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Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."
Does the fact that I find this just a wee bit depressing mean that I'm
just a fetishist regarding CDs and vinyl?
The main issue I have with iTunes, iPods and other manifestations
digital music delivery is the complete de-contextualization of what I am
listening to. No notes, questionable and mostly useless "artist" info,
no art, no package whatsoever. I guess there are some exceptions where
the stuff is made available as a pdf or displayed on your computer or TV
screen, but it doesn't sound like that would be of any interest to the
clients of "Jack the Ripper" that you refer to. I guess that the idea of
liner notes didn't fully catch on until the LP era (yes, I've seen them
on 78 albums and I love the spoken intros on cylinders and early discs,
but they don't illustrate kind of thing I am talking about) and maybe
the decline of the format has inevitably lead to the decline of the
accompanying content. Even the albums, mostly, but not exclusively, pop,
that had only art and minimal track listings but no useful text beyond
that are something that I could connect to in some way on a level that
is not replicated by downloading from a file server.
Again, I am depressed by the desensitized level of hearing that we have
been brought to by listening to mp3 level and worse streamed sound
coming from our computers , routine amplification of music at concerts
and shows, Dolbyized ear assaulting soundtracks at the movies (what else
have I left out while I am kvetching- TV and radio sound; why even
bother?). I have been playing an acoustic instrument, sometimes
professionally in public, for nearly 50 years now and have been going to
concerts for about as long and know what it sounds like and it ain't mp3
or what I hear in any of the forums I've just mentioned. Strangely
enough, the recent comments about 78s being or not being High Fidelity
reminded me of an experience that I had about 10 years ago when someone
at the Institute of Jazz Studies (OK, it was Vinny Pelote) played me one
of the Armstrong Hot 5s or 7s on a windup 78 console. I listened to it
up close, literally with my ears inches from the horn, and I have to say
that it was one of the most immediate sounding things I have ever heard.
Now, I have no idea how much of that was coming directly from Satch's
playing, but I really think that the lack of too many steps and types of
processing between the recording session and my ears somehow overcame
the sold facts of frequency range and surface grunge. Maybe I was just
having a religious experience <very big grin here to all who actually
know me> but it was transcendental in many sonic respects.
Well, there you have it,
Peter Hirsch
Tom Fine wrote:
I love the little bit at the end about people who buy LPs "to use like
a poster ... especially if they don't have a record player." Vinyl
posers!!
---Snip--
BTW, the trend away from physical libraries of music is also big in
the upper crust. I know a guy who gets $5 per CD to rip it into iTunes
and turn over a loaded hard drive to his clients. They send him their
whole CD library. He loads up a hard drive with MP3 or AAC or ALF or
WAV or whatever they ask for (to his credit, he advocates ALF or WAV
but you'd be surprised how many clients get all tight-wallet about a
400gig drive vs. a 200gig drive). He then installs the hard drive in
their system and reads it all into their iTunes. Sometimes they pay
him another $150 to load up their iPod so they can be the coolest
player in business class on their next flight without having to
actually know or do anything "technical." This guy has all the
business he can do, just from advertising in a few Upper East Side
society-type publications. In fact last I heard, he had farmed out the
ripping jobs to his kid brother and the brother's college buddies. Oh,
and some of his clients don't want the CD's back, so he does a booming
trade in used CD's (that's how I got to know him).
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Milan P. Milovanovic"
<mijel@xxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 5:23 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "All hail the analogue revolution..."
Well,
our subject is even at Yahoo, today:
http://www.yahoo.com/s/397244