Wednesday, January 13, 2021

I'm back on Soulseek

As I explained previously in this blog, in mid-December 2020 I had a computer hard drive fail on me. Luckily, my music collection wasn't affected, but I had to get a new computer. As part of that, I also lost my SoulseekQT account. But in the past few days, I've managed to put all the albums I've shared here back on Soulseek. My user name is the same as before: albumsthatshouldexist. So if you have trouble with Zippyshare or just want a better and/or different way to access my music, I highly recommend doing so through Soulseek.

My computer trouble, plus the trouble PJ at his Albums I Wish Existed blog around the same time did have a silver lining. When PJ's blog was unexpectedly and suddenly taken down, he resumed it at a new URL (check my list of links for that). But he also decided to share his files through Soulseek. To help people find his files there, he renamed all of the folders he was sharing, adding "aiwe" to them (for "Albums I Wish Existed"). 

I realized this was a good idea. Since I had to reshare all my folders for Soulseek anyway, I also have added something to each folder to help people find the files. In my case, I chose "atse," which naturally is short for "Albums That Should Exist." You probably can find the files anyway, but this should make it easier. Soulseek can be a bit erratic. 

For one thing, I have to be online and with the Soulseek program open for the files to be shared. But also, sometimes if you search for a specific thing, you might or might not find it depending on the search terms you use. For example, I recently posted the album "Acoustic Demos" by Jim Croce. Maybe if you search for "acoustic demos" and "jim croce" the album will come up, but if you search for "acoustic demos" and just "croce" it won't, or vice versa. It's hard to tell, because Soulseek can be erratic, as I said. But adding in "atse" to your searches from now on should help a lot. PJ had noticed much more success with people finding the albums they're looking for since he's done that.

Oh, one final point. Make sure you're using the program "SoulseekQT" and not just "Soulseek." (I just call it "Soulseek" most of the time because it's easier.) I don't know why there are two programs with such similar names, especially since Wikipedia says they're run by the same management, but "SoulseekQT" is used by way more people and has at least five times the number of shared files, so that's what I use. 

By the way, the program is free and awesome. If you're not using it already, you really should. Here's the Wikipedia entry on it. You can find the link to download it there:

Soulseek - Wikipedia

5 comments:

  1. In the third paragraph from the end you entered "...as I said. But adding in "aiwe" to your searches from now on should help...". Didn't you mean "atse"? ... otherwise you would be searching pj's site.

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  2. I'm new to Soulseek and not 100% sure of how it works. Moaty I'm wondering if I should leave a downloaded album in its folder when I'm done downloading it. Does that make it easier for others to download (like a torrent) or does it make no difference?

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    Replies
    1. You have to select the folder or folders that you're sharing. It very well could be that the folder you're downloading into is not the same as the one(s) you're sharing. In which case there's no point in leaving that there.

      Go to "Options" then select "File Sharing." At the top you should see what folders you're sharing.

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