Erasing audio history
Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 9:11 PM I'm reading a terrific book called "Perfecting Sound Forever" by Greg Milner that chronicles the history of recorded audio. So far I've learned about Edison and others who invented recording cylinders and discs, and 
A great book on the history of recorded soundhow the Lomaxes traveled across the South, using crude equipment to record raw versions of traditional folk and blues songs by performers that include the now legendary Leadbelly. Without those so-called field recordings, there'd be a critical hole in the audio history of the 20th century. And frankly, without some of those recordings, we might not have The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who, even Elvis, all of whose early songs paid great homage to blues and R&B.
The topic of audio quality might sound boring, but it's not. Really, particularly in an age of digital song files and podcasts.
One of my favorite classes at Fresno State was audio production. It all seemed so natural to me, and given my lifelong passion for music, I often wonder why I didn't get into that line of work. The long hours, fleeting work and shifty personalities may have been a factor, but to this day, I feel like I learned enough about sound effects in that semester that I'm able to listen to music with a reasonably discriminating ear.
Which leads me to the ongoing debate among audiophiles over what recorded music format offers the best quality. For example, the general public seems shocked to learn old-school analog technology like an LP record can have better audio quality than the sleek digital CD. Really, the LP, while prone to scratches and pops if not cared for properly, does deliver a wider audio band than CDs, which deliver a clean sound but one that's thin at high (think cymbals) and low (think basslines) frequencies.
T Bone Burnett (www.tboneburnett.com)Famed producer T-Bone Burnett told Word magazine that CDs only capture up to 22,000 audio-frequency cycles, compared with the 60-80,000 our ears hear naturally. Burnett claims that means 40,000 cycles of sound are lost to the listener.
"It's an extraordinary loss," Burnett told Word. "Even though you don't hear it consciously your body notices it's not there because we're used to hearing it all day long. It's scandalous that the record business has settled on this low-quality format and stuck to it way past the time it's obsolete."
Burnett is the driving force behind an effort to implement standards for sound quality in hopes of raising the bar.
But the LP-CD gap is nothing like the CD-mp3 gap. HUGE chunks of the digital bandwidth disappear when tracks are ripped from CDs and turned to mp3s. To keep the size of Mp3 files small, ripping software takes data only from the core of the bandwidth, leaving out much of the highs and lows in the audio range. Milner estimates at least 80 percent of the musical data is lost from CD to mp3! Yeah, there are settings in ripping software (most people use the tools in iTunes or Windows Media Player) that allow a person to rip at levels that deliver higher quality. Basically, you can tell the software, I want more data transferred from the CD to the mp3 digital file. The drawback is those richer versions are larger in terms of file size.
Given that many people listen to their music via earbuds or cheap desktop speakers, quality takes a back seat. And larger files mean there's room for fewer songs in your iPod or Zune. For most people, what's good enough for an ear bud is good enough for everything, whether it's a cherry car stereo or a trick home entertainment system.
OK, so where's this going? Well, because those smaller mp3 files contain less data, there's actually less of the song. Literally there's less song, sometimes enough that parts of the song disappear. The transfer to mp3 can in effect edit song elements without your knowledge. Sometimes the difference is a matter of "air," where the elimination of the highs and lows makes the song feel compressed. This crops up often in recordings with acoustic instruments, such as a singer playing the piano, where the resonance of the piano can be captured for seconds after the key is hit.
But it also is evident with a lot of older recordings, where lots of multi-track recording (instruments and vocals layered upon one another) sounds muddy or even silent. Songs from the Stones' "Exile on Main Street" sound awesome on LP and very good on CD but lose depth and character when squeezed onto mp3s.
Modern producers recognize that, and are starting to produce songs not for the CD market but the weaker mp3-quality of the iTunes market. So the focus is on punch and high baseline volume, knowing that listeners using ear buds won't notice the difference. Or, as noted in this excellent Sound Opinions podcast, record companies believe today's listeners and programmers gauge the worth of a song within seconds, not minutes. So, the production is focused on grabbing the listeners immediate attention.
The bottom line is we're training a generation of music fans to listen to music at a very narrow bandwidth, much like trainers put blinders on race horses. It's sad to think of what they're missing. Yes, often what's missing are very subtle things, but isn't life about stopping to smell the roses?
UPDATE (Aug, 7, 2009): The excellent public-radio show Soundcheck just featured Milner in an episode focused on the resurgence of LP sales. Worth a listen.
Logan Molen
Just posted a separate take on "The Social History of the mp3," which argues that music over the last decade will be remembered more for the technology than the music itself.
Reader Comments (2)
I agree, agree!!! I'm a purist too.
I'm sure you know this but there's been a jump in sales of LP records recently. Springsteen, U2, Coldplay and tons of independents are releasing their music on LPs. It's awesome, although they cost like 3 times a CD. But listening to today's songs on LP is a completely different experience. And a lot of the buyers are younger people like me. I'm 22. So, there's hope.
I'm still struck by this trend in younger people buying LPs. I get the sense a lot of it has been driven by 1) the fact LPs can be had on the cheap and 2) amateur DJs like LPs for their live mixing.
Something I don't understand, and maybe something you can shed light on, is the audio superiority of LPs really comes out with good audio equipment. But so much of today's music is heard on ear buds or cheap computer speakers. The best audio systems are likely to be in the car or a nice home theater, both of which are very unlikely to be hooked up to primo speakers.