FileShareFreak [mirror]: What.cd

May 17, 2008 by sharky

What.cd is one of the main music trackers (along with Waffles.fm) to come after the demise of OiNK.cd. With over 163,000 torrents (130K active) and 48,000+ members, there’s sure to be something for every music lover. What is visually appealing, the forums are active, and overall it’s a good community. Some consider it to be the same or even better than Waffles.

What.cd is quite relaxed on the minimum ratio requirement (0.4), and it’s not too difficult to find an invite to get into this great music tracker. They’ve recently upgraded the codebase (named "Gazelle") which implements a variety of revolutionary features; including increased speed, a wonderful ‘tagging system’ for music releases, and advanced browsing / searching functionality.

What.cd is booming, perhaps even faster than Waffles - the torrent count has risen 50% since Jan. ‘08. The ‘Max. User’ allowance has been increased to 55,000 - it was set at 40,000 in January). Unfortunately, What.cd also suffers from "Leecher Crisis" whereby there’s simply not enough leechers - everyone’s seeding to build / keep a good ratio on their accounts. This adversely affects the economy of the tracker, and makes it difficult to upload.

If you’re new to What.CD, we recommend that you select your first torrents wisely - opt for torrents that have a high leecher count. At first, they may appear difficult to find - be creative and use the advanced search filtering.

Ratio Building on What.cd

It’s not easy to keep a good sharing ratio on What.cd. Here’s a few pointers:

— One trick is to look for torrents that say Freeleech! (there’s not many!).

— Get in on the most recent (popular) torrent additions, and use a seedbox.

— Upload your own torrents (and try to fill popular ‘requests’), and host them on a seedbox, if possible.

What.cd - Categories

Aside from over 50 individual categories of music & audio, What also offers eBooks, audiobooks, comics, e-Learning videos, and software applications (music and non-music related). Here’s the (active) torrent count:

Music/Audio —	117,170
eBooks —	2,227
audiobooks —	2,107
Comics —	1,232
eLearning videos —	920
Applications —	4,478

Getting an Invite to What.cd

It’s not too difficult to find an invite to What.cd - they’re awarded regularly to qualifying members each month, sometimes twice. Presently, invites are enabled but when the site reaches their maximum user limit, only staff can invite new users. This hasn’t been a problem - What continuously prunes inactive accounts and members who don’t make the share ratio minimum (aka - "peons") - this opens up new slots for invites.

Browsing through What.cd…

Music releases are arranged a little differently than they are on most trackers - all torrent music formats are included within the title of the release. Members can view the available formats (MP3, V0, VBR, FLAC, AFAC) and their respective torrents for each release.

A great feature is the ability to view all releases for a particular artist. Simply click on the Artist Title of a release and all known albums (releases) will be shown. Included in the Artist page is "Artist Information" - a small summary/history of the band/artist. Other info includes "Similar Artists", "Tags", and Statistics (number of on-site torrents and albums released).

Torrents by Artist	Stats & Similar

FreeLeech:

Advanced Searching

It takes a little getting used to the search implementations on What. To manipulate the advanced search filtering, use the dropdown boxes in conjuction with each other, and use other search criteria as well.

Lossless / HQ Audio

If you’re into Lossless audio, What.cd carries a vast selection of lossless torrents for many of its releases (with 35,000 torrents in FLAC format) which accounts for about one-fifth of all torrents. Aside from 100,000 MP3 torrents, other formats include AFAC, OGG, DTS, AAC and WV (WavPack). Members can easily filter only these results by using the advanced search - here’s some of the results:

Search Criteria:	# of Torrents:

MP3 192 (Bitrate)	26,084
MP3 V0 (VBR)	34,058
MP3 V1 (VBR)	409
MP3 V2 (VBR)	18,296
MP3 256/320	30,000+
Lossless (FLAC)	35,000+
Lossless (APE)	409
Ogg	211
Vinyl	1,249
DVDs	62
Soundboards	256
DAT	36

What.cd also offers Top Ten lists (and Top 100; Top 250). Here you’ll find torrents sorted into all kinds of categories - most downloaded, most active, best seeded and most snatched:

What.cd - Extras

eBooks & Audiobooks - Like Waffles, What offers a great selection of eBooks, audiobooks, and e-Learning videos for instruments and software - totaling in at over 5,200 torrents.

Comic Books - This is a great addition to What.cd. Expect to find individual comics and huge release "packs", plus entire series’ of comics (some include hundreds of comic books in a single torrent). Some of which came from the old OiNK.cd.

Detailed Album Info - All music releases are accompanied by extensive information, including track listing, length of tracks, date, official links, ripping info, and sometimes album art. Look for ‘user comments’ that follow each torrent for additional information.

Track Listings	Album Info

Requests - Requests can be made through What’s request feature - and it’s a very busy place, indeed. Members can use it to get an idea for what others are looking for (by filling a popular request, you’ll have a better chance of gaining ratio through uploading). Also, users can ‘vote’ on requests.

Uploading - Highly encouraged on What.cd, especially when filling requests - but follow the rules or else it’ll get nuked and you’ll receive a warning for a bad release.

Forums - Lots going on in the What Forums. Similar to Waffles, What offers many tutorials, mostly related to audio ripping & appz.

Forums	Tutorials

User Classes

By default, new users are able to upload torrents. Climbing up the user class ladder is fairly simple - keep a sharing ratio over 1.05 and upload more than 25GB.

What.cd - Rules

Aside from the general "site" rules, be sure to heed the uploading rules, as well. What.cd is picky about what they allow on the site (respectfully so), so follow the guidelines.