when I decided to open this site 6 years ago, it was to share what we love : Radiohead.
the first gig was the Salamanca show in 2002, Chester (the taper) gave the opportunity to share the show as mp3s…. and so on …. never had a SINGLE problem or a complain ….
I’ve been trading lossless and DVD radiohead shows for years until 3 years (got really a HUGE dvd list but couldnot see 1/2 of them … ) it was nice time …. meanwhile I was uploading mp3 of radiohead shows….
6 years later …..
I’ve decided to close this site (temporary ?) due to taper wishes not to convert show to mp3 but for personal use (ie after downloading the show to FLAC)
people with poor internet quality , with bandwith restrictions , people not in the know-how, people who just want to listen to a radiohead show,sorry for you …. you JUST have to educate yourself and deal with FLAC…. and convert to lossy sound ….
or you could ask for B&P ?
my deepest respect for tapers and sorry for the inconvenience, I REALLY don’t mean that ….
see you on next wednesday at London show
much love
playm
Please, please, please make this a temporary pause. Please. As you say – not everyone in the world has lightning-fast internet or technical know-how. I think what you’ve done here is a beautiful, altruistic thing.
As I have said before – In Rainbows was released as mp3. For the life of me, I cannot understand the hollier-than-thou stance of this lone taper/instigator.
There is a large section of the world’s population who will never be able to afford Radiohead tickets, who do not own state-of-the-art computer equipment. There are hundreds of sites for people to download flacs. The highest quality downloads are always there for those discerning ears – this is not an either/or situation. WHy not have one site that is equal-opportunity? Why must everything be so elitist? Why create one more art-related area of the world that is walled off from the have-nots?
Why?
Again, I appreciate what you have done here. I sincerely hope you will be back. Much thanks, Cara
+1 vote for only temporary pause.
i have yet to check out flac versions of the shows where it was linked. i think i tried once and it required an account or something that i couldn’t register for. this whole argument about file types and bitrates is silly. the whole in rainbows @ 160 thing for example…it sounds different on the 45s than it does on cd than it does on the official and higher bitrate bootleg mp3s. in the end what counts for me is hearing the songs. i mean, hearing your favourite tune through a static fm station shouldn’t not make it your favourite tune.
just in case it never comes back, thanks again for letting me revisit the “houston” 08 show , as well as the other shows that would’ve been impossible for me to hear or attend otherwise.
thanks,
adkenc
Thing is peeps, no one is saying you shouldn’t share mp3s at all, just not share those recordings where the taper asks nicely not to share as mp3/lossy.
Just a simple request, and when ignored it pisses some people off. Piss a taper off and they might not share widely in future.
ok for now, we will ONLY diffuse mp3s of radiohead show where taper has allowed to convert them to mp3
We will remove all 2008 shows where it said “just convert for personal use” or mention “not to convert to mp3” …..
enough drama in real life ….
btw, mp3s of Milan 1st night are on the way as the taper allow them …. stay tuned
much love
@Ataper: don’t worry you can now diffuse Dublin one in lossless , it won’t be there in mp3….. just joking ….. 🙂
I don’t share publicly for other reasons. When I do share widely, I don’t particularly care about mp3 sharing.
Just trying to help some understand. Tapers are people, and so have different experiences and ideals.
and I meant to add…
so I don’t want to see sites like this shut down. Some tapers can also see the positives of allowing wider access to live recordings.
Just listen to tapers. If some don’t want mp3s of their tapes openly circulated, don’t. If others don’t mind for theirs, go for it. If another group don’t share openly….oh well.
any taper who has a problem sharing or allowing their tapes to be shared has missed the entire point of taping…..of being ALLOWED (because….and dont forget this….we as tapers are given permission by the real aritst) to share the music we love with thousands of people. i pity any ego maniacal taper who acts like a 3rd grader and wont share. shame on you
Please don’t close down this site permanently, I just discovered it! And why the hell would any taper care what anyone does with the show? Anyone can download FLAC and covert it to MP3 with WinAmp. I personally hate FLAC because you can’t put it on your MP3 player or on a CD-R for personal use. The whole point of your taping and posting it to this site is to share, so why exactly would the taper give a shit who does what with it afterward as long as they aren’t selling it? I don’t get that at all.
