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The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

theghostinthemp3.com

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Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#51

Post by 8bitsrule »

enriquto wrote: post #12
8bitsrule wrote: post #2

"I am planning a series of related compositions, constructed first from the other songs involved in the listening tests, but then probing the space of MP3 compression in different ways, attempting to highlight even more explicitly the filtering effect of this codec.... Composing with these sounds and injecting them back into contemporary listening spaces is one possible act of resistance, one available mode of cultur…

> We are so familiar with our usual collection of instrumental timbres ... we have assumed that this galaxy is the whole universe. Some references you may enjoy: * Music: a Mathematical Offering , Dave Benson. Explains the mathematical theory of how to compute the timbre of an instrument given its shape. Also how the timbre of the instruments determines harmony. * Tuning, timbre, spectrum, scale , William Sethares. A…

It's an old, old classic but physicist Hermann von Helmholtz 1851 book (trans. to English 1875) On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music is 'a foundational work on acoustics and the perception of sound' full of basics. E.g. he used physical resonators to do spectral analysis of musical tones. Many physics details hard to find elsewhere. Copies are hard to find, but today it's a download away.[0]

[0] https://archive.org/details/onsensationsofto00helmrich

Sethares sounds familiar. A key modern classic is 1985 Charles Dodge, Thomas A. Jerse: "Computer Music : synthesis, composition, and performance". A pricey book new (worth it!) it digs into everything from the basics to the advanced. You will not exhaust it!

Surprised but, for a limited set of users, this puppy can be accessed online. See the link for the list of topics. [1]

[1] https://archive.org/details/computermusicsyn0000dodg

An alternative to the computer is to take a little recorder with a good mike out into the wild and record, the rocks, the insects, the trees, the plants.... and water, the greatest improviser!

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#52

Post by lozf »

underseacables wrote: post #6

Wow this is really fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of support for FLAC but I’ve never been able to get an iPhone or iPod to read them. I wonder why flac and other high end lossless file formats are not supported.

Apple seem to have always disliked free and open codecs. Instead of embracing FLAC, they made ALAC 00 same principle but uses MPEG compatible containers. Initially it was a proprietary (closed source) format, but they made it open source after a few years (presumably for support from the community).

They never supported Ogg Vorbis, and they don't support it's successor Opus now (except in Safari where is required as part of the WebRTC spec.)

Fortunately, being lossless it's safe and easy to convert between FLAC and ALAC (or vice versa). FFmpeg can do it, and also supports Apples "CAF" (Core Audio Format) as an intermediate format if required (e.g piping between different encoders) - that's handy for keeping metadata intact between formats.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#53

Post by lozf »

ardy42 wrote: post #22

> As previously stated, the MP3 codec was refined using listening tests designed by european audio engineers and featuring the music they chose. In a sense, each of these songs acts as a resonant filter for every file encoded in the MP3 format. Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, a Haydn Trumpet concerto... these songs carved out the space of sounds that could be successfully encoded as MP3's. Doe…

Not sure about the full list of originals but there are more updated lists including known "killer samples" that have been discovered for different audio codecs in the intervening years in various posts at the Listening tests section of Hydrogen Audio https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?board=40.0

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#54

Post by bonoboTP »

fao_ wrote: post #17
nayuki wrote: post #14

The author posts clips like "Example 1. White, Pink, and Brown Noise - Uncompressed", but the audio files are hosted on SoundCloud. My experience on SoundCloud is that no matter what format you upload as, they always stream it down to you as a 128 kb/s MP3 or something like that. I think the author is better off self-hosting the WAV files? > Listening tests, primarily designed by and for western-european men, and usi…

> Through a simple accusation of racial bias, the author seeks to undermine the technical work that went into the development of the MP3 codec. I'm always surprised when pointing out that something has design limits, and often limits imposed by racial bias in testing, is seen as such an evil thing. Acknowledging the limits is the first part of making use of something properly, wouldn't you say? Understanding that MP3…

> non-white artforms

You Americans (I'm assuming) are really strange. Dividing the world into white and non-white art forms, white and non-white "ways of knowing" etc. is exactly how the Nazis and fascists thought here in Europe. You are going right back into the same divisive state of affairs.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#55

Post by ddingus »

KaiserPro wrote: post #4

one interesting artifact of MP3s in pop music is that symbols are transformed from a clean Crashhhhhhhhhhh, to a sound like a dog slurping water. However like Jpeg this is a tradeoff that we are used to. in the same way that tape has frequency inbalance, records just sound shit (sorry I know you like it, but they really don't sound better. they are great for evoking a feeling, but not for fidelity. Its lomo but for s…

I agree with you. Hate that particular artifact.

Vinyl does deliver that Crashhhhh, however noisy it may be.

