Digital Noise: Music and Tech

Online music provider 7digital is bringing over-the-air music downloads to recent BlackBerry phones, such as the Storm, Bold, and Tour. The rumors have been circulating for several months now. On Tuesday the company is set to launch its application--developed by DevelopIQ--on the BlackBerry App World store, as well as on the 7digital Web site.

A screenshot of the 7digital BlackBerry app.

(Credit: DevelopIQ)

After installing the free app, BlackBerry users will be able to buy and download more than 6 million songs from all four major labels and all the big independents, all in unprotected MP3 format. The app adapts automatically to the speed of the user's connection--when connecting over a wireless data network, it will download a relatively low-quality version of the song. Then, when the user enters the range of a previously known Wi-Fi network, it will automatically--in the background--update the MP3 with a higher-quality version (320kbps in most cases).

7digital is based in the U.K. and is fairly well known in Europe--it powers the download store for free streaming service Spotify, among other partnerships--but has been relatively obscure in the United States. That's changing Tuesday as well: the company is launching its online music store in the U.S., bringing more competition to the likes of iTunes and Amazon. Standard pricing for songs and albums will be 77 cents and $7.77 respectively, which is a play on the company's name (although variable pricing means that some popular material will cost more). The company also offers a free digital locker service, which backs up all your downloads in case you lose them.

The record industry better hope that Wednesday's Apple announcement is big news--pre-cut ringtones, a new digital album format, perhaps the addition of recordings from some obscure 1960s rock band who were apparently pretty good. According to an analysis in today's Billboard Online, the usual summer slump in digital download sales is more pronounced this year, and ringtone sales continue their steep decline. For an industry that's counting on digital to make up for declines in CD sales, that's very unwelcome news.

What if Apple brings Genius to the cloud? It might prove that subscription services have a chance after all.

The author, Glenn Peoples, suggests that ringtones and a new album format on iTunes could help, but there's another possibility that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere: what if Apple takes the plunge into subscription-based music? So far, subscriptions haven't been a successful business model, but I'm not convinced it's because the idea is flawed. The problem is that no subscription service has been available for the iPod or iPhone. (Spotify for iTunes is too new, and not available in the U.S., so I don't count it yet.) Look at Pandora for iPhone: it doesn't even let you choose individual songs, but once users realize that they have on-demand access to an infinite library of music, they can't seem to stop raving about it.

Imagine if Apple combined a new subscription service with the iTunes Genius function, which is conceptually similar to Pandora but currently limited to your existing music collection. (It also recommends songs in the iTunes store, but you have to buy them individually, which kind of ruins the delightful-surprise factor.) How much would you pay for that? Now multiply that by some percentage--20 percent might be reasonable--of present and future iPhone and iPod Touch users, and suddenly you're talking about meaningful annual revenue. I know that Steve Jobs has insisted that customers want to own rather than rent music, but remember that he once scorned the idea of a video iPod as well.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

Talk about a race to the bottom: a week after I pondered which digital music distribution service was cheapest, WaTunes made the question irrelevant by offering digital distribution for free. That's right--for no money down and no cut of the royalties, WaTunes promises to distribute your digital downloads to iTunes, Amazon's MP3 store, Rhapsody, eMusic, and Rhapsody.

(Credit: WaTunes)

So how does the company expect to make money? The answer became clear this week when WaTunes launched its premium-priced service, WaTunes VIP. For $29.95 a year, artists and labels will get distribution to more stores (including the Zune Marketplace), the ability to upload videos, unlimited weekly trend reports from iTunes, and a number of other perks outlined on the WaTunes blog.

Just remember: there's more to consider than price. Of the big distributors I've covered, only CD Baby offers you an online storefront for physical CDs as well as digital distribution, and The Orchard is more of a full-service digital record label, handling tasks such as marketing and licensing in addition to distribution.

Meanwhile, "pure" digital distribution services like TuneCore and RouteNote may have to add other services to remain competitive.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

I had a problem. Years ago, I bought Microsoft's now-discontinued Digital Media Plus Pack for converting my LP records into digital files. Because it's a Microsoft product from back in the day when Microsoft was gung-ho about Windows Media, it only rips to Windows Media Audio. And of course, it's Windows only. (Other than that, it's a great tool--very easy to use, never messes up line leveling, and has a good algorithm for removing pops and scratches.)

