Apple Working with U2 on New Music Format to Boost Digital Music Sales

[leroypants]

I will never buy another song from Apple now that they killed the Ipod classic.

 

[PatriotInvasion]

So confused. I'm a happy Beats Music subscriber and feel that Apple should run with that model. Now it feels like they are desperate to save the iTunes a la carte model so not sure what they plan to do with Beats.

Oh well, for $9.99/month I think Beats is worth it and will wait to see what they come up with.

 

[5232152]

Ever hear of Apple Lossless Encoding?

And does it suck? Very much so.

 

[Motawa]

why not an App Store for music? a Music Store? For people who make their own music who don't have a lable.

 

[swingerofbirch]

I think it's a new self-healing music format.

When you delete U2, it just comes right back.

 

[jpmd70]

Wrong, the BEP have been around just as long as U2. Before they hit it big on the charts, they started off in the making undergriund hip hop records

U2 = 1976
BEP = 1995

Check your facts before you post!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I think they're thinking about going from CD quality (16 bit, 44.1 KHz sample rate) to 24-bit dynamic range with 96 KHz sample rate. It's the 24-bit which will make a ton of difference.

I'm a quality hound myself. But I see this more like "Retina" vs. "Retina HD". If Retina is as spun- as good as human eyes can see- a "> Retina" is mostly overkill. Similarly, if CD quality is covering the range of human hearing, are the masses going to hear enough at "> human hearing" (or in the finer details) to be moved to buy again?

Sure, there's some of us who are certain we can hear a difference, maybe even some who can… just as they'll be some of us certain they can see the improvements of Retina HD vs. Retina. But it's the masses that need to be moved to buy again and/or to buy and to solve this particular "problem".

Would I pay more for 24/96? Probably. I probably think I could hear the difference on some of the good equipment I (spent too much on to) own. Am I representative of the masses? I don't know. It's hard to see people wearing earbuds and Beats headphones and thinking they'll appreciate- or even hear- the difference above CD quality ENOUGH to want to pay up for it.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

Jesus I just finished converting all my ALAC to 320 AAC.

 

[John.B]

Same reason as the people who laughed at new coke weren't running the coca cola company (as well as every other corporate screwup). Just because someone is running a company doesn't mean they are going to magically make every decision better than anyone else on the planet.

<threadjack>

Old Coke in the US of A was made with the old formula using real sugar.

"New Coke" was made with a new formula using the much cheaper high fructose corn syrup.

After a few months of the so-called "New Coke fiasco", Coke relents and goes back to the old formula, but with the much cheaper high fructose corn syrup.

Nobody has any "Old Coke" left to compare to, and the old formula with HFCS tastes similar enough to what people remember about the old formula with real sugar.

So Coke "licks their wounds" and saves literally billions of dollars every year with the new HFCS sweetener in the process. Poor Coke, what a screw up, how embarrassing for them!

TL;DR: If your local grocery store doesn't carry Coke with sugar in glass bottles in what grocers typically label the "ethnic food aisle", check with a bona fide Mexican food store where they import it from Mexico.

</threadjack>

 

[charlituna]

A new file format isn't going to help music sales so I was meaning music in general and what other way can they present music other than being sound.

Nope. These smaller artists need marketing as much if not more than a new format

 

[John.B]

I think it's a new self-healing music format.

When you delete U2, it just comes right back.

Turn off automatic music downloads: Settings: iTunes and App Store: Automatic Downloads: Music.

Then remove it from your iTunes purchase list: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6439

Delete away.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

why not an App Store for music? a Music Store? For people who make their own music who don't have a lable.

I think the issue with this idea is that Apple would then become a direct competitor of the labels. One might say, but these would be unsigned musicians so why should the labels care? However, done this way, if Apple's cut of music sales was less than the label's cut, why wouldn't the signed artists want to cut out their middleman (their label) and do this too? It seems like they would. So why should the labels keep their libraries in iTunes if Apple is going to be a direct competitor that seduces away all of their artists? That's the problem.

