MP3 Blog

Tips on buying guitars.

There are so many guitar models on the market today. So many types including electric, acoustic, acoustic electric, nylon string, and steel string guitars. How does one make a selection? Here are a few tips to help you choose one that meets your needs.1. It depends on how much you can afford.

With such a wealth of guitars available, a working person shouldn’t have a problem finding one that fits their budget. But this doesn’t mean that you should settle for anything. As the old adage goes, you usually get what you pay for. Usually the more money you invest, the greater the returns. You’re going to be spending a lot of time practicing so choose an instrument that you can enjoy. An instrument that you can look forward to playing.

2. What style of music will you be playing?

The style of music to be played should influence your choice of guitar. For instance if you plan on playing rock you should buy an electric guitar, since Rock music is better suited to be played on that type of guitar. If Jazz and blues is your thing you may prefer a semi-acoustic guitar from the start. An acoustic nylon string guitar may be better suited to classical music and smooth Jazz.

3. Child or adult.

Are you a parent looking to buy a guitar for your child? Consider buying a 1/2 size or 3/4 size guitar. Your child doesn’t have the reach that an adult has, so these smaller guitars are better suited. Regular size guitars will be more difficult to play and can cause a lack of interest.

You may also want to look into buying an electric guitar for your child if you can afford it. They have a small neck and very light thin strings and are therefore easier to play. If money is an issue
a second hand electric guitar may be the answer.

4. Wood type and its relation to tone.

Although there are no rules for choosing guitar woods, there is a guide that you can follow. Generally, darker woods produce a brighter tone while darker woods produces a deeper, richer tone. Medium tone wood like mahogany produce a very even smooth sound spectrum. You should compare various wood colors. The best thing to do is to listen to the tones that a guitar produces before deciding.

5. Pay attention to the guitar’s features.

Your guitar must have certain important features. Don’t simply focus on looks.

For example, your guitar should have die-cast machine heads (or tuning gears). With this feature, you will be able to tune your instrument more accurately and your guitar will stay in tune longer.

A solid top is also very important. A solid top usually consists of 2 solid matched pieces glued together side by side. This is of better quality than a laminated top where various woods are glued together on top of each other. With a solid top the guitar’s tone will be more even and accurate and you can expect a sustaining vibration throughout the guitar’s body.

6. Buy a guitar that feels good to you.

You’re the one who will be playing that guitar. So you’d better buy one that feels comfortable to you, whether you’re sitting or standing. For instance, if the strings are too far from the fretboard, playing will be difficult. An expensive guitar that is not comfortable is a waste. Spend time with the guitar before deciding.

7. The bottom line is sound.

If it sounds good, buy it. No two guitars can ever be the same. It’s never about looks. It’s about the sound that is generated through the use of the right type of wood and through superior craftsmanship.

You should be able to find a guitar easily online. You can order one that suits your needs today. Some of the best guitar prices can be found on the Internet. You even get free shipping to your door.

Related:

Used Gibson Guitars

Things to look for when buying a studio microphone

Studio microphones need to accomplish one thing and one thing only: to record the best possible voice or musical instrument sounds. In order to do that, they use advanced technological methods to filter out unwanted ambient sound, which are present even in a controlled studio environment. Studio microphones have to capture the smallest voice subtleties and even the lowest musical notes. Most studio microphones use the electret model, in which a thin metal diaphragm receives sound waves and converts them into electrical current, which can then be interpreted by various recording devices. The filters used in the manufacturing of professional studio microphones are well calibrated, so that any disturbances are stopped before they reach the recording surface.

No room for compromise

Music recording studios, radio studios and TV station studios – they all use professional microphones. A UHF broadcast level microphone is expensive, often with price tags of several hundred dollars, so it is unlikely you will purchase such devices unless you intend to use them in one of the above-mentioned locations. Professional studio microphones need to have two major characteristics at a level far superior to regular microphones: flatness and linearity. Both these attributes mean that the recorded sound is clearer, more accurate, without noticeable distortion. Music studio microphones are often multidirectional, capturing sound from a well controlled ambient. The reason behind this is that the enclosed recording room allows no outside sounds to enter, so the only available ones are the ones produced by the singer or vocalist. A TV studio microphone, on the other hand, has to be focused on a single major source of sound: the speaker holding the microphone.

