Music In The Cloud

[stux]

Probably right about the laptop, but cant justify buying a good one to have permanently connected to the stereo.
Default ripping settings on itunes were changes long ago.
Flacs are great, but large filoes and dont play on itunes.

ALAC does work on iTunes, and is also lossless... so worst case... Apple blows up and you want to convert your ALACs to FLACs you can.

I personally don't mind high bitrate AAC

If you want better sound quality from your laptop you can get USB connected external DACs which are specifically designed to get a high quality audio signal out of a laptop while minimizing any digital noise

They don't have to be expensive

 

[stux]

I don't use music cloud or whatever it's called, but is EVERYTHING available on it? I mean absolutely everything?

iTunes has big problems with licensing that mean unless the record company's artists sign up to having their stuff available, you can't get it there.

I believe the way the new iCloud service works is that all the stuff you purchase from Apple is available at 256kbps

If you want to pay a fee/year then you can have all of your other 'stuff' synced up to the cloud. The cool thing is if any of your crappy 112k MP3s from the late 90s are avialable on the iStore then Apple will upgrade the crappy files to 256kbps AAC for free.

Any of you music which is NOT available on the store will be uploaded in entirety to the cloud

 

[Feldon]

My 2c...

Re. sound quality. Does it matter that much. Most of the bands already mentioned on this thread (eg. Black Sabbath, Led
Zep etc) were adored by their original fans who listened to their music on nothing better than crappy mono transistor radios or mum's HMV radiogram. Back then the music was so good the delivery medium didn't matter.

Sound quality can also be more about perception than reality. I remember years ago when the National Party was beating up the old Telecom Australia about the comparatively poor telephone line quality of country services. It was true, country people had much poorer fidelity because of long lines from the nearest exchange and long drop lines from the road gate to the farm house. But when we ran a survey of the country folk around Australia we found that they thought thought the service was excellent. Perception beats reality.

Re. cloud storage of your music collection. Wait until the mega company you have entrusted your music collection to goes broke, or gets super cyber hacked. But if you have the hard copy (CD, vinyl whatever) you can be safe and smug.

The cloud concept is the next step on a path that has degraded modern music to being a throwaway consumer item - like a coke can or a plastic toothbrush. Listen a few times then chuck away. So record companies only want to produce bands that can make throwaway music. Thirty years ago music was made to endure - and a lot of it has.

 

[ShredMaster]

The first thing I think about with "Music in the Cloud" is... why?? I don't sit in the clouds to listen to music, I listen to it here and now. It could be a good idea if I wanted to show a mate a song and I didn't have it with me at the time, pop on the 'net and get it from my stash.... But realistically, I wouldn't be listening to alot of music from "the cloud" as I would be listening to it while doing other things and having it play on a device nearby: stereo, PA, monitors etc.

I really don't listen to music much when I'm on the net, I'm usually at work or the Mrs is watching telly or I may be playing a game. The Cloud music thingy wouldn't really work well in my particular situation but I can see the usefulness for others. I prefer my music as something I can access when *I* want to and not when I can be connected to it. I'd rather keep it on my PC/laptop and access it whenever I feel like it.

Now as far as music formats go, meh. There really isn't much worse sound quality than FM radio or TV but millions of people get their new tunes from listening on the radio or catching it on music TV, even I catch myself listening to music telly some afternoons. All these "lossless formats" and such certainly make some nice shiny tunes but in reality, how many people here are actually "audiophiles" who are so pedantic that they spend the ridiculous money to get a sound output system with 15-30k frequency spread from a bi-amped flat-response stereo setup?? Any clown can tell the difference between a badly compressed mp3 and a CD.

It was touched on earlier about the hardware and speakers being the main differential for how the tune "sounds". Take guitars and amps as a good example. Simple Marshall JCM-800 50W head, Gibson Les Paul and a Marshall 1960A Quad box. Sounds like a Gibson/Marshall setup, nice sound, play some Slash tunes. Replace the Les Paul with an SG, nice sound, a little more crunchy, play some AC/DC or Sabbath tunes, still pretty much sounds like a Gibson/Marshall setup. Now plug in a Strat and play the same tunes. Wow, different response entirely from the amp, lower gain, crisper sound, a fair bit "cleaner". Now change back to the Les Paul but run through a VOX cabinet with a pair of Alnico blue speakers... Wow, completely different tone again, different dynamics, different mouthfeel. Now stick a mic in front of the speakers, run it through a PA and listen to it via headphones in the mix out. Different again!

