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I don't get music piracy at all ?


AluminumNeck

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How in the world do these kids listen to crap compressed down to 96kps or 128kps. Sounds like total dog{censored}. The encoding artifacts every where.

 

How this came up is that I ripped a few old pearljam cd's for easy archiving and somehow my defualt settings were wrong and it ripped them to 128. Wow this sounds like total dog {censored}.

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AAC at 128 is passable, AAC at 192 is darn good. MP3 at 256 usually works. i ripped my new muse cd to my ipod and noticed some distortion on a couple tracks, so i went and listened to the cd and sure enough it was on the disc as well.

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I'm with you on that, I couldn't agree more...the thing is that I think most music listeners honestly can't tell the difference!!! It's no joke, many times I've been with friends or family and they were playing ripped stuff on their stereo or computer or whatever and I could hear it right away, but I could tell they thought it sounded just as good as a CD. I'm guessing that they just don't listen to it as closely or with the same set of ears that musos do.

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I'm guessing that they just don't listen to it as closely or with the same set of ears that musos do.

 

No doubt, but some of the pop music I've heard sounds like glitches to begin with :rolleyes: I'm not being elitist about it, but the artifacts are more apparent on music that isn't modern pop with a wall-to-wall frequency spectrum and brickwall, zero dynamics.

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They can't hear the diff because they are not really listening.

 

I'm with you on that, I couldn't agree more...the thing is that I think most music listeners honestly can't tell the difference!!! It's no joke, many times I've been with friends or family and they were playing ripped stuff on their stereo or computer or whatever and I could hear it right away, but I could tell they thought it sounded just as good as a CD. I'm guessing that they just don't listen to it as closely or with the same set of ears that musos do.

 

It ain't like the old days. Back then, you'd gather a group of friends along with a case of beer and a dime bag of pot, and you'd sit and listen to the music. It was an ACTIVITY.

 

Nowadays, music is nothing more than background noise. People have it going in earbuds while running on the street, or exercising in the gym. Between wind noise and vehicle noise or gym noise etc and your own concentration on your exercise, you never hear the fine details in the music. So a ripped copy of something is entirely adequate.

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I can't bear to listen to any encoding. Even what is considered top of the line encoding. It drives me nuts. Musician buddies, engineer friends, they hand me their iPod to check a song they dig or a drum sound they're going for and...

 

It sounds like a 2D picture likes compared to life.

 

I know there are inherit limitations in standard red book audio, as there are in analog tape recording... but it doesn't have a size optimizing codec. I hear that codec every time and it makes me wacky. Turn it off, don't want to hear it. I don't care what some tech says I'll never miss...

 

...I miss it.

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I can't bear to listen to any encoding. Even what is considered top of the line encoding. It drives me nuts. Musician buddies, engineer friends, they hand me their iPod to check a song they dig or a drum sound they're going for and...


It sounds like a 2D picture likes compared to life.


I know there are inherit limitations in standard red book audio, as there are in analog tape recording... but it doesn't have a size optimizing codec. I hear that codec every time and it makes me wacky. Turn it off, don't want to hear it. I don't care what some tech says I'll never miss...


...I miss it.

 

 

I can hear encoding pretty clearly out to 256 kps on most consumer gear. I can here it to 320 on good monitors. It does drive me nuts.

 

I did try the FLAC codec. Totally transparent. Not a big reduction in size either. Maybe a 20% reduction in file size and it claimed to be a losseslss encoding standard.

 

I think I will just throw another 1tb drive in the pc and Rip it all straight to pcm wave. Screw it. I don't need to compress.

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I can hear encoding pretty clearly out to 256 kps on most consumer gear. I can here it to 320 on good monitors. It does drive me nuts.


I did try the FLAC codec. Totally transparent. Not a big reduction in size either. Maybe a 20% reduction in file size and it claimed to be a losseslss encoding standard.


I think I will just throw another 1tb drive in the pc and Rip it all straight to pcm wave. Screw it. I don't need to compress.

 

 

"Screw it. I don't need to compress."

 

Exactly.

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They can't hear the diff because they are not
really listening
.


It ain't like the old days. Back then, you'd gather a group of friends along with a case of beer and a dime bag of pot, and you'd
sit and listen to the music
. It was an ACTIVITY.


Nowadays, music is nothing more than background noise. People have it going in earbuds while running on the street, or exercising in the gym. Between wind noise and vehicle noise or gym noise etc and your own concentration on your exercise, you never hear the fine details in the music. So a
ripped
copy of something is entirely adequate.

 

 

Perfectly put. My sentiments exactly.

 

Take an album like 1966's Simon & Garfunkel's PARSLEY, SAGE, ROSEMARY & THYME. The songs have been so carefully set out (in relation to each other). There is every indication that you will sit down, and--- for the next 35 minutes anyway--- focus on each song in order, marvel at the melodic and harmonic liberties taken, meditate on the meaning of the words, your eyes continually darting to the album cover to consider the cover art and song information on the reverse.

 

That kind of seriousness of intent--- a meditation, if you will (pot is mentioned above)--- is gone with the wind.

 

I don't exempt myself from this change in behaviour, though, either. I think the last time I earnestly involved myself in an album from beginning to end, without significant interruption, studying every single note and lyric--- was probably 1991 or so, with the French-language version of LES MISERABLES.

 

Or maybe 1997 with the album PAINTED FROM MEMORY by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach.

 

Maybe 1998 with the Mercury various artists release, GROWIN' UP TOO FAST.

 

But then-- let's face it--- those albums were written for the kind of serious pop listener I was... Every note, every chord, every lyric of those albums is a salient, juicy one. By comparison, an album of three-chord songs, strummity-strum-strummed, featuring a longhaired girl whining away on violin is just not the same thing (for me, anyway).

 

Since about 1995 or so, it's been all about the three-minute song for me, and the MP3 is just so damned convenient a "container" for a single song (maybe by its very invention).

 

Is time more valuable nowadays? Maybe. Are we more rushed these days? Probably. Are listeners less trained in music study, both at home and at school, than the 50's and 60's, even the 70's? I'd be willing to bet on it.

 

Your big egghead pundits are suggesting that we are becoming much more of a visual society in general. That's probably true. The naked audio wave is, generally speaking, generally less and less of how important information is circulated. Take this Forum, f'rinstance: It's not like we're connecting two tin cans with string.

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Nowadays, music is nothing more than background noise. People have it going in earbuds while running on the street, or exercising in the gym. Between wind noise and vehicle noise or gym noise etc and your own concentration on your exercise, you never hear the fine details in the music. So a
ripped
copy of something is entirely adequate.

 

 

Maybe if record companies put out something that was worthwhile and didn't sound like dog{censored}, people might actually sit down and listen to it. And unless one stops listening to most rock and pop music, there's no fine details to hear in modern recordings anyway. I mean, I rarely hear 3-D depth, exquisite placement, clever arrangements, beautiful soundstages, or anything else in a recording.

 

Most recording engineers and mastering engineers have stopped caring, so why should we expect anybody else to care? If we overdub everyone, record everything direct, use software synths, snap to grid, AutoTune, edit, copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, loop, loop, loop, crank up that gain optimization, and then sell it as 128kbps MP3s...what nuances are left anyway?

 

I can fully understand why LP sales are growing...and among younger people. It's one good way they can avoid {censored}ty sounding music.

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sounds like the beef is about compression not piracy. compression made 'digital distribution' easier to deal with in bandwidth-size terms but thats true for legal and pirated - streaming and ipods included -- whatever is practical at the time - tape, mp3 whatever. I just looked at a popular torrent site just to see what was up and most of the 'recently added' top 10 were FLAC

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At AES in NY I went to a producers panel.

