Neil young announces the launch of ponomusic

[Audio_ELF]

You'd be surprised. A number of people in the music industry have stunning systems in their offices and at home. I've seen a few of them. It's great to see and gives me hope the loudness wars will end.

Yeah... But do they actually use them?

[13mh13]

This is marketing. They are acting, not testifying in court. It is to make Joe Pod aware that there is something else beside hisPod.

I partly agree with the latter but mostly DISAGREE with the former ... it may very well be marketing on the part of KS/PonoMusic ... but perhaps a lot of (tho' not exclusively) cognitive dissonance and sheer unawareness on the artist end. Some of these artists are not the ... ahem .. brightest bulbs in the pack ... tho' some of these burnouts can play an okay guitar (which itself truthfully becomes an unskilled task after a while ... like cleanly wiping your ass -- with ONE SWIPE --after squeezin' out that juicy turd.)

 

Years ago, Stereophile ran a column called Rick Visits ... (Stereophile writer Rick Rosen visited a noted artist/composer) ... and you'd be surprised at the garbage some listened thru ... here is famous Alan Parson's home system (from Stereophile Jan. 1999 Rick Visits ... article):

 

As the Parsons article notes, he has access to STUDIO gear which should way surpass any gear us HOME-BOYZ have ... so there's the marketing (Greatest Hits CD re-re-re-re -releases with loudness, increasing a bit with every "re-master from original master tapes", etc)

[realhifi]

These steep premiums will absolutely keep the young audience away, even if Neil (my wife and I love Neil, and our middle son is named after him) convinces the record labels to stop all the faux crap...and to bring on the Taylor Swifts and Jay Z's and lesser known college-radio artists. It's one thing to one-time spend $150 on Beats cans, it's another to shell out $25 an album for stuff that cost you zero to $9 previously. Let's hope competition brings all this stuff down, but that's a huge leap.

 

Right on the money.

 

It HAS to cost less (or the same) than a physical cd or it will be a non starter. My 15 yr old son will buy an LP at $16 but balks at spending money on downloads in part because of what to him is the somewhat transient nature of "files" and the ability to listen to Spotify at a HIGHER resolution than what he can purchase music from iTunes. LPs are cool. High res files? Not so much, according to him and his group of friends.

 

I would think that $10 for a cd quality download and $15 for an LP quality one ought to be about right.

[labjr]

As the creator (many years ago) and moderator of the HiRez Music Circle over on Audio Circle, I have been carrying the hirez flag for some time now, and have seen the (very) good and the (too often) bad. I put not only the faux (upsampled) material in the bad column, but also the fairly steep premiums we pay for the legit hirez (as much as $40 and $50 for some extreme examples). These steep premiums will absolutely keep the young audience away, even if Neil (my wife and I love Neil, and our middle son is named after him) convinces the record labels to stop all the faux crap...and to bring on the Taylor Swifts and Jay Z's and lesser known college-radio artists. It's one thing to one-time spend $150 on Beats cans, it's another to shell out $25 an album for stuff that cost you zero to $9 previously. Let's hope competition brings all this stuff down, but that's a huge leap.

 

I don't really see the price coming down. Record companies are greedy and could have easily said no to Neil but they probably smelled money at $25 a pop. The problem with the record industry is always about money and not artistry. I don't see how artists ever got along with businessmen. I guess they always got screwed.

 

Another thing. I wish Neil had a great idea to supply album covers so I could collect them. To me, having a physical tangible item gives it more value. And they look cool too.

[Jud]

As the creator (many years ago) and moderator of the HiRez Music Circle over on Audio Circle, I have been carrying the hirez flag for some time now, and have seen the (very) good and the (too often) bad. I put not only the faux (upsampled) material in the bad column, but also the fairly steep premiums we pay for the legit hirez (as much as $40 and $50 for some extreme examples). These steep premiums will absolutely keep the young audience away, even if Neil (my wife and I love Neil, and our middle son is named after him) convinces the record labels to stop all the faux crap...and to bring on the Taylor Swifts and Jay Z's and lesser known college-radio artists. It's one thing to one-time spend $150 on Beats cans, it's another to shell out $25 an album for stuff that cost you zero to $9 previously. Let's hope competition brings all this stuff down, but that's a huge leap.

 

It's OK, they can always blame piracy. (Sigh.)

[speavler]

Does the spotify generation buy albums? What happens when lossless FLAC streaming comes?

[Superdad]

Another thing. I wish Neil had a great idea to supply album covers so I could collect them. To me, having a physical tangible item gives it more value. And they look cool too.

