What.CD interview and how it compares to Waffles

[MjWoNeR]

I just failed for the second time the What.CD interview.
I have to admit the first time I failed at the first bunch of questions since I had no clue, but it was fun anyway. :whistling
Today though I reached the end and failed. I am not a complete noob when it comes to transcoding but I mostly do video so it is ok, I know I am not near to an expert in audio transcoding. But I noticed something.

What I noticed was the amount of knowledge required to be just a member there.

Does What.CD worth all the trouble in getting all this knowledge that I will never use, to just download some music?

By the knowledge required from normal leechers it comes to mind that if I do study and do pass the interview I might not find what I want. Which is the biggest library of music torrent.

So to recap, for someone that wants high quality mp3s and the largest library of music possible is What.CD the way to go or Waffles?

[kukushka]

one site doesn't cancel another. but generally, content wise, what.cd is 50% bigger. about interviews. they are just trying to bring ppl with knowledge of a potential uploader. why the hell do they need a bunch of leechers? ;)
and idk, seems to me it should be quite hard not to pass an interview, i saw there are even links to guides at the topic

[Funkin']

It's all just a matter of opinion. What/Waffles are both very nice sites. But in im opinion, What is the "better" site. It has more content and Gazelle is so nice. If you're having such a hard time passing the interview, then just read up on whatever questions you have failed. Encoding music and transcodes really isn't a difficult subject. It may just be intimidating at first if you know nothing about it.

And by the way, if all that you're looking for is high quality mp3's, and Waffles doesn't have the album that you want, then just use Soulseek or RS forums(I don't even use What/Waffles anymore, only Pedro's when looking for some lossless). You're pretty much guaranteed to find whatever you're looking for with either of these two methods, and in various bitrates. And best of all, no seeding. It's something to think about if you can't make it into What.

[Popov]

yes. It IS worth it. What.cd is probably the best source for audio. No mather if you like FLAC or V0, there's everything ! :)

[ben99]

the test is really easy, you must not know anything about transcoding and all that good stuff...

[MjWoNeR]

one site doesn't cancel another. but generally, content wise, what.cd is 50% bigger. about interviews. they are just trying to bring ppl with knowledge of a potential uploader. why the hell do they need a bunch of leechers? ;)
and idk, seems to me it should be quite hard not to pass an interview, i saw there are even links to guides at the topic

Because statistically the majority of users in a tracker are leechers other wise it does not work. And because I simply do not want to be an uploader at What.CD anyway. All I want is the biggest library of music torrents.


It's all just a matter of opinion. What/Waffles are both very nice sites. But in im opinion, What is the "better" site. It has more content and Gazelle is so nice. If you're having such a hard time passing the interview, then just read up on whatever questions you have failed. Encoding music and transcodes really isn't a difficult subject. It may just be intimidating at first if you know nothing about it.

And by the way, if all that you're looking for is high quality mp3's, and Waffles doesn't have the album that you want, then just use Soulseek or RS forums(I don't even use What/Waffles anymore, only Pedro's when looking for some lossless). You're pretty much guaranteed to find whatever you're looking for with either of these two methods, and in various bitrates. And best of all, no seeding. It's something to think about if you can't make it into What.
Well reading and learning a few things only to pass the interview and forgetting them right afterwards is an easy thing to do. I was just wondering if it really worth the trouble.

If being a leecher there requires so much knowledge I would expect them not to have 100.000 members to request every hidden type of music there is available all over the planet.

