4 ms·

What.cd was one of the last few truly beautiful communities on the internet (that I know of). It was the best music discovery platform ever, and was what got me

What.cd was one of the last few truly beautiful communities on the internet (that I know of). It was the best music discovery platform ever, and was what got me into listening to and loving music after years of disillusionment about the state of the industry and the music I'd been previously exposed to. May it rest in peace. At least I still have my favourite hoodie [0]. OP, for what it's worth, your post just inspired me to go make a donation to the EFF. [0] https://imgur.com/a/FORtyX7 https://imgur.com/a/FORtyX7

fermentation 4y ago
I remember spending a week studying for the interview. I felt so cool afterwards, like I was part of a secret club.
- cosentiyes 4y ago
  You were.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- somedude895 4y ago
  I don't remember any interview, but I also don't remember how exactly I got in. Did they at some point switch to simple invites?
  - ywain 4y ago
    They had both, you could get invited by an existing member or you could do an interview on IRC to show you knew the basics of MP3 encoding.
    - boomskats 4y ago
      Aw, it was a little bit more to it than that. Not tons more, but I remember being quizzed on Nyquist frequencies and thinking that was pretty cool.
      - ValentineC 4y ago
        I think most of the interview content still exists in its spiritual successor here: https://interviewfor.red https://interviewfor.red
        metadat 4y ago
        But how can one get in? .. My email is in my profile :>
metadaemon 4y ago
Same with Waffles. Check out Redacted, it soaked up most of the refugees from What.
- Mouthfeel 4y ago
thegabriele 4y ago
Someone could explain me what did i miss? I started on Napster, went on with the usuals torrent portals and now a sad streaming user... What was different about this website?
- atomicnumber3 4y ago
  Heavily, even snootily curated rip files and encodings. Uncompromising quality. And the community - selective, passionate (again even snooty/elitist) and talkative. I didn't know I liked atmospheric black metal until they showed me what it's about.
  - boomskats 4y ago
    > I didn't know I liked atmospheric black metal until they showed me what it's about. This comment just sums it up for me. You said it perfectly.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  It has everything in ever format you could want. Wanted small mp3 to fit lots on your small iPod mini - no problem. Wanted the highest quality mp3 possible, got that too. Want lossless? Got that too. Nearly every bit of music added had multiple formats. It wasn’t just the big ones. A request section that was super useful - due to how hard it was to seed on music torrent sites. (For waffles and what I was the only person two people invited that didn’t get banned for having a poor ratio.) Lots of new music by new bands were uploaded by the bands so you got to find truly new music. If you were an audiophile this was a must have site. Even tho people went on and on about “e**” (that was basically the name)
  - kaszanka 4y ago
    What's "e*"?
    - that_guy_iain 4y ago
      It was a very hard to get into music torrent site. They had a rule you could only use the first letter in public. They didn’t give out invites too often so it became really hard to get. Which is why I think those who did have it raved about it so music. It focused only on lossless formats of music.
stuartd 4y ago
IMO the best site was Oink’s Pink Palace. After that got shut down, what.cd and waffles benefited hugely.
- stuartd 4y ago
