DrumSing

Hi Folks!

There are a several options for downloading and streaming music. Let's share what we know about these options. Please write comments about the sites you use, why you like them, and any limitations.

Here are the ones I'm familiar with:

Legal Music download sites: iTunes, Napster, and others.
- What do you use?
- Is there a reason you chose this?

Free (but risky?) download sites: Limewire alternatives.
- Do you use them?
- Do you have concerns about safety?

Streaming music options: Pandora, Spotify, others.
- What do you use?
- What is the best things about the ones you use?

Satellite Radio: SiriusXM and others.
- What do you use?
- Is there a reason you chose this?

THANK YOU!

GuD

This would be an interesting thread if it wasn't probably made by a spammer.

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I spit bullets in my feet
Every time I speak
So I write instead
And still people want me dead
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DrumSing

No spamming here. Occasionally, I'll hear about a site that does something different from the ones I know about. I'd like to know which ones to try.

bindaas

Streaming:
Pandora, Saavn (For indian music)

Satellite:
Only FM- specifically 96.9

illegal:
Haven't done in a while. Random google search. Copy from friends (let it be on their conscience )

Legal:
Haven't done in a while.

Key

MusicBanter. Gives me ideas of what to download etc etc.

Wendy Gloyd

Hi DrumSing,

Great topic! I've used the following legal download sites: iTunes and Amazon.
- Is there a reason you chose this? I used iTunes because I have a Mac computer and it is very easy. I used Amazon because I have an account and any purchases I have made of physical CDs I can often also get digital downloads of the same without having to import the CD into my computer's library.

I have never used free download site because I was never sure of the integrity of security. Not worth the risk to me. Yes, I have concerns about safety when downloading. And don't want to have strange popups or cookies dropped on my computer.

Streaming music: I have used Pandora - my favorite! And used Spotify a couple of times. Pandora has been around a long time and I've built up a library of music that I like so it is easy to go in and have Pandora play for me songs I like and others that I might like. The commercials aren't that long and are easy to dismiss.

I don't use satellite radio but I know others who have it in their cars. I don't spend enough time driving that it's worth it for me to pay for radio. I prefer to listen to audiobooks that I've downloaded from Audible (an Amazon company now) while I'm driving over music most of the time.

Thanks for asking!

toasty1

Hello Drumsing, thanks for this opportunity. As far as legal sites go, I use itunes and probably because of the familiarity and how easy they make it to download music. Growing up I remember being excited about an album coming out and getting excited about it from the single the radio stations would play. You would have to buy the album and more often than not, the rest of the album would not live up to the single. You'd be lucky if there were two good songs. When I first was introduced to itunes, I couldn't believe you could buy your songs "a la carte" without having to purchase the whole album. Love it.

As far as the risky sites go, I end up playin by the rules and pay for everything. The only experience I have is making sure my kids don't get in trouble with any of them.

With regard to the streams, I use Pandora and though it's good and has introduced me to some new artists, I do get frustrated with a few things. Obviously I understand they have to make money, but the ads can be a little overwhelming, especially when you get three in a row. Secondly, it seems like they rotate the same songs when you create a station so often times you end up hearing many repeats. For these reasons I have a curiosity about Spotify but haven't investigated it yet.

Lastly, I don't use Satellite Radio yet but have been curious about that as well.

rebelwerewolf

I usually use streaming because I like to hear a bunch of different music without needing to buy it all. I've used Spotify, Pandora, and Slacker. The downside is that there are commercials. One of my coworkers suggested iTunes Radio and said it did not have commercials, but I have yet to check it out.

phantom1961

Pandora, Last FM,Hard Radio.com and Live365.com ...Oh..and of course Youtube are sites I like to go to for streaming or internet radio...as for legal or illegal d-loading...I haven't done any in a long time myself.. I've allways heard Soulseek was good tho.. Heard you could find anything as far as music goes there.

EPOCH6

I just don't understand bots anymore, this is some next level ****. It's like companies have stopped using bots and have started hiring regular folks to join forums and talk about a particular list of services. It's like 5 new members all join at once and then spontaneously interact politely and directly with each other in single threads, like they're posting from a script. Some crazy cyberpunk ****.

Anyway, this is actually a decent topic, so why not. You win this time, future.
Bandcamp for sure.

Bandcamp has been a game changer for small time artists. Easy to use, very customizable, the site layout is fantastic, they allow merch and hardcopy sales, they demand quality audio uploads so they can be distributed in multiple formats, they allow artists to easily promote other artists, they allow track previews, payment is easy, they'll automatically inform you when artists you like release new material, and the site works great on mobile devices.
I use SoulSeek for hard to find music these days.

I've been pirating music for 13 years, since the early LimeWire releases. I've jumped across peer-to-peer services from LimeWire to FrostWire, BearShare, Napster, Morpheus, and eventually BitTorrent services and search engines like uTorrent and Vuze paired with The Pirate Bay, Kickass.to, Demonoid, warez.bb, what.cd etc as well as music blogs and cyberlockers like Rapidshare, MediaFire, ZippyShare, HotFile, 4Shared, Megaupload, MEGA, and the countless others that have risen and fallen over the last half decade.

SoulSeek has consistently been the best for me. It allows you to share your entire music library without uploading it until somebody polls you for a particular download. Every dedicated users music library is wide open for exploring and the application has a built in chat feature that lets you discuss the music you're seeking out with the other collectors. Besides maybe what.cd, SoulSeek seems to be the most dedicated and passionate community of music collectors I've ever seen. It's not uncommon for people to strike up a conversation with you as they're downloading something from your collection, asking for similar recommendations, asking what you think about the album, telling you about a time they saw the band live etc. The search filtering is advanced and very useful, you can make a wishlist so that SoulSeek notifies you as soon as an album has become available, the existing library of music on SoulSeek is absolutely incredible, and you can upload dozens of album to other users a day without even noticing any strain on your connection speed.

Fantastic software, fantastic community, genuine collectors sharing with genuine collectors.
None, besides maybe YouTube every once in a while.
Nope.

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