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I save tracks as 128kb mp3 & delete the work files


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Posted

Seriously tho listen to this crazy bacon

 

A. you free up space on your computer or camera phone or whatever the eff you kids compose music on these days

 

B. prevents you from obsessing over one track & tweaking away all the groovez

 

C. totally ndc

 

D. *this last one may be pure owe-science* saving to 128kb does something to a mix. I have no idea how it works but I can totally hear it. If the mix is good it will really begin to pop at 128kb. Maybe the lower bitrate blurs all the disparate elements together a bit? And if the mix is even a little bit bad, it really stands out at 128kb, & I say to myself "well jeez this bass sounds like a duck with the shits I better go fix that before I delete it all"

 

Discuss the merits of digital lossy or something. I truly believe that today's pixelation & mp3 compression are tomorrow's film grain & analog tape sound.

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Posted

I get the concept, and I like the idea of rendering to 128 before doing the final master, but I am sorry, what low quality mp3s do to hihats and shaker sounds is a crime.

Posted

I thought I was alone in never saving the project files. Save the tracks as 320 mp3s though. I know mp3 files are sooo not idm, but I can't really hear that big of a difference between a 320 mp3 and a wav file. saves a lot of space too, as you said.

 

tried saving a track as 32 kbit once. sounded water-like

Posted

what low quality mp3s do to hihats and shaker sounds is a crime.

somebody better call inspector gadget because i'm the frickin claw

Posted

I like to save them as 128 files, deleted the work file, then make changes to the track by importing the 128 file and adding hit hats to it.

Posted

I like to save them as .wav files and have them maintain the exact level of detail that i intended them to have

Posted (edited)

space should not be an issue in 2013! buy yourself a cheap external for fucks sake. you are going to regret it once you have a release if you can't make tweaks to the master, and you can't make any changes to the file without creating generation loss. the point of wavs is to avoid generation loss. you couldn't even put it on bandcamp without creating at least one generation of mp3 data flaws.

 

edit: directed at friendly foil

Edited by ganus
Posted

I like to save them as 128 files, deleted the work file, then make changes to the track by importing the 128 file and adding hit hats to it.

I do things like this often, taking an mp3 of one of my old tracks & making a new drone track out of a small piece of it etc, it's kind of like inhouse sampling.

I like to save them as .wav files and have them maintain the exact level of detail that i intended them to have

I understand the appeal of this but it is a different groove than the way I groove. I'm always happiest in art & in life when there's a certain degree of "things just kinda happen". Ya know? It's like sometimes I'll save a track to cassette tape & put it back in the computer just to see if the added layer of gunk makes it sound cool. 128kb is kinda like this

 

But it's also cool to keep high quality stems of every track element for remixing etc. There's pros to both mindsets I do believe.

you are going to regret it once you have a release if you can't make tweaks to the master

This is actually one of the reasons I'm a fan of 128kb. There's this allure to always keeping your options open, always be preparing material for some future big release, planning it out ahead of time. And this probably works great for a lot of people, but for me it leads to self-doubt! unproductivity! badness!

 

I always get the most down when it's like, head down, track track track track, not planning for the future, just pumping these things out with as much energy directed at the now as possible. I like to think when the time comes I'll be able to look back at the ocean of noise I've produced & go "ah, so that's what I was doing. Some of those ones there have a nice stank to them, I can use those" instead of "well, I'm at where I said I'd be, better dig those old tracks up & make them new"

 

Different strokes for different fokes tho

Posted

I like to save them as 128 files, deleted the work file, then make changes to the track by importing the 128 file and adding hit hats to it.

lol

Posted

I only became aware of "YOLO" as a slogan a couple days ago. Apparently some guy named Drake came up with it.

 

I'm not sure if this means I'm utterly uncool, or incredibly hip.

Posted

I only became aware of "YOLO" as a slogan a couple days ago. Apparently some guy named Drake came up with it.

 

I'm not sure if this means I'm utterly uncool, or incredibly hip.

 

i think you're tre cool daddio

Guest Lucy Faringold
Posted

Saving tracks is bullshit. i just get my friend Jed to memorise them then shout them back to me when I want. Last week I pushed him down the stairs (hard attack with a 4:1 concussion ratio) just as he was playing my latest tune. I hate remixes usually but this sounded alright.

Posted (edited)

Saving tracks is bullshit. i just get my friend Jed to memorise them then shout them back to me when I want. Last week I pushed him down the stairs (hard attack with a 4:1 concussion ratio) just as he was playing my latest tune. I hate remixes usually but this sounded alright.

 

this made me yolo in my pants

 

 

 

seriously though, I would be infinitely more inclined to dubdown my mixes to a cassette or hi-fi VHS then a 128kb mp3. There are different kinds of degradation, different kinds of distortion, and I would much prefer the lo-fi analog smudging of tape than the rattyness of digital degeneration.

Edited by LimpyLoo
Posted

You are doing the work of the devil.

 

When i was a kid i bought red hot chilli pepper's californication and i thought it sounded shit and it ruined the experience for me, later i found out that the bad quality was because of the loudness wars. Ever since then i hate everybody who is not trying to make their shit sound the best or who is intentionally making the sound quality bad, i mean don't you have respect for your shit.

 

I'm not getting in a debate about mp3s quality and shit but you people obviously have an ear defect if you can't hear a difference.

 

We live in an era when its possible to listen to lossless files without hustle, there is no excuses, you should only use mp3 files for portable players.

Posted

I usually just extract the hi hats, convert those to a 128kbps mp3, covert that back to a 24 bit wav (the rest of the track is in 16bit), then delete the project file, master the hats and send it to Warp. This gets me signed every time.

Guest cult fiction
Posted

Worrying about disk space is so seapunk. Now where did I put that SCSI cable so I can hook up my 512mb external drive...

Posted

Worrying about disk space is so seapunk. Now where did I put that SCSI cable so I can hook up my 512mb external drive...

 

Seriously, you can get a 1tb hard drive for 60 dollars, people need to get with the program.

Guest cult fiction
Posted

You can upload shit to amazon S3 for pennies and have it stored redundantly across the country.

Guest cult fiction
Posted

If you don't compress your tracks as 128kbps mp3s, you won't have room for all the RealMedia files on your computer, like those nickelodeon shows you downloaded while your mom yelled at you for tying up the phone line all afternoon with your 56kbps modem.

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