Is the Ipod killing the 'Album'?

logancircle · Post by **logancircle** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:32 am

TheShaggyFox wrote:I know for a fact that my Ipod plays in Stereo. I guess I must be an exception!

If you're using one of those FM transmitter units they do have mono and stereo modes.

Silverlode · Post by **Silverlode** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:42 pm

There are 2 ways of looking at these things.

One, something is killing something else. Personal digital audio players and digital downloads are killing the album. CDs are killing vinyl and sound quality. Wax cylinder recordings are killing live orchestral performances. Air travel is killing Route 66.

Two, people, processes, cultural norms, and tools change. And when one changes the others adapt.

For one thing I don't understand how iTunes and the iPod can kill the album. I still sync full albums to my iPod and listen to them that way. Apple added a feature letting users specify which tunes should not have a gap between them. I think what Apple is doing is offering choice, which makes sense because there has always been a singles market anyway.

A-Barr · Post by **A-Barr** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:53 pm

I think it's a false dichotomy. There is no reason we have to settle on a single format, as long as people want something, it'll be sold to them. Records are still being pressed for the real audio/album lovers out there who don't care about convenience because they want to listen in their homes on their hi-fi systems, people who only want convenience can download as many mp3's as they want, while CD's and CD-R's increasingly fill the diy niche.

There IS hope. It's not just LP to CD to Mp3, it was LP to CD and CASSETTE to mp3, I would argue that mp3's beat out cassettes on portability (OK, chronilogically that is incorrect, but you get my point) and cd's beat them as the recordable/distributable medium of choice. So cassettes were rightfully ditched. Not all progress is backwards!

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:11 pm

Silverlode wrote: Apple added a feature letting users specify which tunes should not have a gap between them.

Wow, I didn't know that. Can you tell me where this feature can be accessed? That would be groovy.

BenWV · Post by **BenWV** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:09 pm

So,

I'm sitting in my room on album 2 of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album and about to jump into another double LP the River both recently recommended to me and I'm reading this post and at the same time picking out songs to tape on a mix tape to take with me on my 5 hour car ride tomorrow. When I come home I love to have all my albums but I agree, when traveling, exercising, etc. the Ipod is simple and convienient. I can also record on to it for fiddle lessons, etc and then immdiately upload those onto my laptop, I like that. Recently I was at a Dinosaur Jr show where I bought their newest album, Beyond and was offered with it a password to download the whole thing as high quality mp3, same with the M Ward album I recently bought. I'm thinking the mp3 might allow for the re-introduction of the Vinyl album. You buy the record to play on your high quality home stereo and with it you get the mp3 to load up on your ipod, etc for the road. It's gotta be better than bringing it home and making a cassette to take with you like I'm doing right now since I don't have the patience to digitize everything.

A-Barr · Post by **A-Barr** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 5:17 pm

BenWV wrote: You buy the record to play on your high quality home stereo and with it you get the mp3 to load up on your ipod, etc for the road.

I've bought records like that, I happen to think that it is the awesomest thing ever.

Tragabigzanda · Post by **Tragabigzanda** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 9:25 pm

BenWV--ha, I'm listening to Tusk right now (on Itunes, transmitted wirelessly to my stereo), and I listened to a CD-R of Dinosaur Jr.'s "Beyond" last night in my sister's car. So here we are, two music lovers, with similar tastes, with flexibility and options that allow us to listen to the ALBUMS we want when we want...

Later, I'll make a playlist of my favorite Fleetwood Mac tunes, and some Dinosaur Jr. tracks are already on a "grunge" playlist.

Flexibility makes me able to listen to more music, the way I want to, and for me, Ipod is NOT killing the album. But for others, it might be a different situation. What's great is that if someone else is reading this post, they might say "Dinosaur WHO?", then download a couple songs off Itunes (I'd recommend Crumble). They might not buy the whole album; they might not even pay for the one or two songs they download to check out the bombastic attack of Mascis & Co. As musicians, engineers, and consumers of music, the whole picture is really unclear right now. But these options are allowing us to figure it out, and at the end of the day, we're STILL listening to Buckingham, Nicks, Mascis and Murph because of the QUALITY of their songs, performaces, and recordings. True, it'd sound better on vinyl, or better still live, but quality is undeniable (see my earlier post in this thread)...

tomberdude · Post by **tomberdude** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 4:42 am

mertmo wrote:The stereo thing that you are hearing, Destroy Big Brother, is probably a tiny little setting in the "importing" section of the advanced preferences. When you rip CD's, the default setting (unless you change it) for the AAC encoder is "auto". But you can also set it to "mono" or "stereo". The "auto" setting is designed to create smaller files, it is a horrible little function that contributes to much of what people hate about MP3's. It analyzes the stereo program for sounds that it determines to be redundant between the left and right channels. When it finds them, it throws half of them away and has some code that allows the one side's information to be recreated for both sides when the file is played. NO BUENO! Go into your preferences -> advanced -> importing, then change your settings to "stereo". At least you will be preserving SOME of what the default setup is trying to throw away...

This is just my theory about what you are hearing. I never tried to test the difference myself, but when I read that (and I can't remember where), It disturbed me and I re-ripped my whole collection again at the highest bit rate possible (320) and reset the AAC settings to "stereo"!

You know, I think you are right. At least that makes complete sense from a technical standpoint. However, the CDs i ripped for the test I did in Audition 2.0- I know that I had Audition set to give me exact copies (44.1 16bit stereo .wavs)

mertmo · Post by **mertmo** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 9:40 am

I could totally be wrong about this, too. I have been full of shit a couple times lately on tapeop...!

kdarr · Post by **kdarr** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 10:50 am

Silverlode wrote:There are 2 ways of looking at these things.

One, something is killing something else. Personal digital audio players and digital downloads are killing the album. CDs are killing vinyl and sound quality. Wax cylinder recordings are killing live orchestral performances. Air travel is killing Route 66.

"Dead? I'll tell you what's dead! Vaudeville, and the motion picture is the thing that killed it!"

"Play me out, Johnny!"

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