Pedro's BTMusic Ban Amnesty

btmusic AMENSTY 2011

In almost 8 years we developed a sound and vibrant community. Just recently we noted 50,000 torrents online of *unique* perfect lossless album rips. We have grown strong and famous. Every single one of you can be proud of that, since we all built this place together. In this spirit we hereby declare 2 weeks time of amnesty of any banned user meeting the following conditions:

At the moment of banning your ratio was equal or higher than 0.75. You were NOT banned because of trading, being affiliated with traders or breaking our invitation policy (if you were we won't let you back in). Your disabled account is still on the system. If it isn't we will not re-invite you (unless a staff member personally remembers you). Note that disabled accounts older than around 1.5 year are no longer on the system. Your country isn't on the banned countries list (if it is, we won't let you back in). IMPORTANT 1: Don't be shy. This is your chance to come back to btmusic. There won't be another. Let's put aside any political bullshit or argument. It's time to grow up and move on! Also note that if you were banned for offensive conduct or other disagreement with the staff it might be a good idea to apologize to the staff and the community, either in our IRC or in the forum. This is not required, yet recommended. IMPORTANT 2: If you contacted us before and we refused to re-enable your account because e.g. of bad ratio, feel free ask to again. If only you meet the amnesty conditions, you will get your account back. IMPORTANT 3: Note that unbanned accounts will be closely watched, so don't even think about trading banned accounts. It will not work, especially with all your account details data already stored on the system. ATTENTION - HOW TO APPLY: If any of your friends or people you know lost their account and meet the amnesty conditions, tell him to write to btmusichelp(at)gmail.com with (1) the words "AMNESTY: <USERNAME>" in the title of the email and (2) shortly state your case in the message body. Incomplete applications will be discarded.

Thanks for the heads up, ca_aok.

Here's what I ended up sending in:

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Between the site migrating (I'm not sure how far into my inactivity it even happened), my graduation, my starting a new job, my starting a new relationship, I lost complete contact with the site (as well as touch with a lot of online friends in the process). I did try to go back here and there, but assumed the server was stunted (as it had been on a couple of occasions), as opposed to the domain migrated.

I'd love it if I were given a second chance to make things right with my account. I did have every intent of applying to be an uploader and sharing some of my unique collections, but time and worldliness got the better of me.

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And I'd like to extend an apology to you as well, for obvious reasons. I did love every minute that I spent at Pedro's (and some of the music I found there I've still found no replacement for elsewhere). It just sucks that I'll need to get back into the seedbox game for a while to keep up with my personal demand from them (which was the reason I was slow at being active there in the first place).

To be honest I hadn't even noticed, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

My account was deleted in 2006 or 2007, so, obviously, it's not in their system now. I still have hope that a kind soul will invite me to Pedro's one day...

Is Pedro's BTMusic down mainly because the link I have seems to be down...Could some kind folk PM me the URL.

Just an edit...If you want the URL try the What Trackers Offer link at the top of the page, It's In there somewhere.

Very nice incentive except I wish they would also help those which have been deleted due to inactivity. That being said staff handled at least my case very nicely when I was deleted a while back, and although it sucked to lose the 40GB buffer and starting anew, at least I was invited back. My IP was somehow ended up in a banned range on ISP level, so being "not found" I naturally expected the site to be down and ended up being deleted.

it's kinda funny that banned for fake rips are eligible for unbanning.. (and maybe for being uploaders again too, hehe)
let's welcome back geddy lee/analog kid/wateva his nick is

Since no one gave a reasonable explanation before could someone please explain to the point of downloading FLAC?
Seeing as it doesn't play on iPods which presumably is how most people are going to end up listening to the music.:unsure:

Please don't say to archive it because that basically means storing it away to rarely use it.Or storing it and then re-encoding it to a more usable form which is just silly.

Being serious.
Thanks in Adam Ants.:)

PS Someone besides Darth Rings or kukushka.Frankly they irritate the fuck out of me and if I'm going to face being condescended to I'd prefer not to begin pissed off from the get go.:)
No offense.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

Seeing as it doesn't play on iPods which presumably is how most people are going to end up listening to the music.:unsure:

Please don't say to archive it because that basically means storing it away to rarely use it.Or storing it and then re-encoding it to a more usable form which is just silly.

