I have stayed off the the entire MP3 bandwagon and I'm curious how people feel about the sound quality issues.
Do you buy things on CD that you like on MP3? Do you have a quality system for listening to CDs (or LPs) or is your primary music system essentially based around MP3 sound quality?
These days the vast majority of music that I listen to is at work on headphones with a portable cd player with predictable sound quality. But I like knowing that I can take things home and listen to what the "actually" sound like on my home system.
But I never know how to feel about albums that sound better at work than they do at home. The two examples that spring most readily to mind are The Bangles and The Replacements. Both are great work music but are not produced in a way that benefts from listening on a system that reveals details.
So I know that music can sound great with medocre sound quality, but I worry sometimes about MP3 that people will stop expecting that music be produced in a way that sounds like real life because nothing will sound like real life on MP3.
There was a good but unexceptional recent article in the New Yorker about the history of recording. I think the central point that the nature of recording technology changes the way people play and listen to music is obvious.
So I'm curious how much MP3 is the dominant format in which people listen to music?
Real Rhapsody
Rhapsody is an atrocious metal band with an affinity for gnomes and orbs. They released an album called, totally not kidding, Holy Thunderforce. The chorus of the title track goes like this:
So we'll fight against the wind
for the glory of the kings
to defeat the evil enemies
And we'll ride with our lord
for the power and the throne
in the name of holy thunderforceAwesome!
Download this, rename it to HolyThunderforce.mp3, and listen. You will be rewarded.
Sounds too complicated. Sigh. Will you come over and set it all up for me? ;)
Is it my memory or did we not flirt at all in person?
Is that the best song ever? I think so. Are you and Labs the same person, or what?
That's an interesting question Nick. One can definitely hear the difference between CD and mp3. Still, because it's so damn convenient, I'd say about 90% of my listening (and about 90% of that is in the car) is to mp3s, not CDs. No idea how other people listen.
Is that the best song ever? I think so. Are you and Labs the same person, or what?
The song is without peer. I would have its babies. Would Labs have its babies?
Oh my god, I forgot about the "Holy force, holy / Holy force, thunder" part. I am transported.
I think what makes it most interesting is the way in which changing formats affects what music sounds good. I gave two examples of things that sound better (or sound more like what they're supposed to) on a mediocre system but there are plenty of examples of things that aren't worth listening to if you can't get the details.
For example, take the Doc Watson / Chet Atkins tune on the compilation that I have mentioned. It would change things if you couldn't hear that Chet is playing an electric guitar and Doc is playing an acoustic guitar.
I think it's impressive when recorded music does sound like the sounds are coming out of actual physical objects -- which is possible. I love recordings where you can hear the sound that comes off of the singers chest and throat in addition to the sound that comes out of the mouth. Or even just being able to hear the way that the singer's mouth shapes the sounds. There's some Otis Redding, for example (e.g., "Hard to Handle" IIRC) where it's obvious that he's singing relatively quietly with his mouth close to the mike and it's really fun to listen to how he uses his voice.
But I'm an audiophile.
recordings where you can hear the sound that comes off of the singers chest
If you can hear that, mp3s aren't for you. What does that sound like, anyway? How can you tell?
I'll try to think of a good example. But in principle it's the same as the difference between sound coming off the strings of a guitar and sound coming from the body of the guitar. Ideally you'd like to hear both (as you would in real life).
Hmmm. Did we not flirt at all in person? Perhaps not. But are you the flirtatious type?
I can be, but not at first--I'm all concerned with being polite.
I'm still trying to think of the best example of a track where you can hear what I'm talking about, but I should mention that one of my favorite acoustic recordings is the Peter Tosh's live version of "Get up, Stand Up" on the _Scrolls of the Prophet_ collection.
Both the guitar and voice have such presence in that recording. The guitar is slightly tinny and out of tune but it sounds like it's intentional (or, at least, that Peter Tosh is very familiar with that guitar) the playing is really intense and casual at the same time.
Well you were very polite. Maybe we need to go out another time so we can flirt.
Ah, so you follow The Rules! I get it.
And on the fifth date, they flirted!
She's your shipoopi.
Gratuitous link. It all makes sense in a delirous way.
Still responding to #10:
I thought of an example, that should even fit within your stated musical preferences. Ewan MacColl singing the Highland Muster Roll.
