Quote Originally Posted by pablo_sonic_terrorist
MP3 is NOT the answer! It is killing music and people are paying for MP3's that cost the same price per track as a CD album.

It is a music industry led load of bollocks and i hope it dies in a horrible expensive (to the mass music industry) way.
MP3 is not killing music, it's enabling worldwide distribution of music within seconds - it's opening up different music to a world market whereas in the past labels have had to rely on complex international distribution agreements.

It's most certainly NOT a 'music industry led' idea, EMI etc did not INVENT digital encoding, they hated it initially and spent millions fighting against Napster etc. In time however they inevetably (and sensibly) began to ignore their pitchfork squads and pockmark inspectors in favour of informed analysis of the benefits of digital distribution - which is why all major labels are now using digital distribution as a major part of their business.

If you are a producer and you spend an hour getting your ride sounding just right, with a tiny reverb on it, spend hours mixing down your track, then mastering it, and you have just the balance you want amongst the sounds. Then some cu*t rips it off as an mp3, you listen to it and there is just something missing from your highly polished ride you spent hours on in total. Well I'd be well pissed off!
This is down to the bitrate, if it's ripped at high quality it's fine, if it's low quality it's shit.

Techno is different, it has always been vinyl led and we must continue to support this format, its part of our culture.
For me the idea behind techno is the man-machine combination in pursuit of new sounds - vinyl is purely and simply a playback mechanism.