Nov222009
9 Digital Download Stores Reviewed and Rated
Producing a mix each and every month means that I am always on the lookout for fresh new tracks to play. Quite often I get asked where I get all of my music from and today I thought I would share some of my secrets. All content correct at time of writing.
DJ Download
| Site Name: | DJ Download |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.djdownload.com |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | £1.10 |
| WAVs Available? | No |
| Transaction Fee: | 30p if spending less than £3.00 |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | Loyalty scheme |
| Rating: | ***** |
Most of my music comes from DJDownload simply because they seem to always get their hands on the most upfront music several weeks before it appears anywhere else.
The prices on offer are the lowest I have ever found for niche music and the customer service is always spot on.
DJDownload also have a loyalty scheme where for every 10 (approx) tracks you buy, you will receive one free download token that you can redeem for a free track. This is very welcome and is a nice touch to reward those who keep coming back.
DJDownload were the first to pioneer the ‘needledrop’ technology in their preview player which allows you to preview an entire track prior to purchase by positioning the cursor anywhere along the waveform. There’s nothing worse than previewing a track only to have the preview stop before it gets to the good bit.
The search facility on DJDownload can be a little bit fussy. For example, a search of “Armind Van Helden” yeilds zero results. You don’t even get a “Did you mean…” option.
The homepage chart can often be a bit too electro for my own personal tastes but usually there are some real gems tucked away in the top 20. Whenever I am looking for new music to purchase I always go to DJDownload first.
Xpressbeats
| Site Name: | Xpressbeats |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.xpressbeats.com |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | £1.15 |
| WAVs Available? | No |
| Transaction Fee: | 24p if spending less than £3.00 |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | 192Kbps MP3s available for 99p. Exclusive tracks and remixes. |
| Rating: | **** |
I really like Xpressbeats. They seem to be tuned into my style of music. The stuff that charts well on their site is often a reflection of my own musical tastes. This is one of the main reasons I keep coming back to Xpressbeats.
The fairly recent revamp of the site has made it easier than ever to navigate around plus there are a good selection of genres to get your teeth stuck into.
The MP3s on Xpressbeats tend to be the most expensive out of the places I shop (pre-releases and exclusives can go up to £1.85), however I don’t mind paying a little bit more as quite often they will have tracks or remixes that you will not be able to find anywhere else and are exclusive to Xpressbeats. Plus, they are GOOD exclusives too. Look out for the little Xpressbeats sticker next to the exclusive tracks.
You can pre-order tracks prior to their official release to make sure you are right on the cutting edge of your genre’s sound.
Xpressbeats have a Virtual Wallet facility. This allows you to make one large deposit into your online account at a slight discount. The benefit of this means you don’t need to keep digging out the credit card every time you want to make a purchase as the balance is deducted from your Virtual Wallet and does save you time.
If you want your DJ sets to be different as well as cutting edge then I reccomend you shop at Xpressbeats.
TrackItDown
| Site Name: | Track It Down |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.trackitdown.net |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | £1.49 |
| WAVs Available? | Yes |
| Transaction Fee: | No. |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | Exclusive tracks and remixes. Loads of niche genres. Great preview player. |
| Rating: | ***** |
I could lose myself in this site for days! The sheer enormity of it is out of this world.
Trackitdown (TID) appear to have the largest database of tracks I have ever seen and because of this they are able to offer extremely genre-specific tracks for you to download. Whereas most MP3 download sites will break down my genre as House > Funky House, TID goes that one step further and have a massive list of sub-genres to go digging into. Niche-specific stuff such as Deep, Electro, Dirty, Hard, Wonky, Disco, Classic, Vocal, Jacking, Tribal, Fidget the list just goes on… And thats only what’s listed under House!
As well as having one of the largest libraries they also sell DJ gear, merchandise and games too.
TID have one of the best MP3 preview players and it’s easily one of my favourites by far. It keeps your last 20 played tracks on standby and also follows you up and down the screen as you scroll which is very useful. Even if you are halfway through listening to a track and jump to another page the player remembers your position in the track and resumes on the next page. Impressive stuff.
TID is reccomended if you have a very specific taste in music or if you’ve just got to have that track in uncompressed WAV format.
Beatport
| Site Name: | Beatport |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.beatport.com |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | £1.30 + VAT |
| WAVs Available? | Yes |
| Transaction Fee: | No |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | Feels very compact. Prices do not include VAT |
| Rating: | *** |
I might upset a few people here but I don’t really get on that well with Beatport. Although they are a hugely successful brand and they seem to stock a wide range of music I feel their website completely lets them down.
It’s far too hectic with so much being crammed into such a small space. Their prices do not include TAX/VAT either so there’s an implied added cost at the checkout. But when you do get to checkout purchasing tracks is a very smooth operation, you get a full on breakdown of all the costs before you pay which is really nice. If nothing else Beatport have my favourite payment screen its just a shame the rest of the experience isn’t as well laid out.
Beatport tends to lean towards the deeper, tribal and electro side of house.
Traxsource
| Site Name: | Traxsource |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.traxsource.com |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | $1.99 |
| WAVs Available? | Yes |
| Transaction Fee: | $0.27 if spending less than $10.00 |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | Promos cost $3.99. Tracks priced in $. Audio is watermarked. |
| Rating: | ** |
It’s the same kind of story as Beatport here I’m afraid. Far too much going on, I often feel I am battling against too much information in front of me rather than enjoying previewing tracks to buy.
