Barenaked USB Drive 519
CryptoKnight writes "The Barenaked Ladies are releasing their next album via a reusable 128 MB USB flash drive. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article: 'Rather than distribute via CD, DVD or download, the Barenaked Ladies are making their newest selection of songs, videos and exclusive material available on a USB flash drive. Nettwerk Music Group is releasing Barenaked on a Stick beginning today, says the Hollywood Reporter. It plays on PCs, Macs and any other audio product with a USB port -- like some car stereos -- and costs $30.'"
If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Funny)
$30 for some songs?!?
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:4, Informative)
MP3 was great when you could use your modem and download a full (Stereo!) song in less then 10 minutes, but I've always hated the heavy distorted sounds with cymbals and guitars. Have you listened to the radio lately? All the big music stations in my area have converted to these digital juke box things - which I'm sure are great for them but it's very obviously low quality 128Kbps encoding and I hate listening to it.
In the end though I guess I'd rather have 128Kbps MP3's then higher quality VBR 384K WMA's or HQ iTunes songs with DRM.
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:3, Interesting)
Where did it say 128Kbps? (Score:5, Informative)
Barenaked Ladies' previous album Maroon contains 12 tracks at about 47 minutes of music. I ripped the CD to MP3s with a bitrate of 192Kbps resulting in about 65MB. That's just over half the available space on a 128MB USB drive.
Just for the sake of argument (this is Slashdot after all) let's say that they release an even bigger album on the USB drive--a full hour of music. That gives us:
That is not bad at all. Considering that 192Kbps is very good quality and 256Kbps is considered to be at least CD quality audio (there should be no noticeable artifacts even to the most astute listener), this sounds like a good deal.
If I were to guess, I'd bet they encode the files with a constant bitrate of 256Kbps. Using this bitrate they could fit about 65 minutes of music on the 128MB USB drive.
Don't be so down on it (Score:5, Funny)
Think of it. With this device you can keep 128MB of raw data under there.
Hah! I just made you say underwear [twin-music.com]!
Re:Don't be so down on it (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's a cool idea - definitely new & creative. They'll get a lot of free publicity.
Keep 128MB? As in recycle it? What for?
Someone totes a 128MB stick?
I must be getting lazy. Right now, I only have 2 USB 2GB sticks[1], a USB WiFi on-a-stick, and a Cross Ion pen on my lanyard. I'm shopping for a laser pointer, but I haven't found the right one yet.
I've thought about getting one of the green ones which melts styrofoam cups from across the room. Think Geek used to have them, but now, I onl
Re:Don't be so down on it (Score:5, Funny)
A man who takes his laser pointer purchases seriously. I can respect that.
Re:Don't be so down on it (Score:3, Interesting)
http://megalaser.com/ [megalaser.com]
Or, for the REALLY serious laser pointer enthusiast:
http://www.wickedlasers.com/products.php?var=ok&co ntent=elite [wickedlasers.com]
Nothing like a 125mW green compared to a puny 3mw red pointer
Re:Don't be so down on it (Score:3, Insightful)
USB? great i can use it on a
Re:Don't be so down on it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ebay plain 128 MB USB drive sells for $15 - $20 US
Average BNL cd sells for $14 to $15 US on amazon, shipping extra..
So, it's not an absurd price.
Oh, and a few details from the amazon page:
# 128mg Flash Memory USB drive (2.0 technology, also maintains compatibility with USB 1.1)
# Contains nearly 30 tracks of music (in MP3 file format), PLUS in-studio video snippets, live concert excerpts and more
# Reusable drive can be used for any and all file types (limited to capacity of flash drive)
# MP3 files included are completely DRM-free
Also, it's 29 songs, cost you $29.00 on itunes for the works.
It's not out of line, an interesting way to attract attention!
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Insightful)
How much for the 1gigabyte version with the flac songs?
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you can get most of the music, but it'd cost ~$30, and you don't get the extra stuff or a USB stick out of the deal. (Buying on your own though, you get a CD and a full show in perfect quality, so I guess it's a tossup which you prefer.)
