http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/s ... nwood.html

Dithering: Jonny Greenwood

This Dithering series, on the sound quality of recorded music, will be a feast, but it will include vegetables. To understand what’s at stake, we’ll need to get technical. We need to pin down how and why the standards for recorded music dropped in a way that they didn’t for, say, full-length movies in theaters. We need to measure the amount of information lost between a master recording and an MP3. These data are your vegetables. This information will be wicked cool and relatively easy to understand, but not as sexy as Amy Winehouse singing “You’re Wondering Nowâ€

Sketch will not approve.

Makes some excellent points, and some that I've subscribed to over the years. The point about having so many mp3s is especially one that I've believed in for awhile.

wait....but.....

http://www.obner.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=42896

?

Ive been thinking about this lately because it does seem to some degree that I am chasing the dragon when it comes to music. I am not an audiophile - and dont seek to recapture music that way, but I do think that there is something to be said that the reason why audiophiles are older are because (besides the obvious reason that they have more income) the experience of music itself has lost something to them. Tolerance increases, and they need to distill the experience (making it more artificial in the process?). Music boards, live shows, etc - are mainly populated by younger adults. There are of course always exceptions including this board.

Is this partly due to culture and life's natural trajectory- I'm sure- but there seems to be a less identified more fundamental reason that is just as valid. And I think that quote captures a part of it - or perhaps the consequence of it.

perhaps its the downside of experience (of music) - the neural connections already established habituate your response to music....

I don't see the correlation? My point about the mp3s is simply that there are people that literally download EVERYTHING. They might listen to it once, maybe twice. They have gigs upon gigs of music that will never be listened to. The point he made about the Miles Davis recordings is apt. So what if you download every recording under the sun of Davis' work. If you listen to it once, or never but own it what good is that?

if that's the case, then they do not love music. why someone would just "keep something" around, especially something like an MP3, makes zero sense to me.

i've thought this many times.

But that's the culture. Most people don't just download to taste. People dl to own. I initially got emusic when I had a radio show. I had zero chance of being able to afford, or get sent promos of everything I wanted to feature. I've kept it around, because there are certain records that I want to listen to, don't feel like tracking down and want immediate ease. I've tried to stay true to the philosophy "if I like it, buy it".

Strange that he mentioned background music, which is exactly what his band has become.

I'm poor and I listen to most music through $20 Sony headphones. I think it is great there is such a thing as FLACs and other crap for the hardcore audiophile, but I don't really think I'm missing out on much nor would I expect many bands to put out music files that way.
I have a crap ton of albums on Mp3 format that I rarely listen to, but with external hard drives it is nice to keep some generally mediocre stuff around in case you get in the mood for it. I really only delete the shit I find unbearable in two or less songs.

Dale dies a little inside everytime someone says that.

I just chuckle every time I read it. It also makes me shake my head in disbelief, the same way rereading the old reviews of Kid A where critics got all up in arms about how the band was going electronic and killing their rock sound.

Only because Johnny's not seeing the bigger picture. I'm sure he will be pleased to know I'm rockin Nero -q .4 (~128) AAC on the iPod these days.

This is slightly mind-boggling to me. If I read it correctly, I somehow "lost the experience of music itself", so I went out and spent thousands of dollars on an audio system that reproduces the original audio source as closely as possible (to the extent my income allows). On the contrary, I did it get as faithful a representation of what the artist intended as I possibly can. And this somehow makes it "more artificial"? There's some serious pretzel logic at work here. I get as close to the music as I can, and shitty bit rate mp3's don't get me anywhere NEAR it. Unless it's Radiohead.

I think he has a point about people just having too much music these days. There are certainly lots of people with giant collections around who have rarely paid much attention to most of what they have and just gather things up for free because they can and they hear it is something they MUST own.

As far as MP3s go, he does admit there is a loss of sound quality, but he is OK with trading that quality for convienience. As a recent iPod user I can agree with this to an extent. I mean, for in the car and traveling and all sorts of other reasons having an iPod is so quick and easy that I'm already addicted and usually am quite hapy with the quality. Still, there is a difference and when I'm at home I tend toward vinyl and enjoy hearing things in better quality.

And, there are certain things that MP3s do just fuck up. I've tried encoding the Subhumans: Firing Squad every which way imaginable but in MP3 form the cymbal intro still sounds like a muddle mess of shit for just one example of a song I really dig but that is seriously unlistenable as an MP3. And there are others that just happen to clash with what MP3 does well.

Ideally, I just hope developers continue to work on designing better and smaller formats because while I'm happy with MP3s for my purposes more often than not, I don't for a second believe MP3 the absolute best that can ever be developed as far as getting higher quality with smaller files. I hope that eventually we won't have to debate this quality vs. convenience issue and we can have both either because memory continues to shrink and get cheaper to the point there is no problem handling lots and lots of larger files or there is a format developed that can maintain full quality at a tiny size.

I do tend to think the whole...well MP3 isn't great but it is good enough attitude isn't very helpful to striving for something better.

And yes, if anyone has whipped up an MP3 of Firing Squad that does not sound like hammered shit...link please.

Didn't you vote for Sarah Palin?

No, no. No, no. It's totally not like that. Stone voted AGAINST a Pan-African fifth-columnist who was going to tax our great nation-state into the same decrepitude as plagues his home continent, under the guise of "socialized medicine" & "the common good".

Stone was trying to save us from misery.

No, but so what if I did? She was a better choice than that bumbling idiot that's the VP currently.

No offense, but that sounds like something a birther would say or any one that really believes Obama is some sort of pseudo commie fascist who wants to unite North America into one union and put all right wingers into concentration camps.
I will add that I don't really think we need to bring up anyone's political opinion in a music discussion, even if we strongly disagree with their comment.

Ah, no.

Stone is racist against the first state.

Sketch, your post in that thread made my head explode.

Enjoy the music people.

My point was not about whether mp3s or 'high-end' audio equipment is better. My point was this- music no longer evokes the raw, primal response it did years ago (and is therefore less meaningful) - and so, they complicate the experience (in an attempt to make it meaningful once again) - it is no longer ABOUT the music so much as listening to music THROUGH high-end audio equipment. And that is what makes it more artificial. If you have spent any time with audiophiles or on forums - you know how little of the talk is centered around MUSIC.

I wouldn't expect there to be.