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  • DESTON BENNETT: Thanks for coming out today.

  • Again, my name's Deston Bennett.

  • I'm with the Grammy producers and engineers wing.

  • The Grammy Awards, as many of you may know, are the only

  • music awards that are peer determined, meaning it's not

  • the public that votes.

  • Those who vote are members of the Recording Academy, and who

  • are hands-on music creators--

  • artists, songwriters, musicians,

  • producers, and engineers.

  • From the very beginning at our founding in 1956, the basis

  • for the Grammy Awards process has been a commitment to

  • excellence.

  • The Recording Academy's original credo clearly states

  • that the awards are not about sales, and they're not about

  • popularity.

  • Musical excellence in all areas is the only criteria

  • Grammy voters are charged with to determine who gets

  • nominated, and what will win.

  • Knowing that little bit of information should help you

  • whenever there's some controversy about the Grammys,

  • as there sometimes can be.

  • For example, the year jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding won

  • the Best New Artist category against fellow nominees Drake,

  • Florence and the Machine, Mumford and

  • Sons, and Justin Bieber.

  • She won because the majority of the Grammy voters were

  • familiar with Esperanza and her work, and they saw her as

  • a stand-out that year.

  • It's pretty cool when you think about it.

  • Many of you who are musicians or audio producers or

  • engineers may be eligible to be members of the Academy.

  • And I'm happy to speak to you about that after this is over

  • if you like.

  • You can also get some more information or join by

  • visiting Grammy365.com.

  • Today specifically, we're here to talk about excellence in

  • sound, something that's key to great recordings.

  • The P&E wing has partnered with the Consumer Electronics

  • Association and others on an initiative we call Quality

  • Sound Matters.

  • We represent people who truly understand the difference good

  • sound makes, and we want to share their enthusiasm and

  • excitement about quality with everybody.

  • Today, we have a very cool presentation from

  • Grammy-winning engineer that we think you'll enjoy.

  • And I want to give a big thank you to Neil Annala and Joe

  • Rosenberg for bringing us here today.

  • We'd also like to thank JBL and Prism Sound for this

  • amazing sound system you're going to hear today, too.

  • The speakers in particular, they encompass some very new,

  • exciting technology that you're amongst

  • the first to hear.

  • And to top it off, I really want to introduce an amazing

  • engineer producer who's worked with artists including

  • Metallica, Lincoln Park, Green Day, and U2,

  • along with last week's--

  • well, not last week, but a recent number one album, the

  • Black Sabbath project.

  • He's a two-time Grammy winner for his work on the Red Hot

  • Chili Peppers' "Stadium Arcadium" project, as well as

  • Adele's "21" album.

  • He has another interesting honor.

  • In 2012, he was named the International Engineer of the

  • Year by England's Music Producers Guild.

  • Please welcome Andrew Scheps.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: First of all, thanks for coming.

  • This is as full a house as we could have in here, I think.

  • So thank you so much, and thanks again to Neil and Joe

  • for putting this together.

  • This is awesome.

  • So later on, we're going to listen to a bunch of stuff,

  • which is the point of what I do.

  • And the Recording Academy has been really great about

  • sponsoring me to do this talk all over the country.

  • The idea of the talk, it was originally put together for

  • what the Recording Academy called their Grammy Future Now

  • conference, which was sort a mini, one-day TED conference

  • for producers and engineers, for people who make music in

  • Los Angeles.

  • And since then, I've gone around the country, and most

  • the time I give this presentation to

  • producers and engineers.

  • And it's because there's a lot of information in the

  • presentation that, as people who make records, we sort of

  • kind of know, but we don't actually know.

  • And so I'm trying to put numbers and facts behind the

  • things we think we know so that when we listen, you can

  • actually compare things and you know what it is you're

  • listening to, and why there might be differences and

  • things like that.

  • So I'll start the way I usually start by asking how

  • many people in this room are artists and make records, or

  • have ever released a record.

  • So still good number of you.

  • So if you've released a record, how many of you have

  • then gone and bought your record to make sure that what

  • comes off the services sounds like what you sent them?

  • So that's about normal.

  • About a third of the hands, maybe less.

  • And that's exactly the same with people who do that as

  • their day job-- or night job, depending on

  • the hours your keep.

  • It's not something people really think about.

  • They finish their record, they master it, like oh, it's done.

  • Send it off, and you're done.

  • And of course, now with all the digital services--

  • and we'll get into lots of them specifically--

  • and there are a few that happen to be housed in this

  • building or down in San Bruno--

  • there are lots and lots of different ways that music gets

  • out into the world.

  • And so, the idea is to give some context to know, what are

  • all these possibilities?

  • How do they compare?

  • And do they actually impact the consumer's experience when

  • they listen to your music?

  • So that's the idea.

  • Now along the way, I can usually get away with a lot of

  • sort of vagaries, because I'm talking to

  • producers and engineers.

  • All right, this is the question just for you guys.

  • How many people in this room know more about digital audio

  • theory than me?

  • There's going to be-- come on.

  • It's everybody in the room.

  • But seriously, how many people work directly with digital

  • audio in the room?

  • OK, I'm going to be vague.

  • I'm going to be slightly inaccurate, and I would

  • welcome corrections along the way.

  • So I've done the presentation, I think, 12 times now.

  • 11 of those times were for producers and engineers, and

  • once was a few weeks ago, which is when Neil came and

  • saw me at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.

  • And that was for a room full of people from the tech

  • community, including people from Google and YouTube and

  • Google Play music, as well as SoundCloud and Apple and

  • Rhapsody and Arteo, and a few other companies, and

  • Fraunhofer, who developed the MP3 and ADC codecs.

  • And I got my butt kicked.

  • And I'm fine with that.

  • I would love to get my butt kicked, because every time I

  • give this presentation, I know more, and I can kick butt back

  • a little bit, which is the point.

  • And I think what happens is people get into their little

  • rabbit holes on what they work on.

  • So I make records, and I want to make great sounding

  • records, but I don't want to follow it through the food

  • chain down to the consumer, because that's not what I do.

  • Now two years ago, I started my own record label, so now

  • that became part of what I do.

  • And I used to think, I'm going to start a label because the

  • labels suck.

  • They don't know what they're doing.

  • It turns out I don't know what I'm doing, and it's really,

  • really difficult, and there's a lot to it.

  • So every part of this process of getting music into the

  • hands of people who listen to it is unbelievably difficult,

  • incredibly technical, and fraught with peril for the

  • audio along the way.

  • So we'll talk about some of the specifics.

  • So what I want to do first, though, is put recording into

  • perspective, OK?

  • So for thousands and thousands of years-- and now we start my

  • very fine PowerPoint--

  • there has been music.

  • OK, for who knows how many?

  • Let's say 10,000?

  • Is that a good number?

  • This is where I get vague, and everybody in the

  • room backs me up.

  • So we're going to say 10,000 years, there's been music in

  • the form of songs that have been written by somebody.

  • And then, they would perform their song for somebody in

  • their village or something like that.

  • And the only way music could propagate would be either they

  • would go to the next village, or they would teach their song

  • to somebody and then they would go to the next village,

  • or people from the next village would come hear them

  • and go back.

  • Right?

  • So there's your music industry for the first 9,900 years.

  • Fair enough?

  • OK, about 100 years ago-- a little bit more-- but

  • basically, about 100 years ago, there started to be

  • consumer recordings of audio.

  • And there were a few things before this, but let's say the

  • wax cylinder was the first viable format.

  • So you have the Edison cylinder where people would

  • come into a room.

  • They would make lots of noise.

  • That noise gets collected by a horn.

  • It would get scratched on to this disc

  • that's spinning around.

  • And then, you could take that disc, and go

  • play it back elsewhere.

  • So all of a sudden, you have created

  • what is called recording.

  • Recording, especially back then, was technically just at

  • a delay process, right?

  • So you perform the music, and then you capture it for a

  • second, and then you can carry it around.

  • And then later on at any point, you can play it back.

  • So now, you can get rid of some of the space and time

  • constraints of everybody come to your concert.

  • Now you can record your concert and send it out.

  • Now this caused a huge uproar.

  • And in researching this for this presentation, and also I

  • teach a recording class where I try to give a little bit of

  • a history, there's some amazing quotes from John

  • Philip Sousa and people like that about how recording was

  • going to destroy not music, but society.

  • Destroy it.

  • You have to be in the room with the musician.

  • So I think we've all kind of gotten over that.

  • I mean, I would hope everybody here enjoys going to concerts

  • and things like that.

  • But we've gotten over the fact that we're going to completely

  • destroy society.

  • Music isn't the only thing that's destroyed.

  • And it's just one of many things.

  • OK, so that's 100 years.

  • That's it.

  • Then about 50 years ago, mainly with technology out of

  • Germany in the '40s, and then also some techniques developed

  • bouncing from one tape machine to another tape machine, you

  • started to be able to not just capture a live performance,

  • but you had what we call overdubs, which is basically,

  • you make a recording, and then you record some more stuff to

  • go with it.

  • So now, you can record at different times, and all of

  • those things up to make a recording.

  • A lot of the early Beatles recordings

  • were examples of bouncing.

  • They would record the band, then they would play the band

  • back while recording something else, combine those together.

  • So that was a technique.

  • The German tape machines allowed you to actually have

  • multiple tracks that side by side.

  • So you record on a couple of tracks, then you record on

  • another track.

  • So things we're sort of familiar with.

