Ratio free trackers are increasingly becoming common in the BitTorrent scene. This article is about another such site; Vibes.fm. Vibes is one of the relatively new sites in the BT community and one of the few ratio free music trackers that are around (along with TheScene.Ro and CoExist -CE ). However, this is not just any music tracker- it’s rather a more specialized site that focuses only on Jazz music. If you are a Jazz music fan, you might want to check it out – there are lots of new and old Jazz stuff indexed on this tracker. Both lossy and lossless music torrents can be found here, of course.
Launched about two months ago, Vibes.fm has been slowly but steadily adding new torrents and recruiting new members. As of 15/7/2009 there are close to 1000 active members and 375+ active torrents – respectable stats for a start up niche tracker. Also keep in mind that during the first few weeks since launch, Vibes was invite-only (IRC invites were available).
As for the content on Vibes, it’s full of Jazz music. Most of the torrents point to music albums – some of them newly released and some of the pretty old (from the 1960s, 1970s, etc). As mentioned earlier both lossy and lossless music (MP3, OGG and FLAC) is available for download.
By usual standards, Vibes is a ratio free tracker. However, the following phrase (quoted from FAQ) is quite interesting:
We have a ratio system, but it honestly doesn’t matter to the staff members. If we feel you are not contributing to the site in some way (it doesn’t have to be upload/download), we will limit your downloads. We have sympathy for those who have slow connections or are on shared connections.
Vibes is currently based on the somewhat aged but hugely popular BitTorrent tracker script TBDEV. However there is an ongoing poll “Should vibes move to gazelle?” – nearly 80% of the votes so far are for ‘Yes’ so we might see a possible migration to Gazelle in the future. Either way signups for Vibes.fm are currently open. If you are a Jazz music fan, don’t forget to check this tracker out.
Site Name: Vibes (http://vibes.fm/)
Signup URL: http://vibes.fm/signup.php
Invites IRC Channel Details (useful when/if signups are closed):
Server: irc.audiolegend.com
Channel: #invites
Direct Link: irc://irc.audiolegend.com/invites