None of the bands/artists I like have an iTunes LP. I'm not going to waste money buying an LP of an artist I've never listened to before.
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Six Months Later: 'iTunes LP' Format Performance Remains Lackluster
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The LP Is A Fossil Concept
I have owned hundreds of LPs (mostly vinyl) over the years and the problem with LPs is you were forced to buy a collection of songs of which only 2 or 3 are really good. The crappy songs just "tag along" and you are stuck with them.
Bringing back the "LP" sounds like the idea of old dying record companies that used to make tons of money on LP filler crap.
THANK GOD I can now surgically go in the pick THE INDIVIDUAL SONGS I really want in my collection and not a bunch of filler crap. Yes, there are some LPs (e.g Dark Side of The Moon) where I like getting all the songs, but those are few and far between.
LPs???? Uh, good luck with that one.......
I have owned hundreds of LPs (mostly vinyl) over the years and the problem with LPs is you were forced to buy a collection of songs of which only 2 or 3 are really good. The crappy songs just "tag along" and you are stuck with them.
Bringing back the "LP" sounds like the idea of old dying record companies that used to make tons of money on LP filler crap.
THANK GOD I can now surgically go in the pick THE INDIVIDUAL SONGS I really want in my collection and not a bunch of filler crap. Yes, there are some LPs (e.g Dark Side of The Moon) where I like getting all the songs, but those are few and far between.
LPs???? Uh, good luck with that one.......
Additional iPad toolkits to come?
I'd say the iPad definitely makes iTunes LP more attractive.
So I wonder, will Apple be offering additional specialized/customized developer toolkits and guides for other iPad content sub-groups, such as digital magazines and newspapers, for instance?
I'd say the iPad definitely makes iTunes LP more attractive.
So I wonder, will Apple be offering additional specialized/customized developer toolkits and guides for other iPad content sub-groups, such as digital magazines and newspapers, for instance?
would be really interesting if i could just buy the bonus content like a song, and it checks the files in the folder and just shows the songs from the album in the LP file i already bought...
Another log to throw on the woodpile of Apple failures.
* Apple TV
* MacBook Air
* the hockey puck mouse (might as well put the new 'Magic Mouse', too!)
* iTunes LP
lol Can't wait for the iPad to join the list of... oh, what does Apple call it when a product that they create hyper-buzz for at pre-launch doesnt' work out? Oh, yeah!:
"A HOBBY."
* Apple TV
* MacBook Air
* the hockey puck mouse (might as well put the new 'Magic Mouse', too!)
* iTunes LP
lol Can't wait for the iPad to join the list of... oh, what does Apple call it when a product that they create hyper-buzz for at pre-launch doesnt' work out? Oh, yeah!:
"A HOBBY."
Nah, hyperbole aside, clearly the LP concept didn't get pushed and therefore is perceived as a failure. Certainly not on par with the hockey puck mouse (and the magic mouse is definitely nice, try using one sometime). The idea itself is sound and with a bit of tweaking, could be more successful. From the vendor's perspective, it is a way to encourage people/fans to buy the whole album. From a consumer's perspective, you get a much more interesting set of features (much more appealing than a paper booklet) that do not come at an additional cost.
For those that complain about only 256k AAC, most modern music production is recorded at such a high level that much of the nuance is lost to distortion/noise anyway.
#3) A lot of the popular songs on Amazon are also $1.29!
Like the hits on an older, classic album like Born in the USA. Or the new, popular stuff like Tik Tok. What do you know? It's the same!
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
* Apple TV. One of the best technology devices I have used. The foundation for much of their new products.
* MacBook Air, I don't see the direct use for it myself. It has been incorporated into much of what they do today.
* Hockey Puck Mouse, bad design. Magic Mouse, use it for a bit and you will love it. Download Magic Prefs and you will love it even more. (Use it as is for a while first.)
* iTunes LP I don't think Apple ever wanted it to work. They get pressured into adding it.
Why don't artists sell their music as a "multimedia experience" through the App Store? Creating a little app that has some visual content as well as high quality music (I have no idea what the highest quality of music is that you can code with in the realm of an application).
Maybe it would even be great if code would be available (or a small helper app) with which artist could slam together an application in no time.
Wouldn't this work?
Maybe it would even be great if code would be available (or a small helper app) with which artist could slam together an application in no time.
Wouldn't this work?
