But it’s not an entirely hopeless situation. Although we can’t travel back in time and witness the musical revolutions, we can momentarily relive those moments in our mind by listening to the greatest past artists in concerts. No, you don’t have to pay anything; just log on to Wolfgang’s Concert Vault.

Wolfgang is an amazing rock website that sells numerous rock music related items (vintage rock posters, tickets, backstage memorabilia etc), publishes Crawdaddy which is a magazine dedicated to rock music, offers a comprehensive schedule of artists now on tour, and lets users listen to live concert recordings from the past… for free!

Our focus obviously will be this last function of Wolfgang.

By registering for a free account, you can enter the Concert Vault and browse over 3000 concert recordings! These recordings are of the greatest artists that music has seen. Over the years, these recordings have been recorded and re-mastered by the people. And now the Concert Vault has them for the public.

Let me walk you through the Concert Vault and show you how amazingly simple it is.

The Featured Concert can be seen in the main sliding menu; these are recommended by Wolfgang and are definitely worth listening to. The Downloads page lists all recordings and lets the user download them either for free or by paying money (some recordings are free, others aren’t). There’s also a radio section where users can listen to the radio online and listen to amazing songs, Browsing for concerts can be done directly via the homepage of the Concert Vault. The fields on the left let you filter your options till you’ve narrowed down your results to whatever you desire.

As for searching for a particular artist: the top of Wolfgang’s page has a text entering field. Enter the name of the artist/band whose concert you want to listen to. Before clicking on ‘Search’ do make sure you’ve chosen the Concert Vault option instead of WolfGang, like so:

I searched for one my favorite old bands, The Police. The top section of our results page shows us the discography of the bands we’ve searched for. The field right under the discography lists valuable memorabilia related to the band; this memorabilia is for sale and can be purchased from Wolfgang. The final field is a list of the available concerts:

As you can see, the website not only has recordings of concerts, but also of interviews. The venues of the concerts are mentioned when available. Plus, the length of every recording is also provided. If the recording is obtainable (downloadable), the last field (empty in this case) will have one of two tags: Buy or Free. The free ones can be downloaded without paying anything; the other ones however need a payment in order to be downloaded.

Downloadable or not, you can always listen to the recording for free by clicking on the ‘Play’ button in the very beginning of each concert listing. I clicked on the first ‘Play’ button:

Right after a short summary of the concert, the track listing is provided. Good descriptive summaries add to the excitement and help you put yourself in the concert. To listen to a song, simply click on it. I clicked on ‘Truth Hits Everybody:’

Just Like in the screenshot above, a small online media player opens up which has a playlist made of all the songs of the concert you’ve chosen. When it starts, the song you clicked on starts playing. You can now listen to all the songs of that particular concert from within this online player.

And that’s it!

If you’re wondering whether this website is offering these recordings for free by cheating the artists out of the money they deserve for their performances, then listen to what Wolfgang has to say: “The Concert Vault is fully licensed by BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC, and we pay these performance rights organizations every time you listen to a concert. The license fees make their way back to the performers that made the music. Download revenues are also shared with performers and publishers as appropriate. One of our top priorities will always be to make sure that the artists are compensated for their performances.”

Wolfgang’s Concert Vault is an amazing web service immortalizing the best performances of the best artists who ever lived. Awesome job, Concert Vault!

Check out Concert Vault @ www.wolfgangsvault.com/concerts

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• SongKick: Check Entire Concert History Of Favorite Bands
• HearWhere: Find Concerts In Your Area
• GigZee: Find Local Live Music
• GigFreaks: Find Live Concerts in Your Area
• Zvents: Find Events in Your Area

Musipedia is an online service (which self proclaims to be inspired by Wikipedia) that helps users find songs and compositions without knowing their names or words. It gives people a set of online tools to find the song by whistling, tapping, using piano keyboard or drawing notes.

