Does anyone have good site recommendations for lossless files such as flac’s specifically for music.

  • Vinny_93@lemmy.worldEnglish
    571·
    11 months ago

    SoulSeekQT is a free p2p file sharing service specifically for music and you can specify file types or bitrate in filters.

    • rando@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      I’ve seen soulseek and nicotine+ recommended a lot, however is there how to use them tutorial? Or is it so simple that it doesn’t need one ?(i opened nicotine+ and couldn’t figure out what to do next)

      • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        11 months ago

        Not sure if there is a guide out there but it’s pretty easy and I can help you through it. First you’ll need to make an account name and password. I remember it prompting for it the first startup but if not look through the options. Then you’ll want to set the path to your music library in preferences -> shares. These are the files that you’re making available to people searching and downloading. Then go to preferences -> downloads -> folders. I like to set my download folder as separate from my music library so that I can standardize it to my naming conventions, clean up metadata, and place it directly into my Artist - Album folder hierarchy, but you could probably get by with just setting this to your music library directly if you aren’t in to that side of things. You can also set things like upload and queue limits and all that while in the preferences tab. Then just go to the “search files” tab and it’s pretty easy to find what you want. I usually just go with “[album title] flac” and that’s enough to get it 95% of the time even for obscure stuff. Pick an uploader based on speed / how nicely organized the files are, then just right click the folder name -> download folder and it will move over to the download tab.

        Realized right after typing this out that there is a setup assistant at help -> setup assistant. Probably way more helpful than I am but feel free to ask anything else if you need to!

          • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            3·
            11 months ago

            You have to port forward at the VPN level, this is why everyone was pissed at Mullvad for ending it earlier this year. Currently the only VPNs supporting it afaik are ProtonVPN and AirVPN. You can still dl/ul without PF, but you can only connect to people who do have it enabled if you do not (for instance, mullvad stops me from PF now, so we could not connect if you had the VPN, but we could without VPN if it says “open.”)

        • rando@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Awesome thanks a lot for explanation, i’ll go over this when i’m at computer and let you know if any more doubts.

          If i’m just starting with collecting music, how/what do I put for sharing (current collection is empty or at max 20 files). Can I go ahead with empty shared folder and start sharing as I download?

          • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            3·
            11 months ago

            Some people will have share requirements but I don’t think enough do to make getting started a problem. All of my stuff is totally unrestricted so if you like death metal / jazz I can help you out.

            • rando@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              11 months ago

              I think I figured it and setup correctly. I’ll never say no to jazz or some death metal though. Thanks for walking me through.

  • Misanthrope@lemmy.mlEnglish
    202·
    11 months ago

    Check out private torrent trackers. Look for Orpheous and Redacted, OPH/RED.

    • retro@infosec.pubEnglish
      141·
      11 months ago

      This is really good. If you VPN to Nigeria it only costs $2.70 a month.

    • quirzle@kbin.social
      5·
      11 months ago

      Seconding this, as it’s my go-to for anything that’s not for sale on Bandcamp and has treated me well.

  • Andiama@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    11 months ago

    Mostly for me, Qobuz rips (through SlavArt) are the best. But if for some reason you can’t get what you want on Qobuz, I typically look it up on Soulseek and 99% of the time I found what I’m looking for

    • Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      8·
      11 months ago

      I used to like slavart. I found out about them while they still allowed album downloads on their website. Later I moved to their divolt website (like a selfhosted discord) where they allowed downloads via bots.

      At some point they decided not to bother with divolt and told everyone to start using their discord bot. Anyone who had concerns about privacy or about using their main discord account for piracy was pretty much told that they were an idiot and should go fuck themselves.

      At that point I transitioned to ripping directly from quobus as explained in this guide. If I can’t find what I want on quobuz I go to deezer.

        • mihnt@lemmy.worldEnglish
          181·
          11 months ago

          Best way I’ve seen it explained.

          FLAC = PNG

          MP3 = JPEG

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          91·
          11 months ago

          In term of data retention, FLAC is like compressing a RAW image file by using a zip/rar, the data integrity is the same when you open the zip/rar and check the image. MP3 is like reducing the size of a RAW image by converting it to JPEG, data integrity is affected and the image won’t look as good anymore. The most common uncompressed audio format that people know is WAV files (but you can also find compressed WAV files).

        • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          7·
          11 months ago

          FLAC files use lossless compression, which means all the original data is preserved (which is why people like FLAC), which makes FLAC files smaller than an uncompressed .WAV audio file, but still larger than an MP3 file, which uses lossy compression. Lossy compression does involve the loss of some data. This is what allows MP3 files to be smaller than FLAC. With the existence of other more modern lossy audio file formats/codecs like .AAC, and .opus, MP3s should no longer be used unless it is required for compatibility reasons. The modern lossy formats offer higher quality audio files at lower file sizes than MP3.

        • Chahk@beehaw.orgEnglish
          42·
          11 months ago

          MP3s are quite compressed, meaning a lot of data is thrown away in an effort to have smaller files. The quality of audio is sacrificed quite a bit though.

          Lossless formats retain as much data as possible as to not impact the sound quality, but at the expense of larger files. The OP says “smaller” because that’s in comparison to the raw uncompressed sound data stream. But they are larger than MP3s because MP3 is a lossy format.

          File size used to matter a lot in the past when digital music players first came out. My first player had 128 MB storage, for example. At 3-5 MB per song that would fill up quickly. Nowadays larger storage of portable devices is more ubiquitous, with even the cheapest phones sportiing 32-64 GB, and more. So people prefer audio quality and don’t care as much if each song takes up more space.

        • ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          65·
          11 months ago

          I didn’t downvote you, but I think know why you’re getting downvoted. Your comment tipifies laziness and your reaction to the downvotes smacks of entitlement. I’m sorry if that feels rude or offends you. I’m really trying to not be mean about it.

          You’re not actually trying to gain knowledge; you’re just begging for a knowledge handout for something that would be obvious even from just a cursory web search and a quick review of the relevant Wikipedia article (which is probably the top non-sponsored result). That shit gets old real fast. Sometimes you really do just have to RTFM.