Most of the discussion and sources of content talk about movies and series.
I’ve been recently looking for psy and techno music, finding FLAC or WAV with active seeders feels like striking gold. It’s definitely been a while since I’ve looked for active torrent sites and it feels more barren than ever.
Edit: Thank you all for all that valuable information. The reddit group really wasn’t this helpful and valued making fun over adding real use able knowledge.
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It’s certainly alive and exists.
But access to music is easy and affordable. It’s more inconvenient for me to pirate it than just use a streaming service.
I also listen to a lot of independent artists and rather buy their stuff to support them.
The only music I pirate is stuff that isn’t on Spotify, namely Nintendo game soundtracks
Expect a cease and desist order
Doug Bowser will be at their doorstep shortly
Knock knock, open up the door, it’s real
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Haha I mean it’s not like I share it with anyone else. I just have it on my Plex server in an enormous video game music playlist I shuffle through when I’m reading or working
I prefer there not being any lag in-between songs, which most streaming services have.
I usually use a streaming service like YouTube (through piped) to find new artists, then use soulseek to download their entire discography.
The problem with streaming is that the companies will eventually figure out new ways to squeeze every penny out of you. The once ‘free’ YouTube is now blocking adblocks, and Spotify requires DRM to be installed for it to function.
For me, piracy isn’t just about convenience or price, it’s mainly about control over the media I have.
Yup, I buy what I like on Bandcamp.
The thing is not every popular or moderately popular song is on any streaming site. I’m a fan of 90s and 00s trance music, and there are some notable songs that aren’t available on any of the most popular paid services, or are available only in newer, re-recorded versions or remixes - some of them are available on Spotify, but not all. YouTube Music has such an advantage that you can listen not only to the songs uploaded by record labels, but also to countless additional songs available on YouTube, however most of the time they are in worse quality (AFAIK max audio bit rate in YT videos is 128 kbps). So while streaming services are now affordable and have very extensive audio library, they have some shortcomings that one can only fill with physical media or piracy.
I have Spotify through a family plan but I do download backups for when the enshitification happens to them.
I just use lidarr with the deezloader script. Sign up for a month of deezer premium every six months and just download my back log. For $30/yr I always have a relatively up to date, lossless quality, music library backup.
Personally, I tend to only pirate music files that I just can’t find anywhere else. For example, audiophile quality 45rpm vinyl rips of albums that might have only been sold in that format once, and for a very limited run. In cases like that, I almost feel a responsibility to maintain a copy because it is something that could very easily disappear from existence.
The guys doing the rips understand that they might own one of maybe a few hundred copies of a certain album, so they rip at audiophile quality and share.
I feel you, I have one of two known sources of obscure Russian albums in FLAC and I’m more than happy to secure its future by sharing.
I buy on Bandcamp and pirate through Soulseek (specifically Nicotine+).
I also buy Vinyls.
Torrenting music has been pretty trash for me so I haven’t bothered in ages.
Is nicotine working good for you? Last time I tried it, it was missing some search results that were instead appearing in soulseek-qt client
Nicotine is working fine for me. Although I’ll have to check out soulseek-qt myself to see if there is any difference in search results Up until now, I haven’t had problems finding anything unless it was something that was released within the week (usually singles)(which I just rip from youtube)
bandcamp
I didn’t know about bandcamp. I’m gonna buy some albums there. The music is drm-free? I think that what bandcamp and itch.io are doing should be the future of the industry.
IMO, Bandcamp is one of the best places to go if you actually want to support artists. Spotify and other streaming options tend to be the worst.
Yup that’s exactly why it has flourished in the past decade or so
Yes, the music there is drm free. Keep in mind it’s not ALL music. It’s mostly music from independent artists. But they are the ones that need the most support. So go all in!
I bought music from several artists on Bandcamp and could not download some of it 12 months later. Artist unresponsive, Bandcamp support unwilling to help. And now Tencent has it’s tendrils in the company so expect it to get worse.
Bandcamp is pretty great. I usually stream from their app but you can download music you buy in a bunch of formats.
I like their writeups they do sometimes (like a “best doom metal from Texas” deep dive)
They do Bandcamp Fridays sometimes where they yield their share of the sale to the artists.
I’ve also had artists write back a few times when I put a comment in the box when buying stuff. Most notably an invite to a show they were playing once.
They did get bought by epic though so they’re not indie anymore. A bummer. But epic hasn’t shit it up yet so far as I know.
Bandcamp is great. Fuck corporate labels who prevent artists from releasing their music privately on the platform. It’s an abhorrent business practice.
what exactly is soulseek? is it p2p or download from a server? Is using a VPN recomended?
It’s p2p, and the protocol is not very secure. You should probably use a VPN, yes. The content shared is really good, even if it has slowly decreased along the years. Just be selective about who you tell about slsk to help keep it under the radar, please. First rule of the blue bird is : don’t speak of the blue bird.
Soulseek is p2p. I prefer to use a VPN but it is not necessary. What is necessary is port forwarding if you want to share your own files. You can either set that up in your router, or through your VPN if you’re using one (it must be a VPN that supports port forwarding)
its p2p download from other users, if you want to share your library you should probably use a VPN. You dont have to share your library but its kind of frowned upon to not do it.