I have noticed people vary a lot in both their sensitivity and preferences.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#56

Post by ddingus »

igneo676 wrote: post #39
dbatten wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the implication was that, once mp3 is no longer a household format, there will be a certain type of person who feels a nostalgia for the "sound" of mp3s, maybe even advocating that it was "better" in some way than the sound of whatever comes next... This is basically what's happened with vinyl records at this point, right? People have a nostalgia for their sound, even though by any scientific or technical mea…

Supposedly, one of the big reasons people prefer vinyl is not because of the medium. It's because of the mastering process. CDs and/or Streaming services are victims of the "loudness" wars, resulting in music with low dynamic range. Since vinyl is often mastered by someone who specializes in the vinyl and is rather niche, they have full freedom to make it sound as good as it ever will be. That's also one reason why s…

That is a big reason for me. It is not about better as much as it is a familiar set of tradeoffs and production values.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#57

Post by [deleted] »

lozf wrote: post #52
underseacables wrote: post #6

Wow this is really fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of support for FLAC but I’ve never been able to get an iPhone or iPod to read them. I wonder why flac and other high end lossless file formats are not supported.

Apple seem to have always disliked free and open codecs. Instead of embracing FLAC, they made ALAC 00 same principle but uses MPEG compatible containers. Initially it was a proprietary (closed source) format, but they made it open source after a few years (presumably for support from the community). They never supported Ogg Vorbis, and they don't support it's successor Opus now (except in Safari where is required as…

[deleted]

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#58

Post by logbiscuitswave »

kruxigt wrote: post #43
toast0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MP3 gets a bad rap because low bitrate mp3 does sound awful. It's also the case that MP3 encoders got better over time, and if you're considering the sound of a 128kbps (or 96kbps) MP3 encoded by the Fraunhofer encoder you got from IRC in the late 90s; it's just not going to be good.

Though it sounden incredible then, compared to the blip blop sounds we were used to.

I’m not sure that it sounded better - it was more that the quality was “good enough” for the amount of precious disk space that was used.

Back before mp3s became ubiquitous, you could rip a CD to .wav files and it would basically sound identical to what was on the CD. But then you’d also be using some 600MB versus the same CD sounding not quite as good but only using like 40MB and at that time that was a lot of disk space to use.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#59

Post by all2 »

bonoboTP wrote: post #54
fao_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Through a simple accusation of racial bias, the author seeks to undermine the technical work that went into the development of the MP3 codec. I'm always surprised when pointing out that something has design limits, and often limits imposed by racial bias in testing, is seen as such an evil thing. Acknowledging the limits is the first part of making use of something properly, wouldn't you say? Understanding that MP3…

> non-white artforms You Americans (I'm assuming) are really strange. Dividing the world into white and non-white art forms, white and non-white "ways of knowing" etc. is exactly how the Nazis and fascists thought here in Europe. You are going right back into the same divisive state of affairs.

Don't assume we all do it. Identity politics is used to get people to ignore class politics. It is driven primarily by the left-leaning political factions.

> exactly how the Nazis and fascists thought here in Europe

Yes, we know. That's why we wound up with an orange man who didn't really care about race.

> You are going right back into the same divisive state of affairs.

Division allows the elites to control the masses more efficiently. It's like "divided we fall" might be true or something.

Prepare to see the division tear the United States in half. That's the goal, anyway.

Re: The Ghost in the MP3 (2014)

#60

Post by nayuki »

cardamomo wrote: post #19
nayuki wrote: post #14

The author posts clips like "Example 1. White, Pink, and Brown Noise - Uncompressed", but the audio files are hosted on SoundCloud. My experience on SoundCloud is that no matter what format you upload as, they always stream it down to you as a 128 kb/s MP3 or something like that. I think the author is better off self-hosting the WAV files? > Listening tests, primarily designed by and for western-european men, and usi…

The ways in which biases can be encoded in an algorithm are not trivial. The author takes pains to describe how the lossiness of MP3 encoding is audible. The codec's authors made aesthetic decisions, shaped by their own taste, to determine what sounds could be acceptably removed from the audio. That should be a significant point in almost any discussion of MP3. The author of this piece does not, however, challenge th…

> The author takes pains to describe how the lossiness of MP3 encoding is audible.

> Its biases are simply acknowledged and plainly described.

Not at all. The author attempts to show the residue of white/pink/brown noise and of a couple of famous test clips (the ones that could be labelled as European). The author makes no attempt to compare or show that MP3 has worse artifacts on non-European music. Great job there. That's why I find the racial accusation to be out of place.

I should note that I've done subtractive analysis of MP3 and Vorbis before, so I've seen the results of my test samples as well. Briefly, I found that MP3 has more tonal residue, whereas Vorbis sounds more like noise. The post-masking residue on Vorbis is stronger.

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