Can somebody say how many members they have and how many torrents uploaded?


the test is really easy, you must not know anything about transcoding and all that good stuff...
You are kidding right? They asked me if I have ever seen a spectral comparison lol

[killercam101]

If you're into mainstream music I don't think it matters which site you join you can even consider stmusic. But for rare music I guess its best to ask which site has an uploader who uploads the type of music you like. People say what.cd is 50% larger than waffles..but whats the point if you're not finding what you want.

waffles :Registered users 34,760

[tX]

Enabled Users: 72,383
Torrents: 329,114

And just so you know, the interview isn't meant to be hard AT ALL. If you go in unprepared, then yes, you won't be able to answer anything. The idea is you read up on encoding 101 so you can survive at the site, without doing some stupid things like uploading trannies or mislabeling formats


And worth the trouble? Depends. For me, yes. But if you don't listen to much music, it probably wouldn't matter to you anyway.

[lhnz]

If you care for obscure/rare music, in high quality and with multiple formats, then What.CD is definitely the way to go. It also has an active community and a very active development, so it's even just fun to visit and gawk at the new features and the discussions. :)

To be honest, however, in order to use the site for a large amount of time you're generally going to need to upload so this so called "useless" knowledge really isn't as useless as you think it is.

[cinephilia]

If you care for obscure/rare music, in high quality and with multiple formats, then What.CD is definitely the way to go.
Not necessarily... for example, i found more rare soul albums/vinyls on waffles than what.cd. Anyway, it really depends on many factors.

[ben99]

Because statistically the majority of users in a tracker are leechers other wise it does not work. And because I simply do not want to be an uploader at What.CD anyway. All I want is the biggest library of music torrents.


It's all just a matter of opinion. What/Waffles are both very nice sites. But in im opinion, What is the "better" site. It has more content and Gazelle is so nice. If you're having such a hard time passing the interview, then just read up on whatever questions you have failed. Encoding music and transcodes really isn't a difficult subject. It may just be intimidating at first if you know nothing about it.

And by the way, if all that you're looking for is high quality mp3's, and Waffles doesn't have the album that you want, then just use Soulseek or RS forums(I don't even use What/Waffles anymore, only Pedro's when looking for some lossless). You're pretty much guaranteed to find whatever you're looking for with either of these two methods, and in various bitrates. And best of all, no seeding. It's something to think about if you can't make it into What.
Well reading and learning a few things only to pass the interview and forgetting them right afterwards is an easy thing to do. I was just wondering if it really worth the trouble.

If being a leecher there requires so much knowledge I would expect them not to have 100.000 members to request every hidden type of music there is available all over the planet.

Can somebody say how many members they have and how many torrents uploaded?


the test is really easy, you must not know anything about transcoding and all that good stuff...
You are kidding right? They asked me if I have ever seen a spectral comparison lol

um, yeah, easy question. The answer to that question is yes, you have adobe audition. GOOGLE FTW!

[IdolEyes787]

And just so you know, the interview isn't meant to be hard AT ALL. If you go in unprepared, then yes, you won't be able to answer anything. The idea is you read up on encoding 101 so you can survive at the site, without doing some stupid things like uploading trannies or mislabeling formats


And worth the trouble? Depends. For me, yes. But if you don't listen to much music, it probably wouldn't matter to you anyway.

Anybody else find it strange that belonging to a music site requires encoding skills .

No?

I guess it would be useless to point out that 99% of the world's best musicians would fail the bloody test (of course every crappy sound engineer in the world would get in so it's a fair trade off).:dabs:

[ben99]

And just so you know, the interview isn't meant to be hard AT ALL. If you go in unprepared, then yes, you won't be able to answer anything. The idea is you read up on encoding 101 so you can survive at the site, without doing some stupid things like uploading trannies or mislabeling formats


And worth the trouble? Depends. For me, yes. But if you don't listen to much music, it probably wouldn't matter to you anyway.

Anybody else find it strange that belonging to a music site requires encoding skills .

No?

I guess it would be useless to point out that 99% of the world's best musicians would fail the bloody test (of course every crappy sound engineer in the world would get in so it's a fair trade off).:dabs:

this is just to ensure that the members don't upload transcodes and make more work for the already overloaded staff. I'm not really seeing why this test is so hard for you. I took a test to get into oink, by the time that closed up shop, I knew all about transcodes. It's just a matter of actually reading up on it..