How to select your studio microphone

The variety of offers on the market is huge. And the truth is that it’s hard to pick a winner in any category. So how can you select your studio microphone? The first step is to determine exactly what the microphone is supposed to do: are you going to record voices, instruments, mixed music? Then you should look for a similar studio and check out their equipment. It’s almost like spying on the competition to see what they are using and if they believe it’s working for them. After you narrowed down the microphone list to a couple of different models, you can go by other decisive items, such as price, warranty or accessories. In the end, the aim is to get the most appropriate microphone for your studio without paying a fortune for it.

Free Music Video Downloads

Listening to all of your favorite songs whenever you want is
always exciting. No more having to wait for it to be played on
the radio or have to go out and buy the whole CD for just one
particular song. When you can download all of your favorite
songs for free it just makes it that much better. What if you
could download the music videos to all of your favorite songs
for free and add to the excitement every time you listen to the
song? In this article I’ll discuss some of the best places to
find free music video downloads and why some free music video
download sites are better than others.

As mentioned in a previous article I wrote, Music Video
Downloads, not all sites are going to be capable of good quality
free music video downloads. Some are going to allow you to
preview the first 30 seconds of a song, while other sites allow
you to watch only one song, then you must become a member to
view more. However, there are sites out there that allow you to
download good quality videos for free.

One of the bigger downsides to free video downloads, though, is
that most places only allow you to watch the video and not save
it to a file to view later. Yes, you can view it anytime you
want by simply clicking on the video and having it load in about
15 seconds. However, if there is a certain list of songs you
would like to observe, then you’ll have to search through the
site to find them as oppose to having them all saved in a
library.

Another downside to free music video downloads is the fact that
most sites contain only popular artists and songs, so the
unknown bands may be harder to find videos for. This is not to
say that the selection is small, but it is limited to more of
the current hot hits.

One of the better sites that I have found for downloading music
videos for free is www.artistdirect.com. Once you get to the
home page at the top is a button for movies and videos, this is
where you will find all of the free music video downloads. On
this page you will find the top music videos for various
categories such as hip-hop, pop, rock, and so on. Plus they
have the top 5 music videos currently, with a button away from
getting the top 600 music videos. I have found this site to be
very quick and efficient with downloading videos, but as
mentioned earlier you are only capable of viewing the videos and
can not save them to a library or folder.

One of the more common and well known sites to find free music
video downloads is at www.mtv.com. For this site they have it
set up with six different categories that you can click on. As
you click on one of the categories it brings up the top six
videos under that category currently, then you are able to
browse all the videos for that category if you please. Or to
make things easier, they have a place where you can simply
search for a specific video.

I have listed two of the more popular sites to find free music
video downloads, and two of the easier sites to search through.
If you were to conduct a search for free music video download
sites on google, there are about 131 million different sites or
pages connected to this phrase. So as you can see there are
several different places to look for the videos, it’s just up to
you to find them. The two I have provided would be good ones to
start at, but feel free to broaden your horizon and begin
searching for the sites to find your favorite music videos for
free.

What are MP3 files and how do they work?

MP3 music downoad.
If you have read How CDs Work, you understand how musical sounds can be turned into numbers and recorded on a CD. A CD stores music using 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample and two channels (for stereo sound). This means that a CD stores about 10 million bytes (megabytes) of data per minute of music on the CD. A three-minute song therefore requires 30 megabytes of data.

If you have ever tried to download files on the Internet, you know that 30 megabytes is huge. If you are using a modem to connect to the Internet, 30 megabytes of data would take several hours to download.

