Neil Young on quality recording and music piracy

[mellowgerman]

Thought my fellow LTGers might find this article interesting. It's based on an interview with Neil Young about how to save the quality of music recordings and also a bit of his scoop on music piracy. There is a link on the bottom of the page to the full video of the interview as well
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nei ... es-better/

 

[6L6]

Back in the early 90's the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story on Neil.

They said he was the wealthiest person on the San Francisco Peninsula (think Silicon Valley) due to the acreage of his enormous ranch and the fact it was zoned for subdivision if he ever wanted it developed (a couple years ago he did sell some of his acreage to Michelle Peiffer, his new next door neighbor). At that time he was considered to be a legit billionaire (according to the article).

Add to that the fact his wife is the heiress to an enormous fortune she received from her dad (first guy to start a reinsurance company west of the Mississippi River) and you can certainly say that Neil could end up being "the rich guy" he refers to in the article.

We'll see what happens. But I think Neil is so passionate about TONE that he may well end up paying the right guys to put his dream together. Hope he does!

Bill

 

[coastie99]

Thanks MG.

That was hugely interesting. Seems to me that ol' Neil has been pissed off with "digital" for just about forever.

The man's a legend here at Chateau Coastie. In fact, next to my Blues Legends, he's about the most legendary Legend. 8)

 

[Bikerdoc]

"Piracy is the new radio." Interesting. I never thought of it like that. Then again, as famous (and rich) as he his that's pretty easy for him to say. Also, there's a wider conflict with piracy than just downloading music off of the web; others making $$$$ who have no claim to the music for example.

Good article. I'm a huge fan.

Peace

 

[Sunn Man]

Hi there,up here in Canada,we love Neil,he has "God Like Status",although he can be very opinionated.I fixed his Hammond/Leslie on the International Harvesters Tour,(83' I think) when he played Halifax,Nova Scotia.Walking on that stage was like walking in a musical museum,fabulous amps/instruments everywhere !!

 

[fronobulax]

See also.

A question for audiophiles in our audience, any reason why FLAC wasn’t brought up in this interview?

+1

 

[valleyguy]

Not only FLAC, but some years ago Sony introduced high def CDs with much higher quality. It never caught on. I'm not sure there's much demand for better quality sound. Most people are pretty happy with MP3s. I know the sound quality of my MP3s exceeds anything I was listening to when I first listened to Neil back in the 70s.

 

[bronzeback]

I dunno Man I appriciate a quality recording as much as the next guy, and Neil's a person hero, but I'd be hard pressed to hear the difference in a 256K MP3 and the original, digital or analog. Betcha even Neil would have a hard time hearing it. But in principal if the tech is out there to preserve the original and distribute it lossless then sure, why not? But FLAC and other means already do that for those who want to do the work to get it. I guess his point is that any audio quality loss is unacceptable in this day and age.

 

[Taylor Martin Guild]

I have a device that can play an LP and download the music to a Flash Drive.
From there, I can load it to a CD or MP3 player.
My question is this.
What does this process do to the sound?
Will is sound like an LP or will it sound digital?

My ears can't tell with the exception of the hiss and scratching that is on the LP's.
That sound is also transferred to the Flash Drive.

 

[Ross]

I have a device that can play an LP and download the music to a Flash Drive.
From there, I can load it to a CD or MP3 player.
My question is this.
What does this process do to the sound?
Will is sound like an LP or will it sound digital?

My ears can't tell with the exception of the hiss and scratching that is on the LP's.
That sound is also transferred to the Flash Drive.

I'm in the process of digitizing LPs. I plug the stereo into a Mac using Garage Band software, and load the result onto external hard drives. The process faithfully records all of the crackles and scratches on the LPs. To my non-audiophile ears, there's little difference between the original vinyl and the digitized version, and frankly, I don't much care. All I want is to listen to favourite songs from my youth - quality is not all that important.

I'm also one of the people who can't really differentiate between hi-resolution recordings and MPs. What I DON'T like is the overcompressed sound of modern recordings.

 

[valleyguy]

I have a device that can play an LP and download the music to a Flash Drive.
From there, I can load it to a CD or MP3 player.
My question is this.
What does this process do to the sound?
Will is sound like an LP or will it sound digital?