  • But that basically '40s, into the '50s--

  • but even in the '50s, most commercial recordings were

  • live recordings, to mono or possibly starting to get into

  • three-track tape, but eventually going to be mono

  • going out into the world.

  • But once you start having these multi-track tapes, then

  • you have to mix those things together.

  • So this created something in the music

  • industry that didn't exist.

  • It used to be there were only recording engineers who

  • captured things.

  • Now all of a sudden, you needed people who could take

  • all the stuff that was captured, combine it together,

  • and make it something that could go off into

  • the world to be heard.

  • So that's the mix of the recording of

  • the song with overdubs.

  • And then, once you actually had consumer formats--

  • whether it was the cylinders or onto LPs or 45's or 78's or

  • cassettes or eight-track tapes, up into CDs--

  • you needed to have some sort of standard as to how the

  • music would have to be put onto these media to then be

  • distributed.

  • So you would get your mastered mix of the recording of a song

  • with overdubs.

  • Now in a room full of engineers, that kills.

  • That's really funny, because it's a font joke.

  • Mastering makes things loud.

  • That's the idea so-- all right.

  • I'm sorry.

  • It's the wrong crowd.

  • OK, so this is now what the artist sends off

  • into the world, OK?

  • This is what a record is.

  • But it's much more than that, right?

  • Music, pre-recording, was nothing more than art.

  • There was some commerce involved, but it

  • was basically art.

  • It was musicians and composers who would have a piece of

  • themselves that they would want to capture, and then let

  • other people here it, and recreate the emotion they were

  • trying to create when they performed the music live.

  • So let's say that really, the recording is more like this.

  • And you don't have to read it.

  • The point is I needed to get a lot of text on the screen for

  • later on for one of my very clever, inaccurate analogies.

  • The idea being that we need to keep in mind that this is art,

  • and this is the difference between looking at an art book

  • and going to a museum, OK?

  • There are differences.

  • And the idea of live performance versus recording

  • is one stage of this difference.

  • But there's also a huge difference depending on how

  • that recording gets to you at the end of the day.

  • And when we actually get to the listening portion, I think

  • someone once said it's stuff that you can't unhear.

  • You'll hear the difference between some of these file

  • formats and bit rates and things like that, and you'll

  • decide for yourself whether it makes a difference.

  • My theory is I think it does.

  • OK, so now we're going to go through part of the

  • presentation, which is a little more technical, which

  • means it's a little dumbed down for most of the

  • people in this room.

  • But there are a couple important things.

  • So the first thing is, the difference

  • between sound and audio.

  • And I'm sure most people in this room know this, but the

  • idea that's important is that all sound is analog, period.

  • An analog meaning infinitely variable, OK?

  • Until you get down to the molecular quantum level, any

  • sound in the air is infinitely variable acoustic pressure

  • waves that travel around the room, right?

  • Everybody cool with that?

  • Now, you can buy a digital microphone or a digital pair

  • of headphones, and that isn't actually what they are.

  • They are analog microphones and analog headphones that

  • happen to have converters built into them.

  • So they are two things in one.

  • But they are an analog device.

  • There's no such thing as a digital microphone.

  • The only way you can record something is to put something

  • in the air in the way of the pressure wave so it moves

  • because of the pressure wave, and then using lots of

  • different technologies for how you design your microphone.

  • You turn that into a voltage is the most

  • common way to do it.

  • Then, you can digitize the voltage, OK?

  • So this would be the simplest sound.

  • It's a sine wave.

  • It's information at only one frequency.

  • But the idea is while it's a sound wave, you zoom in, you

  • zoom in, you zoom in.

  • It never pixelates, right?

  • It's smooth all the way down.

  • So the idea of digitizing--

  • and this is where, feel free to take a nap or something

  • real quick.

  • So obviously with digital systems, you don't have the

  • luxury of looking at something infinitely many times a

  • second, right?

  • You have to have a clock.

  • You have to decide how many times you're going to look.

  • So for the producers and engineers I talk to, this is

  • actually really helpful.

  • I know it's very simplistic, but it's just the easiest

  • visual representation of what sampling is.

  • So the idea is, time across the bottom,

  • voltage up and down.

  • And every time there's a vertical

  • line, that's a sample.

  • So how many times a second-- let's say that's a second, and

  • then we count the number lines, and that's how many

  • times a second we're looking at it.

  • And each time we look, we say, how big's the voltage?

  • And we write it down using a number.

  • And how many bits we get to write down that number are our

  • horizontal lines.

  • Everybody's good with that, right?

  • So the idea being that if you look at this particular grid

  • superimposed on the sine wave, we almost never go directly

  • through an intersection.

  • So we are always wrong.

  • We are always rounding.

  • And obviously, anyone in the room who really knows digital

  • theory knows that that's OK.

  • There's one quantization error, but you make up for it,

  • and you can reconstruct things quite well.

  • You'll also know this sample rate is way higher than we

  • actually need to capture this sine wave.

  • You only need just over two samples per

  • cycle, and your good.

  • So that's fine.

  • And I'm not saying that this is not a good sample for this

  • particular sine wave.

  • But as a visual

  • representation, it's important.

  • The idea being, though, if we want to be more accurate, we

  • can do two things--

  • we can up the sample rate, and we came up the bit depth.

  • So now, this is sort of the aha moment for a lot of

  • engineers who've got little pop-up menus for sample rates

  • and bit depths, and they don't actually know what they do

  • other than bigger is better, So I'll record more stuff.

  • Now there are diminishing returns.

  • In terms of actually building audio hardware, it's very hard

  • to build something that will work equally well at every

  • single sample rate.

  • And I do lots of listening tests for just my studio for

  • making records, and I found that there's a lot of gear

  • that works great at 96 kilohertz, and up at 192, it

  • doesn't really work so well, because some things are

  • getting stressed, and it's just not optimized for it.

  • So it's not always that higher sample rate is better.

  • But in a perfect system, a higher sample rate will be

  • more accurate more of the time.

  • Right?

  • I mean, I think that's fair enough to say.

  • And the same thing with bit depth.

  • And in some ways, bit depth is more

  • important than sample rate.

  • Now the other thing is you could very easily make the

  • theoretical argument that 44.1 kilohertz is fine, because

  • human hearing goes up to around 20 kilohertz?

  • And I know everyone probably already knows this, but

  • basically, take your sample rate, divide it by 2.

  • That's the highest frequency you can capture

  • at that sample rate.

  • Fair enough?

  • So 44.1, you get down to 22.05.

  • Wow.

  • 22.05.

  • There you go.

  • Sorry.

  • My math just went out the window.

  • But the problem is, to make that work, you need a perfect

  • filter that cuts off everything above that

  • frequency, but doesn't touch anything below it, right?

  • That filter cannot be built.

  • It doesn't exist, especially as an analog filter.

  • So this is part of why higher sample rates are really

  • important for capturing things--

  • to get an accurate picture at 20k, you kind of need to leave

  • it alone out to 40 or 48, something like that.

  • So if you start working at 96, and you can either use very

  • gentle analog filters or you can start getting into

  • over-sampling and digital filters, but you can do things

  • way past where we hear that are brutal, and they don't

  • affect what goes on down where we do hear.

  • Now there are also people who argue that we respond to

  • frequencies above 20k.

  • We're not getting into that.

  • We're not getting into, we should be tuning everything to

  • 436 instead of 440.

  • There are lots of holistic arguments about lots of

  • things, and I try and keep things more real and in

  • numbers, because then I don't have to argue about them for

  • 12 hours, and not get anywhere.

  • So I try and keep it that way.

  • So anyway, this is basically what I try and impart about

  • sampling, even though you guys know most of this.

  • So then we start talking about the actual

  • consumer formats, OK?

  • Now there are two types of digital audio files.

  • Again, I'm sure you guys know this, but there's lossless

  • audio and there is lossy audio.

  • OK, lossless audio is take a PCM-encoded wave file at some

  • sample rate and some bit depth, and you keep all the

  • numbers, period.

  • That's it.

  • That's all a loss is.

  • It's AIFF, WAV, used to be Sound Designer, too.

  • OK, so those are loss files.

  • Now if you want to get into the analog versus digital

  • debate, they're all lossy, right?

  • We've thrown away some information.

  • But we're not there.

  • Let's say that our capture is awesome.

  • Let's say we're working at 96k, 24-bit.

  • We've got lots of information.

  • If we keep all that information, it's a loss file.

  • Lossy is--

  • and again, I'm just going to go through the presentation.

  • You guys know all of this already, which

  • is why it's so great.

  • So lossy is the difference between zipping a file, and

  • using something where when you unzip your 25-page paper

  • you've just written, it's missing a bunch of letters and

  • there's stuff spelled wrong.

  • And again, for a lot of producers and engineers, they

  • don't actually understand this concept.

  • They assume that lossy compression is still OK,

  • because you end up with a PCM audio stream at the other end.

  • But it's reconstructed, and stuff is thrown away to

  • actually make those files.

  • And the reason being that if you zip an audio file, you

  • save maybe 20%.

  • If you use FLAC, which is optimized for audio, you can

  • maybe save 50% of the space.

  • But that's it.

  • So if you do some quick math, and you're looking at a CD,

  • let's say, which is at 44.1, 16-bit, you're talking about

  • 10 megabytes for every minute of stereo music.

  • Those are big files.

  • You guys spend a lot of time trying to get files from one

  • place to another quickly and efficiently.

