blog
Do you have that on wax cylinder? Bands upload your stuff for sale at 320kbps please!
Fuzz won me over in no small part because of the ability of the artist to sell music at a higher than normal bitrate.
Here's why:
Growing up in the late 70s and 80's I remember watching a single version of Immigrant Song from Led Zepplin spin on a very large console style record player and "Convoy" on an 8-track tape at my cousins house. I've bought Dark Side of the Moon as a "real" record once, several times on cassette, and on CD at least 3 times now including the SCCD version. (I own a Toshiba DVD-Audio player how many of you even know what that is?) But I gladly give up the big album art work of The Wall, the linear notes of some of the jazz/blues re-issues, and the idea of the "album" as a artistic statement for the ease of use and convenience of the iPod. But I still like things to sound as good as they can.
My method breaks down to this:
Music I still buy as a CD to encode at 320Kbps either AAC or MP3 includes the following.
-Dark Side of the Moon (and any Pink Floyd after that album)
-All of Radiohead
-Nine Inch Nails
-Thelonious Monk and other jazz masters
-Any classical
-Scores for American Beauty or any John Williams type soundtrack.
I buy CDs so that I have a backup incase of harddrive failures or for future re-encoding at the full bitrate when iPods hold a terabyte. Other cds I've bought I'll usual ripe at a more modest 192Kpbs AAC or MP3 file. (AAC now/MP3 before it had a foothold.) They don't sound like the CD but I deal with the trade off for the chance to have more music on my iPod. (I would use Apple's lossless codec for my favorite music if it didn't drain an iPods battery at an alarming rate.)
When it comes to new music I like to buy first from the artist directly when they have a high bitrate version. For example r_garcia has his labels PhiTunes store that I've very happy to buy from. If the artist doesn't have a store I'll use iTunes because the AAC files even at 128 sound better than MP3s at the same rate. I also use eMusic for any artists they might be on there. (But I can't recommend the service for most people since I don't think the user experience and music selection equals iTunes.)
Since iTunes has started to offer the new higher bitrates for some of it's catalog I'm even less inclined to buy CDs but where I think Fuzz.com can top them all is with the simple fact that an artist can finish a song today and upload it the same day for sale to any interested fan at a higher-than-the-rest bitrate of 320kbps. And they can do it without paying an upfront fee and without paying the lions share to a record label.
The only improvement that the Fuzz.com crew could make for me and the rest of the audio nerds out there is this:
When I go to archive.org and upload a 16bit 44.1khz version of one of our songs it is translated into many different formats and bitrates for the person downloading to choose from. Here's our song Do Anything as an exmample. CLICK ME! (It is free as in beer by the way...) If I could do that here I would just start yelling at people to buy music at fuzz.com while walking around in a clown costume covered in blood.
Or maybe not...
I do like CDs still and Marqui Adora is still making them but I don't know how much longer we will bother doing so.
What are your thoughts on downloading vs. buying a CD?
Here's why:
Growing up in the late 70s and 80's I remember watching a single version of Immigrant Song from Led Zepplin spin on a very large console style record player and "Convoy" on an 8-track tape at my cousins house. I've bought Dark Side of the Moon as a "real" record once, several times on cassette, and on CD at least 3 times now including the SCCD version. (I own a Toshiba DVD-Audio player how many of you even know what that is?) But I gladly give up the big album art work of The Wall, the linear notes of some of the jazz/blues re-issues, and the idea of the "album" as a artistic statement for the ease of use and convenience of the iPod. But I still like things to sound as good as they can.
My method breaks down to this:
Music I still buy as a CD to encode at 320Kbps either AAC or MP3 includes the following.
-Dark Side of the Moon (and any Pink Floyd after that album)
-All of Radiohead
-Nine Inch Nails
-Thelonious Monk and other jazz masters
-Any classical
-Scores for American Beauty or any John Williams type soundtrack.
I buy CDs so that I have a backup incase of harddrive failures or for future re-encoding at the full bitrate when iPods hold a terabyte. Other cds I've bought I'll usual ripe at a more modest 192Kpbs AAC or MP3 file. (AAC now/MP3 before it had a foothold.) They don't sound like the CD but I deal with the trade off for the chance to have more music on my iPod. (I would use Apple's lossless codec for my favorite music if it didn't drain an iPods battery at an alarming rate.)
When it comes to new music I like to buy first from the artist directly when they have a high bitrate version. For example r_garcia has his labels PhiTunes store that I've very happy to buy from. If the artist doesn't have a store I'll use iTunes because the AAC files even at 128 sound better than MP3s at the same rate. I also use eMusic for any artists they might be on there. (But I can't recommend the service for most people since I don't think the user experience and music selection equals iTunes.)
