Last updated April, 2008. ©sucker, 1998-99; ©FAQ-Man,2000-05. Site design © 2001-2008, mp3-faq.org Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) We suggest. You decide. MP3-FAQ.org is the FAQ site for the Usenet MP3 groups in the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 hierarchy. The FAQ represents years of the collective experience of hundreds of visitors to the MP3 groups on Usenet. The FAQ offers suggestions that other visitors to the hierarchy have found useful. The FAQ is intended to save you time and reduce your frustration. What you find here are common-sense suggestions, not the law. The Quick Reference List How to make your experience better (and everyone else's too): * Use a high quality encoder. * Use a 0-file or an .nfo file to inform other visitors. * Use meaningful subject headers that are not too long (under 80 characters). * Check your MP3s before posting them. * Test post in test groups. * Post from 472500 to 315000 bytes (7500 to 5000 lines) per segment. * Crosspost into the appropriate decade group (if you know it). * Don't post binaries in the discussion or request groups and vice versa. Enjoy the music! ===================================== General Information ===================================== This section of the FAQ answers general questions about MP3 on Usenet. What is an MP3? MP3 is another name for a layer-3 MPEG. It is a sound compression format that can create near CD-quality sound files while maintaining a small file size. For more technical information on the MP3 format look in Links. What does this FAQ answer questions about? This FAQ answers questions that get asked in the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 groups (AKA the absm.* hierarchy) on Usenet. The absm.* hierarchy has a couple of groups that are intended for the posting of text: alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.d (the discussion group) and alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.requests (the purpose of which is pretty obvious). But the rest of the groups are intended for the posting of binaries - MP3s. The "main" group is alt.binaries.sounds.mp3, and the rest of the groups are categorized by musical genre or the decade the songs were released. What about other Usenet MP3 groups? There are quite a few, but they are not well-populated or well-organized. There are a couple of important exceptions. The alt.binaries.sounds.country.mp3 is not inside the absm.* hierarchy, but it is more popular than the group that is. And for songs that were recorded before 1950 there exists a group called alt.binaries.sounds.78rpm-era. It is "for the posting of binary files from the beginning of recorded sound to the end of the age of 78 records in the late fifties." Appropriate MP3s are welcome there. Why aren't there more genre groups? There are way over 100 genre groups. Many (or most) are spam traps that were created by enthusiasts and then abandoned and forgotten. ISP servers often don't carry the full range of groups that are out there. If you get a premium news server, you probably will find almost any genre you can imagine already exists. Yes, you can always create a new one, but that is usually a waste of time and energy. The "right" way to do it is to propose the group's creation in alt.config. Many people don't bother. Ask around, and do what you feel is right. What else is good to know about absm.*? There are many software applications and utilities involved in the playing, encoding, decoding, posting, and retrieving of MP3s. This FAQ is not meant to be a primer for the use of any particular software. The exceptions are those that either relate to "frequently asked questions" in the discussion group, or other helpful tips that might not be readily found elsewhere. With all newsgroups it is a common and recommended practice to "lurk." This means that you follow the newsgroup, watching and learning, before you begin posting. Posting is not required. There is no "ratio" or required "trading" in the absm.* newsgroups. "Leeching" is completely acceptable. This FAQ is intended as general guidance for the entire hierarchy. Some newsgroups in the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 hierarchy have charters that are of particular interest for those who use those newsgroups. You may want to check them out at ftp://ftp.isc.org/usenet/control/alt/ (be patient - there are a lot of charters there, and the page takes a while to load). When in doubt, follow the guidance in the group's charter. If you are new to Usenet, or to binary newsgroups in particular, there are a number of basic FAQs that may help you: http://abmefaq.net <== a MUST read. Basics of Usenet and binary newsgroups. Take a look. Look soon. It looks like it may be shutting down. http://www.geocities.com/tick1845a/bin_help.htm The Definitive Answer to Downloading and Viewing alt.binaries <== If you have questions about how to get the MP3 files from the newsgroup down to your personal computer, look here for help. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/primer/part1/ A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/ What is Usenet?. ===================================== Requesting MP3s ===================================== I want to request an MP3. How do I make a successful MP3 request? The most obvious answer is to request it in the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.requests group and then hope that some kind soul will upload it for you. This is most likely to be successful if it is a mainstream song. A typical request might look like this: REQ: Song Title [decade and/or year] - Artist - Other Info - Thanks Start with REQ. What else you put in your subject and in what order is really up to you. Keep it concise. Put details in the body of your post. If no one responds, and especially if the song is obscure, old, or in a narrow genre, you may need to do some lurking in the appropriate decade or genre group. If you see that people are making requests there and getting responses for material similar to what you are looking for, you may want to make your request there. Some people ignore text posts in binary groups, but if you cannot get a response in absm.requests, this is your next likely approach. A caution. Post your REQ in either .requests OR the binary groups. Please do not crosspost your request. If someone responds to a crossposted REQ and attaches the MP3 you want, the poster will make a mess in the .requests text group with their binary. If you try the .requests group first, wait a while, and if no one posts in response, THEN try the binary group. Then no harm, no foul. Please DO NOT add your requests to the subject headers of binary posts. There is no requirement to trade files here, and including requests in the subject lines of posts is likely to DECREASE the chances your requests will be filled. Subject headers are most effective when kept short and concise; adding requests only confuses others as to what is being posted vs. what is being requested. It's best to post your request separately. I've come up with about 100 songs that I want. I guess I should post a separate request for each one, right? It is unlikely anyone wants to see a flood of REQs filling up the group. Put yourself in the potential poster's shoes. Try spacing them out. There's no hurry. An option is to put your request list in the body of a request message and use a good subject line. Those who dedicate themselves to filling requests may look inside and help you out. I really want my requests to be noticed so I'm going to post them five times each. People will notice me then, right? People will notice you, but that isn't always a good thing. Posting the same message multiple times could very well annoy many people who could help you. Remember, you are dealing with other people here. Possibly the biggest single reason people find their requests ignored is because others see them as being demanding, obnoxious or rude. Being polite and reasonable will get you far. Being rude, obnoxious, loud, demanding or overly persistent will more likely get you ignored. I posted my requests and nobody filled them. Why? And what can I do about it? It's possible that nobody has the songs you're requesting. It's also possible that the songs you requested was JUST posted, and people don't want to repost it right away. What can you do about it? Check to see if it is already out there waiting to be downloaded. How? Visit http://www.newzsearch.com/ or use the search feature in NewsRover (http://www.newsrover.com/) or GrabIt (http://www.shemes.com/index.php?p=features). And if you still can't find it? Wait a few days and post your requests again. Maybe the right person will see it that time. I want help identifying a song so I can post a REQ. Can I post a snippet to the discussion group or .requests? Please don't. Try posting a sample to alt.binaries.test or alt.binaries.misc. Then come to the discussion group and ask people to go listen to it and help you identify it. Make sure you identify your sample post by subject title or Message ID so folks can find it. When you get the name of the song, ask for it in the .requests group as usual. Or according to the method you find most successful. ===================================== Making MP3s ===================================== This section of the FAQ answers questions about making MP3s. Rippers Best Encoders Settings Mono Cassette Vinyl Naming ID Tags I want to give something back to this group. How do I make an MP3? First of all, don't feel obliged or obligated. If you don't know how to make MP3s or if you don't really have something new or different to post, you really have no obligation to upload. That said, making MP3s from scratch involves a couple of steps. The first is acquiring the sound file (ripping) and the second is encoding the file into MP3 format. Most good software makes this look like one step. How do I get the music onto my