PS Someone besides Darth Rings or kukushka.Frankly they irritate the fuck out of me and if I'm going to face being condescended to I'd prefer not to begin pissed off from the get go.:)
No offense.

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I'd like to see an example of me being condescending when asked a question. I don't think I've ever reciprocated an earnest query with anything less than paragraphs' worth of a good answer. :mellow:

OK then answer the question.
Btw if you read my post carefully you will see I said that you were irritating as fuck not that you were necessarily condescending. The condescension part was an implication that the answer couldn't be given without some condescension on the part of the person :unsure:

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Originally Posted by Darth Rings

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Between the site migrating (I'm not sure how far into my inactivity it even happened), my graduation, my starting a new job, my starting a new relationship, I lost complete contact with the site (as well as touch with a lot of online friends in the process). I did try to go back here and there, but assumed the server was stunted (as it had been on a couple of occasions), as opposed to the domain migrated.

I'd love it if I were given a second chance to make things right with my account. I did have every intent of applying to be an uploader and sharing some of my unique collections, but time and worldliness got the better of me.

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Thx, I sent the same.

Why do I download FLAC? I can only answer that with another question: Why not? It's the same quality as the original CD it was ripped from, versus MP3's which are compressed using a lossy format which does result in some audio quality being lost. They're bigger than MP3's, but they're still relatively small given the current average size of hard drives.

I download everything in FLAC which get stored on a drive that's accessible to my media player which is hooked to my home stereo. Whether there's any difference in quality by playing a FLAC vs an MP3, I have no idea, but I don't care either. Why not use the best quality if it's easily available?

I also have a system where before moving the downloaded FLACs to the other drive, I first rename the directory so that it's consistent with all the others, then I check the ID3 tags so that the correct album/artist/etc is displayed when loaded by a media player. Then I rip it to MP3/V0 using a very simple script. The MP3's then get copied to my iPod. That way I know that each and every album on my iPod is ripped the exact same way and is of the exact same high quality.

Before adopting that system I had a large library of music, but it was of wildly varying quality and different formats, some if it was excellent, but some of it was low-bitrate crap, and all the directories were named using different conventions so finding things was sometimes difficult. Rather than taking the time to sort through that huge mess I deleted everything and started from scratch using my current system. It might seem like a hassle, and a bit unnecessary, to some, but it works for me and gives me a library of music that is very consistent.

Idoleyes, I started answering your question in one those threads you just replied and abandoned.

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Originally Posted by Night0wl

I had a lot of fun blind-testing some younger classmates with FLAC vs. 128/160/192Kbps mp3. Most of them thought FLAC sounded just wrong and picked the mp3 as sounding better every time, since they were used to radio and low quality mp3 from napster, limewire etc instead of actual CDs.

So unless Olegl is someone, who never enjoyed proper CD quality and listens through some 1.5" desktop Logitek speakers, you really can't say he wants to be a member there, because that's where the cool kids are.

I would rather ask idol if he has ruined his ears, because he seems like someone old enough to have enjoyed real CDs

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You should really be smart enough to fill in the gaps.

BTW since you seem to hate trance so much, I can send you a mix that will change your mind as well. Nothing new, it's a TT exclusive mix from way back in 2007, mixed by dfx. Unfortunately it's only in 192Kbps mp3, so right down your alley.

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Originally Posted by Night0wl

Idoleyes, I started answering your question in one those threads you just replied and abandoned.

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Originally Posted by Night0wl

I had a lot of fun blind-testing some younger classmates with FLAC vs. 128/160/192Kbps mp3. Most of them thought FLAC sounded just wrong and picked the mp3 as sounding better every time, since they were used to radio and low quality mp3 from napster, limewire etc instead of actual CDs.

So unless Olegl is someone, who never enjoyed proper CD quality and listens through some 1.5" desktop Logitek speakers, you really can't say he wants to be a member there, because that's where the cool kids are.