  Still my MB desktop image, after all these years - https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqwHotW-IDI/RyjMm9VamYI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/5RpKx6apw9E/s400/oink_halloween.png https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqwHotW-IDI/RyjMm9VamYI/AAAAAAAAA...
- g_sch 4y ago
  Both What and Waffles were launched in the aftermath of the OPP shutdown. Oink was the only game in town when I first got into torrenting, save for a few small "scene" sites whose main claim to fame was releasing major albums a few minutes sooner than everyone else. After OPP got shut down, both What and Waffles were stood up in a matter of days.
- bartimus 4y ago
  It's strange how music databases have became less extensive moving forward into the future.
ct0 4y ago
What was a clone of oink, which was the first and blazed the trail for all to follow.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > What was a clone of oink, which was the first and blazed the trail for all to follow. I was going to post the same, it had a very healthy community that was only rivaled by some very select/invite only alt.binaries on usenet--when Demonoid was strictly invite only it carried some of the weight, but my tastes in music changed dramatically around that time and I instead started to buy vinyl (2007?) in order to support a small niche sound since the music I was into was mainly artist/producer released. It was supposed to re-lauch in '14 [0] but never did, but by then I had already a decent vinyl and mp3 collection because as I used to play around with DJing and had got to know lots of producers/artists on/offline; in short, it's a cold, hard and messy Industry but what's clear is that while producer led labels became a norm in that time and had lots of penetration, it suffered from the same issues that majors did in the end. White-label one offs and tests presses are a form of currency in dub-culture so it never went away, but it was a net loss monetarily speaking for most and really started to be seen as a business expense/marketing. Producers were almost always also DJs or MCs (some were all 3!) and had to tour and link up with major artists or sponsors like RedBull, who built an academy for producers and covered lots of expenses for them to tour on special events and nights with specific clubs. What Oink never really got right in my view because it was so early was the social aspect, a huge part of music-sharing was the commonality that we would run into those people who shared our tastes out at clubs/events. Even if it was a one off event it was still cool to put a name/face to the handle online who you share with and could relate with--that's the point of dubplates and test press. I've spent lots of time with my nose in a crate at random record shops in US/EU/UK and that feeling you get is unique and equally special as the music itself! Cypherpunks/Bitcoiners were the first to actually try to do microtxs on Soundcloud [1] in order to monetize their work in an appreciating asset: hell, I got paid by a bitcoin whale (also a music lover) to try and spear-head this initiative when I told him about what music community I was a part of and even met with a few DJs from the UK coming to the US that month. Sadly, it was way too early and most were in the middle of a tour so had to direct their attention to that and no one collected their funds, but overall seemed excited about the prospect of having a userbase serve as a patreaon of sorts on a platform they themselves could curate. 0: https://torrentfreak.com/busted-torrent-site-oink-prepares-indie-comeback-130916/ https://torrentfreak.com/busted-torrent-site-oink-prepares-i... 1: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/changetip-brings-bitcoin-tipping-soundcloud-amid-privacy-concerns-1431720775 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/changetip-brings-bitcoin...

