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Beatport is the world's largest DJ store: download and stream electronic dance music. Explore the new and exclusive music tracks out of the best electronic dance music.
Bleep - We specialise in independent and innovative music regardless of genre or format. Working with labels and artists around the globe, we bring you a hand-picked selection of music for your ears and your feet.
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Surprised to not see http://www.resonantvibes.com on the list...that is a great store, especially for progressive, and actually has audio samples that are worth a damn. Great prices, too.
I am trying to put together a comprehensive list of digital download sites. This is by no
means a complete list however I would love to see if we could put something together like
that. Hope this is helpful to some.
Digital Downloads:
Beatport is the world's largest DJ store: download and stream electronic dance music. Explore the new and exclusive music tracks out of the best electronic dance music.
This website is for sale! djdownloads.com is your first and best source for all of the information you’re looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, djdownloads.com has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!
Used these guys to get some trentemoller and martinez stuff I couldn't find elsewhere
Various http://www.7digital.com/ - Some Electronic music on this site
Bleep - We specialise in independent and innovative music regardless of genre or format. Working with labels and artists around the globe, we bring you a hand-picked selection of music for your ears and your feet.
Create your own label ✓ Distribute your own music ✓ All popular platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon ✓ Sign up for a free account!
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i would add: www.junodownload.com www.ajtunes.com (from unsigned independent artists) www.urbantorque.com (great label with a great site)
and believe it or not... www.justmusicstore.com (really great prices. and though they're not focused on electronic music, i found some tracks i couldnt find anywhere else)
Repost from a thread I started over in General Yakkity Yak - failed to spot the existing thread in here!
This post is kinda twofold. I'd like to know what (legal) download sites everyone uses, particularly if anyone can recommend any I'm not aware of. Particularly if there are any that offer flac files as I am trying to move away from MP3 / lossy music files as far as I can. I'm not a DJ, but sound quality is important to me when I'm playing stuff away from the PC.
The second part is something I've been thinking of putting together and posting somewhere and that's basically a review of the sites I know about and have used. Not just the act of downloading, but what happened in terms of customer care.
See, just over a year ago my hard drive got corrupted and I lost everything I hadn't backed up. Which was the vast majority of my stuff because a) like most of you I'm a complete music junkie and download stuff faster than I can back up and b) I got complacent and kept putting it off. The fact my old PC only had a CD burner not a DVD burner like my laptop, meant it would have taken forever. But I digress...
Quick disclaimer: I have no particular axe to grind against any particular site. My views are entirely from months and years of buying from them. Any negatives are purely from the relevant sites policies. I should also point out that I accept completely that it was up to me to back up all my downloads, but the way different companies handled my request for access to music THAT I HAD ALREADY PAID FOR, for me summed them all up perfectly. Also, this is written with a UK bias - you may find my love of one site and dislike of another is the other way around for my American and European cousins due to pricing and territory restrictions, etc. Anyway, on with my guide to the various (legal) downloads sites on the web:
1. DJDownload.com
I have to start here, because honestly I can't say enough nice things about these guys.
+MP3s in 192 or 320. Most for 90p and £1.10 respectively, so pretty damn reasonable.
+Good selection of tunes from all electronica genres
+Free download tokens for every 14 (IIRC) downloads you buy. Don't have to be all in one order either - once you have bought 14 d/ls you get tokens. Also bonus tokens at Xmas depending on how much you've spent during the year.
+Good weekly mailout with DJ charts, promotions etc. Normally don't give a sh*t about this sort of thing, but theirs are usually worth a quick look.
- I honestly can't think of any. I guess they have the territory restriction thing if you're outside the UK/EU.
Customer service: Excellent. Answer emails quickly. When I asked if I could re-download my old purchases when I lost my hard drive and bought my replacement laptop, they reactivated my entire back catalogue (over 500+ mp3s), no questions asked, and said if they expired before I could download them all they would get the reactivated AGAIN. Brilliant!
2. Audiojelly.
I've probably used these guys the longest, because the others I found when I first started dowloading music have fallen by the wayside (RIP City16.com and Karma Download).
+ Good selection of music, though biased towards the trancier side of the spectrum in the main.
+ Slightly more expensive than DJDownload, but 320 as standard (I think! There may be a few 192s for the older releases)
+ Customer service excellent - had a couple of downloads that didn't download properly and they replied quickly (on a Sunday and over Xmas!!), corrected the links and gave me a few download tokens to apologise for the inconvenience. Only downside is they are only valid for tracks on their own Audiojelly Digital imprint, so there may be nothing you like!
