?
so much old country, folk, bluegrass stuff that was never officially released digitally is what I'm really missing
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 January 2013 20:45 (eleven years ago) link
just found Lightfoot! within a few minutes. it's tougher, but you can still find stuff.
― berner herzog (fadanuf4erybody), Thursday, 31 January 2013 20:51 (eleven years ago) link
where
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 January 2013 20:53 (eleven years ago) link
I have oink invites if you need one.
― Women, Fire, and Dangerous Zings (silby), Thursday, 31 January 2013 21:03 (eleven years ago) link
i'm insulted that you went searching for some prime early Gord cuts without consulting your old buddy profgbs first
― frogbs, Thursday, 31 January 2013 21:23 (eleven years ago) link
soulseek, homie.
― :C (crüt), Thursday, 31 January 2013 21:25 (eleven years ago) link
what? (.cd)
― Mordy, Thursday, 31 January 2013 21:25 (eleven years ago) link
I hate soulseek, not installing a P2P app on my work laptop sorry
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 January 2013 21:27 (eleven years ago) link
I'm crossposting my post from the Spotify thread since this issue concerns all digital delivery modes and is RIAArmageddon to the max:
So it turns out I'm not crazy, my ears weren't playing tricks on me, and there is a reason just about all spotify tracks (and emusic and amazon downloads etc) originating from UMG labels sound weird and fluttery. It's not, as I presumed, a defect in the codec they used to digitise their holdings; rather, it's a deliberately introduced, ostensibly 'inaudible' sonic watermark. Even the flacs you can buy of UMG material from sites like Passionato have it. The only way to get a good-sounding file of a UMG track is to... yes... buy it from UMG's own webstore. Where they only offer a scant sliver of their material anyway.
Mystery was unraveled here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=89818
And neatly summarized here:
http://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark
So yeah do not ever pay money for a digital file of anything on Island, Motown, ECM, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Def Jam, Blue Note, Impulse, the list goes on and on and on. And if yr listening to it on Spotify, yes it sounds fucked up on purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Universal_Music_Group_labels
(This all belongs just as much on the RIAA Armageddon thread I suppose, since the watermarks are supposed to be a way for the label to know what digital vendor an illegally shared file was originally bought from).
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, January 30, 2013 12:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:59 (eleven years ago) link
that really is crazy
― tylerw, Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:01 (eleven years ago) link
xp Yeah that is absolutely crazy...maybe not so many people care about sound quality anymore but the optics of a company sabotaging their digital catalogue, if it becomes common knowledge, could scupper the uptake of legal downloading.
― questino (seandalai), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:02 (eleven years ago) link
The problem here is that the UMG watermark degrades the audio to about the equivalent of a 96 kbit MP3.
yikes
― questino (seandalai), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:04 (eleven years ago) link
wtf
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:06 (eleven years ago) link
god digital distro sucks so hard
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:07 (eleven years ago) link
if you want to really hear it big time listen to any solo piano recording.
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:10 (eleven years ago) link
the sad part of this is that we're finally at a stage were -- and i know ppl make fun of neil young and his PONO project -- but 24bit digital audio sounds really fucking great and hard drive space is so cheap now and broadband is so prevalent that we could be living in a pretty amazing age of easy hi-fi digital music, good DACs are really coming down in price
― downton arby (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:11 (eleven years ago) link
Lots of the indie classical labels are selling reasonable lossless and lossless+ downloads through their own sites. But yeah.
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:19 (eleven years ago) link
oh yeah i mean there's sites that sell them, it just sucks that we're probably going to be saddled with the digital equilalent of cassette forever
― downton arby (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:32 (eleven years ago) link
I hear the MPAA is gonna start having a few frames per minute of a different exec wiggling his dong in all prints they send out to various theater chains. Birthmarks and wart clusters will be used to identify the source of pirated films. The slight penile-induced reduction of picture quality will be a small price to pay for this reactionary anti-piracy intitiative which will do nothing to end piracy.
― The Last Starfucker (Old Lunch), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:37 (eleven years ago) link
god digital distro sucks so hard― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, January 31, 2013 6:07 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalinkif you want to really hear it big time listen to any solo piano recording.― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Thursday, January 31, 2013 6:10 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, January 31, 2013 6:07 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Thursday, January 31, 2013 6:10 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
really interesting - last night I set the clock to 420 and listened to the Sun Bear Concerts (on ECM), which I have digitally - and I'm sitting there staring at the speakers goin "man...I know for a fact I love this record...but that just does not sound right at all...fuck...back to Slayer I guess"
this morning I checked again and the fucked-ness was nowhere near as obvious to me but under the right circumstances what the shitty encoding/watermarking is costing you is like glaringly obvious
― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 1 February 2013 01:46 (eleven years ago) link
if only anyone on this message board wrote for any widely-trafficked music or political websites or print magazines
sound the alarm you guys, this is vandalism
― Milton Parker, Friday, 1 February 2013 01:54 (eleven years ago) link
yeah this seems like it should become a bigger story, reminds me of the Sony rootkit fiasco.
