Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple is working on a new digital music format

time.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 79 posts

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#41

Post by ihsw »

jaimebuelta wrote: post #30
dandelany wrote: post #18

Here's something I've always wanted: A consumer music file format that preserves all of the underlying tracks ('stems') so that they can be adjusted while you listen to the song. Imagine listening to a recording and going "ooh, that bassline", and then turning up the bassist and turning down everything else to hear it better. Or easily "remixing" while you listen by eg. applying a filter to only the drums. You could…

It sounds cool, but it will be a disaster. Does anyone remember the "ultra boost" button on the old Walkman to raise the bass to insane levels? Or all the equalizer voodoo, where people will "tune" moving levels and buttons forming shapes? The sad truth is that audio engineers are way better than anyone else in mixing the music and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them. The…

> The sad truth is that fashion designers are way better than anyone else in designing clothing and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them.

> The sad truth is that chefs are way better than anyone else in creating a delicious menu and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them.

Who ever said that keeping people from dressing hideously or eating food that doesn't match was a good idea?

Some people might even make it sound better, but you're advocating we take that opportunity away from them without giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#42

Post by kevincennis »

jaimebuelta wrote: post #30
dandelany wrote: post #18

Here's something I've always wanted: A consumer music file format that preserves all of the underlying tracks ('stems') so that they can be adjusted while you listen to the song. Imagine listening to a recording and going "ooh, that bassline", and then turning up the bassist and turning down everything else to hear it better. Or easily "remixing" while you listen by eg. applying a filter to only the drums. You could…

It sounds cool, but it will be a disaster. Does anyone remember the "ultra boost" button on the old Walkman to raise the bass to insane levels? Or all the equalizer voodoo, where people will "tune" moving levels and buttons forming shapes? The sad truth is that audio engineers are way better than anyone else in mixing the music and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them. The…

As someone who spent a number of years mixing records professionally, I can definitely attest to the fact that even talented musicians are usually pretty terrible at mixing. It's a subtle art, and it takes a lot of experience/practice to do even remotely well.

But I think the larger point is that most artists and labels would hate this. To a singer, having someone hear your soloed vocal track is like being seen naked.

I think most artists view their records as being a single work of art. The song, arrangement, equipment, mixing, and mastering are all part of something bigger. Artists don't really want people to be able to break that apart. It's not meant to be experienced that way.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#43

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

dagw wrote: post #15
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and/or "high definition", "above CD quality" digital audio. There's a lot of noise in the digital music industry about high quality audio at present. U2 may be following in Neil Young's PONO footsteps. There may be doubt whether high quality audio can deliver what it promises - i.e. an improvement over MP3 320 that is noticeable to normal people's ears. But the Pono kickstarter proves beyond any doubt that there…

The recording industry have tried the "above CD quality" thing to get people to re-buy their music several times before. Each time it flopped, and I fail to see why this time will be different.

I don't disagree. To generalise a lot:

The older members of the music-listening public are more likely to be audiophiles and have more money to throw at kickstarters from classic rockers. They are a bit slower to adopt new technologies, but are now fairly well on board with iPods and MP3s. However their ears aren't always high definition any more.

The younger members of the music-listening public don't really bother so much with the concept of "owning" music. It's like fresh air – so long at it's streaming at you, it's good and who cares about owning it.

No mass market for buying high-definition audio downloads is to be found in either category.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#44

Post by MeadowTheory »

snowwrestler wrote: post #6

I am fully supportive of the idea that musicians and songwriters should get compensated for their work in proportion with its popluarity. Just because people love to make music, that doesn't mean they don't want to save for retirement, buy a house, send kids to college, maybe do some investing, etc. If you pirate an album you like, instead of buying it, you're taking advantage of those artists. [steps off soapbox] Th…

Musician weighing in:

Musicians and bands had been making a living for thousands of years before the recording industry was invented, and they will continue to do so for thousands of years after the recording industry has crumbled to the ground (mostly due to their own greed and stupidity). While the recording industry certainly allowed some musicians to become filthy rich, that was mostly through exposure. Musicians have never made very much from the sale of recordings alone, and have always relied on touring and merchandise for the majority of their revenue. Today, even very popular bands, the ones that get the juicy contracts, are making pennies on the dollar on the recordings they produce (and before this gets brought up, so are the engineers and producers, most of the money goes to marketing and distribution, and then a big chunk to the various executives and agents). The situation is much worse for smaller and rising acts.

The truth of the situation is that the recording industry and their distributors have been exploiting the labor of hard-working musicians for the last 100 years. Many of the old blues men from our earliest popular recordings were never even paid, although men that they never even met grew rich from selling their work. The recording industry has been selling the same snake oil to us sense then, just packaged differently according to the musical tastes of the time. There will always be a collectors market for physical recordings, but it is time that we acknowledge that digital content can be delivered for essentially zero marginal cost, and that free knowledge and art have cultural benefits that drastically outweigh any financial gains that may be made by restricting access to them. (And if you are someone that can only be swayed by economics, I would argue that by encouraging innovation and free exchange of ideas, you will reap greater economic benefits overall, even though certain industries may suffer initially.) Moreover, as an artist, by sharing my music for free, I feel that I am being much more honest and forthright with my audience and that am able to reach far more people than I would otherwise.

