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Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

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Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#51

Post by cillian64 »

Urgh, I made the mistake of trying out the Classics Online HD.LL mentioned in the article.

I had to make an account before I could actually find out the payment/subscription details, and only after getting that far did I discover that the "web-player" requires a special streaming plugin with no Linux port.

None of this was helped by the website being godawfully slow to do anything, and it popping up a box asking me to install the plugin every 10 seconds when I wasn't even trying to play music.

Finally I get sick of all of this and try to delete my account, which is, as far as I can tell, impossible.

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#52

Post by Intermernet »

tommyd wrote: post #24
Intermernet wrote: post #13

Strangely, I find that most of my classical music is streamed acceptably (not perfectly, but good enough). Try listening to Abbey Road, or Dark Side Of The Moon, or any other album that relies on zero second time gaps between tracks with a constant beat (The most recent example I can remember would be Chemical Brothers, "Further", between track 1 and 2). That is annoying, and has been throughout the history of stream…

Both iTunes and Spotify have perfect gapless playback for me - I wouldn't use them if not, as I listen to quite a lot of electronic mix CDs and any gap ruins the flow. On iTunes it does depend if the source was ripped properly (e.g. with iTunes itself), some older mp3s do not have the necessary additional data for proper gapless (I believe it is due to the overlapping nature of FFT windows - each frame in the mp3 dep…

Thanks for the reply, I'll do some checks, but I'm pretty sure that I have crossfade disabled in spotify, and will double check my settings in other players.

Interesting to hear "older mp3s do not have the necessary additional data". Do you happen to know when this info was introduced? Is it stored in the ID3 header, or in the actual MP3 data? Can I "losslessly" change the files to fix this?

I'm especially interested as Google Music will happily replace tracks from my (backed up) library with "matched" tracks, but it still gets the track timing slightly wrong, even when played through other media players. It doesn't seem to matter where they come from, they don't reliably play "gaplessly".

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#53

Post by pjc50 »

jasonkester wrote: post #8

This reads like a spec for a startup opportunity. It's so clear to any one of us what the data model needs to look like and how to make search work. The only real issue is the human labor needed to do the data entry, and the licensing. The market is huge though. Whoever steps up and attacks this with VC will do quite nicely. I wouldn't be surprised to see a startup launched from this article in the next YC round.

The market is absolutely tiny, and full of incumbents with control over the recordings.

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#54

Post by rspeer »

dogma1138 wrote: post #5
na85 wrote: post #4

They're simply not built for it. Most streaming music services are built for people that want to listen to deadmau5, g-funk or top 40 while they put on their party dresses and pre-drink. A lot of us also use them to stream random tracks while we work: stuff with no lyrics, etc. But a bespoke solution for streaming classical music should ideally have metadata fields for all those things: conductor, soloists, orchestra…

Never had issues listening to classical music on Spotify, on Ultra the sound quality isn't an issue, neither is finding what exactly you wan't since you can find specific performances by an orchestra or even a specific conductor.

The problem isn't listening to it once you can find it, the problem is finding it.

If you're looking for a particular work to listen to, not just the most popular thing by that composer, Spotify gives you no way to browse by work. You can either try to guess which translation of the title they used, or you can type the number the piece is identified by, and in both cases it will usually autocorrect you to something more popular.

There used to be a way around this, where you could type, say, :spotify:search:"BWV 588" into the search box and it would show you only exact matches for BWV 588. Doesn't work anymore.

There are lots more problems. But you could read the article.

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#55

Post by dogma1138 »

rspeer wrote: post #54
dogma1138 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never had issues listening to classical music on Spotify, on Ultra the sound quality isn't an issue, neither is finding what exactly you wan't since you can find specific performances by an orchestra or even a specific conductor.

The problem isn't listening to it once you can find it, the problem is finding it. If you're looking for a particular work to listen to, not just the most popular thing by that composer, Spotify gives you no way to browse by work. You can either try to guess which translation of the title they used, or you can type the number the piece is identified by, and in both cases it will usually autocorrect you to something m…

Again personally i never had issues finding classical music on Spotify if that particular performance is available. I might not be a classical music connoisseur but merely a peasant that enjoy's common recordings and yo yo ma but i never had issues.

I've also never had issues searching Spotify using an Opus catalog number, e.g. your example of Bach which seems to work just fine for me... http://i.imgur.com/VGHCcH3.png

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#56

Post by justincormack »

Mithaldu wrote: post #23

The very same issues plague modern music too. I listen to a lot of electronic music, which comes with a lot of people making remixes and such. Those are already a massive pain. Then i also listen to vocaloid music, where the complexity gets downright insane. Vocaloid music is music where the "performer" is a software using a prerecorded soundbank to render the vocals into the final piece. For those you typically have…

Can you link to some examples?

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#57

Post by planckscnst »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #31

What makes listening to anything other than entire albums (radio, streaming, etc) unpleasant for me is the volume settings. Most people listen to classical way too quietly. Most classical music has a very wide dynamic range. Your volume should be adjusted so that the very quietest parts are loud enough to hear every subtlety and so that the loudest parts shake your bones. A single trumpet playing at full volume is lo…

I have a few recordings where I can hear breathing and the clicking keys and valves.

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#58

Post by ceequof »

_mulder_ wrote: post #48
bryanlarsen wrote: post #31

What makes listening to anything other than entire albums (radio, streaming, etc) unpleasant for me is the volume settings. Most people listen to classical way too quietly. Most classical music has a very wide dynamic range. Your volume should be adjusted so that the very quietest parts are loud enough to hear every subtlety and so that the loudest parts shake your bones. A single trumpet playing at full volume is lo…

Unfortunately it's not practical to do this for most people who have neighbours. I don't want to hear your classical music polluting my sound-space as much as I would some Techno or Heavy Rock at full volume (both of which are also more enjoyable at loud volumes). And if you're listening in a car, then digital compression is the least of your audio problems.

Headphones.

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#59

Post by pionar »

Expez wrote: post #42

This is actually only half the problem. Classical music is one of the genres where the profit-sharing model doesn't work very well. Spotify pay out every time a track is listened to (IIRC, this is triggered when you're 30s into the track). This works well for pop music, where the songs are short and they are listened to many times by the typical user. It works less well when the "songs" are 45 minutes long and typica…

> It works less well when the "songs" are 45 minutes long

The pieces on streaming services (just like CDs) are not 45 minutes long, though. They're separated into movements that are typically between 4 and 10 minutes long. So, while you could listen to all of the Rite of Spring if you want for its entire 40 minute runtime (and I do a lot, as it's my favorite orchestral work), you usually don't. You might listen to only the Introduction to The Sacrifice, which is only about 4-5 minutes.

Re: Why Can't Streaming Services Get Classical Music Right?

#60

Post by nothrabannosir »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #31

What makes listening to anything other than entire albums (radio, streaming, etc) unpleasant for me is the volume settings. Most people listen to classical way too quietly. Most classical music has a very wide dynamic range. Your volume should be adjusted so that the very quietest parts are loud enough to hear every subtlety and so that the loudest parts shake your bones. A single trumpet playing at full volume is lo…

> A single trumpet playing at full volume is loud enough to cause hearing damage.

A pet-peeve; this is meaningless without a distance. I'd rather attend an orchestra performance from the balcony than put a trumpet to my ear.

"x is louder than a jet engine!" from the pilot's seat or standing on the wings? "louder than a crying baby," in the bedroom or in my arms?

Sorry for hijacking your insightful comment, +1.

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