Leppotone

I've been a downloading madman for the past several weeks. I'm doing the blogosphere thing. I have a Rapidshare account, I download jams, and then I use UnRarX to "unpack" the music.

I generally believe in "free music for everyone". Plus, I usually download OOP stuff, and the artist wouldn't be getting a cut of if I bought this super-rare record, anyway. I mean, I understand people want to get paid, but the whole argument smells bad when the majority of musicians complaining about free downloads are fuckin' millionaires. Most obscure bands -- from my experience at least -- want to be heard regardless of how they get heard. They would be tickled to know half of America wants to steal their music. 

Clever, what are your experiences with this last issue? What's the feeling you get from lesser known, struggling bands? 

That Rapidshare shit is annoying at times because I refuse to pay for downloading. Why? Because .mp3's sound like shit. If my crummy ears attuned to lo-fi punk rock and thrift store shenaigans think they sound bad then .mp3's must stink extra hard.

128k and below are worthless clock radio bullshit
192k are ok sometimes
320k sound the best but still the cymbals make everything go SHHHHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHHSHSHS

I ain't no thousandaire so I gotta make do with the stuff that I can find and download. for free.

iTunes and paying for crappy compressed AAC files is also foolish in my opinion. For every $1 you spend for a shitty sounding compressed song Apple gets $.35 for, uh, hosting the file in their database? bandwidth for a 2meg file?, the label gets $.65. Artist might get $.10. My view is if you feel guilty about downloading music from your favorite artist then send them some $, see them play live, but a T-shirt, Official Potholder or portable urinal. Favorite site about downloading and such is downhillbattle.

OOP stuff to download? definitely, what Justin said up there. Music's #1 reason for existing is to be heard and the labels will never make their entire catalogs available because of time, money, indifference and douchebaggery.

downloading Dick Hyman's voodoooo album right now.

and yes, downloading a digital copy of a song is stealing. videotaping your favorite TV show is also stealing, doubly so if you fast forward through the commercials. Talking or writing about a sports game you saw on TV without the expressed permission of the blah blah means you're also going to be sued and sodomized in Gitmo.

I'd say that the more exposure a cultural artifact has, the more potential value it has. Its artist will be more in-demand. For example, William Hung. SHE BANGS! SHE BANGS! Oh, so 2004. It's why he never made more than three albums.

I can agree with all sides here.  I don't like the sound of a download compared with a well-mastered CD or vinyl copy of a recording, and the thrill of hunting down a rare track is lessened when you can scoop it off the net (or get lucky and have someone drop a Pa-Go-Go ? single in your lap). 

On the other hand, I'm pretty thrilled to go to eMusic and grab tracks at a quarter a piece, know I'm getting the artist SOME funds, and eventually I've got the complete Stax Box #2 or Broadside Blind Boy Grunt cuts or the latest Buzzcocks the day it comes out for cheap.  I need that stuff cheap because my circumstances have changed - I'm still a music whore, but I don't have the disposable income I once had to spend on several new release LPs or CDs within a pay period.  I also don't have the free time to head out of town to go to a cool record shop (now that ours are gone) on any regular basis and trawl through the goods for treasures.  I still do it when I can (and hit the second-hands to make the hunts as always) but, frankly, when I need something new, I've got downloading if I want that quick fix.  It's not ever gonna replace my love for records and good sound, but it's a nice supplement.  (By the way, I haven't gone the free music route yet... but I seem to have dropped iTunes like a hot potato recently - $1 a track my ass!)

 As for "should this music have died" - no music should ever have died.  I think downloading is exposing loads of people to music they never ever would have heard unless they were the collector freaks many of us are.  Just like everyone gets all excited to share YouTube videos (does anyone complain about the "Dance Raja Dance" film clip not being a 35mm print shown in a theater with Dolby Stereo? obviously that's NOT from the original negative), people come across all that musical weirdness on the net and can't wait to pass it around.  I can't help but think downloading's PART of what's made WIDR programming so much more interesting in the last few years.  I know DJs contributing to the forum are the exception - your collections are real vinyl and discs and you should be super-proud of them, and I'm glad as hell you share on the air - but that guy that does "The Outhouse", surely he can't have collected all that rare-ass honky-tonk and 'billy without some use of downloads?  I dunno.  I'm just glad I'm hearing weird-ass stuff like Dick Hyman over that caterwauling whiny-ass crap that used to pass for indie college music six or seven years ago, when WIDR was getting passed on my dial more frequently than not.