  • Those files are too big, especially up to a few years

  • ago with the data pipes going to phones,

  • all the mobile devices.

  • There's no way you're going to send that much audio.

  • So this is why the lossy codecs actually exist.

  • So very briefly, Fraunhofer, which is based up here,

  • developed first the MP3 lossy codec, and then more recently,

  • the ADC codec.

  • These are based upon the way you hear.

  • If you know anything about the way your brain processes the

  • information from your ears, your ears have just got lots

  • of hairs in it.

  • And Julie will probably talk more about

  • this than I need to.

  • But you basically are splitting things into

  • different frequencies.

  • All of that information comes up into your brain.

  • Your brain then processes it, and decides, I don't need to

  • listen to that, not going to pay attention to that, I hate

  • that, screw that-- oh, that's important.

  • And then that's what you hear.

  • So there's lots and lots of information that's thrown

  • away, which is why in a crowded room, you can

  • concentrate on a conversation with somebody, because you

  • start to mask things out.

  • And the same is true when you're listening to music.

  • There are lots of things that can be masked out.

  • So through a lot of research, they decided, what can we

  • throw away, right?

  • The idea being that if we take care of getting rid of some of

  • this information, then all of a sudden, we're dealing with a

  • much smaller file.

  • And if you compare file sizes, a decent bit rate MP3 is maybe

  • 10% of the size of the uncompressed audio file.

  • Yet in some listening tests, you might be able to actually

  • do pretty well against the file it was encoded from.

  • OK, so this is where I get very inaccurate, and people

  • actually got mad at me about this.

  • But that's OK, because I'm up here and you're back there,

  • and you'd have to jump over the screens.

  • So this is the way I explain lossy encoding to people.

  • So if we go back to our paragraph of lots and lots of

  • text, if I take out some of the vowels, everybody can

  • still read this just as fast as they used to, right?

  • The idea is your brain is predicting what should be

  • there as much as it's taking the input of

  • what actually is there.

  • So if we look at the word "mastered" in that first line,

  • as soon as you get to the M and you see the "stered" after

  • it, your brain has decided there's probably an A there.

  • There's room for an A there.

  • There's an A there.

  • It fills in the blank.

  • If you have a tiny little smudge on the page, your brain

  • is all about it.

  • That is an A. Absolutely.

  • Whereas on its own, that smudge is nothing.

  • It's a smudge.

  • So that's the basic idea, is finding what can we throw

  • away, and still be able to read as fast we can?

  • Or, listen and enjoy the music without having to figure out

  • what it was supposed to sound like?

  • So the idea being that if I only take out those vowels, we

  • don't save a whole lot of space.

  • If I take out all the vowels, now we're really starting to

  • save some space, and we can compact it down, but I can no

  • longer read this, OK?

  • So somewhere is a threshold.

  • The problem is when you're reading, you have very

  • discrete chunks of data.

  • You either know what that word is, or you don't.

  • Maybe you can fill in a word from the context around it,

  • but that's kind of as far as you can go.

  • When you're listening to music, at some point it just

  • sounds bad, and you don't really want to

  • listen to it anymore.

  • Sometimes it sounds so bad that it's kind of crazy and it

  • sounds like it's under water, and more

  • like whales than music.

  • But until you get to that point, it's very hard to say,

  • yeah, OK, we compressed too much, because you could put

  • someone in the room, and especially if they know the

  • song, they'll fill in some blanks on their own, and

  • they're like, yeah, I like this song.

  • It's all good.

  • So the problem with audio is you go from this analog sine

  • wave-- which no matter how far we zoom in, is still

  • infinitely varying.

  • We capture it, we compress it, we send it off, we

  • reconstruct, but we're starting to reconstruct

  • something that's a little more stepped.

  • Now again, this will get smoothed out by things in both

  • the circuitry and also by your ears, so there are lots of

  • things working to help you out in reconstructing this

  • waveform along the way.

  • But you compress too much, and then you start getting to

  • things that start to not really sound like sine waves,

  • or they've got so many harmonics on them that you

  • don't hear them as a sine wave anymore.

  • And at that point, you're listening to something

  • different than what you started with.

  • And I think that is more akin to someone who kind of sucks

  • at art, copying paintings, and selling it to you, and like,

  • yeah, I'll put that on my wall.

  • Now for $10 and I can download it?

  • Maybe that's a trade-off you're willing to make.

  • But in terms of taking the art that this artist has made, and

  • saying, this is my record, and I love it, and it makes my mom

  • cry, at some point you're going to send them such a low

  • bit rate file that their mom's not going to cry anymore.

  • And that's a drag, because at that point you've lost the

  • point of the music, right?

  • It's art coming through speakers.

  • It's emotion coming through speakers.

  • So what can we do as record makers, and then what can we

  • do as people who get that music out into the world to

  • help people listen to it?

  • And the great part is, I would assume that everybody in this

  • room listens to music recreationally.

  • Let's start with the hands of people who don't listen to

  • music ever.

  • OK, so not only are we in charge of making this music

  • and getting it out there, but we also consume it, so we want

  • to make products that we actually like, which with a

  • lot of things, people don't actually buy their own

  • products, whereas this is sort of the ultimate consumer

  • product, because everybody's into it one way or another.

  • So going back to the actual consumer formats.

  • Within the loss category, you've really

  • only got two choices.

  • You have CDs, which are dying a very quick death, which are

  • set at 44.1 16-bit audio, right?

  • Then you've got what is called high res.

  • And this is a term that people can argue about.

  • All it means is anything better than 44.1 16-bit, OK?

  • So when the Beatles re-released their catalog, I

  • dunno, six years ago, something like that, there was

  • a version you could buy on a USB stick

  • which was 44.1 24-bit.

  • That is high res audio, because it's higher than a CD.

  • So that's what the term means out in the audio world.

  • Now for me, I like to think of high res being up at 96k or

  • something like that.

  • But in terms of consumer audio, that's what you get.

  • Now in terms of buying high res audio, there are very,

  • very few options.

  • There's HDtracks, who will sell you things to download,

  • and there's this crazy Java file.

  • OK, has anyone bought anything from HDtracks in this room?

  • So a few people.

  • Is there anybody who thinks that it's so easy to download

  • and play back this stuff that everybody should be doing it?

  • OK.

  • Got a couple.

  • So there are a lot of things involved, and I'll talk a

  • little more about what I have set up here to

  • play this stuff back.

  • It's hard to get the high res music, and it's hard to play

  • it back properly.

  • It's easy to play it back wrong.

  • Anybody can do that.

  • Just throw it in iTunes or any other music player, it'll play

  • back wrong, and you're all good.

  • But you're getting into transcoding, and things that

  • you don't really want to get into.

  • But anyway, that's what you've got for the two viable sort of

  • ways you can get lossless audio.

  • There are a couple others that, once we start

  • listening--

  • excuse me-- once you start listening that I'll actually

  • show you, which are kind of cool.

  • There's high res streaming starting to

  • happen, adaptive streaming.

  • It's really awesome.

  • OK, then we get into the lossy formats, and those files are

  • basically MP3 and AAC, which are the

  • two Fraunhofer codecs--

  • AAC having not necessarily superseded MP3, but just

  • coming after.

  • I think Robert from Fraunhofer would argue that

  • it supersedes it.

  • But obviously, there's tons of stuff still coming out

  • on MP3 as you go.

  • Depends how you encode things like that.

  • Then there's ogg vorbis, which other than Wikipedia, I don't

  • know much about it.

  • Is it that it's open source?

  • OK, so it's the open source encoder.

  • There you go.

  • But of course, there are open source MP3 decoders, which

  • skirt Fraunhofer's license.

  • Because if you get the lame encoder, you're not paying

  • them, either.

  • So I don't know.

  • That's vague.

  • Yes?

  • AUDIENCE: It's totally patent free, as

  • well, but that's debatable.

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: The ogg vorbis?

  • OK, so ogg vorbis is patent-free, which I guess

  • would be the main difference.

  • Because if you can build yourself an MP4 encoder that's

  • open source, you're getting around--

  • anyway.

  • Robert and I had a very long conversation about this, and

  • he was awesome.

  • He was very, very good about this.

  • I thought he was going to kill me, but he was great.

  • OK, so if we actually start looking at the services

  • themselves, this is where for the producers and engineers

  • it's a big, big deal, because this is the stuff where they

  • don't necessarily understand things.

  • I mean, they understand, but it's the stuff you know but

  • you don't know.

  • So the CD and high res are both, I'm going to say, WAV.

  • You can buy it is FLAC, but that's just compressed WAV.

  • There are AAIFs and things floating out there.

  • But WAV is the most robust and the most prolific form of

  • uncompressed audio.

  • Everything else is not WAV.

  • OK, so it's either--

  • all right, first of all, who here is from the Play Music?

  • OK, I need an answer, because I have scoured your website,

  • and it says it plays up to 320 kbps files.

  • So what format, and what does the up to mean?

  • I can't-- is that an NDA thing?

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: So it's MP3s.

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: And I'm assuming it's scaled, so as

  • you test bandwidth, do go--

  • I'm going to guess, 128, 256, 320?

  • AUDIENCE: 192, 256.

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: OK.

  • So three tiers topping out at 320.

  • OK, I couldn't--

  • and this is part of the problem of

  • looking for this stuff.

  • And I don't think--

  • and you can correct me if I'm wrong--

  • I don't think anyone is intentionally being obscure

  • about this.

  • Maybe you are.

  • Are you being intentionally?

