[Boris Lau]

Hi all,

I have recorded some material at a concert using a Zoom H-2, converted
it to mp3 using lame at high quality, VBR with 160kbps on average. The
sound could probably be improved, but I'm happy with it.

Now I have uploaded the tunes to myspace. When listening through that
Flash player, it is obvious that the highs above 12kHz are missing, I
assume that happened during another audio format conversion by myspace.

Do you know what's going on, and what I can do to avoid this? Lower
bitrates? Boosted highs?

Thanks for any hints,
Boris

[Anahata]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:39:04 +0100, Boris Lau wrote:

Now I have uploaded the tunes to myspace. When listening through that
Flash player, it is obvious that the highs above 12kHz are missing, I
assume that happened during another audio format conversion by myspace.

Do you know what's going on, and what I can do to avoid this? Lower
bitrates? Boosted highs?

I think you answered the question. MySpace converts it to whatever they
use, which I suspect is whatever Adobe Flash uses.

You might get an improvement by going for a higher bit rate to start
with, but it will still be degraded by Myspace. Ultimately you are
constrained by their file size limit in what you upload.

--
Anahata
==//== 01638 720444
http://www.treewind.co.uk ==//== http://www.myspace.com/maryanahata

[Boris Lau]

anahata wrote:
You might get an improvement by going for a higher bit rate to start
with, but it will still be degraded by Myspace. Ultimately you are
constrained by their file size limit in what you upload.

Hm, maybe it get's better if I start with a LOWER file size, such that
myspace thingy does not consider to do the recompression. Will try that...

Boris

[Phil W]

Boris Lau wrote:
Hi all,

I have recorded some material at a concert using a Zoom H-2, converted
it to mp3 using lame at high quality, VBR with 160kbps on average. The
sound could probably be improved, but I'm happy with it.

Now I have uploaded the tunes to myspace. When listening through that
Flash player, it is obvious that the highs above 12kHz are missing, I
assume that happened during another audio format conversion by
myspace.
Do you know what's going on, and what I can do to avoid this? Lower
bitrates? Boosted highs?

I can only guess, but I would suspect, that Myspace (as well as many other
sites of that kind) converts the uploaded MP3 files to a proprietary format
with a *fixed* relatively low bitrate. This makes streaming easier for them.
Smaller files, all at the same bitrate - less traffic costs and they know,
"what´s going out" for their audio streams.
An interesting experiment could be to allow download of the song and then
check out, which format the downloaded file has. Is it the same format and
quality, that you uploaded it with? "Long" ago, the quality remained the
same - but about a year or so ago, I noticed, the downloads were
automatically squashed down to 96 kbps MP3. Seems like, this is not the case
anymore.

But what´s really going on there behind the scenes... I think, only the
folks at Myspace could tell you for sure and I doubt, they want to tell you
or anyone else outside their company.

Lower bitrates will probably rather cut more highs, so this won´t help your
problem.
Boosting highs before uploading to Myspace might also not help, if the
problem is really due to automatic conversion to a relatively low bitrate.
In this case, the highs will get lost anyway, no matter how extremely
they´re boosted before. The problem is a kind of "hi cut" filter caused by
lower bitrate that you cannot control, which affects the sound.

The best option is probably to regard is this way:
streams are usually in the lowest acceptable quality to keep file sizes as
small as possible. This is advantageous for flawless streaming even with
slower connections. A stream, at least nowadays, will typically be of lower
quality than a "full quality" download.

When I listen to music on sites like Myspace, I don´t care about perfect
sound quality. I´m interested in the character of the music then... If I
like, what I hear, I start looking for options to find better quality
recordings of this material.


Phil

[Richard Crowley]

"Boris Lau" wrote ...
anahata wrote:
You might get an improvement by going for a higher bit rate to start
with, but it will still be degraded by Myspace. Ultimately you are
constrained by their file size limit in what you upload.

Hm, maybe it get's better if I start with a LOWER file size, such that
myspace thingy does not consider to do the recompression. Will try that...

I wouldn't bet that would be successful, either. Those sites aren't designed
to distribute decent quality music. If you want good-sounding music down-
loads, put your MP3 files up somewhere else and provide links on MySpace.

[Boris Lau]

Richard Crowley wrote:
I wouldn't bet that would be successful, either. Those sites aren't designed
to distribute decent quality music. If you want good-sounding music down-
loads, put your MP3 files up somewhere else and provide links on MySpace.

True, true. But I discovered that on other myspace pages the sound seems
to be better, at least not lacking the highs that badly...

Boris

[Sean Conolly]

"Boris Lau" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I have recorded some material at a concert using a Zoom H-2, converted it
to mp3 using lame at high quality, VBR with 160kbps on average. The sound
could probably be improved, but I'm happy with it.

Now I have uploaded the tunes to myspace. When listening through that
Flash player, it is obvious that the highs above 12kHz are missing, I
assume that happened during another audio format conversion by myspace.

Do you know what's going on, and what I can do to avoid this? Lower
bitrates? Boosted highs?

I went through this same exercise recently with my band's page. Myspace will
check the file to see what the format is and convert as needed to meet their
requirements, but the the result isn't good since it's starting with one
compressed format and going to another, as you've discovered.