For those who are musically minded, you can play out the tune using provided keyboard (comes in both Flash and Java versions) or drawing notes. The system will then compare the tune against its database to find your song. Don’t worry – it doesn’t have to be perfect; just recognizable.

Now me, I cant even read music let alone replicate it so I went for the easier option; whistling. Using a microphone (most laptops have them built in these days) you can whistle the tune for a few seconds so that Musipedia can recognize the song and give you the results. Just make sure your microphone is set up correctly and you’re not too close as this will distort the sound.

If you liked this site you may also check other tools that can help you find a song without knowing its name like MelodyCatcher and Midomy profiled earlier.

Try out Musipedia @ www.musipedia.org (by Dean Sherwin)

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• MelodyCatcher: Melody Search Engine
• iNudge: Addictive Online Music Synthesizer
• Yahoo! Media Player: Embedable MP3 Player
• ToneMatrix: Free Music Synthesizer
• StereoMood: Plays Music According To Your Mood

There is also an option to leave your comments or read comments left by other users.

Features:

• Listen to movie soundtracks online for free.
• Search for soundtracks by movie title.
• Leave comments on tracks.
• Powered by IMDB (Internet Movie Database) & YouTube.
• Similar tools: ScreenTunes and SoundTrackInfo.

Check out MoMuPi @ www.momupl.com

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• SoundTrackInfo: Movie Soundtrack Information Database
• ScreenTunes: Find Out a Name of a Movie Song by Words or Movie Title
• Musipedia: Find Song Without Knowing Its Name Or Words
• MelodyCatcher: Melody Search Engine
• WhatTheMovie: Addictive Movie Quiz Site

To get started, simply visit Tunerec and sign up for a free account. It is in private beta but you get your account straight away. As soon as you’re logged in, you will be able to record music from thousands of radio stations to your playlist. You can then access your playlist from anywhere anytime you like. Note that it has to record the streams first, so it may take some time to save them in your database and become accessible to you initially.

You can find and discover artists, tracks and genres from 20 different categories including rock, metal, punk, pop and more. Easily organize your tracks and share them with your friends or invite them so that you can subscribe to their playlist and share tracks amongst yourselves.

Why is it legal?

According to a Swedish newspaper, Tunerec has signed an agreement with STIM (Swedish songwriters association). It makes sure that the musicians get paid for every song that is being played on this service. Currently, Tunerec is being monetized through adverting but they are planning to introduce a paid version which will come without advertising.

Key features:

• Free and legal music on demand.
• Record music from various radio stations.
• Organize your tracks.
• iTunes like web interface.
• Follow other users and share playlists with your friends.
• Similar website: Spotify.

Watch the demo video below:

Checkout Tunerec @ www.Tunerec.com

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• Vattoz: Music Search Engine with a Playlist Support
• TheSixtyOne : Discover Great Tunes Before Everyone Else
• TheRadio: Music Radio On Demand
• StumbleAudio: Cool Indie Music for your Taste
• Stereo8: A Unique Free Music Radio Site

Before you can use Vufone to backup mobile data, you will need to download the vufone mobile client onto your phone and have a data plan to synchronize your phone items (unlimited data plan is recommended). To sync your mobile items with your Vufone account, start the Vufone app on your phone and select ‘Synchronize’. This will synchronize all default items with the Vufone website. Vufone doesn’t support BlackBerry and iPhone as of now, the entire list of supported devices can be found here.

Features:

• Mobile data backup tool.
• Synchronize your phone with Google and Microsoft Outlook.
• Get your Microsoft Outlook meetings or Google Calendar on your phone.
• Grab pictures from any website directly to your Vufone account and your phone using provided Internet plug-ins (IE, Firefox )
• Upload your mobile media files to vufone.
• Create online albums and show them to friends and family on the web.
• Extend your phone to Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Youtube and more.
• Listen to your mobile music online.
• Never lose data when switching phones.
• For more similar apps read 4 Tools to Backup your Mobile Phone.