computer hard drive? The preferred method of making MP3s is to do it from a digital source (CD) and capture it digitally (Digital Audio Extraction: DAE). This process is also known as "ripping". All modern CDROMs support DAE. If yours does not, you need a new one. They are dirt cheap. NOTE: Unless you specifically state otherwise, those who download your MP3 will automatically assume that it was digitally extracted from a CD. If your music source is a tape or vinyl record or something OTHER than a CD, or your capture process includes the use of a sound card or other non-digital methods, you really should inform people in your Subject line, in the zero-file or in an .nfo along with your binary post. If you do not do this, people will definitely let you know that you should have. How do I determine if my drive and system support digital audio extraction (DAE)? Most CD ripping/encoding packages will tell you if you have a problem. If you are experiencing problems you might also try downloading a utility called aspichk.exe and ASPI drivers from Adaptec (http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/speed/software_pc/aspi/aspi_v470_exe.htm). This is not a big problem with modern equipment and operating systems. What do I use to rip and encode audio tracks? There are many different software choices, and each has its pros and cons as well as its fans and detractors. Current rippers of choice are EAC, CDex, dbPowerAmp, Audiograbber and some others. Regardless of the program you use, current opinion has it that LAME is the best encoder to use. It has been optimized for quality over any other considerations. Your own preference may differ, just make sure you are listening carefully and using decent equipment to play your files back before making any judgments. Many programs rip and encode in the background making it seem as if the MP3 was being encoded in one step but it is always being done as CD > wave > MP3 behind the scenes. Using EAC or CDex, for instance, it is simple to select "Extract to compressed file" and have it all done at one time. Some folks prefer to extract the wave files and then use a front end (such as RazorLame) or a command line encoder to turn all those wave files into high quality MP3s at a time when they are not using the computer for anything else. But most of the rest of the world is in more of a hurry. Find links to download these and other rippers/encoders in the Utilities section. I've ripped the audio track but the sound file is messed up. It seems jittery and has pops or skips. Why? It could be a number of things. Check your CD. You need a good clean source to start with. If the CD is in good shape, it may be jitter or it may be caused by trying to rip faster than your system is really be capable of, or it may be a software incompatibility. Try slowing the process down if you can. Try a different piece of software if you continue to have problems. Read the Help file and see if your software specifically addresses things like jitter and offset (EAC, for instance, does). Spending some time reading the help file can solve a world of difficulties. Avoid disk-intensive operations while ripping in the background If you aren't getting good wav rips though, you will never get good MP3s out of them. Keep trying until you find the problem and resolve it. Some good helpful information and detailed explanations are found in the sample chapters of The MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook found here: http://www.mp3handbook.com/. I like more bass. Should I adjust the equalization (EQ) while making an MP3 to upload? Please don't. People generally want to hear an MP3 that is as faithful to the original CD as possible. Even though you may feel that something helpful (like normalizing the songs) will make them better, that decision should be left to the final recipient. If they want to tweak their MP3s, they can do it themselves. If you have tweaked or adjusted the song before you encoded it, please make that information known when you post it. And if you are not going to upload it, do whatever you want! I've heard that not all encoders/codecs give equal quality results. Which encoder/codec is best? While there is no way to arrive at an absolute answer to "which is the best" the contributors the absm.