wrote:

A couple things here.


To Michael and Willow, downloading anything you don't own is illegal, sorry. They tend to only BUST people who upload, but that is merely to make people more scared to upload (if no one uploads the entire system falls apart). But if you don't pay for something which is supposed to be paid for, you're breaking hte law (in the US, and most likely Canada as well). Torrents in GENERAL are not illegal, just downloading copyrighted material that you do not own, or sharing copyrighted material to others.

My link talks about how Canada has relaxed laws about it so it is not illegal, immoral maybe.