Confused About Downloading Music? These Tips Can Help!
Stay away from any music downloads that require a peer to peer client, also known as p2p software. No matter how slickly designed such sites are, they are probably just an access point for music pirates and torrent users. Avoid these, as almost all torrent activity is a legal risk.
Want access to thousands of songs without clogging up your hard drive? Invest in a subscription from a site like Spotify instead of purchases on iTunes or Amazon. This allows you unlimited streaming of songs from their massive catalog, plus it's totally legal. That said, you need an internet connection to listen, of course.
If you decide to sign up for a subscription based site for downloads, make sure to check out reviews on their library of music first. Some might only have old songs that you are not interested in owning, and others might have poor quality downloads. While some are legitimate, it is worth while to do your homework first.
Do your research when it comes to which subscription service you use. It is expensive to pay for songs one by one. These days, there are a lot of places online that you can pay to subscribe to if you wish to save some cash. When you shop around, look at the download limits to see how much is stored.
Make sure that you consistently back up music that you buy and download. Some music services have a limit on how many times you can download a song. It's important you don't loose what you've paid for, though. It's a good idea to set up Aliens an external hard-drive to save all your music downloads. Alternately, you could save them to CD.
If you run into some great music you wish to download from an unfamiliar site, be sure that you thoroughly check reviews prior to doing this. Search for any reviews about whether or not the site is safe and don't worry about reviews that address the music quality. If you can't find them, it might be better to turn to another site for your favorite tunes.
Free Music Archive and The Internet Archive offer free music that is completely legal to download. Check them out if you are working on building your collection. They often contain music from obscure or lesser known artists, and the music spans every genre. Downloading is simple once you are at the site.
If you like your music to sound the best possible, look for the bitrate of the audio file. The bitrate helps you know at what quality the track that you want was downloaded. For instance, a track that's been encoded at 256 kilobytes per second will typically sound muck better than one that's been encoded at 128 kilobytes per second.
Even if you are downloading from a familiar source like Amazon or iTunes, make sure that your download device has security features and antivirus protection. You never know what is out there. Always scan any files you download before you open them or transfer them to another device, just in case.
If you download music, you need to make sure you also backup your music, too. Building up a good sized library is costly and can take you some time. It would be painful to lose all your files. Avoid depending on your download service to allow you to re-download. Use online storage and external hard drives as back up options to store your music.
If you are having problems downloading with a peer to peer program, check your firewall. Unless you allow the program, you won't be able to do any uploading or downloading. Windows comes with a firewall built in, and this will have to be altered to allow for your program's actions.