A few weeks ago I was complaining about the audio quality of MP3s that I was listening to, when approached by Erik J. Heels (@ErikJHeels on Twitter) with a challenge that I couldn’t actually tell the difference between a well encoded MP3 and a CD. Since everyone in the audio world “knows” that the lossy encoding of any MP3 is far inferior to CD I took him up on the challenge that I would easily be able to tell the differences between MP3 and CD audio. It seems that he had a pretty good test put together (details in link) and a few days later I recieved a CD in the mail.
The CD contained a wide mixture of commercial, high quality, well recorded material with 12 songs, each with both CD and MP3 format on the the disk but in random order. The MP3s were originally encoded at 256kbs VBR, and at 48khz even. I felt that the shift from 44.1 to 48khz would give it away, as well as the encoding. I felt confident.
I originally intended to go into Taylor Barefoot’s recording studio and listen to everything in a well treated room, with stereo subwoofers, multiple monitoring options, and a Benchmark DAC-1 converter. However times scheduling that didn’t work out, so one day I at work I pulled out some pretty high quality Sony in-ear monitors/headphones and gave the test a shot on my Macbook Pro. I listened to each track, quickly writing on a sheet of paper which I felt was MP3 and which was originally CD. Threw it all into a quick email and sent it back to Erik. Only two of them did I mark as “hard/unsure”. I felt that the other 10 tracks were pretty clear as to which was MP3 and which was CD. The Macbook Pro with good headphones isn’t the perfect listening environment, but I felt that it should be ok for telling CD vs MP3 if there is such a huge difference.
I got my results back later that day. Out of 12 songs/24 tracks, I had gotten half right. Yes, I had lost. Half right is the same as rolling dice or a monkey choosing them. I felt pretty confident about my answers, and consider myself to really have an ear for audio. I was shocked, but Eric admitted that few people, himself included, pass the test with 100% right. This all goes to show, don’t believe everything you read in audio forums. Go with your own listening ability. I might have been able to tell the difference between 192khz/24-bit audio and the MP3, but between MP3 and CD I can say that there were differences, but I couldn’t tell which was “better” and certainly not which was which.
You can find all of the details on his test on his blog at: http://www.erikjheels.com/?p=1236
“Crank Dat ROFLcon” was made at ROFLcon by Kevin Driscoll during his presentation, “Work it, Move it, Bang it, Bump it: Crank Dat Online Dance Craze“. The presentation talks about Soulja Boy Tell Em’s rise to stardom via his heavy use of online video on YouTube, his fan interactions, his community, his music and the encouragement to learn the infamous dance and put videos on YouTube. You could think of the entire thing as an hour long interactive advertisement of the success of Soulja Boy. At the end it was capped off by everyone (myself included) attempting to learn the dance, and it was videotaped for putting back up on YouTube. We did a really bad job, but it’s a funny video with some kinda big internet people in it, including Bre Pettis, iJustine, Brookers and other totally cool people!
Hundreds, if not thousands of videos get taken down from YouTube daily. What’s the problem? Isn’t this a copyright violation as the takedown notice claims? Well yes, it could be viewed as a copyright violation. Yet, the slap in the face comes from the fact that Soulja Boy (or more presumably his record company and lawyers) need to remember where they are coming from. Without YouTube this kid would be nothing. Without people making videos of themselves dancing to his video, he would be nothing. This video wasn’t an attempt as disenfranchising Soulja Boy, or taking revenue from his record company. This is what made him famous. These are his fans. These people in the crowd ARE the influences. Copyright violation or not, its also the encouraged norm for his videos and music. In his own music video he even shows himself dancing in front of a huge screen with people’s home-made videos playing behind him. Half of his videos are about people learning his dance and spreading it online. In his posts he talks about and encourages such things seemingly. Not once have I heard him complain on YouTube about people taking his music and that they need to stop making videos of themselves.