I would rather ask idol if he has ruined his ears, because he seems like someone old enough to have enjoyed real CDs

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You should really be smart enough to fill in the gaps.

BTW since you seem to hate trance so much, I can send you a mix that will change your mind as well. Nothing new, it's a TT exclusive mix from way back in 2007, mixed by dfx. Unfortunately it's only in 192Kbps mp3, so right down your alley.

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I don't hate anything except tyrants, terrorists ,pedophiles,irredeemable criminals and people who abuse animals.Therefore if you weren't being facetious and you'd be willing to upload it to someplace that I could download it from I'd be more than happy to listen to it.:)
As for the bitrate,call me crazy but raised on AM radio as I was and totally devoid of any pretension ,anything above the quality of shite is perfectly OK with me.I will admit though that sometimes hearing a song on the radio(and I have a very good radio) and hearing it in better quality can be like listening to two entirely different songs.:mellow:

Btw I don't "abandon" threads ,it's sometimes the case that they take an unexpected turn and more or less abandon me. :mellow:

And no I'm clearly not smart enough to fill in gaps as should be apparent by my continuing involvement with filesharing in general and this site in particular.I do not know enough though to know enough to question things that don't seem on the surface to make a lot of sense.

Also thank you for a decent reply P2PDog.I always thought you had a good head on your shoulders and aren't swayed by trendiness so in your particular case I accept your reasons.I do however still believe ,bt being filled as it is with teens, the overwhelming reason for the insistence on FLAC is an attempt to try to be cool by association.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

I don't hate anything except tyrants, terrorists ,pedophiles,irredeemable criminals and people who abuse animals.Therefore if you weren't being facetious and you'd be willing to upload it to someplace that I could download it from I'd be more than happy to listen to it.:)

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I was being serious and will sendspace it or something once I'm done with uploading to my favorite site. It's birthday free leech, so good time to seed and seed some more. Will most likely continue for around a week or two.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

As for the bitrate,call me crazy but raised on AM radio as I was and totally devoid of any pretension ,anything above the quality of shite is perfectly OK with me.I will admit though that sometimes hearing a song on the radio(and I have a very good radio) and hearing it in better quality can be like listening to two entirely different songs.:mellow:

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This is exactly what I was getting at. I grew up listening to Vinyl and CDs on a decent system, so when napster came along (I never used it, but got songs transferred over from friends) I was almost never happy with the quality and bought everything I really liked and could afford on CD. Most music will sound fine on V0 or 320Kbps mp3, but if I haven't heard the perfect rip, then I can't be sure that the song in question doesn't sound better or different (as the artist intended it to sound) unless I get the FLAC or buy the CD. There doesn't even have to be any noticeable difference between proper FLAC and a properly ripped and encoded high bitrate mp3, but the mp3 you download is poorly encoded, while the FLAC is perfectly done. There simply is much better quality control with FLAC.

This is just even more apparent with radio than it is with high bitrate mp3, since radio is quite low bitrate.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

Also thank you for a decent reply P2PDog.I always thought you had a good head on your shoulders and aren't swayed by trendiness so in your particular case I accept your reasons.I do however still believe ,bt being filled as it is with teens, the overwhelming reason for the insistence on FLAC is an attempt to try to be cool by association.

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I think that would explain the reason for the FLAC only, super exclusive trackers, and their popularity when much more accessible sites have more than ten times the amount of content. I think I do understand your point, and If not for the trendiness and exclusiveness, and the idiocy that pervades BT, those sites would have ceased to exist a long time ago, and the FLAC format would probably not be anywhere near as popular amongst the BT crowed as it is now.

The whole FLAC vs MP3 thing isn't really relevant to the thread, for the record though I don't really associate the desire for FLAC or HD content as a byproduct of being an immature torrenting teenager. My dad's a bit of an audiophile and has his entire collection as lossless music (though he also doesn't usually pirate). Sometimes if I'm listening to MP3s he'll joke about whether I like listening to the holes in between the notes. He's also pretty big into HD, with the whole home theatre system, etc. Some people are just more concerned with quality than others.