fermentation 4y ago

I remember spending a week studying for the interview. I felt so cool afterwards, like I was part of a secret club.

cosentiyes 4y ago
You were.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
somedude895 4y ago
I don't remember any interview, but I also don't remember how exactly I got in. Did they at some point switch to simple invites?
- ywain 4y ago
  They had both, you could get invited by an existing member or you could do an interview on IRC to show you knew the basics of MP3 encoding.
  - boomskats 4y ago
    Aw, it was a little bit more to it than that. Not tons more, but I remember being quizzed on Nyquist frequencies and thinking that was pretty cool.
    - ValentineC 4y ago
      I think most of the interview content still exists in its spiritual successor here: https://interviewfor.red https://interviewfor.red
      - metadat 4y ago
        But how can one get in? .. My email is in my profile :>

metadaemon 4y ago

Same with Waffles. Check out Redacted, it soaked up most of the refugees from What.

Mouthfeel 4y ago

thegabriele 4y ago

Someone could explain me what did i miss? I started on Napster, went on with the usuals torrent portals and now a sad streaming user... What was different about this website?

atomicnumber3 4y ago
Heavily, even snootily curated rip files and encodings. Uncompromising quality. And the community - selective, passionate (again even snooty/elitist) and talkative. I didn't know I liked atmospheric black metal until they showed me what it's about.
- boomskats 4y ago
  > I didn't know I liked atmospheric black metal until they showed me what it's about. This comment just sums it up for me. You said it perfectly.
that_guy_iain 4y ago
It has everything in ever format you could want. Wanted small mp3 to fit lots on your small iPod mini - no problem. Wanted the highest quality mp3 possible, got that too. Want lossless? Got that too. Nearly every bit of music added had multiple formats. It wasn’t just the big ones. A request section that was super useful - due to how hard it was to seed on music torrent sites. (For waffles and what I was the only person two people invited that didn’t get banned for having a poor ratio.) Lots of new music by new bands were uploaded by the bands so you got to find truly new music. If you were an audiophile this was a must have site. Even tho people went on and on about “e**” (that was basically the name)
- kaszanka 4y ago
  What's "e*"?
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    It was a very hard to get into music torrent site. They had a rule you could only use the first letter in public. They didn’t give out invites too often so it became really hard to get. Which is why I think those who did have it raved about it so music. It focused only on lossless formats of music.

stuartd 4y ago

IMO the best site was Oink’s Pink Palace. After that got shut down, what.cd and waffles benefited hugely.

stuartd 4y ago
Still my MB desktop image, after all these years - https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqwHotW-IDI/RyjMm9VamYI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/5RpKx6apw9E/s400/oink_halloween.png https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zqwHotW-IDI/RyjMm9VamYI/AAAAAAAAA...
g_sch 4y ago
Both What and Waffles were launched in the aftermath of the OPP shutdown. Oink was the only game in town when I first got into torrenting, save for a few small "scene" sites whose main claim to fame was releasing major albums a few minutes sooner than everyone else. After OPP got shut down, both What and Waffles were stood up in a matter of days.
bartimus 4y ago
It's strange how music databases have became less extensive moving forward into the future.

ct0 4y ago

What was a clone of oink, which was the first and blazed the trail for all to follow.

Melting_Harps 4y ago
> What was a clone of oink, which was the first and blazed the trail for all to follow. I was going to post the same, it had a very healthy community that was only rivaled by some very select/invite only alt.binaries on usenet--when Demonoid was strictly invite only it carried some of the weight, but my tastes in music changed dramatically around that time and I instead started to buy vinyl (2007?) in order to support a small niche sound since the music I was into was mainly artist/producer released. It was supposed to re-lauch in '14 [0] but never did, but by then I had already a decent vinyl and mp3 collection because as I used to play around with DJing and had got to know lots of producers/artists on/offline; in short, it's a cold, hard and messy Industry but what's clear is that while producer led labels became a norm in that time and had lots of penetration, it suffered from the same issues that majors did in the end. White-label one offs and tests presses are a form of currency in dub-culture so it never went away, but it was a net loss monetarily speaking for most and really started to be seen as a business expense/marketing. Producers were almost always also DJs or MCs (some were all 3!) and had to tour and link up with major artists or sponsors like RedBull, who built an academy for producers and covered lots of expenses for them to tour on special events and nights with specific clubs. What Oink never really got right in my view because it was so early was the social aspect, a huge part of music-sharing was the commonality that we would run into those people who shared our tastes out at clubs/events. Even if it was a one off event it was still cool to put a name/face to the handle online who you share with and could relate with--that's the point of dubplates and test press. I've spent lots of time with my nose in a crate at random record shops in US/EU/UK and that feeling you get is unique and equally special as the music itself! Cypherpunks/Bitcoiners were the first to actually try to do microtxs on Soundcloud [1] in order to monetize their work in an appreciating asset: hell, I got paid by a bitcoin whale (also a music lover) to try and spear-head this initiative when I told him about what music community I was a part of and even met with a few DJs from the UK coming to the US that month. Sadly, it was way too early and most were in the middle of a tour so had to direct their attention to that and no one collected their funds, but overall seemed excited about the prospect of having a userbase serve as a patreaon of sorts on a platform they themselves could curate. 0: https://torrentfreak.com/busted-torrent-site-oink-prepares-indie-comeback-130916/ https://torrentfreak.com/busted-torrent-site-oink-prepares-i... 1: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/changetip-brings-bitcoin-tipping-soundcloud-amid-privacy-concerns-1431720775 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/changetip-brings-bitcoin...