Not true. Some years ago, the Audio Engineering Society had already deemed MPEG-4 AAC, a joint venture between Apple, Dolby Laboratories (specialists in perceptual encoding schema including A52, more commonly known as Dolby Digital or AC-3), to be fundamentally indiscernible from 16-bit stereo Linear PCM (CD Digital Audio "Red Book" format) at bitrates above 128 Kbps.
iTunes are offered at 256 Kbps. I have yet to see any actual, controlled double-blinded study where participants can actually identify consistently which file is 256 Kbps AAC and which is 16-bit LPCM. None of the ABX tests do it. These generally only survey users on which format they think sounds better, which is a completely subjective measurement and quite meaningless as there's no way to control from one set of ears to the next what sounds "pleasing". Whether or not one can actually tell one format apart from others is another question entirely.
It should be noted that MPEG-4 AAC is not simply a compression schema, but a perceptual coding schema whereby a considerable amount of the data requirement to reproduce the same analogue soundwave is eliminated by various perceptual coding methods, some of which do and some of which do not create loss. It's not a true lossless format but it isn't perceptibility by the average human that determines the "lossless" label of a format.
ADPCM, for example, is considered a lossless format because all original amplitude and frequency information can be reconstructed from an ADPCM bitstream... but it's not all there in the ADPCM bitstream, nor when reconstructed is it all perceptible information. When imperceptible information is lost, mathematically speaking, a format is still deemed "lossy" even if the listener cannot fundamentally hear what's been lost.
A good example of this is the 20kHz lowpass filter applied to AC-3 bitstreams upon encoding. This eliminates a significant amount of the data that can be sampled at 44.1kHz sampling frequency, but does two things actually... it eliminates audio that's entirely outside of the human (A-weighted) range of hearing (which begins to fall off sharply at 17.5kHz), and it prevents frequency aliasing from occurring, which is an artifact you DON'T want to be produced upon reconstruction of the analogue signal.
The issue is not how much data do you have on your drives... quantization error, frequency aliasing, the myriad other artifacts that can arise are not a result of encoding processes. they're actually a function of reconstruction of the signal. And this is an important distinction because the burden isn't on the amount of data there to reproduce the original analogue signal faithfully. It's not like not having one tenth the data means you are getting one tenth the sound... provided the reconstruction algorithm can accurately reassemble the soundwave. It's not going to be "digitally noisy" unless it really falls below the minimum threshold of data required BY THAT PARTICULAR ALGORITHM to accurately rebuild the amplitude and frequency information.
So we cannot assume that simply because Apple "Lossless" carries about 300-800 Kbps more data it's going to fundamentally produce a better sound. Bear in mind that 16-bit Linear PCM itself is extremely limited in terms of the frequency range and dynamic range it can support. So it's not really a stretch at all for a perceptual coding schema like AAC to reconstruct the same range using algorithms that can quite easily put together from far less data the same amplitude and frequency values that Linear PCM can at CD quality bitrates.
If however you were talking 24-bit Linear PCM, which I'll bet 99.999997% of you don't have extensive libraries of, unless you are sound engineers who listen only to recordings you made, mixed and mastered on 24-bit capable media, then you'd have an argument. Even CD audio doesn't come within 40 decibels of the full dynamic range of 24-bit LPCM.
But if you want to argue otherwise, then show me a study published in the AES journal that's controlled, double-blinded, in a lab setting (i.e. NOT ON THE INTERNET) where all the same equipment is used each time, and where the participants could actually identify which compression schema was which better than blind guessing. Then we'll talk.
1. I said "Same exact DRM-FREE" indicating both are DRM-Free.
2. That is true about the sound quality. However, both a lossy formats - so both are weaker compared to the lossless. Again, if quality is your number one concern, you should be buying physical CDs and ripping to a lossless format.
Is a 30% price increase per song worth going from 'okay' lossy to 'good' lossy? Not for me.
3. A lot more songs on Amazon are $0.99 compared to the iTunes counterpart; what I mean is, you will find songs cheaper on Amazon for the most part & equal to iTunes for the rest.
I feel that LP is crying out for ALAC tracks. That would really appeal to a new breed of music fans - those that buy albums and don't like downloads as they are lossy. If you were to limit LP to full albums of ALAC music I think you'd draw a new audience that wanted the convenience of digital music, but not the compromises.
I agree that 256 kbps AAC is virtually indistinguishable from the CDs - perhaps an indication of the quality of studio mixing more than the codec, but ALAC offers up the possibility of transcoding from a "100%" source if a different format takes over in 5-10 years.
I agree that 256 kbps AAC is virtually indistinguishable from the CDs - perhaps an indication of the quality of studio mixing more than the codec, but ALAC offers up the possibility of transcoding from a "100%" source if a different format takes over in 5-10 years.
