I'm sold on Blogging!

I'm sold on blogging.

What I didn't realize about blogging until I did it, is that it's a very self-indulgent experience. And who doesn't like some self indulgence from time to time?

Until recently, the publishing of “works” was typically reserved for people with credibility, but now everybody can do it, including me.

It's not necessary, but it's still pretty special when someone you know has read your work, and it's really cool when it can become a conversation piece.

It's not easy to write all the time, and really hard to be consistently interesting. So blogging has helped put that into perspective as well.

The MP3 file is your parent's digital audio format

The MP3 file is as old as the Bangles, the soap opera Dallas, and the first Friday the 13th movie.

I just did a bunch of research for a pretend essay that would compare and contrast the MP3 file to the CD. I've never been a fan of the MP3 and this research gave me even more reasons to believe that there are much better alternatives to what is now deemed "the worldwide standard" for music consumption (ISO 1991).

When people think about CD's they often associate them with the 80's. Well I got news for you, the audio compression technology that was first developed, and essentially resulted in the creation of the MP3 file, started in the 80's. You can now start associating the MP3 file with the already lengthy list of 80's memories, that includes hair metal, guitars that shoot lighting bolts out of the end, and cheesy mustaches, just to name a few. The point is that the MP3 is just as out of date as CD's are.

Let me be clear... I am all for the creation of the digital audio file. I do, however, take exception to the fact that the MP3 is the most popular type.

Technology has evolved to the point where it's not a burden for people to use uncompressed wave files (PCM), even for P2P sharing. If downloading wave files is inconvenient because it takes too much time, FLAC (stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an excellent alternative.

FLAC encoding technology compresses audio files using a “lossless” method that renders the file smaller, but without audio degradation. I believe it compresses the files at a 6:1 ratio, whereas an MP3 is compressed at a 10:1 ratio (and is not truly stereo separated). FLAC just sounds way better than MP3, and it's almost half the size of an uncompressed Wave file. To put that into perspective: a 4 minute song in MP3 format compressed at a sample and bit rate of 44.1-128 is approximately 5 megabytes (MB) in size. Which means that the Wave file is around 50 MB and the FLAC file would be around 8 MB.

Glaven!

I know most people can't tell the difference between MP3 files, CD's, or Wave files, but most people can't tell the difference between the "handling" of a BMW and a Buick, but that doesn't mean there isn't one, and that we shouldn't all want to drive BMW's if we could... Okay, so that's a terrible analogy. I don't even want a BMW.

The point is that, so long as you agree that the available technology makes downloading FLAC files just as convenient as MP3 files, than it serves to reason that the worldwide standard should be the newer, better technology.

In case you're not convinced about the FLAC file yet, this might help. FLAC is an open source file format, which means that you don't have to pay licensing fees to use it. So if you wrote a piece of software that has an audio component to it, you could use the FLAC source code and codecs without having to pay for it, and it's totally legit. OGG VORBIS is another example of an open source file format, and it too sounds better than MP3.

The MP3 was developed by a company called Fraunhofer (in conjunction with AT&T), and any company that has MP3 encoding technology built into the core of the product has to pay licensing to Fraunhofer (EG: Microsoft Windows, Apple operating systems, Pro Tools, Adobe Audition, essentially any application that can trans-code to and from the MP3 format etc...).

So even at a developmental level the FLAC file makes more sense. I hope that consumers smarten up and demand a higher standard of audio enjoyment. In this case, we can have both the convenience of digital audio (compact, portable, liquid), without sacrificing sonic quality.

I'm sure most people still don't care, cause they are listening to The Pussycat Dolls, and who the hell wants to listen to that in high fidelity?

Matthew Good Show Review

Matthew Good

Saturday November 21, 2009

Burton Cummings Theatre

Matthew Good keeps banter and frills to a minimum and lets tunes from his new album do the talking.

Good rolled into town to perform at the Burton Cummings Theatre on November 21^st with his band, comprised of guitarist Stuart Cameron, drummer Blake Manning and bass player Milos Angelov, in support of his latest CD, Vancouver.

The band took the stage at 8:30 PM sharp, and without so much as a greeting to the sold out crowd at the Burt, Good grabbed an acoustic guitar and began strumming the opening riff to the title track from his 2003 release, Avalanche.

The band performed a seamless transition from the melodic Avalanche to On Nights Like Tonight, an equally down-tempo and melodic track from his latest album. Blake Manning's backup vocals provided an added layer to the choruses of the tracks, helping to fill the void left by the missing keyboards that accompanied Good during his last performance at the Burt in June 2008.

Picking the level of energy up just slightly, Good switched to electric guitar and rocked through two more songs from his latest CD; Great Whales of the Sea and A Boy Who Could Explode. A third of the way into the set, he finally addresses the crowd with a humble, “How's everybody doing?”

The band kicked in to the uptempo radio hit, Born Losers, from the 2008 album Hospital Music, but continued with songs from their latest album; prompting some fans to holler requests for older songs, some dating back as far as 1995. Although be didn't oblige immediately, fans seemed happy to hear new tracks like Fought to Fight, and Silent Army in the Trees, which are reminiscent of Good's more anthem like tracks that helped propel his career.

After performing an extended version of the sombre track, Black Helicopter, the band switched gears to round out the set with a good mix of upbeat tracks both new and old, like Last Parade, Apparitions, Weapon and Volcanoes. The band returned to the stage for an encore, and performed the songs Giant, Us Remains Impossible and Empty's Theme Park.

Good's voice was powerful and captivating and showed no sign of strain, despite years of smoking and frequent throat issues; one of which involved a surgical procedure to remove a node from his throat. The band sounded tight, adding extended intros and outros to a few songs throughout the set.

Good's introverted on stage demeanor reflects the struggles he has had in recent years in his personal life, including a breakdown that landed him in a psychiatric institution and a split from his wife. Any other behavior from the self-described pessimist might seem contrived to his devout fans.

The biggest reaction Good received from the crowd of 1642 was at the end of the encore when he faced the crowd and applauded. The sincere gesture inspired the crowd into one last cheer before he disappeared behind a black curtain at the side of the stage.

Vancouver band, Mother Mother, opened up the night with their brand of dance-pop. The band performed a high energy set that included their latest single O My heart, the title track from their 2009 release.

Twitter: Not in my top 6, yet...

I'm still trying to decide if Twitter actually offers an alternative way for people to get information about people or things they are interested in. For years, people and companies that are worth "following" have had websites. There is also usually a ton of information about important people and topics published online by unofficial websites. So what's Twitter's USP?

As far as I can tell, it's the immediacy of receiving information. It's much easier to send a tweet than to update a website or wiki-page. Immediacy of transmitting information is something that until recently, radio was best known for.

Of course, the big problem with Twitter, unlike radio, is accountability. Where is the information coming from? There have been a few instances where imposters have used Twitter to slander or tarnish the reputation of important people; Chef Michael Smith for instance. Radio, however, uses typical journalistic practices to report on information, so people can generally trust it more.

I imagine that as Twitter progresses, administrators will improve the process by which they screen users, and in turn that might improve the quality and reliability of information that "followers" receive.

I have noticed that my group of friends have not embraced Twitter to the degree that they have embraced Facebook. But I think the services are quite different, so I'm not even sure it's relevant to compare the two.

When I boot up a web browser, like most people, I have a hit list of at least a half a dozen websites that I check routinely. I won't really give Twitter props until it can crack my top 6.