#stel: speaks

[stellophiliac]

how to build a digital music collection and stuff

spotify sucks aaaass. so start downloading shit!!

file format glossary

.wav is highest quality and biggest

.mp3 is very small, but uses lossy compression which means it's lower quality

.flac is smaller than .wav, but uses lossless compression so it's high quality

.m4a is an audio file format that apple uses. that's all i really know

downloading the music

doubledouble.top is a life saver. you can download from a variety of services including but not limited to apple music, spotify, soundcloud, tidal, deezer, etc.

i'd recommend ripping your music from tidal or apple music since they're the best quality (i think apple music gives you lossless audio anyway. .m4a can be both lossy and lossless, but from the text on doubledouble i assume they're ripping HQ files off apple music)

i also love love love cobalt.tools for ripping audio/video from youtube (they support a lot of other platforms too!)

of course, many artists have their music on bandcamp — purchase or download directly from them if you can. bandcamp offers a variety of file formats for download

file conversion

if you're downloading from apple music with doubledouble, it spits out an .m4a file.

.m4a is ok for some people but if you prefer .flac, you may wanna convert it. ffmpeg is a CLI (terminal) tool to help with media conversion

if you're on linux or macOS, you can use parameter expansion to batch convert all files in a folder. put the files in one place first, then with your terminal, cd into the directory and run:

for i in *.m4a; do ffmpeg -i "$i" "${i%.*}.flac"; done

this converts from .m4a to .flac — change the file extensions if needed.

soulseek

another way to get music is through soulseek. soulseek is a peer-to-peer file sharing network which is mainly used for music. nicotine+ is a pretty intuitive (and open-source) client if you don't like the official one.

you can probably find a better tutorial on soulseek somewhere else. just wanted to make this option known

it's bad etiquette to download from people without sharing files of your own, so make sure you've got something shared. also try to avoid queuing up more than 1-2 albums from one person in a row

tagging & organizing your music

tagging: adding metadata to a music file (eg. song name, artist name, album) that music players can recognize and display

if you've ripped music from a streaming platform, chances are it's already tagged. i've gotten files with slightly incorrect tags from doubledouble though, so if you care about that then you might wanna look into it

i use musicbrainz picard for my tagging. they've got pretty extensive documentation, which will probably be more useful than me

basically, you can look up album data from an online database into the program, and then match each track with its file. the program will tag each file correctly for you (there's also options for renaming the file according to a certain structure if you're into that!)

there's also beets, which is a CLI tool for... a lot of music collection management stuff. i haven't really used it myself, but if you feel up to it then they've got extensive documentation too. for most people, though, it's not really a necessity

how you wanna organize your music is completely up to you. my preferred filestructure is:

artist > album > track # track

using a music player

the options for this are pretty expansive. commonly used players i see include VLC, foobar2000, clementine (or a fork of it called strawberry), and cmus (for the terminal)

you can also totally use iTunes or something. i don't know what audio players other systems come with

i personally use dopamine. it's a little bit slow, but it's got a nice UI and is themeable plus has last.fm support (!!!)

don't let the github page fool you, you don't have to build from source. you can find the releases here

click the "assets" dropdown on the most recent release, and download whichever one is compatible with your OS

syncing

if you're fine with your files just being on one device (perhaps your computer, but perhaps also an USB drive or an mp3 player), you don't have to do this

you can sync with something like google drive, but i hate google more than i hate spotify

you can get a free nextcloud account from one of their providers with 2GB of free storage. you can use webDAV to access your files from an app on your phone or other device (documents by readdle has webDAV support, which is what i use)

disroot and blahaj.land are a couple providers i know that offer other services as well as nextcloud (so you get more with your account), but accounts are manually approved. do give them a look though!!

if you're tech-savvy and have an unused machine lying around, look into self-hosting your own nextcloud, or better yet, your own media server. i've heard that navidrome is a pretty good audio server. i unfortunately don't have experience with self-hosting at the moment so i have like zero advice to give here. yunohost seems to be a really easy way to manage a server

afterword

i don't know if any of this is helpful, but i just wanted to consolidate my personal advice in one place. fuck big tech. own your media, they could take it away from you at any moment

[burnbrighterthanever]

The really frustrating thing about left-wing antisemitism is that it's so often couched in terms of anti-racism. It's a fucking trip for me, a black jewish guy, to look at someone's political statement and go, "Okay, so you don't want me to experience ethnic violence because I'm black, but you do think it's okay for me to experience ethnic violence because I'm Jewish."

