[nate]

Bootleg music is all over the net, and some of it legal and approved by the musicians that made it. there are live shows, studio outtakes, alternate albums and all sorts of goodies free for the taking

often, the files are in a lossless format, that is they use a compression that does not toss out any parts of the file--this is opposed to lossy formats like mp3 or aac that toss some frequencies to save on space (usually high ones, variable depending on bitrate etc.) since lossless files don't toss out anything, you will pay for it in filesize--3x a 320kbps mp3 size, or 1/2 the size of a wav

the 2 lossless types i run across the most are .shn and .flac

shn or shorten files can be played through winamp with the shnamp plugin (be sure to get the one for your winamp 2.x, 3.x, or 5.x)

http://wiki.etree.or...php?page=ShnAmp



make shn files, and convert back to wav (for burning to cd) with mkwact

http://www.etree.org/mkw.html

flac or free lossless audio codec--installation of the program also installs the codecs for winamp and for conversion to and from flac

http://flac.sourceforge.net/


getting the files

here are a few sites to start with that have fast ftp access (legal stuff)

http://www.archive.org (archive.org has super fast servers and 10,000 live lossless shows to choose from in many genres.

http://www.bluegrassbox.com (bluegrassbox has (you guessed it) bluegrass, old country, and alt. country, servers are in the 25-45 range)

http://www.gdlive.com (grateful dead and related shows)

(get an ftp client, i like leechftp )

http://stud.fh-heilb.../downloads.html



once you have a few shows, you can get into shn dc hubs and (yep) get more bootlegs

one hub with an excellent database of bootlegs is http://www.bootlegarchive.com
it's private, but you can get into it through on site registration (though the people who operate it are assholes, so be warned)

there are other shn hubs on the public list, but be sure to only share shn or flac or you will probably be banned!

another method is bittorrent

http://bt.easytree.org

http://www.sharingthegroove.org

are good starting points

the old fashioned way, updated

cd trading by mail is a slower method, but you will access music otherwise unavailable

the ultimate connection for traders is http://www.db.etree.org

here shn, mail, ftp, and bootleg traders of all kinds compare lists

go out and get some bootlegs!

This post has been edited by method77: 15 September 2004 - 05:10 AM

[DudeAsInCool]

:strumma: :good job:

[Shawn]

Great post Nate.

I've got a bit off of archive. I'll check out the others you suggest.

[method77]

*pin*

[Kooperman]

Nate, thanks for the effort you made getting this up here so fast. I have a couple of .shn files that had me stymied....this helps greatly. Now I'll be able to listen to the ancient New Riders Of The Purple Sage concert that I have!

[Ken]

I'm a monkeys audio fan myself.

The newsgroups are KING for lossless formats.

[Undying Wizard]

.SHN is now my favort format to use I love it there larger then an mp3 about doudle the size, but with the connection I have I can download 10mb in about 30-50 seconds so it doesnt bother me

[robsterman1]

Also don't forget to add more disk space as .shn's and .flac's will fill it up fast!

Keep up the good work :good job:

[DudeAsInCool]

Here are some more bootleg sites:

http://bootcity.org*

http://bt.etree.org*RSS

http://dimeadozen.org**RSS

http://forums.bootleg.org.uk*

http://jamtothis.com

http://purelivegigs.com/forums*

http://shnflac.net*

http://thetradersden.org*

http://zombtracker.the-zomb.com***RSS