This is exactly what I do, music is just too messy to find every song
I’ma get hate for this but I’m not pirating out of principle but when I think something it’s to expensive for it’s price. I live in a country with good salaries and have to work less than one hour for one month of endless music. To me that is a good deal but I am aware that it is not to everyone especially those from other countries. I mostly pirate Movies and TV Shows because you would need to pay over 50€/month to get access to all services.
Those are cheap in my country and we don’t have access to high quality service like tidal either
Nah, not happening. I used to buy stuff from play music because they used to let u download the mp3, flac, etc. Then i would use it for an old android 4 phone wich i use as player.
But since they kill it im not doing that anymore, i refuse to suffer a netflix 2.o now with more tears for all the money u invested and watching how it evaporates because a suit tough it was something nobody watches even when it’s one of ur more popular shows, or worse, they block ur country and u end up in piracy once more.
If u wanna use the argument of “but we need to help the creators, bla, bla, bla”, dude if u really wanna help them donate them directly, be it music or series, it has been more than proven that they only recibe the bare minimum by conventional means.
Soulseek is the goto piracy thing for music.
Streaming service ripping is alive and well.
Youtube scrapers like Newpipe and alternative frontend makes listening easy if you aren’t quality obsessed. This has been adequate for my levels of listening.
Some private trackers have massive music collection dumps.
However, I’d say directly supporting artists through storefronts like bandcamp is the best way to go, where it’s available. No DRM, no bullshit, the artist benefits. This, to me, is the best alternative to piracy.
Napster, Deezer, Tidal aren’t terrible offerings either FWIW.
Sorry to ask a dumb question but how do I rip from streaming services? It’s worth buying a subscription for this ability
youtube-dl has the ability to extract audio
And there are similar apps for my streaming services.
I don’t want to link to anything directly, but it’s possible to use ReVanced to get YouTube Music for free.
Would you be able to DM me?
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Made an account just so I can call you an uncultured rube. Git gud
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skill issue, there’s lots of good music out there
Year after year, new releases lose ground to the back catalog. Nobody likes new [top40] music, because it’s cynical manufactured crap.
why listen to top40 when you can build a music taste of your own? the world isn’t gonna die if ppl stop caring about pop music
I’ll just be over here listening to IDLES, Yves Tumor, Mau p, Chris Lake, ARTBAT, Jon Bohmer, Flume, Jpegmafia, etc. etc. Lots of great music guys, and it ain’t even hard to find.
Doesn’t really address my point, does it?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/old-music-killing-new-music/621339/ – Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking.
https://www.billboard.com/pro/catalog-boom-analysis-for-the-record/
I wasn’t adressing that point specifically, I just meant to show that there is a lot of good music still, and not only some obscure shit no one really listens to.
I will do some more reading on this subject and edit with my thoughts on that.
Though my initial thought is there is an inherent bias here, and that is time.
Eh, this kind of fearmongering has been in the music industry forever now. If no one is releasing new music, or there is a ridiculously high barrier to entry, there will simply be another indie music boom.
And I also think this is something where the data should be niche specific. Like how would this affect me as a tech house producer, for example? There is currently a tech house boom, with labels like Repopulate Mars, Toolroom, dirty bird. etc. These labels will continue to put out good and new music because that is their prerogative. Even labels such as Ajundeep are still publishing unknowns.
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I promise you there’s tons of material coming out everyday that you can find in every single genre
You’re arguing against a point I never made. Obviously it’s hyperbolic to say “nobody” likes new music because 30 percent of revenue is going to new music. But obviously there is a major problem and the fact that there is still some good new music coming out does not address that major problem.
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Try essential house.club, they have what you need plus some.
Does ViMusic/Spotube count? They’re alternative youtube music/spotify front ends with no ads. If so, then I’d say piracy is still going strong!
I am subscribed to streaming services. Just want offline files in slightly higher quality. I find 768kbps+ to be perfect on high end gear. Streaming is great for 320kbps equivalent.
It doesn’t matter on the go because even a slight outside noise would mask any kind of pseudo or real gains in sound quality.
finding FLAC or WAV with active seeders feels like striking gold
Not if you’re on the right tracker(s)…really should try and get into RED and/or Orpheus.
I’ll look into those, is there any interview like what.cd used to have?
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There is, but I never got response in like 1 week of trying. Got invite from another private tracker at the end.
Tracker is rly good, website was down couple of times, but real problem is that I cant keep up with ratio, its so freaking hard, at least for me lol
Music is hard to find on public trackers. RED and ORP are awesome private trackers that have basically anything you can think of. And if its not use the deezload telegram bot and send it a link to the song on deezer
Or you can you soulseek. That’s still very viable even today
Good leads, the bot sounds interesting
MP3 0Day on private trackers covers everything.
I use satclubbing for electronic music and metal tracker metal. Something else I’ve started doing is getting second hand CDs. They are going really cheap right now and will likely become vintage and sought after in a decade odd. I basically buy them and rip them and keep them in storage.
Rutracker.org maybe. I find pretty much every music I want on it. Though i mostly listen mainstream so maybe it is easier to find it.
Dying is an overstatement, I’m sure the scene is there.
But it’s not as popular as most people are generally able to easily access all the music they want legally for reasonable prices.
