Comments on: Sounds good?

Sounds good?

mr.marx — Fri, 14 May 2004 10:11:45 -0800

My goal here is to teach you how to create the best MP3s possible

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 14 May 2004 10:26:23 -0800

After reading a bit of the site I'd have to say that his goal is to be as belittling as possible. Or maybe he's trying to be funny. Whatever. When I rip, I use iTunes. Simple to adjust, I end up with high quality MP3s and less attitude. Interesting information though.

By: Mwongozi

Mwongozi — Fri, 14 May 2004 10:30:58 -0800

The LAME encoder does sound better than iTunes' encoder (which I believe is Fraunhofer). But really, most people aren't going to care, let alone notice. iTunes, and indeed most MP3 encoders, are "good enough". People who really care about audio quality are either already going to know about LAME, or are going to be using something other than MP3. Unless you have an MP3 player that doesn't support it, all iTunes users should try out the AAC format. Same quality, smaller files. Fab.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Fri, 14 May 2004 10:38:16 -0800

The audio-illumination site referenced in the FPP link is now accessible at HydrogenAudio.

By: Marquis

Marquis — Fri, 14 May 2004 10:39:01 -0800

Anyone want to give me instructions for LAME --alt-preset thingy encoding on a Mac? I'm interested in having my mp3s as high-quality as possible, but this article gives me nothin'...

By: dvdgee

dvdgee — Fri, 14 May 2004 11:12:42 -0800

anybody who uses iTunes deserves crappy sound. sorry, i don't get it. Most. Intrusive. UI. Ever. and yes, i'm still bitter that iTunes took 15gigs of my MP3's sorted by file folder and often missing ID3 metadata and "organized" it into it's own stupid file structure.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 14 May 2004 11:31:46 -0800

Oh yeah, when I happened to mention that I love my iPod to a pal who's an audiophile (think $3500 for a four foot speaker cable), he threw his nose up and said he could never listen to MP3s, they're just too dirty. My 'Pod works perfectly for me. I am almost always listening to music in a setting with other noise to mask any quality issues.

By: kindall

kindall — Fri, 14 May 2004 11:44:29 -0800

and yes, i'm still bitter that iTunes took 15gigs of my MP3's sorted by file folder and often missing ID3 metadata and "organized" it into it's own stupid file structure. Well, gee, then turn that off!

By: Jairus

Jairus — Fri, 14 May 2004 11:54:56 -0800

I installed iTunes as a joke, once, on my Windows system. It took over -all- my A/V associations, and quickly munged about 30gb of MP3 file structure before I unplugged my computer. (And yes, I had 'turned that off'.) Not so funny of a joke, I guess.

By: mcguirk

mcguirk — Fri, 14 May 2004 12:05:01 -0800

At this point hard drives are cheap enough that you might as well rip to a lossless format anyway. Not because MP3 quality isn't sufficient for most purposes, but so you can convert to any needed future format without re-ripping or losing quality by re-encoding. The cost of hard drive space has dropped by 1000 times in the past 10 years, according to this source. Presumably you want your music collection to be around for at least 10 years. Once you have 50 terabytes of storage you'll feel pretty silly having all your music in MP3s.

By: 40 Watt

40 Watt — Fri, 14 May 2004 12:24:42 -0800

It took over -all- my A/V associations, and quickly munged about 30gb of MP3 file structure Huh. That's odd. I've never had any sort of problems like that with iTunes, for either Mac or Windows. By the way, Mac users, you can use LAME with iTunes if you download and install Blacktree's LAME encoder for iTunes.

By: dvdgee

dvdgee — Fri, 14 May 2004 12:43:27 -0800

what i was trying to do with iTunes, was to get it to actively monitor my root MP3 folder for new downloads, while keeping the file structure as is.That way, when I download the latest 'Tallica choons off Kazaa, iTunes would pick it up and show it in my library. I looked around, couldn't find out how to do this, posted on some forum, and some bastard told me to hit the "consolidate library" button. I must've been drunk at the time, because I went ahead and did just that. What a sadist.