If you want to test what I'm talking about yourself try humming or singing and putting your hand on your throat or at the top of your chest and notice how much vibration you feel. Notice how it changes as you move your hand and between higher or lower notes. Try holding your hand in front of your mouth as you sing and you can feel the vibrations of the sound from your mouth, and you can feel a big change as you open and close your mouth.
[Note, I can't sing at all so so that isn't necessary to try what I'm suggesting.]
[Note 2: As a purist I should mention that if you want to know how much Ewan MacColl was *not* a folk singer in any traditional sense listen to Scottish Drinking & Pipe Songs.]
Interesting two threads we have going on here. Anyone going to try to connect them?
You can ogged could flirt by humming and assessing each other's resonant properties.
Or, if you're musically inclined, you could record some Frodo-metal covers of Ewan MacColl songs. Why not start with The Elfin Knight?
ogged could flirt by humming and assessing each other's resonant properties.
This is a great idea.
NickS, you just need to encode mp3s with a good encoder at a high sampling rate. lame's preset standard or extreme will do you good.
Rhapsody sounds a lot like Manowar, only not nearly as sweet. I couldn't find a link to one of their good songs, but I assure you Manowar crushes these Rhapsody poseurs.
Have I mentioned that I was a metalhead in high school?
BTW, has everyone heard this? I've listened to it twice a day for the last week. It's freakin' awesome.
"Shipoopi" is interesting. It's not as if "shit" and "poop" were unknown to people in 1957, but they were, apparently, buried so deep under rules of respectability that one could sing an unobjectionable song about "shipoopi." Not only that, but "shipoopi" was a term of endearment. The 50s, man.
2 He blowes it east, he blowes it west,
He blowes it where he lyketh best.
What do Child ballads have in common with Huddie Ledbetter and Deerhoof?
"Shipoopi" is interesting. It's not as if "shit" and "poop" were unknown to people in 1957, but they were, apparently, buried so deep under rules of respectability that one could sing an unobjectionable song about "shipoopi."
There's a lot of that in older (pre-60's or so) literature -- stuff where a recognizably obscene double-meaning had to be apparent at the time, but everyone (I suppose) tacitly agreed not to notice. I'm particularly thinking of a passage from a book by Angela Thirkell, who wrote a series of very proper and respectable comic novels about upper-middle-class English families immediately before, during, and after WW II. I googled for the passage, but could only find a couple of lines.
(Lydia is a teenage girl who is at a fair, riding on a merry-go-round with a variety of non-horse animals.) Mr. Grant offered his cock to Lydia who immediately flung a leg over it, explaining that she had a put on a frock with pleats on purpose as she always felt sick if she rode sideways.
The passage goes on for about a page, talking about how the cock is Lydia's favorite thing to ride, other characters talking about how that's all she talks about is riding her cock... It's simply impossible that there's anything going on other than a conscious joke, but there aren't any other sex jokes that open in the books. The author must have been having some fun, counting on the fact that it was just too improper for her publisher or anyone else to point out the double meaning.
Chopper:
The song from #25 is one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life. How did you ever find it?
counting on the fact that it was just too improper for her publisher or anyone else to point out the double meaning
I guess that's right. If you think it's dirty, you're the dirty one. Self-enforcing norms.
I just love hearing her plaintively sing, "I got a sawed off/Squeeze the trigger and bodies are hauled off." I see a MacArthur grant in her future.
#23 (the greatest comment to ever play the game?)
Ben, since I have no way to play MP3 it's sort of a moot point, but it's good to know that they can, in theory, be of "CD quality".
The motivation for my long intial comment was the fact that I'm aware that the system that I think of as my "referce" system is not the system on which I do most of my listening, and that has changed what I listen to.
I was really interested in MP3 mostly as a way to ask the question if other people were conscious of they ways in which the methods used to listen to music affect the experience of listening and the type of music listened to.
In addition, I do wonder if I would be well servered to use the available MP3 archives as a way to listen to a wider variety of music and audition things to buy on CD. But I resist that because I suspect that if I did I would not, in fact, buy coppies of all of the things that I liked and it would push me further down the road of doing most of my listening with mediocre sound quality (and would that be bad?).
Wait, ogged, you encoded at 96kbps?
Eek. Doesn't music sound like underwater warblings unless you use at least 160kbps?
After swimming head first into the wall of the pool ogged decided that he likes underwater warblings.
It's in the "read more »".
Oh, the guy's instructions, right right. No, I set mine to 192.