Sharing Enormous Files

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:10 pm

Wondering if someone (possibly the boys from Gert) can explain how they go about sharing massive project files w/ one another in order to add tracks to each other's mixes. Do you use some sort of p2p software or FTP or what?

Tonamel · Post by **Tonamel** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:44 pm

You could use a file-sending service like Dropload or zShare.

You could use a p2p program like Soulseek, that allows you to connect to specific users.

You could have the files sent via email to the gigantic inboxes that you can get from GMail or Yahoo.

Really, there's a lot of options.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Tue May 02, 2006 8:08 pm

Tonamel wrote:You could use a file-sending service like Dropload or zShare.

You could use a p2p program like Soulseek, that allows you to connect to specific users.

You could have the files sent via email to the gigantic inboxes that you can get from GMail or Yahoo.

Really, there's a lot of options.

Will Gmail handle a 2 or 300 meg email? I've never tried anything bigger than 10 or so.

Tonamel · Post by **Tonamel** » Tue May 02, 2006 8:20 pm

Gmail can only send up to 10 megs, but I don't think it has a limit to how much it can recieve.

[edit]"With Gmail, you can send and receive messages up to 10 megabytes (MB) in size."

Bah. I don't think it was like that before.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Tue May 02, 2006 8:22 pm

Haha, well that is a pretty serious drawback to that option I'd say then, eh? So p2p or one of those file sharing servers will probably be my best option, yes?

Tonamel · Post by **Tonamel** » Tue May 02, 2006 8:27 pm

Well, you could use the gmail drive, which will break up the files, and put them in gmail. You could create a new account, and share the login/password, then you should both be able to access the files.

Or, in a more direct (and probably more secure) manner, you could use Hamachi to create a virtual LAN, and share files that way.

catch · Post by **catch** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:54 pm

Getting a cheap site and FTPing the files should work well. It wouldn't be too bad of a hit on bandwidth if only a few people had access to it.

You could probably swing FTPing on someone else's site, too, if you asked nicely enough.

blue · Post by **blue** » Wed May 03, 2006 12:16 am

i made a hamachi network. PM me for loginz and let's see if it sucks or not.

Sober · Post by **Sober** » Thu May 04, 2006 10:33 pm

DCC on IRC, or even transfer over AIM.

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Thu May 04, 2006 10:40 pm

ftp is Gert's method of delivery of choice. uploading sucks, but downloading is awesome fast. great for storing and sharing big files. near as I can tell, uploading sucks no matter what way you try to share.

Plat · Post by **Plat** » Thu May 04, 2006 11:12 pm

I've had my best luck with FTP, but I haven't tried a lot of things.

Usually I compress the file with FLAC though, which can throw my collaborator(s) for a loop at first. It's a nice way to reduce a WAV's file size by 50% or more though. Especially if it has lots of silence.

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blue · Post by **blue** » Fri May 05, 2006 12:37 am

well hamachi is a pile of shit. we have tried it with a couple of different people and it has utterly failed to move files at all times.

i guess it is good for LAN games.

i will file this report to the CTO's office.

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:39 am

Somehow I missed the last several posts here and am just now seeing them. I actually do already have hosting (I have a re-seller package) so it's not so much a space issue as it is a matter of how to I upload a several hundred MB file to FTP without timing out?

I had also considered using AIM or some other instant messenger to directly send the files. Will these services time out after a certain amount of time? To me it seems that some sort of direct link whether thru a p2p or instant messenger would be ideal simply because it eliminates an extra, unnecessary step. Has anyone else tried Soulseek or other p2p? This seems to be the only option that no one here has discussed as yet. Any personal experience with this?

catch · Post by **catch** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:46 am

You won't time out sending through AIM, but I don't think you'll have much control over how fast/slowly it sends, either.

A way to easily FTP without timing out (and with the ability to resume upload/download, should you need it) is by using an FTP client like <a href="http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/">FileZilla.</a>

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Fri May 05, 2006 10:05 am

catch wrote:A way to easily FTP without timing out (and with the ability to resume upload/download, should you need it) is by using an FTP client like <a href="http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/">FileZilla.</a>

Yeah, that kind of app picks up where it left off if a timeout or other interuption occurs.

I love Dreamhost.

I've used Dropload a number of times to good effect.

