Don’t know what to get for that obsessive Nine Inch Nails fan in your family?
Fan site and concert archive Reflecting In The Chrome has the perfect gift, just in time for the ol’ holidays: a massive 527 GB torrent file featuring nearly every available/recorded Nine Inch Nails live performance since the Pretty Hate Machine Days. That’s about 575 concerts spanning 25 years, pulled from roughly 900 different audio sources.
The now-downloadable archive took the site’s founder, Ryan J., six years to complete.
And Ryan recommends a 750 GB hard drive, at minimum, to store the full thing as well as any future updates. He’ll even do the dirty work for you, filling up any hard drives mailed to him as long as the proper postage for return service is included.
Here’s more from The Verge:
Nearly everything is sourced from an audience recording, which means the audio quality isn’t going to match that of a traditional, band-sourced live recording, but the upside is that fans can probably find any show they’ve attended over the years — or find some classic performances they may have missed. Each source is clearly labeled, graded, and includes audio samples so you know what you’re getting into. Most files are in FLAC for the best quality, and the mastermind behind the project says he’s actively looking to upgrade the shows that are only available in MP3.
This really is for hardcore completionists only, though — NIN typically keeps its setlists similar on most dates of a tour, meaning that you’ll only hear minute variations from show to show. A big exception to that is probably NIN’s 2009 “farewell” tour, in which the band constantly changed up performances and even played the entirety of The Downward Spiral in order at several shows — those are the first recordings I’m looking to get my hands on. Of course, it’s going to take a while to download all 527GB. If you don’t feel like maxing out your connection or are hurting on hard drive space, though, there’s another option — you can ship a hard drive to Ryan J. and he’ll fill it up and mail it back, so long as you pay for the postage.
Pretty cool stuff.
Here’s Nine Inch Nails performing live at Boston’s TD Garden last year: