has modern technology ruined the way we perceive music?

hexagon son · Post by **hexagon son** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:42 pm

i had actually been thinking this for some time now. before p2p and hi-speed internet,we had to actually go out and buy cd's/tapes/records. when we would though, we would get something that almost approxamated a 'master recording'. lossless recordings, if you will. nowadays it is so easy to just DL someone's music and listen to it once, and then it just stays on your HD. its so easy today to just DL a bands entire discography in one go and never really appreiciate the progression of that band as growing musicians. also, with the introduction of sound compression, in the form of mp3, we are losing range and sound quality like never before. i think that this can cheapen the feel of the music, and its why so many artists, like BoC, get angry with people just p2p their music and not going out and buying it, because you are not getting the full effect of their artwork.

(apologies to Ae if i have, if fact, overstepped a previous thread...)

Cupz · Post by **Cupz** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:20 pm

Technology made it a little different...not worse. IMO

hexagon son · Post by **hexagon son** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:31 pm

i agree with you in that sence. whilst the internet is good for exposure of potential artists, do you not feel that you are not saturated in other people interpretation of what music should be? and at a substandard bitrate?

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:39 pm

I don't know that it's necessarily done anything but acted as a catalyst for peoples' tendencies as they always have been...know what i mean? I feel like the people who love music, still love it and act as they always have. I'll torrent a whole wad of music, but if I love and appreciate the artist I'll plod through each album with my analytical ears on, in that 'higher up' state of listening to music.

*shrug*

hexagon son · Post by **hexagon son** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:42 pm

but do you hear the difference between lossless and mp3? and is the appreciation there for the difference?

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 4:14 pm

to be honest, not really...my hearing is bullshit sometimes. i listened to too much rob zombie at full volume when i was 16.

shut up, i was angry

Post by **Aesthetics** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:01 pm

It changed the music industry completely, though this hasn't much to do with the format mp3 itself. It's the internet that changed our view on music because it's more widely available and more and more people start to make their own as the technology give people these chances. The mp3 format only accelerated this new brach of music making.

ArtOfTheGroove · Post by **ArtOfTheGroove** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:43 pm

Regarding fidelity, we've always had lo-fi available for the masses - for example the cassette, which was the standard format in cars and early Walkmans for years. We're actually in a better situation now because MP3 (for the most part) is higher fidelity than cassette.

Also, to quote a producer I know: "Hiss never killed a hit!" Perhaps this is an oversimplification, however if music is really excellent its magic will shine through even the lowest of fidelity. On the other hand, no amount of expensive state-of-the-art treatment or technology can change mediocre music into something stellar (a process known as "polishing a turd") and unfortunately it appears to be more prevalent as the march of technology goes on.

For me the biggest change in the music industry is the loss of the major label "filter". Don't get me wrong, I think that the majors are dinosaurs and deserve their fast-approaching extinction. However, the major labels did provide a filter in that an artist or band had to measure up to a certain standard to be released. They had to have talent, or at least charisma or some other unique aspect to be signed. Major label releases were usually recorded to a high standard, at expensive studios that were beyond the budget of the unsigned artists at the time. For better or worse the major labels held the bar up fairly high as far as what was released to the world. Of course the downside was that the majors had their own agenda of what would be released, and in most cases that agenda was driven by money - more so as the labels became increasingly corporate.

So - along comes the internet, a way for any artist to have free (or very cheap) national and international distribution. Supporters of this movement and fans of non-mainstream music rejoiced: at last all of the wonderful music that didn't fit the major label's agenda could be heard! But not without a price: there is an old saying that goes "Ninety percent of everything is crap." The floodgates were opened and without the old filter we now have a hundred thousand times more crap to sift through. (As we all know a simple browse through MySpace Music will confirm this.)

OK, you might say that you don't mind sifting through all of the crap... you're willing to do the work rather than have the majors do it for you. You want to find those hidden gems that blow you away, the ones that the majors would have previously filtered out. But where are they?

This brings me to the most perplexing aspect of the whole MP3, P2P, filesharing, internet distribution issue. If there is a hundred thousand times more music out there then according to the saying above there will be hundred thousand times more crap available. This seems to be true as I search through so much of the new music now available on the internet. However there should also be a hundred thousand times more great, excellent, mind-blowing music as well. Where is it? Most of the music that blows me away still comes from artists on a label (although usually not a major). Many of my favorite artists are on labels such as Warp (AFX, BOC, Squarepusher), Skam (Bola) or Benbecula (Christ.) These labels, even though they are small still act as a filter, and create a certain standard of excellence.