One reason I might steal new jams (which I rarely do) is the fact that we are getting totally hosed on CD prices. I know there exist some great, well-anotated anthologies, but these little fragile fuckers (when mass produced) usually cost no more than $1.50 to make. That includes the total package. And we are often paying between $14 and $20 for them: R-I-P O-F-F.

This sucksx2 because I don't think compact discs sound too good. I mean, they are perfect for dance music, modern electronica, and a bunch of digital-heavy rock and noise. But I find myself really disliking the CD sound when applied to things that were intended to be heard on vinyl. Yes, mastering has gotten better (cheers to Rhino, Sundazed, etc.) but hell, I just bought the Blind Willie Johnson anthology on disc, and it just sounds awful. My scratched-up Smithsonian LP from the '60s, which only contains two Blind Willie tracks, sounds so, so much better. I also just discovered that I like the original vinyl of Sweethearts of the Rodeo far better than that high-tech, 16-bit remastering disc. The latter just feels so damn cold, flat, and glassy.

Thus, what I find myself doing is downloading some long-lost relic. And if I really, really like it then I buy a used viny copy. But if it's something new -- say a Will Oldham record from '01 -- then I'm probably not going to buy the disc. I'm content with the inferior mp3 format.  

"When I take your picture I steal your soul."

Clever is KILLING me lately.  Stop!  Stop!  you're making me bellow in an attention-getting manner at work!

I'm fairly new to the whole downloading thing.  This is changing fast as I am now the proud owner of a (somewhat) real iPod after playing with the Shuffle for the last year or so.  The site Clever pointed out looks pretty cool, I have almost every one of those records on vinyl but only a few on CD so I will probably download a few.  I figure if I actually own the albums I own the tracks too.  I might check out eMusic too.  Probably not the iTunes store though.

 I also am in complete consensus with you all that MP3 sound sucks. It is OK at the Walkman level (the main use of my iPod) but it generally gets bad as the volume and clarity available increase.  Because it is digital and pitch perfect it does sometimes create an illusion of decent sound but that's about as far as I would go. 

The unreleased Dennis Wilson LP's there!

Senor - I have to agree with that thought, "if I own the LP I own the tracks anyway".  This is what keeps me from feeling guilty about burning a borrowed copy of a remaster on something I might have bought once, twice, more than that maybe?, in previous forms.  I wish there was some way to register tracks you own in originally released formats which would allow you free upgrades in future formats for life.

I have a TON of early Dead soundboard recordings at 320kbs (which is a bit high for most people's machines) and, with a little equilizing, they sound freaking awesome. 

All vinyl ripped mp3s I have also sound fantastic at 192 or higher. But, I'm no audiophile; I just want/need to hear weird stuff off the beaten path. Free vinyl rips online have opened the floodgates... I rarely listen to ANYTHING more than 2 or 3 times these days...which I find amazing: I can possibly listen to new stuff several times a day until I die (in 150 years or so). That rules.

So, you audiophiles, has the e.q. worked for you? have you tried? what about types of speakers, amps, etc.? Is analog "warmth" just as much a product of the system playing it as it is the recorded piece? 

I don't think it's all 'analog warmth' although that is a big part of it.  It is the idea of pulling out more of the actual details of the sound.  Theoretically analog sound is molecular which no commerically available sampling rates approximate, especially not hyper-compressed formats such as MP3 or AAC.  At home I am running a 1992 vintage Linn Basik (cost about $600 at the time) turntable with a fairly cheap Stanton DJ cartridge through a 2001 vintage cheap 100 watt Kenwood receiver and a pair of early '70s Advent speakers (the big ones) which I was lucky enough to find at a garage sale.  The turntable and the speakers are in my opinion the most critical elements of the system.  Betwen the two I get a detailed sound with firm, deep bass and the details of individual instruments (particularly percussion which seems to sound weakest in digital format) emerge and the sound 'comes to life'.  The turntable (and secondarily, the cartridge and of course not having a worn needle is important) is THE most important element of the whole thing.  As the computer guys like to say, garbage in, garbage out.  There are no speakers or amplifiers in the world that can improve a shitty sounding turntable or CD player.

I have used my latest generation Sony minidisc recorder to digitize vinyl and found that it works wonderfully.  It is kind of a time consuming process (recording in real time).  I use the 1200s in my basement direct to the MD recorder, then I burn it onto CD on my computer using the Sony software (a little clunky but it works).  From the CD I can move tracks into iTunes (to the best of my knowledge the Sony and Apple softwares are in no position to communicate with one another) and the tracks sound at least as good as any other MP3 tracks.  I suspect that a lot of vinyl transfers are done using poor turntables and such leading to the old GIGO problem. 

 no question there! but what about mp3s? certainly not with a turntable, but playing hi-res mp3s through a good system with an equalizer *should* produce pretty damn good sound. right?

also, I thought minidiscs were analog, akin to video laserdiscs? I could be wrong... but if they are still analog, that would account for your success.

however, i've ripped albums straight into Cool Edit on my PC using a Hercules Game Theater XP sound card (some over-the-top amazing card with a break-out box that someone gave me) and then to hi-res mp3s or CDs and they all sound great on my system. So, in the end, what's the problem with mp3s?

