Getting the Most out of Itunes

Almost everyone uses iTunes as their go-to source for music and almost everyone knows about the free weekly singles (If you didn't know, then why? Home page of iTunes at the bottom... Two singles and a music video available every week.) But what a lot of people don't know is that there are other legal ways to get free music from iTunes.

Start with facebook. "Wait, Facebook?" you might be asking, "What madness be this?" iTunes has a facebook page with special promotional packages of free music. They always seem to have from 1-3 packs of 15-25 song downloads available through the iTunes store. They offer all kinds of genres and themes from holidays to seasonal to genre specific. As of the time of this posting, they have a "Soul" Pack and an Indie Sampler. I would skip the soul pack unless you're really into that kind of music and strongly consider listening to the Indie Pack. Even if you don't have a facebook, I would consider making one to get in on these deals. They seem to switch each pack out after about a month...

The other (somewhat sneakier) option is podcasts. Podcasts are always free and some offer music clips or full songs or albums. Searching for specific bands (the bigger, the better) will often pull up something useful whether it be an interview, a band specific podcast, or as a featured artist or guest appearance. I've found a couple gems in doing these searches that I will share later. There is an extra trick that you can pull when using these podcasts but it falls into the realm of "questionable." Most podcasts can be converted into regular mp3s through some simple editing. A program like Garageband (standard on macs) makes it really easy to drop, trim, remove video (if there), and export to iTunes in the quality level and file type that you desire. Note that some podcasts apparently have protection against conversion. Have fun and enjoy!