Open Question: mp3 bitrates

Knowledgeable ones!

It is known that two things happen when you lower the bit rate that
mp3's are encoded to:

1. the files become smaller
2. the quality goes down

Soooooo: seeing people in our position, with a certain amount of file
space, and someone has a longer selection -- how low can one encode
and feel like they are still presenting a *musical* experience? It is
very much content-dependent? Are there options that one encoder can
offer over another, giving size/quality benefits? Is variable bit
rate encoding readable commonly?

Since this is how almost all of the music is being presented, I hope
others who have been posting for quite a while can shed light. All
the time saved by whipping out multiple versions could be put to
better use... composing and performing!

Discuss.

Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_451.html#451

> Knowledgeable ones!
>
> It is known that two things happen when you lower the bit rate that
> mp3's are encoded to:
>
> 1. the files become smaller
> 2. the quality goes down
>
> Soooooo: seeing people in our position, with a certain amount of
file
> space, and someone has a longer selection -- how low can one encode
> and feel like they are still presenting a *musical* experience? It
is
> very much content-dependent? Are there options that one encoder can
> offer over another, giving size/quality benefits? Is variable bit
> rate encoding readable commonly?
>
> Since this is how almost all of the music is being presented, I
hope
> others who have been posting for quite a while can shed light. All
> the time saved by whipping out multiple versions could be put to
> better use... composing and performing!
>
> Discuss.
>
> Jon

Well... I know there are people here who *hate* mp3.com, but I would
suggest starting a "MakeMicroMusic" site on mp3.com... so we could
stream files over there and just have links... A kind of "Tuning
Punks" but for this particular forum.

I see Dan Stearns new site... but I was having problems with it... It
wasn't streaming the files properly... I thought mp3.com was
more "dependable..."

____________ ________ __________
Joseph Pehrson

This wasn't really in response to the question, but:

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., jpehrson@r... wrote:
> Well... I know there are people here who *hate* mp3.com, but I
> would suggest starting a "MakeMicroMusic" site on mp3.com... so we
> could stream files over there and just have links... A kind
> of "Tuning Punks" but for this particular forum.

Joe, that is a possibility, but first off, it requires someone to
manage it and do the file uploading, etc. I barely have time to do
this particular forum, so it might need someone else to take care of
it.

Secondly, I think the purpose of this forum is also spotlighting the
creative process and not always 'finished' songs/pieces, so to me it
is valuable to have people upload files for downloading, and we end
up with a good collection on our hard drives. With 20 meg available,
we can all keep tabs (which I'll write about later) on usage and have
a good rotating section of stuff.

But your idea is worthy of consideration, and I'll think on it...

Momster

<snip> A kind
> > of "Tuning Punks" but for this particular forum.
>
> Joe, that is a possibility, but first off, it requires someone to
> manage it and do the file uploading, etc. I barely have time to do
> this particular forum, so it might need someone else to take care of
> it.
>
> Secondly, I think the purpose of this forum is also spotlighting the
> creative process and not always 'finished' songs/pieces, so to me it
> is valuable to have people upload files for downloading, and we end
> up with a good collection on our hard drives. With 20 meg available,
> we can all keep tabs (which I'll write about later) on usage and
have
> a good rotating section of stuff.
>
> But your idea is worthy of consideration, and I'll think on it...
>
> Momster

The problem with mp3.com is that it takes over a week for music to be
approved. It took almost two weeks for them to approve Paul Erlich's
1a. If we are vigilant and remove old files, there should be no big
problem. If we want access to all the old stuff, a good solution may
be for each participant to get his own mp3.com site and simultaneously
post sound files here and there. Then after they are removed from the
files here they will still be available there. I have added a text
file with the address of the mp3.com site where I will be putting my
old examples.

John Starrett

John,

{you wrote...}
>If we are vigilant and remove old files, there should be no big problem.

Yep!

>If we want access to all the old stuff, a good solution may be for each >participant to get his own mp3.com site and simultaneously post sound >files here and there. Then after they are removed from the files here they >will still be available there. I have added a text file with the address >of the mp3.com site where I will be putting my old examples.

Very smart idea, John! I'll try doing that myself, but could you answer this: does putting up a site start an avalanche of spam or unwanted emails? And is setting up a site fairly straight-forward?

Cheers,
Jon

<snip>
>
> >If we want access to all the old stuff, a good solution may be for
each
> >participant to get his own mp3.com site and simultaneously post
sound
> >files here and there. Then after they are removed from the files
here they
> >will still be available there. I have added a text file with the
address
> >of the mp3.com site where I will be putting my old examples.
>
> Very smart idea, John! I'll try doing that myself, but could you
answer
> this: does putting up a site start an avalanche of spam or unwanted
emails?
> And is setting up a site fairly straight-forward?
>
> Cheers,
> Jon

Hi Jon. Setting up a site is pretty straightforward, but I do
recommend using an alternate email address. Otherwise you will be
flooded with promotions from other artists. I set up an email on
hushmail.com, and never see any spam. Unfortunately, when I check
there from time to time, there are legitimate inquiries from people
who were interested in my music.

BTW, when you put up a web site, you're not obligated to provide an e-mail
address. And if you do want to put up your address, you can always put
something like:
rick at unicode dot org

and people will tend to get it, while the bottom-feeding spammers probably
won't get it with their auto-address-sucking web-crawling software. I would
never put a "mail-to" link.

Rick

on 8/8/01 1:32 PM, MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com at
MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> From: George Zelenz <ploo@...>

> I always choose low-bandwidth when given a choice due to my connection
> speed/ reliability.
>
> I don't mind the lack of quality, so long as i can hear the intent of the
> music, and that i get it without breaks or drop-outs due to buffering
> problems.

and

> From: jpehrson@...

> Well... I know there are people here who *hate* mp3.com, but I would
> suggest starting a "MakeMicroMusic" site on mp3.com... so we could
> stream files over there and just have links... A kind of "Tuning
> Punks" but for this particular forum.

That's a great idea. If it's not possible to do that, I'd been wondering if
there's any way to post realaudio clips to the files area as well. I know
the quality is even worse than mp3s, but often I don't have the time to
download a piece in mp3 format, and so I unfortunately miss hearing music
I'd like to hear. I do have time to at least listen to the real audio clips,
even though it's lower bandwidth, like George, I often choose that mode as
well. There's three people in my household with computers, all vying for
internet time on one phone line, which also needs to be a phone.

Seth

--
Seth Austen

http://www.sethausten.com
emails: seth@...
klezmusic@...