* groups at this time mostly use LAME. In the end, all you can do is either trust your ears or go along with the consensus. Use your ears and do some testing. A good set of headphones can give you information that a set of computer speakers won't. And if you don't have the time for that, then ask around in absm.d and see what the current consensus appears to be, but always listen to your MP3s before uploading them. I don't have a lot of time or patience for testing, which codec do you recommend? LAME. What settings do I use? Use the lowest bitrate that gives you a faithful reproduction of the original. That saves news server space, as well as upload and download time. Constant Bitrate (CBR) and Variable Bitrate (VBR) are a matter of taste, but you can find lively discussions favoring one over the other. The use of the presets such as preset-standard or preset-extreme will give you excellent quality files with no need to worry any further about parameters. The presets have been tuned at a code level in LAME and will arguably produce results far better than many (or most) of the different parameter combinations you run across. Like anything else, though, nobody but your own ears and your own taste can tell you what is best for you. One note: If you really think the highest bitrates (224 or 320Kbps or preset-insane) sound that much better and are worth the extra file size then perhaps you should consider checking into lossless encoding where the resulting files (.ape, .shn, .wvc, .flac and others) are larger than MP3s but there is no loss in quality from the source file. These files are shared in the alt.binaries.lossless groups, not in the absm.* groups. Should mono material get encoded at the same bitrate as stereo material? No. Mono originals only require half the bitrate of a stereo recording to get the same quality. If you encode your Stereo MP3s at 192kbps, then the comparable mono file would only need 96kbps. If the original recording was in mono, there is no reason to use stereo encoding which will only produce two identical channels using twice the space. For material with little high frequency content and waves with a 22050 sample rate, 64k is recommended. Some spoken word material with no special background effects can be recorded at a low bitrate without suffering loss of quality. Experiment with Joint Stereo, Mono, and VBR to get a good encode with a small resulting file size. A useful rule of thumb: do not waste server space or force long download times by recording at too high a bitrate if the source material does not need it. On the other hand, do not allow quality to suffer by worrying only about file size, either. I have some tapes that I want to post as MP3s. How can I do that? MP3s originating from cassettes are very problematic. If you have some cassettes that have something that doesn't seem available anywhere else then there are some good tutorials on line that detail the pitfalls and solutions for doing this. One is on this site in the tips section, here. Many more can be found with some Google searching. Try putting in a Google search box and prepare yourself to sift through about 1.5 million hits. Most important, if you choose to go this route and post your results, please make the source of your MP3s clear when you post. Quality will be dramatically lower than ripping from CD. I'm making some MP3s from a vinyl source. Is there any easy way to make my files sound better? Easy? No. When making MP3s from vinyl sources much time and effort are usually required to get the best sounding MP3 possible. There are some posters who do a fantastic job at making MP3s from vinyl sources, and they take their time and make sure they're done right before posting their files. Again it is important that if you decide to share files from a vinyl source they should be clearly labeled as such. For more tips look on the utilities page under "vinyl to mp3". See also the tips section . I've made my MP3s, they sound great, and it's time to upload. Is there a naming standard? What information should I include in the name? There is no universally accepted naming standard. It depends completely on how you have your files organized and what you want to put in the file name. What does matter here is that, however you choose to name the files, you make sure that when you post them the artist-album-track#-track name all appear, but appear only once, in your post headers. If they are in the file name then they don't need to be repeated again in the header. If any of the artist-album-track#-track name information is not in your filename then it should be added to the post header. If you have the correct information in the ID3 tags and you post the correct information in the post header then it makes no difference from the point of view of sharing how you choose to name your files. There are a large number of file renaming utilities available. Also, most ID3 Tagging programs will rename files based on any number of criteria. Your ripper/encoder will usually be able to name your files automatically. There are a number of renaming programs linked on the Utilities Page. What are MP3 ID3 tags? Should I bother with them? Absolutely. If you are ripping your own CDs then most ripper/encoders will add the information to the tags for you and will even look up the information from CDDB or freedb so you don't have to type in a thing. Check the settings and/or help files if you aren't sure how the software you are using does this. If you are adding ID3 tags to files you downloaded that don't already have them or have wrong or incomplete tags, there are a number of tagging applications, many of them