Chris Lord Alge was there and mentioned how, just because he got used to working this way years ago, he continues to mix using a 16 bit system. ( I forget the name of it). He mixed last years Green Day album and excerpts of it were played. It was slammed to death and the high end was totaly trashed. He did all this processing using 16 bit files. The crowd appauded wildly. I didnt get it . I think he is guilty of malpractice and should have his mixing license revoked.

 

Can you believe someone at this level working at 16 bits just cause he is too lazy to learn a new system. How ridiculous. Im not sure a codec would have made it sound any worse.

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At AES in NY I went to a producers panel.

Chris Lord Alge was there and mentioned how, just because he got used to working this way years ago, he continues to mix using a 16 bit system. ( I forget the name of it). He mixed last years Green Day album and excerpts of it were played. It was slammed to death and the high end was totaly trashed. He did all this processing using 16 bit files. The crowd appauded wildly. I didnt get it . I think he is guilty of malpractice and should have his mixing license revoked.


Can you believe someone at this level working at 16 bits just cause he is too lazy to learn a new system. How ridiculous. Im not sure a codec would have made it sound any worse.

 

 

can you belive that with modern compression levels most stuff would be fine at 8 bit or less.

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can you belive that with modern compression levels most stuff would be fine at 8 bit or less.

 

 

The end product might be well represented at 8 bits if such minimal dynamic range exists. I understand that well.

 

However, all the processing involved in doing a mix at 16 bits versus 24 or 32float (level changes, verb, modulation effects, track compression) will have a major impact on the end result. I can easily demonstate this on my own little rig.

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Some people have interesting ideas what digital audio is.

 

- A 24-bit PCM file uses 24-bit at 0 dBFS, and circa 8-bit at a dynamic level at -40 dB RMS, the used bit rate goes goes down to 2-bit at lower levels.

 

- 8-bit per second is not a mp3 bit rate.

 

- The standard bit rates of the MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (mp3) standard are 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256 and 320 kbit/s, and the sampling frequencies of mp3's are 32, 44.1 or 48 kHz.

 

For comparison, a pulse code modulation (PCM) audio at CDA red book format is 1411 kbit/s.

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It's the other way around, as louder the music as more bits are at work

 

 

 

Forums are usually a dangerous place to try and discuss compolex technical stuff. I suspect we both understand sampling theory and the imact of bit depth. At a given sampling rate adding bit depth does only one thing- increase dynamic range.

 

If you are in a 24 bit system ( or 16 or 8) you are correct that louder means you are using more bits.

 

However, if the the final mixed signal is squashed to death then an 8 bit system may be adequate to fully represent that dynamic range -using all 8 bits.

 

However, my main point is that mixing using 16 bit files on a 16 bit system with all the processing involves significant sonic compromises comapared with a 24 bit or higher system. Can we agree on that?

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However, if the the final mixed signal is squashed to death then an 8 bit system may be adequate to fully represent that dynamic range -using all 8 bits.

 

What should such a 8-bit playback system be? Compressing the dynamic width to more then -14 dB RMS e.g. -6 dB RMS, then it gets difficult to maintain a pristine sonic quality, and this no matter what the bit rate is.

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i'm not always right, your conversation does not follow what is being discussed, and as usual you speak with condescention disguised with your off the wall humor. it gets very old. perhaps you should try being a part of this group instead of attempting to hover above it in some self righteous sense of superiority while poking at it with your tidbits that are often out of context.

 

many of us understand the nuts and bolts of this technology and how it works and evolves over time, but this forum is not about whos "knowledge dick" is bigger.

 

you are correct in that radical overcompression sucks. absolutely it does. i just bought 1983 zz top eliminator (not the re-issue) on cd and am amazed at how awesome the sound quality is compared to say the new muse cd; i forgot how good it sounded. makes me want to eat TV dinners if the sauce is not too blue :)

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