Opinions on MP3

[Anderton]

What do you think of MP3, from a technological standpoint? Does it sound "good enough"? Do you think other formats sound better? Do you actually use MP3s in your day to day work? What do you use to encode them? Any tips? Please discuss!

[Anderton]

I'm particularly interested if any of you have done formal comparisons of the various compressed data formats, and what your subjective opinions are.

[Anderton]

One thing I've noticed about MP3 is that it seems to lose the least amount when it plays back highly-compressed music. Is this because the limited dynamic range of the medium is a good match for material with limited dynamic range?

[Randy Peterson]

MP3 is what it is. Most pop music sounds fine with it, and most people have tin ears anway, right?

 

The big question is when is MP4 coming? Lots of people seem to like Liquid Audio, maybe that's better. Craig, you should do an aritcle comparing the different formats. Take files that are all encoded to the same size, then listen to which sounds best. I'd be interested. I don't really do anything with MP3 yet, but those portable MP3 devices seem a lot more convenient than CDs, or those Minidiscs you seem to like so much. - RP

[Sui]

Originally posted by Anderton:

What do you think of MP3, from a technological standpoint? Does it sound "good enough"? Do you think other formats sound better? Do you actually use MP3s in your day to day work? What do you use to encode them? Any tips? Please discuss!

 

MP3 is all right I guess, for the internet, possibly passing around ideas and what have you. Sure beats the tar outta RA format.

 

That's about as far as I'd go with MP3 though ; as I said it sounds OK, but MD or the now defunct DCC format still kicks the pants off MP3. Let's face it, those flash cards aren't cheap if you buy a portable MP3 player. I wouldn't use any digital squeeze format to master with though, under any circumstances.

 

So I suppose MP3 is "good enough" when someone I know wants me to hear thier latest musical idea and they can serve it up instantaneously in my email box - for that purpose it is certainly handy.

[Anderton]

Originally posted by Sui:

I suppose MP3 is "good enough" when someone I know wants me to hear thier latest musical idea and they can serve it up instantaneously in my email box - for that purpose it is certainly handy.

 

 

My theory is that MP3 has replaced the single, which record companies were stupid enough to kill off many years ago. In other words, it's a compromised-fidelity medium that mostly serves as a "teaser" for "The real thing." The price is right (usually free), and like singles, you can stack a bunch of them in a changer -- err, I mean, hard drive.

 

It's funny about MD. I still love it for field sampling, but for critical listening, the more I listen to it, the more apparent its shortcomings. Ditto with MP3, RA, and all the other compressed formats -- they sound okay at first, but wear with repeated listenings.

 

What I find interesting is that no one seems to care about 24/96 -- it just isn't getting a buzz. I even closed down the folder here on it because no one seemed to care. Yet people are falling all over themselves to play with new compression algorithms. The only conclusion I can draw from this is 1) people really don't listen much to acoustic music, so they don't really have a standard of comparison and 2) people are more interested in the message and the beat -- the emotional component -- than the physical quality. After all, wouldn't you rather have a great bootleg recording of a great artist than a great recording of a crappy artist?

[Sui]

Originally posted by Anderton:

It's funny about MD. I still love it for field sampling, but for critical listening, the more I listen to it, the more apparent its shortcomings. Ditto with MP3, RA, and all the other compressed formats -- they sound okay at first, but wear with repeated listenings.

 

What I find interesting is that no one seems to care about 24/96 -- it just isn't getting a buzz. I even closed down the folder here on it because no one seemed to care. Yet people are falling all over themselves to play with new compression algorithms. The only conclusion I can draw from this is 1) people really don't listen much to acoustic music, so they don't really have a standard of comparison and 2) people are more interested in the message and the beat -- the emotional component -- than the physical quality. After all, wouldn't you rather have a great bootleg recording of a great artist than a great recording of a crappy artist?

 

The thing I've always heard in compressed digital formats is the fact that the tails on anything with a long decay time get cut off abruptly. This is definitly no good for mastering. On the other hand MD at least offers non-linear editing, and once you have it the way you want it tracks just about as fast as CD, which it nice. Plus no more stupid searching for that one track you want to hear like you do on DAT or cassette - you go right to it. So it's good for listening copies - I personally like MD better than cassette, at least MD never degrades over time, as far as I can tell, plus it's a lot less prone to being damaged by magnetic fields (although the TOC still can be wiped out if the magnet is strong enough).