will do freedb look-ups of whole albums and fill in a lot of the fields, most will allow you to fill in a whole CD full of Artist or Album or other repetitive field with one entry. Check the Utilities Page for links to some. You do have two choices, ID3V1 and ID3V2*. Either one is good as long as the information in them is complete and correct. For more information about both you can look here: http://www.id3lib.org/id3/intro.html/. I've IDed all of my MP3s, and I'm ready to post. Is there anything else I should know? Yes, a couple of things. First of all, please listen to your files. Are there any skips or pops in them? Do they cut off before the song is over? Do they sound as good as you would like them to? And see the "Posting MP3 files" section of this FAQ. ===================================== Posting MP3s ===================================== This section of the FAQ answers questions about posting MP3s on Usenet. This is one of the most important sections to learn from. Remember the Quick Reference Guide from the Home page. Where should I post my MP3s? For maximum distribution you should post your MP3s to the main MP3 binary group (alt.binaries.sounds.mp3) with a crosspost to the appropriate "decade" group and to the appropriate "genre" group. Web sites like www.allmusic.com have search engines that can help you determine the year when the song was originally recorded. If you don't know when the song was recorded and you can't/don't want to find out, you should just not post it to decade groups. By decade, we mean the decade that the song was originally released. If the song originally came out in the 1970s, but was re-released (unaltered and by the original artist) in 1998, the 1970s decade group is the place to post. If you are posting compilations or "best of" albums that span decades, please don't crosspost to a decade group. Stick with the main group and the appropriate genre group. Please post ALL MP3s to the main group. What are the "decade" groups? The decade groups are: alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1950s alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1960s alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1970s alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1980s alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1990s alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.2000s There are some groups created with an improper hierarchy format. They don't exist on many servers and, even where they do exist, they get much less MP3 traffic. What are the "genre" groups? Some of the genre groups are: alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.beatles alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.christian alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.comedy alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.country alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.french alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.heavy-metal alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.jazz There are currently more than 100 groups in the a.b.s.m.* hierarchy and more are created all the time. Many of the groups are unavailable on many ISPs Why should I crosspost the files? Doesn't that eat up bandwidth and disk space? No, crossposting does not eat up bandwidth or disk space. Crossposting does not mean making your post twice. It means that you include both newsgroups in the "Newsgroups:" header of your post. Each news server will only carry one copy of your post, but it will provide two separate "pointers" to that file. How do I crosspost? When crossposting the format is: first.news.group,second.news.group There is no space between the group names and the comma. There are some news servers that won't accept a crosspost if you include spaces. It is not a good idea to crosspost to more than 4 groups. Your post may be cancelled by a spam 'bot. By the way, you probably can crosspost to a group that is not on your own server. Put the group in your newsgroups field and the header will propagate to the other servers along with your post. As long as your server carries at least ONE of the groups listed in the header, and you make that valid group the first in your newsgroups listing, it should accept your post and propagate it (and all of the header information) on to other servers. If other servers carry those groups, then pointers to your post will appear in all the specified newsgroups. Certain ISPs may have filters set up to disregard messages crossposted to five or more groups, so don't crosspost to too many. Crossposting is a generally acceptable activity if it is warranted, and in this case it is only to 2 or 3 groups. ISPs have typically accepted posts made to no more than three groups. What should I put in the subject header of my post? You should put the artist (or author) name, the album name (or book title) and the file name. Many versions of popular posting utilities construct a good subject