Napster - my old friend. Review on Napster

Napster is the most famous MP3 site. It is world renowned for providing free music, via their idea of 'file sharing', which the US Government isn't too keen on. The idea of 'file sharing' is that every Napster user can download files free of charge from other users of Napster, and that other users can download from you. Napster probably has every song ever made somewhere in it, and providing you are patient, you will eventually find it. Anyway, after that little introduction, i'll get to actually writing my 'guide' if you like on Napster.

HOW DO I GET NAPSTER?

Napster is available free of charge to download from the napster.com website. Downloading took me about 10 minutes on a 33.6k modem. After downloading, you have to install the software, which takes a few seconds, and then you're ready to start 'napstering'!

SO HOW DO I FIND A SONG I WANT?

This is very easy. Firstly, let me make the point that to use Napster you don't actually have to go on their website. You simply load the software from your hardrive, and log on to the Internet. Click the box 'search' on the little taskbar at the top of the screen and type the name of the artist and/or song you want to find. To download, simply double click on a song title. You are able to specify various attributes of the song, and I will go into these later.

SO HOW DO I DOWNLOAD A SONG?

After double clicking on your chosen song, you will automatically be taken to a 'transfer' screen. This is also accessible via the box, surprisingly labelled 'transfer' on the taskbar. The download is monitored, and gives you your status, for example the percentage of your download complete, and how much you are downloading per second etc.

Obviously, the larger the file size the longer the download time. A tip: If you are downloading a song to burn to a CD, listen to the file first to determine that it is complete, or take an average of the various and often differing song times and download that.

HOW DO I PLAY MY DOWNLOADED SONG?

You have a couple of options here, you can either double click on the song title on your transfer screen, which plays the song up to its current download status. The other option is to playback from your harddrive once the download is complete, this will play the entire song. It is worth noting, that often the songs you play back will sound distorted, however this is often due to your component capabilities, for example your soundcard, and not the song quality. It will most likely sound fine once you have burned it to a CD (optional).

HOW DO I BURN MP3's TO A CD?

This is a simple process, simply convert your .MP3 file to a .WAV file so your CD player can playback the song, and then burn it. If you are wondering 'how do I convert my .MP3 files into .WAV files' simply download software such as 'Musicmatch.' I don't use Musicmatch, I use some software called 'easy CD-DA extractor' which is very simple to use and is available free of charge as shareware. Musicmatch often demands a payable fee, and takes a long time to download.

MY CD ONCE BURNED SOUNDS RUBBISH!

This is probably due to one of two reasons. The bitrate and the frequency. Please bare with me, as you will probably get bored reading the next few sections. All the below categories are seen from the 'search' box of the taskbar.

PROBLEM 1 - BITRATE

The bitrate is the quality of the MP3 file. The higher the bitrate the higher the file quality. However, this also means the higher the bitrate the larger the file size, therefore the longer the download time. Doh!

Try and aim for a Bitrate of about 192 for near CD quality, and a higher one for improved quality. I wouldn't reccommend going below a bitrate of 128, as the quality is often not very good.

<br>PROBLEM 2 - FREQUENCY

I won't go into all the complicated 'mumbo jumbo' of frequency, however for best results

always go for a song with a frequency of 44100. Nuff said.

Now I will explain how to optimise your transfers.

THE 'PING' TIME

The ping time is basically a simple rule. The lower the ping, the faster your downloads. Ping is where you are actually going to be downloading from, i.e a ping of 200 will probably be a more local user, and a ping of 1000 will probably be somewhere like Japan! Aim for the lowest ping possible, ideally under 700.

CONNECTION

This is pretty self-explanatory. The higher the connection of the user you are downloading from, the faster your transfer will be. Napster use a colour code for the various speeds of users, as well as sometimes specifying. The colour red is a low connection, (try to avoid red), the colour yellow is pretty fast, (this connection will do fine) and the colour green is the highest and fastest connection. Always aim to get a connection for your chosen song, of at LEAST equal to yours. Napster use a large variety of connection options, and I will go through them, starting from the lowest to the highest:

Unknown - As the name says, the user does not know his or her connection speed.

14.4k - A very low connection, only use this if you really have to, or if you yourself use a 14.4k modem.

28.8k - Similarly to the above, a very low connection, only use this if you really have to, or if you yourself use a 28..8k modem.

33.6k - Similarly to the above, a very low connection, only use this if you really have to, or if you yourself use a 33..6k modem.

56.6k - A quite fast connection, the most widely used speed available. Also the most common.

ISDN56k - An improved connection of the above.

ISDN128k - Double the above speed, now we are really getting into the speed demon leagues.

Cable - Once again a very fast connection.

DSL - I've said it once, and I'll say it again, very, very fast.

T1 - If you can aim for this speed, you'll be home and dry with your transfer very quickly indeed.

T3 - The 'Holy Grail' of connections. AIM FOR THIS ONE!

THE USER

The user doesn't really make a difference, unless they are the type that loves logging off the Internet or cancelling your transfer when you are in the middle of a download! Some users have good reputations, others don't. I'm sad to say that not one person has ever completed a transfer from me. Whoops!

There are many other features of Napster, which I'm sure you will find interesting to discover yourself. Talking of discover, click that on you taskbar to find a few rising stars in the world of music.

Thanks for reading. :o)

.....UPDATE.....

One last thing, Napster hasn't actually been 'shut down', some artists (for example Eminem) have banned their songs from the database. Some people are under the impression that Napster has ceased to run, this is not the case. It remains a very useful service, with access to hundreds of thousands of songs. Hope this cleared things up.