The thing that’s kept me away from Traxsource is it doesn’t really cater for the Funky Disco House genre that I look for in my music. However for each realease they always seem to have a huge number of mixes and remixes on offer to choose from.
Everything is priced in dollars which is a downside for me in the UK at the moment as the exchange rate into GBP still is not that great right now.
The preview player opens up in its own window which can get lost if you aren’t careful - although DJDownload do this too, the Traxsource player is very tiny and doesn’t have the waveform that DJDownload does.
What IS nice about Traxsource is that each track that you purchase is embedded with audio watermarking technology. So if you go uploading your bought tracks to file sharing web sites, Traxsource will be able to trace who they sold the track to and prosecute accordingly. I feel this is a brilliant idea to stop people from stealing music.
Traxsource offer a very broad, if expensive, selection that focuses on Soulful House and US House so give them a visit if that’s your bag. But watch out for that transaction fee if spending less than $10 in one go.
Amazon MP3
| Site Name: | Amazon |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.amazon.co.uk |
| Average |
69p for up to 256Kbps MP3 |
| WAVs Available? | No |
| Transaction Fee: | No |
| Accept Paypal? | No |
| Notes: | Cheap commercial music. No 320Kbps MP3 or WAV options. |
| Rating: | ** |
Did you know that Amazon are selling MP3 downloads? You do now! And to be fair it’s not a bad service.
The two main sticking points that let it down are the fact that it’s only really suitable for mainstream music - you won’t find many extended mixes here! Then you are forced to download and use their own media manager software which is a bit intrusive. Why can’t I just click a “download” link like every other site out there? No, I’ve got to use their own shitty donalod manager system. Which blows. Hard.
However, when a track can cost as little as 29p to download it’s suprising that Amazon MP3 downloads are not a hell of a lot more popular than iTunes.
Any tracks that I have bought from Amazon MP3 I have not used in any of my DJ sets. It’s up for debate but I rarely play out any track that is not encoded at a 320Kbps rate because it will sound shockingly bad on a loud club installation sound system.
But if there’s something in the charts I like and I only want to listen to it at home then based on price and the fact that the music is DRM free, Amazon is the place to go.
Juno Download
| Site Name: | Juno download |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.junodownload.com |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | £1.49 |
| WAVs Available? | Yes |
| Transaction Fee: | 10p if spending less than £3.00 |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | Confusing navigation. Burn tracks to CD option for +£2.00 |
| Rating: | *** |
Ah, my beloved Juno. Juno is where I went to get all of my vinyl from back in the day. Juno had a top quality service back then and still does today.
Unfortunately when I stopped buying vinyl records I stopped using Juno as a service. I have made one or two purchases in the last 12 months but Juno is always last on my list when I go looking for music. The variety of music for me is not as widespread as other sites although they do often have good album deals.
Navigating the site is a bit of a chore. It feels like every time I click something a new window opens up with the information in it - which I find very disorientating. Nevertheless, the checkout is smooth and painless process.
Go to Juno if you are on the lookout for good value album downloads and you don’t mind a new window opening every time you click something.
DJTunes
| Site Name: | DJTunes |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.djtunes.com |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | £1.79 |
| WAVs Available? | No |
| Transaction Fee: | No |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | Specialises in House, Minimal, Techno, Trance. You can release your own music. |
| Rating: | **** |
DJtunes.com is a relatively newcomer to the digital download market. It’s a European focused web site with over half a million tracks in stock for download.
I have not used DJTunes heavily yet but the site is easy to use and everything is laid out extremely well.
The preview player is a slight let down as more space is given to the logo rather than the actual controls which makes previewing tracks a little bit fiddly.
A nice touch is the ability to add labels to a favourites list and with some labels you can send them a direct message straight from the web site.
Upon registration you get to download 10 free tracks, but its from a pre-determined list and in my opinion there’s nothing special there, but it is a nice touch to instantly boost your collection for free. They seem to specialise in the more techy minimal side of House so I don’t think this will be my first port of call when crate digging but I will be sure to check out this site in future.
7 Digital
| Site Name: | 7 Digital |
|---|---|
| URL: | www.7digital.com |
| Average 320Kbps MP3 cost: | 79p |
| WAVs Available? | No |
| Transaction Fee: | No |
| Accept Paypal? | Yes |
| Notes: | Option to pay via SMS. Mostly commercial releases. Cheap as chips. |
| Rating: | *** |
This MP3 download store is very simmilar to the Amazon download store in many ways. It offers cheap MP3 downloads for around 79p and is very commercially weighted. However it was nice to see tracks in this store from Strictly Rhythm, Plump DJs, Defected and Hed Kandi.
I like the fact that you can purchase tracks from this store via text message. Very handy if you do not have your card details to hand or if you don’t have access to a Paypal account.
7 digital is perfect for getting hold of that secret shame track that is in the charts and you shouldn’t like but you secretly do. You know the one. You’re humming it in your head right now, aren’t you?
Worth checking out if your taste is in ever-so-slighly more generic pop-tinged House music.
That’s It!
There you go, nine digital download stores reviewed and rated in my own very humble opinion. I’ve been as honest as I can and although there are many many more MP3 digital download stores out there these are the ones I use most often or are ones I reccommend.
If you have your own favourite digital download store that you would like to share, please let me know in the comments below.
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