MP3 & the TapeOp mindset

[apropos of nothing]

but FWIW, I really can't stand the sound of digital artifacts...

I'm sure I'm the only person here who'll say this, but uh... I kinda like'em. Makes it sound more... Digital.

I think I'm going to make some noises and then throw'em down to some soopah-crappy bit-rate mp3s and then use those as samples, strictly for the mp3 aliasing noise. Hah!

So there. ...too.

[Jay]

I recently took a drum track, encoded it to mp3 at 128, reversed the phase and put it on top of the original to get weird mp3-artifact-noise drums. I don't know where I'd use that sound, but it's a fairly entertaining one.

Sorry to stray off-topic!

[cassembler]

Jeez... I walk in on Monday and you guys have a 4 page mp3 fest without me...

[bobbydj]

Where were you when the cassette dudes needed you Cass?!?! Dude.

[JES]

Hey All,

I didn't think my sound quality comment would be controversial. . . .how wrong I was!

I've got nothing against cassettes, except that I don't seem to ever listen to them anymore. I listen to CDs almost exclusively, and download free mp3s on bands' sites to check them out. But I am looking at an ipod or some cheap knockoff thereof for the sake of simplicity. And honestly, when I think of tapes, I think of the quality of tapes that I really liked over the years -- they all decline over repeated listens.

Anyway, I'm not at all nostalgic for tapes. LPs, now that's another story. Still love putting the old Black Sabbath CDs on the turntable now and again.

Best,
--JES

[djslayerissick]

"I think I'm going to make some noises and then throw'em down to some soopah-crappy bit-rate mp3s and then use those as samples, strictly for the mp3 aliasing noise."

i do it all the time for techno and hiphop stuff. lo-fi is lo-fi, every method has a particular sound. sometimes i'll convert a high quality wav sample to 64 bit rate mp3. it takes off some of precence, smears it a little, adds some high end chorusing, and makes it seem more *in* the mix rather than sitting on top of it.

[DUC]

Still love putting the old Black Sabbath CDs on the turntable now and again.

Austin Powers did that! Cracked me up.

[DUC]

By the way, I loved that janisian.com article. Really learnt me allot about marketing and the evil RIAA plantation bosses.

[apropos of nothing]

Still love putting the old Black Sabbath CDs on the turntable now and again.

Err, now how does that work?

[@?,*???&?]

I just read in a PC magazine an article where the writer took the position that the way to beat the MP3 download problem was to allow for 32-bit, 192Khz CD's as the consumer standard. Would anyone even contemplate MP3 in the face of such a jaw-droppingly sonically superior medium?

[soundguy]

jeff-

for people to consider a 16 bit 44.1K CD over the sound of an LP to become a standard, you'd better believe that MP3 will stay a strong hold regardless of how great CD's sound. You dont exactly see the DVD thing taking over...

This to me is all apples an oranges. Anyone that will listen to MP3 pretty much could care less about what the thing sounds like. If they cared, they wouldnt be listening to MP3. That seems pretty cut and dry to me.

A friend of mine got an Ipod recently and we have spent the longest time trying to figure out wether its the MP3 that sounds like such hell or if its the headphone amp (which is the only way out of the box) that sounds like such hell. Its likely a combination of the two. If you are going 80 mph and have 65 dB of car noise, it likely doesnt matter much, but to listen critically? I dont know...


dave

[Miles]

In my mind, this is all about consent. Period.

If the *artist* says its OK to download their stuff. Go ahead.
If the *artist* says it's not OK to download their stuff, don't.
If you don't know what the artist thinks, then err on the side of caution, and don't.

What if a work was anything OTHER than music?

If you say I can take your car, then I'll take it.
If you say I can't take your car, then I won't.
If I don't know how you feel about it, should I go ahead and take it? Probably not.

-K

This confusion of property rights and copyrights is becoming more and more
common. Repeat after me: infringing on a copyright is not theft of an
individual's tangible property. Think it through. If I take your car, you
don't have it anymore, I do, and I benefit from it. If I download an
mp3, now we both have a copy; I haven't stolen anything from you
that you don't have anymore.

