How do you listen to your music?

[veronica 2]

Long time since the ipod thread was in "my boom" territory.

 

I've noticed recently I've gone back to listening to full albums rather than the random shuffling of music I was into for quite a while.

 

How do you listen to your music?

[bushpig 0]

bit of both. Random most of the time, but I have been increasingly playing whole albums again too...

[BagOfCrisps 24]

I quickly got bored of random. I usually choose albums and go with them.

[daver 0]

i used to randomly listen to songs or genres until i discovered bitcomet. now i listen to albums again. it is amazing how much more you appreciate the music. (well, that is of course if the music deserves appreciation)

[sakebomb 0]

As always albums..my music taste varies quiet a bit so random would probably give me a twitch!!

[Yuki's Passion 1]

at home I listen to full albums/concerts and rarely have my Ipod on. Have sooo many MDs and CDs that arent on my Ipod that I wanna listen to which helps me from getting sick of my Ipod music

[grungy-gonads 54]

Albums. I did the random thing for a while but found it distracting, which is fine at times but I enjoy listening to the albums at the mo.

[scouser 4]

I haven't listened to much music at all actually, I need to get more Quality Music Time in. But I like to listen to albums.

[indosnm 0]

i usually listen with my ears,

[bushpig 0]

had to be said...

[Yuki's Passion 1]

music, you dont hear it, you feel it

[klingon 10]

I'm actually only just starting to use random and quite enjoying it. I only put music I really like on my machine so there's no crap up there. I have a friend who seems to upload anything and everything on his ipod and complains about some of the trash on there

[r45 4]

I play random until I and often hit on a song I really want to hear and go to the album

[nagoid 4]

I still listen to CDs, old fashioned as I am.

[Ezorisu 0]

CD's at home or in the car, but selected favorite MP3's when travelling - I'd dump whole albums in my MP3 player, but it's really ghetto and doesn't have a lot of memory...

[Yuki's Passion 1]

Fattwins still has tapes and 8tracks!!!

[sunrise 0]

Nothing wrong with analog, nothing wrong with 8 tracks - people still record albums in analog. Gives added warmth to the sound. I still have cassettes I listen to, though in general I tend to play CDs in my computer or stuff off the iPod thru thru my monitor speakers at home, or thru headphones while travelling, I don't like the sound of compressed music thru good speakers, but when I'm feeling lazy I put up with it.

 

I almost never use shuffle mode.

[manuel_arg 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Indosnm:
i usually listen with my ears,

Hahaha me too.

I listen by artist.

[grungy-gonads 54]

 Quote:

people still record albums in analog

sunrise, what difference does it make? (in simple terms!)

[sunrise 0]

Analog gives a much fuller frequency range - which allow for certain harmonics and overtones that aren't there with digital. Some of these frequencies are too high (or low) for the human ear to hear, but they mix with other frequencies and form harmonics that enrichen the sound. If those frequencies don't exist then the harmonics and overtones can't happen. So the fullness of this gets lost in the digital realm - more or less depending on the sample and bit rates that things are recorded in. Sample rates are increasing in the digital realm, so this is improving the sound quality, but at this point still doesn't touch the fullness that analog gives. Thus people tend to say that analog sound is a lot warmer and digital is comparatively colder. Of course many people like the colder digital sound, which is fine. But when recording with mainly acoustic instruments many people do tend to want a warmer sound, though.

 

Now there is a vast array of equipment out there that people buy specifically to warm up the sound - things like tube preamps, and effect racks and software plugins that are supposed to emulate a warmer "analog" sound. It's a booming market.

 

Of course most music winds up on CDs, which is a lot lower in sample rate and bit rate to what digital is now capable of being recorded and played in (hence also the new DVD audio formats which allow for higher quality sample rates, not as high as is now possible for digital, but gives better sound than CD audio). If you're listening on a cruddy system you probably wouldn't hear the difference, but get a good set of monitors and you will.

 

Going back to the recording process, even though albums are getting mixed down to CD format or DVD Audio (or SACD, (which is a similiar format to DVD audio), if recorded analog, once it's mixed down to CD or DVD audio quality there is more warmth to the sound, and more fullness and punch to things like drums/percussion, something to do with the fact that there were more sound information in the first place to mix with. I don't know the science of it, but too many ears hear the difference, so for whatever reason that's what occurs. High quality analog mixing desks are still extremely popular in big studios (not all by any means), as they warm up the sound, and will also add warmth to digital sound running thru them.

 

Of course many people might not notice the difference, or if they do, they wouldn't realise what it is. At any rate many people probably wouldn't care less, since many seem happy listening mainly to compressed audio such as mp3.

 

But if you use your ears for a living, or if you are some kind of audiophile who listens to their music on high quality sound systems you'll definitely notice a difference.

 

My own ears aren't as highly attuned to this as studio engineers and a number of musicians that I know, who are in critical listening situations on a daily basis. But for many people the difference isn't apparent or important.

 

By the way, people who record digitally nowadays tend to record things at higher sample rates and mix down to CD quality later for probably similar reasons of having more audio information in the original recordings somehow translating down to CD or DVD format. Nowadays the standard computer audio interface is 24 bit and a growing number now support 96k (CD is 16 bit 44.1k), and super high end hardware supports 192k, hmmm, maybe even more, I haven't checked lately. If people didn't think it made a difference then it wouldn't be as popular as it is.

 

I have a producer friend who recently told me he'd gone back to listening to things on cassette cos he like the sound better than CD! Haha, he's an anlog purist, but he does have amazingly sharp ears.

[sunrise 0]

er, was that simple enough for ya grungy? Sorry, didn't mean to go so long.

[grungy-gonads 54]

Very interesting sunrise, I have learnt something there.

 

How do you record then? Are some artists well known for being analogue (or does it not work like that..?)

[Curt 1]

Recently I haven't been listening to much at all actually, I'm feelin the need for more music.

 

It's sad when you hear more muzak than music.