Blame It On The Bit Rate!

The third anniversary of this blog passed quietly by during the last weekend. I began archiving my vinyl collection in December 2008 and marked the event with the first pages here in late January 2009. I started with the MP3 format and two years later switched to ripping to lossless and uncompressed file formats so that I could enjoy them in their full glory through my hi-fi.

With over 150 identifiable blog followers (though an average of 500+ file hits indicates a good few of you like to remain anon), 400 pages of my inane rantings and over 570,000 page hits, I'd say quite a lot of you follow this project.

We've had quite a few interjections by the artists themselves, some have supported the work and contributed to the posts, others have asked for posts to be removed, and others have decided to reissue their work after reading the responses here. We've even had the lead singer of Porcupine Tree declare his love of Slab! on these very pages.

There has also been the odd exclusive donated by blog followers or friends of the band. we had the first public airing of the unreleased Joy Division/Warsaw track Pictures On My Mind (the most popular post by a clear mile), we've had somebody, claiming to be an employee of the JD bass player, ask for the Middlesbrough 1977 gig and sessions to be pulled (but not Pictures...?), yet no action has been taken against those who illicitly peddle the same product on eBay and other retail sites???

Has this all this ripping & ranting been worthwhile? ....I'd say yes. So what now?

The music blog community has been turned on its head by recent actions by the US Government. Sharing of digital products owned by others is illegal and there are laws to the protect copyright of the artist. But maybe the industry itself is responsible for what has happened. Over the past ten years to fifteen years, quality has been abandoned for quantity and pressure is being applied on persuadable politicians to help protect revenue streams. It is not the intention of any blogger to prevent any artist from making money from their work or encourage others to download a track illegally as an alternative to buying it. But think carefully before giving iTunes your dosh... Just how much money goes to the original copyright owner and how much goes to swell the Apple coffers? I very much support the theory that the MP3 format is contributing to the death of the music industry, those tiny little compressed files have little or no value and serve only as a cost saving tool for hard pressed record companies and a vehicle for their unimaginative wares. What advantage they have (and there are just a few) are of minimal benefit to the end-user except the portability and remove-ability of the format from one's hard drive. It is pleasing to see that alternatives to iTunes are evolving on the internet pushing lossless high quality resissues as FLAC files.

You will likely note that links are beginning to vanish from these pages. All files on Megaupload are now in the hands of the FBI and the last thing I want is an extradition notice! I hope they have bigger fish to fry. The rest will be gone over time and I will not be putting them anywhere else. The historic pages will stay live as an archive - that's all.

From now ESWA commits itself to the lossless format and where possible in 24bits. Readers should understand how to connect their PC to their hi-fi and configure the sound card for 24bit 96000hz audio. It is easier than you think and most sound cards come with a SPDIF coaxial output for connection to your amp. As an alternative most media drives now support high resolution FLAC files or you can still stream them on your PC or network using Foobar which will play just about anything.

I urge all bloggers of high quality and hard to find records to move away from vinyl MP3 rips and investigate the lossless formats.