Slashdot Mirror
Does Going Digital Mean Missing Music?
arlanTLDR writes "The Seattle PI is running a story about how the MP3 format is the sign of a musical apocalypse. Apparently, many top music producers are 'howling' over the fact that files in a compressed format contain 'less than 10 percent of the original music on the CDs.' Is this just sensationalist FUD, or is there something to the assertion that listening to an MP3 is like hearing music 'through a screen door?'" The article mentions that the iPod and its cheap earbuds bear some of the responsibility for rendering this degradation in sound quality less objectionable.
You will be surprised at just how much of that 90% of sounds produced our ear cannot understand.
Clearly, all that hard work to polish the recorded sound isn't really very important to people.
Doesn't bode well for the planned obsolescence system and it's efforts to shift us to new hi-def hardware.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
It's just whining. There have been numerous double-blind ABX tests, many done by the folks over at Hydrogenaudio.org, comparing MP3 files to AIFFs, and with the right codec and right bitrates (depending on the type of source material), it's possible to get an MP3 that only the most refined ears can discriminate from the original. [1]
a ssical/mp3test.html. While well-trained ears could discriminate between 128kbit MP3s and PCM, they could not reliably tell the difference between 256kbit and PCM, on average. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course, it's quite possible to make an MP3 that sounds like a tin-can telephone with one end held underwater, and I'd argue that many of the consumer-ripped files floating around the P2P networks fall into this category, but these files only exist *because* there aren't legitimate, professionally-made, DRM-free MP3s. (And because some people like getting stuff for free and don't much care about the quality when they do. But I do think there is a market for and profit in digitally-delivered music, for the people who can do it right.)
As more music begins to be distributed as MP3s, sound engineers will doubtless (if they have not already) begin studying the codecs and encoding procedures in order to wring the most quality out of a particular bit rate. Many amateurs and enthusiasts have already done this, and there is a sizable body of work devoted to the topic -- including the LAME encoder itself.
Also, looking towards the future, while CDs have pegged the standard for digital music as 2 channel, 44.1kHz, 16-bit PCM, there is no reason why an appropriately-crafted MP3 file cannot *exceed* it in terms of quality. The Apple iPod already supports (slightly) higher sample rates, I believe, and if consumers desire it [2], there's no reason why modern digital formats cannot encapsulate very high-definition audio.
The only people who I hear whining about MP3 are those with either an ulterior motive and a desire to try and keep the industry from moving away from a distribution model that revolves around physical objects, or those who just don't understand the technology. (There are a very small core of audiophiles and techies who seem to dislike MP3 because they prefer some other format, usually either for ethical/political reasons or technical ones, and there certainly is an argument in favor of using lossless formats in lieu of MP3 for distribution, but overall MP3 strikes a good balance between quality and portability. [3])
[1] One 'competition' that pitted serious self-described audiophiles against modern codecs is described in detail here: http://www.geocities.com/altbinariessoundsmusiccl
[2] Which is a big 'if.' The buying public, to date, has shown little interest in high-definition audio as such. The only exception to this is multichannel audio, but that only in movie soundtracks for surround sound.
[3] This does raise the question, though, of why the legitimate music-download sites don't take a cue from the late, great, AllOfMp3.com and just allow the *customers* to choose their format of choice for their downloads. There's really no particular excuse not to at least offer a few different quality/size options, particularly for popular music that is going to be enjoyed in a variety of settings (automobiles, portables, home stereos -- each lends itself to a slightly different EQ and compression).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Whilst it's true that lossy compressed audio can't sound exactly the same as the original, it's worth bearing in mind that people will listen to their portable mp3 player in places where the background noise is sufficient to drown out any imperfections the compression creates.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
While the 90% figure may be overblowing things a bit, there is a noticeable loss of sound fidelity when converting to a compressed format. In fact, it's actually quite impressive that the loss is not even more noticeable than it is, and that is a testament to the brilliance of the original MP3 algorithms, which have been tweaked and honed to make the quality even better.
The fact remains, however, that most listeners, in most situations, don't care. For one thing, popular music has, since the 50s, been designed for listening to on cheap equipment. The dynamic range is enormously compressed, the sounds are often fuzzy to begin with, the voices are straight front and center. This can explain the dwindling popularity of classical and jazz, and the rise of the louder, simpler, more beat-oriented music like rock, rap, or pop. Note that I'm not saying the music is of lower quality, but that it can be reproduced "faithfully enough" on lower quality equipment.