 

Great idea. We could have giant LP-sized covers (gatefolds please) with a tiny micro-SD card in a slot at the bottom!

[The Computer Audiophile]

Yeah... But do they actually use them?

Yes.

[Schwebung]

I wish Neil had a great idea to supply album covers so I could collect them. To me, having a physical tangible item gives it more value. And they look cool too.

 

The physical aspects of a release, or rather its absence in case of digital music, is something I'm discussing a lot with labels. Apart from being great objects (3.5k of them filling a good part of my room here), covers served a function, so what will be their use if there's nothing to protect anymore? Since we are talking about high resolution here, my proposal is a well made PDF booklet + a printable item, a photograph or design in high resolution that you can have professionally printed in a lab, framed or perspexed (pardon my english…). Not necessarily square, not necessarily limited to 12*12". Again - apart from some extra loving care from the artist/label's side - this means nothing but some extra megabytes added to the file you will buy.

[Schwebung]

this means nothing but some extra megabytes added to the file you will buy.

 

No physical production, inventory or shipping costs.

[Schwebung]

When it comes to physical merchandising (optional items?), I'm so bored by T-shirts, caps, mugs. I'd rather buy Harvest Moon - The Broom. Just for fun, I made this proposal for a friend's vinyl reissue - Bitsteam.de » Blog Archive » For my friend Robert - Hampson loves his coffee… ; )

[realhifi]

The physical aspects of a release, or rather its absence in case of digital music, is something I'm discussing a lot with labels. Apart from being great objects (3.5k of them filling a good part of my room here), covers served a function, so what will be their use if there's nothing to protect anymore? Since we are talking about high resolution here, my proposal is a well made PDF booklet + a printable item, a photograph or design in high resolution that you can have professionally printed in a lab, framed or perspexed (pardon my english…). Not necessarily square, not necessarily limited to 12*12". Again - apart from some extra loving care from the artist/label's side - this means nothing but some extra megabytes added to the file you will buy.

 

I like the idea of going back to a readable size and universal format that could include lyrics, photos, whatever that would be included when you purchased a high quality download. Maybe a serial number on it that would denote "ownership" of that album.

 

I might just buy into this purchasing of downloads if something like that were included.

[13mh13]

I like the idea of going back to a readable size and universal format that could include lyrics, photos, whatever that would be included when you purchased a high quality download. Maybe a serial number on it that would denote "ownership" of that album.

 

I might just buy into this purchasing of downloads if something like that were included.

Scans and artwork ...and liner notes ....

Why not DIY ... and much better results than any commercial job ever will offer.

Resources: Wikipedia (text, info); Discogs (scans, art, more info); Amazon (reviews, comments)

It takes me about 10min per album to put all this stuff in a common album folder. And I only do it for albums I REALLY like. Life's too short to waste on others...

[crisnee]

You'd be surprised. A number of people in the music industry have stunning systems in their offices and at home. I've seen a few of them. It's great to see and gives me hope the loudness wars will end.

 

Chris, that's about as meaningful as.... dust.

 

What might be meaningful to some degree "A number of people in the music industry use boomboxes in their offices and at home."

 

For the music industry maven, audio systems are likely the measuring stick, as are lawns and cars for your average middle class American.

 

Chris

[13mh13]

Higher upfront cost also has the side-effect of album's probability that it will be file-shared (torrented). Apple/iTunes has the right idea ... make upfront (legal) product cost lower than file-share host (or time-cost of waiting for torrent downloads) ... sell a gazillion copies to make profit. Unfortunately, only someone like Apple has the infrastructure (HDD/server farms) to make all this cost-effective. Pono or HDTracks ... these venture-capitalist upstarts may ultimately have to allow themselves to be bought out by Apple, Google or Microsoft to get anywhere...

[Booster MPS]

Chris, that's about as meaningful as.... dust.

 

What might be meaningful to some degree "A number of people in the music industry use boomboxes in their offices and at home."

 

For the music industry maven, audio systems are likely the measuring stick, as are lawns and cars for your average middle class American.

 

Chris

 

I am totally cool spending an afternoon with a music exec over beers listening to his boom box if we are sharing and discovering new tunes. Sonics be damned. I feel sorry for those that play music to listen to their gear.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Chris, that's about as meaningful as.... dust.

 

What might be meaningful to some degree "A number of people in the music industry use boomboxes in their offices and at home."

 

For the music industry maven, audio systems are likely the measuring stick, as are lawns and cars for your average middle class American.

 

Chris

Wow. I relay some information and you found it unuseful. So be it. But suggesting these are measuring sticks when you have no grounds is a bit odd. Some of the people are friends and could care less about what others think of their audio systems.

