RE: [tuning] Re: Sethares' music

MP3 is a *lossy* compression algorithm. It's gonna strip out some
information. It's a complicated algorithm, and it works best on *natural*
sounds. There is much less wiggle room when dealing with artificial sounds
like those from additive synthesis. And there are different bit rates for
MP3; higher bit rates = better audio quality = bigger files.

Ironically, MPEG-4 structured audio is capable of generating any sound you
can generate with digital synthesis, using an "orchestra" language and a
"score" language much like CSound. For such sounds, MPEG-4 offers
*phenomenal* compression ratios because you aren't transmitting the sounds
but the directions for making the sounds!!!!!!

I am just starting to work with SAOL (the MPEG-4 Structured Audio Orchestra
Language). If I've aroused any curiosity on the subject, hustle thyself to

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/sa/index.html

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
znmeb@teleport.com
http://www.borasky-research.com/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Starrett [mailto:jstarret@carbon.cudenver.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 7:04 PM
> To: tuning@egroups.com
> Subject: [tuning] Re: Sethares' music
>
>
>
> All-
> The Sethares book is about $70 from fatbrain.com, amazon.com
> and abe.com, but only $50 from tatteredcover.com No idea why the
> difference.
> It is interesting that to my ears, the mp3 recording process
> is harder on some timbers than others, and some of Bill's timbres
> seem to suffer more than those of traditional instruments. Could
> it be that my ears are so used to traditional timbres that I
> "fill in" for the missing frequencies, while with new electronic
> instruments, the timbre plays a more memorable part of the piece
> so that I notice it more when it is degraded? Or
> rather, is there something about the mp3 process that actually
> robs inharmonic timbres more than simpler ones? Does anyone know
> of a site where they go into real detail about the mp3 process?
> BTW, there is a sample of a truly magnificent gong (Chinese
> teammate) at http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/Inharmonic.html
> --
> John Starrett
> "We have nothing to fear but the scary stuff."
>
>
>
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