Stop Making CD'S - Lets Use MP3'S Instead.

[tim_7string]

I'm confused, I do know not everyone uses these two. In fact, George has a different class of music. But I'm not following this point. More light- More Light AI

I believe the point he is making is that producers do not always mix the album, especially these days. For example, Nirvana's Nevermind was produced by Butch Vig but mixed by Andy Wallace.

I could be wrong too. Sorry for butting in.

On topic, I don't miss cassettes at all. I hated the hiss and the potential for them to snap or get eaten by the player. I only used them because they were the least expensive method for recording audio at the time (as a child, teen and young adult). But I would never say that cassettes sound better than mp3s, that's for sure.

[the stranger]

[Martin Kantola]

Hey Stranger,

 

how about this:

 

Let's say I had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to record a unique musical performance, but for some weird reason my only options were either mp3 or cassette.

 

It would actually be a very tough decision not to use my $1500 cassette deck, even if the benefits of compressed digital audio are obvious. My final choice might depend on the style of music (crawling into flame suit...).

 

A cassette is an analog tape deck operating with very narrow tape, nothing else. With good metal tape and dual capstans and maybe Dolby S etc. the specs are still not impressive, but far from awful. And yes, it has some of the benefits of analog tape and IMHO wins over mp3 with regards to those. But a bad cassette is plain horrible no doubt...

 

Would be fun to do a little test maybe. Record something (live?) to cassette and mp3, and the transfer both to uncompressed digital, uploaded for comparison and comments. Anyone interested? And where do I find good quality Memorex? :-)

 

My 0.05 euro.

 

Martin

[Will Chen]

 

I can happily recommend online streaming. I've subscribed to one streaming service or another since 2004 and I'm on Rhapsody now. I love it... I haven't tried their primary competitor, Napster, so you might want to check them out, too.

 

 

I've had more than a few recommendations for both and am probably going to take advantage of both of their free trial offers and write up a comparison for FrugalGuitarist. I've been piece mealing MP3s and have realized that from a monetary perspective, I'll save a bunch going with subscription model.

[blue2blue]

I've had more than a few recommendations for both and am probably going to take advantage of both of their free trial offers and write up a comparison for FrugalGuitarist. I've been piece mealing MP3s and have realized that from a monetary perspective, I'll save a bunch going with subscription model.

 

Rhapsody's pretty cheap with their free trial -- you're free for the first 25 songs and then you go back to 30 second clips... That said, it's enough to see how well the service works and it will let you endlessly prowl the song database, in any event. At least the player is stable and loads and unloads clean. (Unlike the late but not altogether lamented MusicMatch Jukebox.) It also has a sensible scramble/shuffle -- which the Yahoo and MM players were not so good at.

 

Love to hear how Rhap compares with Napster. That said, I ain't moving anytime soon. If I can help it.

[techristian]

 

Just to be clear, the point of my original post is this. If you are going to spend top dollars on recording, studio, engineers for a listener to "re-seasoned" the entire production, then why not save the money for promotion?

 

 

Because if all of your source material, every individual track, is only 16 bits (for an example) , adding virtual effects to each track (compression, reverb etc.)and mixing those tracks together will produce an end mix with only 14-15 bits of quality(at best). This is due to ROUNDOFF errors in each effect calculation and ROUNDOFF errors in the final MIX (which is actually the ADDITION of the wave files (tracks).) The quieter tracks will even have more distortion in the mix.

 

Let me put this another way.

 

With 16 bits you only have 65,536 different values/steps. Your waveform swings POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE which gives you a waveform which swings from -32,768 to + 32,768. When you mix only 16 tracks together, the AVERAGE wave can only have -2048 to +2048 or (4096 unsigned) IN OTHER WORDS, YOU CAN'T ADD A NUMBER ANY HIGHER THAN 4096 16 TIMES WITHOUT GOING OVER 65536.

 

8 BITS = 256 values/steps

9 BITS = 512 values/steps

10 BITS = 1024 values/steps

11 BITS = 2048 values/steps

12 BITS = 4096 values/steps X 16 tracks = 65536

 

With only 12 bits, the above tracks will likely be TRUNCATED (just throw way the last 4 bits) or rounded off (throw away the last 4 bits after rounding off)

 

And yes it is true that some DAW software will try and hold onto all of the bits and INTERNALLY do 32 bit math but BITS WILL FALL BY THE WAYSIDE, with each calculation.There are only so many levels of undo. To do 32 bit math, the DAW software adds 16 bits of ZEROS.

 

Can you now see why a 16 bit machine will only produce 12 bit quality,at best?

That is why, at the very least 20 bits are required to produce 16 tracks of 16 bit quality. 32 tracks would need at least 21 bits...etc.

 

The above example assumes 16 NORMALIZED waves all at the loudest moment of the recording. When some of your tracks are quieter, the results will even be worse.

 

The above example is for mixing only. Reverb, is created by multiple additions and thus creating multiple roundoff errors.