That doesn't help me feel any safer!

[stelmao]

do you see my vision

[luminous-faerie]

REAL PERSON BRIAN FISHER!!!

[pnk-motha-fuckin-blur]

weed and south park and a sammich. fuck yeah dude

[backtodecember-taylorsversion]

And then the cold came, the dark days When fear crept into my mind You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye. -Back to December, speak now[x]

[moechies]

hi my yvyvie ♡⃕

how was ur week been so far my angel face? i hope u get some well deserved rest dis weekend …! ૮꒰𓏭ɞ̴̶̷ ·̮ ɞ̴̶̷𓏭꒱ა

i was just strolling by to tell u howwww much i love ur brother shidou posts ♡ i think he’s da worst. no class no shame no restraint. always teasing &’ poking with that stupid handsome smirk … ໒꒰ྀིっ˕ -｡꒱ྀི১

do u have any other blue lock favs…? ♡ mine r nagi, aiku &’ karasu (+shidou, obviously!)

much love &’ many smooches from mi !!!!! ᡣ𐭩

hii my sweet angel stella !!! <3 ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ thank u so much for asking lovie <3 it has been such an exaustkng week omg !! yvies can’t wait to snuggle up tonight with sum fluffy blankets and some k drama :< i hope u are doing so well bby , let me know how u are ♡

and eeee !! m so glad u enjoyed it :D m so excited cus i’m working on an alternate version where shidou just has a big meanie sis but he just wants to suck on her boobies after a stressful day :( as well as pt 2 for da anal one hehehe

nd u are so right … he is such an gross unkempt man and should b locked away 4ever :( but unfortunately he is locked away in my mind nd won’t leave </3

hehe stella it’s so funny how all the characs are so contradicting in personality .. u are so true. i loveeeee shidou of course , he’s my fav !!!! and i love barou as well ;( can u tell i like big mean men >:33 i also write nagi sometimes cus i love his sweet little gamer boy demeanor .. just makes a big bad bunny wanna take advantage of him :,3

okkkiii i’ve talked enough !!! love u so much my dear mootie stella i hope you’re doing well wherever you are , whatever time it is 🌷♡

[mochiwrites]

Hello Mochicat. I noticed you are awake at very late o’clock and thought I would send you some inspiration for things you could do at this hour <3

DHFBFBFBFGR HI VOID

I uh. I have no idea what you’re talking about I’m totally asleep rn. Mhm. Yes. see? honk shoo. honk shoo. honk shoo.

[littlemoondarling]

That moment you have a nightmare so realistic that you can't tell if you're actually awake or still in another layer of it

[executiveibex]

*blocking all the PALISADE-related spoiler tags as fast as I can* guys guys guys please slow down I have less than 2 hours of The Road to PARTIZAN left please

[stellophiliac]

another pretty meaty article on mullenweg, moreso about his treatment of employees and ex-employees.

some notable quotes

Again, I’m talking about this to show a pattern of behavior. Mullenweg’s abuse of power, his need for control, his paranoia, his oversized sense of importance and victimhood – none of that is new.

Matt Mullenweg is a man in dire need of consequences. Not just on behalf of his company and employees, who, thanks to Mullenweg, have been dealt a trust and reputational blow from which I’m genuinely unsure they can recover. Not just for members of the WordPress community, many of whom have built their livelihoods around what appears to have been an empty promise told purely for Mullenweg’s enrichment. He desperately needs consequences, because I don’t think he’s capable of voluntarily course-correcting at this point.

[burnbrighterthanever]

Jewish Voice for Peace is Jewish and a voice for peace in the same way the Holy Roman Empire was holy and a Roman Empire; which is to say, not in the slightest, but if you weren't aware of the verifiable facts behind this, you'd be likely to assume the opposite.

[stelmao]

yall

[freefromlightandlaw]

🚫: is there a storyline you’ll never play?

Seeking Mr Eaten's Name. Body horror and Christianity aren't really my thing. Plus, the Disgraced Former Founder sucks at writing.

[burnbrighterthanever]

An image of an amputated hand is gore. An image of an amputated hand getting up and skittering around on its own is body horror. An image of an amputee with a hand stub is just a person.

Tag properly. Don't be a dick.

Scars? Not body horror. Limb differences? Not body horror. Facial differences? Not body horror. Feeding tubes, colostomy bags, etc? Not body horror. Movement disorders? Not body horror. Visibly disabled people just existing is not horror.

[backtodecember-taylorsversion]

I'm shivering. Goodnight moots<3