Is Neil Young right - should we really be celebrating the MP3?
Posted Mon 12 May 2008 3:41PM BST by in a-CMU-blog
As you may have seen in Friday's CMU Daily, Neil Young has been dissing MP3s.
But Young's dislike of MP3s has nothing to do with the fact that the format does not come with any digital rights management - the reason the major record companies resisted selling their music in the format for so many years.
No, Young's dislike of MP3s will be shared by many musos out there, rather than the bosses of the big music companies. Young doesn't like the MP3 format because of the inferior sound quality you get with it.
Announcing plans to launch his entire back catalogue on that new fangled high sound quality Blu-ray disk whatnot, he remarked: "Putting on a headphone and listening to an MP3 is like hell. [I want to give people] quality whether they want it or not".
Musos have been complaining about the sound quality of the average digital music file for quite a while now. It's just that people like me were so distracted with trying to persuade the major record companies that only selling music in non-iPod compatible DRMed formats was dumb, that we've generally ignored their moanings to date (despite the fact they have presumably recorded said moanings in a pristine format).
It has to be said that sound purists can often over exaggerate the need for music fans to have the most perfect sound quality recordings available. Young says he'll give his fans top quality recordings "whether they like it or not", which is a telling statement, because even many of his fans probably don't really spend too much time worrying about the sound quality of songs on their iPods.
And let's not forget, that consumers have not been especially enthusiastic for the various high sound quality disk formats that have come on the market in recent years, and have instead flocked to the dodgy sound quality on offer on YouTube, MySpace etc, and shunned the higher quality streaming audio and video services that are out their on the net. Though that is possibly because choosing the high quality option in those two scenarios is either expensive or not especially user-friendly.
But, while we shouldn't necessarily put the sound quality purists in charge of our digital music services, I think now is a good time for a debate on what levels of sound quality consumers should get, and what the technical implications are of delivering music at that quality (the need to re-ingest content, the capacity of players, the bandwidth of downloaders).
The MP3 has been positioned as the perfect digital music format in the DRM debate, because it is the one format that can work on pretty much any computer or digital music player, including the iPod, and is therefore perfect for those of us wanting digital music to be as user-friendly as possible. But, even MP3s 'encoded' at a much higher 'bitrate' than those on sale on your average download platform aren't necessarily offering you the best music in terms of sound quality.
I'm no muso, and am actually one of the people who has happily filled my PC with low bit-rate MP3s while watching my videos on YouTube, but I still think a bit of time considering sound quality should now be on the agenda in this post-DRM digital music age.
But Young's dislike of MP3s has nothing to do with the fact that the format does not come with any digital rights management - the reason the major record companies resisted selling their music in the format for so many years.
No, Young's dislike of MP3s will be shared by many musos out there, rather than the bosses of the big music companies. Young doesn't like the MP3 format because of the inferior sound quality you get with it.
Announcing plans to launch his entire back catalogue on that new fangled high sound quality Blu-ray disk whatnot, he remarked: "Putting on a headphone and listening to an MP3 is like hell. [I want to give people] quality whether they want it or not".
Musos have been complaining about the sound quality of the average digital music file for quite a while now. It's just that people like me were so distracted with trying to persuade the major record companies that only selling music in non-iPod compatible DRMed formats was dumb, that we've generally ignored their moanings to date (despite the fact they have presumably recorded said moanings in a pristine format).
It has to be said that sound purists can often over exaggerate the need for music fans to have the most perfect sound quality recordings available. Young says he'll give his fans top quality recordings "whether they like it or not", which is a telling statement, because even many of his fans probably don't really spend too much time worrying about the sound quality of songs on their iPods.
And let's not forget, that consumers have not been especially enthusiastic for the various high sound quality disk formats that have come on the market in recent years, and have instead flocked to the dodgy sound quality on offer on YouTube, MySpace etc, and shunned the higher quality streaming audio and video services that are out their on the net. Though that is possibly because choosing the high quality option in those two scenarios is either expensive or not especially user-friendly.
But, while we shouldn't necessarily put the sound quality purists in charge of our digital music services, I think now is a good time for a debate on what levels of sound quality consumers should get, and what the technical implications are of delivering music at that quality (the need to re-ingest content, the capacity of players, the bandwidth of downloaders).
The MP3 has been positioned as the perfect digital music format in the DRM debate, because it is the one format that can work on pretty much any computer or digital music player, including the iPod, and is therefore perfect for those of us wanting digital music to be as user-friendly as possible. But, even MP3s 'encoded' at a much higher 'bitrate' than those on sale on your average download platform aren't necessarily offering you the best music in terms of sound quality.
I'm no muso, and am actually one of the people who has happily filled my PC with low bit-rate MP3s while watching my videos on YouTube, but I still think a bit of time considering sound quality should now be on the agenda in this post-DRM digital music age.
Those who think the MP3 at sufficient bit rate(to match the sensitivity of human hearing) produces inferior sound quality are simply ignorant of the facts and have minds that are more susceptible to what they believe rather than what they actually here (aka Emperors New Clothes syndrome).MP3's were designed with convenience in mind since the size of music files without compression(WAV) would be SO HUGE that downloading,moving or storing such files would become a ridiculously time consuming and expensive task,so unpopular - just like blu-ray only sells to a pin head minority who have more cash then sense to gain them little if any benefit(put probably prestige status with their peers who value subjective valueless)
You see the design of the MP3 was to shrink the music file by removing the bulk of the sound which is actually outside the human range of hearing - like taking the dog whistle off the track its makes no perceptive difference to humans.
Its how the sound that is reproduced for making/mastering the MP3(CD, vinyl)that determines the sound quality along with fidelity of the equipment used to play the format. There no point in having a big bit rate file for use in a mobile phone (or cheaper computer speakers etc)when the fidelity of the equipment is lower than the actual quality of the file.
What would most rather have a tiny MP3 player that can play countless difference tracks/endless MASSES practically unlimmited + Variety of quick to access music +Video files on a PC OR the alternative a heavy unwieldy,expensive barely portable music player with few songs but of unrivaled quality/expensive,noisey,hot,slow comp for a limmited number of media files?
Decades ago did we take our Hi-Fis about with us instead of our walkmans? Of course not for the majority music + video can still be enjoyed and appreciated down to a certain quality in exchange for convenience and value for money as indicated by the enormous popularity above all other types of music reproducing system of mp3 players-as often musos become so conceited,selfimportant and clueless to everyday life they need to remember its the music they made they were(once)valued NOTHING ELSE