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even CD's are compressed down to their sample rate. Of course, they're also compressed to maximize volume thus destroying their dynamic range. [georgegraham.com]
I'd rather have a cassette that was mastered well than a modern CD that has been smashed up against the noise ceiling. A 256 kbps VBR MP3 in the hands of someone who cares will sound a lot better than a studio producer in a Porsche mashing 100 years of audio engineering in a misguided attempt to be louder than Howard Stern.
Dude! You gotta stop buying Britney Spears CDs! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Compression" -- ie lossy data stuffing -- is a totally different thing to "compression" -- ie fiddling the freqs to make a CD seem "louder". I can understand why you'd be confused, since they use the same word for both. Kinda like "bad" meaning "bad" - but also, if you're Michael Jackson, meaning "really really good". English is a bitch like that. "Bitch" as in "bitching" -- it's a vital feature of all languages that words can mean more than one thing.
And far from being a common thing, the misuse of the kind of compression you are wailing about is usually limited to the worst of the worst of throwaway pop music.
Most artists, labels, studios, and mastering engineers are, literally, psychotic about maintaining sound quality, which is one of the reasons a CD that's even just averagely mastered will beat your "well mastered cassette" any day of the week and six times on Sunday.
Simply _playing_ a cassette stretches the tape and starts scrubbing away at the data. And that's not even to mention the difference in dynamic range. From the article that you linked to yet obviously didn't read:
"[with CDs] consumers could purchase a recording in a medium whose dynamic range exceeded that of $20,000 professional tape machines."
Re:Dude! You gotta stop buying Britney Spears CDs! (Score:5, Informative)
I'll (probably foolishly) assume this is a serious question.
Audio "wars" happen for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it's in the interests of so many people to "stretch the truth" about sound.
From the makers and sellers of audio equipment (500 watts per channel!!!!) to the goldenears who run mastering studios (gotta have NS1s, dude, anything else is, like, seriously shit) to amateurs who want to justify the fact that they paid $70 for 7 cents worth of copper cable (most of the quality loss comes betweent the amp and the speaker, you know).
All those people -- the first two categories, you'll notice, could be referred to as "audio professionals" -- are lying, or at the very least being very casual with the truth in an effort to either sell more product, book more business, or not seem like a schmuck.
Your original post, and your confusion about what "compression" actually means wrt mastering techniques is a classic example of a classic misunderstanding that's been banging around in pro-audio circles for a long, long time, and has its origin in the "tape wars" of the 1960s. That war was started by the proponents of the two different ways of aligning the magnetic bits on a section of tape.... needless to say both ways worked, but there were two competing sales teams at work.
The article you linked to suffers from a combination of diseases: the "good old days" virus combined with a heavy dose of the "misunderstanding basic physical principles" 'flu. Someone else, in other words, wanting to sound like an "expert" on sound so they can "we don't do that shit here" in their sales pitch and grab a few more customers.
Please, don't think I expect you to believe me! I only worked fixing the computers in one of the world's top mastering studios for 4 years, and kept my ears open, so what the f*** do I know? You gotta bi-wire _everything_ dude, it's the only way...
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, so I can honestly say, SHUT UP! You are going after the same old arguments that every audiophile (or audio-dope) uses. The fact is analog has its great number of problems, including more artifact issues. I am sure you know of what I speak, all those popping type sounds you get from your cassette or record. Real nice analog audio. Copying analog repeatedly obviously has its problems as well because analog has more susceptibility to interferences, which goes back to your sound artifacts.
To answer your question about the video, the sibling to this has it right. It has to do with the way video is drawn on a CRT versus the way video is drawn on a standard television and why video game consoles still typically run at 30 fps and computers run video at 60 fps and up. DVD audio is mostly a dumb idea to sale items multiple times, though it has added the ability for, get this, multiple channel audio.
On the line of video, are you going to contend that VCR or Laser Disc look better then DVDs. I love the age old argument but my analog sounds better argument, the audio-phile constant fall back that they swear it sounds better. I will guarantee that most everyone would not be able to tell the difference in the audio signals or would choose the digital ones as superior. If you have a specific example, it is quite possible that the specific example is one of those aberrations where someone did not properly do their sampling. For some reason I am reminded of a video about being emo...
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:3, Informative)
Why? By using FLAC, you can fit more into the same space than if you use WAV files. Being a lossless codec, FLAC allows you to uncompress/convert back to WAV at will, if that's what you want.
