Putting your MP3s on Lemonrock means that they can be heard by thousands of other people - essential if gig-goers want to know what you sound like before they set out to your gigs, or if you are trying to attract record company or publishing interest. We have a PRS for Music licence that permits licensed covers, and originals, on Lemonrock. You must be a Band/Artist Member or a Venue Member to put MP3s on Lemonrock.

Record your song(s) and get them onto your computer. The format of each song may be one of the following:

• WAV (extension .wav) - This is a huge, uncompressed audio file. You must create an MP3 version of it (see below).
• MP3 format (extension .mp3) - This is a compressed version of an original recording. It is suitable for putting onto Lemonrock directly.
• Windows Media (extension .wma) - This is a proprietary compressed format invented by Microsoft. Again, you must create an MP3 version of it (see below).
• CD audio format (extension .cda) - This is a representation of a CD audio track. If you put a CD into your PC's CD-ROM drive, each track on the CD will show up as a small .cda file. You can't just copy .cda files to your computer using Windows Explorer or another regular file manager. You will need a 'ripping' program to convert the CD tracks to MP3.

New trial members are allowed a maximum of 8MiB space for MP3s. You may have as many MP3s as you like up to this space limit.

Every full member gets 120MiB of space for MP3s - enough for about 24 music tracks at 128k (almost CD) quality. You may have as many MP3s as you like up to this space limit.

If you run out of MP3 space, there are 3 options:

• Buy Add-On MP3 space within your existing membership - see the Add-Ons page
• Set up a second membership with a different email address and use this for one of your bands. This is more expensive than buying Add-Ons.
• Reduce the length or the quality of your MP3s. 128k quality is good enough for most purposes, and you can even get away with lower rates if you go to mono instead of stereo. If you decide to do this, you must first delete the existing (larger) MP3 before you upload the newer, smaller one.

There are many ways to convert your CD tracks to MP3. Your PC or Mac should come with a converter program. Alternatively, you can use iTunes from Apple. This is free to download, and it can also rip your CDs into other formats, as well as to MP3.

Some converters add the correct MP3 tags if they can find your tracks listed in an Internet database (e.g. CDDB, FreeDB) of CD tracks. Most allow you to enter the ID3 tagging information yourself. Tagging information is useful to include in the MP3 file but is not mandatory. Lemonrock automatically adds the Artist, Song Title and Genre MP3 tags to your tracks (in ID3v2.3 format), which will over-write any existing tags.

Lemonrock accepts MP3 files from browsers that send the MP3 file as any of the following MIME types:

• audio/x-mp3
• audio/mpeg
• audio/mp3
• audio/x-mpeg
• audio/mpeg3
• audio/mpg

The MIME type sent to Lemonrock during the upload process will depend on the type of Web browser you are using.

You may have a choice of bit rates when creating your MP3 file(s). The higher the bit rate, the better the sound quality, but the larger the file. We recommend using a bit rate of 128k upwards. Ideally, your MP3 should be 44100Hz sample rate, and 128k, 160k or 192k constant bit rate. If you upload 48000Hz sample rate MP3s, we will convert them automatically to 44100Hz. This may take several minutes. Please note: The MP3 player on Lemonrock cannot play tracks with 32000Hz sample rate and 256k bit rate. Please do not post files with this specification.

Please ensure that your song titles do not include any explicit words. Failure to comply WILL result in your Lemonrock membership being terminated without notice. If your song lyrics contain explicit words, you must mark the track as 'EXPLICIT' when you add it to your page.

If you post a cover song onto Lemonrock, please use the title of the original song, not 'demo', 'cover', etc. You will also be asked to give the name of the original artist/band. If we cannot verify this, your MP3 may be deleted by us without notice to you.

If you post cover medleys (i.e. tracks containing more than one cover song) onto Lemonrock, you must ensure that your versions do not stray away from the original in any way.

Lemonrock does not provide any direct links for others to download your MP3s. However, you may download your own MP3s after they have been added to Lemonrock, by going to your MP3s section and clicking the download links. All tracks are listened to online using the on-page MP3 players. We have built in a level of security to help ensure that other people cannot easily obtain a copy of your MP3s. However, please be aware that, if someone is determined enough, they can download your MP3s from Lemonrock using special techniques, over which we have no control.