[tX]

I invited a couple of RL friends, they had no idea what the formats were and which to download

Taking the interviews would eliminate such problems

[Dnurg]

I don't understand how you could fail.
The interview is just so extremely easy. And I didn't know anything about FLAC and this stuff befor the interview...

[cinephilia]

these links should be enough to pass the interview.

http://sdbx.nl/whatintro.html
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....le=Transcoding (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Transcoding)
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lame
http://jiggafellz.isa-geek.net/jigga...ct-audio-copy/ (http://jiggafellz.isa-geek.net/jiggafellz-step-by-step-guide-to-secure-cd-ripping-with-exact-audio-copy/)

[1000possibleclaws]

If you're into mainstream music I don't think it matters which site you join you can even consider stmusic.

Nowadays I can find jack shit on STMusic. That site has degenerated by leaps and bounds over the last 6 months or so.

Waffles is pretty hard to seed at compared to What.cd cause and from observing the forums the staff come off as very arrogant. SoftMp3 would be the best choice for you until you can get into What.cd (you might decide you don't even need it), or you could use the soulseek client as well, but that is not torrent related.

[kukushka]

Anybody else find it strange that belonging to a music site requires encoding skills .

No?

I guess it would be useless to point out that 99% of the world's best musicians would fail the bloody test (of course every crappy sound engineer in the world would get in so it's a fair trade off).:dabs:

no. i'd prefer a crappy sound engineer who will steal all that he can from those best musicians and make a proper uploads to the site :)

btw, musicians that never saw any spectrum - who are they? illegal immigrants playing on the streets? ;)

[cinephilia]

illegal immigrants playing in the streets are still musicians, and not the worst ones ;)

[kukushka]

illegal immigrants playing in the streets are still musicians, and not the worst ones ;)
maybe, but why the hell do we need them on what.cd if their methods of sharing music are far from technologically advanced ones? ;)

..generally, if someone will say - i don't give a damn about uploads, i have a multi tb raid massive and 100 mbit home line, i'll wait for the next freeleech and will dl as much as i can, i like /list of favourite bands/ and i promise i will seed forever, here are my stats from torrent client, my crazy ratios on trackers and my shared folder...
...or - i don't know where to put money, i'm a donor on every bt site that i have.
i think such requests will be filled within minutes in invite section, no need to go to the irc..

so, seems to me that huge majority of good users are already members there and from guys seeking invites the percentage of a fail torrenters gets higher and higher

[piratebot]

you probably don't need the high quality mp3s at what.cd if you failed the interview TWICE.
try using soulseek instead.

[leechasaurus]

I know shit about transcoding but have a couple of nice what/waffles accounts and a huge music library leeched now. Those interviews sound ridiculous, who cares if you don't know about that. Just get an invite from someone.

[ben99]

I know shit about transcoding but have a couple of nice what/waffles accounts and a huge music library leeched now. Those interviews sound ridiculous, who cares if you don't know about that. Just get an invite from someone.

the interview makes sure that the people that get in aren't totally clueless about music and the guidelines/rules for the site. If you can't be bothered to learn them, you don't deserve and shouldn't be in either waffles or what.

[leechasaurus]

Like I care what you think about what I deserve. I've got two accounts on both and hit and run with my big buffers and have the backup just in case they get banned. Oh yeah, I taught myself how to rip v0 from flac because I use it on my ipod. I don't need to get all fussy about those spectral charts and shit like that.

[ben99]

Like I care what you think about what I deserve. I've got two accounts on both and hit and run with my big buffers and have the backup just in case they get banned. Oh yeah, I taught myself how to rip v0 from flac because I use it on my ipod. I don't need to get all fussy about those spectral charts and shit like that.

spectral charts show whether the file is a transcode or not. A transcode is lossy to lossy convertion like v0 to 320. You convert flac to v0 which is fine. And what exactly do you mean by have the backup? Do you mean multiple accounts?