  • Are you obfuscating?

  • I love that word.

  • Maybe you are a little bit.

  • OK.

  • So--

  • yes, sir?

  • AUDIENCE: If people in front can move maybe towards the

  • back of the room, we're going to playing stuff

  • out of those speakers.

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Yeah, that's going to hurt.

  • I think what we can do actually is, what's going to

  • happen is at about 10 to 5:00, Julie's going to speak,

  • because she's got a presentation

  • about what she's doing.

  • And we're technically sort of 4:00 to 5:00, but we also have

  • the room to 6:30.

  • So what I'd love to do is we've got 15 minutes, I'll

  • finish going blah blah blah.

  • We can maybe do some questions where you guys kick my ass.

  • Can I say ass on this?

  • It's internal, right?

  • You can kick my ass.

  • And then, we'll break for Julie to speak.

  • And then, we'll do the listening, and people who have

  • to go can go, but then we can also shove people into the

  • middle of the room, because you guys are

  • going to get killed.

  • I mean, I'm not going to have it crazy loud, but still,

  • you're going to get killed a little bit.

  • OK, so finding all of this information.

  • OK, how many people from YouTube?

  • Do we have anyone?

  • OK, so we got a couple.

  • Finding out the information on what happens with the audio on

  • YouTube was not that difficult, but it was also a

  • little odd in that-- so does everybody in the room know why

  • there are two bit rates, and everybody in the room know

  • when you get which one?

  • OK, there you go.

  • So here's the problem.

  • It's tied to the video rate.

  • There's no setting that says, give me good audio.

  • There's only the setting that says, give me good video.

  • So basically--

  • and you can correct me if I'm wrong--

  • 720 and 1080 give you 384.

  • Everything else gives you 128, OK?

  • Here's the problem--

  • a lot of people can't afford to make videos for every song

  • on their record, and a lot of people who buy records and

  • then really like a song and want to upload it to YouTube

  • don't make a video that's HD for that song.

  • So you upload static art work, or you upload lyrics, or you

  • upload a picture of your dog-- or cats.

  • Cats are the internet, right?

  • So it's kittens.

  • But unless it's awesome footage of a kitten, nobody is

  • going to switch to HD.

  • Nobody.

  • And it doesn't default to HD, so nobody here's your music at

  • 384, which is, in terms of pure bit rate, the highest of

  • the lossy formats available, period, and nobody hears it.

  • Yet from numbers I've seen, and I'm sure my NDA won't

  • cover this because I haven't even signed one, but for

  • numbers I've seen, 80% of music

  • discovery happens on YouTube.

  • Somebody says, hey, have you heard vrr, and I go, I don't

  • know, let me search for it.

  • And you put it in, and you listen to it on YouTube.

  • So 80% of the time, people are being introduced to music with

  • one of the lowest bit rates on the board, when the highest

  • rate on the board is actually there, though not available

  • for most of the videos, because people aren't

  • bothering to upload HD video.

  • And should be just to finish up the

  • YouTube thing right now?

  • OK, and this is something I'm hoping--

  • I know I'm speaking with some of you tomorrow, but I would

  • love to get--

  • my email address is my name, andrew@scheps.com.

  • Hunt me down, find me, because I'd love to

  • discuss this stuff.

  • Because another thing is going through all of the YouTube

  • documentation, there's nothing that I could find about audio

  • upload guidelines.

  • OK, so there are no audio upload guidelines on the

  • YouTube site.

  • Zero.

  • The problem is, of course, what you're ending up with are

  • 128 and 384 AACs, but most of the time, people are uploading

  • lossily compressed audio.

  • So you're transcoding.

  • Is there anybody in the room who disagrees that transcoding

  • is the worst sounding thing you could ever do to a piece

  • of audio between two lossy format?

  • Because we'll fight later.

  • OK, there are amazing sounding lossy encoded files.

  • 384 AAC, I would defy most people to sit in a room, do

  • double-blind test between 384 AACs properly encoded and CDs.

  • I would defy anybody to not tell the difference between

  • 384 transcoded AAc that came from any other lossy format.

  • It sounds terrible.

  • This is one of the things we're hoping to

  • move forward with.

  • So anyway, this is one of the problems with

  • comparing the services.

  • But the big problem that a lot of the people I speak to

  • normally have is they don't know how to compare the 44.1

  • and the 256, and zero consumers know how.

  • 256 is way more than 44, right?

  • I rest my case.

  • But when you're trying to actually educate people about

  • just what this is, you need to come and sit in a room, and

  • have me go blah blah blah, and show you a chart.

  • So the idea is that, again, as with any scientific thing,

  • you've got to look at the units.

  • And the kilohertz and bit depth is totally different

  • from kilobits per second.

  • Now the cool thing is that all of the lossy formats are

  • actually very transparent with their bit rate.

  • OK, this is, again, where I make records.

  • I don't work with computers all the time.

  • I'm rounding.

  • There's no 1024.

  • The numbers are very round, because it's easy for us

  • people to understand.

  • All right, so basically, I take your bit rate, I put

  • three zeroes on the end, and that's how many bits per

  • second I get to represent my stereo piece of art that makes

  • my mom cry.

  • Then actually do the math--

  • 44,100 times 16 times 2, and we're at 1.4 million on a CD.

  • Now obviously, the codecs that encode the lossy encoders are

  • very smart.

  • So it's not like just take a percentage, and that's how

  • much worse at sounds.

  • I absolutely get that.

  • But we're talking at a very big difference, and then you

  • look at the 192 32, which is the highest I've seen coming

  • off of HD tracks.

  • And you're up to 12.2 million.

  • OK, the problem being in the grand scheme of things that

  • that's really not a whole lot compared to the analog we

  • started with.

  • So again, we're not going to go the analog versus digital

  • debate, but how many people here like vinyl?

  • How many people actually look to see if the vinyl's done

  • from the analog masters instead of digital remasters?

  • Get some old Blue Note.

  • Even just compare it to some of the reissued Blue Note.

  • And it's kind of astonishing.

  • It's like your there.

  • OK, so this is where we stop talking about numbers.

  • And now, I want to go through this study very quickly.

  • This is sort of an older study.

  • Because of course, the thing is, does anybody care?

  • If nobody cares, then we don't need to care, right?

  • If this doesn't make a difference, and it's all just

  • a bunch of numbers, I don't care.

  • The idea is I want people to spend enough money on the

  • music that I work on that the artists I work with cannot

  • take a day job so they can keep making records.

  • And I want to be able to afford to keep making records,

  • and not necessarily take a day job, but if you've got

  • something for me, we'll talk.

  • OK?

  • That's the idea.

  • OK, we're not all looking to be on MTV Cribs,

  • because we're not.

  • OK, but if people don't care, then by all means, make the

  • files tiny, because then everything else about the

  • consumer experience is awesome.

  • Instant on, very fast, move it from one place to another, fit

  • 25 bazillion songs on anything that fits in your pocket.

  • That's all good.

  • OK, now Harman who were actually nice enough to send

  • up this pair of speakers we're going to listen to later, this

  • study is from a little while ago to be fair.

  • But they decided, we need to actually know if people care.

  • Because they don't care what the outcome is, but they need

  • to know the answer to that question because they make

  • equipment for people to listen to music.

  • That's what they do.

  • So they need to know, do we need to be really

  • concentrating on stuff that plays back loss audio, or even

  • high res audio?

  • Or should we be building better MP3 hardware decoders

  • in, and just deal with that?

  • Should we actually limit the bandwidth?

  • When we're starting to talk about wireless technology--

  • I mean, if you look at Sonos and RedNet and a lot of the

  • really cool networked audio and wireless audio

  • technologies--

  • where do we need to cap our bandwidth?

  • These people need to know what people like, but they don't

  • actually have a horse in the race, because they're just

  • going to build the gear to play it back.

  • So Dr. Sean Oliver, who works there, who's a pretty amazing

  • guy, and he's got labs that have all

  • kinds of stuff in them.

  • They've got stuff that looks like it's out of an amusement

  • park, so when you're A-B-ing speakers, they hydraulically

  • move into the same place.

  • You don't have the differences in placement when people

  • change speakers and things like that.

  • So what he decided to do was get young people, because

  • there's a lot of sort of anecdotal evidence that young

  • people not only don't care--

  • but this is the crazy one to me, and if you know anything

  • about neurology and cognitive listening, it's even crazier--

  • but that kids these days have only heard MP3s, so they

  • actually prefer them.

  • Again, if anyone wants to discuss that later, I will

  • talk about that for hours, because that's the rabbit hole

  • I've been down for the last two years.

  • But I'll just say that that is pretty much

  • categorically not true.

  • So this study from a little while ago was

  • meant to prove this.

  • So they got a bunch of young kids these days, or in those

  • days, both high school and college age students.

  • The only thing that's really important here-- well, there

  • are two things.

  • One is that, for whatever reason, they were mostly male

  • students, as opposed to female students, studying audio,

  • which is kind of a drag at all times.

  • So that's just the way it works.

  • The other thing is you see this last column, this level

  • of training--

  • all this is is that these students were involved in a

  • recording program, or they had taken a comparative listening

  • class or a critical listening class, or something like that.

  • So they were aware of audio quality as a thing, as opposed

  • to just being someone off the street who really has never,

  • ever thought about it, OK?

  • So that's the break up.

  • Here is what they did.

  • And I--

  • all it means is they knew what they were doing, and it's

  • scientific.

