FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  Q: Who / what is Bull of Heaven?

  A: Bull of Heaven is Clayton Counts and Neil Keener, with generous help from all kinds of people. We are based in Denver, Colorado.

  Q: How do I download files larger than 2 Gigabytes?

  A: Due to Apache restrictions, files larger than 2 Gigs cannot even be seen in a web browser. For this reason, we've divided the larger pieces into sections. First, download all of the files from the pertinent folder. You can use HTTrack or FlashGot for Firefox to download whole directories more easily. After nabbing the archive, use a program like HJ-Split to stitch the data back together and save the file. Each part must be downloaded completely or the MP3 will not function as intended. You will need additional space on your hard drive to save each piece—approximately double the total size of the file. After it's finished, you can delete the individual parts, but remember that MP3s larger than 8.5 Gigs won't fit onto a standard DVD.

  Q: The damn thing won't play! What gives?

  A: Please note that files larger than 4 Gigs are not recognized by the FAT32 file system. Currently, NTFS and HFS+ are the only systems that these files have been tested on. A lot of media players have trouble playing files longer than 24 hours. MPC works fine, but Windows Media Player and Winamp can be problematic. Don't even bother with iTunes. With a bit more effort, foobar2000 is a very reliable player for Windows. If all else fails, try hunting down a geek. Also, if you're on an older computer, attempting to open a gigantic MP3 might not be the best idea.

  Q: Why can't you stream the longer files?

  A: Good question. We could stream the files at reduced bitrates, but doing so would still require an incredible amount of bandwidth. Hosting this much audio is fairly inexpensive, but serving it up is another matter. We've been getting a ton of plays each month, our traffic is increasing steadily, and we don't have real jobs. Sorry for not having a better explanation, but hey—it's free.

  Q: Can I get higher quality copies of the pieces?

  A: We've encoded everything at 192 kbps, stereo, to facilitate the transfer of longer files while retaining as much of the original fidelity as we could. We've used the LAME codec on most of them, and, while it's the standard for MP3 audio, it produces some artifacts that are unsurpassable even with repeated transcodings. Due to these stereo encoding glitches, a number of pieces will also be made available as dual channel 256kbps files at some point in the near to distant future.

  Q: Anything else?

  A: Thanks for listening!