 

As for lack of interest in 24/96 recording, my reason for lack of interest in it is simple: There's no point in recording in that high a resolution until there's a common consumer medium which can playback 24/96 audio. Yes I know DVD does this but as far as I know nobody's making 24/96 CD's yet. Until such a thing becomes reality I'm staying at 16/44.1 - having to dither back to 16-bit defeats the whole purpose of recording in 24-bit in the first place.

 

I guess the bottom line with the compression algorithms is people wanna save space. Look at it this way - would you rather keep a 47mb uncompressed file on your drive or a 4mb MP3 that sounds fairly good? Most people don't have the ears to tell the difference and will opt for the latter. AT least until we start getting 10 terrabyte drives in the market.

 

And I think you're right about the music itself - people want what they want, I don't think the format is so much an issue as long as they can play the music back in the convienence of thier own homes.

[alphajerk]

its worth getting the 24 bits and going down to 16, your more likely to use more of the 16 bits then than if you started there.

 

as for the 96, its ridiculous. you cant hear a difference from 48 so why waste twice the space???

 

mp3: good for streaming songs over the current net, horrible for anything else. they need to agree on a format and get some 24/48 format secured. sony and phillips i hear a battling it out. politics.... keeps anything from happening.

[Anderton]

Originally posted by alphajerk:

its worth getting the 24 bits and going down to 16, your more likely to use more of the 16 bits then than if you started there.

 

as for the 96, its ridiculous. you cant hear a difference from 48 so why waste twice the space???

 

mp3: good for streaming songs over the current net, horrible for anything else. they need to agree on a format and get some 24/48 format secured. sony and phillips i hear a battling it out. politics.... keeps anything from happening.

 

 

I've found that 20 bits works well for getting 16 "real" bits of resolution. Although I guess everything is going to 24 bits anyway...20 was just a stop gap measure while people waited for 242 bit converters to come down in price.

 

As for 96 kHz, I don't know of anyone who records consistently at 96 kHz. As to a format for secure downloads, who knows? I'm intrigued by the idea that record companies are pushing for downloads so they can eventually phase out the CD, which is too easy to copy.

[Chip McDonald]

>Anderton wrote: What I find interesting >is that no one seems to care about 24/96 --

>it just isn't getting a buzz.

 

The reality of cd's superceding vinyl was created. There was hype built up on the hardware side as well as in the recording industry. They could do it again with 24/96 if they wanted to, and in the process take some steam from MP3.

 

Again, greed is probably preventing this from happening these days. Big label execs are probably going "hey, the margin is going to be smaller due to costs... why bother with that??? Why risk committing to DVD audio in a big enough way to make it happen?". Meanwhile they fret over CD's being burned from MP3's... Oh well.

[alphajerk]

i heard its sony and phillips/or somebody battling over the format. right now sony gets royalties for every cd sold. they dont want to lose that and are pushing for SACD. so yea, its over greed.

 

20bits 24bits... same function when you are going down to 16. 20 just seems ridiculous to invest in now since 24 will most likely be the next step. like who wants a 20 ADAT when you can get a 24 bit TASCAM now? and all the software is running at 24.

 

i dont know though if i would rebuy my collection on a 24 bit disc. maybe the few and when the old get scratched too much. but i see cd's getting phased out, i just hope they keep containers. i still want to hold it and look at the inserts. besides i suck at making tapes so why would i be less lazy on the computer.

 

i will NEVER burn a cd with an MP3 file.

[johnnyproaol.com]

Alphajerk said: "I will NEVER burn a cd with an MP3 file."

 

MY $.02: I recently did an indie CD for my wife, and she's had a lot of good luck with it on Mp3.com, both in sales and in downloads. It's acoustic Celtic Harp music with some synth strings here and there. In order to check her artwork, we ordered a D.A.M. Cd from Mp3.com. These are made in both .wav format and MP3 format from the uploaded Mp3's. (so it's playable both on a computer and on a CD player). It sounded VERY brittle to my ears. A bit worse to me than listening to the MP3 file directly. So I kinda agree with the above post. MP3's are good for internet stuff, but that's about it.

[Anderton]

Has anyone out there ripped your favorite CDs to a big hard drive so you can use it as a jukebox? IF you haven't, does this concept appeal to you? IF you have, is it cool?

[alphajerk]

why would i waste hard drive space on mp3's??? i got all my bands on napstar and i can play all those at random. have a couple DL's from some favorite bands in there but to also spend time ripping the cd's i already have???