― sleeve, Friday, 1 February 2013 02:17 (eleven years ago) link
I def noticed this when listening to alice coltrane stuff on spotify, but the deluxe edition of the slits' cut sounded fine to me... unless that reissue wasn't on island...
a little off topic, but one thing I really like about spotify is that they put up various versions of albums, remasters and reissues, so sometimes I'll listen to a couple to figure out which sound best
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Friday, 1 February 2013 02:44 (eleven years ago) link
Some kinds of 'sound picture' do seem to show it much more than others.
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Friday, 1 February 2013 02:51 (eleven years ago) link
There's plenty of used vinyl out there.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 1 February 2013 03:43 (eleven years ago) link
I remember swearing off itunes almost a decade ago after hearing how terrible stuff like martha argerich and the velvets 3rd album sounded on it
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Friday, 1 February 2013 06:36 (eleven years ago) link
what sucks hardest about this for me is that I got spotify premium specifically to listen to opera. Decca? DG? that's a lotta opera at 96k.
― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 1 February 2013 13:42 (eleven years ago) link
I got it mainly for the Bluenote jazz
― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Friday, 1 February 2013 13:47 (eleven years ago) link
I dunno maybe you guys should try listening to some metal or sumthin
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Friday, 1 February 2013 13:56 (eleven years ago) link
Maybe one day I will give metal a go when I'm older
― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Friday, 1 February 2013 13:57 (eleven years ago) link
Bluenote = a UMG label
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Friday, 1 February 2013 16:26 (eleven years ago) link
Aero there's still shit tons of vintage live opera labels on there. And EMI/Virgin and Warner and Sony/RCA.
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Friday, 1 February 2013 16:29 (eleven years ago) link
anybody noticed sonic probs on watermarked promos? I haven't yet.
― dow, Friday, 1 February 2013 16:30 (eleven years ago) link
― Milton Parker, Thursday, January 31, 2013 8:54 PM (Yesterday)
― Z S, Friday, 1 February 2013 16:33 (eleven years ago) link
this post will be underappreciated
Anyway, yeah, this is horrific and this should be a much, much larger story than it is.
― HAPPY BDAY TOOTS (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 1 February 2013 16:33 (eleven years ago) link
it seriously pisses me off but what the fuck can anybody do
― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 1 February 2013 19:31 (eleven years ago) link
Man, I knew Spotify sounded weird!
does last.fm have the same problem? I don't listen to the radio there but I was just about to get a subscription... (seems like it should, right?)
IMO this deserves its own thread
― frogbs, Friday, 1 February 2013 19:36 (eleven years ago) link
this is nuts!!
― original bgm, Friday, 1 February 2013 20:12 (eleven years ago) link
the difference waveforms sound really cool
― :C (crüt), Friday, 1 February 2013 20:16 (eleven years ago) link
The only thing I can imagine is maybe apple making a stance against it the same way they changed their stance towards DRM.
Though ironically it seems that's when UMG began watermarking, when DRM went out of fashion...
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Friday, 1 February 2013 20:22 (eleven years ago) link
i wouldn't be surprised if a lot more of this sort of thing has happened post-drm tbh
― suze (Matt P), Friday, 1 February 2013 20:25 (eleven years ago) link
I wouldn't even care one damn bit if it actually were an 'inaudible' watermark!
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Friday, 1 February 2013 20:33 (eleven years ago) link
is this grounds for some kind of legal action? say from ascap or someone. i know 0 about publisher/artist agreements and copyright law.
― suze (Matt P), Friday, 1 February 2013 20:48 (eleven years ago) link
Seems like more grounds for legal action from ppl who have spent money on defective flacs, M4As and MP3s.
― hibernaculum (Jon Lewis), Friday, 1 February 2013 21:20 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, this is a nice class action suit waiting to happen
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Monday, 4 February 2013 03:21 (eleven years ago) link
sue these assholes for a change
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Monday, 4 February 2013 03:22 (eleven years ago) link
one thing that really annoys me about these filesharing sites going down is that now I can no longer find stuff digitally that I already paid for/previously purchased in other formats. like, I'll be fucked if I'm going to give the Rolling Stones any more money just because I would like to hear Beggars Banquet on MP3 and my cassette copy is dead
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 8 February 2013 18:04 (eleven years ago) link
Along those lines, it's so much easier for me to download a boxed set than to sit in front of my computer feeding CDs (which I already own and paid for) in one at a time.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 8 February 2013 19:47 (eleven years ago) link
Hence the Amazon AutoRip thing...
― try a little crowleymass (Jon Lewis), Friday, 8 February 2013 19:48 (eleven years ago) link
If I bought it from Amazon, right?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 8 February 2013 19:48 (eleven years ago) link