HMV going into administration

Table Top Joe

8mv wrote: »

To get back to the thread subject - I had to buy the new Villagers album in Tesco yesterday and it didn't feel right at all, at all. I work in Limerick where HMV was the only CD store that I know of, so Tesco was the only alternative. Having seen the cover of the new Nick Cave album, I doubt Tesco will be stocking it. I think I'll just have to wait and use Amazon every couple of months.

Jesus that is wrong,im awaiting the new Bowie album with bated breath,im confident enough it will make Golden Discs on release day but theres a few other albums im also looking forward to this year that definitely wont make it(probably on any day let alone release day),i love buying new albums by artists on release day,from now on its gonna have to be done on Amazon which means i could be waiting a week for a new release....this is torture:(

Kirby

Zero1986 wrote: »

You're missing the point here.

I'm not. He's clearly trolling, I'll grant you that. You can't "remaster" garbage. Garbage from garbage is still garbage. You need a quality source to work with so I agree with you there.

But your example of a problem was still a bit naff. We live in an age that you can find any semi-popular music on any format you want. Even obscure stuff. I stand by the notion that if you can't find it, it probably isnt worth listening to.

shed head

Dravokivich wrote: »

This is true. It'll still sound washy. Attempts to remaster would emphasise it as well, instead of reduce it.

agreed but you can improve it quite dramatically running it through a high end(again) analogue mixing desk, there are of course digital correcting software out there which we personally are against but you can definitely improve it to a much better level, and wav will help a bit more!

watch the video above, all of it but if lazy 6:50 onwards!!

Custardpi

Kirby wrote: »

Acquire some better tastes perhaps? If you cant find a band or artists music in this day and age then are they really worth listening to? How good could they be if you can't locate a copy of their work.

Honestly the whole hipster "Oh I only listen to obscure bands who haven't made it....you wouldn't know them" thing is ridiculous.

Popularity is not always an indication of quality. A band's failure to sell records can be as much an indication of a poor marketing strategy as the merit of their music. Also, before the days of the relatively cheap home studios which the digital age (for all its flaws) has allowed putting a record together was a very expensive business so many bands only managed to put together very limited runs of their lps before splitting up & it was very hard to get their music known beyond the gigging circuit. If they're lucky enough to be rediscovered years later there may be rereleases of their material but there's still plenty of forgotten gems out there from a time before Soundcloud/Bandcamp.

SilverScreen

Kirby wrote: »

But your example of a problem was still a bit naff. We live in an age that you can find any semi-popular music on any format you want. Even obscure stuff. I stand by the notion that if you can't find it, it probably isnt worth listening to.

No I disagree. Granted there is a lot of bands that deserve to be forgotten about, but there are a lot of gems that for some reason or other fall below the surface. It's nothing to do with being 'hipster' at all, it's about finding stuff you actually love listening to no matter what depths you have to go to find it.

poisonated

I had to re read the title of the thread. The past 50 posts have been off topic. HMV was a great shop. Surprised that it is gone as everytime that i was in the one on grafton street and dundrum they were always quite busy.

Lightbulb Sun

shed head wrote: »

download it, remaster it in my high end studio and convert the high quality version to wav:P

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BS. You cant polish a turd. Same way with recording drums. If they aren't tuned properly and sound bad to begin with no amount of studio magic will make them sound good.

Toby Take a Bow

Kirby wrote: »

I'm not. He's clearly trolling, I'll grant you that. You can't "remaster" garbage. Garbage from garbage is still garbage. You need a quality source to work with so I agree with you there.

But your example of a problem was still a bit naff. We live in an age that you can find any semi-popular music on any format you want. Even obscure stuff. I stand by the notion that if you can't find it, it probably isnt worth listening to.

Describing something as 'garbage' will always be a personal and subjective thing. I can think of a couple of bands who, for whatever reason, are impossible to find in digital form. Just because I can't find their stuff digitally doesn't mean it's not worth listening to.

Grayditch

Kirby wrote: »

Acquire some better tastes perhaps? If you cant find a band or artists music in this day and age then are they really worth listening to? How good could they be if you can't locate a copy of their work.

That's a mental arseways way of looking at things.
No music is any better than the rest, it's all subjective, anyway, but telling people they should listen to more popular music, because that's obviously better music is such a sheep like way of thinking.

SilverScreen

shed head wrote: »

agreed but you can improve it quite dramatically running it through a high end(again) analogue mixing desk, there are of course digital correcting software out there which we personally are against but you can definitely improve it to a much better level, and wav will help a bit more!

I've studied Digital Signal Processing. You can't pull the sound out of nowhere, the data isn't there and it can't be replaced.

Kirby

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

Describing something as 'garbage' will always be a personal and subjective thing. I can think of a couple of bands who, for whatever reason, are impossible to find in digital form. Just because I can't find their stuff digitally doesn't mean it's not worth listening to.

You misread the post. Completely.

We were talking about about remastering a track from a low quality i.e low bit rate source. "Garbage" was in reference to some low quality tracks from a technical standpoint. Not from a music taste standpoint.

Toby Take a Bow

Kirby wrote: »

You misread the post. Completely.

