Death of the CD

[diatonis]

I sure that this topic has been discuss before but can't seem to find a thread to reply to.

I was wondering about the future of the CD. To me it appears that music is going to be delivered via internet MP3 downloads and played back on your computer or right into some type of 'I-Pod'. Photos, Album Art, Text, and Video about the band/music will also be able to playback on computer/ipod.

Does this mean the Death of the CD?

Do you think creating, manufacturing, marketing, and shipping CDs is going to be viable for say the next 5 years?

Any thoughts on the further of music delivery...

Also for those of us that have 850 cds of each album in our closets any thoughts on what to do with them (be nice)
thanks

[gravehill]

I certainly second to that the death of cd is due soon. But I don't think the alternative will be online downloading. There are still too many problems with that: increased risk and ease of piracy, worse sound quality and ineffective marketing channels are just some examples.

What, I think, will probably be the successor or cd is 96khz/24bit audio dvd. Probably just stereo at first but the possibility for surround sound is already there. How soon we'll see more surround audio dvds in large scale (some already exist) would depend on how fast average consumers start updating their stereo systems for surround.

I expect that would take still quite a while as it is not just a question of getting a new amplifier and more speakers, but to also find a place for the speakers where the surround sound would really make a difference.

Myself, I have my music equipment, stereos and computer set in a corner of a room and I would certainly find it difficult to find place for back speakers as I would probably have to suspend them from the roof in the middle of the room...

[Ponk]

I don't know if I'm just a relic, but I like recordings best when I can touch their sleeves and such. To me, an album downloaded from the internet is not a whole album. And still, it's the music that counts. Maybe my views will change.

[dmosc]

well, the CD has a lot going for it even now. There are mini-CDs that can be read with the same technology and the option of raising the density is always possible. DVDs for example. Maybe your music will come on DVDs later but you could still throw your old CD into the DVD player and it would play. Similarly, the PS3 will debut the next generation of DVDs which are considerably more dense. Altough I can't imagine why you'd need more than 40GB of space for audio in the future, I'm sure by the time we do there will be more dense optical storage disks that look exactly like today's CDs.

The only real drawbacks are when it's compared to Flash memory or some future solid state technology. However, I think we're a very long time away from the day when you can make a 40gb solid state memory chip as cheaply as a CD.

CDs I think are going to be around for a very long time and the longer they stay around, the harder it will be to get people away from them

[opg]

I love talking about this topic!

I spent a good amount of time worrying how I should make my music available to people- CDs only, mp3s only, a mix of both - and it is a difficult decision, especially for electronic music. Because of its general unpopularity, it would make sense to go the MP3 route. However, almost all electronic music fans are either musicians themselves or real audiophiles, so they wouldn't want to lose the quality of an album by owning just the mp3s.

You can't escape the jump in popularity of Flash players, iPods, etc., though. What appeals the most to me about mp3 players is that there are no moving parts, unlike the CD player, the record player, the cassette player, and so on. I always imagined that people would want music (and video) players to end up this way so there is less stuff that could break.

Just like Ponk said, I still need to have an actual product from the artist - the sleeve with artwork and other information. In another thread, I mentioned that my favorite song was "The Pyramid Song" by Radiohead on the Amnesiac album. I bought the special edition album that was contained in an actual book to resemble an old school library book. I'm sure you've seen it.

With that in mind, I always pictured (before mp3 players came out) something similar to a credit card with a sleeve. You zip it through/in your player, there are no moving parts, but you still get an actual product. Of course, actual credit cards could demagnetize, so it would have to be another type of material.

The downside to this is that it would make it costly for electronic musicians to release albums (or at least as costly as CDs, depending on how much the new device would cost). Also, you could never guarantee that piracy would go away. Once something is digital, there's no way around piracy.

The only advancement I see that is not CD-related is the ability of mp3 players and iPods to play uncompressed WAV files for lossless quality. All devices are continually getting more speed and file space, and internet downloads are the same. I imagine that being able to stream a 60MB WAV file from a website is not too far away...

[Kassen]

Yesterday I bought four records and transfered one cd to minidisk for easy consumption on the road. Frankly I don´t care about cd.

[diatonis]

Hi

I'm not as worried about piracy as much now as i was. I think much of the piracy from the paying mainstream will be taken care of, but I really have no info to back this up.