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Fri, 14 May 2004 12:46:11 -0800

Will someone who doesn't like iTunes tell me what's horribly intrusive about putting the mp3 file inside a folder named for an album, inside a folder named for the artist? That's how iTunes organizes a library of mp3s, and I'd hardly call that taking over a computer. I've thought about using AAC, but I've already ripped my entire CD collection using 192Kbit mp3 with VBR turned on. I'd save a lot of hard drive space, but I don't want to go about doing it all over again since I have over nine days of music on my Mac.

By: loquax

loquax — Fri, 14 May 2004 13:16:19 -0800

I love how serious audio-type discussions never even mention wma. Oh I feel so silly thinking back to my days of youthful indiscretion when I made a horrible decision that has changed my life. Damn you Microsoft, and your little built in menus of lossyness.

By: lotsofno

lotsofno — Fri, 14 May 2004 13:53:16 -0800

i was one of the people who installed itunes on the day it came out for windows, just to try it out, and had his media library rearranged and raped. some other people might remember that there was a bug where your library was rearranged even if you specifically told itunes not to do that. i'm stupid enough to still have it installed, but i mostly keep it around now for testing purposes, though i haven't opened it in weeks. if you want to rip to mp3 with itunes, i highly suggest using the lame encoder. iTunes had a very poor showing on hydrogenaudio's last test with mp3 comparisons, though their AAC ripping/encoding is quite nice i hear.

By: Jairus

Jairus — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:00:58 -0800

emelenjr, this is my folder setup: Full Albums --DnB - Heavy ----DJ Acucrack - The Dope King (2002) ----Panacea and Cativo - Live on Radio FM4 (2000) --Downtempo - Crossgenre ----Dntel - (this is) The Dream of Evan and Chan (2002) ----Dntel - Life is Full of Possibilities (2001) ----Dntel - Something Always Goes Wrong (2000) ----M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas And Lost Ghosts (2003) ----Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place (2003) ----Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By (2001) --Downtempo - Illbient ----DJ Danger Mouse - The Grey Album (2004) ----DJ Shadow - Endtroducing (1996) Etc., etc... I don't want artist folders and album folders -- I like being able to see the year of my albums, and being able to play a randomized playlist of any Jairus-defined genre with one click. And just FYI, if you ripped your CD collection as VBR, it's not 192kbps. CBR = constant bitrate, VBR = variable bitrate. Any 192kbps MP3 is CBR.

By: Jairus

Jairus — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:04:50 -0800

(For anyone who's curious, here's my full mp3 directory structure.)

By: oaf

oaf — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:11:24 -0800

think $3500 for a four foot speaker cable I bet this guy thinks he can hear a difference between an original (pressed) CD and a bit-for-bit copy when in actual fact he cannot.

By: pmurray63

pmurray63 — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:19:02 -0800

anybody who uses iTunes deserves crappy sound. sorry, i don't get it. Most. Intrusive. UI. Ever. But it must be good. It's patented!

By: cratchit

cratchit — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:25:11 -0800

It doesn't really matter to me how iTunes organizes my files, because I usually find what I want to play through the iTunes interface either by browsing or using smart playlists. I use winamp for playing any "dirty" files I get from p2p services. Once I've verified the ID3 tags and album covers are up to snuff, THEN they get invited out of quarantine and into my iTunes library, with the rest of the cool kids... and from there, to the ipod. And now you know.

By: Nauip

Nauip — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:28:11 -0800

never even mention wma. That's because things encoded in WMA tend to sound like they're being played through a cardboard tube.

By: meehawl

meehawl — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:50:21 -0800

WMA Lossless is quite good, actually. Compares well with SHN and FLAC and Monkey's (also lossless compressed formats). Low CPU util, slightly better than average compression ratio. I see Apple is now jumping on the bandwagon ( few years late as usual) by providing AAC Lossless or something similar. I haven't seen yet how it compares for CPU and compression. With disk space getting so cheap, transcoding to lossy formats such as AAC and MP3 should only be kept for low-capacity portable devices in low-fidelity environments. Keep Lossless on the server, push out lossy to the portable clients. http://members.home.nl/w.speek/comparison.htm According to this page Apple's Lossless doesn't shape up too well, but it is their first try... Yes, I use Media Center. Best. Media. Jukebox. Ever. What other jukebox programs want to be when they grow up...