Also, think about how you do this. If one person is going to do the mixing, then send a master MP3 for reference, have folks record to WAV and return just their WAVs. Then remix with the new tracks and send a new MP3 out. Generally you never have to send a complete project with all the source WAVs. Individual tracks are then < 50MB or so. When we were editing the Boston and Austin live shows, there were 200MB files flowing but only one way (to the person chopping them up into single songs).

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Fri May 05, 2006 12:19 pm

roymond wrote:If one person is going to do the mixing, then send a master MP3 for reference, have folks record to WAV and return just their WAVs. Then remix with the new tracks and send a new MP3 out. Generally you never have to send a complete project with all the source WAVs. Individual tracks are then < 50MB or so.

That seems really obvious now, lol. Don't know why I wasn't thinking that.

blue · Post by **blue** » Fri May 05, 2006 4:45 pm

for 99% of all songfight stuff, mp3s work fine for individual tracks. there is also FLAC and rar'd wavs.

tonetripper · Post by **tonetripper** » Tue May 16, 2006 4:51 pm

That's all fine and dandy to share mp3s, but we of Gert have been sharing waves. Usually we winrar or zip the files and then upload to FTP and since we all work in different platforms (well three of us do) we keep them all in waves. The reason we don't do it a la mp3 style is that our hopes is to make a CD of some kind in the future so why degrade the raw files. As an engineer I can't really tell the difference between a highly encoded mp3 file and a wave, but it's more on the principle of the deal that we use waves. More so that we can keep the project files with all that we do in their purest forms and not have to do it again if we want to revisit the project and create a better mix.

We also all, atleast we all have agreed on, to record our waves at 24/441 since there have been weird errors occurring with reconfiguring the files to fit into a project that would be recorded at a different sample rate.

We achieve all this by ftp after TheHipCola bought space from a site on the net. 20 gigs if I'm not mistaken for 3.95/month. You buy it for two years and it's cheaper. Anyway this is how we've done most of our collaborations on line.

Good thread.

tonetripper · Post by **tonetripper** » Tue May 16, 2006 5:46 pm

Probably should be a thread in itself, and may well be, but I thought I'd share what THC and I have been using in terms of webspace for sharing these files.

cheap large amount of space: http://www.canaca.com

Pretty easy to use in the grand scheme of things, but not much support, although I haven't needed too much to get into it. These days you can get a decent template that will get the site started and have 20 G!! Pretty sweet deal considering. Obviously this is not the only way to go as their are free web site options on line, but they may have advertising attached so that it may be free and they may have notions of milking you for money at some point.

good domain name company: http://www.godaddy.com

I like these guys cuz of their security and since there is great support. You get spammed a bit in terms of ads for stuff and so forth, but I've added new domain names and can stealth forward which means you can have a number of sites going but your home site may never be seen in the address. We did this for the Gert site.

FTPs there are a number of places on line. I just find the free ones and use them.

Just thought I'd share some info on it.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Tue May 16, 2006 5:48 pm

tonetripper wrote:We also all, atleast we all have agreed on, to record our waves at 24/441 since there have been weird errors occurring with reconfiguring the files to fit into a project that would be recorded at a different sample rate.

Which, for the record (and because it's relevant) turned out to be my fault (and TheHipCola too, that clodhopper) because I used a softsynth as a metronome and forgot to adjust for the latency it introduced. The point is, before you go RARing big WAV files and chewing up your bandwidth, make sure you're synched with the person on the other end.

tonetripper · Post by **tonetripper** » Tue May 16, 2006 6:04 pm

Also for the record, this also occurs in the mp3 conversion if you are sharing files that have been converted to a certain sample rate then shipped into someone else's project that is recorded at a different sample rate. The same kind of timing errors occur even or especially after conversion to fit the appropriate project, so this sample rate deal becomes a bit of an issue unless you like spending time moving files over frame by frame to to meet up with the one that's in the project being shipped into.

*SO IF YOU ARE GONNA SHARE FILES TRY TO WORK AT THE SAME SAMPLE RATE.

Sorry about yelling it just took us a long time to work that one out cuz of our obvious drinking problems and our prediliction for wanting higher sample rates to work with without the controversy of whether or not there is a noticeable difference. We are working on this one.

We also work on the tunes by sharing mp3s firstly cuz of the upload, then we upload the final waves to the mixer whoever that chooses to be and then it's in their hands to put it altogether which in itself is one hell of a task.