News about the CD

Like I said, SX have their own style. I couldn't imagine the Odyssey being a 5 track. But does every single song need to be like 400 tracks?

 

No, but in this genre (especially SX in particular) a track or two per instrument isn't going to cut it. At all.

 

Then what about in concert? Do they just use tapes?

 

Yes.

Spoken like a non-producer.

You bet. For example, if you want a "wall of sound" distortion guitars sound, you need multi-layering. For that you need multiple (individually recorded) rhythm tracks and one more track to mix them together. Sure, you can record and re-record over the same track, but that would mean much less flexibility.

Or say you want to control an effect (delay or reverb or whatever), you need a track with the effect (send) and a midi automation track to control for example a particular knob in the effect. Sure you can control the effect during recording, but then once the thing is recorded you can't go back and edit the way the effect was controlled = less flexibility/control over the mix.

It's much better to have everything set separately and running in real-time so you can have full control over the whole thing and shape the sound as close as possible to what you want to hear.

1) Recording tools/techniques etc. are not responsible for the music quality, only the production quality. As for the former, all you need to make great music is a pen and a paper.

2) No. It's not how many or what tools you got that makes the song production quality better, it's whether you can get the most out of these tools or not. If you do, then sure! Just listen to a track from the s/t album then listen to "Paradise Lost" from PL.

Are you saying you BUY music?

Seriously though, yes they probably know that many just download the stuff (especially from places like south America, Africa, and western Europe). Personally I always download music before I buy it. If I like it and know I'll be listening to it regularly or just plain want to support an artist I favor, I order the real thing. Seems fair to me so that's what I do, and I don't care what you think.

Btw, most mp3 downloads are in 320kbps these days. I wouldn't consider 128kbps as "low quality" though.

 

What are CDs? 192kbps?

 

CDs are supposed to be lossless, so it depends on how you import them.

I'm sort of sick of perfectly-timed, squeaky-clean production. I'm...not an audiophile.

 

usually they r 200 n something or 300 n something.

 

I'm not too well-versed in the subject, but an original CD recording should always be much higher than 320 kbps, which is the maximum encoding mp3 files allow. CDs can give you lossless files depending on how you rip it (AIFF, ALAC, FLAC), which are really huge. Speaking about a CD in terms of bitrate if you just play it straight form a CD player doesn't really make sense, though.

Digital services are getting better at supplying higher quality recordings now. Most Amazon stuff is 256-320 if you can't find it anywhere else, I think. And SX is the type of band you'll generally want good recordings for, since none of the band members are there just to be there or only provide a glue for the sound that's forgivable to ignore. But I still say billions of tracks gets old.

 

CD quality audio is 1411.2 kbps

 

Why don't you make 10 the highest.

But ours goes to 11

 

Did you guys see the wikipedia page? Someone changed it again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_X's_Eighth_Studio_Album

This amuses me.

 

Man I actually used to go in that Guitar Center where he worked.

 

let's take bets on for how long 'til next update
10 kool points on 2 weeks.

 

This. Do people seriously think that mp3's have the same bitrate as CD's? ... Not even close.

When you play the music from the CD it has the "perfect" quality with no frequencies taken out. But as apparently your brain can't really handle all that information, most people don't hear the difference between higher quality mp3's and CD quality.

128kb/s sounds quite rubbish when you play it through a decent system though. I think 192kbps and upwards sounds good.

 

I think on an average sound system, 128kbps is listenable. I wouldn't consider it crap, in fact by radio station standards it's considered decent quality. Anything below is rubbish though because that's where you start to really hear the difference. Personally though it's either 320kbps mp3's or cds most of the time.

 

I think it's also psychologic. When you KNOW it's 128, you think "aah this sounds rubbish..." At least for me, I only listen 160-> because I KNOW it's not a good quality if it's below 160. I bet I couldn't even hear the difference between 128 and 320 haha

 

128 is listenable yes, but it definitely annoys me if I've listened to a CD before putting the mp3 on for example.

 

from 224kbps on, the difference between lossy and lossless is very little.

 

I am a prude and won't put anything on my ipod unless it's 320. A lot of it does have to do with how I think that I must always have the best of the best. Some MP3's just flat out hurt my years they are so bad. I still buy at least 15 CD's a year, even though they are becoming obsolete. I will never entirely switch to ipods. Nostalgia plays a huge role in this.

 

buy most of my stuff as mp3 but I still buy symphony X on disc as well as shadow gallery, but mainly because I like having the booklet and stuff to read