MPEG (The Moving Picture Experts Group) has developed compression systems used for video data. For example, DVD movies, HDTV broadcasts and DSS satellite systems use MPEG compression to fit video and movie data into smaller spaces. The MPEG compression system includes a subsystem to compress sound, called MPEG Audio Layer-3. We know it by its abbreviation, MP3.

MP3 can compress a song by a factor of 10 or 12 and still retain something close to CD quality. So a 30-megabyte sound file from a CD reduces to 3 megabytes or so in MP3. When you download the MP3 file and play it, it sounds almost as good as the original file. If you wanted to, you could download an MP3 file, expand it back to its original size and then record it on a writable CD so you can play it in a CD player. All that you are doing is converting back and forth between different formats to make downloading easier.

Looking For an MP3 Player?

If you don’t have an mp3 player, and even if you do, you should check out all the new stuff that’s going on. I’m hoping this article will give you some idea of what kind of mp3 player you want and some tips on what to look for in an mp3 player.

Maybe you work out and need something small and skip-proof for running or lifting. Maybe you have an 8 hour (or longer) plane ride when you go home and need to pass the time. Maybe you want a new one just for the sake of having a new one. Whatever it is, this article should help you choose.

First, for those of you who want something for working out: The two most important things to look for are size/weight and solid state memory, things CD players lack. You want something that you can clip to your shorts or strap to your arm that won’t interfere with your movements, and you want it to be light enough so you don’t even notice it. (Tip: Get a lithium ion battery to save even more weight.) To be sure that your player will not skip if you move too much or too fast, get one with solid state internal Flash memory, which has no moving parts so it can’t skip. These are usually available as 64 to 512 MB models, with a 64 MB model holding roughly an hour of music. Prices typically range from $100 to $300.

On the other hand, you may want to store all 16,000 songs in your collection on your mp3 player so you never hear the same one twice. In this case you need a hard drive based mp3 player, commonly known as an mp3 jukebox, for which you could pay up to $500. It will be a little bigger and heavier than and not quite as durable as a solid state mp3 player, but that isn’t a concern if you just want to sit around and listen to music. And they are still far more portable than a CD player.

Torn between a small, light, solid state mp3 player and a hard drive based player that holds thousands of songs? Well, the iPod Mini may be for you! The iPod Mini is just one model in a new breed of small hard drive mp3 players. They are a little lighter and smaller than normal hard drive players, and hold more songs than the average solid state mp3 player. (Did I mention the iPod Mini comes in blue, green, gold, and pink?) That’s it for the main differences, but here are some more things you should look for when making a purchase: long battery life, an FM tuner, voice recorder, an easy to read screen, and compatibility with your computer.

If you’re looking to purchase online, I recommend www.amazon.com.

How Do You Write Songs?

There was an interesting post today on a message board that I go to. It was about a guy that just started a new band and he wanted to know if anyone could give him some songwriting tips.

First off, there isn’t a wrong way to write songs. But after you’ve done it for a while, you’ll find out that some ways to go about it are easier than others.

This is how I do it.

1. Music and Melody Come First

I never fit a melody to pre-existing lyrics. It’s forced and it doesn’t sound good to me. When you write the words before the melody, you’re trying to force the melody to fit your lyrics. The result is it doesn’t sound natural.

A lot of songwriters start with an idea. It’s just easier for me to know what angle I’m coming from. Usually how it happens with me is the music comes first and the melody comes right after that.

Why do I write the melody first before my lyrics?

If I don’t know how many notes are in the melody, how do I know how many syllables need to be in my lines? I don’t.

If there’s 8 notes in the first part of the melody and 6 notes in the second part , you’ll have to have 8 syllables in the first line and 6 in the second.

Let’s say you want to put 4 lines in each of your verses, You’ll have 8 syllables in the first and third lines and six in the second and fourth.

Here’s an example:

In the song “I want you to want me” the lead singer for Cheap Trick wrote a four line melody that had six notes in the first three lines and seven in the last line. He knew that there had to be six syllables in the first three lines and seven syllables in the fourth.

