FAQ

ipads and iPhones are designed to use there own software and structures. There is not a user filesystem.
Therefore the only way of getting music other than iTunes onto an iPad is to use third-party software to store the files, such as iCloud or DropBox.
You can get a DropBox account for free.
It registers in the OS, and when you download files, you can transfer them from Safari and other apps into DropBox. From there you can playback.
When you select the track that you want from a website in Safari, click on a symbol that looks like a square box with an up facing arrow through it at the top of the browser. In here Select download to DropBox.
You will be asked to set up or select a folder to put the file in.
Once downloaded you can play from the DropBox account.
Unfortunately, this will not play in the iPad's own music and video player.

Although we do not directly support the Android OS, you can place orders using any android based device. You can download the tracks using the direct download links which are to the right of each track in your order history but we do not have a download manager for Android or support any 3rd party download managers.

Why do albums I put in my basket keep disappearing?

Because our web site uses 'cookies' to store your basket, these will naturally 'time out' depending on your own cookie policy. This is why we have the 'Wish List', as this only works when you are logged in to your account and is stored within your account area on our server which does not 'time out'.
You can add items directly from the album web page or your basket to your 'wish list'.

Do you still support Windows XP

Unfortunately, Windows XP has not been supported by Microsoft for many years and our download manager will no longer work with most installations of XP. We would highly recommend that anyone, who is connecting to the internet and running XP, upgrades to a more secure operating system.

General principles
Our search engine works in a very similar fashion to Google, most search techniques that work in Google will work with ours. The most common use is to simply type in whatever you want to find and click on the ‘go’ button (or press ‘enter’ on your keyboard). However, this will often produce a great number of results, especially if you type in lots of words. This is because the default method of searching is the ‘Boolean OR’ rather than ‘AND’. To refine your search results try using some of the advanced techniques below. By default our search engine uses ‘Stemming’, this allows searches to match words which are similar or derivatives of each other. This addresses an often requested feature to match the plural form of words to their singular forms, e.g. a search for the word ‘string’ will match ‘strings’.

Phrase search ("")
By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling the search engine to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change. Our search engine works the same way Google does, for example, if you wanted to find Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings, you would enter the composer followed by the name of the piece in double quote marks, like this:

Barber "Adagio for Strings"

This then produces only results where the word 'barber' and the exact phrase "Adagio for Strings" is found. This is particularly useful for searching for terms that have 3 or fewer letters in the name, e.g. “Arnold Bax”, as our search engine does not index any word that has 3 or fewer letters. In this instance searching for the word ‘Bax’ by itself would not produce any results but searching for “Arnold Bax” will give his complete repertoire.

Terms you want to exclude (-)
Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space.

Fill in the blanks (*)
The *, or wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful. If you include * within a query, it tells the search engine to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the search ‘Johann * Bach’ will return results for’ Johann Sebastian Bach’, ‘Johann Christian Bach’ and ‘Johann Ernst Bach’.

Yes you can, but we cannot provide support for any download managers except our own.

An MP3 (the accepted abbreviation for MPEG 1 audio layer 3) is a music file that has been compressed in a way that enables it to reproduce near-CD quality music, but with a much smaller size file. This enables high-quality music download, transfer and reproduction.

One minute of music is equivalent to about 1.5Mb of hard disk space at a bitrate of 320kbps, a size easily swallowed by an everyday modern computer. (The higher the bitrate the better the quality of the downloaded music. Chandos uses the highest possible bitrate so that the quality of our sound is transferred to you, the customer, as accurately as possible with only a slight increase in file size.

To listen to our audio downloads you need to have either a software music Player on your PC/Mac or a portable hardware device such as an iPod.

1. Make sure you are logged in. You need to have previously registered before you can log in. You will now have a username and password, please make a note of these.

2. Navigate the website to choose the tracks you would like and click the ‘add’ button. This will add your chosen tracks to your shopping basket.

3. To continue with your purchase click the ‘Checkout Now’ button

4. Complete all of the payment details required as indicated and ‘Proceed’

5. You will be sent confirmation of your order and a download link.

For more complete details see the ‘Tutorials’ page.

To register all you need is an email address, username and password. From this, you can create your profile. Click 'Login/Register' on the menu bar above to sign up for a new account.

Save the MP3 files to your hard disk into an MP3 folder or another folder of your choice, perhaps in a folder named after each label, e.g. ‘Chandos MP3s’ or ‘Priory MP3s’, which can be easily accessed through your MP3 player. Simply create a new folder where you can easily find and access it, name it and save your MP3s there. The file will automatically be saved with the title, artist name and catalogue number. (MP3s can be downloaded again if you do mistakenly lose or wipe them.)

