The size of the file for the Massey concert is about 640 MB! The recording lasts for about 1 hour and 51 minutes. That is why the file is so big. The recording is already condensed for download into shn files. Once you've downloaded the file, you must convert the file to wav files. Then you can burn it to a cd like you would any other wav file. I used the program found on this site to convert my files:
http://www.etree.org/mkw.html
It's a good and simple program with no unwanted spyware or anything like that.

You are downloading this files directly from another person's PC, if they are on the snail express then that's why it takes so long to download :D

Give it time and I'm sure you'll find these on the popular share engines .

Dear friends,
i'm Max from Italy.
I have a lot of Gord shows, but not the ones of this tour.
My pc is not able to download, so i hope that someone can help me to get some of these shows......
If someone is interested in trading some of the new shows with the old shows that i have, please write me.
Don't leave me alone, i'm a poor lonely italian far from You and from Gordon....

Max

Has anyone uploaded anything into the bit-torrent thing? I guess I am not savvy enough...I wouldn't mind uploading some shows, but I don't know if I need to convert them to torrent (whatever the heck that is), wav, or what? And I don't know why they are being such big stinkers about no mp3 files; that would cut the downloading time way down. As it is, it takes more than a day to get anything...shouldn't complain though, the price was right.

Well, I'm not a very technical person; however, I would imagine that they don't allow MP3s because these folks are "purists" and most purists feel that the compression of MP3s renders the quality distasteful. Personally, I find that a high bit rate MP3 sounds just fine to my ears.

But then sorry to have to tell you Janice but your ears like mine are getting rather long-lobed
last year I was torn off a strip in an email from young UK fan Brian Walters for advocating /still using mp3s as he said they were inferior to (AppleMAC) mp4s(AAC) see my latest small talk Topic: Techie talk small/compressed audio files mp3s mp4s and AACplus at:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...145;p=1#000000
John Fowles
The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And the sound of the beans boiling through the evergreens

Sure do please a hungry man
the latter from
http://gordon-lightfoot-lyrics.wonde...rderstone.html

Yes I have uploaded torrents, you need a few tools before you can do it, you need a BT client like Bit Tornado and you need the program called MakeTorrent2. You also need Shorten for Windows.

Just google Bit Torrents and you'll get all sorts of sites with FAQ's.

Hmmm...it sounds so complicated. It really wasn't complicated at all for me. I have the program shareaza on my computer. That's all I needed. When I clicked the link on the dimeadozen web site, my shareaza program started up automatically, then a window came up and said "download now?" I pressed the button and it started downloading. I guess shareaza handles these bit torrents. Shareaza is a downloading program available on the net for free. It has no spyware either. Once I downloaded the file I used the program referred to earlier in this posting to convert my files from shn to wav. When that was done, I listened and enjoyed. Then I listened again.... and so on, and so on. It was not complex. Please consider using shareaza, you will find it easy and helpful

Jeebus...I'm downloading shows just fine, but am having trouble putting shows up there for everyone else...For starters I now have 16 wav.torrent files of the 1973 Chicago concert (Gordon Lightfoot IN Chicago, not the band Chicago). I'd like to upload the whole shooting match, but it seems to want to just grab one file at a time...how do I make one huge torrent file out of these 16 smaller torrent files? And yes, I downloaded the directory creator thing, called 'completedir', but it doesn't seem to do anything. I browse to the directory, hit create, but there's nothing there but a tiny new torrent file.
stony_baloney@yahoo.com

Seahawk -- that's what you want: one tiny torrent file. Don't make a torrent for each wav file, just make one torrent file for the whole shootin' match. Then find a tracker (I would suggest dimeadozen), and use your bittorrent program, in conjunction with the torrent you have created, to upload ('seed') the audio files. Please look up a FAQ or something to get more details.

Actually, don't do this for WAV files -- convert to SHN or FLAC first, because they have the same audio quality, but they're about half the size.

Hope this helps.

Addition to the above: I guess you have to make arrangements with the tracker FIRST, before creating the torrent. But you probably already know that.

It's not a question of "converting" your files to "torrent format." The torrent file you make contains information about the tracker being used, and enough information about the files being shared so that each BitTorrent program can verify their authenticity. So the torrent file is like a 'key' that allows each user who has it to participate in the file sharing.

Looking forward to hearing your concert....

Right but there are two questions here
1 how do you make one large wav file from a set of individual ones and
2 after downloading a gigantic all-in-one torrent how do you then (after converting to a large wav file split it into its constituent individual tracks.
noting that some audio CD burning progs need to use only wav format sound files
Answer
try googling for "wav file splitter freeware"
and for example you can see two typical programs at:-
http://www.freewarehome.com/Home_and...Joiners_t.html
the very same google search found:-
http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/joinwav/
Another useful bit of freeware
However I must add a caution
It is of course possible that some if not most "freeware" is financed by stupid malware/spyware and other undesirables but that is a fact of netlife and you do need to invest time and energy into acquiring suitable blockers and detector program(me)s (albeit some of which are themselves freeware proving that not everybody contributing to the net/computing experience in this way is a stoopid cretin)
John Fowles
Through the woodland, through the valley
Comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing

Hi Minstral, thanks for the clues...yes, when I attempted to create the directory I had to 'announce' it with this line: http://bt.dimeadozen.org/announce.php. Here is where I am at. I have a folder on my computer called 'GL-Chicago-1973'. Inside it are 16 WAV files (I know, you said convert them to FLAC or whatever, but I am so frustrated the heck with it). I use the completedir program and browse to this folder, hit create (after putting in the announcing line above, of course). Unfortunately, 16 torrent files get created in the 'GL-Chicago-1973' folder and not just one. NOW, I go to dimedozen and upload, but when I browse out to find the torrent file to upload I have my choice of ALL 16 torrent files, instead of just one. THIS is my conundrum...