I Want You To Want Me

I want you to want me =six syllables

I need you to need me =six syllables

I’d love you to love me =six syllables

I’m begging’ you to beg me =seven syllables

2. Figure Out An Idea To Work From

Ideas are everywhere. You can write about what a friend of yours is going through. You can write about what you’re going through.

I keep a journal just for this and make daily installments. I write down everything that I can think of that happened that day. And after a few months of that, I’ll go through the journal harvest my ideas.

I treat my journal like the garden it is. Most every song I write comes directly from my journals.

3. Put the idea into one to two sentences

The best way to show you this is to give you an example. Keeping with “I Want You To Want Me”, here’s the basic idea:

“I want you to want me as bad as I want you.”

You only want one idea for each song. If you have any more, your song is going to last too long. And you’re listeners won’t be able to keep up.

Believe me, nobody but you will understand them. I know from very bad experience.

4. Write The Lyrics To Fit The Melody

Once you have the idea, you start to explain the idea in the verses with the number of syllables you have in the melody. The chorus is just the overall idea in a summed up fashion.

That’s how I write songs. Music and melody come first. The idea comes after that. Write the idea in a statement form. And then, write the lyrics to fit the melody.

How Do You Find Sheet Music Downloads Today?

Music is a piece of entertainment that is in society’s daily
life consistently. It doesn’t matter whether it is Rock and
Roll, Gospel and Christian music, or jazz, people listen to
music for a variety of reasons. However, today there are more
and more people learning to play instruments and create music
pieces themselves as oppose to simply listening to music. On
the internet you can find sheet music downloads for songs to
sing and play with the piano, guitar, Christian music and more.

When trying to find a certain song or certain kind of sheet
music over the internet, it can get frustrating. There are
millions of sites to look, but in a way that can be discouraging
having to look through millions of sites to find a couple songs.
With this article I’ll lead you towards a few of the more
popular sites that contain many songs, and attempt to help you
in finding sheet music over the internet.

To start, notationmachine is a site where you can find sheet
music to over thousands of songs narrowed down to the decades.
It also has it broken down into author and song title when you
go through the specific decades.

Through this site they also offer a membership that you can
download certain software to help you find the thousands of
different kinds of sheet music on the internet today from
classical to gospel to piano music. With downloading the
software it will help you find all kinds of new sheet music and
give you access to downloading them and printing them out as
oppose to just viewing them. This and much more can be found
here:

http://www.notationmachine.com/

If you are looking for a list of just classical sheet music,
then virtual sheet music is the place for you. Here you will
find a list of the top composers sold, links to specific
composers and instruments, free sheet music, or a list of all of
the sheet music available. The price on this site varies from
$2-$9 for individual pieces of sheet music, but is well worth
the buy as you can play the best classical music made.

This is not a site of just classical music, but a list of the
best composers known today. You can find sheet music from Bach,
Beethoven, Mozart and more. With a few dollars you too can be
playing the greatest classical music made. Find all of the
CD’s, sheet music, links and more here:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com

If you’re looking for a broad site that will show you sheet
music to all kinds of music, then check out 8notes.com. Here
you can find sheet music and lessons for numerous instruments
including the guitar, piano, cello, voice and more. Also on the
home page is a music genres section where you can find pieces
and riffs of classical, rock and pop, occasions such as
Christmas, and much more.

To check out all of these categories and find many of your
favorite songs that you too can play simply go here:

http://www.8notes.com/default.asp

In order to print off the sheet music so that you can take it
with you everywhere, there is a $20 per year subscription that
is necessary. However, in order to just observe the sheet music
on the computer it is free. So check out the site where you can
take lessons to improve your skills, and then begin playing all
of the best music of all different kinds of genres.

As you can see there are sites containing all different kinds of
sheet music out there just waiting for you. Now it’s your turn
to find which site suites you best and begin your sheet music
downloading.

