Ambient and MP3

[BraneFreeze]

Is ambient music more vulnerable to MP3 compression than other genres? Some of my ambient albums in 256/320 MP3 have mild background hiss and some breakup on the higher notes. I don't notice this problem with other types of music (such as psy trance or classical or acoustic), with similar MP3 bit rates, using the same playback settings and speakers. Is it just me, or is this really a potential issue?

[Veracohr]

It should depend on the mix. MP3 compression artifacts are first heard in the high frequencies, so I suppose something more busy and aggressive like psytrance might mask those artifacts more than ambient.

[frozen dream]

mp3 compression really fucks up the high frequencies, far worse than the low ones one could say, the higher you go in frequency the more easy tiny detail gets messed up so yea i guess ambient with lots of long subtle sounds, complex textures and high sounding pads get fucked up faster. if a background noise consists of complex textures all of this depth easily gets lost (aka fuzzy, in playback) in mp3 conversion since quality is sacrificed for file size saving.

 

also mastering isn't as powerful in ambient music as in psytrance i would dare to say, so the waveforms themselves aren't as tuned up as psytrance music which means they perform less on a lower volume level compared to hard mastered psytrance.

 

from what you put i'd just say a bad rip and/or conversion. 192 CBR is supposed to be doable

 

mp3 conversion:

basically mp3 compression reconverts your file into a cut spectrum between 20hz and 20khz and uses a customizable (VBR etc) algorithm to create a flattened (and thus smaller in filesize) image of your song, so underlying and higher frequencies get cutoff from the song's dominant frequency area throughout the playback

 

the main effects are dryer overall spectrum, less performance and great detail loss on higher volume levels and loss of stereo/depth perception as well as simply output demand on your stereo, so now matter how hard you power your amp and tune up your speakers (and raise the volume), that mp3 ain't gonna shine brighter it's the same story in digital photography btw of RAW vs JPG, each time you compress a jpg into another jpg, there is quality loss, if you convert a 192 kbps mp3 into the same thing, there will be quality loss, since the algorithm the compression/conversion is based on only thinks of space saving.

[visine]

also mastering isn't as powerful in ambient music as in psytrance i would dare to say, so the waveforms themselves aren't as tuned up as psytrance music which means they perform less on a lower volume level compared to hard mastered psytrance.

 

 

 

 

You must be kidding.

 

Mastering in psytrance can be very bad...lots of compression/loudness war.

 

This isn't the case just with psy, but in many other commercial and underground genres. Can't listen to the whole CD 2 times in a row unless you turn the volume down or your ears will hurt.

[frozen dream]

Can't listen to the whole CD 2 times in a row unless you turn the volume down or your ears will hurt.

meh, since i do mastering myself, i wouldn't sacrifice dynamic punch for easier listening levels, a lot of modern music needs the extra punch delivered in mastering to give it that 'wow' effect, which is something not present in original mixdowns, they sound rather flat and dislocated and you wouldn't even wanna listen your cd once

[MattMan]

I haven't really heard too much ambient other than my 320kbps rips, but there's no doubt that the higher frequencies get blurred in any heavier compression.