Are you at a loss when it comes to downloading music for your personal use? You see people with their iPods and handheld devices listening to their music, and you wonder how they are able to put that together. The fact is, it is not difficult at all. Read this article to learn more about it.
Always make sure that you download your music from a legal website. If you download music illegally, you can face harsh fines. In many cases you can be fined up to $500 per song. The artists deserve to be paid for the music they make, so download only legal copies of the songs that you love.
Consider joining an online forum of music enthusiasts. Many will share their downloads for free. This allows you to explore different genres of music or the latest cd from a known artist without committing a lot of time or money to the task, making it easier to build your library with an eclectic blend of tunes.
Use anti-virus protection when you download music. This protects you from any malicious files that could damage your computer. Be careful as you download. This is very important if you’re using a P2P client. Scan each file prior to opening it. It’s not hard to download a file you had no intention of downloading.
Aside from the legalities of downloading free music, you also have something else to worry about when choosing free music files from different sites. Hackers often offer these files, so think twice before you join the bandwagon and download free music. It’s much better to legally get your music by paying for it the right way.
If money is tight, you may want to buy a CD from Amazon.com instead of buying a digital track for 99 cents. CDs these days, especially used ones on Amazon, are really cheap. You can buy many of your favorites for just a few dollars. Then when you get it, burn the songs from the CD to make them digital downloads. So for the price of 1 or 2 songs, you’ve just gotten 10 to 15 songs.
When you download a song online, check its size. If it is less than 2 megabytes, unless it is a very short song, it is likely to be a virus. Most viruses are just text and they don’t take up much hard drive space, so be wary of small files.
If you download music from a peer-to-peer service, take the time to clean up the metadata of the files you get. The metadata is the who, what, and where of the file. Things like the artist name, the album name, the track title, and the genre. A little clean up can go a long way to your digital player being able to deliver the best experience for you.
Keep an eye on bit rates and compression formats. Even a great song isn’t enjoyable if the quality is terrible. Different sites and distributors can vary on their sound quality. Shop around. Pay attention to the quality of the files you are downloading, and only buy music that sounds like it should.
Look online to find out more about tweaking your network speed. It is likely that your computer isn’t optimized right out of the box. That means you need to learn a bit about these alterations to your settings to get the fastest downloads for your online music needs. Custom information for your computer set-up can be found on the internet.
Avoid the temptation of downloading popular music from new websites that promise you free music downloads. Due to copyright reasons, most legitimate music downloads are available only with a fee. Websites that advertise free downloads of the latest songs need to be scrutinized because there are often strings attached to their offer which makes the download much more complicated.
If you plan on downloading music frequently, make sure you have a fast Internet connection. Slow connections like dial-up do not handle downloading music files well. It doesn’t do any good to have access to tons of legal music downloads when it takes a long time just to download a few.
Shop around to get a subscription download service. When individually downloading songs, things can get expensive. There are many music stores online that can reduce what you pay with a subscription. When you shop for these, pay attention to the limitations of downloading and the method in which the music files are stored.
You can see that compiling your own music library is really not that hard. You just need the right information to get you started. Hopefully, you have learned something here that can get you going. Once you get the hang of it, you will be able to customize your music collection in the way that you want.