Will music suck for the rest of our lives?

This Rolling Stone article about the changing standards for sound on music CDs is interesting to me -- it's not the first time I've seen a major publication decry the overuse of dynamic range compression.  Where RS really loses the plot, I think, is when they blame the rise of MP3s for the trend.  As the article itself notes, the overuse of DRC really began in the mid-90s, before MP3s had really begun to take off, and well before they'd set the new standard.

As for the present day, clearly there's no need for digital music to impede sound quality.  Portable hard drives are big enough, and better free sound standards exist to store data at lossless rates (see FLAC.) The only real problems here are that a) the industry (primarily Apple) is moving away from cheaper, larger hard drives to smaller, more expensive flash drives (not without good reasons), and b) so far, there's been little move from the consumer end to shift to lossless formats.

The big question -- and this has a wider relevance, I think -- is whether we'll ever be able to get consumers to switch from MP3, which though flawed is basically good enough.  The RS article mentions the failure of DVD Audio and SACD, two attempts to bring in higher-fidelity audio that resulted in embarassing losses.  (SACD and DVD-A seem to have found a niche in classical music, though.)  What it doesn't mention is that both formats adopted restrictive copy-protection measures that would have prevented people from using their music the way they clearly wanted to.  But I think the biggest hurdle is simple complacency:  people know MP3, it's good enough (and certainly good enough for listening in noisy environments like the ones we use iPods in) and most people don't have the kinds of sound systems they'd notice the difference in anyway.

This, to me, suggests that the transition to HD-DVD or Blu-ray is going to be a lot rockier than Hollywood is hoping.

Comments

[Amos Anan]

The one to switch to would be ogg, which is an open format, without any tithe involved, but then that's its major flaw to the publishing world. It's ironic reading about any need to compensate for weaknesses in an audio medium. Vinyl is mythical, yet vinyl requires compensation for its inherent flaws. So much for too close a look at technological reality.

As for dynamic range, that reminded of listening to a song from a CD made by a band that I knew. It was on a juke box in a bar. It sounded weak but that was in comparison to the other, major label, CDs on the juke box. The problem was simply volume. The major labels have volume just below or often into the clipping zone. Anything that has to compete in a comparable environment will not be heard unless it's set up in the same way. I think that's part of the problem with "dynamic range." Ideally, with a musical piece, a listener would set the volume fairly high, to listen to quieter, individual performer, "intimate" moments and also the full resonance of the whole band or, more to the point, orchestra. In most cases to get the intimacy of the quiet moments, the full volume level will be much too high for a public space (like an apartment with neighbors :P).

Considering that commercial music is competitive much more on a basis of volume rather than intimacy - a dance club compared to a symphony - it's not surprising that adjustments are made to capture that situation.

As for technological advances, I can only think of HD digital television. We were supposed to have compatibility with older analog technology. Delays were made in the technology supposedly because of problems with maintaining compatibility with analog legacy devices (the hundreds of millions of pre-digital televisions). At the same time, I'm sure (:P) purely coincidentally, during those delays, there was a tremendous push for DRM within digital broadcast technology. That push is complete, even to the point of obsoleting much of the early digital broadcast television devices. All the delays for backwards compatibility were solved by simply requiring people to buy expensive digital adapters for their analog televisions. Another sham enabling centralized control of publishing on a pretext of providing a service to the public.

[Lux]

People listen to music. Audiophiles listen to equipment.

There are many more people than audiophiles in the world.

[Jason C.]

I think a lot of people probably prefer MP3 because they know they'll be able to play it on anything.

For instance, after you download a FLAC file, you can't just play it with WMP, burn it to a CD, or transfer it to your MP3 player.

There are some workarounds - you can download the proper codec to play it on your computer. But I'm not sure whether you can burn FLACs to a CD, and I know for sure some (most? all?) MP3 players won't play them. And even if there are workarounds, people don't want to be bothered.

[pseudonymous in nc]

The big question -- and this has a wider relevance, I think -- is whether we'll ever be able to get consumers to switch from MP3, which though flawed is basically good enough.

Apple missed a trick when it introduced a proprietary lossless codec, rather than embracing FLAC. It's not even to protect ITMS purchases, since they don't sell lossless files. Apple Lossless works with the Airport Express, but it's just not portable.

This is slightly off-point, though:

What you can say now is that a commitment to digital distribution ought to get past the limitations of the CD format. But even then, there has to be an impetus to reduce dynamic range compression, and it'll take a more substantial change in thinking, so that music designed for delivery over FM radio or in clubs isn't produced to be LOUD first, and music next. It's a bit like the delivery rush of fast/junk food.

(The worst-produced CDs in my collection, though, tend to be mid-80s. They probably sound better on vinyl.)

[Josh R.]

you can burn flac's to CD, although I'm not sure if all cd burner programs can do it.

[Crissa]

I think the problem comes two-fold. Not only does the DRM stifle people's use of the medium, requires new and expensive hardware... Digital is inherently a lossy medium. Audiophiles argue over clipping zones, appropriate recording volumes - and they don't buy alot of music, and never did.

I don't buy mp3s because they're as bad as I can get on radio. I don't buy compilation or non-original CDs because I know they'll suck.

Apple's choices have been based upon size and processing power primarily; if they can get away with squeaking a simpler program they well.

[tom.a]

I haven't read the article yet so maybe I'm wrong here but I thought the whole point of dynamic range compression was to get the songs to punch through muddled FM radios and possibly stand out amongst all the other monotonous clatter played by radio stations?

Re: Apple. They do routinely miss the boat on using common standards, but, they often try to create their own for market share purposes like quicktime or firewire. If they can create a standard and it catches on, there's a lot of cash to be made when other companies license it.

[Beige]

Magnatune sells (no DRM!) music in flac or plain old uncompressed wav format, as well as mp3. People like me download the flac, make plain audio CDs from that (any burning program ought to be able to transcode to the uncompressed CD format) and transcode to MP3 for the portable players. If you don't have the software set up for that, you can just download their mp3 files along with the wav/flac to make CDs from.

[has_te]

I run mostly oblivious to music but DRM stuff is interesting.
So - if everybody doesn't totally know...
Or if this even makes sense.

Radiohead's gonna do In Rainbows on Current TV something like at midnite on the 31st.
http://current.com/items/88800004_radiohead_on_current_tv
If that's interesting.

[Glenn Fayard]

I'm going to ignore all this technical stuff and mention that the best way to listen to music is bombed out on weed.