The point is, there is MUCH more to making a tune sound good other than the format (for want of a better term, compression format) that the tune arrives as. The sound output and mainly the speakers and digital processing are what will make the biggest difference to sound quality. Notwithstanding the golden rule tho: shit input = shit output.

I see people buy thousands of dollars of hi-fi gear to get "great sound" to listen to their mp3's. They sound pretty damn cool too. Then I see people spend the same thousands on gear to listen to their perfectly mixed and balanced "hi-def" audio and get a poor response.

Music today is engineered to sound "good" on most systems: crappy car speakers, shitty headcans, pristine home theatre setups, studio monitors and everything in between. Then it is HEAVILY compressed to give less dynamic change through playback on these crappy systems so that the volume is generally kept around the same level throughout the album (take a listen to Death Magnectic by Metallica, WAY over compressed so that on some really good systems it sounds actually distorted but on an average shitty speaker setup designed for iPods it sounds pretty good).

I love it when I go to a mates place and they throw some tunes on their whopping great sound system and crank it to 11 and hear the bass warbling and resonating drowning out the ear piercing high end with this major hole missing in the middle of the sound because of how the EQ'd their setup and placed their speakers (not to mention their volume!). My solution is simple: keep it as flat response as possible (all EQ set at mid position generally) and compensate with increase/decrease as required for room size, speaker placement, frequency spread of the tunes (eg: orchestra will use way more frequencies than old school metal). These artists and their financiers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying engineers and experts to make their tunes sound the best they possibly can on just about any system, why would I go and ruin that by twiddling knobs to get more bass or more treble just because my thousands of dollars worth of sound gear has all these knobs and sliders??

It is true Nath that some of the new formats for audio are pretty damn impressive and have come a LONG way from the days of crappy mp3's and Winamp. For the purpose of listening to a tune because I like it and feel good when I listen to it, mp3's or any other digital format is good enough to hear it as background music. When I want to analyse, dissect and study a tune (or their recording tricks) then I will get a bit more pedantic and jack up the quality to hear the tidbits I'm after. I certainly can't listen for those tidbits on the vast majority of what people call "good" systems now as they are designed simply to make a crappy tune sound good by re-processing it and jacking up the feel-good frequencies like super low bass or tinkling shiny cymbals etc.

I'd best stop or I will ramble on for ages....

Good debate and good to read a vast range of opinions on something I like to consider close to heart.

Cheers,
Shred.

 

[Truman42]

Lots of learning and useful new ideas here today.

It makes a nice change from the grumpy pricks that I have seen posting here lately with helpful comments like "did you try the search function" or "there are already 3 other threads on this topic"



Thanks guys.

+1

 

[Truman42]

The first thing I think about with "Music in the Cloud" is... why?? I don't sit in the clouds to listen to music, I listen to it here and now. It could be a good idea if I wanted to show a mate a song and I didn't have it with me at the time, pop on the 'net and get it from my stash.... But realistically, I wouldn't be listening to alot of music from "the cloud" as I would be listening to it while doing other things and having it play on a device nearby: stereo, PA, monitors etc.

Good point. The way I use it though is I only have a 16gb Iphone and wouldnt fit all my songs onto my Iphone.

I do have some albums stored on the phone but the rest are "in the cloud" When the missus and I go for a drive or go away if we want to listen to something different to whats on our phones we access the Mspot app and have a choice of over 10 gbs of music to choose from.

Also I dont have to worry about synching my iphone and adding music through Itunes as any songs I add to the itunes music fodler are automatically available in the cloud.

Thats just the way I use this service. Its not for everybody but it suits us. Im playing my Iphone through a fm radio receiver so quality isnt that great anyway, but it does us when were in the car. When at home my music is played through Itunes and my computer speakers which sits upstairs and we use IRemote on our phones to control the music whilst sitting outside on the patio.

