There is still a need, because a 13-song CD can still amount to around 500Mb and that’s a long wait even with 8Mbps connection (not that you achieve anything like). As you say, Lee, it’s primarily about kids carting 5,000 songs on a little stick with earphones.

Even on this laptop with crummy one-inch speakers, the Matchless hiQ samples (only half a minute long so not an onerous d/l) were much better defined than standard webclips.

Having said all that, I do encourage people to click on Acoustica’s link to his home site. There are samples of his compos that are a real pleasure to listen to; whether I could tell a Taylor from a Seagull or not, the tunes are good. Incidentally, unlike Realplayer-type stuff, it’s possible to run several of his tracks simultaneously. Mixmaster 😀

MP3 compression saps the life out of any recording, it’s great for a convenient way to access your record collection, but you pay the price with poor audio quality, you don’t hear the difference so much with a personal MP3/CD player or computer playback, but if you put that same MP3 source through a decent hi-fi the sound difference between MP3 vs CD and Vinyl is very clear.
MP3 was developed as a way of compressing audio sound files to a size that could be easily transmitted over the internet and stored on a local drive, but with the vast increase in speeds over the internet and development of massive storage devices is there any need for MP3 compression?
But i suppose most people would rather have 65,000 compressed tracks than 600 uncompressed, i know which one i would choose.

That’s an interesting link, Guy. It is difficult to make comparisons, and I think that mp3 clips make it harder than “being there”, but I did notice something:

I clicked on about 8 of them and listened carefully. To me, the Behringer (and I do think Behringer offer good VFM) sounded dull, flat and lifeless. The protube (or whatever it was called) had an emphasis on the lower mids that valve amplification often has. It wasn’t my favourite for the L’arrivee, even if it might have worked well for another source.

What do others think?

I’ll try to put something up here ASAP, but I’ll need to borrow a decent mic first as I generally record with undersaddle pickups on all my acoustics (as I’m only usually recording to remember stuff).

It might be a valid thing to post up samples using both mic and pickup to compare.

Watch this space.

I like the idea because I enjoy listening to your playing, Guy. A lot of others would be less confident (I’d be one of those “apologies in advance for my terrible playing etc” types).

The biggest technical drawback, though, defeats even the above variables; the awful effect of file compression when punting mp3s up and down the bandwidth. On a vintage amps forum, a mod put up a “can you tell the difference between this modeller and two classic valve amps?” thread, using the same kit to record. I could, just about, because I am a total valve-sniffing bore of the first magnitude. HST, all three clips sounded terrible from a tone point of view. I own a Superbass and a Bogen-derived 6L6 (the two valve amps used) and I barely recognized them in the clips.

Similarly, I’d suspect, with subtle things like different acoustic guitars. Clips are OK for obvious changes in style, but they’re not so clear in tone nuances. I listened in to a manufacturer’s Hi-Q clips (Matchless DC30, IIRC) which was better, but that’s a lot of bandwidth I think.

Way too many, is it the guitar that sounds good? maybe it was the mic? or the recorder? post effects? valve preamp? Mastering? my head hurts.