online techno distribution...discuss!

[Martin Dust]

martin: got any links about the iTunes copyright issues? i ahd not heard about that, but would be interested in reading up on it.

I don't have any links, it just what I've been told by serveral people who do lots of content for them. It's hardly surprising tho, it's pretty high profile and record companies do search for there old stuff on it a lot, plus most contracts before 86 never mentioned "any format" or "future formats" - so it means they don't have the rights. It can get very messy and I doubt Apple would publish any figures...

[The Divide]

Hey I could probably find some stuff regarding this. did some research on digital distribution late last year and we found info like this, I had a login for mintel, if i can find it will pass it into this forum (**** it haha)

http://www.mintel.com/

It wasnt just itunes running into problems, other services such as HMV digital, were been target by labels claiming they weren’t getting their fair share of the deal and it was raising questions about how they were going to receive the money. I cant remember it all off the top of my head tho

Theres lots of info on this site tho, I would have a look myself but im really busy at the mo…

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/index_html

[holotropik]

If I may bring up an example of how this may work...

Consider how Porn-sites work. They have a title page showing all sorts of samples of what is to be expected once inside the site proper.
How do you get inside? Well you first have to subscribe. Some offer a time based access while others offer pay-per-view.

Just one example of how to navigate the online advantage. Remember, its all about process not product and the ony way to take advantage of all this change is to adapt or die :)

[Komplex]

ur such a porn freak mate ;)


love the idea. I think ur on the money....

replace the individual porno sites with label pages or online shops and replace something like www.worldsex.com or equivalent with techno portals... like www.worldtechno.com :)

but would it work the same way? there is a much smaller demand for techno compared to porn...

[Komplex]

shit, I didn't realise there actually was a site www.worldtechno.com, was just an example of what to call it.

[tocsin]

Processing fees are a non-issue. With paypal, it's $.33 USD per transaction. If that makes selling an mp3 at 1 dollar a loss, set a minimum purchase. The thing that would be cool about a front end owuld be that this option could be left up to the individual owners/sellers of the music and not the site itself.

[Analog.1]

MP3s are a 'unsavoury product'. Selling music in a compressed form is 'unsavoury'. If you buy a track in MP3 format online you are paying for 80% of the track, the other 20% has been wiped out in the compression process. If your going to sell music online it must be the track, the whole track and nothing but the uncompressed original track just as it is when you buy music on Vinyl / CD.

Artists could possibly set up their own personal website and sell their music online, they could sell their tracks in uncompressed .wav / .aiff formats. These will take longer to download than a MP3 but broad band speeds are getting pretty fast these days.. something inside your head will be saying 'wow, im getting the real thing i dont mind paying for this''.

[TechMouse]

they could sell their tracks in uncompressed .wav / .aiff formats.

I'd go for FLAC for preferance.

Or even OGG if you need to save on bandwidth.

[TechMouse]

As I said in the other thread, I'm quite happy to put a few hours here and there into something like this.

[tocsin]

Cool, Techmouse. :) I'm down as well. However, I am currently in the middle of a move. So, I can't put full attention into this until April 1st.

Analog.1, if you'd like to take the acid test, I'd be more than happy to encode a track at 320kbit VBR and add some garbage data at the end to make the exact same file size as a WAV file holding the same tune. You'd just have to promise not to cheat and only use your ears to detect a difference. :) In fact, that challenge is on the table for anyone who cares to take it.

[Analog.1]

Analog.1, if you'd like to take the acid test, I'd be more than happy to encode a track at 320kbit VBR and add some garbage data at the end to make the exact same file size as a WAV file holding the same tune. You'd just have to promise not to cheat and only use your ears to detect a difference. :) In fact, that challenge is on the table for anyone who cares to take it.

Can a MP3 sound as 100% as good as the uncompressed original when played on the highest quality audiophile sound system? I have my doubts.. If your going to sell music, sell the music in its original form, not in some tacky MP3 ipod format... (IMO)

[Jay Pace]

MP3 can sound as good as WAV: http://www.blackoutaudio.co.uk/porta...ic&t=43485

MP3 is just a convienience thing while bandwidth and storage get up to speed.
MP3s were necessary when people had 56k modems and 4gig hard drives.

Domestic 8 meg pipes and 20 gig mobile phones make the need for MP3 obselete.

But in the interim - they're quick to download, easy to store and sound to 99% of people as good as the original.

[TechMouse]

mp3 is perfectly fine - anyone who says they can tell the difference between 320kbps mp3 and WAV is a liar. FACT.

But, as I say, Ogg is even better, and FLAC is totally lossless anyway.

[Analog.1]

if FLAC is TOTALLY lossless, meaning the FLAC file is IDENTICAL to the original then maybe, this is the way forward for distributing music online.

[Analog.1]

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

[tocsin]

Take the acid test, Analog.1. Here is a track I wrote. I've spawned 4 copies of it so you won't have the luck of a 50/50 guess. Just give 'em a listen and see if you can tell me which ones are wavs and which ones are mp3. Don't cheat! ;)

http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song1.wav
http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song2.wav
http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song3.wav
http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song4.wav

[TechMouse]

Take the acid test, Analog.1. Here is a track I wrote. I've spawned 4 copies of it so you won't have the luck of a 50/50 guess. Just give 'em a listen and see if you can tell me which ones are wavs and which ones are mp3. Don't cheat! ;)

http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song1.wav
http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song2.wav
http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song3.wav
http://acidgrave.gabber.org/test/song4.wav

This'll be interesting!

[tocsin]

Just so people know the specs, here's how I did it. I took the original wav file of the song I composed and encoded it with the LAME codec at 320kbit VBR 44.khz highest quality. I then opened that mp3 in Soundforge and saved it as a WAV. Thus, that particular WAV sounds only as good as the MP3 from wihch it was saved. For some reason, the MP3 file, when saved as a WAV, was slightly larger. I mention that part only as a means to possibly gauge if someone has "cheated." ;) Though, in the end, if anyone manages to determine the identity of every file correctly (MP3 or WAV), I'll take their word for it.

[Analog.1]

They all sound the same to me but its hard to judge with distorted gabber as most of the harmonics have been crushed anyway.
Even if i wasnt to tell the difference with a top quality high definition recording, the fact is some of the information is missing from the audio when its a MP3 and i personally think this makes the product unsavoury. I say if your going to sell audio it must be in its original uncompressed form just like it is on Vinyl + CD. (IMO)

[tocsin]

If you can't hear the difference, that's all that matters. If you want, I'll be more than happy to post 4 examples of just a string sound with the same encoding.