so, i would just like to know: what is the dilemma? If you go and tape a show and put it on a FLAC site for other people to download, aren’t you putting it out there for other people to download and listen to ie share? What is the difference between sharing a FLAC and sharing an MP3? A live concert is meant to be experienced live not on tape but since the taper is taping it they are converting the concert to a different format. what is the difference between this and someone converting an already shared FLAC file to mp3. The argument that mp3s don’t sound as good doesn’t work for me since FLAC files don’t sound as good as the live show but the taper knows that and can live with it while taping. Why can’t they live with people converting to mp3? And if the reason is one must learn FLAC, who is this FLAC lobby and what kind of global domination are they after?
I would really like to know from a taper who is recording someone else’s work (and usually without permission) in the first place, why such moral authority regarding file format of all things?
It’s like the guy that buys a dvd of the new Indiana Jones movie on the street from someone that shot it in the theatre with their handicam and then converts that dvd to vhs and gives it to a friend. And then the bootlegger shows up their house and beats them up for making a less quality copy. huh?
Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate all the efforts people go through to tape these shows and make them available for folks around the world to enjoy. I just have never heard a valid reason for such finickiness.
“i pity any ego maniacal taper who acts like a 3rd grader and wont share. shame on you”
@lame-ass
I do share/trade. Just not always openly. I just released a good tape on dime a couple of weeks back…2 years after the gig. It’s my perogative when, to whom, and how I share, no?
A Taper –
You are mostly correct. It is absolutely your prerogative when and how you share – of course it is – you are the one who put in the work, you in fact own that recording, of course it’s yours to share as you like. But the “huh?” guy above is also right. If everyone who downloads the flacs is then free (by your own directive) to convert to mp3s for personal use… what is the problem here? If everyone downloads it individually and then converts to mp3, no problem. But if everyone downloads it as an mp3, that’s a big problem. I’m honestly not understanding here…
I’ll try to explain kelso, but I’m personally not that bothered by mp3 sharing. I’ll even post them on forums for people to download when I feel like it.
Tapers who are ‘old-skool’ or are strongly part of the trading community worry about the integrity of the trading pool. For example, once mp3s are shared openly it is quite possible for someone to convert back to lossless (ugh!), and for these recordings to ‘contaminate’ the trading pool. So for some it’s about keeping the trading pool clean for current and future traders – to keep their recordings in the best state possible. That’s what I get from other tapers.
As I said, tapers are different people with different ideals. Some care, some don’t. But if you want the highest possible number of tapes making it your way, you need to listen to the individual tapers.
…and it’s easy to think that personal mp3 converters can do the same (contaminate the pool). True. That’s why you are asked to do it personally and not share.
But when people download the FLACs, they also get all the information relevant to the tape – how it was captured and transfered etc., they also get md5s or FLACfingerprints to ensure data integrity (you are meant to check on download and pass these on in trade). mp3 sharing is much less than rigorous – info files are lost, no care for data integrity, multiple conversions of varying quality etc etc. – and the people forced to download the lossless files might even realise that it is the better format.
So if people download FLAC, personally convert and DO keep them to themselves, trading pool integrity is ensured.
Hi – I have to admit I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about but I downloaded my first flac file (nimes concert), listened to it in flac format, and OMG, what a difference!!
Probably the best comparison to mp3 vs flac, is analog to cd. It is just amazing.
Now if only there was a portable device as easy as ipods that could play it.
Pick up a second hand Iriver H-1xx/H3xx. Install rockbox software, and away you go. Will play mp3 and FLAC.
Of course it is always up to the taper whether to share music and on what terms.
That being said, I am somewhat confused. If someone has a pristine soundboard recording with all of the glorious highs and lows intact, undistorted, then I can see why he or she would want to protect that from being compressed into an mp3.