 

The only way to produce 16 bit quality with a 16 bit recorder is to do a LIVE record. A singer, an acoustic guitar and a quality mixing board might pull this off recording as HOT at possible (near 0 db) into the DAW.

 

DAN

[the stranger]

Can we get more posts such as the above by Dan? This is the type of stuff I can use for cassette propaganda purposes!

[the stranger]

The standard compact cassette offered a 45dB dynamic range. It wasn't good.

 

The new Metallica album has 3.2dB of dynamic range, but Lars says that's the way we make records today.

 

And...if Dan is correct, than most CD's released do not have the stated dynamic range...and even if they did, nobody would use it. That's not the way we make records today. So, we can deduce that cassette is more than adequate for music reproduction. (I'm saving you guys from typing "facepalm")

[the stranger]

I found a solution:



From: http://www.coolbusinessideas.com/archives/retro_mp3.html

It's an MP3 player. Yep.

[UstadKhanAli]

I'm confused, I do know not everyone uses these two. In fact, George has a different class of music. But I'm not following this point. More light- More Light AI

The point is that most people do not use expensive mixers or engineers. They pay what they can afford. You keep asking why you we should use people like Bruce Swedien or whoever to mix albums, and the point is that most musicians are mixing their own stuff or having their buddy who has a DAW on his computer to mix it for him or paying minimal money at a home studio to do it.

Like I've been saying for years, the great part of the music industry is that everyone can record their own music.

And the lousy part of the music industry is that everyone can record their own music.

[the stranger]

Cool. Thinks it's got 20 second anti-skip buffering?

 

 

Click it if you wanna see the bigger one. I didn't wanna blow the page width.

[blue2blue]

The new Metallica album has 3.2dB of dynamic range, but Lars says that's the way we make records today. And...if Dan is correct, than most CD's released do not have the stated dynamic range...and even if they did, nobody would use it. That's not the way we make records today. So, we can deduce that cassette is more than adequate for music reproduction. (I'm saving you guys from typing "facepalm")

Um... he was talking about how if one used a 16 bit maximum word in your mixing engine, you would get rounding area from complex processing -- which, as he noted, is the internal word length of devices and software which do signal processing to 16 bit signals should be at least 20 bits.

 

He was not talking about delivery format -- he's talking about the signal processing engine.

[UstadKhanAli]

I'm confused, I do know not everyone uses these two. In fact, George has a different class of music. But I'm not following this point. More light- More Light AI

The point is that most people do not use expensive mixers or engineers. They pay what they can afford. You keep asking why you we should use people like Bruce Swedien or whoever to mix albums, and the point is that most musicians are mixing their own stuff or having their buddy who has a DAW on his computer to mix it for him or paying minimal money at a home studio to do it.

Like I've been saying for years, the great part of the music industry is that everyone can record their own music.

And the lousy part of the music industry is that everyone can record their own music.

[the stranger]

Um... he was talking about how if one used a 16 bit maximum word in your mixing engine, you would get rounding area from complex processing -- which, as he noted, is the internal word length of devices and software which do signal processing to 16 bit signals should be at least 20 bits. He was not talking about delivery format -- he's talking about the signal processing engine.

Your like an unsettled load during the spin cycle. How can I spin if you keep bringing in the facts?

[audioicon]

If you can't figure out that people are using lower bit rates because it speeds up their downloads while stealing music at this point....maybe you should just not be recording and making music. ....it's really, pretty clear to me.

What did you say?
You are going over the speed limit! :confused:

AI

[Jeff da Weasel]

You folks know that Stranger is messing with your collective minds, right?

 

Or was I not supposed to say that?

 

Oops!

[slight-return]

 

Your like an unsettled load

 

 

 

that can happen with an unbalanced diet, esp if you drink coffee

[slight-return]

You folks know that Stranger is messing with your collective minds, right? Or was I not supposed to say that? Oops!

 

 

 

that's the game - everyone is messing with everyone else's mind -- we call it "society"

[the stranger]

that can happen with an unbalanced diet, esp if you drink coffee

 

 

Speaking of which, I meant to say: "Your like an unbalanced load in the spin cycle. Unsettled was probably not the word I was looking for. It didn't hit me until I was unloading the dryer some hours later.

[the stranger]

You folks know that Stranger is messing with your collective minds, right?

 

 

Am I?

[Jeff da Weasel]

Am I?

 

 

Wat?

[the stranger]

Huh?

[blue2blue]

Your like an unsettled load during the spin cycle. How can I spin if you keep bringing in the facts?

 

 

Your analogy is good -- except you've got the identity of the unbalanced load inverted.

 

I'm trying to balance the load by throwing in some facts to even things out.

 

Didn't you learn anything in home econ 101?

[blue2blue]

If Blurfle Sneep was here, he'd know what to do. I want to see a bipartisan truth commission headed up by Sneep to sort out the dissembling from the mendacity in this thread.

[the stranger]

Your analogy is good -- except you've got the identity of the unbalanced load inverted. I'm trying to balance the load by throwing in some facts to even things out. Didn't you learn anything in home econ 101?

 

 

Well, this is very unsettling.