vinyl
8 track
cassette
cd
mini disc
mp3
download
????


not sure if that is the right order or not. maybe some of the Org's senior citizens can help out.

so do you think that downloading will be the last way people get their music?
record player, upgraded to a cassette, to cd, to mp3s etc...
do you still purchase any of the above mentioned formats? gotten rid of your physical copies for downloads?

what are your thoughts on the "future" of how we get our music; and what do you see as the pros and cons about it?

Innovation will always occur in technology. Something will replace the download eventually.

I still play original CDs from time to time because of the audio quality and the latest CD in my collection is Mos Def´s latest and brilliant album "The Ecstatic".

.....and I find downloads a bit empty, soulless and anonymous. I like to read a booklet, some liner notes, etc.

the so called "evolution" is more of an elimination of what "the targeted" consumer finds important. For most on this forum we still may care about liner notes,books, who wrote and played. But to the targeted consumer, that is not important, its cheap, get me it and i dont care what it sounds like in the end. Digital downloads in all qualities (mp3,mp4) are all inferior to earlier formats, cds, even were a decline in the sound, but this is more on the recording engineers that are out their today, for most of the "buying public" they dont even know what a "sound engineer" is or does, well hes the most important person on board for the most part, if you got a great record, and its mixed like shit, you got SHIT.

CHIC0 said:

The last two cancel each other out. You can't download a CD, but you can download an MP3. Download is a distribution method, not a format. The format FOR download is MP3 (or whatever they use).

You forgot Reel to Reel
the new 180 gram vinyl
DVD audio

There are lots of digital formats like WMA, AAC, MP3, MP4, WAV, etc.

lastdecember said:

a couple people were debating about the booklet/credits..and that you can get them online when you download. the other preferred the actual booklet. more about apreciating the entire package and art that went into it.
i don't know many people that even care about what goes into the song or about those who are "behind the scenes".


[Edited 1/2/10 15:02pm]

Shawnt27 said:

of course
exactly. that's what i'm wondering. what the next step will be. i mean, after downloading straight from your computer or phone..what other way will there be? beside pulling it out of thin air. lol.

ernestsewell said:

so anyway, back to the question, instead of arguing over semantics....

of course there's no way to know if something will replace the download/digital thing. i'm sure something will come up... like music beamed directly into your brainwaves or something, but most of the innovation will probably come in the form of tweaking the downlaod technology or what we use to play it back, i guess.

errant said:

No one was arguing about anything.

Well I,for a difference, call it wishful thinking or whatever I don't think the download or MP3 will lead to the dissapearance of the CD as the casette didn't lead to the dissapearance of the vinyl, the CD did. And that's because they are entirely different formats. Also from a business point of view the MP3 unlike all other previous formats does not lead to an increase of profits but to a dramatic decrease. We will definitely see the CD format loosing ground and there may well be a time when a lot of music won't be availlable on CD but the most popular will still come out on CD or whatever replaces it. I think it is far more likely that the download will eventually make music radio dissapear than the cd because the two are much more comparable.
Because of the profit factor, the dominance of the download will take us pretty much back to the 50s when the single was much more important than the album and that will mean the loss of a great number of good music. If downloading and MP3s become the only medium despite everything I think, we will have the end of the music industry as we know it and despite all the issues with major companies pushing crap music etc that will be a change to the worse.

jiorjios said:

that's a great point jiorjios. i hardly ever listen to radio, so i hadn't thought about that. don't they only play like 10 'hit' songs all day anyway?

[Edited 1/2/10 16:10pm]

jiorjios said:

You see the thing is all that, but more. Dowloading will never become the rule of the land, because its one thing to go from vinyl to tape and or cd, but to go to a medium where now you need a computer/speed/connection/ and the fucking time to sit there and download digital books that look like shit etc...you are killing off a huge part of the buying public, people that still buy cds in stores are the crowd that is carrying this thing still, and alot of that crowd will fall off if cds go away 100%, honestly if it did, you can kiss it all goodbye at that point. But like it was said here, because of this whole 99cent single deals, you are left with alot of one hit/one recording artists, get in get out, and that as Prince said, u got the consumer u deserve.

Nice idea for a thread.
I'd say "Yes", the evolution has quite come to an end.

Vinyl records and lossless audio codecs have shown to be superior over any other medium ever used. I don't see anything threatening that.
But actually, that's something which could already be figured out a few years ago.

Evolution won’t stop until people do.

Streaming of music you rent could be one of the next steps (not the only step, another step).

Nice option for some listening habits, but obviously not for those like me who already own significant collections or want to listen outside of an Internet connection, which aren't nearly as readily available as they will be in coming decades.

I LOVE the tangible liner notes, but they were always too small with the CD generation, and way too small for cassettes. I think one option in the future could be that you get both a tangible product AND a digital download for the price of the tangibility.

And digital doesn't speak to quality anymore than complexity or simplicity. It can easily be an exact copy of a CD (WAV file) or 100 times wider than the source tapes. And when we start getting into the hundreds and thousands of terabytes (or even petabytes, i.e. a quadrillion storage locations) I'm sure that companies will see the profit in making even better formats. When bigger closets are constantly being built, bigger footprints will be there to fill.

Whether or not your ears are "golden" enough to even hear the extra bells and dog whistles, is certainly up for endless, uninteresting debates between audiophiles and their canine counterparts.

But I think that's where we're heading. There will be new formats that swear that they can drop you right on the stage while the band plays. But now that will mostly be dependent on your headphones, your speakers, and the quality of your receiver.

