The New Times reports that its ‘Hard to Be an Audiophile in an iPod World’ and cites some of the work of Mark Katz at the University of North Carolina. Like many others, this article seems to show a fascination for MP3s, but almost completely ignores the other hi-fi aspects of 96kHz recording, SAC-D, 5.1 film soundtracks and so on. Its almost as if ‘the art of record production’ never existed, ie, as an art form in its own right.
Unfortunately, the discussion still centres around the premise that ‘recording’ was just that – focussing on purity of reproduction, and now these days with MP3s, iPods and filesharing, everything (art, fidelity, precision, integrity) has somehow taken a back seat to ‘convenience’, eg: wearable, portable sound where ‘low-er fi’ doesn’t really matter.
Unfortunately, the term ‘recording’ is used as if this were a passive, technical matter – simply operating the start and stop button; perhaps some acknowledgement of fidelity or simply attempting to re-create a naturalistic setting. (Never see that happen with a Film Director, would we? Clearly, film-making is understood as a highly crafted process, complete with virtual, artistic outputs that stand up in their own right. Then again, I can’t imagine we’d see musos out on strike against the same bastardry perpetuated by Hollywood on their script writers).
These arguments about audio files and audiophiles tend to ignore much of the great recorded art of recent history, work that stands by itself, is not meant to replicate live performance, indeed, is an art form in its own right. For example: Queen’s ‘A Night at the Opera’, The Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’, or more recently say, The Dissociatives brilliant 2005 record.
Even more stunning to my mind, the article claims that ‘Few musicians have been audiophiles’ and that they do like their iPods . . [if] the sound is acceptable . . convenience is the selling point’. Apparently: we only chase the buck and have no regard for the sound . . I don’t know where these guys have been, but clearly it has not in a recording studio and making music; ‘The Studio as a Compositional Tool’ as Brian Eno wrote almost two decades ago in Downbeat.
Seems as though the idea of ‘audiophile’ is associated with classic music buffs listening to records on specialized systems, and where the hi-fi magazines of old used to pummel this marker with ads for new equipment. The article claims that this is dead and now we go with the convenience and limitations of MP3s/iPods. Obviously they’re not involved with the huge audio technology market for pro-ams, independent musicians and recordists. See any related magazine: from Mix, to Sound on Sound, Electronic Musician, Audio Technology and many others. . .
Where once there were a handful of expensive mics available to the specialist, today there are literally thousands, most being comparatively inexpensive. And, this is replicated through the entire studio chain: from software to computers, to powered monitors, amplifiers, MIDI keyboards, baffles and other home-studo paraphernalia. Extensions of guitars, voices, songwriting and expanded scores where 2 or 3 computers screens provide infinitely more accurate and malleable information that a score or lead sheet ever did.
The musican is not an audiophile? I can’t imagine anything further from the truth, or more out of step with reality. Disintermediation (cutting out the middle man) in the music industry should not be limited to just a one-sided discussion about audio files and downloading. It now operates at the very heart of music making: studios are portable, personal, powerful and are increasingly treated as musical instruments by musicians. Sound is everything: timbre, touch, reverb, dynamics, the ‘killer groove’.
The muso of today is disintermediated as the producer, performer, engineer, arranger and composer. And above all: an audiophile who makes active decisions about what to ‘print’ as audio files and fitness for purpose: Radio & dynamics, CD and the car, 48kHz for film, MP3s etc.
Seems to me that the chatter about music on-line and the ‘death of the music industry’ really has to get over this lopsided fascination about MP3s and file-sharing, and focus more on what 21st century musicianship really has become.
1 comment:
Paul,
Great insights, I routinely do research (active) in my classroom where I have the college music majors exposed to various recordings from 64kpbs mp3s to 96kHz/24 bit high quality digital recordings. Almost all of them can detect the poor quality of the mp3s right up to the 320kbps “pseudo CD” quality of the mp3s. The results aren’t quite that impressive much past the 44.1kHz/16 bit range (some of which can be attributed to the limitations of my speakers)…but the majority of them can still tell the higher quality recordings from the poorer ones in direct AB tests.
One of the biggest issues I tell them today is that they have been brain-washed into the “quantity vs. quality” phenomenon that is mp3 recordings. They worry more about how many “tracks” they can fit on to their “whatever amount” mp3 players they have and less about what they are really listening to…
It’s not hard to talk about poor quality music when the kids are listening to their music with laptop speakers, or $10.00 headphones from a compressed audio form (many of them think think they have a great sound system set up when they connect into their $40.00 multi-media speakers with a subwoofer from Wal-Mart.. Ha!). They’ve been fooled into thinking what they are hearing is an acceptable audio quality standard… then there’s the BASS craze that’s going on (sometimes, when I'm at the college's "dances" that's all I can hear!)…couple that with all the normalization and post audio compressions and processing(s) that are too rampant on a quite a few of the recordings coming out today -and the need for re-exposing the younger masses to what true high-fidelity audio recordings sound like and what equipment they should BE PLAYED BACK on becomes, well… clearer.
Thanks for the great post.
J. Pisano –mustech.net
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