Oh, also, I just bought a new car and the speakers in it are nuts... they're pulling frequencies and stuff out of the mp3s that I've never heard on any other system or format. I don't know if this is a GOOD thing yet, but it's certainly really cool. For example, was playing some Pearls Before Swine and I heard some rhythmic metronomic thing on one song that, in all my years listening, I had never noticed before. Weird. But, who knows what it's pushing away to make that frequency be heard? Still, the mp3s of an analog record sound great.

The same thing happened to me. I got into PBS, and after some time I listened to Bakalava with headphones and holy shit. The stuff is so detailed, crafted, and dense.

Damn, there was a BOSE headphone commercial on last night talking up how they were designed for travelers on aeroplanes to cancel out background noise and sound all fucking great like.

Etaoin, I wanna hear what some of your ripped lp's condensed down to .mp3 sound like.  I use CDex to rip my cd's and to rip .wav files to .mp3, using the lame encoder, 320kbps, high quality, etc.  They still sound all lossy, to me, even more so when I'm listening to them in the car, portable stereo, on WIDR, wherever.

Maybe I do just need to get some better speakers for my computah.

Also, what's your ripping software like?  Easy to cut up tracks and all, all input is good because ripping vinyl makes me wet. 

also, I thought minidiscs were analog, akin to video laserdiscs? I could be wrong... but if they are still analog, that would account for your success.

The problem with MP3s is not a 'digital vs. analog' issue, it is a compression issue.  The data that is taken away so an MP3 track can be 4 MB or whatever does influence the sound and no EQ is going to put it back.

Mini-disc is a digital format.  The original MD format compression used about 1/4 of the data used on a CD (MD was about 160 MB vs. 700 on CD) with 'long playing' formats that used more compression so more music (up to about 6 hours) could be crammed on a disc.  There is a newer format for MD (Hi-MD) that allows you to record in PCM (very little compression) or WAV (same compression as CD) as well as a 'regular' format that is a little more compressed than the original ATRAC (the Sony MD system) but still very good quality.

so, how is it mp3s sound great to me and not to others? I've been listening closely to music for many, many years, so it's not a question of "training my ears". and, sure, I bet if I did a side by side test, I might notice the difference. BUT, at the end of the day, the mp3s sound as good to me as  my vinyl. I just don't get it.

I think there are a lot of variables here.  Tradeoffs, if you will.  Sometimes it is subtle.  MP3s do sound good (even very good) in some settings.  I am listening to my iPod right now through a old component system in my office and it sounds OK, especially at lower volumes.  Digital means perfect pitch.  If I were to play them through my home system there would still be perfect pitch but I don't think some of the drums/percussion sounds would be as good.  Another thing to remember is that the $89 JC Penney turntable from 1979 is not going to sound as good as some real audiophile type gear. 

Hmm, maybe knowing that a lossy form of music

2 meg 128k .mp3
5 meg 320k .mp3
40 meg .wav

is lossy makes me think that they sound like poopoo more than their sounding like turds.  The difference between those two rips of mp3's I have above is pretty big. 

Shit, I'll try to find my rippin gear and rip a song today and make it into a few different mp3's and finally the untouched .wav file too, we can experiment with our ears!  Host it on my site, I put it up after I sleep more.

I need a vintage receiver and a new turntable to make me feel better and the music to sound better, goddamn Sears receiver :(

not entirely OT, but all this talk of coverting vinyl, etc, reminds me that I have some work to do in that area... I have a 1970s Techniques system that currently is fried. The turntable still works great, and I'm too cheap to fix the amp...so, I was thinking of getting this. Anyone have any experience with things like this? Comments would be appreciated!

mp3, aac, ogg are all 'lossy' codecs some audio quality is going to be lost in order for the files to be nice and small so they can fit nicely thru the internet pipes (it's not a truck after all). there are lossless codecs like flac, and ape that are lossless. these codecs compress the wav file without any degradation of quality, but of course the files are quite a bit larger than your lossy files (but still way smaller than wav).

a comprehensive guide to proper cd rippage is located at http://www.bestmp3guide.com/ cuz a bad rip sounds like ass at any bitrate.