The trick is to use a format that meets their requirements in the first
place, so it's gets posted without conversion. What I came up with was MPEG1
format, no VBR, 128kbs stereo. You may be able to use a higher bitrate, but
last I checked the Flash player doesn't support VBR at all. I use CD-EX with
the LAME encoder to do the MP3 conversion, and it works great.

Hope this helps,
Sean

[Boris Lau]

Sean Conolly wrote:
The trick is to use a format that meets their requirements in the first
place, so it's gets posted without conversion. What I came up with was MPEG1
format, no VBR, 128kbs stereo. You may be able to use a higher bitrate, but
last I checked the Flash player doesn't support VBR at all. I use CD-EX with
the LAME encoder to do the MP3 conversion, and it works great.

That makes sense, thanks a lot!
Boris

[Richard Crowley]

"Boris Lau" wrote...
Richard Crowley wrote:
I wouldn't bet that would be successful, either. Those sites aren't
designed
to distribute decent quality music. If you want good-sounding music down-
loads, put your MP3 files up somewhere else and provide links on MySpace.

True, true. But I discovered that on other myspace pages the sound seems
to be better, at least not lacking the highs that badly...

Then I would email the people who put them up and ask for their method.
If there is anyone else in this forum who posts music to MySpace, they
have not identified themselves here.

[polymod]

"Sean Conolly" wrote in message
...
"Boris Lau" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I have recorded some material at a concert using a Zoom H-2, converted
it
to mp3 using lame at high quality, VBR with 160kbps on average. The
sound
could probably be improved, but I'm happy with it.

Now I have uploaded the tunes to myspace. When listening through that
Flash player, it is obvious that the highs above 12kHz are missing, I
assume that happened during another audio format conversion by myspace.

Do you know what's going on, and what I can do to avoid this? Lower
bitrates? Boosted highs?

I went through this same exercise recently with my band's page. Myspace
will
check the file to see what the format is and convert as needed to meet
their
requirements, but the the result isn't good since it's starting with one
compressed format and going to another, as you've discovered.

The trick is to use a format that meets their requirements in the first
place, so it's gets posted without conversion. What I came up with was
MPEG1
format, no VBR, 128kbs stereo. You may be able to use a higher bitrate,
but
last I checked the Flash player doesn't support VBR at all. I use CD-EX
with
the LAME encoder to do the MP3 conversion, and it works great.

Ditto here.

Poly

[Andre Majorel]

On 2008-11-14, Sean Conolly wrote:
"Boris Lau" wrote in message
...

I have recorded some material at a concert using a Zoom H-2,
converted it to mp3 using lame at high quality, VBR with
160kbps on average. The sound could probably be improved, but
I'm happy with it.

Now I have uploaded the tunes to myspace. When listening
through that Flash player, it is obvious that the highs above
12kHz are missing, I assume that happened during another
audio format conversion by myspace.

The trick is to use a format that meets their requirements in
the first place, so it's gets posted without conversion. What
I came up with was MPEG1 format, no VBR, 128kbs stereo. You
may be able to use a higher bitrate, but last I checked the
Flash player doesn't support VBR at all.

According to Mplayer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA
is 192 kbps stereo. That was uploaded in 2007, though. Youtube
might have lowered the bar since then.

--
André Majorel URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/
You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not
the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists -- Abbie Hoffman.

[Boris Lau]

Sean Conolly schrieb:
The trick is to use a format that meets their requirements in the first
place, so it's gets posted without conversion. What I came up with was MPEG1
format, no VBR, 128kbs stereo. You may be able to use a higher bitrate, but
last I checked the Flash player doesn't support VBR at all. I use CD-EX with
the LAME encoder to do the MP3 conversion, and it works great.

Hi Sean,

still no success. I have tried lame with the options -h -b 128, but on
the myspace page it still sounds like before. Can you tell me what
options you use for lame?

Best,
Boris


--
http://www.borislau.de - computer science, music, photos

[Boris Lau]

Boris Lau schrieb:
still no success. I have tried lame with the options -h -b 128, but on
the myspace page it still sounds like before. Can you tell me what
options you use for lame?

meanwhile I've tried -b 96 --cbr to ensure constant bitrate at 96, still
no success. Too bad... Guess I have to link directly to the songs...

Best,
Boris


--
http://www.borislau.de - computer science, music, photos

[Sean Conolly]

"Boris Lau" wrote in message
...
Sean Conolly schrieb:
The trick is to use a format that meets their requirements in the first
place, so it's gets posted without conversion. What I came up with was
MPEG1 format, no VBR, 128kbs stereo. You may be able to use a higher
bitrate, but last I checked the Flash player doesn't support VBR at all.
I use CD-EX with the LAME encoder to do the MP3 conversion, and it works
great.

Hi Sean,

still no success. I have tried lame with the options -h -b 128, but on the
myspace page it still sounds like before. Can you tell me what options you
use for lame?

I don't use lame from the command line, so I don't know what the actual
options are. I use CD-EX as a shell for lame (and a CD ripper,etc)
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=download

I use it with these exact options and it works every time:
MPEG1
Stereo
Quality=5
sample rate=44100
VBR disabled

Just to make sure I'm not low-balling you on the sound quality, take a
listen to my stuff - maybe what you're looking for is better than I've been
using:
http://www.myspace.com/redlineheroes

It can be done, you just have to be persistant to find the right way.

Hope this helps,

Sean