Downloading Music

I get asked this all of the time… "Charlie, where do you get your music from?" The honest answer is “it depends.” There are so many ways to get music illegally that it is really overwhelming and would take forever to talk about. But there are ways…

For just listening to music or streaming it I recommend Pandora. It’s a great free service and I use it frequently.

Pandora allows you to listen to your custom radio stations tailored to what ever genre, artist, song, album, you feed into it.

While it is really only for streaming, there is a way to download the songs that you are listening to. A program called Free Music Zilla allows you to download the song that you are currently listening to. The only problem is that it doesn’t pull the name of the song and you might have to convert the file to an mp3 afterward. Free Music Zilla also works for a bunch of other sites like Myspace, IMEEM, Last.fm, you can even download YouTube videos.

• To use this program, you have to have the FMZ open before you start Pandora. So, open that program, then log on to pandora.com. Once music starts playing, watch the FMZ window... you'll see something pop up and have a counter going down and the file will probably be called "access." Hit download when you hear a song that you like and it should download the file to where ever it is set up to download to.
  
  
• Now that you have your access file, you're going to have to convert it to mp3. There are a bunch of free mp3 converters out there. Just do a google search for "convert to mp3" or something like that. Just be careful downloading one as there are a lot of fake ones out there that are just trying to get your money.
  
  
• Once you convert it to mp3, rename the file to what ever the song was called and drag it into your favorite music player.
  
  
• Congrats, you just beat the system with downloading music! (I think? haha)

Another site that is for file sharing is 4shared.com. This is good if you want to download just a song. They usually have it. You’re allowed to listen to the song before you download it too.

• Log on to 4Shared.com and click the music button. Now search for what you're looking for. Usually good versions of the song are the ones with the more downloads and a high rating.
  
  
• Feel free to preview the song before you download it, make sure its the right one. Once you verify that it is, click the "download Now" button. It usually has "no virus detected" below it, click on that buttton. Don't be fooled and click the wrong one because that is to install something completely different.
  
  
• Now it will redirect you to another page and they're will be a counter. You’ll have to wait about 20 seconds then a link will appear saying "Download Now." Once the link appears, click it and it will download to wherever your files download from the internet. Now just drag it into what ever you use to play music.
  
  

Finally you can use torrents. See the Torents section for more information on how to download them.