Happy Birthday MP3! - also MP3 C/D

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So after 10 years, we can look back on the MP3 as a good thing - or can we? Has it "devalued music" - not in the BPI sense of the phrase, but reducing a track from a vinyl groove or a CD track into a .mp3 file? Or has the mp3 made it easier for people to hear more music and different types of music - you couldn't imagine p2p being as huge as it is without a small, easily exchangable (and easy to creat) audio format. Or both?

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:07 (twenty years ago)

I like how the Fraunhofer Institute MP3 pioneers look like they've stepped out of a beard convention from 1975.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

Classic all the way. Music doesn't NEED a physical format after all so I have no qualms about letting go of that personally.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

Physical formats are nice. One day people will stick on pretend LPs to accompany their invisible brain implant music.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:21 (twenty years ago)

No, they will open their mouths like CD player trays. The action will be smoother than we are at present capable of.

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

dud. demise of physical formats = demise of local records shops meaning i can't browse for stuff in my lunch hour anymore. last bunch of stuff i order from amazon took 3 weeks to arrive. so much for immediacy.

waiting for it to become established as a format and then slapping people with fees for using it = dud too.

> Music doesn't NEED a physical format after all

b-but record sleeves!

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:28 (twenty years ago)

Evan Eisenberg's 'The Recording Angel' is a truly fantastic 1980s book about how music became an object - there's a new edition which apparently has an afterword on the move back into the immaterial - has anyone read it? Is it worth buying the new edition if you already have the old one?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:30 (twenty years ago)

> Evan Eisenberg's 'The Recording Angel'
> Is it worth buying the new edition if you already have the old one?

i am uncertain. 8)

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:35 (twenty years ago)

I think it's worth you buying the new one and lending me it as you did the old one.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:36 (twenty years ago)

b-but record sleeves!

a burden on the environment like all other excessive packaging, but yes, nice for vinyl and box sets.

perhaps we'll be able to buy sleeves without the records in, and just hang them on our walls or file on a shelf, pulling it out and cooing over it momentarily before then cueing up the digital file on our computers?

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

I think it's worth you two pooling your resources to produce a very quick overview of the contents for, erm, busy people.

We must know some busy people, surely?

I can't get the hang of music files, really.

Bloke told me to turn my hard disk portable music device down on the train yesterday. I did so, politely, but thought he was a right fucking square.

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:46 (twenty years ago)

You should've told him to not have put your earphones on if he didn't like it.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 14 July 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

I should have twatted him.

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Thursday, 14 July 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

You should have bought some closed-back or ear-canal phones and been a responsible member of society.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 14 July 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

last bunch of stuff i order from amazon took 3 weeks to arrive. so much for immediacy.

Yes. But when you don't order the physical object (i.e. and MP3) the delivery IS immediate - and you don't have to go to a store, or wait for something rare they've had to order in.

Also: Hi-res images and printers for those who like covers.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Thursday, 14 July 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

> But when you don't order the physical object (i.e. and MP3) the delivery IS immediate

everything i have is based around a real cd player rather than a computer though. computers are a bad way to play music as they are inherently noisy. and mp3 is a lossy format. they are a convenience, a substitute for the real thing.

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 14 July 2005 14:52 (twenty years ago)

It's true that listening to music on a computer is not so practical if what you want to do primarily IS listen to music as opposed to using it for background ambience. Separate, devoted stereo systems don't have to 'boot', and my PC still takes 2 minutes to boot (it was less than 1 before I installed the second hard drive, curiously).

But otoh a 200gb hard drive takes up so much less space than rows and rows of CDs, vinyl etc. - even if ripped to lossless wav not mp3 or some other compressed format, or a high enougn bitrate for the loss to not be noticeable (ala 'loss' on CD compared to 'fuller' sound of vinyl).

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 14 July 2005 14:59 (twenty years ago)

Lots of stuff has been and is being written about this re: material culture in ye olde academic land of Cultural Studies. I find this approach totally interesting, some good background, perspective to the issue - for instance, see Will Straw's The Thingness of Things: http://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/issue2/straw.htm
Also, Exhausted Commodities: The Material Culture of Music: http://www.cjc-online.ca/viewarticle.php?id=571&layout=html

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Thursday, 14 July 2005 15:05 (twenty years ago)

my PC still takes 2 minutes to boot

Don't shut down - send it to sleep!

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 14 July 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

I know it's irrational but I always have this feeling that I am somehow hurting the poor machine by always leaving it turned on...

― Baaderonixx chez les Belges (Fabfunk), Thursday, 14 July 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

> But otoh a 200gb hard drive takes up so much less space than rows and rows of CDs, vinyl

i'd hate to lose 200gb of mp3s due to dodgy hdd (waranty for hdds these days is 5 years tops whereas i have 60s vinyl that still plays fine). so i'd end up backing them up. to cdrom for extra irony

vinyl -> mp3 is still non-trivial and a lot of what i buy is only ever available on 12"

that said, am ripping new purchases to new 160G drive in dedicated pc that'll end up as some kind of media server when i'm finished. and it's v handy when the computer's on anyway (am doing it now, to something ripped from vinyl has it happens). but this is all done from real cds. the originals are the backups.

maybe amazon or somewhere should let people download mp3 versions of things they buy...

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 14 July 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

i'd hate to lose 200gb of mp3s due to dodgy hdd (waranty for hdds these days is 5 years tops whereas i have 60s vinyl that still plays fine). so i'd end up backing them up. to cdrom for extra irony

that's why i have an additional external firewire hard drive bought for a reasonable price ;)

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 14 July 2005 15:36 (twenty years ago)

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