Are Technology Limits in MP3s and iPods Ruining Pop Music?

Uh, duh...

September 12, 2007
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If you feel like you are listening to music more but enjoying it less, some people in the recording industry think they know why. They blame the iPod you can't live without, along with all the compressed music you've loaded on it.
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The industry's behind-the-mic talent -- producers, engineers, mixers and the like -- say they increasingly assume the music they make will be heard as an MP3 compressed music file on an iPod music player. With that as their "reference platform," they are engineering the music so it sounds best when heard that way.
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COMPARE THE FILES
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Audio lovers often complain about what happens to sound quality when you "rip" a CD into a compressed MP3 file. Stereophile magazine's Michael Fremer tells Portals columnist Lee Gomes that anyone can hear the difference. Can you? Compare two different versions of the same tracks. (This is a large audio file; for best results, right click it and save it to your computer, and then play it.)
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The MP3 version of Ella Fitzgerald's "Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!" loses some of its three dimensionality, compared with the full-resolution file.
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The MP3 file of "Come to Find," by Doug MacLeod, is a "shallow, flat, harsh version" of the uncompressed file, according to Mr. Fremer.
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In Elvis Costello's "No Action," the digitized analog copy includes clatter, drums and cymbals that "sound hard and annoying" in the MP3 file.
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But because both compressed music and the iPod's relatively low-quality earbuds have many limitations, music producers fret that they are engineering music to a technical lowest common denominator. The result, many say, is music that is loud but harsh and flat, and thus not enjoyable for long periods of time.
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"Right now, when you are done recording a track, the first thing the band does is to load it onto an iPod and give it a listen," said Alan Douches, a producer who has worked with Detroit-born singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens and others. "Years ago, we might have checked the sound of a track on a Walkman, but no one believed that was the best it could sound. Today, young artists think MP3s are a high-quality medium, and the iPod is state-of-the-art sound."
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It isn't. Producers and engineers describe a number of changes they might make from recording for other media. For example, says veteran Los Angeles studio owner Skip Saylor, high frequencies that might seem splendid on a CD might not sound as good as an MP3 file and so they will get taken out of the mix. "The result might make you happy on an MP3, but it wouldn't make you happy on a CD," he says. "Am I glad I am doing this? No. But it's the real world, and so you make adjustments."
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The shift to compressed music heard via an iPod is occurring simultaneously with another music trend that bothers audiophiles: Music today is released at higher volume levels than ever before, on the assumption that louder music sells better. The process of boosting volume, though, tends to eliminate a track's distinct highs and lows.
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As a result, contemporary pop music has a characteristic sound, says veteran LA engineer Jack Joseph Puig, whose credits include the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. "Ten years ago, music was warmer; it was rich and thick, with more tones and more 'real power.' But newer records are more brittle and bright. They have what I call 'implied power.' It's all done with delays and reverbs and compression, to fool your brain."
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Even the most dedicated audiophiles in the industry who might be inclined to fuss with a recording to make it perfect, are beginning to wonder if it's worth the time. "I care about quality, even though the kid on the street might like what he hears on MySpace, which is even worse than an MP3," said Stuart Brawley, an engineer in Los Angeles who has recorded Cher and Michael Jackson. "We try to make the best quality sound we can, but we increasingly have to be realistic about how much time we can spend doing it."
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Howard Benson, who has done work for Santana and Chris Daughtry, says members of a studio recording crew will sometimes complain after a session, "I just spent all this time getting the greatest guitar and drums solo, and it ends up as an MP3."
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Even those who complain about MP3s say they own and enjoy iPods, and recognize how it has made music so widely available. They just wish, they say, the device wasn't setting the technical standard for how music gets made.
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Of course, not all music producers agree that MP3s and iPods are affecting music in quite so bad a way. Larry Klein, noted for his work with Joni Mitchell, said, "if something sounds really good on an average pair of speakers, it will sound great on earbuds. I can't imagine mixing a record so that it sounds better on earbuds."
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And Clif Magness, who has recorded with Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken, says music recorded by young artists in living rooms via MP3s, while technically crude, can sometimes have an urgency and immediacy that might be missing from slick studio projects.
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When CDs were first introduced, music recorded on them was called cold and flat. But their sound improved as engineers learned the medium, a process many hope will happen again with MP3s and portable music players.
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Michael Bradford, who produced Kid Rock, notes that as storage and bandwidth capabilities grow, music won't need to be as compressed. Even now, some audio buffs, such as Stereophile magazine columnist Michael Fremer, insist on a best-of-both-worlds approach to digital music. He uses $500 earbuds with his iPod to listen to digital but uncompressed music he captured from vinyl LPs.
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Still, engineers experience some nostalgia about earlier technologies. Says Mr. Saylor, "What we've lost with this new era of massive compression and low fidelity is the records that sounds so good that you get lost in them -- like 'Dark Side of the Moon.' Records like that just aren't being made today."