I don't have any statistics, but I would bet that most music listening happens while the listener is doing something else: driving, working out, coding python scripts, etc. In those circumstances, an average listener is not going to notice a little swishiness in the cymbals, or lack of crispness on the trumpet's timbre.
Those who care (like me) will shell out the extra bucks for higher fidelity. Those who don't care, which are in the majority, will use whatever technology is most convenient.
My guitar chord generator.
No worries! If you want high quality stuff, like sound board recordings of live shows of decent artists that aren't controlled by the RIAA, it's out there in SHN/FLAC (lossless codecs). It's just not what most of the consumer market wants for a variety of reasons including size constraints, the fact that the music has little depth as it is, and it takes too long to download.
Is the concern overblown? Maybe not with 128kbps mp3s (as opposed to say 256kbs ABR kind).
However, these same producers compress the living bejeezus out of their music during the production, killing all the dynamics. So frankly, the effect of a lower-bitrate mp3 isn't quite the castration of full-on sonic fidelity that's portrayed in the TFA.
10% of original music is an overblown claim, because the music is not just filtered down, but is also compressed. In truth, the article should be comparing against equivalent lossless audio compression formats, which yield about 60-70% of the original size (so does that mean that a FLAC file contains 60-70% of the original music? No!)
The bit about the compressed music affecting the perception in a different manner is an interesting one, but I really struggle to see how the difference can come through the average consumer equipment. It just doesn't. For example, things such as SACDs or high-quality vinyl records allow the recording to retain a lot of the "air," ambience of the room, which gives a perception of larger-than-life sound, makes it sound more full, gives it an impression of better dimensionality, really puts you there. But shit, you can only hear that on high-end equipment with the entire signal chain made out of quality components, and you sure as hell won't hear the difference on a consumer system.
Most people also do not listen to the music in an environment that allows for such an engaging listening experience.
I too am sad to see the consumers ignore higher-quality audio (as I want that higher quality for myself, being an audio geek of sorts), but I completely understand where they are coming from.
This reminds me of the fuss that currently exists over HD-TV. People gasp at the quality of the picture, but don't notice the lack-of-quality of the content. It's the same with music - people focus too much on the equipment, and ignore the music.
I've got a beautiful violin recording from the 20s or 30s. It's very low-fi, scratchy as hell, but the playing is magnificent. Ask any jazz fan whether they'd prefer to listen to a well-used John Coltrane LP, or Kenny G in 192 kHz / 24-bit, DVD-A.
People, listen to the music -- not the equipment! Otherwise you're a hifi-collector, not a music fan.
Lossy compression sounds bad on classical music, period, and the same tends to be true for similar sources like solo acoustic guitar, piano, etc. Lossy compression assumes that most of the data is unimportant, which in a dense mix tends to be true due to masking. In a thin mix, though, that assumption falls apart, and so does lossy compression. Of course, that's not the only pathological case where lossy compression sounds bad; it's just the most common case.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
To my middle-aged ears, 192K BPS MP3 sounds fine. It doesn't have the phase-shifter effect found on 128K bps MP3s.
If you are younger in your teens or twenties, use 320K bps to get all the high frequencies that may be present in CD recordings. High frequency hearing diminishes with age.
CDs are heavily filtered above 16KHz-18KHz to avoid digital aliasing and this affects the sound. It's why musicians say that vinyl sounds better. Plus musicians get full audio range very loudly and clearly from their stage amps. Johnny Winter says that CDs sound like shit. He has been standing 10 feet away from an amp playing the sounds that come from his guitar for 40 years. Compared to that, well yes, everything else pales in comparison. You probably won't hear any difference.
What the top-flight music producers are really saying is "look, we get $50,000 - $100,000 plus percentage from every no-talent fuck band that walks in our studio off the top. Whether they sell ten or ten million albums, we still get ours. And this MP3 shit is causing people to not buy albums like they used to because instead of five friends buying the same 100 albums, now five friends buy one album each and make near-perfect copies for each other. So the record companies aren't signing as many no-talent one-hit wonder bands than they did ten years ago and this is beginning to affect our bottom-line as producers. And, as producers our greatest concern is to bring great music to the album-record-CD buying public, and we have to issue a statement saying that MP3 sucks. So there it is."
The real question here is why do the record companies demand that the bands that they sign use a top-flight $100,000 (plus percentage of sales) producer? Because it's the only way that they can be assured that they will get the same crisp homogenized Clear-Channel sound that will most-likely get profitable record sales from each of the no-experience bands that they have signed.
Of course the band pays the $100,000 to the producer up front out of their advance and they have no choice over who the producer is or what he (always a he) does to their sound.
