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Bandcamp

PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:00 pm
by Scott DeVarenne
I started exercising a couple of months ago and I got the internet hook-up happening. This translates to me listening to music (especially new-to-me music) on a regular basis. I am loving Bandcamp and the ability to listen to entire albums. These last few days I have been checking out the Catalogue of Suicide Squeeze Records.
http://suicidesqueeze.bandcamp.com/
I will post links to the stuff I like.

Minus the Bear
http://suicidesqueeze.bandcamp.com/albu ... g-gigantic
http://suicidesqueeze.bandcamp.com/album/planet-of-ice
I've heard a few songs by this band a couple of years ago and was always meaning to check them out. I'm glad I finally remembered.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2012 4:35 pm
by Scott DeVarenne
Band- The Magic Magicians
Album- Girls
http://themagicmagicians.bandcamp.com/album/girls
Everybody loves girls, right? And you gotta love an album that starts with a chorus. It also has a dynamic range that extends below the top 3db. Amazing.
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Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2012 3:33 pm
by Scott DeVarenne
"Moody Motorcycle" by Human Highway.
http://suicidesqueeze.bandcamp.com/albu ... motorcycle
I avoided this for a few days because the cover looked kind of silly. I figured it would be some kind of novelty crap but it's really, really awesome. Gorgeous vocal harmonies. Simon and Garfunkel, eat your lungs out.
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Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2012 4:18 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
That cover actually makes me want to hear it.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Wed May 09, 2012 12:26 am
by Scott DeVarenne
Did I mention that it's free to listen? I'm sure most of us knew this.

Crystal Skulls. Darn great.
http://suicidesqueeze.bandcamp.com/albu ... ed-numbers
http://suicidesqueeze.bandcamp.com/albu ... g-behavior

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:49 pm
by Scott DeVarenne

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2012 1:16 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
Coolness.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2012 10:19 am
by Mathieu Benoit
There's some really interesting stuff out there. Next month after the move, and once I'm all caught up at the studio I'm going to spend a lot of time on there searching for cool music.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 11:13 am
by Scott DeVarenne
Bandname- Metal Hearts
Album- Socialize
http://suicidesqueeze.bandcamp.com/album/socialize
I've listened to this at least five times. That's really saying something. This is not German metal. Maybe I'm dating myself by saying if you like Pinback or early Modest Mouse, you may like this band.


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Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 11:39 am
by sean.boyer
I think bandcamp is an excellent platform for independent musicians. I really appreciate the fact that they won't allow you to upload compressed audio as a source! Must he HQ wav or aiff etc. Then, when it comes time for the user to download, they have their choice of 320K mp3, ogg, FLAC, etc. That's pretty great, because if I'm buying a digital album, I'm sure as hell not going to pay for an mp3. FLAC or GTFO as far as I'm concerned.

Also, their sales model is really fair, and makes it free for bands like mine who aren't going to move more than 100 copies of an album. You only really start incurring (very modest) charges after 200 units.

My two complaints are:
1) They need to improve on smartphone/ipod/etc compatibility, as many many people listen to music almost solely on their phones, and it would be great if bandcamp would work on more of them.
2) The uploading interface for BC requires that you upload your songs one by one. This sucks when you have a punkrock album with 35 songs on it to upload. I'd much prefer to see a batch uploader, with a quick n' easy way to modify the meta data after (or better yet, to extract all the metadata from your source file so you don't need to modify anything so long as you've accurately populated the meta data of your source).

With that being said, you can find most of my projects on BC, ie:
http://reagansrayguns.bandcamp.com
http://thetasteofpiss.bandcamp.com
http://hospitalgrade.bandcamp.com

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:57 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
sean.boyer wrote:I think bandcamp is an excellent platform for independent musicians. I really appreciate the fact that they won't allow you to upload compressed audio as a source! Must he HQ wav or aiff etc. Then, when it comes time for the user to download, they have their choice of 320K mp3, ogg, FLAC, etc. That's pretty great, because if I'm buying a digital album, I'm sure as hell not going to pay for an mp3. FLAC or GTFO as far as I'm concerned...
Why would you not pay for a FLAC file?

