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Vice Noisey reports on a musician who isolates MP3 artefacts by finding the differences between an MP3 and a lossless recording, then samples them to create his own music (N.B. the examples are hosted on Soundcloud; Javascript is needed to listen to them).
These days though, in our rush to listen to all music everywhere at all times, we often sacrifice these layers by listening to the most readily available streams or downloads, which are usually relatively crappy formats like MP3, AAC, or whatever the hell Grooveshark uses, which can sometimes sound like the recording of a song being through a coke can in a garden shed.
Often, we're losing out on a significant amount of what the artist intended, because when the original analog music is converted to one of these formats, certain layers of sound are lost in the digital compression. Translation: there's a lots of bits to your favourite albums that you may have never even heard.
Exploring this, is the Ghost in the MP3 project by doctoral music student Ryan Maguire from the University of Virginia's Center for Computer Music. He investigates these lost layers of sound, what they sound like when rescued, and then tries to make new music with them. For an example in his study, he took the layers of sound lost to compression from the acapella song "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega, which was also the template song used by Karlheinz Brandenburg, the pioneer of the MP3, to test whether the compression of MP3s worked. You can hear the track he made from those bits below.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 15 2017, @10:15PM (6 children)
It's really too bad the CD standard wasn't set higher than 22.1/16. Perhaps if it had been 44/24 there would have been less complaints. But maybe it wasn't possible to stuff any more data than 650MB on a disc that size without having a different laser. But surely they could have used some simple lossless compression, even back then.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:18AM (5 children)
> It's really too bad the CD standard wasn't set higher than 22.1/16.
You omitted the units, but if you mean to say that CDs have 22,100 samples per second and 16 bits per sample, that's not quite right. They do have 16 bits per sample, but 44,100 samples per second.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc [wikipedia.org]
The corresponding Nyquist frequency is 22.05 kHz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_frequency [wikipedia.org]
FM stereo broadcasts contain a 19 kHz subcarrier; frequencies above that aren't transmitted; that frequency was chosen because most people can't hear frequencies that high. Note that 19 kHz is a bit less than 22.05 kHz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_stereo#Stereo_FM [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:20AM
*clarification: I meant analogue FM stereo broadcasts.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:09AM (3 children)
Whoops, you're right, I was getting the sampling rate mixed up with the Nyquist frequency, and badly at that...
I guess what I meant to say was that CDs are 44.1/16, and it would have been nice if they instead were 48/24 or 96/24.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:22AM (2 children)
You're in luck! You can make an audio DVD, 24 bits / 96 KHz, Dolby 5.1, most standard (cheap) DVD players will play them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Audio/ [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:52PM (1 child)
That's no help at all: all the music is on CD at the very best, MP3 otherwise. I don't record my own music. Where am I going to get a 24/96 version of Led Zeppelin IV, or some more obscure recording from the past?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:29PM
You're not correct; HD audio DVDs exist. I'm disappointed they haven't been pushed more. LZ IV was supposed to be re-released in HD 24/96 format (said Jimmy Page 3 years ago). I'm not sure if it was done- I don't have time to search right now.
MP3s don't _have_ to be so terrible; I think most people know you can use much higher quality when doing mp3 conversion. When I convert something to .mp3, even if it's just speech and I'm doing 160Kbps (or less) I still choose the higher quality processing modes. It takes slightly longer but so what.
My point is that most original recorded media/tracks still exist and can be re-mastered to 24/96 format. It's not that hard and I know it's not the bulk of the market but I have to wonder if producers offered the "standard" mp3 for $0.99, and an HD version for $2, what the market would do. The huge resurgence of vinyl (and even cassettes!) makes me think there's a market out there.