On the other hand, sometimes the audience recordings don’t have that same high level of recording. This is understandable, since it is difficult to get a perfect recording from the audience, especially when there are people around you cheering, or carrying on a conversation.
In such a case, I don’t see the problem with compressing the file. Maybe I’m missing something.
Thanks to everyone who shares their recordings on this website, and thanks to playm for the effort of running this website.
Once you release a share it’s gone and what happens to it happens to it. Personally I think these FLAC’ers have control issues. Rather ironic that they want to dictate terms of use of their grey area recordings.
I think you are providing a valuable service to people who can’t download FLACs. That you would stop this at the behest of a few whiny gits means you’re a better person then I.
its really not your perogative. only if you took risk in taping it. i mean technically its not YOUR property, the band is gracious enough to allow taping and im sure they do that with the idea that those who do tape their shows are going to share them. if your not sharing them then why even list them?
So I’ve just read through this whole thing and what I’m seeing is that this site sought an egalitarian sharing of music out of love for the band — mutual desire to hear Radiohead in many different ways.
Then you’ve got other people who use esoteric language, can afford the time and/or money to find and use expensive or unusual computer programs and sound equipment. That’s really cool, that’s what you like to do.
What does bother me is that you’ve gotten elitist about it. “If you won’t do it my way, you’re not pure! You’re polluting!” And most importantly, you won’t recognize that not everyone who loves Radiohead is as obsessed with ‘purity’ of sound (from a concert? so you can complain about the people next to you who are clapping and singing along?) and quality of equipment. That’s what class elites do regarding poor folks and ethnic minorities — you aren’t like me so I’m gong to punish you — even though there’s no way for everyone to be like them.
And, ironically, that’s exactly what Radiohead is NOT about.
A few points:
1. Recording live shows is a rather expensive hobby, both in time and in money. Tapers who share their recordings do so for the love of music. For some, this includes a desire for future listeners to always experience the original quality of their source.
2. While the first conversion of a clean source to MP3 may well be transparent to most people, repeated conversion can be as bad as those horrid nth-generation analog tapes from the old days. Ugh! Digital technology now makes truly lossless transmission possible, and there are MANY people who quite rightly don’t want to go back.
3. However, the whole “diluting the trading pool” (with lossy copies of a show) argument seems less important to me now that most people no longer burn MP3s to (WAV-format) CDs–instead, they just handle the MP3s directly. Also, serious traders have largely migrated to online lossless trading sites; much less trading takes place by snail mail these days. There is still plenty of lossy-sourced material out there, but to me it seems to be less and less of a problem.
4. Don’t imagine that you have a “right” to hear these recordings! Just as artists do not have to permit (either tacitly or explicitly) taping and trading of their live performances, tapers do not have to share their efforts. I am very grateful to those who do, and I think it is wise to indulge their “quirks” (if you want to call them that) if you would like them to continue to share.
5. While I am sympathetic to people’s concerns about limited download bandwidth, the “difficulty of use” argument against FLAC is just plain silly. There are now many players on the market (both hardware and free software) that will play them directly. If you simply MUST convert your FLACs, decoding is actually much easier than ripping a CD. If you would call this “elitist” then I think you are just lazy.
5a. Please no whining from iPod users–it’s not my fault that Apple won’t support this popular, open standard. Consider yourselves lucky that Apple even deigns to support MP3–you know they wouldn’t if they could get away with it! I suspect they don’t support FLAC because they don’t want people to realize how crappy iPod’s sound. Ease of use isn’t everything…. (Now THAT’s elitist!)
6. Finally, if I were a taper (I’m not because I can’t afford it, time-wise) I would allow MP3 distribution with the condition that recipients of MP3s never convert the files from that format, including burning them to CDs as WAVs. This seems to be the fairest solution–protect the integrity of the trading pool while allowing those who don’t care to share in a less bandwidth-intensive format. Many tapers have already essentially adopted this position, but I for one still respect those who have not.