Getting On the Music Industry Radar Screen

As you or your band performs, be it from club to club around town or nationally, there is usually one thing lingering in the back of your mind…

How do you go about getting that one big break that will push you ahead toward greater recognition and success artistically?

You know it happens to artist and bands all the time. That time could come soon for your group to break out of the local scene and land that recording contract or national tour that will get you on your way to greater success.

You know there are tried and true methods. Having a great demo or being interviewed on the local radio shows at once seemed like a good idea. But times have changed in the music industry. In this article, we will discuss some up-to-date information and inside tips on how to get noticed in this tough business, in short I�ll give you some info that will literally place on the music industry radar screen. The knowledge that I�m about to share with you will work for any and everyone: Songwriters, Singers, Musicians, Rappers and for all genres of music: Pop, Rock, Rap, Gospel, R&B, Jazz, Grunge, Country and everything in between!

Where are the Scouts?

You have had the thought run through your mind as you perform for an enthusiastic crowd in a club or bar. Are there music industry scouts in this crowd? Maybe you just laugh it off but you have heard that they are out there watching bands like yours and signing the talented ones to develop into stars.

What you have heard is true. Industry insiders tell us that now more than ever, scouts are everywhere. You may worry that you are not living in one of the big �music industry towns� like New York, Chicago, L.A. and Nashville but that isn�t important. Remember, Seattle wasn�t on the map before grunge hit and they found Sir Mix A-Lot and for you Rock Heads, Kurt and Eddie.

But what if you don�t always have the biggest audience in town. Well, some of the biggest acts in the music business were �discovered� playing to a small and intimate crowd. If your performance is strong and you are getting good word of mouth, the music industry scouts will find you and check you out. So perform every night like they are out there because there is no reason to believe that they are not.

Go Get Them

But you don�t have to sit around and wait for them to come to you. The new �hunting grounds� for bands and talent are well known to the insiders. Once you know who it is that is feeding the information to music industry scouts and agents, you can learn the tricks of the trade to feed information about you or your band into that system. Here are a few of the newest methods and venues you can use to get yourself noticed:

* Perform, Perform, Perform. These days the local club scene is the most important way to get noticed. Don�t wear yourself out chasing agents or scouts. If your performances are strong, that will create a buzz and the word of mouth will get you noticed. Then the scouts will come to see you rather than you having to go and chase them.

* Build your relationship with your audience. Insiders tell us that scouts will come to a show for a musical venue they don�t even understand. If you are doing something bold and new that they are not able to evaluate musically, they will go by the crowd. If your audience responds with excitement and enthusiasm, that is what gets the eyes and ears of music executives. So pour yourself into the people for whom you are performing. That�s what you love to do anyway so it�s an easy way to get noticed and the right way too.

* Build your local network. Industry agents know club owners and booking agents for local events very well. If you have a strong reputation with them, they will pass that information along to the scouts who are looking for new talent.

* Indie (independent) labels are also a rich source of information for the larger recording houses to find out about up and coming bands. You may have indie labels near by so get to know them and get them to your shows so when they have a chance to connect you to a scout, your band is on their list of hot new acts.

* Never miss a chance to network but look for innovative ways to advertise yourself as well. The internet has lots of new and interesting sites that scouts are starting to watch for new talent. If you have the resources, get a web page up and get some MP3 samples of your performances out there. You can easily set up a website using a service like http://www.MyWebSiteMyMusic.com and you can also easily put your music on your site or anywhere else online, even in emails in MP3 format using a service like the one offered at http://www.ListenToMyMusicOnline.com .

The services offered by these two websites are extremely inexpensive and so simple to use, a 5 year old could do it, yet they will have you looking like a music industry professional in no time at all.

Is the Demo Dead?

From what we have learned so far, you would think the demo is ready to go into the hall of fame as an out-of-date tool. But the demo tape still has some real value to you. The best demo is one that showcases not only your musical skill but the personality and the performance skill of you or your band. If you can have someone put a demo together from one of your performances, that gives an agent or scout a bit of a feel for what to expect from you when he comes to see you.

