FlacMonkey's Intro

Hello all, I'm FlacMonkey!

So here is my long awaited intro (at least by Kit )!

I started torrenting about 3-4 years ago. Before that I was mostly using emule, soulseek, limewire. I was never satisfied with those and could only find mp3s of usually poor quality. I did have some fun with soulseek I must admit. One day, a friend of mine came over, installed Bitlord and introduced me to the piratebay. Quickly, I started torrenting and understood the far superiority of that technology. I soon switched to uTorrent (bitlord being a crappy client and more likely an adware for porn sites) and started looking for good music places. I joined Demonoid and discovered the joys of lossless music rips. I tried various formats. I used APE quite a bit. A very strong and efficient lossless compression algorithm but FLAC's openness and popularity made me prefer it.

I uploaded my first music torrent at Demonoid. At the begining I had no idea what a cue or log were. Reading comments of downloaders asking about logs, I started including them. One day, a kind member pointed out some mistakes I had in my EAC set-up and offered me to join Pedro's BT music. Which I soon did. That is where I learnt all about proper ripping and I enjoyed being a member of that private community for about two years. Eventually, I got tired of the tightness of the Private site mentality and had some issues with the leadership's management. Around that time I started to look around the public torrent sites, to see what their philosophy regarding quality was. What I feared most about public places is the complete lack of standard enforcement. I stumbled upon h33t, which I had used once or twice long before and registered. I liked the "moderated" upload philosophy, meaning that they must all include a proper description before being approved by the staff and appearing on the site's download page. I enjoyed uploading at h33t and still do, as time allows me. Since I scan art, it takes me much more time than before to prepare an upload. I don't mind, but I upload less frequently.

I am still a member on various private communities, but I very much enjoy public trackers for the ability to bring music to just about anyone, without the narrow-mindedness and over-strictness of some private communities. No need to fear this or that silly rule, etc... And anyone can get the music! Perhaps the most rewarding thing, bringing new vibes to anyone anywhere.

The one thing that I lack from public trackers is the community spirit. No one comments on the uploads, no one discusses music, ripping, audio gear, etc. Also, many people rip to lossless formats in an inaccurate manner, which is too bad. Now that I learned how to make an exact copy and lossless compression and I can re-create an exact 1:1 copy of the original CD, I won't download just about any rip. I need to have a good quality "proper" rip. Hopefully, we can maybe manage to make some form of Standard for Proper Lossless Ripping and spread the knowledge so that more and more can make high quality rips. The tools are easy to get, one just needs a bit of introduction to make very high quality rips easily

My other hope with this forum is to try and unite the lossless rippers of any community around the net, to have a place to socialize a bit, detached from any tracker, discuss albums, bands, music types, ripping procedures, anything they like.

I hope it can be a place where we can have fun, enjoy the music and learn new tricks

Any ideas, suggestions are most welcome here: https://nohomers.darkbb.com/forum-suggestions-f6/

Enjoy the music, Cheers!

FM

FlacMonkey wrote:Hopefully, we can maybe manage to make some form of Standard for Proper Lossless Ripping and spread the knowledge so that more and more can make high quality rips. The tools are easy to get, one just needs a bit of introduction to make very high quality rips easily

I totally agree. Perhaps we could start doing that with and for our fellow h33t uploaders, something like a H33t Lossless Team . Count me in.

W.

Awesome intro FM!

You mention Pedro and even though I was never a member its my understanding that they had some tough rules on lossless uploads. Can't quite remember what they were though...something to do with tagging?

How many members over at h33t are consistent lossless uploaders? I bet no more than 10.

Pedro's a very good quality lossless tracker. They have a plethora of rules, the better ones being about high quality ripping. The want all uploaders to use their guide (which is excellent) and set up their ripping software properly. They also have a strong log checker, which prevents the upload of a rip with a bad log. So the emphasis on quality rips is very strong and the overall quality of uploads there is unmatched.

The funny thing about Pedro's though, is that you don't have to tag your flacs. That is not mandatory. As longs as your flacs are properly compressed from a Exact Rip, then it's all good. Another recent addition to their endless list of rules, is that now you need to have Accurate Rip set up in your EAC. If you have some old rips from before the Accurate Rip check.... then you won't be able to upload them (that's quite stupid!).

I agree with you and I don't think much more than 10 members at h33t are consistent with lossless uploaders.... sadly.

PTF FTW!

Apu wrote:PTF FTW!

Definitely! Want to tell us more about it?

FlacMonkey wrote:

Apu wrote:PTF FTW!

Definitely! Want to tell us more about it?

My god, you promote dialogue just like the facilitator in group here at the home...

I know I know time for the blue pills and no cheeking.