quote:

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Originally posted by El JT de Spang:
You can rip all of your music from CD to mp3. There are several free programs that do this.

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...including iTunes. iTunes will also do its best to automatically download album art, track information, etc. but will also allow you to edit this information manually.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
The best place to start with mp3s is with Napster in 2001.
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
Amazon.com has free sample tracks fairly regularly, and even more regularly has really, really good deals (a month or so ago they had The Police's Synchronicity album available for...was it $2? I think so).

You might also check your favorite bands' websites; it isn't uncommon for them to have a few sample tracks available for download.
 

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Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
 
Here are a couple very good albums you can download for free off the artists' own websites:

Nine Inch Nails
Girl Talk

And yes, if you have any CDs, that's the best place to start looking for free mp3s.

If you're going to use iTunes to rip, though, first click on the "edit" button and select "preferences." Click on the "Advanced" tab, and under that, the "import" tab. Change "Import Using" to "MP3 encoder" and choose the bitrate you want under "settings."

Also, in the "general" tab under "advanced", you can choose where on your hard drive the mp3 files save, so you can find them later and put them on your mp3 player. The default setting (assuming you're running Windows) is in your "My Music" folder in a sub-folder labeled "iTunes", so if you're OK with that there's not necessarily any need to change it.

It's surprising how often people rip with iTunes on its default setting, and then complain that they can't play their songs on their non-Apple mp3 player. This will keep that from happening to you.
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
I am going to go ahead and advocate this now:

Since you have an MP3 player, you will probably want to upload a bazillion of your already legitimately owned songs to MP3. This can be arduous and sometimes it is easier to download songs off of Soulseek/Limewire or just get whole albums with the help of µTorrent.

If not then just rip away with itunes. If you get any problems with DRM or whatever, use an indie client to bypass it entirely since DRM is all kinds of broken anyway.
 

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Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
I'd probably question that using file sharing networks will save you time/effort over ripping your own CDs. It doesn't take long to rip a CD with a fast optical drive. And you don't have to worry about malware infections or taking care not to get caught with a bunch of shared copyrighted files on your hard drive.
 

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Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dan_raven:
Last night I went to our local library "Adult Summer Reading Wine & Cheese party." Basically, a plea for money with books. I won an MP3 Player as a door prize.

This is my...first MP3 Player.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Speed:

It's surprising how often people rip with iTunes on its default setting, and then complain that they can't play their songs on their non-Apple mp3 player. This will keep that from happening to you.

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quote:

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It doesn't take long to rip a CD with a fast optical drive

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quote:

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Originally posted by scifibum:
[QB] I'd probably question that using file sharing networks will save you time/effort over ripping your own CDs. It doesn't take long to rip a CD with a fast optical drive.

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