Soulseek for Mac

There are plenty of options for sharing well-known music free of charge. However, when looking for less known music, your choices dwindle. I have found the fastest file-sharing technology to be Bittorrent. Unfortunately, torrent sites rarely have much music unless you are looking for Madonna’s discography. Oink and IndieTorrents are amazing torrent sharing networks but they have strict ratio requirements and joining is by invite only. So, where is the best place to go if you don’t want to worry about ratios or invites? My answer has been the same for the last six years: Soulseek.

Soulseek is an ad-free, software-based, peer-to-peer fileshare program that relies on a central server to connect users. The program has always been slightly unstable and slower than programs such as Limewire. Why is it so great then? The answer is simple: the users. Soulseek’s original users primarily shared electronic music such as IDM, glitch, Ambient, Noise, and Breakcore. From 2000 to 2004 the network of users grew rapidly and a vast amount of relatively obscure indie, hip-hop, and hardcore punk music was put up on the network.

Why did so many people opt to use a unstable, slow program? I believe that most of the original appeal came from a single, very simple feature. Soulseek allowed users to download folders. Because of this, most Soulseek users organized their albums in folders and were able to download entire albums. This may not seem like a big deal today when torrent sites let you download organized albums with great speed, but at the time it was huge.

If you are using a PC you can download Soulseek at http://www.slsknet.org. If you are like me and use a Mac, then you have a couple options: Solarseek or SoulseeX. Both of these programs are loaded with plenty of flaws and advantages to make comparing them a fun activity. I am going to break down their different functions and compare them on those points.

Connecting:
Both Mac apps start up faster than the PC version of Soulseek ever did. Solarseek starts up and connects to the server instantly while SoulseeX takes a second.

Interface: SoulseeX is said to be heavily customizable, but I experienced difficulty even changing its color. The program shows no windows when it first launches, forcing you to manually open a window from the drop-down menu at the top of the screen. The primary user functions of the program all take place in seperate windows making the screen cluttered and confusing. Solarseek has a simple, elegant interface that reminds me a lot of familiar programs such as iTunes. There are no options for customization but I personally don’t feel any need to change its appearance. All important options can be accessed from one window.

Searching: SoulseeX groups search results by user and folder making it easier to sort through results. Solarseek does not yet have this functionality. Both programs came up with roughly the same amount of results at the same speed.

Downloading: SolarSeek was surprisingly terrible for the final downloading of files. The current beta of the program does not yet allow downloading folders of full albums. According to the website, full album downloads will be included in the 1.0 version of the program, but it is doubtful that they will have that out anytime soon considering the slow development thus far. Also, I found the program often disconnected and had no option for automatically reconnecting to the server. To make matters worse, Solarseek sometimes gets stuck on songs and downloads them over and over for no apparent reason. SoulseeX simply downloaded the songs and was as reliable at doing so as the original Soulseek.

Reliability: From time to time, SoulseeX doesn’t connect to the server, but when it does connect, it never crashes. SolarSeek is usable, but I have experienced a slightly annoying amount of unexpected crashes from it when searching.

I am hesitant at recommending either of these programs to Mac users, but I tend to use SoulseeX simply for the reliability. If SolarSeek 1.0 ends up having all the features it promises and the reliability that they are claiming it to have, then its release will certainly be an exciting day for Mac SoulSeek users.

I am really hoping for a self-regulating program based on BitTorrent that allows access to the amount of music found on networks such as Oink without invites and the burden of guessing how downloads will affect your share ratio.