Downloading music, newbie questions

Hi !

Some newbie questions about downloading music

I know JACK about this, having never done it before..

My PC is a piece of **it, about 8 years old. A pentium 233 I believe.

The CD rom is probably not one that records, or even plays CD-Rs.

As I said, I know little about this.

I have an analogue line, with free calls to the net.

WHAT DO I NEED? (cheapest way to burn and download music?)

* - can I get some sort of CD writing drive for my 'puter - if so which one gives musical results very cheaply?

* would it be compatable with a PAP computer like mine?

* is the software free-ware? what sort should I use and where do you get it from?

* how long does it take to download an album at analogue speeds - or a song? (just to see if its worth the hastle and expense)

* where do I call to see if I can have broadband? BT?

* I heard that napsta used to be the place to go to get music from the net. Wheres the best places to go now?

* If I get the bits n bobs for a dinosaur of a computer - am I limited more by my analogue line than by the PC - surely the low processing power wont effect the ability to download music? ?

Sorry about these dumb questions. I know little about downloading music, or how/where to go about it.

Hope some of you yoofs can help an old tunrtable spinning fool out.


Chris

 

In my opinion, Liteon drives offer excellent results for not much money. Mine works excellently.

It should do, but you might want to check the specification requirements before you buy.

If you buy a Liteon, you will most likely get Nero burning ROM free. I did.

I assume you mean 56k. That would really depend on lots of things, like the download speed you were getting, and the quality of the files. A typical 80 minute album at 192K bitrate will be about 100Mb. Assuming you get about 5K/sec (max realistic speed from 56K), it will take you 5 hours 30 minutes to download an album. This is why you need broadband

http://www.bt.com/broadband/

You can check to see if its available here.

If you can afford the time, there are loads of places to acquire music, Kazaa Lite K++, Soulseek, WinMX, Newsgroups, Direct Connect (DC++) and even the web itself.

Correct.

 

chris,
check out ntlworld for cable broadband. as you're where you are you should have optical fiber coming into your house already.
also make sure any burner you get is burn proof this prevents the buffer under runs which your pc will generate being a lowish spec.

cheers

julian

 

AHA!

Very intereting, I'll have to try finding out about cable modems. I certainly cant have a BT one, apparently Im 6.5 miles from the switch which is too far.

Also - spoke to a computer shop - they say that when you download you save it on the PC first and then onto a CD ROM - therfore my computers crummy hard drive will be too small therefore I really need a new computer, and not just a CD burner.
They say that its far too slow to put it straight onto a CD.. it has to go on the hard drive first.

Was this bulloney?

He may just be after selling me a new 'puter!
??

thanks for the info so far everyone
Chris

 

this is getting worse.!!

cant get BT broadband, cant get cable broadband either!!

?!

I guess I'll have to give up on my plans for world domination via downloading music!!

Still interested to know about whether he was right about a new PC being needed though?

Cheers
Chris

 

if you PC has never been upgraded for 8 years then it is likely to need a RAM upgrade, also A 233Mhz PC 8 years ago would have cost at least £2500, so I am thinking it will have a lower processer than this or it will be more like 6 years old. I am guessing your system was 32mb ram, but you would really need 128mb for downloading MP3s and burning them onto CD.

 

Kazaa is the de facto Napster replacement and it's the one that all the "illegal" p2p pirates use. RIAA hate it but there's not a lot they can do about it The model is different to Napster in that there's no centralized list or server.

However, I've had the Kazaa front end installed on my PC twice and both times it didn't last more than a couple of days. It installs just about every useless and irritating bit of pop-up adware and spyware in existence and when I nuked the Spyware with Spybot Search & Destroy Kazaa stopped working (oddly enough ). It claims not to ship with Spyware but it's loaded to the gunwhales with it :inferno:

Secondly, I've rarely found anything I've wanted on Kazaa. Quite often files are disguised by giving them different names, sometimes you think you're downloading an MP3 but you're actually getting a porno vid. Other times you think you're getting a Madonna track but you're actually getting something by N'Sync.

The other day I was looking for the tracks from the album by Mono "Formica Blues" and found them all listed but somehow unavailable for download ("error: requires more sources" or something like that).

Basically - IMO Kazaa is Kack. There's lot's of free music about to download but it's usually such a pain in the arse to get (I really can't be bothered to fart about with binary newsgroups anymore ) that it's just not worth it.

I can't wait until Apple's iTunes site is available in the UK and I'll eventually be able to have hassle free music downloads.

Michael.

 

Hi

It came with 32 meg, and I stuffed another 32 in, so its 64meg ram. wooooooo!! heheh

question is though - was he right about burning onto a hard drive first - or straight onto CD?..

purely academic now though as Im not waiting 5.5 hours to get one crappy album or song or whatever!

Chris

 

Michael, try doing a search for kazzalite. Its Kazza without the spyware and works apparantly. I wouldn't know as I use winmx which aside from the queues are fine.

 

Emule is another good alternative and IMHO the best p2p program available.

You can download it from here:
http://www.emule-project.net/index.php?s=downloads

Emule FAQ:
http://www.emule-project.net/faq/index.html
http://ed2k.sinfree.net/

Files:
http://www.sharereactor.com/
http://www.fileheaven.org/forum/index.php

Releases of full albums:
http://www.fileheaven.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=33&sid=8d3247fb1bec8e63a54adbf579fed2d3
http://www.fileheaven.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=8d3247fb1bec8e63a54adbf579fed2d3

 

Thanks! Got KazaaLite K++ and it does indeed work and doesn't have any of the spyware or adware.

Michael.