  • OK, so it's true double-blind listening.

  • These kids don't know what they're listening to.

  • They come back multiple times, and they listen.

  • OK, now this is between 128k MP3, which was what everybody

  • was selling when they did this story.

  • And you think, my god, that's the Dark Ages, but it's

  • really, what, four years ago?

  • Maybe five?

  • Maybe five.

  • That's what you could buy.

  • So between that and CD.

  • So we're not talking high res HDtracks downloads.

  • 70% of the time, those stupid kids liked the CD.

  • And this isn't even a what sounds better.

  • This is a what do you listening to?

  • Which one do you want to hear?

  • All right, the important part of this is going back to this

  • sort of threshold of where does my mom cry, is what

  • happens emotionally?

  • So part of one of my theories is, if you go back to that

  • huge block of text, and you take out a bunch of vowels, at

  • some point it's harder work to read.

  • So while you will still understand the words, and

  • enjoy the story maybe, you will be less emotionally

  • invested because you're doing stuff.

  • The same thing is true, I believe, when listening to

  • lossy audio, because while your brain might throw stuff

  • away, it's expecting it, and your brain gets pissed when

  • the stuff doesn't show up.

  • So you can create anxiety, you can create depression at very

  • low levels, but at the same time, it's also filling in the

  • blanks for you, right?

  • You're taking away lots of acoustic

  • things from the music.

  • That's one of the first things to go are reverb tails and

  • acoustic cues.

  • So your brain is recreating.

  • Therefore, it becomes more of an active process to listen.

  • Now while that may not be that much of an issue, one of the

  • anecdotal things that really sent me down this road is that

  • my daughter had a friend in high school who was interning

  • with me in my studio.

  • And great drummer, really musical kid, listens to music

  • all the time.

  • And he showed up at the studio in the afternoon to work on

  • something, and he came in, and he said, man, been listening

  • to music all day and I'm exhausted.

  • And I don't know how many people that sounds absolutely

  • crazy to, but that to me is crazy, because I would wake up

  • in the morning and put on records or cassettes--

  • even that I had recorded from a microphone in front of a

  • speaker, so not the highest quality audio in the world--

  • but I would listen for 15 hours, and my parents would

  • yell at me, and then I would listen to headphones in bed

  • for a while.

  • Even recently, I've gone to friends' houses who have these

  • amazing set-ups, and we listen to vinyl all day.

  • And as my wife can attest, I was down at this guy's house

  • for 15 hours, and I got home at 1:30 in the morning and put

  • on a record.

  • I was not exhausted.

  • When I listen to some of the streaming audio services,

  • though, I get tired.

  • I get a headache.

  • I grind my teeth.

  • And it's not an instantaneous thing.

  • It is not an, oh my god, that's killing me and making

  • my ears bleed.

  • But it is, in terms of a long-term commitment, and I

  • would also argue in terms of a long-term connection between

  • people who hear the music and the artist.

  • And one of the most important things with artists is that

  • people actually connect with them on an artistic level.

  • And that happens by them experiencing some of the

  • emotion that went into the song.

  • And it could be as simple as a lyric, which means you're in

  • pretty good shape no matter what.

  • But it could be because of the chord changes and the

  • instrumentation and the subtleties of the performance.

  • And when we start listening, you will, I believe, start to

  • hear some kind of not subtle differences.

  • We put the B back in subtle with some of the things that

  • change when you listen back to back between some of the

  • lossily encoded music and the lossless music.

  • In terms of when you get to the second verse of the song,

  • do you feel like, musically, I've already heard

  • this, let's move on?

  • Or do you feel like, god, what's next in the story?

  • And man, there's a new guitar part.

  • And these are subtle things.

  • So if you love an artist, then it doesn't really matter.

  • You will love them even if it sounds terrible.

  • But what if it's somewhere in the middle?

  • What if you're kind of on the fence?

  • What if the audio quality actually determines where your

  • threshold moves as you're listening as to whether you're

  • going to listen to the next song on that record, or even

  • make it to the end of the first song?

  • And I know that part of people not listening all the way

  • through to songs and skipping around all the time is just

  • due to changes in consumer habits, and we're all

  • multitasking more, and things like that.

  • But for the people here who listen to vinyl, I think you

  • may not always flip it to Side B, but how often do you lift

  • with the needle in the middle of Side A-- unless you're

  • DJing a party--

  • because you're just kind of tired of it, and now I

  • want to move on?

  • You'll generally have the experience of Side A. So

  • you're getting 20 minutes straight of something.

  • When you're just listening online, that

  • doesn't happen so much.

  • There's a lot of skipping around, and a lot of moving.

  • But what I've got here--

  • I went to a few of the different labels.

  • I've got 18 songs and a bunch of different genres, and I'll

  • put up just a list of them.

  • And you guys will DJ.

  • And also, we can talk about anything.

  • If anyone has questions or want to point out stuff I've

  • got wrong, I absolutely want that to happen, as well.

  • And we can do that while we listen, things like that.

  • And I have them in as many formats as I could possibly

  • have them in, including--

  • oh, we didn't make it to this slide.

  • Sorry.

  • Google Play Music, I've got my playlist from you guys.

  • So hopefully because I'm on your ridiculously fast, free

  • Wi-Fi, we'll be getting 320 the whole time I'm sure.

  • But also, then I want to show you something called

  • OraStream, which is adaptive based on

  • bandwidth, which is awesome.

  • And we'll talk about other stuff.

  • Roundabout.

  • OK, really quickly.

  • The way I'm playing the stuff back is I'm using my Mac.

  • I am playing out of a program called Decibel, which is just

  • a very, very simple music player.

  • And the only thing that it does is it switches the sample

  • rate of the hardware to match the files.

  • So that way, we're not doing any sample reconversion.

  • In software on the way out of the computer, we get it out to

  • the converter at its native sample rate.

  • It also crashes a lot.

  • It's a $30 program.

  • But it generally works.

  • I'm using this Prism Orpheus, which it's a one-rack space

  • eight-channel audio interface.

  • So it's amazing for recording, but I'm using it because it

  • gives me a volume knob on the front.

  • I'm just using it stereo going out.

  • The reason I'm using it, as opposed to something a little

  • more simple, is because some of my source material is at

  • 192, so I need a box that'll go up to 192 without putting

  • something else in the middle.

  • I've tried as hard as I can to make sure that all of these

  • different files are from the exact same master.

  • So the same--

  • remember my font joke from earlier?

  • Sometimes, that happens multiple times to a release.

  • Roundabout is one of the examples.

  • Sorry, we will listen really quickly.

  • But I needed to say that Roundabout is one of the

  • examples of something where it is actually from a different

  • master, the high res version, because it was from a DVD

  • audio release from, I don't know, eight years ago--

  • way back in the stone ages when that was a format for

  • about eight minutes.

  • So that is actually a different master.

  • But still, it's a pretty astounding difference.

  • Now I will also say--

  • and we can stop this, but anyone who was at the talk I

  • gave at Berkeley knows that at some point, Robert from

  • Fraunhofer made me stop playing things off YouTube

  • because he said it's unfair because it's all transcoded,

  • and made it him look bad.

  • And I said, OK, that's fine, but I wasn't sure if everybody

  • in the room kind of understood what had just happened, that

  • we just took the biggest player in music discovery out

  • of the discussion completely because it wasn't fair to the

  • people who developed the codec that encode the music that's

  • on this service.

  • So I will play--

  • and that said, I play official videos if I can find them.

  • But there aren't always official videos.

  • So let's listen to some Yes, and would you

  • like to pick a format?

  • Do you want to go low to high, high to low?

  • AUDIENCE: High to low.

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: High to low, OK.

  • So we'll actually go down through CDs, because you'll

  • hear a little bit of the difference between the master.

  • So this is the 96 24 taken off the DVD-A, or whatever it was.

  • AUDIENCE: Quick question for you.

  • Are you relying on the digital analog in your Macbook?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: No, I'm going FireWire to the Orpheus, and

  • the Orpheus is the D to A converter.

  • And it's a great sounding converter.

  • The Prism converters are--

  • some people say that they're the best converters out there

  • for music recording.

  • In the UK, it's almost exclusively what's used for

  • all the orchestral scoring guys.

  • They'll have 80 channels of the Prism converters.

  • And then, we're just going straight into an amplifier to

  • these speakers.

  • And that's it.

  • Yeah?

  • AUDIENCE: What are you doing to match levels?

  • I'm fudging it.

  • OK, so this is not a scientific test.

  • This is an anecdotal test.

  • Unless I unplug the monitor, which we can do as well,

  • you're going to know what you're listening to.

  • So I'll try and match levels as best I can from up here,

  • but it does vary a little bit.

  • So I'll always make the high res stuff louder, because then

  • you'll like it better.

  • AUDIENCE: How much power are you using to drive the

  • amplifiers?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: It says it's 4 by 350.

  • So each speaker is bi-amp, so we get 700 watts a side.

  • So I'm barely cranking it.

  • You let me know how loud to go.

  • And I apologize again.

  • Yeah?

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] volume [INAUDIBLE]

  • digital in this thing?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: In this?

  • No, it's actually an analog control on the output, which

  • is bizarre.

  • That's what they tell me.

  • You can hook it up in lots of different ways.

  • There's an audio path within it.

  • The way it is supposedly hooked up is as analog.

  • But if it is digital, I have to be able to

  • turn it up and down.

  • I don't have a choice.