--
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:2)
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Funny)
wow (Score:4, Funny)
Re:wow (Score:2, Funny)
Re:wow (Score:5, Funny)
Lisa: Hootie and the Blowfish?
Wiggum: It's cheaper than blank tape.
Re:wow (Score:3, Funny)
In Denmark where I live we have special taxes for blank media.
A blank USB drive has a tax of about 66 US cent per piece, and that money goes to the music industry no matter what the drive is used for.
For blank VHS tapes the situation is even worse. Here it is quite common to find VHS tapes with movies on them at lower prices than blank tapes.
Way to stick it to the man. (Score:2, Insightful)
Psst - I went to the web site and there are no naked ladies in the band
No SD please, we're British (Score:2, Informative)
Secure Digital cards support the SDMI copy-protection spec [sdcard.org] (secure from you, not for you), thus opening "a Pandora's box of new marketing possibilities".
Stick to MMC (MultiMediaCard), which is essentially SD minus the copy-crippling mechanism.
Re:Way to stick it to the man. (Score:2)
I think the iTunes model is the better way to go. Considering that you have broadband, you get the content faster and without the physical waist. Of course, there is the DRM and the iPod that will be obsolete by next
Re:Way to stick it to the man. (Score:5, Funny)
Considering that you have broadband, you get the content faster and without the physical waist.
That's weird, having broadband and fast content have increased my physical waist.
Let me get this straight... (Score:2, Insightful)
-Nick
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe they're selling it at a big loss.
Where do we download this, anyhow?
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:2)
From the article...
"This 128 reusable drive contains 29 songs, including the band's 2004 "Barenaked for the Holidays" album, in MP3 format along with live tracks, in-concert spoken quips, album art, photos, videos and more."
But that is the third paragraph of a very long, three paragraph article. It is understandable you wouldn't want to spend so much time reading such a lenghty text.
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're charging $30 for an album with compressed audio? No thanks.
No, they're charging $25 for a USB memory card and including a double album of compressed audio for $5.
About time (Score:2)
What about the music Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about the music Quality? (Score:2, Funny)
What if it's the artist's intention of creating music that sounds slightly compressed? Think the compression as a sort of an instrument.
Re:What about the music Quality? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about the music Quality? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called answering a question without being a jerk, try it.
Not seeing the usefulness? (Score:2)
Re:Not seeing the usefulness? (Score:2)
128MB is a pretty small CD. One of the odd things about the download culture is that people seem to have become used to the idea of paying more for a degraded (ie, lossily compressed) product.
TWW
Re:Not seeing the usefulness? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not enough bits (Score:5, Insightful)
I would hate to see situations like this, where albums are only avialable in a lossy format, become the norm
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
'Lossy' is what I meant to say (Score:4, Informative)
Preview is a good thing!
"Compression" (Score:2, Interesting)
If I am paying for music, I want to get all the bits
Are you getting all the bits even when you buy a CD? Nowadays, most pop music is mastered through a limiter and a saturator to make it sound louder on portable CD players. Sending the signal against the -1 and +1 rails discards almost all the information during a drum hit, making the end result much less natural and less "punchy". See also loudness race [google.com].
Re:"Compression" (Score:2)
However this is much different than selling music in a lossy codec. Of course many audiofiles argue that the quantization on a CD is not good enough for hi-fidelty. But converting from one lossy
Let me make it clearer (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you sure you're talking about the same meaning of "compression?"
I know there are two different kinds of audio compression (as evidenced by Wikipedia's disambiguation page [wikipedia.org]), and they can sit at various points in the production chain:
Re:Not enough bits (Score:3, Insightful)
It did happen. It was the switch from analog to digital. All digital formats are inherently lossy. So the question is, what is the critical bitrate?
Ultimately, all analog formats are lossy too, since there's a limit to the fidelity of a given format which limits the amount of information that can be stored on a given medium.
Re:Not enough bits (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Won't work well with significant others... (Score:5, Funny)
You: Barenaked ladies...why?
SLAP!
