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The experience of MP3
Feb 23, 2007
David Byrne, who knows a bit about music, recently wrote a great post about the experience of MP3. (My upcoming book Bit Literacy has a whole chapter on file formats, including MP3.) From David Byrne Journal: Crappy Sound Forever!:
MP3s, which is how many of us hear music now, are in a way like virtual music. The compression that allows their smaller file size eliminates what the software decides are redundant frequencies and sounds the ear probably doesn’t hear and won’t miss. Maybe. There is less “information” on an MP3 than on a CD, and less on a CD than on an LP. Where does this road end, and does it really matter that sheer information and recording quality is going down?
If, like the phone company, we’re talking about communication, information, then maybe some of that sonic richness is indeed redundant and is therefore superfluous information? Well, yes and no. Looking at a reproduction of a painting is certainly not the same thing at standing in front of the real thing, but an awful lot of the emotion, intent, ideas and sensibility is still communicated in the cheap reproduction.
There’s a point though, at which the richness of the retinal or aural experience is so diminished that it becomes irrelevant, but where is that point? I first heard rock and soul songs on a tiny crappy-sounding transistor radio, and it changed my life completely. It was sonic, but it was also a social and cultural message that electrified me. Now I’m not saying that tinny sound should be considered satisfying or desirable, but it’s amazing how lo-fi or lo-rez information can communicate a huge amount.
In other file format news today, MP3 Patents in Upheaval After Verdict (February 23, 2007, The New York Times)