  • There have been times when I actually had an analog control

  • room section instead, but it was a lot of

  • gear to bring up here.

  • So we're going to use that.

  • Again, everything is going through that.

  • Everything is constant except the files themselves.

  • AUDIENCE: Is it worth turning off the air conditioning, or

  • will that not matter because of the volume?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: I think we'll get over the top of it, yeah.

  • I mean, again, this is not the most--

  • here's the crux of this.

  • And I do want to get to music for those of

  • you who have to leave.

  • But the crux of this is that you could set up audio file

  • double-blind A-B tests--

  • A-B-X tests-- and be really precise about this, and see

  • what you can tell the difference of.

  • But I think especially as we jump from ends of the

  • spectrum, it's not subtle.

  • It's huge differences, and then it's a question about

  • whether it matters to you.

  • I mean, who cares if you can hear the difference?

  • If you like them both, then fine.

  • Then you're good with the small files.

  • I'm not trying to evangelize one particular type of file,

  • or to convince anybody that you have to listen this way,

  • or you're missing out on the music.

  • My theory is that once you get to a certain point, you're no

  • longer kind of interfering in the emotional response.

  • But in terms of an audio file, short burst listening test,

  • this is more fun than anything else, because it takes a lot

  • of work to actually find all these stupid files and put

  • them in one place.

  • So that's the fun of it is I wasted days of my life so that

  • we can sit here and DJ.

  • OK, so that said, let me know how loud--

  • OK.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: All right, and here's CD, which--

  • again, a different master, but it's more to set for when we

  • listen to the other formats.

  • So this will be the same master as

  • all the other formats.

  • OK, so that's pretty different.

  • But it's also a different master.

  • So let's for fun, because it is fun.

  • This is when I'm glad I'm behind the speakers.

  • Sorry.

  • Let's just listen to some more stuff, and then we can talk

  • more, because--

  • AUDIENCE: What resolution were you playing that at?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Well, that would have been--

  • is it 128 AAC?

  • Because there was no high def video.

  • AUDIENCE: OK, so it was an old upload [INAUDIBLE]?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: I guess, yeah.

  • I mean, or it's a static artwork upload, so they didn't

  • bother uploading it in HD.

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Yeah.

  • OK, so let's do Coltrane.

  • So this is the same master, OK?

  • There have been reissues and things like that of this, but

  • I know for a fact because I got this from Blue Note that

  • this is the same master in all formats.

  • OK, so where do we want to start?

  • You guys tell me.

  • So that's A. We'll do A,B,C. What do you think about that?

  • Or do you just want A, B?

  • AUDIENCE: A, B, A, B

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Just A B?

  • Well, hold on.

  • A, B or A, B, C?

  • A, B. OK.

  • AUDIENCE: Are you sure [INAUDIBLE].

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Yeah, that happens a lot.

  • And this is why, again, we had to stop going to YouTube as

  • any of them, because a lot of them are either swapped, or

  • depending on the transcoding start to collapse into mono.

  • Like the Beatles stuff is mono, but it's

  • not the mono mixes.

  • So yeah, that happens, but that's--

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

  • resolution.

  • You can't have very high good placement [INAUDIBLE].

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Oh yeah.

  • Yeah, I mean, with the CD.

  • OK, so that was A and B. That was YouTube versus 192.

  • And so again, it was the low resolution possibly

  • transcoded, even though that was an

  • official Blue Note upload.

  • But the problem is--

  • I mean, I'm sure you guys know, working at kind of a big

  • company, that at some point, someone told the people at

  • Blue Note, OK, now we're going to start doing our official

  • YouTube uploads.

  • And here are all the assets, and go ahead and do it.

  • And that definitely filtered down to an intern who had to

  • sit in front of a computer uploading for three weeks,

  • because nobody who really know what they're going to do,

  • knows what they're doing is going to spend longer than it

  • takes to just point them to the assets.

  • So their official uploads could've

  • been completely destroyed.

  • I mean, it's easier sometimes--

  • and this happens at HDtracks a lot, where they're sent

  • something that they're told is 96/24 so that they can sell

  • it, but the person who actually sent them the files

  • didn't know how to get over the 2 gig file size limit, and

  • the album was too big, so they just ripped a CD and sent it.

  • And it happens.

  • And then HDtracks gets in a lot of trouble, because there

  • are a bunch of crazy audiophiles at home doing FFTs

  • of this stuff.

  • And also, depending on how it was recorded, there isn't

  • necessarily anything above 20k.

  • But if they don't see stuff at 40k, they're like,

  • that's not high res.

  • So there are lots of problems in the supply chain, as well

  • as just the file formats, which is, again, why this is

  • not meant to be a scientific test, and

  • more of just an anecdote.

  • Now if you want, we can stay away from YouTube, because it

  • is, unfortunately, the most problematic.

  • But--

  • AUDIENCE: Which one [INAUDIBLE]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: A was YouTube, and B was 192.

  • Now an interesting thing to me-- with these speakers, I

  • added some low end to tune this room very quickly

  • before I came in.

  • There's some thumping on that side that I'm hearing on the

  • 192 which I don't really hear in the MP3.

  • So you don't always--

  • like, oh my god, it's just so much better.

  • Sometimes you uncover other things along the way.

  • AUDIENCE: Do you have a non-YouTube [INAUDIBLE]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Yeah.

  • We can do--

  • well, your stuff would be 320.

  • So we could do 320, or we could do Amazon if

  • you want to do that.

  • Let's do Amazon.

  • Well, I just told you, it's Amazon.

  • I'll leave it up.

  • OK, but here's Amazon.

  • AUDIENCE: Can you do it, and then we vote which is which?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Yeah.

  • Yeah.

  • Let me just play you some of the Amazon of the Coltrane,

  • and then we'll go to a different song, and I won't

  • say a word.

  • Now I'm crazy, so I did some FFTs of some of this stuff.

  • And one of the things that Amazon does-- because they're

  • only selling 256 MP3s, that's what they sell--

  • and presumably to help their encoder--

  • because they're not getting 24-bit files, either--

  • they actually pretty much cut off everything above 15k.

  • So that's ban limited to 15k on the way into the encoder,

  • because if you don't have to bother encoding from 15 to 20,

  • you've got that much more room to encode below.

  • So that's their decision.

  • Again, now I'm right between the speakers, so for me the

  • imaging is a pretty obvious thing.

  • The 192 is the only one where things are either on the left

  • or in the right.

  • And Rudy Van Gelder, who recorded this album, did not

  • have a pan pot.

  • It was a patch cord.

  • It was either in the left or the right, and that's it.

  • So as soon as you get anything that isn't discretely on one

  • side or the other, you know it's part of the process of

  • the encoding that has made things shift.

  • And that's another way that a lot of the encoders work.

  • And I don't know specifically the ones you use because

  • you're writing your own encoders, if you mono up

  • stuff, , it makes it much easier to encode.

  • It's one audio stream, and it's

  • identical in both channels.

  • So you can save a lot of space doing it that way.

  • And I'm sure that's part of the pre-encoding of a lot of

  • this stuff, especially at the lower bit rates.

  • So that'll happen.

  • And it's not that big a deal on modern pop stuff because

  • stuff is everywhere, but any of the Beatles stuff, all the

  • old Motown stuff, the Blue Note stuff, that is all

  • discrete stereo, and it will change it completely.

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

  • are you thinking about [INAUDIBLE]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: No.

  • No, I refuse to.

  • So here's my theory, is that I need to make my records sound

  • as good as I can make them sound regardless of what

  • happens afterwards.

  • So then, when I realized what was happening afterwards, I

  • asked the Recording Academy so let me come and talk about it.

  • And they said, sure, we've been trying to figure--

  • because they've had this Quality Sound Matters

  • initiative officially for a little over a year, but

  • unofficially for the last 10 years.

  • And they've had ideas about--

  • we're going to get buses and put awesome sound systems in

  • them, and we're going to drive them around and play this

  • stuff for people, and trying to come up with ways to let

  • people here what the difference is so that you can

  • start to understand.

  • So when I came up with this presentation as a way to do

  • it, they were all over it and have allowed me

  • to come and do it.

  • So my idea is to find out what's actually

  • important, and change it.

  • I refuse to live with the crap, and just say, I got to

  • make it work on earbuds, because in five years, it

  • won't be earbuds.

  • And the pipes will be bigger, and you guys will flip a

  • switch, and it's going to be either uncompressed or barely

  • compressed.

  • And so now, I've changed my whole workflow to cater to

  • something that goes away.

  • And it's one of--

  • not to talk about your neighbors-- but it's one of

  • the biggest problems I have with Apple conceptually, is

  • that they will talk a lot about what they want to get

  • from the labels and from the artists in terms of their

  • ingestion, and they want 24 bit, and they

  • want the high res.

  • But if I master specifically for their encoder right now,

  • in three weeks, if they say, bandwidth is awesome.

  • We're going to start selling 320 AACs.

  • Well, now it's a new encoder, or they just

  • update their encoder.

  • All of a sudden, I'm making decisions based on

  • things that go away.

  • And I think it's a very big difference between the record

  • making process and the consumer distribution world,

  • and you can't make records for the consumer distribution

  • world other than a lot of the analog limitations we used to

  • have to deal with.

  • Like you can't pan your bass off to one side if there's a

  • lot of low end, and still cut vinyl.

  • OK, like their physical limitations to things which

  • I'm fine with.

  • And AM radio--

  • they shave off the top and the bottom, and it's mono.

