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A note on mp3’s

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Started by Rubicon in Chit-Chat

It seems that a few of you equate 128kbps mp3’s as CD quality…if you get a good set of headphones, you can tell that it’s far from it. I rip most of my music at least at 160, usually VBR from 160 to 224. You can usually tell from the cymbals in most rock tracks if it’s 128…they tend to sound like there’s a fan between the cymbal and the microphone.

Posted on Tue, 7 August 2001 at 04:02

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#1

Christian wrote:

It depends not only on the bitrate, but also on the programm you use to make mp3’s.

Posted on Tue, 7 August 2001 at 18:35

#2

opalmantra wrote:

(That’s a Prong Song!?- Christian)

Anyway, yeah..we discussed this before. I’m not pretty fond of mp3.
Ehm…I think Cool Edit is one of the best. It can take very long, but quality is very good. CDEX has that valueable bitrate and is very good as well. But it depends: Some songs (no matter what program you use) sound completely shit.
But hey, If there’s no alternative…get it!
Most bootleg traders do not accept any mp3 cdrs. I can’t blame them. I hear it too. Especially if I know its an Mp3 I’m gonna stick my ear into the speaker and look for errors. The ‘Bubbling’ Cymbels are the most common problems, and very irritating…

Posted on Tue, 7 August 2001 at 19:16

#3

Christian wrote:

It is a Prong song, do I have to feel ashamed now? Or am I a music god (tastewise)? I haven’t got the album that song was on, but an mp3, I think ‘Rude Awakening’ is pretty good. I’ve listened to some records I bought a long time ago just because of one song, for example Helmet’s Meantime, and I’m getting more into this stuff.

Posted on Tue, 7 August 2001 at 21:18

#4

Brendon wrote:

Granted 128kbps is far from CD quality, but the point of the mp3 was to make a file format that could be transmitted easily. I could either put 30 mp3s on my website that are 3mb in size at 128kbps, or I could put 15 at 256 etc… I’d rather people had access to more. I remember when I first started offering them 3 or 4 years ago, I did them at 56kbps/22.1kHz and hardly anyone complained about that!

Posted on Tue, 7 August 2001 at 22:11

#5

Rubicon wrote:

My main gripe was that a couple people were referring to 128kbps as CD quality, which is horribly untrue. I can hear the diff between a 128kbps mp3 and a 160, but above that it gets harder to tell. Also, did you know that certain cd’s are being encoded by the record labels to sound like shit or insert artifacts when you rip ‘em?

Posted on Tue, 7 August 2001 at 22:56

#6

Teethgrinder (René Fennema) Administrator wrote:

I agree with Brendon that mp3’s shouldn’t become too big in file size, or they would defeat their main purpose, I guess. OK, they might not be the same quality of some CD’s, but I have some original CD’s which have far worse quality than the mp3’s I have on my site at 128kbps.

If their are a lot of people who the mp3’s encoded at a higher bitrate , let me know. I use Cool Edit by the way.

Posted on Thu, 9 August 2001 at 19:30

#7

Teethgrinder (René Fennema) Administrator wrote:

I agree with Brendon that mp3’s shouldn’t become too big in file size, or they would defeat their main purpose, I guess. OK, they might not be the same quality of some CD’s, but I have some original CD’s which have far worse quality than the mp3’s I have on my site at 128kbps.

If there are a lot of people who want the mp3’s encoded at a higher bitrate, let me know. I use Cool Edit by the way.

Posted on Thu, 9 August 2001 at 19:30

#8

Teethgrinder (René Fennema) Administrator wrote:

I agree with Brendon that mp3’s shouldn’t become too big in file size, or they would defeat their main purpose, I guess. OK, they might not be the same quality as some CD’s, but I have some original CD’s which have far worse quality than the mp3’s I have on my site at 128kbps.

If there are a lot of people who want the mp3’s encoded at a higher bitrate, let me know. I use Cool Edit by the way.

Posted on Thu, 9 August 2001 at 19:31

#9

Brendon wrote:

I use AudioCatalyst with the Xing encoder plug-in. It’s fast as hell, supports a billion different bit-rates and it’s easy to use. Actually, some of the CD burning programs now have a technology that can supposedly intelligently improve the audio quality when converting an mp3 back into a .wav file.

Posted on Fri, 10 August 2001 at 23:25

#10

opalmantra wrote:

As for the rare mp3s here to download. I think Both ‘Knives’ versions, Misery (Definitly!) and Neck Freak (Beginning) could use a better quality or re-compressing. Others are quite good to perfect.
Honestly, I down mind a bigger file for a better quality (I have a fast connection ;-)). I think most of us are going to burn it on a CD anyways…

Posted on Sat, 11 August 2001 at 08:43

#11

Christian wrote:

Are there any programms that let you edit wav. or mp3. files, in a way that lets you, for example, mute a voice, make a guitar sound louder, or something like that?