I believe the way the new iCloud service works is that all the stuff you purchase from Apple is available at 256kbps

If you want to pay a fee/year then you can have all of your other 'stuff' synced up to the cloud. The cool thing is if any of your crappy 112k MP3s from the late 90s are avialable on the iStore then Apple will upgrade the crappy files to 256kbps AAC for free.

Any of you music which is NOT available on the store will be uploaded in entirety to the cloud

Is this available in Australia yet? I didn't think it was, only in the US, for IOS 5 users? But I could be wrong.

 

[bum]

I don't use music cloud or whatever it's called, but is EVERYTHING available on it? I mean absolutely everything?

The "cloud" isn't really a shop, or a series of shops, or even designed to purely be a commercial distribution method (although that is one clear and popular application).

What is the cloud then? It's actually pretty hard to pin down because it is emerging technology but at the current consumer level it is most simply thought of as "off-site" storage. Most commonly, the goal of cloud computing is to have not just your files elsewhere (not on your device) but also to have your applications (programs) and processing also done remotely so really all you have at your end is input/output devices.

Gmail is "in the cloud". You can send and store emails and access them anywhere. But it being in the cloud doesn't really effect who you can and can't send emails to/receive from. Same thing pretty much applies to your complaints/worries about music in the cloud.

 

[MarkBastard]

"The Cloud" is a marketing term / concept that was born from business and marketing parasites entering the IT industry and turning it to shit.

On network diagrams the Internet is represented by a cloud. That's where the name came from. 'Cloud Computing' is just a wanky name for hosting your services and data on the Internet. It existed long before the term did.

Aussie Home Brewer is as much cloud computing as Gmail is. And Gmail is as much cloud computing as Hotmail was 15 years ago.

 

[Truman42]

The "cloud" isn't really a shop, or a series of shops, or even designed to purely be a commercial distribution method (although that is one clear and popular application).

What is the cloud then? It's actually pretty hard to pin down because it is emerging technology but at the current consumer level it is most simply thought of as "off-site" storage. Most commonly, the goal of cloud computing is to have not just your files elsewhere (not on your device) but also to have your applications (programs) and processing also done remotely so really all you have at your end is input/output devices.

Gmail is "in the cloud". You can send and store emails and access them anywhere. But it being in the cloud doesn't really effect who you can and can't send emails to/receive from. Same thing pretty much applies to your complaints/worries about music in the cloud.

With cloud music services you cannot access music that you don't already own, ie exists on your home PC or Iphone etc.

 

[MarkBastard]

With cloud music services you cannot access music that you don't already own, ie exists on your home PC or Iphone etc.

I'll tell you a cloud music service where you can... usenet

 

[bum]

It's just an example, Mark. But, yeah, I guess message boards are in the cloud in a similar fashion (except they generally work off a centralised databse, not so in the real cloud). And, yeah, this music in the cloud thing is just the internet re-branded in a way to make us pay for it but the cloud is much more than that and you'll have to change your thinking because it will take off and if you're not with it you'll get left behind. Computer specs won't be about power but data through-put and if you can't make the mental leap you'll be stuck with whatever you own now and won;t be able to access anything new.

Don;t get me wrong, I hate the idea but it is coming and it will happen.

 

[bum]

With cloud music services you cannot access music that you don't already own, ie exists on your home PC or Iphone etc.

Sorta what I was getting at - I'm suggesting that the technology is not what limits what you have access to.

 

[technoicon]

truman, depends on the service.

i use qriocity, and i dont own anything on that.

but i can upload songs they dont have.. so it's a win, win for me.

I think the music industry is controlled by major labels and that wont change. a music service that "chooses" which artists it puts on its service is not going to work. why would they want to block potential listeners?

what usually happens is the labels want more money then the service is willing to pay.. it's it's the artist and there contracts that screw this up..

look at Metallica for instance, obviously don't get it!!

(i have nothing to do with the music industry and this is just what i've heard from other people... and what makes sense to me, could be complete crap.. lol)

 

[benno1973]

"The Cloud" is a marketing term / concept that was born from business and marketing parasites entering the IT industry and turning it to shit.

On network diagrams the Internet is represented by a cloud. That's where the name came from. 'Cloud Computing' is just a wanky name for hosting your services and data on the Internet. It existed long before the term did.

Aussie Home Brewer is as much cloud computing as Gmail is. And Gmail is as much cloud computing as Hotmail was 15 years ago.