  • OK, that's fine, I know what's going to happen.

  • But in terms of taking some sort of encoding algorithm

  • that's constantly being updated-- otherwise, some

  • people in this room would be out of a job--

  • I can't work for that because it's a moving target.

  • So my idea is if I make it sound great, it will survive

  • the process better.

  • And that, I've actually found is true.

  • Like this Blue Note stuff sound so amazing and so

  • natural that you can start to hear things get hashy and it's

  • a little more annoying and a little brash, and the panning

  • isn't as wide.

  • But musically, it's still pretty awesome, and it's OK.

  • And it survives better.

  • And strangely, a lot of the urban music survives better,

  • because there's lots of separation between the

  • instruments.

  • Things are very discretely encompassed in terms of their

  • frequencies and things like that.

  • They're not sharing a lot of space.

  • You don't have 15 microphones on a drum kit that are all

  • making noise.

  • So that actually translates better.

  • And strangely, there is zero hip hop or R&B that I was able

  • to get, other than the Espreranza Spalding

  • record, in high res.

  • It doesn't exist.

  • CD is as high as it goes.

  • They turn in masters that are 44.1-16, because they're

  • building it on a laptop.

  • And they're actually building their tracks with MP3s.

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

  • compressed not in bytes but making the lowest part of the

  • music-- the softest one-- high.

  • So if people start doing that [INAUDIBLE]

  • what's the point in going to high res?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Well, I would argue that even something that

  • doesn't have a whole lot of dynamic range, you will still

  • absolutely here the difference when you have a very lossly

  • encoded file.

  • You start to destroy things other than just the dynamic

  • range, right?

  • There's frequency content, there's panning content,

  • there's the mono versus stereo content,

  • there's depth of field.

  • There are all of the cues that are being taken away, all the

  • acoustic cues and reverb tails and things like that.

  • And that will affect it even if it's super loud.

  • I mean, there's this whole thing called the loudness war,

  • which maybe you know about, but they just like--

  • I won that war, OK?

  • I mixed "Death Magnetic," which was the album that

  • everybody said was the poster child for things

  • being way too loud.

  • OK, so I won.

  • Therefore, the war is over, we don't have to worry about it.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: I spent weeks reencoding for iTunes and

  • Amazon at that time to make those

  • files work lossly encoded.

  • So what happens is you start to get rid of dynamic range

  • and things like that, is you start to break the encoders.

  • The encoders need some room to work.

  • So I'm making it very difficult for that to work.

  • And one of the things we found that worked great was turn the

  • mix down 0.7 db, period.

  • Just let there be headroom that we never even use,

  • because it's brick wall right there.

  • We never get up to that last 0.7, but all of a sudden, all

  • of the encoders sounded about 100 times better.

  • When we got to give them 24-bit files for the last

  • Chili Peppers record-- that was right at the beginning of

  • the mastered for iTunes project at Apple-- and the big

  • crux of that project is give us 24-bit files instead of

  • 16-bit files.

  • That made a huge difference.

  • So in terms of what you feed the encoder, it isn't just

  • about the source material in terms of a sonic thing.

  • Because I think there are lots of hardcore and punk albums

  • that, from a sonic audio file point of view, sound terrible.

  • But they are so super exciting that people love those bands

  • and they want to listen to them.

  • And if you do a 128 MP3 of that album, what used to be

  • hashy and exciting is now just hashy and noisy, and I think

  • there are lots of people who wouldn't get into the band as

  • much as they would even if they buy it on a cassette,

  • which doesn't have anything above 12k on it, or

  • something like that.

  • So there are two very different aesthetic paths you

  • can take when you talk about the music.

  • And the problem is, it's not like with TV.

  • Right, with TV, who is going to argue that a high def set

  • looks worse than an SD set?

  • Because you see it, and it's easy to A-B.

  • Some people like the artifacts and you're used

  • to things like that.

  • And if you have a bad digital set that pixelates,

  • there can be issues.

  • And if you look at bad material on an HD set, it

  • looks terrible.

  • OK, so all those arguments are true.

  • But let's say you have a well-captured still image, and

  • you show it on these two different TVs.

  • One of them has way more information about it and it

  • just looks a hell of a lot better, the

  • other one does not.

  • Whereas with audio, people don't trust what they hear.

  • People think you have to be trained to like something

  • better when you just talk about audio formats.

  • And people believe what they're told, period.

  • I mean, nothing influences your opinion about things more

  • than me telling you how great it is, right?

  • If someone's about to play you something by a certain band

  • and you like them, and they say, I can't stand this band,

  • check it out, you will not like that band.

  • If they say this is my favorite band in the whole

  • world, you're going to try really, really hard to like

  • that band because you like that person.

  • So there's so much that goes into liking music that has

  • nothing to do with any of this, but it also has

  • everything to do with it, because I really believe that

  • there are just thresholds.

  • And for every person listening to a new piece of music,

  • there's a threshold of, am I going to like it?

  • Am I not going to like it?

  • And the more you can give them something that sounds true to

  • whatever the artist decided was done, the lower that

  • threshold will be, and the easier it is to connect.

  • So regardless, let's listen to some stuff, unless you want to

  • keep talking.

  • AUDIENCE: So when did you do that, the Death Metallic?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: The Metallica mix? "Death Magnetic"?

  • That was--

  • I don't know, six years ago, seven years ago?

  • AUDIENCE: What made you [INAUDIBLE]

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: What made me destroy it?

  • AUDIENCE: Yeah.

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: OK.

  • That is a conversation that is not--

  • I mean, really the only thing I would say about that is I

  • have nothing to say about that.

  • The idea that me as an engineer could mix a record in

  • such a way that was destroyed, but everybody would be OK with

  • it and let it out into the world is just crazy.

  • There is a band involved, there are producers involved,

  • there are plenty of people involved who

  • said, this is awesome.

  • Now during the process, whether or not I made quieter

  • mixes to A B,and an let them hear differences and whatever,

  • I may have done, but it's irrelevant.

  • It's irrelevant.

  • What happens is at the end of the day, that album sounds the

  • way it does because that's what the band and the producer

  • thought was great.

  • And there's some people who really don't like the way it

  • sounds, but there are a lot of people I've talked to who

  • think it sounds awesome.

  • It's super aggressive.

  • It's not the most hi-fi thing in the world, but a lot of

  • stuff I do is not hi-fi.

  • But I hope that it's emotionally awesome, and makes

  • you love it, and makes you want to either kick a hole in

  • the wall or cry or call your mom or whatever it is that

  • we're trying to get across.

  • So this discussion in terms of what you do with that file

  • afterwards is also very different from the audio

  • quality in the sense of audio file.

  • There are lots and lots of records that if you go to one

  • of the big consumer electronics shows where they

  • have a million dollar set-up where a speaker this size will

  • cost you $85,000 each, and has iridium tweeters.

  • And you've got a stand for the turntable that costs more than

  • your house-- that kind of thing.

  • You can only listen to audio file stuff on there, right?

  • And so what are you going to hear?

  • You're going to hear a few jazz records and Steely Dan,

  • and that's kind of it.

  • And those are great records, and they're also amazing

  • sounding records.

  • But if you put on something like the Metallica record on

  • there, at that point, maybe some of that's wasted.

  • But it's not because you're putting on a low bit rate MP3.

  • OK, another thing just anecdotally--

  • and we will listen more.

  • I'm sorry.

  • I will talk about this for days.

  • But while I was putting all these files together, I had

  • this massive folder of files, and I'm keep things organized,

  • and making sure things are named.

  • And I was just listening on my laptop speakers.

  • First of all, I'm letting the OS do sample rate conversion

  • in real time.

  • Right, whatever Quicktime has, that's what happened, so it

  • can play back at whatever sample rate the stuff was set

  • to, which is probably 44.1.

  • And I'm just listening to the first 25 seconds of each song,

  • making sure they're all the right song.

  • I can tell the difference in my laptop speakers.

  • So I bring this set up because it's cool, and we've got a

  • room this big.

  • And if I played stuff on my laptop, no one can here it.

  • So this helps.

  • But if you have any sort of decent kind of system-ish that

  • has some good DSP on the back end to make it sound pretty

  • good, and it's got a little bit of power so some of the

  • dynamics come through, I think you absolutely will hear the

  • difference.

  • And even more than that, you'll feel the difference.

  • One of them is just more fun to listen to.

  • But that's a discussion that could go for weeks, and

  • there's no necessarily right answer.

  • But the good thing is, I won the war, so the war is over.

  • So now we can all make quiet records again.

  • Yeah?

  • AUDIENCE: So there's a new standard from the ITU to set

  • record loudness levels.

  • Are you following that at all?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Well, what those are as far as

  • understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, that's what's used

  • in the Apple Sound Check, as well, where you scan a record

  • to say how loud it is, and then it uses it to even out

  • the level if you take advantage of that in whatever

  • playback system you're using.

  • Is that--

  • OK.

  • So basically--

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] a little different

  • from the ITU's standard.

  • So there's different, competing implementations.

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: Again, I don't.

  • I mean, if we got into my mix process--

  • which I could talk for a different set

  • of hours about that--

  • my mixes are what sounds good.

  • And sometimes, the level of the mix really doesn't matter.

  • But a lot of times, it does.

  • And I mix on analog equipment which has voltage rails.

  • So as I hit that rail, I don't just cut it off.

  • It smooshes it off, and it takes a while to smoosh it off

  • completely.

  • And different amounts of that smooshing differ.

