Saturday, September 16, 2006

How to get those GD boards

Okay, Sunshine Daydreamers, a while back I promised that I was going to offer some tips on how to lay your hands on some tasty soundboards, so here it is. The first word you need to know is "bittorrent". This is currently the primary method of sharing GD music on the internet. Without getting too technical, bittorrent is a method whereby computers share files with each other. While downloading a file each computer also uploads the parts of the file it already has to other computers, speeding up the whole sharing process.

To use bittorrent you need a bittorrent client (program). My preference is Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net). It's simple enough for beginners to use, plus has a lot of great features that will improve your bittorrenting experience as you get more familiar with it.

Next, you need to know where to go to grab those SBDs! Try these sites first:

http://bt.etree.org - Tons of Dead, Jerry, Mule, lots of other great bands.
http://www.shnflac.net - Also an excellent repository of Dead and Jerry, a fair amount for you jazz buffs as well. You need to register, quick and easy.
http://www.dimeadozen.org - Not as much Dead or Jerry here, but there is some, plus a metric tonne of just about everything else. Like shnflac.net it requires registering. You're unlikely to be successful on your first try, since they have a 100,000 member limit, but slots temporarily open every day as members leave or their accounts are deleted due to inactivity. Stick to it, after a few days or weeks you will find yourself in the mother lode of music trading; jazz, jam, rock, classical, avant garde, folk and everything in between (remember, they have 100,000 sharing members!).
http://zombtracker.the-zomb.com/index.php - Weird name, but a healthy dose of GD here too.
http://www.bootcity.org - The occasional Dead and Jerry seed can be found here too.

An important part of bittorrent ettiquette is sharing. Once you've downloaded a show, remember to keep uploading it to others until you've uploaded at least as much as you've downloaded. People who fail to do so are often referred to as "bailers" and not held in high regard in the bittorrent community.

For traditional point and click downloading, go to http://www.gdlive.com (despite the .com moniker this is indeed a nonprofit site in compliance with GD trading policies).

If downloading's not your thing, you can always go to http://db.etree.org, browse the lists that traders have posted there and try to arrange a trade with someone. If you're just starting out with your collection, there are many people who will be glad to burn you a show if you provide the blank CDs and return postage.

Well, now you have the information, so go to it! In no time at all you'll be trippin' to some nice boards. :-)

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey, thanks for keepin this up!!!

i wish i had some broadband, but we just go dialup here in the stix (mineral, ve). still, i got access to better quality copies than i had in the day, that's for sure :-)

10:29 PM  

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