Back when I used iTunes and my iPod exclusively, I'd simply rip the album into WMA, then import the folder from MyMusic into iTunes. It would ask me if I wanted to convert to AAC (the default--it can also convert to MP3), I'd accept, then delete the WMAs so as not to clutter my hard drive with duplicates.

dBpoweramp lets you convert just about any audio file format to any other.

(Credit: Screenshot)

But since 2006, I've been using a Zune (review unit) as my primary music player. Zune plays both AAC and WMA files, and it automatically reads your iTunes library. I got lazy and stopped converting my vinyl from WMA to AAC.

Now I've got a Shuffle. And a library full of WMA files that it can't play. Of course, I could do what I used to do--import the folders from My Music into iTunes, convert to AAC, then delete the originals. But what if I want to convert those WMAs into MP3s to make sure they can play on any device with any software app? OK, I guess I could change the default on iTunes. But what happens when you add a bunch of downloaded FLAC files into the mix? Or Ogg files? What about converting AAC back to WMA--I can't see any reason why I'd want to do that today, but who knows where Microsoft and Apple are heading with their file format support?

I needed to future-proof my music collection, while still maintaining the best quality-to-size ratio possible. (MP3 is one of the lossiest formats.)

dBpoweramp Music Converter is the solution. $18 for the regular edition. (The $28 reference edition has features for professionals and more serious amateurs.) You can download just about any imaginable codec from the associated Web site. By default it performs file conversion within the same folder as the original files, so you can easily keep track of what's where. (Not like iTunes, which moves every converted file into the iTunes library by default.) Or, if you want to export directly to an iTunes folder, it can do that. It even adds a feature to the Windows Explorer so when you hover over a file, it'll display full ID3 tag information for that file--useful for changing mysterious file names to match song titles.

Highly recommended.

dBpoweramp shows ID3 tags within Windows Explorer. So you can find out the real title of that Track 4.WMA file you've been carrying around..

(Credit: Screenshot)

The other day at a record store in Summit, N.J., my friend asked the owner how business had been. He said it's been extremely slow since the beginning of the year, with (as he put it) a bunch of releases from acts nobody had ever heard of, but that vinyl sales were very strong. He was particularly happy about the growing trend in which artists offer free downloads with LPs--fans get great sound and a nice collectible item with the vinyl, and portability with the digital files.

The quick path to piracy prevention: no CD release.

(Credit: ElvisCostello.com)

Elvis Costello understands this trend: his next album, Momofuku, will be released on April 22 on vinyl and digital download only, according to a Reuters report. Each record will come with a code redeemable for a free download, and the album will be sold online as well, but no CDs will be pressed.

The unusual name seems to be a reference to a trio of restaurants in New York City, or perhaps some offbeat attempt at Googlebombing.

Piracy may be the reason he's skipping the CD. ElvisCostello.com references piracy for his decision to release another album in a super-limited edition set--one copy for each state.

Correction 5:35 p.m. PST: This blog gave an incorrect last name for the head of EMI Music's digital business. He is Barney Wragg.

Because I had to leave Las Vegas on Wednesday, I was only able to catch the first two sessions of the one-day Digital Music Live conference, a conference about technology and the music industry co-sponsored by Billboard and the Consumer Electronics Association (who's behind CES). Nonetheless, the morning speakers had some interesting thoughts.

(Credit: CEA/Billboard)

First up was Gregg Latterman, president of Aware Records, whose company manages multimillion-selling artists The Fray (which had already been signed to Epic by the time Latterman began managing them) and John Mayer.

Despite the rejection of traditional promotion and distribution by everybody from the youngest MySpace bands to the most-established rockers, Latterman argued that the old ways--terrestrial radio and major label marketing and distribution--are still necessary for artists to sell more than a million records. He acknowledged that it's harder to create million-sellers from scratch--a few years ago, he claimed, a label could put $1 million into promotion and radio and almost guarantee a million album sales--but he noted that many critically acclaimed independent acts just aren't selling in big numbers, citing Bright Eyes (whose last album sold 189,000 copies, according to Latterman) as an example.

