Frequently Asked Questions

We strive to make Gigacrate as simple and straightforward as possible, but sometimes folks get confused. Here is a list of our most frequently asked questions...

1. How do I find music and users?
2. What are Display, View and Sort?
3. How do I listen to music?
4. How do I buy music?
5. How do I know I can trust Gigacrate?
6. How do I save music to buy later?
7. Wait, how much is a song?
8. What quality are the mp3s?
9. What the heck is DRM?
10. What are Promo Points?
11. How do I rate, tag and comment on songs?
12. Where do I edit my profile?
13. What are Contacts?
14. How do I post to the Forums?
15. How do I get my music on GigaCrate?

How do I find music and users? 

Browsing.

Each section (Home, Music, Users, etc..) has three columns. The left most column houses second level navigation. This navigation is essentially a quick way for you to browse contents of that section. In Music, for instance, you may wish to view the "Latest Arrivals" or "Top Rated" songs.

Each section also has a homepage that typically has summary information which is perfect for quickly browsing content.

Searching.

Each section has a simple search and an advanced search. Searches are performed only within the section you are in (ie: if you are in About and you perform a search, you will not get results from the Music section...only from the About section).

We even have the ability to resolve a fuzzy search. For instance, if you type "Beestie Boyz", you would get "Beastie Boys". Which means, you don't even have to know exact spellings. How cool is that!

Simple Searching.

See that textfield located directly under the main nav buttons? That is the simple search. Type anything you wish into the textfield and it will search all applicable fields in the database.

Advanced Searching.

Click on the text labeled "Advanced" (to the right of the simple search, just under the main navigation) and the simple search will be replaced by advanced search options.

More detailed search options are available in advanced search. For example, in the Music section you can search on artist, song title and even BPM if you so desire. Leave fields blank that you don't want to search on.

What are Display, View and Sort? 

You may notice that sections such as Latest Arrivals have options to narrow your search further.

Display options.

• (Text Display)
•  
• (Grid Display)
•  
• (List Display)

The "Text Display" is essentially a table with no images. It is very useful for quickly viewing lots of songs or albums.

The "Grid Display" is strictly images. It is reminiscent of browsing the isles of a vinyl record store.

The "List Display" is a hybrid image and text option that is our default for most sections.

View options.

This allows you to switch between viewing songs or albums. Simply click on the view you would like to see and your results will change. We usually default to showing albums, so you can quickly go through alot more data.

Sort options.

This select box allows you to sort within the search results already returned to you. So if you click to view Top Promos, you can click "Sort by: [Date added: newest first]" and the latest, most popular promos will appear first.

How do I listen to music? 

You will notice a flash audio player that looks much like this...

When you are in the song list view or viewing an album's details or viewing a song's details. To play a song, click the play arrow and the player will expand and begin playing.

Player won't play?

If you click the play button and the player will not expand and being playing, then you may have an outdated version of Adobe Flash.

Please download the latest version of Adobe Flash.

Once you have installed the latest version, close your browser. Restart your browser. Refresh and try again.

How do I buy music? 

In order to purchase music you must have a user account and be logged in.

Buying albums and/or songs is simple, just...

1. Click the BUY button... BUY $X.XX
2. Click the button to go to your Checkout Crate. in your checkout crate
3. Click the Google Checkout button to buy all the songs in your Checkout Crate.
   
4. Fill in your credit card info with Google, agree to terms, click the "Place Order" button.
5. When you see "Thanks You're Done", click on the "Return to Gigacrate LLC" link.
6. This will take you back to your Purchased Crate.
7. Be patient, it can take a few minutes for Google to communicate with our server.
8. Click "download..." to get your songs (once you buy a song, you can download as many times as you like).

Buying promo songs is simple, just...

1. Click the PROMO button... PROMO 1 PT
2. Download your songs!

All promos automatically appear in your Purchased Crate, never in the Checkout Crate.

You will only be able to buy a promo if you have enough promo points. You can get more by clicking to "rate, tag, comment" on songs.

Checkout crate?

We call our shopping cart a "crate" (pretty clever huh). To view the contents of your crate, Click on the "Crates" section in the "My Actions" box (under the Gigacrate logo on the top right of the site), then click on the crate you wish to view.

I am experiencing issues!

We apologize if you are experiencing problems. Please post your issues over in our Support Forum and we will do our best to make things more clear. We also encourage you to provide us with feedback on how we can improve.

How do I know I can trust Gigacrate? 

We realize buying things online is still a tricky and sometimes scary prospect for some people and therefore we have taken several steps towards making your purchasing experience safe and secure.

High Assurance SSL Cert for your protection.