So treat the demo as part of your bag of tricks but it isn�t the thing that is going to seal the deal. If a scout likes what he hears or at least his curiosity is peaked, he will then seek out ways to see you live. Then we are back to the club atmosphere, your relationship with your crowd and your performance. Those are the things that will get you noticed in a way that will lead to bigger breaks. Look at the demo as just the hook with a little bit of bait on it. You can also use your demo on your web page along with some video footage of your live performance to showcase the excitement of your shows. Remember both http://www.ListenToMyMusicOnline.com and http://www.MyWebSiteMyMusic.com offer some of the best services in the industry for doing this.

Video Didn�t Kill the Radio Star

Radio used to be the primary medium for distributing information about new acts and for getting your music played and noticed. But changes in ownership of radio stations and in how they are programmed have changed that too. The radio station is no longer a significant communication channel for you to use to get on the music industry radar screen.

A lot of factors have dropped radio off the radar screen for getting noticed. Airplay is not as much of a factor as it used to be when there was a lot of diversity in radio. Radio is nearly a monopoly with all of the play list decisions made by one central national firm. So if you think that any one individual at your area radio stations makes airplay decisions, you should revise that opinion because they do not. This little insider tip alone can save you huge amounts of wasted energy and frustration when trying to get noticed.

But don�t worry, scouts and music industry agents know they will not find the new, the innovative and the creative music on radio. They have turned from it to use local networking and club performances as their radar screen for new talent.

You do the same. Do not concern yourself a great deal with local radio coverage. Even college radio is virtually a dead venue for getting noticed in this new market. Focus on where the real contacts are being made today, through local contacts, word of mouth and above all club and local festival performances. Other good habits include using music industry contact directories like the one found at http://www.MusicBizPhoneBook.com which list contact information to over 20,000 important people in the music industry.

It�s all in your network and what is happening on the street that will make the difference between you getting noticed or not. In a way, that�s the way it always should have been, having the focus placed on your band talent, performance skill and live shows. That is where your strength is anyway. Be a savvy marketer and use this knowledge to raise the awareness of your band, your talent, your songs and your performances.

Free Music Video Downloads

Listening to all of your favorite songs whenever you want is
always exciting. No more having to wait for it to be played on
the radio or have to go out and buy the whole CD for just one
particular song. When you can download all of your favorite
songs for free it just makes it that much better. What if you
could download the music videos to all of your favorite songs
for free and add to the excitement every time you listen to the
song? In this article I’ll discuss some of the best places to
find free music video downloads and why some free music video
download sites are better than others.

As mentioned in a previous article I wrote, Music Video
Downloads, not all sites are going to be capable of good quality
free music video downloads. Some are going to allow you to
preview the first 30 seconds of a song, while other sites allow
you to watch only one song, then you must become a member to
view more. However, there are sites out there that allow you to
download good quality videos for free.

One of the bigger downsides to free video downloads, though, is
that most places only allow you to watch the video and not save
it to a file to view later. Yes, you can view it anytime you
want by simply clicking on the video and having it load in about
15 seconds. However, if there is a certain list of songs you
would like to observe, then you’ll have to search through the
site to find them as oppose to having them all saved in a
library.

Another downside to free music video downloads is the fact that
most sites contain only popular artists and songs, so the
unknown bands may be harder to find videos for. This is not to
say that the selection is small, but it is limited to more of
the current hot hits.

One of the better sites that I have found for downloading music
videos for free is www.artistdirect.com. Once you get to the
home page at the top is a button for movies and videos, this is
where you will find all of the free music video downloads. On
this page you will find the top music videos for various
categories such as hip-hop, pop, rock, and so on. Plus they
have the top 5 music videos currently, with a button away from
getting the top 600 music videos. I have found this site to be
very quick and efficient with downloading videos, but as
mentioned earlier you are only capable of viewing the videos and
can not save them to a library or folder.