Fowles: you don't need to join your WAVs into one big file. Aaack. What a pain that would be. When you create a .torrent file, it can be created "from" a bunch of different files. For example, a folder full of WAVs or SHNs or AVIs or what-have-you.

Seahawk: hmmm... you need to end up with just one torrent file that takes care of all of your WAV (or whatever) files. I don't know about completedir, so I can't help you there. Maybe try fiddling with that program's settings, or try a different torrent-creating program (??).

Also -- you might find that dimeadozen (or other tracker/hosting sites) will reject your files if they are not in SHN or FLAC format. I don't know this for sure, but it seems that everything on that dimeadozen site (and other live/'bootleg' sites I have seen) is in one of those two formats, and they might enforce such a rule in order to cut down on the time it takes to share the files, etc.

Thanks, Minstral...I'll dig deeper on this.

Perhaps this question stirs up trouble, and I'm not asking it to point fingers at all but to decide whether or not I personally am going to go through the process of downloading these concerts - so here goes:

Are these concerts considered "legal"? Or would it be violating some copyright or something to own them? Anybody know the rules involved here?

Hi Travis,
I am not a lawyer, but here is my take on this situation : It is a grey area. In these days when an advanced mobile phone can make a decent sound recording it is perhaps not practical anymore to try and prevent people doing audience recordings of concerts they go to. In years past such recordings were sold for a profit - under the title "bootlegs". Nowadays - both on and off-line sharing of such recordings has become a tradition in the fan circles of just about any major artist. As long as they are not being sold for a profit there is no known tradition of artists trying to prevent this kind of activity. They know that it would mean lashing out at their dedicated fan base - the same guys that purchase all there official releases - and artists know that there is no advantage in this. Some artists - like eg Mark Knopfler and U2 -have stated officially that they approve of audience recordings, most just tolerate it silently, some state that they don't aprove of it, but I don't know of any law suits. I hope this was not more confusing then helpful. I suggest you do about it what you feel is right for you.

The thing is I own every lightfoot album on cd and many on vinyl. I have attended many of his concerts too including Hamilton 2004 and Massey 2005. If they released a live album, I'd be one of the first in line to purchase it. So I don't really see the harm in me having a live "bootleg" recording. I see there being much more of a problem with people downloading and copying studio recordings. This definately could harm the artist and cd company because some people may not then buy the original cd. Just a thought.

The official statement from MK & his manager:

The official policy of Mark and PCM is that they have no objection to fans taking photographs and making recordings of gigs on video, DAT, MD, and Walkmans providing that in doing so you do not interfere with the enjoyment of other fans. It is expressly understood that resulting photographs and/or sound recordings are purely for your personal use only, if we find anybody seeking to exploit these in any commercial sense then the privilege will be withdrawn.

Feeds to soundboards will not be provided so please don't ask.

Professional photographic and recording equipment (inc tripods) should not be taken to gigs.

However, there are a number of venues which, irrespective of the policy of the artist or artist's management, do not allow photography or recording. Such venues will not permit cameras or recording equipment to be taken into the concert hall. In these cases, Mark and PCM will respect the policy of the venues.

We recommend that you check the policy of the venue before taking cameras and recording equipment to gigs.

Paul Crockford
PCM (11/10/04)

Also from an interview with Mark from 2000

"Mark Knopfler has his own distinct opinion regarding the lawsuit intended by the music industry against Napster and the shops selling bootlegs: "I am against this lawsuit. It was said TV would be the end of cinema, it was said cassettes would kill records and CD burners would kill CDs, but that is not true. Technology will always progress. The only real danger comes from countries which practise industrial piracy. I have always encouraged recordings of my concerts. From the stage I had fun seeing all those little red lights of recorders and these microphones held by fans. That is no danger and even quite cool. Fans who buy bootlegs already own all the official albums anyway. They do us no harm and I find these raids against bootlegs shops ridiculous."

Hi there, I have mastered the art of creating torrents and I'll let you in on something. There is a converting program called DbPoweramp... www.dbpoweramp.com. Download that and you also want to download the Flac codec as well as the SHN codec.

Dbpoweramp is freeware. It integrates itself into Windows do when you right click on a track, it will say "convert to" then you make your choice. And then it does it.

I use a program called MakeTorrent2 which is also freeware. Basically you go to the folder where your SHN or FLAC files are located and you hold down the CTRL button down and select ALL of the files you have in that folder. When it asks you where you want to save the torrent file, you save it where the SHN files are.

Now when you go to Dimeadozen, upload the torrent you have just created. When that is done, you have to DOWNLOAD it back into the folder where you originally created the torrent file, it will be overwritten and then quickly checked and it will say success and then before ya know it people will be grabbing it.

Hope this helps :D

Hey guys, thanks so much for the response! I'll be heading over to my brother's house (he has high speed internet) and start the downloading process!

Check out the dimeadozen dot org site --

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-b...t=0&incldead=1

-- now there are a total of 9 concerts up there. Several are from the 70s.

I converted 4/29 to mp3s and amplified the low audio where's he's talking. If you want them, let me know. Do you have broadband?

Oh, hi everyone. I know I've not been around much, but I'm still alive and kicking. Just busy enjoying the 10 days of summer we get in somewhere in Northern Maine.

Cathy
http://www.cathycowette.com

No, they aren't legal. You should plan on wearing a stick on moustache, dark sun glasses and a trench coat for at least the next five years, especially if you show up at a concert.
I have some attire I'll sell to you, real cheap.
:D
Cathy
http://www.cathycowette.com