I don't get it: SO MANY albums, whatever the P2P they're from, are being shared with several bitrates (192, 256, 320, etc.) for different tracks. I understand that on Soulseek some idiots who can't get a full album from one person will get the missing tracks from another source without checking the bitrates (motherfuckers! may they burn in hell!!!) but this also happens with torrents, etc.

I just don't get it: why on earth would anyone (or any software, or any legal platform) rip albums with different bitrates for different songs? Most of the time the difference can't even be heard so you'd say why bother? Well... I bother because sometimes it CAN be heard, and because this is just stupid to share crap when we cool share coll, properly ripped, stuff...

(Please don't start with mp3 being crap in the first place, etc. Most music just isn't available at all in Flac, officially or otherwise.)

Thanks for any explaination of this phenomenon

If it really bothers you maybe you should actually pay for the music. Thieves don’t get to be picky.

databank said:

I don't get it: SO MANY albums, whatever the P2P they're from, are being shared with several bitrates (192, 256, 320, etc.) for different tracks. I understand that on Soulseek some idiots who can't get a full album from one person will get the missing tracks from another source without checking the bitrates (motherfuckers! may they burn in hell!!!) but this also happens with torrents, etc.

I just don't get it: why on earth would anyone (or any software, or any legal platform) rip albums with different bitrates for different songs? Most of the time the difference can't even be heard so you'd say why bother? Well... I bother because sometimes it CAN be heard, and because this is just stupid to share crap when we cool share coll, properly ripped, stuff...

(Please don't start with mp3 being crap in the first place, etc. Most music just isn't available at all in Flac, officially or otherwise.)

Thanks for any explaination of this phenomenon

I rarely, if ever, run into this problem. Personally, I prefer lossless formats (flac, ape, wv, wav), because as you mentioned; bit rates absolutely make a difference that can be heard. But since you're speaking of MP3's, I have usually found any album that I've needed to download with each track ripped at a constant bit rate of 320 kbps.

Then, contrary to what you've experienced, I find most every genre of music I'm interested in available in flac. I would suggest you dig a little deeper, do a little more research, and keep in mind that being any more specific than this would be against Org rules (so please don't ask).

Because there's no honor among thieves.

jpnyc said:

If it really bothers you maybe you should actually pay for the music. Thieves don’t get to be picky.

Oh, I forgot to add "no arguments about thieves and buying music, please" on my OP. Mistake corrected. Make a thread about the moralities of downloading if you wanna, this one ain't the place. And to end all debate, I'll add that I now live on a continent where there is no way to buy legal records anyway, since most legal digital stores are blocked in most Asian countries, and the only CDs and DVDs you find in stores are pirate copies.

PDogz IDK, the thing is that we're not talking usual quantities of music: we're talking about a collection of thousands of records, which is of course including many rarities, which is the reason why I can't get it all in Flac for reasons of both availablility and storage capacities. (That's also the reason why buying all that stuff is simply unthinkable, as I am not a millionaire). All that + the fact that where I live, internet connections are being scandalously slow in comparison to Western countries, so large files are a hassle .

For all these reasons I really haven't much of a choice when it comes to mp3. Of course if I get the last album by a reknown artist I'll get an all 320 copy. It gets more difficult as soon as it's more obscure stuff.

So here we go again, any theories anyone (save thieves being idiots) ?

databank said:

So here we go again, any theories anyone (save thieves being idiots) ?

My theory would be that not everyone takes great care, nor attention to detail, when ripping and making files available for download. Although, that is not to say that quality bit rate MP3's, of even rare material, are not widely available (...with exceptions, of course).

Where do you live?

Country, not Continent

Look, a thief can't just say, "Hey you can't call me a thief HERE".

Sorry, but there's no home base for thieves.

So he's supposed to buy pirated CDs instead which just pays other thieves and not the artists?

Is this a complaint about free music?

Yeah like yall havent done it.

I think it's because they are morons. The average person wouldn't rip the files into random bitrates like that.

Thieves CAN be choosy if they want to. It's not like there is a rulebook. I've downloaded CDs I own, because I was too lazy to rip the mp3s myself. In general though, I buy CDs still.

MidniteMagnet said:

Thieves CAN be choosy if they want to. It's not like there is a rulebook.

of course, but they can't expect much sympathy!

Ellie said:

So he's supposed to buy pirated CDs instead which just pays other thieves and not the artists?

He can buy legal CDs online IF he wants to. Anybody can

lazycrockett said:

Yeah like yall havent done it.

Nope, I've never downloaded an artist's CD from a pirate website. EVER. I've always either bought the CD or paid for it through iTunes.

PANDURITO said:

Ellie said:

So he's supposed to buy pirated CDs instead which just pays other thieves and not the artists?

He can buy legal CDs online IF he wants to. Anybody can

Assuming it's still available, and not Out of Stock / Out of Print.

Azz said:

Is this a complaint about free music?

No, databank is complaining about stolen music, not free music.