That being said, I'd rather have an album at 128kbps than not have it at all.

I don't think there's any question that FLAC is a superior format, and would be the choice of anyone who listens to music on something other than an iPod. What I was referring to, and I think what Idol's main beef with the format is, is that in about 99% of the cases where it gets mentioned on any BT related site, the one professing his love for FLAC is also in dire need of an invite to either Pedro's or Exigo. In about 99% of those cases the requester is much more concerned with the exclusiveness of the sites he seeks rather than the superiority of the file format.

Bingo.

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Originally Posted by ca_aok

The whole FLAC vs MP3 thing isn't really relevant to the thread, for the record though I don't really associate the desire for FLAC or HD content as a byproduct of being an immature torrenting teenager. My dad's a bit of an audiophile and has his entire collection as lossless music (though he also doesn't usually pirate). Sometimes if I'm listening to MP3s he'll joke about whether I like listening to the holes in between the notes. He's also pretty big into HD, with the whole home theatre system, etc. Some people are just more concerned with quality than others.

That being said, I'd rather have an album at 128kbps than not have it at all.

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I seem to miss the point of things I guess because I don't really care if it's relevant to the thread or not as it's relevant to me.I had a legitimate question and a viable forum to ask it in .So sue me.
As for "being concerned about quality" I hope that was a joke or can you list his entire film/music library so I can see if by "quality" you merely meant accuracy of reproduction.:ermm:

Btw of course all things being equal ( which they invariably aren't) of course I'd prefer my movies to be crystal clear and my music to be spot on accurate.All that ever bothers in is when ,and it happens all the time in btland ,someone says that it's FLAC/HD or nothing.
All I have to say to that is grow the fuck up and do you only go outside when it's 25C and sunny because anything other than that is a waste of your time?

OFFTOPIC
Idol ignoring me :cry:
he don't want to talk with me :(

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

I seem to miss the point of things I guess because I don't really care if it's relevant to the thread or not as it's relevant to me.I had a legitimate question and a viable forum to ask it in .So sue me.
As for "being concerned about quality" I hope that was a joke or can you list his entire film/music library so I can see if by "quality" you merely meant accuracy of reproduction.:ermm:

Btw of course all things being equal ( which they invariably aren't) of course I'd prefer my movies to be crystal clear and my music to be spot on accurate.All that ever bothers in is when ,and it happens all the time in btland ,someone says that it's FLAC/HD or nothing.

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You'd probably like his collection actually. It's thousands of jazz/classical CDs and LPs (even some of your beloved 78s), and his movie tastes are what I'd describe as "esoteric". He certainly enjoys classic cinema, foreign cinema, etc.

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All I have to say to that is grow the fuck up and do you only go outside when it's 25C and sunny because anything other than that is a waste of your time?

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I actually like the winter more than 25 degree heat. Hockey and skiing ftw.

They have a new url?

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Originally Posted by FACE_TO_FACE

They have a new url?

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http://xbtmusic.org/

Unfortunately, I missed the database deadline by a few months. :(
Great opportunity for those who haven't been purged yet. Fantastic site for audio afficinados.

As a sound engineer, I can testify there is a considerable difference when listening to lossless format. Imagine watching a low bitrate xvid on your 55" Samsung versus a nice 1080 bluray rip. Sure, you can still watch the video, but you see the difference in quality.

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Originally Posted by psxcite

. Imagine watching a low bitrate xvid on your 55" Samsung versus a nice 1080 bluray rip.

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I dunno maybe it's just me being old and all but I'm surprised that you managed to say that with a straight face.

You know when I used to cycle I was one of these people who was always looking for a competitive edge by gram shaving and though yes there was technically an infinitesimal difference in performance in the end the only true ,measurable benefit was all in my head.
If you step away from your measuring devices and unless you are a dog I would suggest the same being true here.