He also pointed out something I noted when Radiohead first revealed its tip-jar pre-release download plan for In Rainbows: without EMI, the band might never have built the huge global audience that allowed it to perform this experiment and sign distribution-only deals for the actual full CD.

My favorite insight, however, came in a discussion of how digital downloads are becoming a larger proportion of sales:"it's not fun to buy a record anymore." He didn't expand, but I imagine he was thinking of big-box stores and $18 retail prices.

The next session was a five-person panel on the current state of the industry. EMI Music's head of digital business, Barney Wragg, claimed that moving to DRM-free downloads revitalized the label's sales of digital full albums, as opposed to singles, contradicting the industry's fear that users would cherry-pick fewer tracks in the iTunes age, leading to less revenue per sale. (He didn't reveal exact numbers, but hinted they were significant enough to change top executives' thinking on the subject.)

He also acknowledged that many executives at the majors have had their heads in the sand regarding digital downloads and combating file trading, but pleaded for some tolerance, noting that a lot of artists and publishers refuse to participate in newer forms of distribution for fear it'll hurt their own bottom lines. I'd be crying crocodile tears if I pretended to be too sympathetic, but it was a good reminder that the majors aren't monolithic corporations, but actually must represent lots of parties with conflicting interests and levels of comfort with digital distribution.

There were a few other interesting points in the panel discussion, although 45 minutes seemed hurried.

Ian Rogers, VP of Video and Media Applications for Yahoo, praised the impending end of DRM, claiming that Yahoo Music had been unable to sign many deals--such as one with home automation company Control 4--because of the expense of supporting DRM-protected audio files.

Matthew DeFilippis of publishing rights clearinghouse ASCAP talked about how the organization was never interested in DRM, but cares much more about tracking usage--watermarking could be a useful technology here--and mentioned a system ASCAP is using to monitor songs playing in public places.

Finally, well-known music lawyer Fred Goldring summed up the problem nicely: empowered consumers with an unlimited supply of music directly contradicts the old industry basis of enforced scarcity. The trick is figuring out how to monetize what consumers are already doing. Unfortunately, there are no jaw-droppingly obvious or brilliant solutions at hand, although he and Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride seemed to lean toward some sort of blanket license applied on ISP fees.

This post isn't about digital audio, but rather about a topic that pertains to the entire consumer technology industry. When I got to CES, I realized that I'd brought the wrong USB connector for my digital camera, a Kodak EasyShare DX4530. (Guilty: I didn't read the CNET review, but I've liked it better than the 6.8 rating might suggest. Although I'm not a fan of the integrated EasyShare software, which tries to hide the file system and in the process makes it really hard to use anything but EasyShare!) It's about four years old, and since then, Kodak's switched from the printer-like USB connector (upper right-hand picture on this page) to a different one that I've never seen on any other camera, so I couldn't borrow one of the connectors from the newer EasyShare cameras that CNET had on hand. I went to the Kodak booth--nice perk of being press and here a day early--and they were nice, but said they didn't make these types of cables anymore, so the wisest thing would be to take a cab to Best Buy and buy a card reader.

Snowy weather in Vegas.

(Credit: Matt Rosoff)

On my way, the cabbie overheard me talking to my wife about my dilemma. When I got off the phone, he asked "so what are they planning in there to make me throw out my DVDs?" I told him it looked like Blu-ray would be the winner. "Planned obsolescence," he replied. "That's the key to the whole industry. I was already supposed to throw out my $3,000 VHS tape collection. Now I'm supposed to throw out all my DVDs." I responded by telling him about an increasing countertrend, in which companies like Ion and Neuros making devices that let you convert a stream from any analog output to a common-format digital file that can live on your PC's hard drive, or a backup drive, or an optical disc. Forever.

He was glad to hear it, but responded by suggesting that the government needed to intervene more often and define standards, like they apparently did for coaxial cable and electrical plugs. Free marketers would flip, but then again, why do there need to be so many types of USB connections? Or cell-phone chargers? Or digital audio formats, for that matter. He also gave me an excellent summary of how the phone companies took a huge subsidy from the U.S. government to build out fiber optic to the home and proceeded to deliver very little.