Re:Won't work well with significant others... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Won't work well with significant others... (Score:2)
"Album" name... (Score:3, Funny)
FTFA (Score:3, Interesting)
"This 128 reusable drive contains 29 songs, including the band's 2004 "Barenaked for the Holidays" album, in MP3 format along with live tracks, in-concert spoken quips, album art, photos, videos and more."
Reusable. MP3 format.
I may actually get it. Granted, 128MB isn't nearly large enough for my BNL boot collection (~2gb or so), but I could use a memory key and $30 isn't too bad a price.. Here's hoping _McDonald's Girl_ and/or _Lovers in a Dangerous Time_ are on there...
Full credit for trying something different... (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case the sum of the parts is greater than the items. Sure the music can be delivered cheaper and a memory stick is cheap. But the willingness to try something a little bit different just to see what happens is worth some applause.
By the way, these guys produce good music. They are worthy of support.
Re:Full credit for trying something different... (Score:5, Informative)
From another article [canada.com]:
However, that last paragraph isn't exactly accurate. What you could download was the whole song, but into it was spliced (and not mixed, so it was easily undone) several of the band members encouraging people to go out and buy the album. One segment was an outgoing answering machine message...
And in 2003 they put instrumental versions of most of the songs on their then-current album on the P2P networks. Not that encouraging karaoke is that great a thing to do, though...
Re:Full credit for trying something different... (Score:4, Informative)
Everyones complaining... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bring your own container! (Score:5, Funny)
Plus I'm sure the music publishers would pass the savings on to us consumers.
Apparently this idea is in development (Score:2)
Re:Bring your own container! (Score:3, Funny)
Ahhh. I see you've met "old gushy."
Album Art (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me get this straight... (Score:2, Insightful)
The audio's lower quality
It doesn't work in my car
That's only slightly more practical than releasing your album on the first 600 meg of a 500 gig drive, for $200 each.
Getting it straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
The audio's lower quality
You get about 3 times as many songs as you would on a CD.
You can burn it to CD.
This is like them releasing it as an iTMS exclusive, except:
It's not DRMed.
They throw in a 128M flash drive for free.
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
yes it does, and has twice as many songs, and extra content. I have been arguing for a while that if the labels want to sell recording, they need to follow the lead of movies on DVD and have bonus content. Anyway, there are ways to lower the total cost.
The audio's lower quality
Yes, and I suppose that you are one of those that believe the average $200 home system or car stereo can accurately reproduce the high frequencies and other detail that one loses when one compresses. In
OK, big BNL fan here, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
What worries me is that it'll be a little too easy to *lose* your music from that drive
More than one album (Score:2)
I like this not (Score:3, Insightful)
This fits in well with plans [arstechnica.com] to make Windows Vista only play DVDs at full quality using the aforementioned Trusted Output Devices [tm]
Bad idea... (Score:2)
quality? (Score:2)
Wow, that's a whole lot of material to try to cram into a 128MB drive. I'm guessing the bitrate and resolutions for all of that stuff is quite low...
Re:quality? (Score:2)
128MB == 125MiB
192kbps with a decent codec [like lame with q=2] produces sufficiently high quality audio as to be good on a good stereo setup [e.g. one where you can often hear distortions].
At 128kbps you could cram 133 minutes in 125MiB, though with FAT overhead you're likely limited to about 121MiB which is 129 minutes.
128kbps though wouldn't be good enough for most music on a sufficently responsive stereo. Maybe good enough for headphones in on a plane or bus
Tom
Other releases not mentioned (Score:3, Funny)
A glimpse of the future (sort of) (Score:5, Interesting)
By the way, I *do* understand that in TFA the tracks are unencumbered MP3, but my point is about the limited future for CD distribution. No slight against BNL is intended, though I'm not thrilled that they're only distributing lossy encodings.
-DA
Oh, and by the way, here are a few stores where you can buy unencumbered music electronically:
www.magnatune.com (lossless even!)
www.bleep.com (lots of great electronica, including Boards of Canada)
Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
We seem to enjoy missing the point, so we start arguing about whether other bands will follow. I will put this in for kicks:
Some might, but upping the distribution costs that much is not profitable long term since consumers wont pay $30 for the same thing everytime.