If you can't tell the difference between a scene XviD and 1080p you need your eyes checked. You might not care, but you should easily be able to tell. It's not like FLAC where the difference is pretty much imperceptible. :P

I might as well write gibberish.Where did I put/imply/make that statement?:mellow:

Maybe you missed my point. Yea, you aren't going to notice it if you are using an iPod. But that's probably why you can't play flac on one. But it doesn't take "dog ears" to notice the difference on a decent system.

People who use a 20" LCD probably don't understand why anyone would waste all the bandwidth on full 1080p rips when 720 looks just as good to them.

Trust me, there is a considerable difference. If a band sends me an mp3 of their work to master in Pro Tools, that's my first indication they are clueless.

I agree that there is definitely a difference in quality between a 1080p and an Xvid encode, just as there's a quality difference between FLAC and MP3. The differences aren't huge and they can usually only be noticed if you're using high-end gear, but they do exist. The true idiots in the equation are those who claim that their particular group's exclusive 1080p encode has any perceptible quality difference between the other dozen or so 1080p encodes, which their encoders and fans also claim are better than the others. Just as there is no perceptible difference between the FLAC you get from What.cd and the one you download from Pedros. Anyone claiming they need to join Pedros or Exigo for the quality of their FLACs is, to put it politely, blowing smoke.

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Originally Posted by psxcite

Maybe you missed my point. Yea, you aren't going to notice it if you are using an iPod. But that's probably why you can't play flac on one. But it doesn't take "dog ears" to notice the difference on a decent system.

People who use a 20" LCD probably don't understand why anyone would waste all the bandwidth on full 1080p rips when 720 looks just as good to them.

Trust me, there is a considerable difference. If a band sends me an mp3 of their work to master in Pro Tools, that's my first indication they are clueless.

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I didn't "miss your point" ,I just don't happen to agree with it.Same way I don't think using extremes to justify something is much of a defense.
"Geez my Chrysler doesn't go fast enough so I had to buy a Ferrari".:mellow:

Maybe as a sound engineer you need to differentiate but for the vast majority of people ,even those with " decent systems" they are just blowing smoke up their asses.If you can prove to me that it makes an iota of difference to anyone's enjoyment of a song whether some background timbre is clear or not please go right ahead.Otherwise I suggest looking up the word status in the dictionary.

Btw I'm not saying that someone isn't entitled ,within reason, to desire the best.I just think that they should also be willing to own up as to why it's so important.
Anyway the music industry operates as much on pretension as it does talent so I guess I shouldn't be shocked.

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Originally Posted by psxcite

If a band sends me an mp3 of their work to master in Pro Tools, that's my first indication they are clueless.

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I would have thought that the first consideration would be if they were any good or not?:unsure:

It can be subjective and difficult to qualify to most people. Using the same video analogy, some would same letterbox isn't that big of a difference versus say 4:3/pan-and-scan. You still get most of the picture, but you know that in some scenes you may lose some important visuals. And if it's a good movie pan-and-scan won't exactly ruin it. Same with audio. Did you really need to hear that hi-hat to enjoy the song? Maybe not. But you will hear a considerable difference when using your iPod with headphones versus playing the same song in lossless format through your Driverack and a JBL line array.

Crank up a mp3 in your car stereo vs. the original CD. Watch how quickly the sound distorts. You will hear a big difference immediately in the low end. As to if they are good or not, well I can tell you a good mix can make or break a song. How many times have you seen a movie with decent actors and a great plot, but the director or the editing ruined the film?

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Originally Posted by psxcite

Undecipherable techno-babble

How many times have you seen a movie with decent actors and a great plot, but the director or the editing ruined the film?

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Give or take around about exactly zero.

The script of a movie are the legs on which it stands.Without a good director it suffers but like a zombie it still manages to shuffle forward.


Albeit spastically.

Well in your analogy the good director is flaclib and the not so great one is LAME. LAME is that fucking idiot, who singlehanded took a perfectly good book and stripped some (to you very important bits) not so important stuff to lessen the budget, so he could hire the most popular actors to play the main roles.

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Originally Posted by Night0wl

Well in your analogy the good director is flaclib and the not so great one is LAME. LAME is that fucking idiot, who singlehanded took a perfectly good book and stripped some (to you very important bits) not so important stuff to lessen the budget, so he could hire the most popular actors to play the main roles.