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:52:55 -0800

Right, Jairus, I know. But even with VBR turned on, you still have to set a minimum rate. For me that rate is 192. Most of the files in my library show bitrates of 200-240 Kb/sec. And as for how iTunes disrupted your filing system, them's the breaks, I guess. I'm sure it would be a pain to do, but you could always pull everything out of your iTunes library folder and reorganize the files the way you want again. (On preview: looks like you did.) Or you could do what cratchit does (and what I expect the iTunes programmers hope people will figure out) and find your music using the iTunes interface.

By: Dean King

Dean King — Fri, 14 May 2004 14:55:12 -0800

mp3 encoders compared: Fraunhofer vs. Xing vs. Blade vs. LAME

By: Jairus

Jairus — Fri, 14 May 2004 15:04:15 -0800

That's a pretty old comparison. LAME 3.90.3 kicks the hell out of 3.61.

By: Jairus

Jairus — Fri, 14 May 2004 15:05:24 -0800

(...and emelenjr, I haven't used a VBR encoder that you need to set a minimum bitrate for in a very long time. LAME spoiled me, I suppose.)

By: fresh-n-minty

fresh-n-minty — Fri, 14 May 2004 15:07:26 -0800

I was also used to organizing my mps'3 in my own folder structure, but once I installed iTunes, I realized that if I just took the time to organize my ID3 tags (which is very easy to do in iTunes) the program was a fantastic way to keep track and play back my music library.

By: meehawl

meehawl — Fri, 14 May 2004 15:18:13 -0800

I was also used to organizing my mps'3 in my own folder structure, but once I installed iTunes, I realized that if I just took the time to organize my ID3 tags Or you could use the approach of Media Center. You can choose to rearrange files according to their tag data. There is a default renaming convention, just like iTunes. But you can also customize this renaming template. You get to select which tags get analyzed, and which order is used for the naming convention. You can also define your own arbitrary tags and use them in the media library, fill them with data, then include them for file renaming. Very sweet.

By: oliver_crunk

oliver_crunk — Fri, 14 May 2004 15:33:04 -0800

i rip to .wav and use mkw to encode to mp3. though it encodes slow, i have full control over what is happening. i also have 200GB of lossless files, mostly in .shn, that mkw works wonders for also. like mcguirk says, it's only a matter of time before you'll wonder why you have your music archive in mp3 format. i use a nomad ZE 30GB. the software works better than most of the competition and it works well with windows. better than itunes/ipod. i've seen some horror shows with apple software and hardware used with windows. in general, i'm not at all impressed with apple's stuff and i wonder why people on windows think it's the end all be all.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 14 May 2004 17:09:31 -0800

oaf, he might think he can when he cannot but I can say that, after helping him carry in the two 250 pound amps and the custom build speakers, he sat me down and played Hotel California for me and it was easily the best recorded sound I've ever heard. With that said, I still love my 'Pod. I don't need perfection, I need distraction and ambiance (and the ability to piss of my neighbors but that's a whole other story).

By: skallas

skallas — Fri, 14 May 2004 18:03:04 -0800

I use cdex and usually do a VBR starting at 192 and maxing out at 256. I think I might save from disk space by doing 128 min and 320 max and get some better quality, but so far this method works great for me, even if the files are larger than normal (then again normal is a CBR of 128 and sounds like ass). I really don't want to re-encode ever again so I make sure they sound good the first time. Considering disk space isn't much of an issue with my computer or with my mp3 player it all works out nicely.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Fri, 14 May 2004 21:02:57 -0800

Jairus, what tool did you use for the dir listing?

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Fri, 14 May 2004 23:35:50 -0800

cdex isn't an encoder. It uses various encoders, but it is not one itself.

By: Jairus

Jairus — Sat, 15 May 2004 01:14:18 -0800

Stavros, I used a tool called Guidua, which is a GUI frontend to Oidua. I don't have links handy, but Google should know where it is.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Sat, 15 May 2004 04:27:23 -0800

Thanks!

By: Dark Messiah

Dark Messiah — Sat, 15 May 2004 10:47:33 -0800

In regards to the article, I really despise being treated like a moron by the teacher. People like that don't really want to teach you anything, they use it as a guise for boasting and reaffirming themselves by using their knowledge as an arena to act smug.