If you buy a CD or and LP from our webshop, we will ship it to you.
We will also (via a Shopify app called SendOwl) email you a download link so you can listen right away. Except… it can’t always be right away.
We also offer non physical, download only sales of select product.
All albums are folders of mp3 files which are then zipped into a single file for download.
What to do with these zip files?
If you’re on a computer, you’ll download a zip file, unzip the file and you’ll have a folder containing the mp3s.
Thanks to Bandcamp for this How To on unzipping –
If you’re on a Mac, double-click the file. You’re done.
If you’re on a PC, right-click the file and choose Extract All… You’re also done. Don’t see an “Extract All…” option? Try renaming the file to something simple, like “music.zip”. The important thing is to make sure the name ends with “.zip”. Then right-click it again. You should now see “Extract All…” in the menu. If you still don’t see an Extract All… option, double-click the file. This will open a window listing the files inside. Press Ctrl+A to select all the files, then drag them into a folder or onto your desktop. This will extract them, for sure.
What!? That doesn’t work either? You may be amongst the elite few who simply don’t have unzipping software built in to their PC. Easy to rectify: there are some free unzipping programs for Windows such as Zipeg, 7-Zip, and PeaZip.
Once you’re done unzipping, you can then add those files to whatever you use to listen to music. I use Swinsian. I have a folder called ‘Add to Swinsian’. Anything I put there appears next time I open Swinsian.
TIP – if you work on more than one computer (as I do) you might want to put your ‘Add to XXXX’ in the cloud (I use dropbox), then your music will be accessible from any of your workstations.
Computers make it easy. The rest – iOS, Android, not so much…
Here’s one thing we can’t overcome – Apple doesn’t allow direct download of ANY music to iOS devices except using iTunes. So if you’ve bought mp3s from anyone except Apple and you think something is wrong when you can’t immediately listen to them. It is … what’s wrong is Apple. They certainly aren’t going to change, though. So no instant gratification on iOS. Get home, download the zip file, etc. Then sync with your iOS. And if iOS is all you use, then you shouldn’t buy from our shop. The workaround that Bandcamp has come up with is an app which accesses your purchases and streams them to your phone. I’m afraid I don’t have the means, right now, to make a LloydCole app. But who knows? In the future, maybe…
Android – here’s what Bandcamp (who also zip their album folders for download) say about Android
It isn’t always straightforward to download music (in particular, album .zip files) directly to an Android device. There are two sets of instructions below for downloading to your Android: a simple version and a more involved version. If you have a Samsung phone, you can likely get by with the simple instructions, and otherwise you may want to try the more involved ones.
If you’re having trouble, try looking at our troubleshooting section, or consulting the help tools for your particular device.
Downloading tracks is much the same as downloading albums, but they download as single audio files, so there’s no unzipping.
Simple download instructions
1 – Download the .zip file.
2 – In your downloads folder, tap on the .zip file to open it, and press Extract. If your phone won’t open the .zip file, take a look at the unzipping instructions below.
3 – Open Play Music and listen to your tunes.
More involved download instructions
1 – Download the .zip file.
2 – In your Downloads folder, tap on the .zip file to open it. If it won’t open, download an app like File Manager or something similar. More info
3 – Unzip the file to your Downloads folder, and then move the unzipped music to the Music folder in your phone’s file system. More info
4 – Open Play Music and listen to your tunes.
If neither of these sets of instructions work, you may need to download to a computer first, then sync to your device.
So many things are so simple and instant on our mobile devices that I think, sometimes, we thing everything is simple and if it isn’t something must be broken. But that isn’t always the case. Downloading music is really simple if you stick with iTunes. Or if you use Spotify… If you don’t want to do that, or if the artist/webshop you’re buying from doesn’t, then things get blurry. Sorry about that.