When podcasts came out, I thought Apple might experiment with this idea there… especially when there was a price column for podcasts (though all of them had a price of $0.00 at launch). That seemed like an opportunity to help multimedia authors make some app-like money without stepping on anyone's toes. But here we are many years later and all podcasts in iTunes are still priced at $0.00.

Had Apple made a go of that, their cut of those revenues might have spilled over to ideas of replicating that with unsigned artists in other categories. But, didn't happen, so I doubt they would activate an entrepreneurial opportunity in the core channel of iTunes… and risk the partner relationships.

 

[jon3543]

Would I pay more for 24/96? Probably. I probably think I could hear the difference on some of the good equipment I (spent too much on to) own. Am I representative of the masses? I don't know. It's hard to see people wearing earbuds and Beats headphones and thinking they'll appreciate- or even hear- the difference above CD quality ENOUGH to want to pay up for it.

It takes "trained listeners" who are listening intently for differences to distinguish 192 Kbps MP3 from CD quality on high end equipment in specially designed listening rooms:

http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~hockman/documents/Pras_presentation2009.pdf

 

[cmaier]

And does it suck? Very much so.

How so? Sounds great to me. Half the stuff I've ripped in in ALE (since flac does me no good given that none of my listening devices support it).

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

It takes "trained listeners" who are listening intently for differences to distinguish 192 Kbps MP3 from CD quality on high end equipment in specially designed listening rooms:

http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~hockman/documents/Pras_presentation2009.pdf

Yes, again, as referenced in the rest of that post from which you grabbed that quote, while I can imagine there's SOME money in releasing higher fidelity versions of music, I don't think it's going to solve this "problem", as the masses won't notice or care enough to pay up for it (or pay again to re-buy).

In fact recall that this was tried with SACD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD. The music industry touted the higher quality and tried to spin the public into re-buying music at a quality above CDs. We know how that went. Wouldn't this be a disc-less version of the same idea if this was about releasing >CD quality versions of music "we" already own?

 

[milo]

<threadjack>

Interesting stuff. If you don't agree with that particular example there are plenty of others, including a number from Apple.

It takes "trained listeners" who are listening intently for differences to distinguish 192 Kbps MP3 from CD quality on high end equipment in specially designed listening rooms:

http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~hockman/documents/Pras_presentation2009.pdf

And that's 192 MP3, the 256 AAC from the apple store is much better than that.

 

[Chrisedge]

<threadjack>

Old Coke in the US of A was made with the old formula using real sugar.

"New Coke" was made with a new formula using the much cheaper high fructose corn syrup.

After a few months of the so-called "New Coke fiasco", Coke relents and goes back to the old formula, but with the much cheaper high fructose corn syrup.

Nobody has any "Old Coke" left to compare to, and the old formula with HFCS tastes similar enough to what people remember about the old formula with real sugar.

So Coke "licks their wounds" and saves literally billions of dollars every year with the new HFCS sweetener in the process. Poor Coke, what a screw up, how embarrassing for them!

TL;DR: If your local grocery store doesn't carry Coke with sugar in glass bottles in what grocers typically label the "ethnic food aisle", check with a bona fide Mexican food store where they import it from Mexico.

</threadjack>

Another myth. Coke started using HFCS in 1980, 5 years before New Coke. Yes, they pretty much dropped sugar once they switched back, but there wasn't a ton of real sugar coke around before The New Coke switch anyways.

 

[John.B]

why not an App Store for music? a Music Store? For people who make their own music who don't have a lable.

I think the issue with this idea is that Apple would then become a direct competitor of the labels. One might say, but these would be unsigned musicians so why should the labels care? However, done this way, if Apple's cut of music sales was less than the label's cut, why wouldn't the signed artists want to cut out their middleman (their label) and do this too? It seems like they would. So why should the labels keep their libraries in iTunes if Apple is going to be a direct competitor that seduces away all of their artists? That's the problem.

