I don’t normally makes posts for the sole reason of directing people to links, but this article is very well-written and engaging. In the age of MP3, the fidelity of music has taken a serious hit. In a time where people are constantly fretting about 1080p, HD content, and the format war, music has been relegated to the mp3. Along with that, music producers have continued a trend of dynamically compressing music in order to make it louder which ruins the dynamic character of the original recordings. Instead of a musical track having loud parts and quiet parts, all parts of music are being made loud. I’m not an audiophile like my brother, but I can hear the difference in an MP3. Moreover, if you listened to many recent pop albums, you’ll realize that quiet has disappeared. Look at something like The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Strokes, The Hives, The Arctic Monkeys, or Fallout Boy. It may be said that the sonic dynamic of music is a preference, which I believe is true, but I must also say, I prefer to listen to music that is dynamic instead of static. Here’s the article from Rolling Stone which is excellent and features some input from huge names in the industry like Butch Vig:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity
4 Comments
December 28, 2007 at 8:54 pm
The “HD Revolution” and the compressed music issues are separate I think.
HD DVD and BluRay disks are shipping with the new codecs for audio that has higher quality. HD-DVD uses Dolby TrueHD.
The problem is 2 fold, storage size and bandwidth. HD-DVDs and BluRay are humongous. mp3s are tiny. With bandwidth for US internet connections barely increasing at a pathetic rate, we cannot really download good formats. We can actually, but it takes a lot longer and people want everything now. Mp3 is “good enough.” I can hear a difference.
I do think people just can’t hear as well as they can see, and that’s why the TV market is blowing up. Here’s another question though: Why do people spend 2 grand on a TV and use the crappy TV speakers? I pipe everything into my stereo receiver, even my Wii.
I think once flash memory density gets into the terabytes for a portable player such as the ipod and we all have 100 mbps internet connections you’ll see a higher quality audio file.
As for what music studios are doing, they are morons. They’ve been morons and that is why they are failing. I’ll have to listen a little closer in Guitar Hero 3 and Rockband, they are supposed to have master tracks for a lot of songs.
January 9, 2008 at 5:01 am
Holy crap, you both lost me at the first word…
March 28, 2008 at 12:45 am
http://mp3ornot.com/
i beg to differ…..
There is huge difference than purely bitrate. Also, there are very big communities around that support nothing less than FLAC audio. I agree that the mainstream public has more or less fallen for the easy to get shit quality. Although, if you’re into loss less audio, its out there.
http://www.what.cd
March 29, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I have collected FLAC a little bit, but FLAC is more the exception. I think a big part of the problem is that U.S. internet speeds are rather slow so it’s difficult to send large hi-fidelity files. What I find interesting about this article is the flattening of music to make tracks that are purely loud by the record industry. Beyond the inherent problems with mp3 fidelity, music being produced today is louder and less dynamic. Maybe that’s a style thing? At any rate, I’m not a fan.