This is akin to Jimi Hendrix going onstage at Woodstock and telling everyone that they are pothead druggies that need to get real jobs, join the army and take a shower. It’s a complete slap in the face and totall out of character. I don’t get it. I’m going to assume that it’s his overzealous lawyers and record company that are at fault and not Soulja Boy. However, he needs to keep in mind that these people are his representation. They are extensions of him, and its not a good excuse. He needs to keep them in check, and work with the right people. We can learn from John McCain that having poor representation and the wrong people around you can kill your career and people’s opinions of you.
So Soulja Boy, please tell your record company to send Kevin and ROFLcon an email to apologize for the mistake, and thank him for giving a presentation like that which highlighted your success.
UPDATE: Other bloggers have picked this up too. Fred Benenson’s blog had a good writeup and Rebecca Corliss also wrote about it. I sent a YouTube message to Soulja Boy asking him to check with his representation to see what’s the deal. I noticed that even in his YouTube Live thing the other day that they seemed to mention and encourage other people learning the dance and making videos. This is absurd. I want answers.
I had been meaning to practice what I preach, and pick up a set of compressors for a while now for at home. I figure I’m normally pretty conservative in my levels while tracking, gain structure, etc… so up until now having some really wasn’t a massive concern, or in the budget. But the other week I put some stuff up on Gearslutz, one of my favorite gear/engineering forums, to sell or trade. Someone offered to trade a pair of FMR RNCs + Funklogic rack for my Lexicon MPX-1 that I had up for sale. Seemed pretty fair of a deal, since each of us were getting rid of something that was worth around $400, so I did it.
I got this nice set in the mail on Monday, and took them home and racked them up. I put one pair as inserts on channels 1/2 on my Mackie 400F for tracking, and the second set on channels 7/8 in a loop, so that I can use them with Logic Pro for content that needs extra compression (or as a bus compressor).
I haven’t had time to mess with it as a bus compressor yet, but so far for the inserts I’m very happy. I tried it out with my voice (using an AT-4060 mic), my Machinedrum, and my Moog Voyager.
My thoughts so far: It’s killer on voice. Really helps keeps things in control. It’s a VERY fast compressor. Fast like an 1176. The Super-Nice mode really is, super nice. It’s a bit slower on the release, but it makes it so that you only hear ‘louder’ but not ‘compression’. It’s a quiet unit too. The Moog doesn’t need much transparent compressions most of the time, since I don’t have most of my patches responding to velocity anyways. It does help to keep it in check however when making new sounds and preventing you from clipping out the track or blowing out the speakers. With the Machinedrum I’ve only gotten to use it only for the entire track, and it was nice to help gel things together.
This is a very clean compressor, with almost no character. Its downsides that I can see are not enough metering, no ability on the front to switch in and out the sidechain (a simple mod could fix that), cheapish pots, wallwarts for power supplies, and it doesn’t work all that great on bass for many settings. Its ok on bass, but I’ve used much better. They are unbalanced, but as an insert I don’t care… and if I really need to balance them then that’s just some simple transformers and wire and its done. No biggie.
In case anyone is reading this and thinking, “WTF is he talking about”, I’m talking about a hardware compressor. What’s a compressor? It’s a unit that helps level out the dynamics in audio. Basically it makes the quiet things louder and the louder things a bit softer. It sounds good.
These guys sell for ust $180 or so new. Killer deal. Unfortunately, now I was to get a pair of compressors with a little more character, and a better preamp with more dirt to it also… oh what have I done?
Friends often come to me asking for advice on cool, unique, or useful music gear of all sorts. I’ll admit first of all that if you’re a drummer or a bass player than I probably don’t have much for you. However, if you’re recording or if you’re playing keyboards and guitar then I have a few neat treats for you. This time around I’ll fill you in on some of the better amps that I’ve played. These range between $20 to $5000, so there is something for everyone.
So here’s some gear that you may or may not know about, but you should! (I’m not paid by any of these companies)
Guitar Amps:
Orange- Tiny Terror: This is a freaking cool little amp. It’s inexpensive, great sounding, flexible and just overall a great deal! I can’t think of a downside to owning/playing one of these. Ok, probably not your main stage amp for death metal, but for other things it’s one of the best deals in town for a tube amp.