[leechasaurus]

Yeah I know what they do, I just don't care to read them or get fussy over it, there are enough music snobs on what to tell me in the comments if the rip is ok. Yeah I have multiple accounts. Get over it, I'm a pirate and not a nice one. Argh.

[MjWoNeR]

Thanks for all the answers thoughtful or not. These kind of subjects are very popular around here which is kind of nice for me since I get more information.

But yeah I never read anything before I take the interview the first time a month ago, I read for a short 2 minutes from the links they provided the first time I failed. and that is why I am not surprised I failed twice. But that is not the point anyway.

I will keep trying, one more time, 2 tops and I will eventually go in and after 2 weeks I will forget everything that was in the interview but I will be a good leecher with short term knowledge since I have no plans to become a music uploader as well.
And I highly doubt the interview will help me keep a good ratio on the tracker and be a good member. I am sure not even half of the members there remember what the interview was about.

[colbert]

In the Invites Database forum on the site, (visible to Elite and up) people have posted a lot of the interview questions used. Honestly I would have failed a couple. I had to look up what a ALAC was. Some of the questions strike me as being written by music snobs, but their intent is still correct. They want good users who know how to and will be successful using the site. Good luck and keep studying! :)

[ben99]

In the Invites Database forum on the site, (visible to Elite and up) people have posted a lot of the interview questions used. Honestly I would have failed a couple. I had to look up what a ALAC was. Some of the questions strike me as being written by music snobs, but their intent is still correct. They want good users who know how to and will be successful using the site. Good luck and keep studying! :)

ALAC = Apple Lossless

Hmm, maybe I know too much about music encoding...:01:

[Raban]

what.cd has a lot more features and is much better

[IdolEyes787]

I know shit about transcoding but have a couple of nice what/waffles accounts and a huge music library leeched now. Those interviews sound ridiculous, who cares if you don't know about that. Just get an invite from someone.

the interview makes sure that the people that get in aren't totally clueless about music and the guidelines/rules for the site. If you can't be bothered to learn them, you don't deserve and shouldn't be in either waffles or what.

I don't have any time for assholes like leechasaurus but I had to laugh when you equated knowing about ALAC or such as being the same as knowing about music.
Not saying that to offend you ben99 it just seems like an odd notion.

Maybe music is different but I think I know a lot more about movies than most people and I barely know(or care about) the difference between a telecine and a telesyc .

[ben99]

the interview makes sure that the people that get in aren't totally clueless about music and the guidelines/rules for the site. If you can't be bothered to learn them, you don't deserve and shouldn't be in either waffles or what.

I don't have any time for assholes like leechasaurus but I had to laugh when you equated knowing about ALAC or such as being the same as knowing about music.
Not saying that to offend you ben99 it just seems like an odd notion.

Maybe music is different but I think I know a lot more about movies than most people and I barely know(or care about) the difference between a telecine and a telesyc .

to me it is, alac is a music format. I guess I'm a quality whore, alac you are right is pretty obscure but is useful if you want your lossless to be compatible with ipods and itunes.

as for telecine and telesync, theres a big difference between the two in the terms of quality. Telesync is basically a good cam while a telecine is very good quality, basically the same thing as a r5. I wouldn't equate knowing about telesync and telecines as knowing about movies but more about knowing your warez and quality of it.

Back to your original point, I think that I am indeed wrong to a certain point. Knowing about ALAC and transcodes does equate to knowing about music in the sense of knowing the quality of those music files. I mean I take pride in buying and downloading quality stuff, thats why I probably know so much about all these different formats. I don't think many people have two 300$+ (hd650, pxc 350) sets of headphones with a headphone amp like i do ;)

Anyways it's still good for people to educate themselves in this before joining a dedicated music tracker like what and waffles who pride themselves on providing high quality rips of music.

