mp3s

[AmpedNow]

Do stations use this format to store music? If so, what's the "standard" bit rate? If not, what is the "standard" format used?

[Tom Taggart]

As cheap as storage space is now, it makes no sense to use a compressed format to store music.

We use .wav, at 44; direct from CD, mostly TM, but some commercially bought CD's and collections (Christmas cuts).

[Clay JD Walker]

I agree...external terrabyte raid storage is cheap...run it outboard on the SS32...plus redundancy is there just in case a drive fails. The quality of uncompressed is so much higher than even 320 MP3s...and if you use PlayMPE for new music, change the download setting to "HD" so you're getting uncompressed verses their MP2 format.

[cgarison]

I agree...external terrabyte raid storage is cheap...run it outboard on the SS32...plus redundancy is there just in case a drive fails.

That is funny because I can not convince the folks in IT that storage is cheap. For a company with 6000 employees on email, we only have 3TB of space on our exchange server and no plans to upgrade. I have more disk space between my two desktop PCs in Philly.

[sportsvoice]

I agree...external terrabyte raid storage is cheap...run it outboard on the SS32...plus redundancy is there just in case a drive fails.

That is funny because I can not convince the folks in IT that storage is cheap. For a company with 6000 employees on email, we only have 3TB of space on our exchange server and no plans to upgrade. I have more disk space between my two desktop PCs in Philly.

We have that problem too, which has led to my postulate:

"The job of the IT department is to keep you from doing your job in an efficient manner."

[Lester]

IT also has a budget, folks... and if you think "programming" is considered an unfortunate necessity... trying being an IT guy when you've done your job well and everything is working.

[AmpedNow]

Okay, so it's not a standard broadcast format... But, does anybody still play them?

I remember a few years back when the new Korn single was leaked. Opie & Anthony broke it one afternoon and immediately got a C&D from Sony. That evening, almost every rock station was spinning the same watery mp3 that probably came from Napster. They used it for a few weeks until they got cleaner copies.

Does this still happen?

[Ace Purple]

There were a few stations (KNDD/Seattle comes to mind) that played leaked versions of songs from Fiona Apple's CD Extraordinary Machine that Sony refused to release (which, after some reworking, finally came out later). The leaked version of "Please Please Please" is one of my all-time favorites of hers, though sadly the reworked version isn't nearly as good as the leaked one IMO.

[Clay JD Walker]

Sometimes you just gotta get songs the only way you can...I've snagged stuff from my DVR for topical stuff (like the Brooks & Dunn/Reba version of Cowgirls Don't Cry from the CMAs), iTunes, Limewire (just don't tell anyone...heh) for those hard to get album cuts and remixes (like the ever-popular dance remix of "No One Else On Earth" by Wynonna), and in the very last case scenerio, run YouTube into ProTools...

But at some point, the record reps see that those songs aren't getting detected for whatever reason in Mediabase, so they jump fast to get a copy sent down PlayMPE...especially in that first Brooks & Dunn reference...

However, when it comes to library cuts, the cleaner, most linear versions I can acquire, the better...I spend time tracing down cuts that came from our sign on library (from another cluster) that were overly compressed and replacing them with my new library, because as Cameron taught me back when Kindred did the switch from Phantom (very compressed MP2 format at 32000hz) to SS32 (uncompressed WAV), no matter how great of a processing chain you have, it's still garbage in/garbage out...

[Arp2]

Because of demand, yes, many systems will now play MP3s, but I don't think it's anybody's first or second preference. It's a convenience thing....people might work with them at home and/or send them around, and outsiders frequently do think it's a standard and might very well send something in the format. Also, a number of program suppliers make use of it for distribution or last-minute substitution. Converting can and will get on your nerves, and it's often the case that you'll hear the result and think, "what in the world is wrong with that??!" The easy and logical solution was for the system providers to write it in.

As Tom and Clay have said, storage is so incredibly cheap now that, barring a really dated system, there's no reason not to go uncompressed; and, with multiple digital thingies now on down the audio chain, starting uncompressed is the much safer choice.

Drives -- especially the SCSI drives that were then the ones to have the speed to accept and deliver audio at the rate necessary for on-air -- used to cost a relative fortune, and the then-mandatory (or even proprietary) combinations of drives, software, audio cards, and interfaces used would result in boxes full of parts not easily swapped as they aged.....that resulted in stations seeming stingy and taking risks that they didn't want to (whether they realized that or not) because they didn't have the budget to spend another fortune on things they could already see were becoming obsolete before they got even a half of their planned lifespan out of them.

[sportsvoice]

I don't know if it's compressed storage, bit-reduced digital STL, or overmodulation, but there are a number of stations in my area that have a lot of high-end artifacting. You won't hear it on a cheap alarm clock or boom box, but use any good stereo system or a set of headphones and it sounds awful.

[Dave Loudin]

Probably yes, yes, and yes.