Epiphone- Valve Junior: It’s small. It’s cheap. It’s around $150. It’s easy to modify. Oh, and it’s a tube amp! Not all tube amps are great, but this one sure is a great deal and with a little work you can really make it sweet with some simple mods. There is no excuse for not being able to afford a tube amp with this little guy out. None. Ever wanted an easy way to have stereo on stage, but couldn’t afford it? This is the answer.
Gabriel Amps: Ok, these aren’t cheap and there’s no way around that. But they are rather sweet amps that can do a lot. Not many people know about these, but they are well worth looking into. I have gotten some of the literal best tones of my life out of them. Period.
Divided by 13: These are simply killer amps. Again, not cheap, but well worth it. Sir Paul McCartney is using these now for his band. Everyone else in the world is looking for 1963 AC30′s that Sir Paul has a closet full of, but yet chooses to use these as his main live amps these days (and often in the studio). If it’s good enough for the wealthiest musician ever, then it’s damn good enough for me.
Diezel- Herbert: I am not generally a fan of multi-channel uber amps with loads of gain that are made on PCBs. However once you hear these amps your jaw drops. I know certainly if I was going to play something “heavy” that I’d go for a Diezel first and foremost. They aren’t buzzy sounding, they are just huge. Billy Corigan of the Smashing Pumpkins is using these for the most part now, and damn the amp takes over the stage. Oh, and these also qualify as “not cheap”
Roland JC-120: A Jazz Chorus amp? Solid state? WTF? By Roland? YES! If you’ve ever wanted the cleanest clean on an amp (and on occasion you do need it) then this is the amp to grab for. Somewhat of a one-trick pony imho, but it does it very well. You can find them for $200-300USD on Craigslist quite often, although stores will often try to sell used ones for over twice that. It’s solid state and there’s not much to worry about being broken in there. If you’ve got more than 5 amps, you should have one of these laying around. They even made a head-only version, which is pretty cool but rare.
Smoky Amps: These are weird little cigarette box sized amps that run off a battery. They are about $20. Get two or three! As your main amp? Hell no. To keep with your tuner in your guitar case? Yes. As something to layer up in a track for something ‘different’? Yes. To run a drum machine through and mic? Yes! Plus you can gang them into another amp and use as a fuzz pedal, or drive another cab with them. Freaking cool. Stupidly cheap. If you’re a photographer, think of it like a Holga.
Selmer Amps: You aren’t going to find these in just about any music store. You’ll likely never see one live- ever. Yet if you should ever come across a Selmer Zodiac, you should really give it a shot. They were often used by the Beatles and other bands of the early 60′s. Between the glowing light on the front pulsing in sync with the tremelo to the insanely creamy tone these are jaw dropping. The prices have shot up in the past 5 years quite a bit. They are far more common in the UK than here in the States. Not something to tour with, but really an amazing amp to have in the studio.
When buying an amp, make sure to check it out at multiple volumes. Think about where you’ll play it. To be honest most guitar stores are pretty bad places to try out amps. Make sure they have a good return policy. Ask if you can test it out one night with your band. You need to make sure that the amp can ‘cut’ through in the mix of the band and stand out, but also you want a certan amount of blend and cohesion. A good amp with do both. Amps also generally sound far different recorded than they do in a room, so if its recording make sure to actually check it out by recording it!
Also for any amp tube or solid state, you should really consider having a backup or at least backup parts for quick repairs if you’re touring or playing live seriously. Extra tubes (complete sets) and fuses at least are must haves.
Here’s a little snippet I made this morning with my Machinedrum. No effects, no editing, no processing. I updated to firmware 1.50f and it works much better now. I took it to Taylor’s studio to test it out. Sounds pretty good imho actually. Take a listen:
ear/engineering forums, to sell or trade. Someone offered to trade a pair of