Maybe it was the weather--cold and cloudy, with snow in the mountains.

Speaking of Zeroes and Ones...

Among audiophiles, the analog vs. digital debate rages without end. I, like a lot of other musicians and music fans, have my own preferences--I own many more LPs than CDs, and have paid dearly to record some of my bands' music onto 2-inch tape instead of direct to hard drive. But included in those preferences are some preconceptions. You've heard it before: digital music sounds "colder" or "cleaner" or "more sterile" because it's delivering a stream of 0s and 1s, instead of a pure sound wave. Or something like that.

Audio professionals don't use terms like these, largely because they're subjective and imprecise, and sometimes inaccurate. Recently, one of these professionals presented the best explanation of analog vs. digital sound that I've ever heard. Here's a super-condensed version of an already simplified explanation. ... Read more

Last night, my audio production class took a field trip to local studio Glenn Sound for a brief introduction to miking technique: which microhpones to use for a particular sound, where and how to place them, and so on. It wasn't completely foreign to me--I've recorded in probably a dozen studios, but always on the clock and paying by the hour, and audio engineers tend to shrug off poorly-phrased technical questions in favor of showing you the end result.

One of the demonstrations showed us how different distances between microphone and source can give you different sounds. Most rock and pop music engineers tend to use close miking, in which microphones are placed very close to specific parts of an instrument or amplifier. Each microphone might pick up a very different sound--more treble or bass, a stronger attack, and so on. The engineers then blend these parts and add effects to get a specific sound--sometimes similar to the sound of an instrument just playing in the room, sometimes totally different. This technique gives an engineer a lot of control, but requires some extra work in the mixing stage. Classical engineers, in contrast, tend to place microphones far from an instrument in an attempt to capture its natural character, as well as some of the ambient room noise (caused by the sound echoing off walls and other surfaces).

The demonstration featured a piano. The prof set up one set of mics right above the open top of the piano, and another about 12 feet away in the room. (They were two stereo pairs, the closer pair in an X/Y configuration, the farther pair in a Blumlein Array.) As expected, the closer pair had more treble frequencies, a much stronger transient response, and no room noise. A non-engineer would describe it as crisp, clean, and perhaps a little sterile. The farther pair picked up much more close echo and reverb from the walls of the room, leading to a "richer" or "warmer" tone. (Audio professionals scoff at these inexact metaphorical words, but most of us aren't professionals, so I'll stick with this bad habit for now.)

By taking the two tracks together and changing their relative volumes, you can change the tone of the piano recording. For cleaner, brighter sound, you turn up the close mic pair. For a bigger, warmer sound, you turn up the farther pair.

However, because the mic pairs were twelve feet apart, there was a twelve millisecond delay between the two signals. (Useful fact: sound travels about 1 foot per millisecond.) It wasn't quite as bad as hearing each note twice. Instead, each key sounded like the player was holding it down for a little longer than he actually was. No problem--using ProTools, the engineer clicked the room-mic track backward 12 milliseconds, and behold: the two different tones occurred simultaneously.

The engineer thought it sounded better, and the class nodded and agreed. But to me, the delay sounded better. When the delay was eliminated, the overall piano tone lost a lot of what made it interesting--the ambient noise of the room mic seemed to be obscured by the louder attack and additional treble that were picked up by the close mic.

Thirty years ago, when many classic rock recordings were made, correcting this lag would have been far more complicated. I imagine the engineer would have had to take the second track, send it through an outboard unit that added 12 milliseconds of delay, then bounced the result back to a single track. With a drum kit, maybe--you can't have the same drum sound hitting at drastically different times, or you'll end up with clickity clackety mud, which makes the rest of the band sound off time. (Although Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham could sound incredible recorded in a stairwell.) But with this piano, it sounded natural enough without the correction that the engineer probably would have let it pass.

The point: digital workstations allow you an incredible amount of flexibility. You can correct almost anything in the mix. But just because you can doesn't mean you should. Experimentation's great, but restraint can lead to a more traditional--and, to some ears, better--end result.