PDogz said:

PANDURITO said:

He can buy legal CDs online IF he wants to. Anybody can

Assuming it's still available, and not Out of Stock / Out of Print.

Exactly. The only stuff I illegally download is because it's either never been released on CD, or it's been long out of print and Amazon Marketplace and Ebay sellers are charging up to £100 for one CD as it's not even available to download legally.

The only way to legally get some music affordably is second hand vinyl, which is difficult to convert digitally if you haven't got the equipment, and either way all you're doing is paying the previous owner a few quid, which still doesn't benefit the artist or the industry. Also, some of this stuff I do actually own on vinyl.

[Edited 7/17/12 22:13pm]

To answer Pandurito, I live in Cambodia. In Cambodia (as well as most developping countries), u can't buy digital on Amazon, u can't buy on iTunes, u can't listen to music on Deezer, etc. All these services are "blocked in your country for copyright reasons". So yeah I'm supposed to pay money to people who steal the music to buy pirated CD's.

But that's no excuse anyway. I used to download in France before when I coulda bought the music and I'm cool with it. Before the internet days I bought something like 800 or 900 albums, I think it's more than most people in their whole life so I paid my dues and now I chose not to pay for the music. I'm all for global licence: i'd love to pay a fee on my internet connexion that would be redistributed to the music and film industries just we do on blank tapes, cd's and dvd's. But governments chose to refuse that option, the only realistic option, so I'm not paying. I know it's not legal in rich countries, I know it's morally debatable and you know what: I don't give a shit about it or what others think of it. Go to moralistic hell and leave motherfuckers alone, willya? I don't have to justify myself, I think I've been a better person in my life, and done more good to the people around me, than most of the people who don't download, so I'm cool with my conscience!

I will ignore all future comments regarding this so go on, have a ball and call me names.

So, back to the topic at hand... Do we all agree that people being morons is the only explaination or is there any other explanation? If we agree that they are morons, what does it tell us about human intelligence in general and the current state and future prospects of the human race?

arrogant self rigthious bullshit.

PDogz said:

databank said:

So here we go again, any theories anyone (save thieves being idiots) ?

My theory would be that not everyone takes great care, nor attention to detail, when ripping and making files available for download. Although, that is not to say that quality bit rate MP3's, of even rare material, are not widely available (...with exceptions, of course).

When soulseek had the largest userbase (2005-2008) you could find just about anything on it as 320kbs MP3 or even as Flac. It was meant precisely for sharing rarer stuff among music enthusiasts and they tend to care about sound quality.

What I always found funny was that if you did a search on some mainstream pop / R&B stuff the search would return really low bitrate rips for the most part (like 96kbs).

databank said:

I don't get it: SO MANY albums, whatever the P2P they're from, are being shared with several bitrates (192, 256, 320, etc.) for different tracks. I understand that on Soulseek some idiots who can't get a full album from one person will get the missing tracks from another source without checking the bitrates (motherfuckers! may they burn in hell!!!) but this also happens with torrents, etc.

It's pretty much the explanation you've already provided yourself.

The first person to offer the whole album at once is a person who has compiled it from different sources, and nobody bothers to make a better compilation... Maybe you should share better editions if you're really interested.

A torrent of a single new album is usually ripped and shared by one person from start to finish, but the more obscure material or larger torrents you go to, the more chances increase that it's been compiled from multiple sources.

If you download a torrent of 10 albums, you'll have the most popular albums with 320 bitrate, the older and rarer albums might be ripped 10 years ago with a 128 bitrate, some of the tracks have been replaced later on by 192 bitrate versions from the Gretest Hits album, there's a collector who only uses 96 bitrate for torrenting the really rare material, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...le_bitrate

arX said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...le_bitrate

Bingo! Amazing that it took 20 poster to come to this. It's actually better to have it like this, than on a constant bitrate. Better quality to size ratio. Of course, if you want full quality and are not concerned about filesize it's best to get wave or flac.

Rewi said:

The first person to offer the whole album at once is a person who has compiled it from different sources, and nobody bothers to make a better compilation...

That is total bs and almost never the case. Just use any program to rip a cd and use the option VBR. And you'll see the bitrate will be all over the place.

[Edited 7/18/12 6:51am]

PatrickS77 said:

arX said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...le_bitrate

Bingo! Amazing that it took 20 poster to come to this.

For some reason, I assumed the OP was referring specifically to CBR MP3's ripped at different values, and understood the difference between CBR and VBR. But now in retrospect, my guess is that it probably is a misunderstanding of how VBR MP3's have "variable bit rates" that is throwing him for a loop.

If I read the top post it doesn't seem like the original poster is really describing how VBR behaves.

With VBR the changes are usually monitored by the players while the files are playing, but the file info should be the same for the entire CD if it's been ripped with the same settings (VBR or not). Of course, it might be the case that the "problem" is caused by VBR, but he just isn't expressing himself in a manner that describes the scenario accurately.

jpnyc said:

If it really bothers you maybe you should actually pay for the music. Thieves don’t get to be picky.

I don't know what any of that birate shit means. I just push the button and start downloading.