We were talking about about remastering a track from a low quality i.e low bit rate source. "Garbage" was in reference to some low quality tracks from a technical standpoint, compression etc. Not from a music taste standpoint.

Ah, apologies. Still applies to the second part of your post re if you can't find something it's not worth listening to.

SilverScreen

So... HMV. A great bunch of lads

shed head

Zero1986 wrote: »

I've studied Digital Signal Processing. You can't pull the sound out of nowhere, the data isn't there and it can't be replaced.

i said improve it, obviously its not possible to convert it back! and trust me, you can improve it dramatically especially if you have access to one of these http://www.solid-state-logic.com/music/matrix/ which i have in my own small home studio, i also would have access to a top of the range desk when the studio is free which is quite rare thankfully! Aren't i great:p


Watch the video and start saving for a small home setup trust me, your life will change for the better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIxOooh_034

Anyway, i'm out of this, peace & love to you!

SilverScreen

shed head wrote: »

i said improve it, obviously its not possible to convert it back! and trust me, you can improve it dramatically especially if you have access to one of these http://www.solid-state-logic.com/music/matrix/ which i have in my own small home studio, i also would have access to a top of the range desk when the studio is free which is quite rare thankfully! Aren't i great:p

You can't 'improve' the sound of an mp3 without reclaiming back the lost data. You can make it sound different with an EQ and stuff but this doesn't mean the the sound is 'improved'.

Watch the video and start saving for a small home setup trust me, your life will change for the better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIxOooh_034

Anyway, i'm out of this, peace & love to you!

I think I'm happy enough with my Toshiba valve amp, Toshiba turntable, Denon CD player and Wharfedale speakers for the time being. See ya!

shed head

Zero1986 wrote: »

You can't 'improve' the sound of an mp3 without reclaiming back the lost data. You can make it sound different with an EQ and stuff but this doesn't mean the the sound is 'improved'.

forget it mate!

I think I'm happy enough with my Toshiba valve amp, Toshiba turntable, Denon CD player and Wharfedale speakers for the time being. See ya!

thats your problem, although in fairness to you, probably better than a lot of the stuff the deaf are using, beats by dre for example, shudder!

SilverScreen

shed head wrote: »

thats your problem, although in fairness to you, probably better than a lot of the stuff the deaf are using, beats by dre for example, shudder!

I thought you were going? Your taxi is waiting in the driveway *honk honk*

SilverScreen

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

BS. You cant polish a turd.

Actually the Mythbusters guys managed to do this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI

Hogzy

shed head wrote: »

thats your problem, although in fairness to you, probably better than a lot of the stuff the deaf are using, beats by dre for example, shudder!

OK, we get it, you're a hipster and you hate everything mainstream.

shed head

Hogzy wrote: »

OK, we get it, you're a hipster and you hate everything mainstream.

and hipsters!

squod

Where did the HMV thread go?

Kirby

squod wrote: »

Where did the HMV thread go?

Into HipstMinistration apparently.

SilverScreen

squod wrote: »

Where did the HMV thread go?

Went into administration and then closed.

s8n

I f@@kin hate hipsters !!

Lightbulb Sun

Audiophilia, some psychologists now say its a medical disorder. :P

123 LC

http://www.rothco.ie/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ISPCA-press-ad6-687x1024.jpg

a very creative ad by the ISPCA :P gets the message across though

squod

123 LC wrote: »

http://www.rothco.ie/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ISPCA-press-ad6-687x1024.jpg

a very creative ad by the ISPCA :P gets the message across though

The should have saved a capal Tesco burgers for those poor animals.

Solair

Zero1986 wrote: »

I've studied Digital Signal Processing. You can't pull the sound out of nowhere, the data isn't there and it can't be replaced.

MPEG4 audio is significantly better

MP3 is ancient technology at this stage. It's MPEG-2 Audio Layer 3.

There are also lossless codecs like ALAC (Apple Lossless) being used quite widely in digital downloads.

With the abundance of very cheap storage, most audio devices being able to hold vast amounts of data, and faster broadband speeds compression is becoming far less of an issue.

Downloads / streams could surpass CD quality without much difficulty and provide full surround sound.

MP3 however, really is quite lossy and some people genuinely do find it unpleasant to listen to.

That being said, most modern music is produced with everything normalised to almost 0 dB there's no headroom, no dynamic range, and it's just a big wall of noise. So, to be quite honest with music like that, there's not going to be much of a difference between an MP3 and a CD!

You'd definitely notice it with classical, older productions of modern music or with anything that actually uses subtle sounds.

MP3s also usually do horrible things like slice off all frequencies above 16kHz for a start, and that can be noticeable with good quality audio equipment.

You have to remember it's also psychoacoustic compression, so it is relying on your brain to fill in the blanks. That can make listening to an MP3 (especially a very compressed on) requires mental exertion to fill in the blanks so it can be tiresome / annoying to listen to after a while even if you can hear the music.
That's partially why some people don't like it.

For most people though, a good quality digital download, like from iTunes or even spotify streams are completely comparable to a CD.

A_Sober_Paddy

s8n wrote: »

I f@@kin hate hipsters !!

You might enjoy this so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmmYMwFj1I

road_high

So are HMV in Ireland fecked now? Anybody likely to take the HMV/shops over and re-start again?