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kevbo's avatar

Are you downloading the 1000 free songs from the unofficial SXSW torrents? Have you downloaded from past years?

Asked by kevbo (25672points) March 30th, 2010

Despite the crazy clutter the 2009 download caused me (1,200 songs to listen to and decide on), I actually managed to weed through all of them a couple of weeks ago and find about 250 songs that I “liked or strongly liked” which was a nice outcome. I find that the songs offer some off-the-beaten-path sounds, subject matter and avenues for lyrical expression that are all a refreshing change from the slicker productions we normally gravitate towards. Once I figured out how to figure out whether I liked or disliked a song, the process went much quicker. I figured out, too, that I far preferred stuff in the torrents to tunes found on the NPR or iTunes samplers.

I also found that my first mistake was opening everything in iTunes with the idea that I’d just delete stuff as I went along. It’s almost impossible to pay attention enough to stop what you’re doing and delete songs. What worked much better was (in Mac OS X) previewing the songs in the Finder and deciding then whether to keep or delete. After going through an entire folder, I opened whatever was left into iTunes knowing it was decent.

So, I’m back at it again tonight with the 2010 torrents. This time it’s only 1,000 songs (unless they add more late additions, I guess). I imagine that I’ll find 200 more songs worth keeping.

Is this something you’ve done? Has it been worth the time for you?

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7 Answers

DarkScribe's avatar

Why couldn’t you use iTunes and its rating system and simply use “Smart Playlist” feature to sort and delete? You seem to be increasing your work load. (I didn’t find anywhere near as many worth keeping as you did – but then I am much older and have different tastes. My daughters found some though.)

Load them into iTunes, skim them using the iTunes sampling feature – rate them, then delete all those you didn’t feel worth rating by opening a Smart Playlist based on the date they were added and sorting by rating – deleting the unrated.

kevbo's avatar

Good question. I guess I hadn’t figured that out yet. Thanks!

filmfann's avatar

What kind of music is this? Is it all recent? Are they mostly unknown artists?
Inquiring minds want to know!

kevbo's avatar

All small label/ unsigned artists, mostly indie rock but representative of nearly all genres.

ShiningToast's avatar

@DarkScribe What is this iTunes sampling feature called? I can’t find it.

DarkScribe's avatar

@ShiningToast What is this iTunes sampling feature called? I can’t find it.

It was in the earlier releases and then dropped a while back. It can be added back using scripts, but as the right arrow key will move on to the next song once you have heard enough I suppose they decided that it was redundant. I use it mostly for previewing imports rather than grading. I will grade later.

(I use a lot of scripts – my release is heavily modified – I sometimes tend to forget that. )

ShiningToast's avatar

@DarkScribe Thanks, I’ll have to check out those scripts.

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