Why not MP3 as well as wavs

We had a debate on support of lossy compressed audio in our Hydrogen software project. My main concern was that people which don't know much about MP3 and Ogg will start using such sounds a lot, and loose a lot of detail in sound due to the limitations and distortions brought by this compression. And remember that playing an MP3 or Ogg takes 10 times more CPU power than or WAVE, so would you really like your CPU to waste it's processing for this or for VariPhrase/COSM and more polyphony?

I personally disagree with the idea- mp3's sound horrible, so much data loss, I hate how cymbals and hats sound on them- I'd rather them use ogg if they were going to go with something that was trying to be small with the best sound quality. Even at the highest encoding possible, I can still hear the garbage and quality loss from mp3's... the way I figure is that if I spent $2500 on a keyboard, then I'm going to put in the best quality waveforms I can possible. It's like taking the most eccentricly cool flying car around and pumping it full of low grade gas rather than the rocket fuel it really needs to perform. I mean sure you could fit more in the board by doing the mp3 thing, but I'd rather pay the money for a ram upgrade. Mp3's are ok for putting up on the internet because they load up faster on pages and from servers and sound "ok" from your ipod, but when it comes to music production I won't lend an ear to work with them- I don't understand why these software programs are adding this functionality to their products, the only reason I can see is for conversion, or because it apeals to non critical ears (shame shame shame) but that's about it for me... just my two cents.

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A Merry Christmas and happy new year too, Sherriff. I have not really thought of the UK as being a beautiful island in the sun but clearly those 20 fl Oz are having a positive effect

I guess if you are mangling the sound would the quality of the original be as import as the harmonic content?

If the end product is only to be a ring tone, then clearly it would not matter, so it may be best to think of how the music will be listened to and the path it will take before the punter gets to hear it.

The point of most concern is that quality suffers due to market forces ie mp3 and the like, so in the future "Hi-fi" will not exist or be wanted by the masses.

Thoughts?

Quality may not be needed by the masses- but it doesn't mean that it's ok start with bad quality in the creation of whatever they might end up listening to. I'm a purest I guess. It did cross my mind that yes we are mangling the sounds and files, but it doesn't mean I want to start lo-fi with my sculpting- especially the kind of lo-fi that mp3's have to offer. I'm willing to bet that mp3's would sound like complete shit after being variphrased on the higher and lower octaves, they allready kinda do the way it is- why make it worse? Because people have Ipods and allready listen to bad quality? I really think the solution is in Roland breaking a little bit more bread with the ram if people really want more sounds stuffed in the board... but to answer with my opinion of what the masses want- well I'm willing to bet that they will eat whatever you feed them, and I'm also willing to bet that they would rather have better quality if they could still have it small- I don't think it would be rejected or not wanted, but rather whatever is the economical solution... technophiles want to brag that they have a million songs in a device the size of a lighter, audiophiles will want to brag of the clarity and how awesome their device or system sounds... and then there is the rest that are in between, they want both. They want it cheap and they want it today. Finally you have the the music producer- the producer (according to the people that I ussualy encounter who produce) are audiophiles AND technophiles by nature- highly enthuesed by the clarity of mixes, constantly experimenting with sound and trying new things to bring music to the next unheard level... they are ussually selling their recent gear to get what is comming out tommorow, revel in the fact that the latest computer power can get them more tracks faster and help the work flow with less latency. We are hardly in between the two (at least when it comes to our line of work- I rarely meet producers who just will buy whatever is on the shelf). Last but not least let's not forget the old school guys who every body shoudl appreciate... they use what works and is gauranteed to get results. They slave over meat and potatoes hardware gear, and do whatever it takes to get the job done with limited but higher quality resources. They seem interested in new stuff but often bring it back to guitar center and use the dinosaurs they have at home because it works and often times sounds alot better... hardcore.

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Hi guys nice response

Quick point to D70 I'm not in the UK anymore I live in tenerife now weathers lovely about 26 degrees centigrade today.

Ok back to the real point if you want to get clever about quality then why aren't you all pushing to work at 192khz and higher for your samples. I didn't know that it took the extra processing power for MP3's so I have to conceed that point. I would also like to upgrade the RAM which Roland seem to have overlooked very odd considering it's not that expensive these days to get lots of memory.

I don't agree that MP3's are total rubbish because 9 times out of 10 you are playing stuff through the Vsynth live through a PA that unless your really lucky will not show you the subtle difference between an MP3 and a WAV and I don't care how good your ears are if your sound engineer isn't up to it forget it.

The only time the difference in quality will show is when you are recording sounds and surely if your that nit picky about your samples your not going to put them in the V-synth you will put them straight into your software program.

I know , I know some of you use great quality samples and mangle them in the V-synth but do you really think your going to lose that much with a totally mangled sound? the v-synth itself changes the quality of the sound you produce. I agree you may get some odd behaviour with certain sounds but if you want a straight trigger for a drum loop it won't show up that much.

Personally I've been using the V-synth for a lot of drum loops in my live work at the moment most of which were MP3's that I had to convert to WAVs to use them in the v-synth. They still sound FAT if they are taken from a good source to start with. Of course you can't beat analogue for quality but loops aren't easy with Vinyl so what you gonna do. As usual we have to compromise somewhere most keyboard players are used to this as it's always been a problem just look at polyphony, working with 8bit sounds, having to replace the rest of the band/orchestra etc... We always hate it but I asked the original question because I want to get more out of what we have to work with if OGG is better to work with than MP3 but still more compact than Wavs great lets push to work with that. The main thing is there are better files to work with than basic WAVs at 44.1 which still give good detail when used carefully not for everything but it would be good to have choice.

Cheers the sherriff

PS HAPPY NEW YEAR...... I'm spending mine on the Beach in the Warm Sunshine......

YOU'RE WRONG!!!!! NO MP3S FOR YOU!!! ROAR!! BAD! NO!

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