+ Unlike the other sites, you can save a bit of money by buying SOME releases as a complete package, rather than just cherry-picking track(s) you want from a particular release
- Again, can't think of any. No problems at all with this site.
Replacing my lost downloads after HD Crash - you get 2 download attempts when purchasing from this site - the second doesn't appear to be time restricted. All my downloads from 2004 to 2007 were available for me to make a second copy of. Sorted!
3. X-Pressbeats.
Like Audiojelly, one of the older sites I've used but don't use that often.
+ Not as great a selection as DJDownload or Beatport, and bias is a lot housier, but the cheapest site I've found for certain tracks. Of course, since DJDownload changed their pricing structure to as stated above, I don't think I've had cause to use this site much!
+ available as IPod friendly 128 or higher quality 320 - no difference in pricing for whichever form of MP3 you go for.
+ Like their free download give aways at Xmas! Worth being on their mailing list for as usually a free download a day in an advent calendar stylee during December!
- As stated above, loses out to some of the other sites in terms of selection.
Replacing lost downloads after HD crash - friendly and commiserated! Offered to let me have access to another copy of my downloads for 50% what I paid for them original. Reasonable enough.
4. 7 Digital
Mainly an Indie / Rock / Pop site, but there are some bargains to be had at 79p and 99p for what Electronic stuff you can find.
+Pricing (see above). Bit rates vary, as does price accordingly.
- Some downloads have the dreaded DRM in them
- Unless you like most genres of music (like me), you may not find much to suit your tastes.
Replacing lost downloads: You can make up to 3 downloads on up to 3 computers. All downloads stored in online "locker" and no expiry date. Making a new download of my lost Mp3s was therefore a piece of piss.
5. Beatport
Used to be my first port (no pun intended) of call. Sadly Beatport have become a monster. I don't mean that in a good way...
+Fantastic selection and loads of exclusives. No arguement there. God knows how they manage to get all these exclusives - I guess they are better with the artists than milking the cash cow. Sorry, I mean customers.
+High bit rates and WAVs available for lossless
-Pricing. Somewhere along the way, someone at Beatport got greedy and a fair exchange rate went out of the window to be replaced by the unfair (unless you're stateside) $1 = £1 =1EURO!!!! You can probably stomach this for the odd download here and there, but an album will cost you more than to go out and buy a physical copy. Likewise a complete 4 track 12" is cheaper to physically own than squirt down the phoneline. Needless to say, I have taken my custom elsewhere and not bought from them since.
-Downloading. Some might say anything that sticks it to Microsoft is a good thing. But when you can't download anything from a site because you're using Windows, sympathy tends to go out of the window (again, no pun intended). Firefox gets around the problem, but only downloads to your desktop, not the relevant folder.
So to summarise - since their relaunch in 2006, this once excellent site charges you more in the UK than anyone else and downloading from them is more hassle than anywhere else. From Hero to Zero money from me.
Replacing lost downloads: As I said earlier, I accept it is up to me to have backed up my hard drive, but so far ONE site has charged me to replace my downloads, and that was at half price. Would the now money-grabbing Beatport show their once pioneering spirit and give me a customer experience good enough to make me decide that the inflated prices were worth paying for because excellent service is included in the price?
Big NO! After politely emailing and explaining my plight, and clearly stating that the most recent MP3s I'd ordered were still in my basket and I had downloaded them onto my new computer, I got an incredibly patronising email back about remembering to back up data (no shit sherlock!), along with an explanation that it's the same as losing a record and I would have to buy everything again. They also said as a "gesture of goodwill" that they are authorised to make "a limited number of downloads available" to customers and made all the MP3s I had recovered (as I clearly said in my email) available plus about 3 others. Clearly the resident cretin reactivated the most recent 12 tracks without bothering to check which ones they were reactivating. So I effectively recovered a whopping 3 MP3s. Thanks Beatport!
Honourable mentions to the Border Community and Soma label websites, which I have used since I got up and running again.
Border Community offer their back catalogue available as high quality MP3s in VBR, and you save money buying the full releases (IIRC it's £1 a track or £3 for an EP, effectively buy 3 get 1 free, though it varies depending on how many tracks on each release).
Soma offer their back catalogue in MP3 or flac files. They also offer a subscription for 6 months of forthcoming releases - £18.99 for MP3 or £23.99 for flac files. Includes 10 downloads from the back catalogue as a bonus. Awesome!
This turned out way longer than I expected. Congratulations if you got through all that and hope it's been useful. Just one music fan's opinion.
I found OrganicArma's new song, Discordia for free at this site... I freaking love this song. Also, DJ Spooky and King Unique did some dope remixes to this track. Enjoy.
www.m-p-free.com
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