MP3 formats have gone from 32 kbps streaming (just awful) to 384 kbps (and 256kbps AAC). And the double blind tests have shown many times that most people, including music professionals, can’t tell the difference in source once we go beyond 192 kbps. And lossless formats are starting to take over to cover even those cases where you can tell, as download speeds increase and storage becomes ridiculously abundant (6 months ago I bought a trillion bytes for less than 100 dollars). So something can now sound as good or bad as the original mastering.

And I’ve always thought that the vinyl format was the greatest.

But I’m not a audiophile, nor do I hear the sound that they make as superior. But the tangible format of vinyl are objectively just that. You don’t even need a magnifying glass to read the notes and you possess a big enough canvas to fully enjoy the artwork.

So I hope that some business is smart enough some day to sell and/or send people (or even allow people to easily print themselves) tangible items that are larger than the junk that comes with CDs.

In the digital world you have no limits. You could easily make them poster size if you thought that enough wanted them that large to make a profit.

But music will continue to grow and flow. And people will continue to listen to $10 Apple headphones that make even vinyl sound like crap.

Going in the other direction (The history of sound recording)

Before 1855, you bought the sheet music and played it on your own instrument, or hired some one to if u could.
Music boxes (Metal cylinders with raised spikes that spin around and make a tune
Harmoniums and Brass disc machines, a penny made the disc go around one revolution (1870s - 1900s)
Piano rolls, bought and put on a harmonium piano that played them (1880s onwards, they survived as a camp novelty til recently)
The first record was made out of wax and tin foil on a cylinder machine in 1876, refining meant wax cylinders were popular from 1880 to about 1930. The first disc was invented by Emile Berliner in 1888, but it was not until the mid 1890s commercially made models of the Edison talking machine became available.
The first phonograph "Record player" was made available in 1898, and by 1905 the classic gramophone with large horn was available. They were however wind up gramophones and gave an uneven sound. Electric models did not come available to the mid 1920s
1900 - Commercially available shellac 78RPM records available, very expensive and fragile, in 1908 HMV made a 2 sided record, a 12 inch record could hold 5 minutes of music.
1925 Invention of vitaphone and electric microphones, gave better sound quality than acoustic recording (The hiss and fade you hear on really old records), why the horns were needed.
1930: Invention of 16 inch 33RPM records that were used to play sound on movies
1940-1945: Many shellac records destroyed for wartime recycling
1948: Invention of vinyl 45RPM single by victor, vinyl was lighter and more durable than shellac. The format caught on quickly and led to the rise of the juxebox and singles. More music could be put on a smaller disc due to "Dynagroove" which saw closer together and deeper grooves on the disc.
1950: First issue of 33RPM 12 inch album records, the records could hold as much as 30 minutes per side thanks to dynagroove. These records also featured flat areas where on track ended, meaning more than one song a side
1953: First commercially available tape players available (Reel to reel) put out by Philips (Netherlands)
1950s 78s lose popularity, by 1961 all music was issued on vinyl 33s and 45s.

The later history you guys practically have. Early records are an interest of mine and I own several 'ancient' discs including a 12 inch one side 78 disc from 1910.

Remember the Super Audio CD?

Brendan said:

You nailed it.

However, I'd like to know where you can find Apple ear pods for $10.

ernestsewell said:

Hi Ernest....probably a bit off topic but, being the music enthusiast that you are, what is , in your opinion, the best or one of the best headphones out there?
I don´t mean some high end, super expensive fancy shit but affordable, everyday use headphones that don´t insult my ears.
I googled and bought a pair of Koss since people were raving about the PortaPro model ( they haven´t changed the design since 1984 ) so I ordered a pair of very cheap looking SportaPro headphones ( the "sports" version of the PortaPro,supposedly with the same sound) but, to be honest, I am a bit underwhelmed considering the hype.

I think this is not really that far off topic because the evolution of music formats seems to go hand in hand with the evolution of crappy sound quality, with all those folks out there who listen to music blaring from their stupid little cellphone speakers or cheap ass ear pods.

So, what is your favorite brand or recommendation?

The next one will be most likely just downloads of wav's, or lossless audio in general. But yes, "downloads" really aren't a format. I've been downloading music since the mid-90s, so there's nothing new about that though - it's just that a sufficent percentage of the current generation of teenagers were enough computer-literate by the time they got into music, so they were able to bring the entire industry to its knees. You know, we really have the schools and their computer classes to thank for that!

What should happen though would be to change all CDs into DVDs and increase their capacity that way. There's no sense continuing to manufacture CDs anymore as DVDs should be just as cost-effective. As far as the more marginal end of musical genres go, vinyl is doing just great at the moment. In fact, many labels that specialize in electronic music or more offbeat jazz etc. aren't even putting out anything else than vinyl at the moment.

KoolEaze said:

I don't really have a favorite per se. I've went through some shitty headphones in my day, and I do dislike the ear pods. (The older ones were worse than the ones out now, and a lot more uncomfortable.) I tried a pair of Sony headphones (over the hear, opposed to ON the ear) from Target for about $20. I wasn't expecting a lot for $20, but I really do like them. I know if I spent $150 on some BOSE brand at the Apple Store, or KOSS at Best Buy, I'd hear things even better, but these $20 jobs aren't so bad. I was watching the George Michael Live In London DVD last night w/ my headphones on and the sound was really good.

So for the money, they're decent.

I know there are better ones out there, but they work quite well for me.

Thanks for the reply!
My Koss headphones weren´t really expensive though....the original Portapro is sometimes available for less than 30 dollars but I will try some SONY headphones the next time because this is the third time someone recommends 20$ SONY headphones to me.