Note: The application is not free, however it is offering 1 year free subscription campagn until 1 March of 2009, so go ahead and grab yourself a free account.

Checkout Vufone @ www.vufone.com (by Srikanth AD from The Next Web )

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• Mobyko: Backup Mobile Phone Data Online
• DashWire: Synchronize and Backup your Mobile Phone to Web
• Contails: Mobile Contacts Sync Tool
• Anywr : Contact Manager + Calendar
• Mobical: Backup Mobile Contacts, Address Book and Calendar

Features:

• MP3 search site
• Search and download as many songs as you like.
• Listen to files prior downloading.
• Free. No registration required.

Check out MP3 Search @ www.mp3search.doremixy.com

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• Yahoo! Media Player: Embedable MP3 Player
• WuZAM : MP3 Search Engine
• WorryAboutYou: Find, Listen and Download Songs you Like
• Woonz : Find, Play and Download Music Tracks
• TuneRoom: Download Songs To Cell Phone

Features:

• Play youtube videos automatically in a playlist mode.
• Video player options: skip to next, go back and pause.
• No registration needed.
• Similar websites: InfiniTube.

Check out Darao @ www.darao.tv

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• Plistube: Create Customized Youtube Playlist Of Music Videos
• PickMusic: Watch Uncut Music Videos & Create Playlists
• Mixtube: Make Custom Playlists From YouTube Videos
• iDesktop.tv: Youtube but Better
• Ibizaah!: YouTube Video Mixer & Playlist Creator

You are not required to download or install anything and there is no registration either. All you need to do is simply point your browser to www.tunemaze.com and start searching.

Features

• Search and download music directly to phone.
• Download as many MP3’s as you like.
• Get song lyrics, youtube videos and other related songs.
• Works with any web-enabled mobile phone including iPhone.
• No registration. Free.
• Similar websites: TuneRoom

.

Check out TuneMaze @ www.tunemaze.com

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• TuneRoom: Download Songs To Cell Phone
• Booster: Online MP3 Finder
• Yahoo! Media Player: Embedable MP3 Player
• WuZAM : MP3 Search Engine
• WorryAboutYou: Find, Listen and Download Songs you Like

Here is how it works. First, choose one of the preset volume options (light, loud,  louder and  loudest) and then select the MP3 file on your PC. Wait for Vloud to finish uploading the song and process it. Download amplified MP3 file to your PC.

Features:

• Amplify MP3s online.
• Available volume presets: light, loud, louder and  loudest.
• Currently supports .mp3 and .wav files.
• Maximum allowed file size: 10MB.
• Simple and easy to use.

Check out Vloud @ www.vloud.com

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• Yahoo! Media Player: Embedable MP3 Player
• Vmeste.fr : Extract Audio from YouTube Videos
• VidToMP3 : Online Video to MP3 Audio Converter
• Soungle : Free Sound Effects Website
• SoundSnap: Search, Save and Share Sound Effects

Pretty much every sone you find via TuneRoom can be download in high or medium quality. You can also easily forward them to any mobile phone number in the US and Canada for free.

Features:

• Download favorite songs to cell phone for free.
• Search music from your mobile phone.
• Download as much songs as you like (unlimited).
• All tracks are optimized for high-quality listening and have a relatively small size.
• Songs can be downloaded in high or medium quality.
• Forward and share songs with any mobile in the US or Canada.
• Clean and easy to use interface.

Check out TuneRoom @ www.sideload.com/m/index

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• TuneMaze: Search & Download MP3 Songs Directly Onto Mobile
• Booster: Online MP3 Finder
• Yahoo! Media Player: Embedable MP3 Player
• WuZAM : MP3 Search Engine
• WorryAboutYou: Find, Listen and Download Songs you Like

Additionally to music remixing you can freely browse mix tracks created by other users, rate them, embed favorites on your blog and even download them to your computer.

Below is a screenshot of music sequencer that lets you mix and create music online.

