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MP3 downloads

So here’s a little question. I want 15 to 20 hours of music. Symphonies etc. So, where do I get MP3 downloads of ’em for free?

21 thoughts on “MP3 downloads”

  1. Depending on how much you value your time, it might be better to just buy them from Amazon (other vendors exist).

  2. The Other Bloke in Italy

    MP3 downloads vary in quality. Try to find recordings of 320mps.

    My previous favourite site keeps moving, so sorry I cannot help at the moment.

  3. You can also visit the pirate bay – there are an number of symphony collections available to download via torrent (transmission is a good client), including all of Schubert’s works which are my personal fave.

  4. The youtube route is…. tricky..
    Won’t notice the heavy compression much on earplugs/shitty pc speakers, but on anything reasonably high fidelity ( still well below audiophile levels) it’s very noticeable. Even for the “HD” versions.

    Doesn’t matter much with most modern pop. Massive letdown for anything actually musical, like “classical” pieces.

  5. @TMB
    Yes, if I want to record something in MP3 (or onto CD), I play it in Spotify and record using Audacity.

  6. So, essentially, you don’t value the labour of the musicians. Just go to YouTube, you sad man. Try asking BIS to build you a house for free

  7. Dennis, Forever Tactful

    So, essentially, you don’t value the labour of the musicians. Just go to YouTube, you sad man. Try asking BIS to build you a house for free

    Thank you Karen.

    We all needed that.

  8. @Karen Diogenes

    Given that we’re talking about classical music..
    At which point is the labour of paid session musicians playing music that is open domain not appreciated by finding and downloading it?

    It’s not as if the musicians actually have any rights to the music or performance.. They sign that away with their session contracts, or they’re already paid for by being part of a heavily subsidised orchestra including the signing away of rights bit.

    If it’s solo/original work, they’re happy enough anyone but their gran actually listens to their stuff. Let alone actually download it for later use.
    And generally the people who find someone that obscure tend to have no problem finding the way to Ko.Fi, Patreon and suchlike.
    Which actually increases their potential income far more than any shared “rights” on a piece of music.
    A quid to an artists’ begging bowl is the equivalent of 1000’s of plays on Spotify, y’know… And the Little Ones (which is 99.99% of Classical Musicians) never make that grade.

    So yeah…. No Appreciation.. Pure Theft!! [/sarc]

  9. I’m with Diogenes. If no money changes hands there is no exchange. (English law: no contract without consideration.)
    So paying a centime for a download persuades the sponsor of the music that the performance is appreciated. Sponsor (Mozartist, govt, guilty billionaire, who cares) who pays 99.9% of the cost continues sponsorship.

  10. Pirate Bay but you need to copy the magnet link it shows, then paste it into a torrent downloader- this is the most popular https://www.utorrent.com/

    Fiddly at first but after an hour you’ll have the hang of it, and all the music (eBooks, films, TV shows) you can handle.

  11. “The youtube route is…. tricky..
    Won’t notice the heavy compression much on earplugs/shitty pc speakers,”

    YouTube streams in several formats, both for video and audio (the youtube-dl Python script reveals them, and offers a choice of download). The Opus codec is more than acceptable at >100kbps. (I seem to recall Xiph.org finding it “transparent” for music in double-blind tests at considerably less, in fact.)

    That said, as I mentioned in my comment, it’s not the route I’d choose. The two links I posted are royalty-free, while there’s a lot of legally-dubious stuff on YouTube.

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