ixer said:
Hi,
I have just received a broadband connection and would like to get into downloading music.
Before I start entering credit card details into the likes of
www.mp3advance.com etc, can one of you experienced folks give me some tips or point me in the direction of help.
Many thanks.
I haven't heard of this store myself - beware, there are a lot of quasi-legal or downright illegal sites out there.
There are generally two models of (legal) music store. The first is the subscription type (a la [broken link removed]) where you pay a monthly subscription to download as much as you like, but you only "own" the music as long as your subscription is paid. The second type is the paid download model, e.g.
iTunes Music Store,
Sony Connect, [broken link removed] etc., where you pay once to download a track and then "own" certain rights in relation to that track, typically to play it on your PC or up to a few other PCs, to burn it a few times to CDs and to put it onto a portable music player.
The format of the download is important here -
MP3 is the most common format but is a 10 year old algorithm and not great at compression music to good quality. Better alternatives are
WMA or
AAC (used by Apple).
You will find (for now at least) that the choice of store may impact on your choice of MP3 playing hardware - songs purchased from one manufacturer's music store may not play on other hardware. A sorrry state of affairs, to be sure, but the studios etc. are paranoid about copyright and copy protection. See this
BBC article.
I would recommend the
iTunes Music Store, particularly if you think you may end up buying an iPod. You download the iTunes music client to your computer and can browse the online music store from there. You can also rip your own CDs to your personal music library, in whatever format you choose.