World of Vishnu

How and where do you get music on the net? I am of course not talking about legit sources like iTunes, but all the other free alternatives. When I am downloading music I face these two questions:

1. What download medium do i use? (what program, what website etc.)
2. How do I find the new cool tracks i want, when I don’t yet know the name of them?

I’ll give you a small guide to the methods I use. I am a dj and therefor i need to get new music, preferably before it gets popular, that is a big challenge. I’ll go through a few approaches:

Torrent sites: Torrent sites has a few advantages and a few disadvantages: It’s easy to use, you just click on what you want and the torrent client you are using will take care of the rest. But what do you download? It’s really unpractical to download one track at the time with BitTorrent, It works best for albums and large collections. When I use torrent sites I mainly download “Various Artists” albums, listen through them, and keep the tracks I like. That way you don’t need to know the name of the new cool tracks before you hear them.

BitTorrent Client

These are the torrent clients I’ve used:

• Azerus (Windwos)
• BitTorrent (Linux/Windows)
• BitTornado (Linux)
• BitComet (Windows) *
• TorrentFlux (Web based) *

These are the sites I’ve been using:

• http://www.thepiratebay.org *
• http://www.mininova.org

I have marked my favorites with *.

DC++: This is my favorite file sharing program. It is an open source application for windows, but has been ported to Linux as well. It works like this: you connect to a hub (a server which collects all the lists of shared files of the users and lets you search them), you search for a file and then you choose which other user you want to download from.

DC++ for Linux

It’s actually really simple, but however there are a few drawbacks. First you need a good hub, there are a lot out there but I only use this one:

• djcenter2004.no-ip.org

It is a hub for dj’s, and it won’t let you if you share anything other than music (at least 5 gb). I always find what I need there. The next problem is how to know what to search for. I’ve got some sites I check usually, here are some of them:

• DeeJayPromo - Up to date dance, house and hip-hop charts.
• Last.fm - Find the tags for your music and see whats hot!
• Tranceaddict.com - Forums for electronic music.

Another way to find new tracks is to download dj liveset on DC++ or with BitTorrent and listen to them. Check the tracklist when you find a cool tune.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Tech, Djing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.