[1000possibleclaws]

you probably don't need the high quality mp3s at what.cd if you failed the interview TWICE.
try using soulseek instead.

This is a good point. If you're deadset on getting music via torrents, have you tried using Demonoid for music? It's also a pretty good site if you're not bothered by all the music tech stuff you skimmed through before your interview. Hell it's a decent site even if you are an audiophile.

[Brandon]

In regards to whatcd and waffles.. I can tell you one thing for sure, whatcd has a great staff administration behind it. whatman is a great guy and someone I personally think very highly of. I can't say as much for waffles. At least whatcd doesn't disable you when the online bf of a staff member requests so, like waffles does ;)

whatcd just seems more professional I guess. But as always, take what i say with a grain of salt. Just my opinion, and my opinion alone.

[Funkin']

Hell it's a decent site even if you are an audiophile.

Hell yeah it is.

[b1oodyh3ll]

What.cd



Maximum Users: 100,000
Enabled Users: 72,493
Online Users: 1,547
Users active today: 23,057
Users active this week: 50,677
Users active this month: 67,002
Torrents: 329,722
Albums: 199,754
Artists: 93,545
Requests: 23,437 (57.10% filled)
Snatches: 10,057,555
Peers: 1,776,870
Seeders: 1,733,862
Leechers: 43,008
Seeder/Leecher Ratio: 40.31

Waffles
Registered users 34,766
Total Torrents214,510
Recently Seeded
Torrents199,334
Seeders804,610
Leechers16,929

[MjWoNeR]

What.cd



Maximum Users: 100,000
Enabled Users: 72,493
Online Users: 1,547
Users active today: 23,057
Users active this week: 50,677
Users active this month: 67,002
Torrents: 329,722
Albums: 199,754
Artists: 93,545
Requests: 23,437 (57.10% filled)
Snatches: 10,057,555
Peers: 1,776,870
Seeders: 1,733,862
Leechers: 43,008
Seeder/Leecher Ratio: 40.31

Waffles
Registered users 34,766
Total Torrents214,510
Recently Seeded
Torrents199,334
Seeders804,610
Leechers16,929
Thanks a lot for the stats!

It looks that What is the place to be. So I'll keep trying and will eventually learn enough to pass the interview without bothering reading anything :p

[tX]

without bothering reading anything :p

http://www.latinoreview.com/images/user/picard-facepalm.jpg

[Sanka113]

What.cd has entry test now eh? I'll make sure to tell my friends to consult the google before registering.

[piratebot]

obviously, you're an idiot. just read and understand what you have to, and take the interview. what's the point of failing multiple times?

[MjWoNeR]

obviously, you're an idiot. just read and understand what you have to, and take the interview. what's the point of failing multiple times?
http://pics.bikerag.com/Uploads/data/500/258Troll_spray.jpg

[IdolEyes787]

without bothering reading anything :p

http://www.latinoreview.com/images/user/picard-facepalm.jpg

Laugh if you will it got me through Med school.

[Gekko]

Hell it's a decent site even if you are an audiophile.

Hell yeah it is.

stop swearing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:cry:

[Hologram]

I failed god damn 3 times over there. Forth time while I was waiting for an interview
I was chatting with some guys there, and I said that I've got waffles account, Within 5 seconds, one guy from the staff pmed me and wanted some screenshots of my account there, so I did, and he sent me invite immediately after that. No waiting in a row and no hussle.

[Funkin']

Hell yeah it is.

stop swearing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:cry:

Fuck! I didn't even realize that I was. My bad...

[PoorFook]

MjWoNeR:
Just study up on transcoding lossless and lossy and frequencies, it's rather easy.

If you can't answer them then the What staffs believe your not fit for the music community and you should start from STmusic.

I personally have been invited by a VIP on What and I do know about transcoding and figuring out whether if the lossy format has been transcoded or not by spectral analysing.