Interesting read. Thanks for this.
Hahahaha, please. The Cube belongs way above all of those other things (except the hockey puck mouse). Apple expected a lot out of the Cube, and then 12 months later it was axed.
As for those other things… I’ve actually seen a fair number of people using MacBook Airs, and if the Apple TV was such a failure, why hasn’t it been axed like the Cube? And how does the hyper-buzz of those other products even compare to the buzz around the iPad? Eh, whatever… now I’m just feeding the trolls.
wouldnt surprise me if labels wanted this... they still are stuck in the 60's.... single track downloads are the... well.. present.. for the past decade now.. and it's their own fault really.... they are the ones passing cookie cutter "artists" with their 3rd grade lyrics as "music" who are incapable of writing full albums that anybody wants
Interesting read. Thanks for this.
Hahahaha, please. The Cube belongs way above all of those other things (except the hockey puck mouse). Apple expected a lot out of the Cube, and then 12 months later it was axed.
As for those other things Ive actually seen a fair number of people using MacBook Airs, and if the Apple TV was such a failure, why hasnt it been axed like the Cube? And how does the hyper-buzz of those other products even compare to the buzz around the iPad? Eh, whatever now Im just feeding the trolls.
yeah 2 of those "failures" i actually have- atv, and want- MBA
Even if a new format were to take over in 5-10 years, and support for mp3 and AAC was to become scarce, what would keep you from just transcoding old lossy formats into a lossless variation of a new format? (something like mp3/AAC > PCM > lossless new format).
Honestly, I think the real benefit behind lossless tracks would just be marketing hype. Even so, the number of people who are only interested in lossless tracks (or are just willing to pony up extra for the lossless label despite how little difference it makes) has to be small.
Great post man, it's rare you learn things on a forum. Thanks for taking the time to write this.
I have been saying that for quite some time. It will happen in the next version of iLife!
They will play on the iPad!
I think iTunes LP are a cool idea even though apparently it wasn't Apple's idea, but they need to be opened up to iLife so we can see growth of selection etc.
More importantly, iTunes Extras, which is really the same thing for movies are AWESOME!!! Pretty much every new movie that is good that comes out now is an iTunes Extra, and I had been waiting for that since Apple TV came out and iTunes started selling movies. It makes PERFECT SENSE for the movies but is less applicable to the albums. I think if we saw numbers for iTunes Extras they would be pretty impressive in comparison! All I wish for now is that all the movies in iTunes Extras would come on 1080p! That happens and DONE!
iTunes LP: Concept Albums and Lossless Codecs
I know we live in the instant gratification/short attention span world of the $.99 mp3/aac single, but it seems to me that there are two important markets for iTunes LP: fans of bands that do concept albums and hifi types who hate low bitrate audio codecs.
Some people actually like to listen intently to an entire album and not just crank singles out as background noise for exercising, driving in rush hour, or house cleaning. Some genres of music encourage artists to take their audiences on escapist musical journeys. iTunes LP might be better suited for that than just giving a rapper a chance to coax his customers to buy five more remixes of his dopest track, or to show off his latest dance moves, hottest sprawling chicks, and brightest bling. Or give country singers more space to pose for pictures in cornfields and honky-tonks.
BTW--it's not just "greedy labels stuck in the 60's" who want to sell albums rather than singles. Bands who do classic rock / progressive rock inspired concept albums also want to sell complete projects, and their motives are almost always artistic, and certainly not market-driven. In fact, right now terms like "progressive rock" and "concept album" are marketing poison.
My band has one rock opera-esque project on iTunes with another on the way. We'd love to release the one we're working on now as an iTunes LP. The project is essentially a motion picture soundtrack and we'd like to grant LP buyers a gratis .pdf copy of the original screenplay so they can keep up with the story while listening.
We'd also like to use iTunes LP as a way to distribute hifi versions of the project (24 bit lossless recordings) without the up-front production costs of replicating 1,000 initial copies of what will be a 2-CD set (approx. 100 minutes of music). Heck, we'd love two-tiered pricing for the project--standard iTunes LP and iTunes LP HD--and we'd just wrap it in basically the same virtual packaging. If I were to code it myself I could save thousands of up-front costs in replication of the physical package (which initial downloads could help pay for, actually).
Concept albums and HD recordings--what iTunes LP could really end up doing very well.
I know we live in the instant gratification/short attention span world of the $.99 mp3/aac single, but it seems to me that there are two important markets for iTunes LP: fans of bands that do concept albums and hifi types who hate low bitrate audio codecs.