Feature overview:

• Make your own tracks and mix music online.
• Make mixes using personal audios or use audios uploaded by other users.
• Share your mixes by publishing on Splice.
• Check out, rate and download music tracks of other users.
• Feature rich online sequencer, complete with real-time synths and DSP sound effects.
• Large database of free downloadable songs and sounds: ( 51230 songs 40664  sounds)
• For more info watch video below.

Update: Splice is no longer available, check out Electro-House Blender instead.

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Check Out SpliceMusic @ www.splicemusic.com

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• ZentaoGuitarLessons: Free Electric Guitar Lessons For Newbies
• YouScrobble: YouTube and Last.fm Combined
• YouLicence: Discover Music Based on Your Weather Preferences
• Yahoo! Media Player: Embedable MP3 Player
• WuZAM : MP3 Search Engine

When you click on your choice in the drop down list, it shows you the related tracks for the particular artist or from the music album. You can click on the song and it starts retrieving it through various sources and playing it. You can right click on it to see the playlist view. Sometimes a source may prompt you for the username or password to play the song.

Mix turtle also shows the 100 most recent created playlists when you click on playlists at the very top. Overall, this is a good tool to create and share playlists.

Check out Mix Turtle @ www.mixturtle.com ( Contributed by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog )

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• WuZAM : MP3 Search Engine
• SSMunch: Search, Stream and Download Music for Free
• Hushie: Listen to Your Favorite Songs Online
• ZentaoGuitarLessons: Free Electric Guitar Lessons For Newbies
• ZabaSearch: Search People by Name, Address & Phone Number

Music lovers living in big cities like New York could find this tool particularly useful because such cities host a lot of events everyday and hence you can easily miss the event of your favorite rockstar if you don’t get the information in time.

On the other hand, if you are a bandsintown user, you could stay up-to-date with the events and also purchase tickets for the show in advance. Further you can also link them to your iTunes or Last.fm favorites and recommendations.

Features

• Find live music concerts and events in your city
• Customize your search by distance and ticket price
• Provides a way to get the cheapest tickets
• Browse for tickets by price and location
• Setup and get email reminders
• Link BandInTown to the info in your iTunes or Last.fm favorites and recommendations

Check out Bandsintown @ www.bandsintown.com. ( Contributed by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog )

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• TourMapr: Check Out Artist or Band Tour Plans & Dates
• Tickex : Ticket Search Engine
• TicketStumbler: Find, Compare And Buy Sports Tickets
• TicketsFTW: Comparing Ticket Prices Made Simple
• TicketPredator: Online Ticket Price Comparison For US Events

As it learns more about you, it gets better at choosing which song to play next. Basically, it’s a smarter Shuffle option for your Apple device. Check the video below, it should give you a pretty good idea why you might want to get this app.

Download Instinctiv Shuffle App@ www.instinctiv.com

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• SimplifyMedia : Share Music With Friends
• VenueM: Turn Podcasts to iPhone-Friendly Websites
• Venjuvo: Get Cash for Your Old Electronics and Gadgets
• textPlus: Send Free Text From iPhone & iPod Touch
• TextOnPhone : Over 30.000 eBooks for Your iPhone

Features:

• Convert audio and video files online and download them to your mobile phone (or PC).
• Upload files from your hard drive or pull them directly from YouTube.
• Convert as many files as you like.
• Maximum allowed file size : 100 MB.
• Supported formats: wav, mp3, mp2, ogg, avi, mpg, mp4, 3gp, mov, wmv, and flv.

Check out Txt60 @ www.txt60.com

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• Zamzar
• YouConvertIt : Online File and Unit Converter
• YakiToMe : Convert Text Files to Speech
• Xurrency : Instant Money Converter
• XE – Converter

Tonz’r – Features

• Find and forward ringtones to your mobile for free.
• Search over 4.5 million ring tones.
• Preview ringtones directly from the search results page.
• Download and save tones to harddrive
• Works with almost any web-ebnabled phone.
• Send to mobile feature available only within United States.
• Supported networks: Cingular, Metrocall, Nextel, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile, Verizon, ALLTEL, and Cricket.
• Note: Tonz’r is a free service however depending on mobile contract you might be charged for data usage.

