
You can now download free music for your iPod, iPad, and iTouch, using not just iTunes, but other portals that offer you this very service. Let’s take a look at how to download free music for iPod.
Sleek and slim with a beautiful gleaming appearance in a variety of colors, the Apple iPod is a music player like no other. From the tiny, squarish iPod Shuffle to the rectangular iPod Classic, to the latest and niftiest iPod Touch, there is a snazzy iPod option for every music lover. The sound quality of the stored tracks is superb and unparalleled, where its portability is what wins hearts over, second to being such a reliable gadget. With its convenient size, light frame and easy-to-access controls, listening to music on the move has never been easier.
One aspect of music players is the process of storing music on them. Conventional mp3 players are easy to plug in and out of computers, after transferring or deleting music files. But iPods require iTunes to perform this function. The iPod uses this Apple proprietary software to manage file transfers and syncing. You cannot just connect your iPod to your computer and copy-paste files onto it, without going via iTunes.
Downloading Music on Your iPod
The iTunes software is not only a file management interface for your iPod, it is also an online digital music store, where you can search and download practically any sort of track. Unlike some MP3 sites, which feature certain musical genres or only popular tracks, the iTunes Store houses umpteen artists and albums, from movie OSTs and classical music, to progressive rock and dance tracks.
To download these tracks, you need to connect your iPod to a computer and then hook it up to the iTunes Store, search for the song you want to download, and presto! You’re done. But you have to pay a certain amount for each song downloaded. Now, the amount is reasonable but if you are a music buff, downloading a lot of songs can get costly. Is there a way to download free music onto your iPod? The answer is yes.
How to Download Free Music for iPod
So to avoid paying for a music download every time from iTunes, here are some direct and indirect ways in which you can get music for free on your iPod.
Free Stuff:
Similar to sales or bargains in retail shops, the iTunes Store offers a weekly promotion, where two or three songs can be downloaded for free. Some music artists allow certain songs from their discography, to be downloaded for free. The Discovery Download promotion allows you to download free songs from genres, you wouldn’t normally listen to, but you could broaden your musical horizons, perhaps. Take advantage of such offers and look for featured music to download it for free from the iTunes Store.
Use P2P Networks:
Peer to Peer (P2P) networks allow web users to share content with one another, using a file-transfer software. Instead of accessing a store or brand, you are connecting to someone directly and receiving the file from the user. Movies, music, videos, games, software… you name it, there is an unlimited and ever-growing supply of content on such sites. Of course, with such freedom comes a downside. P2P downloading is regarded as illegal, since it encourages privacy and violates digital rights. Also on such sites, along with your downloaded file, you can also be a victim of malware, Trojan worms, viruses and spyware, i.e. all sorts of nasty digital stuff. If you want to use such sites, be sure you have a trusty virus protection software installed.
Visit Music Downloading Sites:
If downloading music illegally from a suspicious site is not your cup of tea, how about doing it legally from a legitimate site? There is a catch, however. Such sites will not ask you to pay per downloaded song but instead require a one time membership or login fee to register with the site. Once you pay this fee, you’re likely to be a member for a long time to come. Which means you can download their musical content for free, anytime, anywhere, and legally. Two such sites are MP3downloadnet and HotMP3download.
These sites are top-notch and the best rated sites globally, for downloading music legally, for your iPod. A legal P2P site for downloading music with a fee, is iMesh. For those of you who support the opposite, ThePirateBay needs no mention, when it comes to their exhaustive spread of free music online.
Rip CDs:
Before the digital age, when everything was available online or from the cloud networking, people used light-reflective circular discs (called compact discs) to store and play songs from. Borrow CDs from friends, family, neighbors, anyone who can borrow things from and import the music tracks from the CD to your iTunes library. Then sync them to your iPod.
Other sites which feature free music downloads but with limited genres or artists are:
- Macidol
- Epitonic
- 3Hive
- MP34U
- PureVolume
- Garageband
To avoid the hassle and to broaden your reach when it comes to free music, download a P2P client like BitComet, which can download torrent files for you. Websites that you can rely on for a host of not just music, but movies, videos and the like, are Extratorrent, Torrentz, Bittorrent, and Isohunt, to name a few. That sums up the limited ways to get free music for your iPod. If you are downloading from P2P sites, be careful with viruses and malware, by arming your computer with an antivirus.