Posted on Sat, 11 August 2001 at 14:33

#12

opalmantra wrote:

Oh, lots…best is probably Cool Edit 200. Can do anything. Mp3/WAV editing, noise reduction, chop large files, fade ins/outs ahhh…
If you need it, I may put it somewhere to download (+ crack)…
Oh, and the Prong quote makes you ubercool!

Posted on Sat, 11 August 2001 at 16:55

#13

opalmantra wrote:

Oh, about the voice muting…it used to work with older recordings where they putted the voice in the center of the sound spectrum. So you could filter that out. You can never do this completely, though…I never tried it though…just heard of it…don’t think there’s software for that…

Posted on Sat, 11 August 2001 at 16:58

#14

Christian wrote:

I don’t intend to filter the voice completly out, I just like to experiment a bit. For example, I’d like to make the studio Version of Opal Mantra sound more like the live ones; It’s hard to describe.

Posted on Sat, 11 August 2001 at 17:08

#15

Christian wrote:

O.K. I’ve made up my mind. Could you put it somewhere Mr. Mantra? If you do you’ll earn my eternal thanks and respect, I shall praise you as long as this board exists.

Posted on Tue, 21 August 2001 at 15:00

#16

opalmantra wrote:

Well, I’m not sure what you need to do precisely but there enough options to twiggle around a bit. You can download it here.
http://home.wanadoo.nl/pytrrr/
I also included a Noise/Pop/Click/Hiss eliminator to reduce Vinyl noise for example. Serial numbers are inluded as well.
Any questions: let me know!

Posted on Tue, 21 August 2001 at 18:08

#17

Christian wrote:

I’ve tried it, it seems you can do some funny (and useful) things with it. Thank you for that. I’ll let you know if I manage to make anything cool ;)

Posted on Thu, 23 August 2001 at 16:10

#18

opalmantra wrote:

Roger! Happy Twiddling!
Maybe you can add some audience noise under an Opal Mantra version…that would make it sound live…

Posted on Thu, 23 August 2001 at 22:12

#19

Michael wrote:

There is a superb version of Opal Mantra on the Isolation bootleg, it doesn’t get any better than this one, trust me!

Posted on Fri, 24 August 2001 at 09:32

#20

Christian wrote:

Hm, it’s not exactly like that, I want to give it a ‘live’ sound. The live versions I heard are always missing certain riffs -simply because T? only had one guitar back then (I guess they used samples on ‘shock treatment’). The riffs played at the beginnning of Opal Mantra (studio) are more in the ‘background’, and I’d like to mix it in a way you can hear that better. Another good use might be, that I could probably improve the sound quality of the older records and bad live recordings. Besides of that, I’ve read a short time ago that the Fraunhofer codec used by Cool Edit is one of the best when it comes to Mp3’s.

Posted on Fri, 24 August 2001 at 15:44

#21

opalmantra wrote:

Yeah, I think I know what you mean. You want a more ‘edgy’ or ‘raw’ sound? I think twiggling with the Filter options may do some tricks. Also if you take the first main riff you can mix it over the verses to make it sound louder. Just like the live versions. Not easy…I might try it myself ;-)
Anyway, Fraunhofer actually invented the mp3 compressing so they know how it must be done. Some other software packages have their own and thus sound crap. The Lame encoder (such in Cdex) is good also. I think its an open source code everyone works on.
You can’t get anybetter if you save your mp3s in cool edit with quality 8 or higher.

Posted on Fri, 24 August 2001 at 21:17

#22

whaley wrote:

I have recently encoded some songs in Ogg Vorbis format and it sounded better to me. Will have do some more in order to give a better review but the highs sounded better.

Posted on Fri, 24 August 2001 at 22:28

#23

Christian wrote:

I like the reverse Option - maybe you can find some hidden messages with that ;). It’s also a cool thing to hear ‘new riffs’ that way. ‘dynamics processing’ also seems very useful. ‘Vocal cut’ on Screamager sounds very cool, especially the drums.

Posted on Sat, 25 August 2001 at 10:13

#24

opalmantra wrote:

Mmm…only reversed things I know.
The Intro of ‘Hell Awaits’ from Slayer. (‘Join Us!!!’)
The Intro of ‘Still Life’ from Iron Maiden.
And a total reversed song from Eels.
Hehe…

Posted on Sat, 25 August 2001 at 11:43

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