I too don't really care for the 128kbps MP3 that much. The 320 kbps MP3 is far supieror and sounds very close to non-compressed, but I can tell it's compressed.

I guess if your music is popular enough having a real CD is the way to go as long as you can sell them. From what I can see if many of the people I know are buying mp3's and not CDs. They don't purchase the whole album but rather just songs they like. It really changes the concept of album dynamics.

What do most non-musicians purchase more, the CD or MP3 downloads?

[ian-s]

As a non musician with DSL, I would prefer to download FLAC or MLP tracks

<= 128K is good for nothing really, >=160K+ or VBR is fine for most POP music but I still like uncompressed music and I like record stores. I especially love the rude assholes you usually find behind the counter, pretending to be busy

What I would like is to be able to walk into a store, choose tracks I want and have a CD burned on the spot, I would happily pay 50c per minute. I know some say you shouldn’t burn at high speeds but I sort of like the sound of a 40X burn, livens the sound stage and gives a good tempo (HIFI jargon sarcasm alert).

[zynthetix]

[mosc]

Good comments guys. I feel the mp3 just doesn't sound good enough. I still like CDs. But, as disk capacity keeps doubling every couple of years, Zynths terabyte drives will be practical before long - can't wait.

Still, a booklet that explains the music and photos beats a web page, IMHO. A lot of musicians are making limited production runs of hand made CDs that are more like art objects - things that are special and worth having as opposed to something stamped out by a computerised machine. (Hypnotique for example) I hope this trend continues to grow.

[Kassen]

Good point, Mosc. I think it´s important to choose a proper medium that suits your material. Fold-out record sleeves are wonderfull for soundtracks, Gescom made beautifull use of the minidisk medium and indeed cd is idealy suited for combining with booklets. So far I haven´t seen mp3 acomplish anything comparable. I might be willing to pay for executables that have soundfile players and present the material in a involving way though. I see no reason at all why experimental artists couldn´t release their albums for -for example- the playstation2, taking advantage of the processor to make random elements different each listening session, for example.

To me those aspects are much more exciting then just convenience, a large percentage of my music collection is downright uncomfortable, stylistically, and I don´t think convenience would add to the overall experience, I want *more* involving, not less.

[mosc]

[elektro80]

[Oskar]

[elektro80]

Well, yes.. but that isn´t a true "interaction" / "content writing" in the consumer´s end of the foodchain. These are different concepts.
We already have jazz and impro, we have the Arne Nordheim tape noodles from the 60s and we have algo music. All these are still not oriented towards end user interaction in the sense we are talking about here. There is however something called soundscultures and sound installations. Here we see a lot interactive concepts going on. What we aren´t seeing is a trend towards interactive music in the living room.. or the iPod.

I am not saying "interactive music " is bad or something like that, but interaction isn´t in huge demand. I think the soudn installations / concept art side of it probably has the hugest potential. What we will see more of will be music creation games.. but these will still be games.

I should stress that I am talking abut the consumer end of things here. What musicians/composers find intersting is a completely different issue.

[mosc]

Check out http://nosuch.com/tjt/bm/ and go down to the Lyre in the middle of the page and play the MPEG movies. That is interactive music. Maybe you are right, it is a game. So what does it matter what it is called?

[elektro80]

It can be argued that perforing music is a game.

Does it matter what we call it? Yes and no. I was trying not to take this OT, but I can do that of course. Within the context of the "death of CD" angle, I guess terms would be important to get right or at least we should agree on what we are talking about here.

If we are simply talking great ideas and why not have fun with the Playstation.. yes sure.. but interaction itself in the sense that the consumer can remake the latest U2 or 50 cent hit, then we aren´t talking music biz anymore, but rather games and game design. I am completely confident that there will be some very good game products coming if this kind, but this is not the future of music and neither a "better" CD.

[Kassen]

Yeah, I can go along with that. I realy wasn't thinking about "live remix games" as much as I was thinking about menu systems to select tracks that would match the music, little videos, etc. What you mentioned would be cool too, but more in a game context.

The one thing where I'm realy interested in computationally powerfull players is where random elements are concenrned. Instead of recording a composition with random elements they could be generated while listened too. I think that could be a giant leap forward for some composers....

[elektro80]

[Wan]

[Oskar]

[egw]

I like the idea of music that would be a little different each time you play it, but I think most people would be uncomfortable with this.

[elektro80]

[blue hell]

[elektro80]

Noodle radio! A great idea!