For your protection and peace of mind, Gigacrate ha been through a rigorous authentication process to validate our business which in turn provides you with the highest level of trust when shopping on our site :)

We ensure that before you enter any credit card or other secure info, you will see the yellow address bar with padlock (https://).

We use Google Checkout.

Google Checkout has a fraud protection policy and you can keep your email address confidential.

We accept all major credit cards and even sell to buyers in these countries...

Plus your Google Checkout account will work with thousands of other online stores!

How do I save music to buy later? 

We realize that you aren't Daddy Warbucks and you might want to actually put some of the music you are listening to on hold. Novel idea aye.

Right next to every Buy link is a "Save" link. Just click that link and the song will be added to your Save Crate.

Purchasing a song in your Save Crate.

Open your Save Crate (Click Crates section in "My Actions" box, then click Saved Crate link). Simply check all the songs you wish to purchase, then click the "buy selected" link. The songs will be sent to your Checkout Crate.

Wait, how much is a song? 

We charge $1.49 for individual songs. However, if you buy all the songs from an album at once, you get them for $.99 each!!! There is a max charge of $12.99 (even if an album has 100 songs).

Here's some example album prices...

• < 2 songs from same album, the price is $1.49 each.
• 3 song album = $2.98 total
• 4 song album = $3.97 total
• 5 song album = $4.96 total
• 6 song album = $5.95 total
• 7 song album = $6.94 total
• 8 song album = $7.93 total
• 9 song album = $8.92 total
• 10 song album = $9.91 total
• 11 song album = $10.90 total
• 12 song album = $11.89 total
• > 12 song album = $12.99 total

What quality are the mp3s? 

Promo songs are at least 160kbps.

For sale songs are all LAME encoded with the "-V2 --vbr-new" setting. These settings produce transparent encoding (transparent = most people cannot distinguish the MP3 from the original in an ABX blind test). Audible differences between these presets exist, but are extremely rare.

What is LAME? What is "-V2--vbr-new"?

"-V2--vbr-new" is a preset that was developed for the LAME encoder by the audiophiles at www.hydrogenaudio.org

It was designed to create MP3s that sound exactly like the CD original, even to audio freaks using equipment that cost more than your car.

It uses variable bit-rate, which makes the bit-rate fluctuate based on the complexity of the music. More complex sections of music get higher bit-rates to maintain CD quality. Simpler sections are given lower bitrates, while still maintaining CD quality, to minimize the file size. Most average out to about 192kb/s, but are MUCH higher quality than Constant Bit Rate 192kb/s MP3s.

For more info, check out www.hydrogenaudio.org, which is full of very smart people, on the bleeding edge of audio compression.

I've heard there are some other switches, like Alt Preset Extreme or "-b 320", that are better than "-V2--vbr-new"?

"-b 320" is the strongest setting for LAME, with the lowest risk of artifacts. With the exception of a few situations, quality is rarely better than the "-V2--vbr-new" preset.

There are very, very, very, very, very, very, few cases where "-V2--vbr-new" can't replicate the original audio perfectly. (And even when it can't, most of us regular humans would never notice).

From reading www.hydrogenaudio.org, even the LAME developers will tell you that in such cases, "-b 320" or the highest LAME preset rarely makes a difference, and the difference between the two presets is mostly theoretical.

So why even have it?

Probably just to make certain people feel better. "-V2--vbr-new" is LAME's "preset standard" and was designed to be exactly that, the standard.

What about re-recording GigaCrate mp3s in a mix?

If you re-record (aka transcode) our GigaCrate mp3s a 2nd time using LAME -V2--vbr-new, the difference between the 2nd mp3 and the first mp3 will be negligible.

It is COMPLETE hogwash that you have to start with a 320kbps .mp3 in order to get a high quality .mp3 DJ mix without noise artifacts.

Still skeptical? Read this post for more information and mp3 test examples: http://www.gigacrate.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=48

What the heck is DRM? 

What is DRM you ask? In short, it places restrictions on the usage of a digital file. Sometimes DRM files only play on "approved" devices, sometimes they only play for a given period of time. Digital Rights Management is a controversial topic, with advocates arguing that DRM is necessary to allow copyright holders to prevent revenue loss due to unauthorised duplication of their works. We are of the firm belief that DRM doesn't work and there will always be ways to easily circumvent it. At Gigacrate we feel that chastising our users is the wrong approach. If given the opportunity, we believe users will support artists. What's that? You don't agree? Well, we are not alone in this stance. Read our full stance on the DRM issue.

All of our songs are DRM free! They are compatible with any computer and/or mp3 player. Unlike iTunes, Napster and other competitors, we understand how annoying and restrictive DRM files are.

