Bob Weir on the state of the music industry

[BikerDude]

As expected a very chill view on things.

 

[Aero]

This interview is from 6 years ago. I'm not even sure his argument for the quality of mp3s holds true now.

 

[BikerDude]

This interview is from 6 years ago. I'm not even sure his argument for the quality of mp3s holds true now.

I don't think the MP3 standard has changed.
They have MP4's now but CD and MP3 quality is the same.
It's been standardized since the early 90's.
It's a compression scheme.

 

[Aero]

I don't think the MP3 standard has changed.
They have MP4's now but CD and MP3 quality is the same.
It's been standardized since the early 90's.
It's a compression scheme.

Yeah, he was being very broad about the subject. I expected to hear about the loss of warmth or dynamic compression or something.

What he said about your brain not being able to withstand listening to mp3s was interesting, although I'm not sure that's true or not as I've never heard that mentioned anywhere before. I personally don't notice that effect when I'm listening to the songs I've downloaded.

 

[BikerDude]

Yeah, he was being very broad about the subject. I expected to hear about the loss of warmth or dynamic compression or something.

What he said about your brain not being able to withstand listening to mp3s was interesting, although I'm not sure that's true or not as I've never heard that mentioned anywhere before. I personally don't notice that effect when I'm listening to the songs I've downloaded.

That would be a very weird thing if it was true though.
Imagine that we find that a certain percentage of the generally uptight nature of things today was attributable to audio and video encoding.
It's almost funny. And the weird thing is that once you wrap your head around it, it is maybe possible.
Your brain really does sort of knit together the audio "dots". Like the way our eyes create a seamless picture from a dot matrix screen.
Maybe the deepest part of the lizard brain sort of tastes the pill in the dog food.
Who knows?
Yeah I don't notice it either since I listen to tunes all day at work.
But then I am generally semi stressed so maybe.
I just never attributed it that.

 

[Old Dude]

The thing is, how good or bad a recording sounds is affected by more than compression. Whatever the sound source is, the quality of all the playback gear, including amps, speakers, cables, speaker housings, placement of the speakers, the acoustics of the room, the EQ settings of everything that has adjustable EQ, the parameters of the original recording, the skill of the musicians and vocalists on the original recording, the song itself, the phase of the moon, the weather outside, and several other factors all play an important part. Concentrating on any one factor can't possibly tell the whole story.

 

[Old Dude]

He's another one who is full of sheep dip. Several generations of people grew up only hearing music on AM radio. Starting with the first broadcasts in 1920, AM was all there was. Recordings were on 78 RPM wax records, though recording and playback speeds were very inexact. FM started just before WWII, but only on a handful of stations broadcasting to a handful of receivers. Stereo recordings on vinyl didn't start until the mid-1950s, and then mostly for classical music, jazz, and lounge pop. When they started putting rock in stereo on FM in the late 1960's, most listeners didn't have really good sound systems. My generation grew up on vinyl, cassettes, and 8 track tapes.

Sure, it's great to have a mega-expensive stereo system, or even some $500 headphones. Most folks don't have those kinds of systems. What really got people to shell out their own money to buy a recording was that it was a song or a collection of songs on an album that they liked and wanted to hear again. It was fun to go to a Grateful Dead concert, but not many people wanted to buy a copy of several hours of improvised, free-form jamming. I don't give a damn how superb the technical quality of the recording was, most folks won't buy a song they think is shitty.

 

[doswizard]

He's another one who is full of sheep dip. Several generations of people grew up only hearing music on AM radio. Starting with the first broadcasts in 1920, AM was all there was. Recordings were on 78 RPM wax records, though recording and playback speeds were very inexact. FM started just before WWII, but only on a handful of stations broadcasting to a handful of receivers. Stereo recordings on vinyl didn't start until the mid-1950s, and then mostly for classical music, jazz, and lounge pop. When they started putting rock in stereo on FM in the late 1960's, most listeners didn't have really good sound systems. My generation grew up on vinyl, cassettes, and 8 track tapes.

Sure, it's great to have a mega-expensive stereo system, or even some $500 headphones. Most folks don't have those kinds of systems. What really got people to shell out their own money to buy a recording was that it was a song or a collection of songs on an album that they liked and wanted to hear again. It was fun to go to a Grateful Dead concert, but not many people wanted to buy a copy of several hours of improvised, free-form jamming. I don't give a damn how superb the technical quality of the recording was, most folks won't buy a song they think is shitty.

I Agree with You. We all needed to go to the Theater to enjoy a Movie before the VCR was invented. Different generations, indeed!