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anonymous 26 August 2007

I've been reading more and more about the coming demise of the CD. And honestly, it scares the hell out of me. If digital downloads is what it is coming to, fine, I think it's great, but do they have to be MP3s? They sound awful! Why isn't there a way to download full size 16 bit, 44.1 wav files? Does it really take that much longer to download? And isn't it worth it to take the time? I realize that the listening public is perfectly fine w/ MP3 quality, but I know they can hear the difference. Of course, convenience out weighs quality, but we should have the option to download the file size we want.

I have an iPod w/ 44.1 files on it. Granted, it's the 80 gig iPod, but the reason I got that one was for the storage capacity. I rip all of my CDs to an external 250 gig drive, again, so I have the ability to store larger files.

I'm willing to do these things for quality, why aren't more people? What am I missing?

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drumist69 Mon, 08/27/2007 - 12:07

Product to sell at shows (at least for local and regional bands around here) amounts to t-shirts, stickers, buttons and thongs...yeah, thongs. Then they'll have a stack of postcards with their myspace address and a site where you can download (buy) music the next day when you're sober. A lot of local bands will have a stack of burned CD-R's with 3 or 4 songs they either give away or sell for $3-$5.

I haven't been to a show by a major label band in eons, so I don't know what they sell. Used to be t-shirts pretty much exclusively, but I imagine they've introduced new items. Andy

RemyRAD Mon, 08/27/2007 - 13:03

I think he should take a pocket full of 1GB USB memory chips. You blow your music onto the chips! Even smaller than the CD with full uncompressed.wav quality sound. Its novel. It's teeny tiny. You offer them for sale at your concerts. Nobody's doing it. And if they decide they don't like your music, they have a nifty 1GB memory chip that they can use for other purposes. But of course it would have cost them double, since you want to make some money from your music. But you give them something that is useful outside the realm of music or a single-purpose use. It's a double whammy sale!

Thinking outside the CD sleeve
Ms. Remy Ann David

Space Mon, 08/27/2007 - 17:15

During the evolution of optical storage medium, starting with the laserdisk, it has taken decades to get to this point where the cd may have reached its inevitable conclusion.

The infrastructure in the audio playing field is vast and has many tools to move it's many audio products. For that reason alone I can see the cd being with us for a time as yet unknown.

Although in the foreseeable future someone on a stage somewhere could say "call 44515 to get a menu of our latest tunes...it's a FREE call!" All those cell phones calling to get the free menu selection thing and then making a purchase to thier cell phone for .99 for one of the selected songs. Or maybe the whole album/cd. There's yer money! I suppose it would be simple enough to broadcast to bluetooth enabled cells and give everyone in the house a sample from the coming album/cd...free of charge.

Then the crowd goes home and burns the tunes to a cd.

The cd is currently the item of choice when "burning cd's" but it may have a brother, the DVD, that could upstage it and knock it off the pole.

Audio players will have to evolve once again and once again we the public, if it is embraceable, will clamor to get the new player that can play either a cd OR dvd! Oh, so that is already happening? Don't say I didn't warn ya:)

I do not see the "end" of cd storage happening in the near future. But it isn't so far fetched that the cd/dvd could replace the multi talented cd

We have witnessed the death of one dimensional vinyl in our lifetime and it is only my opinion that the multi-purpose cd will not be replaced as easily as vinyl was...unless it is by dvd.

Brien

anonymous Mon, 08/27/2007 - 20:47

Brien, Your point is very valid. I agree, CDs may stick around for awhile or be replaced by the DVD or the CD/DVD. However, I disagree that vinyl is not dead! Many releases, and I believe there are statistics to support this, are released on vinyl for collectors and audiophiles.

The real question that has not been addressed for me is the
download-ability of 44.1 wav files. Will consumers even want audio of even that quality? Will they pay more for it? and why isn't there a website that sells files like that already?

What i'm really asking is this; will I be able to get music in a file format of the quality that I want in the future, or will the convenience of smaller files override the quality? Surely there are more fellow music industry people that would want that, and I can't imagine that no one has considered this.

Does the technology slow us down so much that we have to forsake quality for the technology? Does anyone know how long it would actually take to download a 16 bit, 44.1 wav file? I just can't take that long!

audiokid Mon, 08/27/2007 - 21:37

Tracey Schroeder wrote: "I think he should take a pocket full of 1GB USB memory chips. You blow your music onto the chips! Even smaller than the CD with full uncompressed.wav quality sound. Its novel."

Ms. remy, that is truly a brilliant idea! So who's gonna be the first to do it and make all the money?

I absolutely second that! Remy, you are wealth of a lot of things.

Thomas W. Bethel Tue, 08/28/2007 - 06:34

"As the great American humorist Mark Twain once told a group of
journalists: 'The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated...'

I thing the same can be said for CDs.

But there are problems

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/arts/music/28musi.html?ex=1338004800&en=89793f4128e3ba8e&ei=5090

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6284914.stm

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9735

The CD is the cassette of yesterday with some notable differences. It is digital, it can be reproduced in large quantities quickly, it is fairly robust, I can have a fancy label and can contain mixed formats.

I am not selling off my CD burners and CD players quite yet.

anonymous Fri, 09/21/2007 - 01:02

I wouldn't be too worried Tracey, digital downloads still only make up a small percentage of music sales.

