I discovered The Live Music Archive in 2006 and NYCTaper in 2008, but it was not until late last year that I began downloading and listening to concerts. Looking back, my delay appears foolish. Many of my favorite downloads are concerts that were available back in 2006, meaning I gave up three years that I could have spent enjoying them.

That's all in the past, and anyway my reticence was not totally groundless. Downloading live concerts is not as simple as downloading singles or albums. Hell, since they shut down Napster and Audiogalaxy, I don’t really know what to use to download albums and singles. And I refuse to ever purchase anything from iTunes (a subject for a future column). And for a variety of reasons, concert downloading is not nearly as easy or convenient as downloading commercially available music. This column will be an attempt to help you with some of those barriers. I plan to feature a few of these sort of “how to” columns in the coming months. This week, the focus is on overcoming technological obstacles to concert downloading. Specifically, this week I will discuss how to play lossless audio formats that many concerts are available in.



I am the last person in the world that should ever write a tech column. I didn’t know how to download torrents until I started this piece, so needless to say, I am not technologically savvy. However, my technological ineptitude may make me well suited for those of you that are similarly behind the curve. For those of you that are already capable of downloading and listening to music in all digital audio formats, this week’s column is probably a waste of time. Sorry. But I have a feeling that many readers of this site are like me and had never heard of FLAC and Shorten before encountering concert taping sites. This column is for those people.



FLAC and Shorten



Most concerts are available in MP3, but not all. Some are only available in lossless formats. The most commonly used formats are FLAC and Shorten. FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec and Shorten stands for nothing as far as I can tell. Both formats compress music files without any loss in information and sound quality (thus “lossless”). MP3s compress music files by cutting out part of the soundwave that you “don’t hear.” You do in fact hear the information that is eliminated by MP3s, but this is usually not immediately apparent from a casual listen. FLAC and Shorten files however should sound just as good as a wav file (that’s what you get when you buy a CD). In fact, sometimes a FLAC file may have superior sound quality to a CD because FLAC files are sometimes 24 bit while CDs are almost always 16 bit. However, 24 bit files are still relatively rare, and I have yet to read or notice anything pointing to a discernible difference.

Shorten was invented first, but FLAC is the more widely-accepted standard today. Just about any concert uploaded these days will be uploaded in FLAC, however, many older concerts are still only available in Shorten. Sound-wise, there should be no difference between the two formats, both being lossless, but FLAC has been more widely adopted because it is the better format overall. It allows tags, which Shorten does not. FLAC is also more widely used and accepted than Shorten. FLAC appears to be the standard lossless compression format used in taping communities and by nearly every company. Except Apple, who use their own lossless format called ALAC, or Apple Lossless Audio Codec. And that’s where we run into problems since iTunes is currently the most widely used music player available. To enjoy FLAC or Shorten files you’ll need either a new music player or a converter.



Music Players and Converters



In order to enjoy Shorten and FLAC files, you need to find either a music player that plays the formats or a music file converter. For those of you using Windows who have a good connection between your computer and home-audio system, I recommend the first option. That’s because there’s a wonderful music player for the PC that can play all audio formats and in my opinion is much easier to use than iTunes, called Foobar. With Foobar, you can play basically any audio format. Shorten and Apple Lossless will require downloading an additional component, but this is actually very easy to do (you download it and then move the component to your Foobar components folder). It’s also the only music player I’ve found that allows you to organize your music by folder. This is incredibly important for making file management easy. The tagging application is also incredibly easy to use. In my opinion, Foobar is hands down the most versatile and easy to use music player around.



For the moment, though, Foobar only works on Windows, so if you’re on a Mac, running some form of Linux, or if you just want to continue using iTunes even if you’re on Windows (which I suppose makes sense if you need to sync your iPod, otherwise, I don’t get it), you need a different option. Also, perhaps you might not want to bother with listening to music on your computer at all. You may want to just burn CDs of your favorite shows. In any of these cases, you’re going to want an audio converter. There is no shortage of audio converter options on each platform. On Windows, dBpoweramp is a great solution. For those using a Mac, XLD is a free and easy option. Everybody has their own favorite conversion program though, so if you’re not happy with what you’ve got, a little digging around online will give you any number of alternatives, all of which can convert audio files into your preferred format, whether it is WAV, MP3, FLAC or otherwise. 



The key is to not let an unfamiliar audio format hold you back. Don’t settle for MP3s when you have an option!