Forcing artists to upload proper files is the only way to go. Many allow uploads of compressed audio, and then by default do anther conversion stage, thereby ruining the quality in a huge way. I hope all sites/distributors realize this and do the right thing.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:05 pm
by Alain Benoit
sean.boyer wrote: I'm sure as hell not going to pay for an mp3. FLAC or GTFO as far as I'm concerned.



"I'm sure as hell not going to pay for an mp3. < period FLAC or GTFO as far as I'm concerned."

I understood this as a support for FLAC.

A.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:07 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
Alain Benoit wrote:
sean.boyer wrote: I'm sure as hell not going to pay for an mp3. FLAC or GTFO as far as I'm concerned.



"I'm sure as hell not going to pay for an mp3. < period FLAC or GTFO as far as I'm concerned."

I understood this as a support for FLAC.

A.
Sorry... My miss... Reading too fast maybe....

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:35 am
by Mathieu Benoit
yeah... GTFO is definitely not a type of audio file. dielaugh

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:57 am
by Alain Benoit
See Malcolm if you were into swearing more you would have picked up on that.

A.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:21 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
C'mon.... There was a lot going on at the time, and I was reading quickly.... :oops:

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:25 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
...and for music that doesn't fall into the category of something that I'm listening to for uber fidelity, I have no problem with purchasing properly prepared mp3 or m4a.

I still buy CDs of most stuff I really want. Call me old.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:27 pm
by Scott DeVarenne
I read it the way Malclolm read it, but it didn't make sense so I read it again, then it made sense. I'm not acronym savy and I'm okay with that. Call me old.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:31 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
If I might be so honest and open with you all... I still having a hard time telling a 320kbit/s from a 44.1/16 wav file. Does that make me a bad engineer? Now between 160kbit/s and 44.1/16 wav, that's no porblem.... but the line gets pretty fine for me at a certain point.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:39 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
Mathieu Benoit wrote:If I might be so honest and open with you all... I still having a hard time telling a 320kbit/s from a 44.1/16 wav file. Does that make me a bad engineer? Now between 160kbit/s and 44.1/16 wav, that's no porblem.... but the line gets pretty fine for me at a certain point.

I agree. Extremely high res compressed audio starts to get pretty close to full res, and depending on the material is completely satisfying as a listening medium in most environments IMO.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:41 pm
by Alain Benoit
I rip my CD's into iTunes at 320 and that is fine for background listening for me.

A.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:42 pm
by Mathieu Benoit
Malcolm Boyce wrote:
Mathieu Benoit wrote:If I might be so honest and open with you all... I still having a hard time telling a 320kbit/s from a 44.1/16 wav file. Does that make me a bad engineer? Now between 160kbit/s and 44.1/16 wav, that's no porblem.... but the line gets pretty fine for me at a certain point.

I agree. Extremely high res compressed audio starts to get pretty close to full res, and depending on the material is completely satisfying as a listening medium in most environments IMO.


But in a critical listening environment, how subtle are the differences to you?

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:46 pm
by Malcolm Boyce
Mathieu Benoit wrote:
Malcolm Boyce wrote:
Mathieu Benoit wrote:If I might be so honest and open with you all... I still having a hard time telling a 320kbit/s from a 44.1/16 wav file. Does that make me a bad engineer? Now between 160kbit/s and 44.1/16 wav, that's no porblem.... but the line gets pretty fine for me at a certain point.

I agree. Extremely high res compressed audio starts to get pretty close to full res, and depending on the material is completely satisfying as a listening medium in most environments IMO.


But in a critical listening environment, how subtle are the differences to you?
It really depends on the material to me at that point. Stuff that's extremely what I would call "Hi-Fi" still has a smeared quality to it. A lot of stuff I bet most couldn't tell consistently in a blind test.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:18 pm
by Scott DeVarenne
I'm fine with 320k. With headphones on, with certain music, I occasionally catch a little bit of slurring. That certain music is usually Bon Scott era AC/DC type stuff, when the instrumentation gets thick. I think its because the production of that stuff is so meat and potatoes (and wonderful), that the compression artifacts stand out. When there are synths, modulated delays flying everywhere, quadruple tracked guitars, phase/filter effects on groups of instruments or even the entire mix, well... a little bit of flanging on the hats or the vocal sibilants fits right in.

Re: Bandcamp

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:24 pm
by Alain Benoit
Scott DeVarenne wrote:............a little bit of flanging on the hats..................


Or a lot if you rip below 320.

A.