Check out Tonz’r @ [ www.tonzr.com ]

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• Ultrasonic-Ringtones: Download Ultrasonic Ringtones & Test Your Hearing
• TUI Converter: Convert MP3 to a Ringtone and Send it to Mobile
• ToneShared: Cool Ringtones by well known Musicians
• ToneBee : Online Ringtone Creator
• SmartMP3Splitter : Ringtone Creation Website

Online-Tech-Tips : “iTunes has a built-in sharing feature already, but it only works with people on the same network. Using SimplifyMedia, you can play songs from other people’s playlists that are outside of your own network.”

SimplifyMedia Features

• Access your music remotely, from Windows PC, Mac, iPhone or iPod Touch. When accessing remotely (using Mac or Windows PC) you can play your music directly from local Winamp or iTunes player.
• Share music with friends: share tracks by folder or iTunes / Winamp playlists.
• Browse and play music files on friends’ computers. Invite and share your music with up to 30 people.
• All shared files will always remain on your computer, no uploads necessary.
• Legal: Tracks are streamed only within your private group. In other words, only your group of freinds can access and play tracks you are sharing.
• No router or firewall configurations required.

SimplifyMedia on iPhone

Check out SimplifyMedia @ www.simplifymedia.com

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• Instinctiv: Better Music Shuffle Feature for your iPhone
• WorryAboutYou: Find, Listen and Download Songs you Like
• Woonz : Find, Play and Download Music Tracks
• VenueM: Turn Podcasts to iPhone-Friendly Websites
• Venjuvo: Get Cash for Your Old Electronics and Gadgets

Webware: “… While the audio quality of these radio streams isn’t quite up to par with their desktop brethren, Mundu Radio is a handy way to access news and talk radio stations on your phone, even if they’re from halfway across the globe.”

Feature overview

• Listen to internet radio stations directly from mobile.
• Currently supported phones: Symbian 7.0 (Nokia 3230 and 7610), Symbian 8.x (Nokia 6680, 6681, 6682, 6630, N70 and N90), Symbian 9.x (Nokia N91, E61, E70, N80), Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 2003SE, and Palm OS.
• Create and manage custom favourite stations lists.
• Note: Although MunduRadio is a free service, depending on your mobile plan data charges may apply.
• More Questions? See Mundu Radio FAQ page.

Mundu Demo Video

Checkout Mundu Radio @ radio.mundu.com

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• VoiceIndigo : Mobile Podcast Client
• Tunerec: Free & Legal Music Streaming
• TheSixtyOne : Discover Great Tunes Before Everyone Else
• TheRadio: Music Radio On Demand
• StumbleAudio: Cool Indie Music for your Taste

Nutsie: “your iTunes on your mobile phone”

Nutsie Features

• Export your iTnues playlists to Nutsie.com and Access it from any web-enabled PC (from work, school… ) or your mobile phone.
• Share your playlists with others and get access to shared playlists from other Nutsie members.
• Coming soon: Support for other music players (Winamp, Windows Media Player, etc.).
• Supports most of the popular phones. See full list of supported devices here.
• Currently works on AT&T (Cingular) and T-Mobile and some smaller wireless networks.
• Note: Your PC does NOT have to be running to stream your music to nuTsie on your mobile phone.
• IMPORTANT: Nutsie is a FREE service, however depending on your mobile plan data transfer fees may apply. For more info contact your mobile carrier.

Nutsie Overview and Demo

Check out Nutsie @ www.nutsie.com

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• SoonR : Remote PC Access from Mobile
• Snuzu: Listen to Music and Show Others what You Like
• SimplifyMedia : Share Music With Friends
• Mundu Radio: Web Radio Stations on your Mobile
• Mecanto: Sync Your Music Playlists to Web