The only people really exploiting artists are recording industry executives. If you buy an album you like, instead of pirating it, you're taking advantage of those artists. Go see them play live or buy a fucking t-shirt instead.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#45

Post by johnchristopher »

hazz wrote: post #37
dandelany wrote: post #18

Here's something I've always wanted: A consumer music file format that preserves all of the underlying tracks ('stems') so that they can be adjusted while you listen to the song. Imagine listening to a recording and going "ooh, that bassline", and then turning up the bassist and turning down everything else to hear it better. Or easily "remixing" while you listen by eg. applying a filter to only the drums. You could…

I would love this, but the file sizes would be insane. We'd be talking hundreds of megabytes (possibly gigabytes?) per song. Unless each track was MP3 encoded first, but I'd imagine you'd have trouble mixing tracks together from lossy sources.

Insane ? A standard DVD is 4.7 gigabytes. That would be 6 tracks and it would be ideal for any rock band and we haven't yet compressed the thing with loss (not technically true but you get the point.

I don't know about electronic music though.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#46

Post by johnchristopher »

imaginenore wrote: post #25
dandelany wrote: post #18

Here's something I've always wanted: A consumer music file format that preserves all of the underlying tracks ('stems') so that they can be adjusted while you listen to the song. Imagine listening to a recording and going "ooh, that bassline", and then turning up the bassist and turning down everything else to hear it better. Or easily "remixing" while you listen by eg. applying a filter to only the drums. You could…

There are tons of formats like that. Midi, old tracker ones (s3m, xm, mod). But very few artists are willing to publish the "source code" of their work.

What about rock bands and other recording music with their instruments rather than through samplers ?

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#47

Post by tmuir »

startupfounder wrote: post #10

Apple should buy Pono, Neil Young & Jon Hamm's music "high-resolution" 24-bit 192kHz audio company and have Neil play some real Rock & Roll at Apple events.

I'm a huge Neil Young fan, but Pono is bound to fail. Throughout the evolution of widely adopted audio formats, the sound quality has always decreased. The average listener doesn't care about fidelity. They can't tell the difference. They care about convenience.

Cassette tapes were better than vinyl records, because they were more portable. CDs were better than tapes, because you could skip tracks. Mp3s were better than CDs, because you could fit thousands of them in your pocket. But at each step of that progression, the sound got worse.

Young's testimonials are from professional musicians, the extremely small subset of the public that actually cares about the quality of the sound. These are not the people he needs to convince. This is obviously aimed at the general public, who have proven time and time again that convenience is king.

The vast majority of people can't tell the difference between an 16-bit, 44.1kHz, 192kbps mp3 and a 24-bit, 192kHz, losslessly compressed file.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#48

Post by johnchristopher »

jaimebuelta wrote: post #30
dandelany wrote: post #18

Here's something I've always wanted: A consumer music file format that preserves all of the underlying tracks ('stems') so that they can be adjusted while you listen to the song. Imagine listening to a recording and going "ooh, that bassline", and then turning up the bassist and turning down everything else to hear it better. Or easily "remixing" while you listen by eg. applying a filter to only the drums. You could…

It sounds cool, but it will be a disaster. Does anyone remember the "ultra boost" button on the old Walkman to raise the bass to insane levels? Or all the equalizer voodoo, where people will "tune" moving levels and buttons forming shapes? The sad truth is that audio engineers are way better than anyone else in mixing the music and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them. The…

I'd agree with you if those audio engineers hadn't participated in the loudness war for the three last decades.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#49

Post by veidr »

There's no chance whatsoever that this is a new DRM-encumbered format[1]. None. So some people need to take a breath.

(And there's almost as little chance that it is going to matter any more than the Apple/Bandai Pippin @WORLD.)

If Apple is actually involved in a more significant way than grudgingly acting as fluffer to Bono's fantasies of heroically saving a nonsensical[2] industry that briefly emerged as an artifact of technological limitations of the previous century, I would guess it is some kind of super-metadata-laden format that includes art/video/interview/extras, maybe including built-in remixability or something, that is designed (but unlikely) to entice users to buy even more DRM-free $1.29 songs than they already do in MP3/AAC.

[1]: http://macdailynews.com/2007/02/06/apple_ceo_steve_jobs_post... (Was astonished that Apple doesn't still host this, btw. But it's not gonna change.)

[2]: “Cole Porter wouldn’t have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn’t coming to a stadium near you.” Right. So he would have sold his songs to somebody who was -- or else not made much money from it. So what. There are homeless drummers in SF better than Cole Porter, and no new media format is going to change any of that, nor should it.

Re: Apple is working on a new digital music format

#50

Post by MeadowTheory »

72deluxe wrote: post #38
snowwrestler wrote: post #6

I am fully supportive of the idea that musicians and songwriters should get compensated for their work in proportion with its popluarity. Just because people love to make music, that doesn't mean they don't want to save for retirement, buy a house, send kids to college, maybe do some investing, etc. If you pirate an album you like, instead of buying it, you're taking advantage of those artists. [steps off soapbox] Th…

You're right - it seems popular even on HN where people make a living that musicians are exempt from earning a living through recording and selling music. Wrapped in daft phrases like "music wants to be free", it seems fashionable to engage in copyright infringement for music, and I think it stinks. Arguments that record labels ("fat cats") get a cut of the earnings are not relevant - the musician signed with the lab…

No, no, no. Emphatically no.

I am speaking a musician here: by the time you are earning an appreciable amount of money from album sales, you are no longer just "making a living". Most musicians that support themselves through music do it by touring and selling merchandise (including physical recordings), and musicians that get famous have usually been doing this for years before they start making money off of recordings. The only exceptions are "manufactured" pop stars, like Miley Cyrus or Ariana Grande, who get big contracts right away through high-powered connections and nepotism.

And yes, the record "fat cats" earnings are perfectly relevant in this situation. They are exploiting musician's work to become wealthy, and by supporting them, you are implicitly supporting their actions. If you want to support a band, go see their shows and buy their merchandise.

Post reply on HN