My ears can't tell with the exception of the hiss and scratching that is on the LP's.
That sound is also transferred to the Flash Drive.

Some years back I transferred some LPs to MP3s on my PC. I could definitely tell the difference. The records were much warmer, but not as distinct and crisp as the MP3s. One better than the other, or just different?

Theory tells us that digitizing the music samples it and does leave out something, however the digital converters fill that in. The analogy would be a film photograph versus a digital one. Early digital photos were definitely not as good as film, but as megapixels increased, that difference became smaller and smaller. Today's digital photos are indistinguishable from film, if not better quality, after all even film has "pixels" so to speak. Film pigments with their random edges, gives a softer look, however. MP3s are analogous, you can convert music at higher bit rates rather than the common 128 for better quality, or as mentioned earlier, lossless files also exist. Is there a difference in quality? The $64,000 question. (does that date me?)

 

[adorshki]

Theory tells us that digitizing the music samples it and does leave out something, however the digital converters fill that in. The analogy would be a film photograph versus a digital one. Early digital photos were definitely not as good as film, but as megapixels increased, that difference became smaller and smaller. Today's digital photos are indistinguishable from film, if not better quality, after all even film has "pixels" so to speak. Film pigments with their random edges, gives a softer look, however. MP3s are analogous, you can convert music at higher bit rates rather than the common 128 for better quality, or as mentioned earlier, lossless files also exist. Is there a difference in quality? The $64,000 question. (does that date me?)

I agree with your analogy about graphic images, but I'm pretty darn sure that the D/A convertor can't "fill in" data that might have been left out when the source was originally converted from analog to a digital file like MP3's in particular. So the original file creation method is critically important. If you're trying to say the quality of the convertor itself is very important, that's true. Also it just occurred to me that you mean something else by the term "fill that in", so I think I get it now, the fact that a D/A convertor is always going to ouput some kind of analog waveform from whatever digital source material it's got. That's all it does.
In this case the reproduced waveform may (emphasize "may") contain distortions caused by a less-than-ideal amount of data supplied by the file fed to the DAC.
Can we hear it? Depends on how badly the waveforms're distorted and how well your ears are built and your brain handles the input. :wink:

 

[Taylor Martin Guild]

OK all you techies let's put this back into laymen terms.
If you take a new LP and convert it to MP3, will it still sound like an LP?
Is this what Neal is talking about?

 

[fronobulax]

OK all you techies let's put this back into laymen terms.
If you take a new LP and convert it to MP3, will it still sound like an LP?
Is this what Neal is talking about?

No, or probably not.

Possibly.

Neal seems to be unaware that there are formats that are not MP3 that sound a whole lot better and are much truer to the original.

Neal's concerns seem to be along the BetaMax vs. VHS debate. The "best" (in terms of playback quality) did not win in the marketplace.

If we took your LP and recorded it as a FLAC or some other lossless format it would sound the same to most people. But when you stored that LP on your portable music player you would probably be able to only carry that one LP around with you.

 

[adorshki]

Neal seems to be unaware that there are formats that are not MP3 that sound a whole lot better and are much truer to the original.

I'm sure he's aware of the other formats, I think he's just focusing his ire on MP3 since it pretty much seems to have become the default market format.
Maybe he's still a bit irritated by the loss of all that nice vintage stuff in the warehouse fire and needs to blow off some steam at a favorite object of derision.
I could certainly relate to that.
It's one of the privileges of geezerhood.
Especially rich eccentric rock legend geezerhood. :lol:

 

[fronobulax]

Since I have thrown some darts Mr. Young's way, it seems only fair to cite this article (courtesy of Guitar Squid for those who also read Guitar Squid and would prefer to avoid a sense of deja vu). It makes it clear to me that Mr. Young's "innovation" is more concerned with the use and distribution of music and video in high quality and lossless formats than it is with the creation/invention of new formats. Thus some of my assumptions and related comments don't really apply.

 

[adorshki]

Since I have thrown some darts Mr. Young's way, it seems only fair to cite this article...

I always thought you looked good with an olive branch. I keep trying to remember to keep mine handy.