When podcasts came out, I thought Apple might experiment with this idea there… especially when there was a price column for podcasts (though all of them had a price of $0.00 at launch). That seemed like an opportunity to help multimedia authors make some app-like money without stepping on anyone's toes. But here we are many years later and all podcasts in iTunes are still priced at $0.00.

Had Apple made a go of that, their cut of those revenues might have spilled over to ideas of replicating that with unsigned artists in other categories. But, didn't happen, so I doubt they would activate an entrepreneurial opportunity in the core channel of iTunes… and risk the partner relationships.

But no techno-gimmick will solve that problem. Unless Apple is intending to form a record label.

That would be a big deal but it won't happen.

A lot of bands make a lot of money touring. Say hello to Ticketmaster,Live Nation,Metropolitan Entertainment and Clear Channel Entertainment.

They control 90 % of the concert venues and about 75 % of radio stations.

Geez, guys, you can already self publish your music to iTunes:

Apple - iTunes - Working with iTunes - Sell Your Content - Music Providers: FAQs

This is nothing new. You just have to find some way of getting people to look for your music and want to buy it. Which is what labels are supposed to do.

Or we could just buy a song's drum track for a quarter, the bass-line for another, keyboards, guitars, vocals... until one fine day & before we even know it, we've got the whole damn song paid off ...

No, but seriously, I like your idea...

If you record your own music tracks, you can already do this. To your heart's content. I recommend starting with an iPad and Garageband for iOS.

 

[teslo]

if Apple's cut of music sales was less than the label's cut, why wouldn't the signed artists want to cut out their middleman (their label) and do this too?

by not ensuring unsigned artists/indie labels can't make a bigger percentage on tracks/streaming than major labels/artists would squash all that in a hurry.
apple's biggest carrot on a stick for developers (and hypothetically artists) is visibility, just like the app store. it's an opportunity to be seen even more than it's a 'guaranteed' financial reward. hey, maybe you're really popular in Finland and you make your next app (album?) a huge hit there. you never know with this stuff.

 

[AlecZ]

I read "new music format" and "Boost" next to each other too quickly and had a miniature heart attack… but that's because I was thinking of Boost

 

[charlituna]

What.

A new music format won't improve quality.

How very true. ****** music with lame lyrics isn't instantly better cause the file is lossless etc

 

[AlecZ]

Could it be? 16-channel losslessly compressed nearly-perfect super high bit rate music? I'm interested.

----------

How very true. ****** music with lame lyrics isn't instantly better cause the file is lossless etc

Ha, good one. I'll take low bitrate Led Zeppelin over infinite bitrate U2.

 

[chirpie]

The other idea is multichannel support. But there are barely any multichannel mixes available (and I don't think it adds a lot to the music, tbh)

Awww, I think multichannel music can be pretty awesome. Beck's Sea Change on SACD in 5.1 was spectacular vs the 2 channel version. (And not in a gimmicky way.)

 

[BSben]

I think when they say format, they mean something along the lines of iTunes LP.
That was a step in the right direction, but never really took off. The video content (if there was any) was in very poor quality (well, all iTunes music videos are), and they usually felt a bit soulless. Audio quality is not getting back any buyers, when people buy the autotuned rubbish that litters the charts, then sound quality is not what people buy (unfortunately).

 

[charlituna]

So why did Apple even bother with the Beats acquisition if they're going to work with U2 on a new Music format? I know Apple wanted the insight the Beats men have on the music industry and their streaming service, but wouldn't the Beats gents have a lot more to say about a new music format than U2?

Just give us non compressed files in iTunes at a lower price point.

So far there is zero proof that apple and U2 are doing anything with same new format.

And no even rumor that beats has any interest in formats. They seem to be more about marketing etc. which could be why Apple got them.