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EXACTLY.

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Give or take around about exactly zero.

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Well, if you ask any movie critic or anyone in the film industry, they would tend to disagree. There are countless films with GREAT scripts ruined by poor editing and direction. You can play devil's advocate all day, but I'm sure I've made my point.

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Originally Posted by P2PDog

I had a large library of music, but it was of wildly varying quality and different formats, some if it was excellent, but some of it was low-bitrate crap

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This is my current system. I could fix all of it, I'm sure, if I joined a music tracker and replaced the crap... but I just don't care enough for music to do that. My hearing clarity is kind of shite too, forcing me into endless repetition of these statments: "what?", "huh?", and "sorry I didn't catch that", all the time during conversations. I never listen to music at home, and the mp3s/aacs get loaded onto a USB stick that plugs into a connection in my car. The worst sounding file I have is "Ghetto Superstar", which I don't care for all that much, but never had the desire to seek it out and delete it (the ire of Rogers & Parton notwithstanding).

So I guess I'm clearly soliciting an invite to only the best music tracker out there, with no ratio requirements, and I can hit and run and let the account remain inactive for months at a time.

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Originally Posted by psxcite

EXACTLY.

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You understood that? I thought he had just taken some bad acid or was channeling Fellini or something.:unsure:

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Originally Posted by psxcite;3623868
Give or take around about exactly zero.[/QUOTE

Well, if you ask any movie critic or anyone in the film industry, they would tend to disagree. There are countless films with GREAT scripts ruined by poor editing and direction. You can play devil's advocate all day, but I'm sure I've made my point.

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Alrighty then but I asked myself and he says that he disagrees. Oh course then again what the fuck does he know?
Oh and he also wants me to ask you to name one "great script" that was "ruined " by poor editing and/or direction and then he will gladly shut the fuck up.(Sorry for the profanity, industry people are like that).

PS undermined isn't the same as ruined and very few directors have complete control over the final cut.

Btw if it's any consolation I have seen countless movies where the best efforts of cast and crew couldn't salvage a bad script though.:mellow:

Also is Devil's Advocate synonymous with "voice of reason"?

A quick Google search will provide you with quite a few.

http://tinyurl.com/3exxra9

http://www.quora.com/What-films-with...ing-acting-etc

I tend to agree. No amount of great acting, editing or direction can fix a bad script.

From Harold Ramis, "I became a director because I was tired of seeing my scripts ruined by other directors."

But maybe I'm wrong, I'm just a sound guy.

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

Oh and he also wants me to ask you to name one "great script" that was "ruined " by poor editing and/or direction and then he will gladly shut the fuck up.(Sorry for the profanity, industry people are like that).

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That's not difficult. Name me any (good) book adapted into a movie in these past two decades, and I'll show you what you seek.

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Originally Posted by psxcite

A quick Google search will provide you with quite a few.

http://tinyurl.com/3exxra9

http://www.quora.com/What-films-with...ing-acting-etc

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I bothered to read everything on those links and except for one person ( a film editor) having a bias against a certain syle I failed to see one instance of direction or editing ruining a film.Directors and studio execs on the other hand being inclined as they are to demagoguery like to think they know better than the person who created the work how the story should go and so do painfully unnecessary rewrites.

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Originally Posted by Darth Rings

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Originally Posted by IdolEyes787

Oh and he also wants me to ask you to name one "great script" that was "ruined " by poor editing and/or direction and then he will gladly shut the fuck up.(Sorry for the profanity, industry people are like that).

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That's not difficult. Name me any (good) book adapted into a movie in these past two decades, and I'll show you what you seek.

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No that is usually the script writer's fault Einsteen.

Very true. And least we not forget the producers, who think they know it all. Everyone wants to please them since they pay the bills. Many a film project has been ruined by a producer's "input". Just hire the right people and get the hell out of the way.

There was a great montage during the Oscar's which explained the importance of good editing. They even showed two clips from a film (same scene) with different edits and how one enhanced the story while the other left you in limbo.