Great post. Cloud computing is just the wanky marketing buzzword for where the industry has been heading for the past few decades, since bandwidth started increasing and internet transfer speeds became comparable with internal network transfer speeds. Not that marketing in the IT industry is new - I still have all my old Vic20 and Commodore64 magazines chock full of great 80's computer advertising - what really shits me is that 'Cloud' computing is put forward as the revolutionary new idea without any explanation of what it is in any ads I've seen.

 

[bum]

Cloud computing is just the wanky marketing buzzword for where the industry has been heading for the past few decades...[snip]...what really shits me is that 'Cloud' computing is put forward as the revolutionary new idea without any explanation of what it is in any ads I've seen.

"I don't know what it is but I don't think it is anything new and I hate it."

 

[technoicon]

Great post. Cloud computing is just the wanky marketing buzzword for where the industry has been heading for the past few decades, since bandwidth started increasing and internet transfer speeds became comparable with internal network transfer speeds. Not that marketing in the IT industry is new - I still have all my old Vic20 and Commodore64 magazines chock full of great 80's computer advertising - what really shits me is that 'Cloud' computing is put forward as the revolutionary new idea without any explanation of what it is in any ads I've seen.

i also agree.. although i think some things are more cloudy than others.

like amazon's s3 storage for instance..

and if your looking for the cloud, it's in my beer :blink:

 

[technoicon]

web 2.0 was also another buzzword marketing term.. they come and go...

 

[ShredMaster]

I agree with Mark: "Cloud" is just another wanky term to give a supposed user-friendly name to the standard existing technology they have no idea how it works.

Rather than explain how to access your word processor via a web browser pointing to a website, logging in and opening your own "home folder" on their server to access your documents which you can then edit and print locally on your own printer, it's easier to just explain that it is "hosted in the cloud" and watch their eyes glaze over.

Really, what a wank....

Is "Cloud music" anything essentially more than sticking your tunes in a spot on the net where you can access them from any net connected device?

I kinda get the shits with the IT industry having to invent new jargon terms to try and help people understand the complexity of the whole system but instead it creates more fear, uncertainty and doubt about what it is, how it works and how to use it. Ffs, not a day goes past that I don't hear somebody telling me that they have bought a new "backup drive" to keep a "backup" of their photos only to find out that they have put all their precious pics on the "backup drive" and deleted them from the PC. Talk about all the eggs in one basket.... But I can't explain to them that the term "backup" means to "have a spare copy of", that's just too complex for them to grasp now that they have been trained that a "backup drive" does "all that".

/facepalm.

 

[benno1973]

"I don't know what it is but I don't think it is anything new and I hate it."

:lol: No, I know what it is. I work for a large development company that implements cloud solutions. But I see a lot of advertising circulating around about cloud (on billboards, buses, tv etc) that doesn't actually talk about what cloud computing is, it just tries to hype the buzzword, which always makes me suspicious of whether there's any substance behind that buzzword.

You're right, I don't think it's anything new. I don't hate it, but I disagree with people saying that you'd better be onboard or you'll be left behind. It's a little more difficult to predict what will take off. Sharepoint is a great example, that was the buzzword a few years ago. Everyone implemented it because you 'had to get onboard'. And there's lots of people regretting that decision. I've worked with Sharepoint before and that's one thing I do hate.

 

[bum]

:lol: No, I know what it is. I work for a large development company that implements cloud solutions. But I see a lot of advertising circulating around about cloud (on billboards, buses, tv etc) that doesn't actually talk about what cloud computing is, it just tries to hype the buzzword, which always makes me suspicious of whether there's any substance behind that buzzword.

You're right, I don't think it's anything new. I don't hate it, but I disagree with people saying that you'd better be onboard or you'll be left behind. It's a little more difficult to predict what will take off. Sharepoint is a great example, that was the buzzword a few years ago. Everyone implemented it because you 'had to get onboard'. And there's lots of people regretting that decision. I've worked with Sharepoint before and that's one thing I do hate.

My apologies to you then.

All fair points, except I will disagree with the bit about it not being anything new. Yeah, implementations like the one under discussion are a subtle re-working of existing methods but I think if (when, really) PaaS/IaaS take off it will be a huge change to get used to.