A 44.1khz download site is an interesting idea, but probably too niche to warrant. At the end of the day, only audiophiles know or care that 44.1khz is better than mp3. I don't think the public is particularly worried, especially since they're listening to music through crappy headphones and computer speakers.

fourone3 Fri, 09/21/2007 - 06:14

I've always thought that with the integration of computers to home theater that the next evolution in CD quality (or better) would consist of a flash card of some type that directly connects to the users system. With the advent of compact flash cards already in computers and media systems, why not use this for pre-packaged music or movies?

It'd be the same as buying a CD - you get the quality and feel of buying a package. I don't know about anyone else, but I still get a thrill out of buying a CD and checking the liner notes and lyrics.

But I'm sure the cost of all this wouldn't be worth the effort as it's been pointed out that it would be a small market.

RemyRAD Tue, 09/25/2007 - 12:41

Anthony_Gore old boy, I think you've gone a little too far south?

MP3's are at 44.1kHz and are 16-bit. In that way, they do not differ from a CD. They differ in that approximately 80% of what is believed to be inaudible data is removed. This sometimes, depending on the codec utilized and other extenuating circumstances can produce either a beautiful sounding almost indistinguishable from the original MP3 music file. Or something that is truly horrible sounding as an MP3 that was improperly compressed by inexperienced personnel, with bad production skills.

Good-quality MP3's have been used for years throughout the radio and television broadcast industry. You've never even noticed that your local TV announcer lives 1000 miles from the station you hear them on and they never left home (especially without their American Express cards). People like myself and even a platinum producers like George Massenburg has utilized good-quality properly compressed MP3 files to use for professional evaluation purposes. Perfectly adequate and lovely sounding. That means that the 128 kilobit MP3 was properly produced and compressed by a professional.

Amateur made MP3's, regardless of the programs used still generally sound awful. This is generally due to a lack of understanding and experience. A sharp spike of 15,750 hertz from television horizontal sync, which gets into everything, electrically, acoustically, can wreak havoc with MP3 audio. Normalization is a no-no. Even though the audio only goes to 15kHz, at 128 kilobits per second, the compression algorithm is still trying to figure out what to do with this 15,750 hertz horizontal synchronization signal that frequently makes it on many recordings.

This awful problem with horizontal synchronization signals was even apparent to me back in 1976 when the Rolling Stones introduced a new album called Black & Blue. Regular old vinyl with an almost deafening 15,750 hertz screaming signal on the disk! I couldn't believe this as I was playing this on the number one rock and roll station in Baltimore! But back then, many mastering engineers didn't have or use, spectrum analyzers and their hearing obviously wasn't up to snuff either. Because if it had been, nobody, not nobody, the group, the producer, the management of the record label would have ever allowed this out, without utilizing a 15kHz Notch filter prior to release. But then they were probably over 40 and couldn't hear that high. I figured that Mick was trying to watch a soccer game, with the sound down, on television while trying to sing his vocal track. Even if that television had been on the other side of the glass, it is still picked up electrically and acoustically. It's a terrible problem in many studios and has been for many years because of clueless inexperienced engineers that don't understand television and cannot hear beyond 15kHz, even if they say they can. One needs to only look at a spectrum analyzer to discover what the engineers, musicians, producers, management and mastering engineers really can't hear. We know that most of them are full of crap and this just proves it. You can't just listen. You've got to look at the signal also in every way you can. Response, phase, overload, distortion, noise, etc..

Moral of the story, always keep television sets (not necessarily computer monitors which operate at a higher horizontal frequency beyond that of human hearing and most antialias filters and microphones) off and away from any recording equipment in the control room or ever getting anywhere near any kind of microphone, most especially condenser microphones which are wonderful little receivers for horizontal sync.

Don't believe me? Give it a try. You don't even need the sound turned up on the TV set. Really.

The woman who knows
Ms. Remy Ann David

Boswell Wed, 09/26/2007 - 05:14

RemyRAD wrote: This awful problem with horizontal synchronization signals was even apparent to me back in 1976 when the Rolling Stones introduced a new album called Black & Blue. Regular old vinyl with an almost deafening 15,750 hertz screaming signal on the disk! I couldn't believe this as I was playing this on the number one rock and roll station in Baltimore! But back then, many mastering engineers didn't have or use, spectrum analyzers and their hearing obviously wasn't up to snuff either. Because if it had been, nobody, not nobody, the group, the producer, the management of the record label would have ever allowed this out, without utilizing a 15kHz Notch filter prior to release. But then they were probably over 40 and couldn't hear that high. I figured that Mick was trying to watch a soccer game, with the sound down, on television while trying to sing his vocal track. Even if that television had been on the other side of the glass, it is still picked up electrically and acoustically. It's a terrible problem in many studios and has been for many years because of clueless inexperienced engineers that don't understand television and cannot hear beyond 15kHz, even if they say they can. One needs to only look at a spectrum analyzer to discover what the engineers, musicians, producers, management and mastering engineers really can't hear. We know that most of them are full of crap and this just proves it. You can't just listen. You've got to look at the signal also in every way you can. Response, phase, overload, distortion, noise, etc..

It's the line flyback that causes the problem, especially as the line output transformer was overwound to produce the 20KV needed for the tube HT. If it was a 15.75KHz (525-line x 30Hz) whistle, it must have got into the Stones' disc when the final editing was being done in New York. In the UK in 1976, 405-line TV was prevalent (10.125 KHz line scan) and 625-line was just coming in (15.625 KHz). Most of the album recording, however, was done in 1975 in Munich and also in Rotterdam, both places where 625-line TV was firmly established.

fourone3 wrote: ...that's called raster, right?

Not quite. The raster is the rectangle swept out by the horizontal and vertical scans, sometimes applied only to the visible, brighted-up section and not the parts that get lost in the flybacks.

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