Since iTunes has started to offer the new higher bitrates for some of it's catalog I'm even less inclined to buy CDs but where I think Fuzz.com can top them all is with the simple fact that an artist can finish a song today and upload it the same day for sale to any interested fan at a higher-than-the-rest bitrate of 320kbps. And they can do it without paying an upfront fee and without paying the lions share to a record label.
The only improvement that the Fuzz.com crew could make for me and the rest of the audio nerds out there is this:
When I go to archive.org and upload a 16bit 44.1khz version of one of our songs it is translated into many different formats and bitrates for the person downloading to choose from. Here's our song Do Anything as an exmample. CLICK ME! (It is free as in beer by the way...) If I could do that here I would just start yelling at people to buy music at fuzz.com while walking around in a clown costume covered in blood.
Or maybe not...
I do like CDs still and Marqui Adora is still making them but I don't know how much longer we will bother doing so.
What are your thoughts on downloading vs. buying a CD?
Comments
I understand that this is just me, though, old-fashioned in some ways, I guess, and as you know, ZERO technical savvy...
For the record I also want real color glossy photos to look at and cherish- not just pix on the computer screen- not when it's something important.
In it's most basic form- the difference between internet porn and a real lover. Similar finale possibly, but... Well, do the math yourself, there's nothing like the real thing...
(Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the management)
so you suggest to just ask the user, post-purchase, how they want it encoded?
so here's how or store works in the most basic explanation ever...
1) you upload stuff
2) then we make a 92k mp3 for streaming.
3) then you mark stuff for sale... here we either leave the file alone if its an mp3 or transcode to the highest bitrate mp3 possible if non mp3. again, if it cant go to 192 mp3 you cant sell it
4) people ad stuff to cart, checkout and we rename and zip up the files for you to download
Now if you've purchased a song you'll see stuff over at: http://www.fuzz.com/profileEdit/purchases along with a link to download each bundle (each checkout = a bundle)
WHAT WE COULD DO... is have a second tab there where we can list all the tracks you've paid for one at a time. click a link and we can ask you what format and bitrate you want it. we can limit the options based upon the original file's quality.
this way after youve purchase you can download the default set or we can do some converssion etc for you if you want. Again, a lot would depand on the original file's quality... but hell, if the original is a wav then you can go nuts
something like that make sense?
now, im not saying we'll do this tomorrow but if the demand is there we can squeeze thsi into the dev schedule.
hows that sound?
-Arin
I would suggest something like this:
1)Band uploads 16bit 44.1khz wav or aiff.
2)Make the 92kbps for streaming. (I did notice your 92kbps sounds better than myspace does. I'm guessing the larger original file sizes you allow for is making the transcoding less heinous. Good on ya!)
3)Create 3 versions from the original file only if you start with a real wav fiile transcoding compressed formats to other compressed formats creates nasty stuff real quick.
I'd suggest the standard "good/better/best" model with maybe the addition of "Yer fuckin' nuts"
Good-You've already got covered with 192kbps files. I wouldn't go lower than that and like said it works okay for most music and music listeners.
Better-320kbps AAC or MP3 would work for nearly everything. Making it available would help the public to learn that music should sound better than they are use to it sounding.
Best-The full 16bit 44.1khz wav file or a lossless compressed version like Flac of Applelossless. This is what crazy people like me might want for some music like really good acoustic or live music or DJs who burn CDs to play at clubs. (Bad MP3s on a great club sound system is one of my personal hells.)
Yer fockin nuts-Something I haven't really seen yet is a place selling surround sound mixes online. I'm not sure what the format would be best since no one is really doing this yet but I suspect AC3 would make for the most likely choice however WAV multichannel could work as well. I only suggest this because it would be something cool that fuzz.com could be a pioneer in selling and because a lot of studios and record companies have invested in surround mixing without having a way to convince an audience to make that jump. But the idea is simply that you should let the artist choose other more unique ways of reaching creative places and letting there audience vote for those ideas with the all mighty dollar. Others might be higher than CD sample and bit rate versions like a 2 channel jazz concert recorded at 192khz with a 24bit sample rate. The audiophiles would cream for that kind of thing.
4)Leaving out my last bit of crazy talk you could implement a preference for the user to set like this.
-Download always using 192kbps MP3 (smallest filesize/average sound quality)
-Download using 320kbps MP3 when available or highest available MP3 when not. (Large file size/Better sound quality)
-Download WAV (or other lossless) when available or highest bitrate available MP3 version. (Giant file size/Full CD quality audio.)
-Show me all available formats available and I will choose at checkout time.
You could add some way of denoting a surround mix or ultra high quality versions availability.