The big issue here is the centralization of musical recording distributorship. This is a 20th century phenomenon. The best musicians and bands sign to one of a half dozen or so companies. The company then records the band, makes the recording sound good, embeds the recording into the medium (vinyl, tape, or CD disk) and distributes it around the world. This worked for 100 years. But it's failing now due to both technological change (home recording studios and MP3 distribution) and overwhelming levels of greed and corruption on the part of the record companies. All well documented on Slashdot over the years.
I'm pretty sure my dad's parents said the same thing to him when they heard him playing the Beatles. In fact, I know they did, because I used that story he told me against him when he complained about me playing The Cult in the late 80's.
Face it, you've fallen victim to the most tired, played-out cliche ever - absolutely every generation believes as teenagers that they're listening to the best music ever, and when they're old, they declare current music is "crap", and it happened in the 1920's, in the 1950's, and you get the idea.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Most music today really is crap, but so was most of the music in every time period. For every Led Zeppelin in the 70's there were a thousand crap bands making crap music, same with the 60's, 50's, 40's Etc Etc..
:-)
It's strange that you should mention The Cult because the 80's was responsible for producing some of the crappiest as well as some of the best music ever written IMHO.
I was with a band signed to the same label as The Cult in England, Beggars Banquet records, and they seemed to pick pretty good bands making pretty good music. They had a relatively small budget so they couldn't take as many chances as the likes of RCA, WB and other majors. So you tended to get a lot of crap music basically designed for people to dance and get drunk to, build walls to, shit to and anything else you can think of apart from actually listening to music to.
Bottom line is Britney Spears is a steaming pile of crap compared to Kate Bush, but you try telling that to kids today
There's no point comparing MP3s to CDs without stating the bitrate. We all know low-bitrate MP3s sound like crap, but I've done my own tests on 320kbit/s MP3s (with some fairly expensive stereo equipment), and even switching between them and the original source, I couldn't pick it.
Oh, and it'd need to be a blind comparison too. Misleading judgments due to the placebo effect are very common (see: Monster cable).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Let us not forget that even though 'crap' applies to every generation of music, the most recent generations have been subjected to far greater mass marketing, production and exploitation. This certainly translates into the quality of the music, I'm sure.
Being a super star musical act no longer requires any sort of talent and being found can easily just be luck of the draw, more so than any other generation. This increased musical exploitation undoubtedly results in a greater percentage of... junk.
I agree with your sentiment though - Every generation thinks their music is the greatest and the one before it thinks it is garbage - whether it really is or not.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Did you hear that whoosh fly over your head? There's no vast conspiracy; people's tastes change over time. There is no right or wrong, it really just *is*. Do you really think there was more creative outlets and more variety of music available to listeners in the days of the traveling minstrel? Elitism in music is the root of all problems with the industry, on par with the antics the RIAA pulls. The whole "if everyone is listening to it and it's popular then it must suck and be crap" cliche is tired and played out. People just need to realize that there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to music. Same with books and art. What works for one person probably doesn't work for another. That really doesn't make it right or wrong!
What your forgetting is that in the 50's, 60's, and to an extent the 70's were delving into completely new areas of music. In large part this was a result of an entirely new way of producing music (electronically) as well as an entirely new sound. Heck, many of the rock bands were using blues riffs that were truly revolutionary. So the older generations alive then wailing against this new genre of music are more akin to those that rejected the powerful and revolutionary concert musics brought about by amazing new instrumentation such as the piano and differing opinions on the role it should play.
The difference is that today's 30+ year olds know very well what this new fangled thing called "rock" is. Electric guitars. Electronica. We grew up with it our entire lives. When we comment on the quality of contemporary music we aren't speaking from nearly the same "old foggy commenting on revolutionary new way of making music" that those railing against rock did a few decades ago or the sounds of Beethoven 100's of years ago.
If brittany spears invented a instrument or was the first to use an electric guitar. If she used her own musical chords that were a different way of making harmony and progression. If then I took a step back and said "that sounds like shit to me". I'd have to begrudgingly admit that has harsh to my ears as her sound is, it is as least innovative. New.
But our judgments on music doesn't need to be so conflicted. She making the same "type" of music I've heard all my life. A little more 90's and a little less 80's, but still the same old stuff I've been hearing since I can remember.
And it sounds like tripe. Is not innovative or unique. It's a cookie cutter one woman "boy band" style music. It's entertainment backed by a bit of vocal talent and a flare for the stage...but nothing else.
Please point me to a single bubble gum pop boy band that has withstood the test of time as anything more then a chuckle and a laugh to those that listened to them as children?