  • And it's just because I'm in the analog world, so clipping

  • and harmonic distortion are your friend until they're not

  • your friend, and something catches on fire.

  • So when I'm mixing something like the AFI record I just

  • mixed or Black Sabbath record, those mixes are going to be

  • loud because they don't really sound right until their loud.

  • But when I make something like [INAUDIBLE]

  • which is on my label or jazz record--

  • I mixed a Jeff Babko record last year--

  • those end up being much quieter mixes, because I want

  • it to be more open, and the dynamic range

  • really helps the music.

  • So for me, it's much more a feel thing.

  • And then I find out later that I've kind of screwed up, and

  • the mastering guy gets angry.

  • And then I will send the quieter makes and say, if you

  • get it to sound as good as my one that you say is too loud,

  • then we're good.

  • But if it doesn't feel as good, then we have to go with

  • my screwed up mix.

  • So I'm not the best person with that.

  • There are a lot more technical mixers than me who adhere to

  • things more than I do.

  • I'm kind of a disaster with that.

  • Yeah?

  • AUDIENCE: What's your take on [INAUDIBLE]

  • Pandora, [INAUDIBLE]?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: OK.

  • So streaming, I mean, the filetypes are the same, right?

  • And on that chart, I had bit rates for the streaming files.

  • So I have no problem with streaming versus download.

  • I mean, there's a whole other conversation which is about

  • making the music business still exist.

  • And that's actually a really important conversation, and

  • encompasses way more than just this.

  • This is the esoteric, I think this makes a difference part.

  • Then there is the recording album credits part, which is a

  • discussion I'm hoping we're having tomorrow a little bit--

  • implementation of that, getting consumers to interact

  • directly with artists more, because that's what creates

  • the relationships that last so that I don't have to go get

  • another day job.

  • That's my goal in all of that.

  • In terms of just the audio, though, the streaming and not

  • is exactly the same thing.

  • So actually let me plug the monitor back in.

  • And let me show you one other thing, which is a technology.

  • It's called OraStream.

  • Does anyone in here know about OraStream?

  • So we've got one, because you were there last time.

  • Does anyone here know about the MP4 SLS format?

  • It's another Fraunhofer encoding format.

  • So it's meant to be an archival strength format.

  • So what it does is it will wrap audio in its own

  • metadata, and preserve whatever the native bit rate

  • and sample rate is of that audio.

  • But one of the byproducts it has is you can do what they

  • call truncating of the stream to produce in real time any

  • bit rate stream you want.

  • So what OraStream have done is they've come up with all of

  • the server side and back end technology to do pinging of

  • your connection in real time, and to granularly scale.

  • So the Google Play Music--

  • you've got three bit rates.

  • You check out how fast people are able to get the stuff, and

  • you give them the fastest when you think they can get without

  • any buffering, right?

  • Because buffering sucks.

  • No one wants their music to stop

  • But that's what you do, right?

  • And you will skip between those levels.

  • So if when you start playing a song, you're in a black hole,

  • even though you're listening on your cell phone.

  • You're in a parking garage.

  • You're going to start off at a very low bit rate.

  • Now are you constantly pinging, and you'll up the bit

  • rate as soon as you can?

  • Or do you wait for the next song?

  • AUDIENCE: You want for it.

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: You wait for the next song.

  • OK.

  • And this is technology-- these guys, I mean, they probably

  • had meetings here, I don't know, with anyone in the room.

  • But originally, it's a few guys from Singapore who

  • developed the technology.

  • And they were hoping someone else would just license it,

  • because they thought it was awesome, and why wouldn't

  • people want to do this?

  • So what they do is they're pinging constantly, and the

  • bandwidth will change.

  • And it plays back in HTML5 using a WebSocket, and it

  • plays back on iOS and Android via an app, because MP4 SLS

  • isn't supported directly in the OS of

  • anybody's computer yet.

  • So let me just quickly go to my account here.

  • And for audiophile people, by the way, this

  • is an awesome service.

  • So as a listener, it's like a Dropbox that can stream your

  • audio to you.

  • So you can get a free 1 gigabyte

  • account, I think it is.

  • Or you can pay $5 a month for 5 gig.

  • You can pay a little bit more for 10 gig or 50 gig, or

  • something like that.

  • You upload your lossless music to the service, and you can

  • immediately stream it anywhere in the world on any platform.

  • So it's their version of a cloud iPod.

  • But here is what it's awesome about it.

  • So let where are all of my playlists?

  • Here, let's stream something that's kind of--

  • oh, here we go.

  • Come on.

  • OK, so I've got some of the same songs here.

  • But here's what's important is see it right up at the top,

  • below the scroll.

  • What do you call it?

  • What's the official name for that, the progress bar with

  • the thing in it?

  • You know, it's the position bar thing.

  • OK, so watch what happens.

  • So everybody heard the song come out from under the water,

  • and start sounding good?

  • Here's one that is not a hi-fi recording.

  • Oh, this is a band from Austin who are the most exciting show

  • I've ever seen.

  • And I signed them to my label.

  • They made a record in two days.

  • I mixed it in one day.

  • It's psychedelic rock stuff.

  • It's not the most hi-fi thing in the world,

  • but this is at 96/24.

  • And again, just watch the bit rate if you can see it.

  • So we're going to start off at 128 because there's a cache.

  • OK, so we're just streaming 96/24.

  • And if you do the math and figure out the bit rate, the

  • number will always be a little lower, because the last part

  • of the decoding happens at the WebSockets, so you don't

  • actually need to give the full bit rate.

  • So the drawback is if you compare 256 stream from MP4SLS

  • to a 256 encoded MP3 or AAC, the MP4SLS will not sound as

  • good, because it's not optimized for that bit rate.

  • But I've never had to listen to 256 with this.

  • Wandering around on the 4G or 3G that I get off AT&T, I'm CD

  • quality all the time.

  • And as you go from the cell network onto your

  • wi-fi, it jumps up.

  • And it's seamless, and it works in real

  • time, and it's awesome.

  • So this is another example of, I think, where stuff can go

  • where you still get the convenience of things having

  • to start playing immediately, which I totally get.

  • You don't want to start streaming CD quality audio to

  • people on crappy cell connections.

  • But if you can hit Play immediately, then realize

  • they're not on a crappy cell connection and be CD quality

  • within the first few bars of a song, and when they jump on a

  • wi-fi network, be up at audio file quality,

  • that's pretty cool.

  • So hopefully, this is sort of where some

  • things will get headed.

  • And it's one of many possibilities.

  • But if anyone's interested in talking to the or guys, please

  • get in touch with me, because they've set it up where now

  • it's a lockbox service for people who want to just upload

  • their own stuff.

  • I can sell my artists' albums through there, download as

  • individual apps.

  • So they have a business model, but they're also always

  • looking for partners.

  • When Neil Young released his last record, and everyone has

  • heard of the Pono system that he's touting, which is a

  • hardware-based high res audio system?

  • The Warner Brothers wanted to stream his record for a week

  • before it came out, because that's what record labels do

  • now is give you a free stream.

  • And he said, yeah, that's fine, as long as it streams at

  • 192/24, which of course, that's not going to happen.

  • So they got the or guys to do it, and they actually did it.

  • And they were streaming about 5 terabytes an hour all over

  • the world of people who wanted to listen.

  • And if they were on their mobile browser, they were

  • probably getting maybe CD quality.

  • But if they were on a computer hooked up to a stereo, they

  • could listen to his album at 192/24.

  • And again, granularly scaling, so if there's any little bit

  • in the traffic, or if your buddy starts streaming a movie

  • down the hall, you granularly dip, so it's

  • not a stepping dip.

  • So in terms of the listening experience, it's a lot less

  • intrusive, because you dip down and come back up.

  • Anyway, so that's OraStream.

  • Yeah?

  • AUDIENCE: There's one form that you haven't mentioned a

  • single time.

  • I was wondering [INAUDIBLE]

  • DSD?

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: OK, so DSD, just really quickly, is

  • basically 1 bit encoding at a megahertz level.

  • So instead of taking this grid and putting it over, many,

  • many, many more times a second then you would on a PCM

  • encoding, you say, what's the voltage?

  • Is it higher or lower than last time?

  • And you use your 1 bit--

  • this is the dumb version--

  • say, yeah, it's higher, it's higher, it's higher, it's

  • higher, now it's lower, it's lower.

  • So you're basically tracing the waveform very, very

  • quickly as it goes.

  • The only problem is-- the reason I don't mention it is

  • because until about a week ago, there was no viable

  • consumer format.

  • And now there is one site that is actually selling DSD audio

  • files that you can download.

  • And it's even more cumbersome to get a player to work.

  • Now in terms of audio quality, listening to DSD versus high

  • res PCM encoding, I haven't gotten to do A B test, but a

  • lot of people love it, think it sounds absolutely amazing.

  • It's a very different way to encode music.

  • It's awesome.

  • I try to only cover established consumer formats

  • during this, because that's what's out there.

  • And there's no way I can distribute

  • anything DSD right now.

  • It's impossible.

  • AUDIENCE: And it would be hard for you to edit it

  • ANDREW SCHEPS: It's almost impossible.

  • There's one system that allows you to do multi-track editing,

  • and it's really expensive, and their software sucks.

  • So I can edit, but it would not be good.

  • So again, obviously, there's always the ability to work

  • versus what would be best.

  • [APPLAUSE]

DESTON BENNETT: Thanks for coming out today.

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