Of course there are exceptions, I have found some outstanding music from artists not on a label (most of it by the artists right here on this forum). But where is the hundred thousand times more excellent music that the new internet music model should provide?

Mirror Lake · Post by **Mirror Lake** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 4:32 pm

If I download an artist's entire discography, I try to listen to the albums in the order that they came out--at least to gain an appreciation for the growth and changes in style that occured throughout the band's chronology.

And when there is a downloaded CD that I enjoy A LOT... well, I know I can't fully appreciate it until I buy it and hear it in full quality. FLAC is of course the beautiful corner-cutting answer to this one... you might not have the physical insert-art or that 'new cd' feeling... but goddamn I love when I can download a CD in FLAC.

I feel really bad for people whose entire collection is mostly low quality mp3's... scary to think about

Cupz · Post by **Cupz** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:47 pm

I must say that downloaded music is less cool. Albums I bought without downloading them first sound better...maybe becouse you force yourself in liking it becouse you don't want to lose money or something...

boardsofdublin · Post by **boardsofdublin** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:39 pm

hexagon son wrote:.....whilst the internet is good for exposure of potential artists, do you not feel that you are not saturated in other people interpretation of what music should be? and at a substandard bitrate?

I completely agree with what your saying here.

AOTG wrote: ....Most of the music that blows me away still comes from artists on a label (although usually not a major). Many of my favorite artists are on labels such as Warp (AFX, BOC, Squarepusher), Skam (Bola) or Benbecula (Christ.) These labels, even though they are small still act as a filter, and create a certain standard of excellence....

I still love buying as many albums as i can, that are good. Sure i'll d/l some albums but after a few days i get sick of it and miss the artwork and need to get to a record shop and listen and flick through the artwork that the artist/label put together.
Plus with P2P there is no such thing a "Limited Edition" anymore as everyone/anyone can get anything now. Kinda pisses me off...

At the end of the day there IS a reason for major/small labels.

hexagon · Post by **hexagon** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:56 pm

The internet has done wonders for music. It's turned consumers into creators - anyone can put up their music on a myspace page. I'll always download music, too, but I'll always prefer hearing it on vinyl and having all that beautiful artwork in front of me. (Download this film!)

As for technology, I think it's great! Sure, old synths and drum machines have a certain charm, but in twenty years, todays kit will be the same - if it wasn't for the progression we wouldn't have the retro ones today. But I also think that there's too much emphasis on having everything you can lay your hands on - the best music is made with what you have, not with what you can get.

thedisavowed · Post by **thedisavowed** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:17 pm

I read an article recently about how sound engineers are beginning to mix music with low bit-rate mp3s in mind. They essentially compress the music (lower the dynamic range up front) b/c they know that the average person will be listening to the recording on $20 speakers so it won't matter anyway.

For my part (although vinyl sounds siginificantly different, but not necesarily, mind you, better) once mp3s get above 192 kbps I really don't notice. I can spot a 128 kbps from a million miles away, but if you've stepped into Limewire lately you know that the average pirates out there are trading in 128, and probably don't care.

My only problem with the way the internet has influenced my music listening is just the sheer volume of music that I have (and d/l) at any given time. Back in the day (say 2000), I would listen to the albums I had until I knew them forwards and backwards. (I can probably play "Endtroducing..." front to back in my mind). I do think that it's easy to get click-happy and not give music the time it deserves.

Part of this click-syndrome, though, might be attributable to the format. It's what sound engineers call ear-fatigue, supposedly something we may not always be consciously aware of that makes us want to alter the noise we're hearing. Whether it's a real phenomenon or just ADD, I'm not sure. But I have noticed that sometimes I'm jumping all around my collection for no apparent reason.

hexagon son · Post by **hexagon son** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:42 pm

exactly! my younger brother grew up with the internet, never buys albums, and never listens to a track all the way through, except maybe BoC.

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 4:50 pm

I feel like people are just different that way. I mean compared to a lot of people in older generations, WE don't hardly listen to anything all the way through. My parents will sit there with music on a 6-CD changer and just let it roll on and on, and don't even get me started on grandparents. But they don't appreciate Sinatra the same way we appreciate BoC - we tend to be more analytical of technical stuff and objective qualities in the music whereas they would be inclined to appraise it by its overall aesthetic appeal.

Perhaps that's false, I mean I could sure be mistaken about the generation thing. But I do think that people just have different attention spans with regard to music and with regard to how deeply they want to consider their music or just sit there with it on in the background. I know I myself have gone through cycles of just not being able to stick with any song for more than 15 seconds and not really 'appreciate' the music as a work of art, it's frustrating but i don't think it bodes poorly for the fate of music that people are like that sometimes.