I agree that we should have short-term copyright protection to
encourage innovation and new creative products, but I think the
framers of the constitution had it about right: you get an gov't
backed monopoly on the rights to your product for about 20
years, and then the product should be released to the public
domain for public use as the basis for new
art (hey, if it's good enough for Disney--sleeping beauty,
snow white, mickey mouse (steamboat m. was based on a
buster keaton flick)--it's good enough for the rest of us).

That said, I want to stress that the term "intellectual property"
is completely ludicrious, because it leads to the
misunderstanding that K states above. Intellectual products
cannot be property, because they are not tangible goods.
In short: stealing my CD collection is theft of property,
but making copies of all my CDs and returning them to me
is not, no matter how the RIAA spins it.

Read Jefferson on this. He got this right over 200 years ago.

Miles

[soundguy]

lord, how about we now debate the meaning of the word "is"....

Miles, respectfully, do you make your living off of your intellectual properties? I would imagine that if you did, the financial holdings that say a real estate developer held in real estate would translate as holdings in intellectual property in your world. If that were the case, I dont think you'd be so fast to write the whole affair off because you'd be psyched that you had 20 years of legal coverage.

I would MUCH prefer that someone steals my guitar than my song. I can easily get another guitar and my insurance covers me for that loss. Once I start to make light of my intellectual rights and someone is able to steal my writing, now Im in big trouble as those copyright laws allows me, the songwriter in this case, to make a living off of my craft. We've lost enough craftsmanship in this country to ideology similar to what youve posted, lets not have it destroy our music too.

But you say, oh its all financial. Well, yeah, that concept of intellectual property that the RIAA is "spinning" to annoy you is actually how a ton of people make their living, and by they in turn making their living, I get to make mine recording them. No company is going to invest $300K into a recording if the structure to protect that investment is not firmly in place. If no company is going to invest money, that means that the studio goes out of business because nobody will be able to afford to record in one. Now that the studios have BEEN out of business, all the recording engineers have died off and everyone is recording at home. Well now everyone records at home, and all is fine and dandy until you try to get some professional advice on how to record something, which you wont be able to get because everyone else is recording at home just like you.

The RIAA can give a fuck about the plastic that is formed in a circle as a compact disc, the MP3 rip of which you did not steal by your logic. What the labels and RIAA are concerned about is the material contained within the CD. Does this really require an explanation? Another thing to read is the warning of distribution on the head of a DVD or any software agreement contract, this might explain this concept...

If you are a musician, or do anything creative that requires you to file for a copyright I surely hope that nobody ever steals or tries to steal your work. I would virtually guarantee that if someone did steal the final product of your financial and time investment or tried to steal it and you were on the other side of the fence, you'd be singing a very different song.

dave

[foodforthemoon]

In my mind, this is all about consent. Period.

If the *artist* says its OK to download their stuff. Go ahead.
If the *artist* says it's not OK to download their stuff, don't.
If you don't know what the artist thinks, then err on the side of caution, and don't.

-K

That said, I want to stress that the term "intellectual property"
is completely ludicrious, because it leads to the
misunderstanding that K states above.
Miles

I'm not really talking about property, and god-forbid I should talk about intellectual property and 'rule of law' - I'm talking about consent and non-consent. I did not state a misunderstanding. I stated my understanding of my own belief. Once again, let me paraphrase - if the artist *doesn't want you* to take their creative output, then you shouldn't. It can't be expressed
with greater simplicity.

In my mind, any justification to act otherwise is an excuse to get free stuff, Jefferson or not. Most if not all of the artist statements I've read advocating file sharing GIVE CONSENT to distribute their materials.

[apropos of nothing]

No company is going to invest $300K into a recording if the structure to protect that investment is not firmly in place.

If an album costs $300,000 to record, somebody is getting taken for a ride. Most likely the artist.