What are Promo Points? 

Promo points are awards given to users who rate, tag, comment on songs. You must do all three of these things in order to get 1 promo point. Your account keeps track of how many promo points you have acquired and you can use these "promo points" to get free music!

How do I get promo points?

Click the "rate, tag, comment" button, then make sure you do all 3 things (rate + tag + comment). This will get you 1 promo point.

rate, tag, comment

How do I use promo points?

You can use your "promo points" to download/unlock promo songs. Each promo mp3 costs 1 promo point.

Just look for the PROMO button near a song or album. Click the button and you will be charged 1 promo point and the song will automatically begin to download.

PROMO 1 PT

How many points do I have left?

You can view your promo points total on the My Actions box or on when viewing your Profile (upper right).

Where do I find these Promo songs/albums?

In our music section there are several links you can follow:

Latest Promos - the most recent promo songs/albums we have uploaded.

Top Promos - the most popular promo songs are listed here.

Latest Arrivals - has a mixture of for sale and promo songs/albums.

How do I rate, tag and comment on songs? 

Whenever you see the audio player, you will notice there are three links below it that look like this:

rate, tag, comment

Tag.

Tags are words that describe or classify a song. Things like "Hip-Hop", "Hyphy" or even "hilarious". You can leave multiple tags and they don't have to be unique.

If you type slow enough, you will notice that we auto-suggest tags based on comparing what you are typing to what's in our database.

Rate.

Rating is simple, just click from on a star (left = 1/worst and right = 5/best).

Comment.

Comments are just a sentence or two of your thoughts about the song.

Just so ya know...

You don't have to "rate, tag, comment", but if you rate a song, you must also leave a comment and vice versa. Remember you must do all three to get 1 promo point.

Please provide meaningful comments. This is how we ensure you get the best quality promos!

You can change your rating and/or comments whenever you like. If you accidentally clicked 1 star, but meant 3 stars, no problem...simply click 3 stars and your rating will be saved.

To improve the usefulness of our tagging system, we normalize some tags by stripping out most punctuation characters, like "'","," and ".", and converting the tag to lowercase form. If you don't see your tag the way you entered it on this screen, don't worry, we've stored it and attached it to your tracks the way you typed it in, but it got changed into a punctuation-free, lower case version here. We also only display tags that have been applied to 5 or more tracks.

Where do I edit my profile? 

Click on the "My Profile" link in the My Actions box (under the Gigacrate logo in the top right of the site)

You will see links for the various sections of your profile.

How do I upload a photo?

Simply click the link beneath the image that says "click to upload new image" and a file upload option will appear.

The ideal size for your photo is a .jpg at 500px by 500px at 72dpi.

I select a photo on my computer but it won't upload?

We have a max file size limit of 100KB and it must be .jpg, .jpeg, .gif or .png format.

What are Contacts? 

Contacts are users that you have saved by clicking "add to contacts" when viewing a user.

What are Manual Groups?

Manual Groups are groups of contacts that you have selected from the All Contacts tab.

You simply select the users you want in a Manual Group, then click on the "Manual Group Actions..." drop down for more options.

What are Smart Groups?

Smart Groups are created after you do an advanced search in the users section.

Once your advanced search results pop up, you will see an option to "create smart group".

Any new users that match your original advanced search query, will automatically be added to your Smart Group!

Why should I use Contacts?

B/c you can perform actions such as emailing and promoting to Contacts and/or Contact Groups.

How do I add users to my Contacts?

Read above silly.

How do I post to the Forums? 

Click on the Forums section link up top. Choose a section to post in (on the left side). Then click the "post" button.

Someone deleted my post!

If you wrote something offensive or threatening, chances are one of our Tastemakers yanked your post. Read our legal section for more info on this.

Another possibility is that your post was moved to another section. For instance if you post a Support question to Gigs, a moderator will move it.

How do I get my music on GigaCrate? 

We do not accept ALL music that is submitted to us. We have a staff of DJs (called Tastemakers) that hand pick all the music on our site.

That seems very snotty.

Sorry, that is not our intention. We simply want to provide high quality music for DJs. We are not interested in being iTunes or Napster.

You need to hear my music though!

When you register select to be a Promoter or Provider and be sure to give us a link to listen to your music. Be patient! It takes us time to go through and listen.

I already registered, but now I want to get my music on GigaCrate.

Visit the About tab in your profile and change your "User Type" to be either a Provider or Promoter. We still have to approve you, so be patient.

* You will be notified via email if_you_are_approved.

Further Questions

If we have not addressed a question or problem you have, please visit the Support Forum of our site and raise your question there.

DO NOT email us your questions. We will not reply.