Obtaining Music

Sources Available
There are a variety of sources available as to where you can obtain music, other than just moaning about it and begging people on /mu/. Here are few of the sources that are available at your fingertips

Normal Methods

 * Amazon
 * Bandcamp Free/name your price and paid.
 * Bleep
 * Boomkat
 * Discogs New and second hand.
 * iTunes
 * Play.com
 * Record label website (4AD, Domino Records, Matador Records, Rough Trade Records, XL Recordings, etc.).

'Other' Methods

 * File Sharing/Direct Download Sites
 * Bandcamp Download rips the free streams (at 128kbps).
 * ge.tt - no captchas, very fast, doesn't delete files readily. Popular on /mu/, but all links eventually hit a "daily traffic limit" which blocks all of the user's uploads for 24 hours.
 * Mediafire captcha, quite fast, deletes files VERY readily. Used to be fantastic, but now it's really not. Links posted on /mu/ are generally reported by trolls, sometimes minutes after posting. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
 * Megaupload RIP
 * Oh shit, we MEGA now - no captchas, fast speed, deletes files quite readily. Insanely popular on /mu/. Only really usable on Google Chrome. You can now install an add-on for firefox, in order to download from Mega.
 * Rapidgator captcha, slow speed, deletes files quite readily. You can upload to this site but don't expect thanks. Only leaving it in the list due to it's popularity on many sharing blogs, and to tell you why to avoid using it yourself.
 * Rapidshare no captchas, fast speed, deletes files VERY readily. I can't recommend uploading to it.
 * WeTransfer no captchas, very fast, doesn't delete files readily. Very basic and easy to use. Criminally underused on /mu/, so if you use this to share files, be ready to assure others that it's a spam-free and fast site. They (understandably) won't want to use these links otherwise.
 * Zippyshare captcha, fast, doesn't delete files readily. /mu/'s recommended filehoster, and the one you should upload to before any others.

Remember, if using these sites to upload files, standard practices apply - use .zip or .rar compression and rename the files to something inconspicuous (even "NMH1998.rar" is far less likely to be deleted than "Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.rar"). Also, using password protection will open you up to being called a dick. If you do have to use it, make sure the password is clear for people to see.

It's also worth noting that 4chan counts a lot of DDL site links as spam. You can get around that by either formatting the links in an unusual way i.e.  http:// rapidsite dot com/do33842jf  OR pasting the link into a Pastebin and sharing that link.


 * Standalone programs
 * JDownloader Windows, Mac, Linux and more. A decent download manager for links from many file sharing sites.
 * Soulseek Windows, Mac & Linux.

File Sharing/Direct Download Sites
Using the regular file sharing sites such as mediafire and zippyshare is pretty self explanatory, though how to find them is not anymore, since google now restricts the results in regards to obtaining links for mediafire.

If you're looking for an album on, lets say, mediafire, your first port of call should be google, but instead of searching '[Album] Mediafire', you should be searching '[Album] Filestube'. Once you've done this, click on the appropriate filestube link and then look at the results for a mediafire link (or another file sharing site if you cant find a mediafire). Now click on the link and don't click on download, instead copy the URL underneath, in the box that says 'Direct links:' and paste this into your address bar. This link will be a working link for the album you're searching for.

If this method fails to work, as in there is no working link available via Filestube, then your next place to check should be /rs/. Search for the album by its full name and then by its initials, or any other possible title it might be uploaded under, if you still can't find a working link. The problem with /rs/ now is that a lot of people upload albums that are not named after the album, but are given nonsense names, to try and delay them being taken down. As a result of this, you should try searching the archives, to see if the album you're looking for has been shared in a sharethread. One thing you shouldn't do when searching for a link to an album is go around begging for one on /mu/.

As well as the methods listed above, there are a lot of blogs out there which share links to albums regularly. For a list of blogs, visit the Share Blogs section on the Discovering Music page.

Soulseek
Soulseek is the service out of the listed file sharing site which works differently. Soulseek offers the ability for people to enter a 'virtual room' and share files peer-to-peer personally with someone else, whilst being able to talk to them as well at the same time. A download link to the Soulseek client can be found here

Soulseek is also used to find individual files. When searching for something you can sort by the quality of file, the download speed of the user and how many other people are in line to download from the user. But you can also sort within those qualities, so by clicking "download speed" and then clicking "attributes", you can see who has the fastest connection of all the 320 kb/s files. By then clicking "in queue" you can see who has the fastest download speed of the 320 kb/s files and also has nobody waiting in line. If you want to download everything within the folder of a person, usually an entire album, you don't have to browse their files and select each file. Just right-click and select "Download Containing Folder". When searching for something, make sure to be specific, such as when searching for the song So What by Miles Davis off the album Kind of Blue, search for "miles davis kind blue what" (without the quotation marks). Also, searching with the words "beatles", "bob dylan" and "MGMT" will return no results for legal reasons but their music is readily available.

Torrents
Torrents are something which I'm sure the average 4chan goer is quite familiar with, so I'll save you the talk on torrents themselves and talk about the services available. There are a variety of places to torrent music from. These include the more commonly known Isohunt and The Pirate Bay. Both of these are not advised, as the quality of the music available on there isn't of a good, or guaranteed, bitrate. You may wish to use these as a (very) last resort. The other two services available are What.CD and Rutracker.

What.CD
What.CD is an invite only private tracker. Invites can be acquired either from upstanding What users or by passing an interview process, though most What users will be unwilling to share an invite, since the inviter is held responsible for the actions of the invited. There are a variety of sources you can use to help you pass the interview. The most important of them is the What.CD Interview Preparation Site, which provides you with information on preparing for the interview, taking the interview, and what to do after the interview. Another useful website for information on What.CD is Hydrogenaudio Wiki.Once you have passed the interview and entered What.CD, there is an extensive and well-maintained catalog of music, though you need to maintain a ratio to stay a member, obviously. Further instructions on what to do on What.CD once you're a member can be found here.

Rutracker
Rutracker is another tracker website, though there isn't any sort of test to enter Rutracker like on What.CD. All you have to do is make an account, though the fact that the website is in russian doesn't make it easy, which is why you can use the guide provided on this wiki to sign up. Most of the stuff on Rutracker is stuff directly taken from What.CD, so its good quality for the most part. There are plently of discographies available in both lossless and lossy codecs, and new releases are often uploaded shortly after the release. Everything is tagged in English, with a good post standard maintained regarding information about the music available. Though no ratio is forced to be maintained, keeping a good ratio on Rutracker can help in the obtaining of an invite to What.CD and other private trackers.