Downloading music to MP3 - HOW??

kiwichick

Hi All,

Am an complete ignoramous when it somes to things techinical so am hoping one of you more competent people are able to help me??

I bought my hubbie the 20gb Archos Gmini a year or so ago and despite his asking for it, it has sat untouched for the last 11 of those 12 months. I have now taken ownership of it and need some help learning how to download music from the internet to the Archos. I am training for the London Marathon so need something punchy to keep me running those long runs every other night :rolleyes:.

I dont know what sites there are for music downloads or how to download the songs once I'm there! Do I pay per song?? Do I download songs or entire albums?? Is there a cheap or free way to do it??

Any help appreciated!
Thanks,
Allison.

Idiophreak

Don't know much about downloading MP3s I'm afraid (well, not leagally anyway ) but as I understand it you can download most tracks one at a time for less than £1

Don't forget to "rip" your CDs into a suitable format first though - could bulk your collection up to start with.

edit: as an aside, you may find that the (hdd based) archos jumps sometimes when you're running with it. If you get really keen, it may be worth buying another, solid state MP3 player - these won't jump. (and you can get them for £9.97 or something in tesco)

£$&*"($£&(

There are plenty of sites and the cost is about 79p per track or less. Itunes is the most well known site but uses it's own format to put on Ipods. Other sites may be cheaper and some offer a subscription rather than paying for each track. You can download whole albums. Free sites are illegal, very cheap sites are a legal grey area which can't be talked about here.

Of course I assume you have some CDs so you can convert them to MP3 and put them on the player.

superscaper

grahawk wrote:

Of course I assume you have some CDs so you can convert them to MP3 and put them on the player.

Which is also illegal but the government have made clear they don't intend to uphold the law for cd ripping, so I presume it will one day be an amendment to the copyright act.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

The Gmini supports WAV, WMA and MP3.

Legal British sites like MSN music and Woolworths (to name just 2) will suit your needs. If you're only going to buy the odd track here and there, they'll do.

It doesn't support the Itunes format of AAC and in my opinion, it'd be more bother than it's worth trying to convert them to play on the Archos.

If you're planning on buying albums, you'll be better of buying the CD on-line as it may well work out cheaper. You then have the CD to play where you want and when you want to rip it for the Archos, you could rip it at a better quality than you'd get it from the music sites (if you so desired).

-TangleFoot-

grahawk wrote:

Free sites are illegal, very cheap sites are a legal grey area which can't be talked about here.

That is a gross oversimplification of the matter; being gratis or relatively inexpensive does not automatically infer illegality. It's a question of copyright.

Further reading:

• Who's Afraid of the Public Domain?
• The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User's Guide to DRM in Online Music
• botherblog » Copyright Watch