Some people actually like to listen intently to an entire album and not just crank singles out as background noise for exercising, driving in rush hour, or house cleaning. Some genres of music encourage artists to take their audiences on escapist musical journeys. iTunes LP might be better suited for that than just giving a rapper a chance to coax his customers to buy five more remixes of his dopest track, or to show off his latest dance moves, hottest sprawling chicks, and brightest bling. Or give country singers more space to pose for pictures in cornfields and honky-tonks.
BTW--it's not just "greedy labels stuck in the 60's" who want to sell albums rather than singles. Bands who do classic rock / progressive rock inspired concept albums also want to sell complete projects, and their motives are almost always artistic, and certainly not market-driven. In fact, right now terms like "progressive rock" and "concept album" are marketing poison.
My band has one rock opera-esque project on iTunes with another on the way. We'd love to release the one we're working on now as an iTunes LP. The project is essentially a motion picture soundtrack and we'd like to grant LP buyers a gratis .pdf copy of the original screenplay so they can keep up with the story while listening.
We'd also like to use iTunes LP as a way to distribute hifi versions of the project (24 bit lossless recordings) without the up-front production costs of replicating 1,000 initial copies of what will be a 2-CD set (approx. 100 minutes of music). Heck, we'd love two-tiered pricing for the project--standard iTunes LP and iTunes LP HD--and we'd just wrap it in basically the same virtual packaging. If I were to code it myself I could save thousands of up-front costs in replication of the physical package (which initial downloads could help pay for, actually).
Concept albums and HD recordings--what iTunes LP could really end up doing very well.
Got the iTunes LP with the pre-order of Hendrix's new album of old songs (Valleys of Neptune or some other such spacey title) and I must admit it's nice.
Though I'm not going to pay extra for it and I wouldn't miss it if the pre-order didn't come with it. But it is nice. Better than a PDF of liner notes.
Though I'm not going to pay extra for it and I wouldn't miss it if the pre-order didn't come with it. But it is nice. Better than a PDF of liner notes.
iTunes LP not for me
The thing of it is, for me anyway, and a lot of other folks out there i would imagine, is that iTunes changed the way we, the consumers spent money on music. No longer were we the consumer held hostage by record companies, forcing us to buy an entire CD or LP for one or two tracks. We now have the power to say, no thank you, you no longer dictate how I spend my money, I do.
iTunes LP as an idea is to "give" me extra content I don't want at a higher price than what I am willing to pay. Again, no thank you.
Instead of being happy that there is a segment of the population still willing to PAY for music, and doing everything in their power to continue to make buying music an easy simple process, the Record companies decide that the consumer should now pay a higher price for what is popular. This to me is self defeating...iTunes has just sold 10 billion songs in it's very short existence, and the record companies have recouped 70% of those monies.
Why try to revert to the "old business model" when you have just seen $7 Billion dollars added to your collective coffers???
The thing of it is, for me anyway, and a lot of other folks out there i would imagine, is that iTunes changed the way we, the consumers spent money on music. No longer were we the consumer held hostage by record companies, forcing us to buy an entire CD or LP for one or two tracks. We now have the power to say, no thank you, you no longer dictate how I spend my money, I do.
iTunes LP as an idea is to "give" me extra content I don't want at a higher price than what I am willing to pay. Again, no thank you.
Instead of being happy that there is a segment of the population still willing to PAY for music, and doing everything in their power to continue to make buying music an easy simple process, the Record companies decide that the consumer should now pay a higher price for what is popular. This to me is self defeating...iTunes has just sold 10 billion songs in it's very short existence, and the record companies have recouped 70% of those monies.
Why try to revert to the "old business model" when you have just seen $7 Billion dollars added to your collective coffers???
Just got the Plastic Beach Deluxe Edition iTunes LP by Gorillaz, superb album, but the actual "iTunes LP" part was rather lackluster. The content was good, but the presentation felt rough.
Although it's welcomed because Adobe Flash runs so terribly that I'd rather not visit their website, which is heavily flash based.
Anyway I think there is room for improvement.
Although it's welcomed because Adobe Flash runs so terribly that I'd rather not visit their website, which is heavily flash based.
Anyway I think there is room for improvement.
i think what would appeal to people is if you purchased a hole album they would receive the lose-less recordings of the album since most music fans who love the booklet in a cd want that kind of stuff. Example my dad would buy albums on itunes if they gave him lose-less tracks but since they dont he has no interest in itunes and just buys some single tracks.