Why does digital music sometimes sound bad?
Technology is changing our lives, this maxim does not raise the slightest doubt, and it is understood that these changes are for the better. The past is perceived through the prism of the present, then we were young and for the first time many things happened.
But over the years, technology has changed us, our environment, and our perception of the world around us. From the world of things created over decades, if not centuries, we quickly move on to disposable things: used and thrown away without any regrets. The flourishing of fast food is a reflection of the transience of our century, its time is programmed in seconds and it needs to be injected with fuel to function quickly and efficiently. It seems that we have never had such opportunities, such a variety of entertainment, but it often turns into fast food, which fills the stomach, but does not bring satisfaction. Fast food technologies gradually penetrated into electronics, our perception changed and became completely different: black became white, and white became black. It’s good to see this transformation in terms of music and how sound quality has changed, how electronics has transformed this industry and you and me. But first, try to remember some musical group, performer who appeared in the last ten or fifteen years and became a discovery, which can be called defining new directions, at the height of the giants of the past. Nobody comes to my mind! A survey of friends, cronies, and strangers online showed only one thing: many are not friends with numbers and name the ones that appeared twenty years or so ago (yes, time flies inexorably). There is a void in modern music and we must thank technology,
In hindsight, trying to figure out when things went wrong, I can’t pinpoint a particular day or even a year. As is often the case, this is a set of events, each of which was presented as a technological breakthrough and a blessing directed at you and me, but being in the future, we can already say that a lot has gone completely wrong. But no one thought of that then.
In the 90s, the Internet began to develop, all the habits that are characteristic of everyday life are introduced into the network. These are uncharted territories, and pioneers quickly conquer vast areas, empires emerge from nowhere, the dot-com boom begins. The Internet is not just a network as such, it is also computers that are needed to access and view various resources, the development of technologies is increasing, the very pace of this development is becoming frantic. Equipment prices are falling, competition is intensifying in every possible area, corporations are entering new markets for themselves.
The appearance of the mp3 format in 1995 changes everything. The music coding technology developed at the Fraunhofer Institute is capable of building a psychoacoustic model, eliminating from the source file those sounds that a person does not perceive. In theory, the sound quality of an mp3 file does not distort a piece of music much, but the size of such a file is 75-95% smaller than on a CD. It is ideal for storing and distributing music in the Internet age. The popularity of mp3 is gradually growing, at first it is the ability to store your favorite music on your computer, the quality of the speakers and the playback leaves much to be desired. It’s not about quality, but about the ability to listen to music in the workplace.
It is impossible to overestimate the revolution that the mp3 format has made, people are starting to encode CDs in digital format, this becomes a universal hobby. The boom of digital music is reaching everyone, it is a gold rush where everyone creates their own. In 1997 the WinAMP application appeared, a simple but pleasant player that allows you to play music on your computer. It is distributed free of charge and quickly becomes a standard player for Windows computers. This is a success story in the rise of the popularity of the mp3 format.
The technology that made music fast food, why digital music sounds bad
My 1997 CD collection has several hundred titles, the records are expensive, it is not always possible to find what I like. On Novy Arbat, in the House of Books, half of the second floor is reserved for records and videotapes. Every Saturday I walk through the ruins to find something new, something I want to hear. My musical tastes are varied, but the limit is the amount of money that can be spent on CDs, money is always tight.