Once the file is downloaded it should automatically open your default media player. If it does not, open your media player and look in the library or browse to find the file in the folder in which you saved it. You can create a playlist of MP3 tracks to enjoy

To connect an iPod to your computer you need to use either FireWire (both PC and Mac), or USB and USB 2.0 (PCs only). Transfer the files from your computer to your portable player using the software bundled with your player, it will probably have an ‘autosync’ feature which will enable easy set-up/transfer. If the bitrate is selectable, ensure that you are using the highest bitrate.

If you have an MP3 CD player you will need to burn the tracks onto a CD-R or CD-RW disc. When you burn the disc, remember to save the files as data not as audio, otherwise, the software will make WAV files of the music and they will no longer be in the compressed size. Many players allow you to group tracks in separate folders for ease of storage/access.

Importing Your Audio Files into iTunes

1. Open iTunes.
2. Choose File > Add Folder to Library. ...
3. Locate the folder on your computer that contains the music you downloaded from Chandos.net that you wish to import into iTunes.
4. Once you select your folder you should now see your newly imported files in your iTunes library.

It is possible to burn your MP3s onto a CD with a regular CD-R burner, but these will still need MP3 software to play and won’t play on a normal CD player. You can use an MP3 to CD decoder to create a standard CD. Many CD Burners come with the popular ‘Nero Express’ burning software included. This can burn MP3s to a CD-R for storage (Data CD) or decode them to CD-R so that they can be played on a normal CD player (Audio CD).

To burn MP3s onto a CD for use with a standard CD player using Nero Express Launch Nero and insert a blank CD-R (or CD-RW) into your recordable drive.

Select ‘Music’ and ‘MP3 disc’. Click on ‘Add’ and drag and drop files from their saved location on to the open pane in the middle of the window. Alternatively, you can select the file and click on the ‘Add’ button.

Add files until you have selected all you can or the space indicator shows the disc full. It is best not to go too close to the red ‘full’ mark to avoid errors. Click ‘Finished’’ to close the ‘Add’ window.

Click on the ‘Next’ button to go to the final burn settings at which point you need to check that the correct CD burner is selected. You can also name the disc if you wish. Select the writing speed or use the default given. A slower writing speed is better if your computer has a small memory or slower processor. This will avoid producing a bad disc, the slower the writing speed the better.

You can select the verify data box which will perform a bit by bit verification of the original file. It takes a little longer and the operation will be performed after the burn by automatically ejecting and reinserting the disc.

If the files you are burning do not fill the disc, you can add more later by checking the ‘multisession’ box, which will not write-protect the disc.

When you are happy with the selections you can select ‘Burn’. When the burn is completed the verification will take place if you selected the option. The next window will inform you, hopefully, that the burning process was successfully completed. You can print or save a detailed report if you wish. Click ‘Next’ to complete the process. You can now start another disc or exit the program.

Before you can burn CDs with WMP10 you need music in your library. Click on ‘Library’’ and ‘Add to Library’, select ‘By Searching Computer’. If you know where they all are, click on ‘Browse’ and go to the folder, select and add to the library.

WMP10 can monitor the music folders on your computer for changes and then automatically update the library. To do this you must specify which folder(s) to monitor by: clicking ‘Library’, ‘Add to Library’, and then click ‘By Monitoring Folders’. In the Monitor Folder dialogue box click ‘Add’ or ‘Remove’ to select the folders you want to monitor.

In Windows Media Player, click the ‘Library’ tab and then, in the (blue right hand) List pane, click the blue ‘ List’ button, and then choose ‘Burn List’. If you need to clear the list before beginning, click ‘Clear List’.

Drag the music from either of the other two panes (contents or details pane) to the List pane to create a list of songs to burn. In the burn list you can rearrange the order you wish to burn them in.

Insert a blank CD-R or CD-RW disc in the CD drive. In the List pane, verify that the music will all fit on the disc. If necessary, remove tracks from the list by right-clicking a track and then clicking ‘Remove from List’.

Click the ‘Start Burn’ arrow and verify that ‘Audio CD’ is selected. Click ‘Start Burn’.

As the CD is burned, you can check its progress in the burn list. Burning a CD will take some time.

You cannot burn additional files to a CD after burning is completed. If you are using a CD-RW, you can erase the entire CD before using the Player to burn files to the CD again.

How to join & download MP3 tracks

As anyone who has tried to burn an audio CD from MP3s will know, there is a problem when you have a single piece of music that should play continuously but has been split into separate tracks. Quite often CD burning software and even MP3 players put in a gap between tracks. For classical music, this is of particular annoyance and can ruin the enjoyment of listening. It can be especially noticeable in through-composed works such as an opera in which tracks are introduced to allow easy access to key parts of the drama.