One of the more common and well known sites to find free music
video downloads is at www.mtv.com. For this site they have it
set up with six different categories that you can click on. As
you click on one of the categories it brings up the top six
videos under that category currently, then you are able to
browse all the videos for that category if you please. Or to
make things easier, they have a place where you can simply
search for a specific video.

I have listed two of the more popular sites to find free music
video downloads, and two of the easier sites to search through.
If you were to conduct a search for free music video download
sites on google, there are about 131 million different sites or
pages connected to this phrase. So as you can see there are
several different places to look for the videos, it’s just up to
you to find them. The two I have provided would be good ones to
start at, but feel free to broaden your horizon and begin
searching for the sites to find your favorite music videos for
free.

Free, Legal Music Online

Almost everyone has heard about the massive crack down on Internet music piracy that has been occurring over the past few years. Napster was taken down (although it has now returned as a pay service), other file sharing programs now require users to pay for a license and the RIAA and other similar organizations are doing their best to hunt down copyright offenders and put an end to their crime sprees. The consumers on the other hand argue that their actions hurt nobody, that there is no damage done to anyone by their not buying an album. Furthermore, they claim, MP3s allow them to sample a CD before purchasing it, thus actually helping sales.

I’m not here to argue the pros and cons. Basically it’s not worth it, as neither side of the argument will ever see the opposition’s point of view. What I’d like to do is take a look at the completely free and legal alternative to ’stealing’ music. Those wonderfully talented musicians who are willing to put their creations online to download for free, solely for the joy of spreading their creations to the masses.

Free music is surprisingly easy to come by, even music by famous bands. Sometimes it needs to be ’streamed’ from the Internet, meaning that you can only listen to a song while you’re online, but with the ever-growing popularity of broadband Internet this is really no longer a problem. Sites such as MP3.com and purevolume.com provide free music by almost any band you can think of, although there is a large amount of it that has to be streamed and not downloaded. A search for ‘free legal MP3 downloads’ will reveal a huge number of pages to visit.

For something specific, try visiting the artist’s website, or the site of their record label. These will often offer a few sample tracks to download for free. It’s not quite as convenient as having access to every song that you want, but it’s not a bad alternative.

But how about we forget about the mainstream for just a while and move towards the alternative? Towards the hopefuls, the talented bands that have yet been ‘noticed’. There are a huge number of these smaller bands out there that are sticking their stuff online for any and all to listen to, just so that they can be heard. These can be easier to find, because most MP3 sites will be filled with these smaller acts. A great place to start is http://www.garageband.com/ or the aforementioned http://purevolume.com

The great thing about smaller bands is that you can often find bands that come from your local area and then go and see them play live. Being able to see a favourite band live more than once a year (or lifetime) without expending huge amounts of money and time is pretty cool. Many music search engines will let you search for bands of a particular genre in a particular area, which makes it all quite easy.

A fairly major contributor to the online music scene is the remixer. These people take other tunes and redo them, usually in a techno style because one person can do this competently. Chief among the tunes selected to be remixed are those old ditties that used to play through the simplest of sound chips on aging consoles: the video game theme songs. People now go and grab the main tune line from an old favourite and fill it out, making real the work our imaginations used to do for us to turn the single tone melodies into orchestral masterpieces. A few good places to start are http://remix.kwed.org and http://remix.overclocked.org as well as a personal favourite band http://machinaesupremacy.com

I hope this has given you something to think about. It’s not hard to come across illegal MP3 rips, in fact it’s often hard to avoid them, but if you give the free music scene a look you may find something completely different and new that will really do it for you. With web hosts already being penalized hugely for illegal content being stored on their servers (having an entire server taken down because of one inconsiderate user is damaging and irritating beyond belief) and moves being made to charge ISPs for the content being accessed by their users, it makes more sense than ever to get out there and grab yourself an awesomely original and completely legal music collection.