Lets talk about Music

Certainly code is capable of communicating a full spectrum of sound. It simply takes up too much space at the moment, to make it reasonable. So, as storage and compression technology advance, we'll progressively get better sound.

You know, they once said it was impossible to put a man on the moon. Or something like that.
 
Interesting info about sound quality. Haven't thought about how 1 and 0's can cut off some inbetween sounds, but.. If computer animation is capable of creating visually stunning images with no percieved gaps in color range (personally I think Wall E is an artistic masterpiece!) then I can't see how digital sound can't eventually achieve a similar level. And at some point this is all splitting hairs, much like High Def tv standards.

Also the portability of digital music is being vastly underrated in this discusion . A person can have 4000 songs in 4 ozs. Most of us are on the go and mp3's are what fits into most of our lives, seamlessly. And finally, playlists, much like the internet, are now indespensable.
 
Most "audiophiles" are morons. Kennedy may not know what he's talking about, but in many ways he is correct. 1s and 0s can easily represent anything coming out of a speaker. Yes, the sampling rate of a compact disc is too low which often leads to the "tinny, cold" sound people talk about, and in turn the "warmth" of analog. Compressed mp3s are obviously much worse.

Those of you using a portable audio player should consider going lossless. Then you at least get quality identical to a CD. It takes up more space so you may not have quite as much music in your pocket (though you could always get a player with more storage space).

Those of you complaining about digital audio in general, try listening to 192Khz DVD-audio. CDs are obsolete.
 
Hmmm. You sound suspiciously like an audiophile!
 
I'm back in the studio in Cleveland, and right now we're recording drums to 2-inch tape (which is what all professional recordings were made of until things went digital in the '80s), and the difference in sound over today's typical direct-to-Protools method is night and day... everything is so fat and warm. Damn I wish it were the '70s when everyone was still using 2-inch.
 
But, that "fat and warm" sound, is it actually a replication of how the drums sound, or is it due to distortion because of the tapes? I understand it's enjoyable, and I've got no doubt it sounds pretty damn awesome, but does it sound live? I'm not trying to be snarky, this is an honest question.
 
I'd say it's a better reproducer of sound as we humans hear things than digital, which excels at getting a ruthlessly crisp and clean sound but isn't necessarily in tune with how our ears process things. I mean, does all the music pre-1980s sound fake or distorted or not live?
 

Beware the seductive power of rare vinyl singles.
 
The jump from stage 5 to 6 is actually pretty far fetched. If anything this works better in reverse.
 
Since when is there much movement between the two groups? I can't think of anyone I know who's gone from fully hipster to fully hippy, or vice versa, unless we're talking about people on the younger end of the spectrum like undergraduates (who are just starting to figure themselves out). But seems by the time you hit your mid-20s you're not moving from one to the other.
 
Err.... South Park informed me of the Vampire fad, but this is totally news to me. I guess ligers and sasquatches are next?
 
I wish I was still in High School so I could start a Purple/Pink Unicorn style.
 
Shepard said:
It's amazing how much audio resolution is lost in digital compression. You might not hear it over your iPod, but I've listened to two versions of the same song from astounding speaker systems - one compressed and one from the vinyl - and the difference always blows my mind. Our music has been physically dumbed down because we demand the ability to take it with us, as we walk, zombie-like, removed from the ambient noise our surroundings.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

Check out the reel to reel goodness. Remember, even albums are pressed from tape r2r...

http://www.youtube.com/user/Seblington

Even if you listen to Jack Johnson's Sleep through the Static on a crApple iPod, you can hear the difference of the quality of recording because it was all done on a Studer analog R2R...even through the crap DA chip that most iPods have. Better still, I've listened to the album on a Zune 120 - well it was a high bitrate mp3. The Zune has the most awesome DA chip not seen on most of the other MP3 players, seriously good quality, and it was almost like listening to vinyl.

This is the Wolfson chip on the Zune http://www.wolfsonmicro.com/uploads/documents/en/WM8350_product flyer_final.pdf
 
^ Nice links. One day I hope to record au natural like that.

And here's some firsthand footage of a Studer reel to reel at work, recording drums for one of my band's new songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eHRAUqLCKE

At that point our producer, Michael Seifert (the guy at the board), was playing the drum audio off the tapes in order to send it back into the computer for further editing. All the other layers you hear were scratch takes that existed only in the computer (waiting to be replaced by final takes that would also get the fat analog tape treatment) since we recorded parts individually, almost always starting with the drums, then bass guitar, and up from there.
 
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