VM at Thetford Forest 7/9: Available for Download

Although I plan on resuming my Top 10 Van Albums tomorrow morning, I couldn't resist announcing that Van's Thetford Forest show is available for download at dimeadozen.org. Site registration is free, and there are literally hundreds of Van shows available for easy and relatively quick downloading via bit torrent.

For the link to the Thetford Forest download, click here.

Do not read further unless you are new to bit torrent downloading.


If you are new to the bit torrent circle, it is fairly easy to get started. Your first order of business will be to venture on over to dime-a-dozen and register for an account. It's free.

Next, you'll need to install the bit torrent downloader. There are several out there, but I've found that ABC Torrent is the easiest to install, and it has very nice download speeds. You can download the ABC torrent software for free by clicking here.

After installing the bit torrent software, you will need to download an audio converter software. For nearly all of the downloads at dime-a-dozen, you'll need FLAC audio converter, which you can download for free by clicking here.

Now, on to the actual downloading process.

1. The torrent file will appear at the top of the concert page at dime-a-dozen next to "Torrent File" in bold letters. For instance, if you want to download the Thetford Forest show, you'll right click, and choose "Save Target As."

2. Once you save the torrent file to your computer, you will need to open the ABC software by double-clicking it. Once it is open, you must drag the torrent file into the blank white space in the ABC window, and let go.

3. Before the torrent file appears in the ABC window, a screen will appear asking for a directory in which to save the completed file. Choose a location that is easily accessible, such as your desktop or "music" folder. Once selected, click "ok."

4. The file should begin to download. It could take as little as 10 minutes, or as long as 3+ hours, depending on the number of seeders (hosts) relative to the number of leechers (people trying to download from the hosts). Under "BT Status" it should read "working," after several seconds of initializing. The progress of the download will be displayed in the window. Do not close the ABC window while a torrent is downloading, or it will be terminated.

5. Once the "Progress" category reaches 100%, right click the torrent file in the ABC window and select "open file." You are now ready to convert the audio files to a playable format and enjoy them on your computer. After selecting "open file," a window folder should appear contained the audio files you just downloade; you are now safe to close the ABC window.

6. Open the FLAC audio decoder (which you have already installed on your computer) by double-clicking the icon for FLAC, which will be located on your desktop.



7. Return to the folder containing the concert files that you just opened via ABC. Each individual song will appear as a separate "FLAC" icon, which is a black square with a white colored "f" in the middle. Each of these files will be in ".flac" format. Highlight all of these squares (each of which, as I said, is a song within the whole concert you just downloaded), and drag them together into the FLAC software window. Drop the audio files in the white window by letting go of your mouse. Once all of the files appear in the FLAC window, click the second-to-last button on the right that says "decode."

7. A black screen will appear as the individual songs are decoded into a playable format. Leave this window alone until it reads "Press any key to continue...". This means that the decoding process is finished, and you may press any button on your keyboard to make the screen disappear.

8. Now you must relocate the folder containing the concert audio files. This is the same folder you located in step #6. You may delete the old FLAC files, as long as you see new files replacing them. There should be as many new audio files as there are FLAC files. If this is the case, you may delete the old FLAC files to clear up space on your computer (you don't have to delete the FLAC files; it is your choice).

9. Next: Simply enjoy the music! Drag the new audio files into Windows Media Player (or your preferred media player), and play them.

I hope this seminar, of sorts, was useful to you. Actually, this whole process is a lot less complicated than it seems, and by installing all of this software, you are opening yourself up to a large world of internet concert sharing. If you experience any trouble, message me at jsa92685@gmail.com, and I will respond to you as quickly as possible.