MP3's The Future or the Past ?

The struggling record labels have begun to see the relevance of the digital domain. With firms such as EMI offering up DRM (Digital Rights Management) free MP3's from their catalogues. Even so to me it seems that they are flogging a dead horse and as soon as the public catches on they will only suffer more than they already have. There are now far more music consumers than ever, except they all spend far less on music on a monthly basis than they did historically.

MP3's offer audio files that are massively smaller than the original audio files, I would say approximately 10 times (depending on the bitrate used). Which is great for the times when we were on dial up, had comparatively low levels of storage and little other choice. As an audio engineer with somewhat trained ears I can hear several things from MP3's - primarily a reduction in audio quality often in the mid to treble frequencies, usually best demonstrated by fizzing high hats or sounds almost disappearing that should be there. Secondary is that I feel a lack of emotional contact to the music, due to the missing data I assume. An MP3 reduces the size of a file by analysing the frequencies being churned out. The strongest frequencies in any band are kept with the weaker ones getting eliminated. This is why the treble increases - as Bass is generally a soup of sound anyway it is less noticeable at the low end that frequencies have gone. Even if you cannot hear the difference the physical & emotional effect of the music has changed as your body is no longer reverberating neither in the same way nor as the artist or inspiartional energy intended. Making this the fast food of music - all false taste & no goodness.

About a month ago I dug into the cupboard & got out some records. From the outset it was as though I could actually feel air moving in the room, which is an improvement even on CD's. Also the emotional attachment that I had to this huge piece of band paraphenalia with pictures that you can actually see in the dark without squinting was immediately apparent. So I see here already one reason for the rise in popularity of the DJ culture in recent decades.

CD's are of course a happy medium but the reason they became popular was profit and nothing else. The prime example here is that when records were sold a percentage of profit was taken from the artist under the breakages clause. Breakages were all but eliminated with the introduction of CD's yet the clause remains and the artist pays for breakages that simply do not occur. They were always cheaper to make, cheaper to ship and cheaper to store BUT twice the price initially.

Which bring me to my point about the sales of MP3's online. They cost NOTHING to make, NOTHING to ship and NOTHING to store. They are (to my ears) around a third of the audio quality. Yet how much are they to buy ? At 50p a track on iTunes there is little competition between them and a CD from the supermarket. The convenience factor is the only real selling point and our apathy is being capitalised upon.

Now I will not pay the same money for something that is a third of the quality of the original, simply because of convenience. The popular compression formats of FLAC & MonkeyAudio (.ape files) are lossles and still about a third of the size but these are not available AND not even playable in iTunes. I do purchase MP3 files still but I use the Russian sites such as AllOfMP3 & Iomoio, who offer albums for about a quid each to download. It is completely legal (classed as internet radio/streaming audio) and a donation is made to the artists each month from them. Artists that are important to me or that become important to me through this media get my financial support by me going to their live gigs and from the purchasing of the higher quality CD format for continued listening over the years. Even now I am beginning to look for vinyl versions where possible. Sure vinyl needs to be cared for but if you don't need to care for something surely it follows that you will stop caring for it, making the band one more convenience in a long line of conveniences that we happily gobble up.

The world of digital music has blown wide open the doors of the music that is available to us. We can experiment and find new music. We can research and listen to bands for free on many a website - myspace, pandora, last fm and so on. Yet the traps, it would seem, certainly equal the benefits.....