Here at Chandos, we strive for audio excellence, so we have devised a method that gives you complete control over how your chosen MP3 download should be ‘tracked’. If for example, a CD has a piece of repertoire which is split into three tracks, rather than downloading the individual tracks you can now ‘join’ the three into a single downloadable file. This track, when burnt to a CD or onto an MP3 player, would play continuously without pause. This process can be repeated for any number of pieces of repertoire in your order history page.

To join tracks together, complete the purchasing process in the normal way, and once the transaction has been verified, the usual screen with your tracks available for download will appear. Tracks which can be joined have a red tick box. Simply select the ones you wish to join and click the ‘Join All Checked Files’ button at the bottom of the page to begin the process. A screen will appear, asking for your patience, which is followed by a download link. If you have joined the files you can stream them straight away by left-clicking, or if you wish to save them to a location on your computer, right-click the link to begin the download. Zip and download any other files that you do not wish to join.

If you join tracks together by mistake, you can download them again as separate tracks. If tracks are mistakenly joined together, this will not normally result in the elision of two pieces of music as, usually, there is silence – ambience – at the end of a track which will still ensure a short break before the next track begins.

Join and Zip

Join and Zip is not the same. If you zip tracks, it enables a continuous download so that you can leave your computer after the download process has begun and all tracks will be downloaded in one action. You cannot ‘zip’ ‘joined’ tracks. Joined tracks will download as one, so the downloading process remains as simple as downloading zipped files. Joining removes the gap in continuous music, zipping is purely a part of the download function.

Will a firewall stop me downloading your MP3s?

If you use a firewall on your internet connection (generally recommended) ensure that it is correctly configured so that a programme can access, and download from, a URL.

The copyright of these sound recordings belongs to the record label. They are intended strictly for personal use. Any unauthorised reproduction, posting or copying, commercial or otherwise, of any kind without the prior and specific permission of the owning label is prohibited by international law.

Chandos does not use any Digital Rights Management (DRM) encoding to protect its music from illegal file sharing. Your agreement with Chandos Records Ltd, and /or the owning or originating label on the purchase of an MP3 is that it is for personal use only and not for further distribution. DRM would allow for only one copy to be made and any further copies would be ‘digitally spoilt’, but this would not allow for copies for the car, for example, to be made. The only protection that this site wishes to use is the conscience of the purchaser.

Please contact our copyright department on (+44)(0)1206 225200

As long as the Audio CD is created without any error message from your software and as long as you are able to play it on your computer using your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, the disc is OK. If it only fails or has trouble when you try to play it in your car or home stereo, you more than likely have a compatibility issue between the media and your player. If you have used a CD label on your CD, this can also effect playback on some CD players, particularly the 'slot loading' type rather than the 'tray' type.

You can try the following:

Try a slower write speed.

Try more than one brand of CD-R media. Different brands work better with some players than others.

Upgrade the firmware of your CD burner.

Use only CD-R media and not CD-RW. Many standard CD players will not work with CD-RW discs.

Sometimes Audio CDs are not playable if they are burned in TAO mode (Track at once). Try burning all tracks at the same time and don’t create a multi-session disc.

First of all, there is a big difference between an Audio CD and an MP3 CD. If you burn an Audio CD, all MP3s will be converted into CDA(udio), so standard CD players will be able to play this CD. An MP3 CD is really just a Data CD, using the CD-ROM (ISO) standard to which every CD-ROM (ISO) has to conform; Yellow Book specification. This specification forces all tracks to alphabetical order.

After you have logged in, you can see your past downloads by selecting the ‘Download History’ tab from within your account screen

After you have brought any of our downloads, they will appear in your order history and can be downloaded again in the event of the loss of a file.

No, you only pay for the tracks that you purchase.

Due to the nature of audio downloads, Chandos has had to enforce an 'all sales are final' policy. So before you click purchase on the final confirmation page, make sure that what you're about to order is correct. We have a NO REFUND POLICY.

In most CD burning applications there is an option to remove the 2-second gap that is put there by default.

Unfortunately due to the large number of different CD burning applications available we cannot support all of them, but here are the basic instructions for Nero and Nero express:

Nero

select the tracks you wish to burn

right click on them and select ‘copy to compilation’

once all the tracks have been added, highlight all the tracks at once (hold down the shift key and click on the first and then the last track)

once highlighted right click on your selection

select properties

in the box that has ‘2’ in it, change it to read ‘0’

press ‘ok’ and burn your cd as normal

Nero Express

On the screen that you add your tracks, click the box that’s marked ‘No pause between tracks’. It is as simple as that!

We do not deal directly with credit cards as we use 'PayPoint' 'for this. Most questions can be answered from their FAQs pages which can be found here:

http://www.Paypoint.co.uk/

However, if you are an American customer experiencing payment problems, please contact your credit card company and request that they allow payments to Chandos.net. This has been a known issue.

Send us a message using our Customer Ticket System