header for you by default. See the Utilities page for links to posting software. Other subject options include: encoder, ebtrate, genre, yEnc (if it is a yEnc post). Things to avoid: Avoid adding brackets, particularly with numbers in them. Avoid adding punctuation or odd characters. All may cause problems for some downloaders. Avoid adding announcements or requests to subject lines, post them separately or in your .nfo file. Avoid adding your nym to the subject line, it will post in the "from" field. Avoid beginning with . If you are filling a request or posting for a particular person, respond directly to their request with a heads up and info about what, where and when you are posting. Avoid starting the subject line with something like the track number, "Attn:", "yEnc" or other words that will cause your post to mix in with other posts when sorted by various readers. However you choose to construct the subject line, please try to keep it brief. One of the most widely used news readers has problems with lines longer than 80 chars, keeping it below that will be helpful for many users. Scan through the groups and see how they sort, using odd characters or beginning the subject with anything aside from something specific to the post (author or artist for instance) makes many readers sort in a confused manner. Most importantly, no matter how you decide to construct your subject line, post a file to the test group (alt.binaries.test) first and make sure it is going to go up the way you envisioned. And if you use Power-Post, make sure the filename is the last element in the subject line. If you put anything after the filename, the segments will appear separately, sometimes as hundreds of individual posts instead of joined together as one. Of course, if you test post you will notice this, and you can fix it. What about the zero-file (0/x) or .nfo? A zero-file is a simple text entry in the body of your post to which the binary then gets attached. Most newsreaders will create it if you simply compose a text post and then include the binary as an attachment. The zero-file will then be part zero of the total number of parts and the first part of the binary will be part one, etc. The zero-file should contain all pertinent information about the post. You should include information about how the files were created, what software was used, what album the song was taken from and possibly a full track listing (if it's a full CD rip.) You might also want to mention other files you could post and any requests that you might have. In the zero-file, the more information you give, the better. A common practice in other hierarchies that is often used in the absm.* hierarchy is to include an .nfo file to describe the post rather than or in addition to a zero- file. An .nfo file is just a .txt file that has been given an .nfo extension to denote that it contains iNFOrmation about the posting. Open an .nfo file with any text editor. If you use Windows and know how, you can associate the .nfo extension with your favorite editor. At least one newsreader makes it hard for you to read the 0/x file, so those who use it would prefer .nfo. Some servers are configured to strip .txt files out of binary groups, so making the extension .nfo is a good idea. When I'm filling requests I found in the .requests group, how should I alert the requestor? PLEASE post a follow-up to the request WITHOUT changing the Subject header. If you add anything to the Subject header like "I'm posting your song NOW", your follow-up post won't necessarily be seen by the requestor because the subject change will start a new thread, not just show up as a follow-up to the requestor's original thread. The absm.requests group gets even more posts than the discussion group, so it's very easy to overlook a single post in there. By posting a follow-up post informing the requestor that you are filling their request, you not only let that person know that they should keep an eye out for the post, but you also let other people know that they shouldn't bother trying to fill the request themselves. So when you're filling a request, please post a follow-up message to the original request. In the body of that follow-up, inform the person that you are going to fill the request, and in which group(s) they can expect to find your post. How many lines per segment should I use when I post? Try setting your segment size to something between 460K and 300K (between 7500 and 5000 lines uuencoded). The higher setting is usually fine, but if downloaders are consistently complaining about your posts being incomplete, reduce your segment sizes a little. These settings are for uuencoding *only*, not for yEnc. Consult your documentation for segment size setting with yEnc posting clients. *Don't* use a setting below 300K. It will create far too many headers which puts a strain on news servers. If your ISP kills binaries larger than 300K, it means they don't want large binaries on their server, so you should subscribe to a pay news service. You should not put a strain on all other servers by trying to propagate a binary that your ISP is trying to prevent. How do I post multiple MP3s at once? By making multiple posts. Please don't attach multiple files to a single post. If you post like this, you can easily end up with a single post that has over 100 parts, and it makes it difficult for anybody to retrieve a single MP3 from your post without downloading the entire post. A post that won't be downloaded is a waste of server space. I'm trying to post, but my server keeps timing out or I get disconnected in the middle of my post. Is there any way to resume my post in the middle or do I have to start over? There are some software packages that will allow you to resume your post if you use a PC compatible. One is Power-Post 2000 by Chris Morse, a program that has become the de facto standard for Windows. I just posted my MP3, but instead of a nice regular posting with 40K lines, my post shows up as 40 parts that are 3050 lines long. What went wrong? You probably used Power-Post and put something after the $F in the subject line. You see this all the time. It is a good idea to avoid putting anything after the filename ($F) when building the subject line for your post. Another thing that will cause this is a space between the filename and the extension, e.g. filename .mp3 instead of filename.mp3. I made a mess that is cluttering up the newsgroup. Is there anything that I can do to clean it up? Yes. Cancel your unfinished posts. Most newsreaders will allow you to easily cancel your own posts. Read the help file. The unusable pieces of your post do nothing but consume space on the news server and you should cancel them. Just post a brief apology and cancel the post. Most newsreaders will allow you to easily cancel your own posts. Read the help file. Clean up your mess and free up the server space. I *can't* cancel my misplaced/incomplete posts because my news server doesn't accept cancel messages. You can (and should) still cancel your posts. It doesn't matter whether your server will cancel the messages or not. Even if the messages aren't cancelled on your server, you can cancel them on other servers by issuing your cancel. Not all servers honor cancels, but all accept and propagate cancels. Somebody posted the same file that I posted; should I cancel their post? You should NEVER cancel someone else's post. It is a severe breech of netiquette and could result in your ISP canceling your service. NEVER CANCEL ANYBODY'S POSTS BUT YOUR OWN! Is there a daily posting guideline for absm.*? There used to be. There is no longer a consensus on how much a contributor should post in the hierarchy. While some claimed consensus in the earlier days of the hierarchy for what was considered a reasonable cap, other posters do not see the point of limiting the amount posted to absm.*. Some posters voluntarily limit their posting to the equivalent of one commercial audio CD per day. They believe this can make a difference in retention. You need to make up your own mind. Look around. Look at who is doing the best job of posting and emulate their style. Learn from them. ===================================== Downloading MP3s ===================================== This section of the FAQ answers questions about downloading MP3s from Usenet. Where do I find MP3s to download? This FAQ covers MP3s on Usenet in the alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.* hierarchy. If you didn't understand the previous sentence, it would be a really good idea to start in the General Information section and get the basics down first. If you are currently searching in alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.requests (the request group) or in alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.d (the discussion group), you are simply looking in the wrong newsgroups. Refer back to Sections 1 and 4 of this FAQ for more information. If you are looking in the correct groups, but you're seeing something like: begin 644 song.mp3 M_^,@Q``2@5#]&49(`ORFY(P``H\!A=`@1(`0/`870($800LF%L```H4&%Q6V MD*!0Q#+GJA`*$"/5$"#)S4%;:@H),7;4!,V4!`,1(VZ1MJ($$4:.D;:G`$,$ M`@$0H%`(P7,&V`*$1N3_XR#$$1DS@KFYDE!!!+J".,F12W!K&07G\#X7`T)O M^6%L`H"`VG^*X-XMA=@5R?_^)@KC<8`*`6"&__\>$CSQ89S/___GGW,:C/__ M__\QIAD]V'Y[F?_____,CP1Z0P_,`15NZFM,K/_C(,0'&`%>WG^,22#'K*0` M$`'(V'M[#,I7=P_A%"]RS>DX&G\F]G)')1L7(S9144)!=&(MTDK3RR$G4$F# M9^:4U;BVVM#4]@M=0JQK'"Z_4H8@ MT"FF7SPC##=!P;_5']%+[C']!9:OP)( M&F",]-=_ST%0B/2K_-J'&SN?X+230Y"2SG'H).`Z1C)/5XPX[!W$_^,@Q"D< MPV)X*9AH`+%O_EYQZF!2'[_\NFIL7EL7?_\G##&3#B)H\2<2/__X]1,1ZDE0 M/FIPGEQ&K5___122HHHF"-5$Q?____]!.7C(NS)(ZBLP-E>K____________ M____________XR#$$0```ELAP```________________________________ M____________________________________________________________ M_____________________________U1!1TAI(0`````````````````````` M`````````````%-U8VME<@```````````````````````````````$YO;F4N M+BXN+BX@>65T+BXN`````````````````#$Y.3EW=W