Re:Marketing (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, to clarify a bit as someone who is in advertising and knows a fair bit about how publicists are paid...they typically don't get paid based on the specific hype they generate, since its really a crap shoot. Rather, there services are retained for what is usually a set fee (which may or may not include performance incentives).
I know you were just using a figure of speech, but just though I'd give an insightful little nugget about them. So yes
What was that song?? (Score:3, Funny)
Tech Front Runners (Score:5, Interesting)
I've bought their last three CD's online (including a solo project by Steven Page) with great ease and little expense. The last two were available in flac format so no lossless problems there. They even came with all the album artwork and lyric sheet info available in PDF format.
When 'Maroon' was released they were one of the first bands to provide dummy versions of the song on file sharing networks. (You could download a 40 meg uncompressed file where the song started up but then to band members came on and started shilling their CD in a good natured way over the top of the tunes)
When 'Everything to Everyone' was released a few years ago, I recall trying to get a copy of it from a file sharing network because here in Australia I couldn't get my hands on the CD for months. They flooded the network with all the tracks from the new album without the vocal tracks, so I had to wait. Now, because of their embracement of selling on the web, I don't have to.
Well, this sucks! (Score:3, Insightful)
Very forward thinking, sell whole concerts in MP3 (Score:4, Informative)
The MP3's are really decent too, 192k.
The great thing is the concerts are not just the songs, but also the extras (like the impromptu raps) - which are really the whole reason to go to BNL concerts in the first place.
Nettwork is also the company that came out proclaiming something along the lines of them never using DRM on any CD's released by the artists under them.
seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
Make Up Your Mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn, folks. Make up your minds.
If you like the music, $30 for better than two albums is a pretty fair price. If you would rather purchase a different format, maybe suggest it to them in a constructive manner. You might be suprised.
Re:Wow only $30... (Score:5, Interesting)
For a one-album set of songs, I don't see this working except for the novelty, unless it's billed as "128 MB USB stick (with Barenaked Ladies songs)" instead of "Barenaked Ladies songs (on a USB stick)." It reminds me of school fundraisers where you're selling tickets to an event with candy. It's always easier to sell people candy with a ticket as a bonus than to sell them a ticket with candy as a bonus.
On the other hand, for 29 songs, the cost should really be compared to a 2-CD set. At that point, $30 isn't that much more than $25.
Re:Wow only $30... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow only $30... (Score:5, Insightful)
iTunes is DRMed. Also, according to TFA it has 29 songs plus extras (videos etc).
Re:Wow only $30... (Score:2)
Depending on where you buy it and how much you pay for shipping, tax if you buy locally, etc., you might easily pay that much for an empty 128 MB flash drive. IOW, if you have any real use for the drive, the music is nearly free
The Real Reason (Score:2)
Re:Wow only $30... (Score:3, Insightful)
"This 128 reusable drive contains 29 songs, including the band's 2004 "Barenaked for the Holidays" album, in MP3 format along with live tracks, in-concert spoken quips, album art, photos, videos and more."
I think if you are a BNL fan, this would be well worth it
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Informative)
This 128 reusable drive contains 29 songs, including the band's 2004 "Barenaked for the Holidays" album, in MP3 format along with live tracks, in-concert spoken quips, album art, photos, videos and more.
MP3 format == non-DRM'd format. Now, the article could be wrong, but that's what it says. I have no reason to doubt that it will be MP3 format though, as BNL has been making MP3s of their concerts [werkshop.com] available for years now. Say what you will about their music (though I happen to really like them), but they've stayed true to keeping their music unfettered with DRM crud.
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DRM? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:DRM? (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you get a free USB flash drive when you buy this thing, but seriously, it's not worth the price difference. One store chain here just had a sale on 512 MB flash drives for 20 EUR - that's 5 EUR for 128 MB, which is nowhere near the extra 15 USD you
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no way to respond to that except to say, "No, it's not." And it's not. Maybe if you had fewer CDs, you'd have more scratches. Not that scratches, themselves, actually pose much of a problem until your sister tosses it in the back seat of your car and leaves it there for a few days while her friends sit on it. USB drives are safe from that. And while it
Re:Music industry listening? (Score:2)
Re:Music industry listening? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Funny)
I hope to god that AOL adopts this distribution method!!!
;-)