[crisnee]

I am totally cool spending an afternoon with a music exec over beers listening to his boom box if we are sharing and discovering new tunes. Sonics be damned. I feel sorry for those that play music to listen to their gear.

 

Me too.

 

Chris

[crisnee]

Wow. I relay some information and you found it unuseful. So be it. But suggesting these are measuring sticks when you have no grounds is a bit odd. Some of the people are friends and could care less about what others think of their audio systems.

 

True, I have no grounds for.... and I was being a bit facetious. But you were implying that having "stunning stereos" or whatever you exactly said, meant something, i.e. them having such a system was a measuring stick of sorts--it meant they cared about good quality masters as opposed to compressed recordings. I was saying that you have no "grounds" for that, although of course you are allowed to hope it might mean that.

 

Anyway your statement just rubbed me the wrong way (slightly). I know people who have "stunning stuff" that completely waste it (at least in terms of what it's meant for) and others who have crummy little stereos who live to listen to music on them.

 

Chris

[Sam Lord]

I am totally cool spending an afternoon with a music exec over beers listening to his boom box if we are sharing and discovering new tunes. Sonics be damned. I feel sorry for those that play music to listen to their gear.

Boomboxes are gear with very distorted sound. Good systems sound like music, not gear. That's why people own them.

[crisnee]

First paragraph of the Pono news release:

March 10, 2014 – (Santa Monica, CA.) - PonoMusic is a revolutionary movement conceived and founded by Neil Young with a mission to restore the soul of music - bringing the highest-quality digital music to discerning, passionate consumers, who hunger to hear music the way its creators intended, with the emotion, detail, and power intact. "It's about the music, real music. We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does that. We couldn't be more excited - not for ourselves, but for those that are moved by what music means in their lives," said Neil Young, founder and chairman of PonoMusic.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

This is what bugs me about Pono. The attitude. Just read this carefully and parse this paragraph for yourself. The hi-lite or lo-lite for me is "restore the soul of music." Really? You're going to do that? Wow!

 

All us poor schmucks have been listening to soul-less muck all these years hungering for the real thing day after awful day. As a matter fact 99.9% of the population that fancies music has never heard the soul of music (at least in a recorded version). Unless of course it just suddenly died one day; oh yeah, I remember now, the day the music died back in American Pie days. So, vinyl had soul?

 

And I'm so jazzed that they, Neil Young et al are so excited, not for themselves, no, but for us, the forlorn schmucks that might have been moved by the meaning of music if we'd only been given the chance to experience the "real" thing (recorded version). And now we will. The Pono express is on its way to save the day.

 

BTW, I have nothing against the actually thing. It's no big deal to me one way or another and doesn't seem very likely to make a big splash, at least according to my reading of what it actually will be.

 

Chris

[Teresa]

Pono will not give recorded music its soul back. Only good recording engineers and producers dealing with musicians/composers who happen to sport of bit of soul will do so. And they can do it just fine without hi-rez. (Don't get yourselves all in a snit, I'm not saying that some can't hear longer tails on cymbals or whatever, I'm just sayin' that redbook or even high bitrate mp3 ain't no soul killer).

 

High resolution PCM is not only about higher resolution such as the longer tails on cymbals you mentioned, but more comfortable and more enjoyable sonics that makes me and others want to listen to music for enjoyment.

 

Nevertheless, back in those days we had no problem with the soul of that music, no matter what we listened to it on, good stereo, cheap stereo, cassette walkman, certainly nothing even near hi-rez. The not so great sound of Four Way Street managed to move us immensely as did much of early to middle period Mr. Young, none of which sounded better than average in terms of SQ.

 

Even the lowly low resolution 8-track cartridge had soul and comfortable sound except for mechanical noise and that annoying click when it changed tracks, often in-between songs. All analog formats that are derived from analog master tapes I have ever heard have soul and comfortable sound and make music enjoyable, they are just not as convenient as digital formats. By listening to high resolution digital on my computer I have proven I am willing to give up some of the wonderful analog sonics in favor of convenience.

 

The 4 track 7 1/2 ips prerecorded reel to reel of CSN&Y’s Four Way Street sounded fantastic in my system and was one of my favorite tapes, way above average in sound quality and would be a great high resolution release in my humble opinion. I regret having to sell my Teac reel to reel tape deck.

 

Actually, one of my big problems with redbook and MP3 is this lack of soul Neil Young and Mark Levinson discuss. See Mark Levinson: CD vs. SACD and LP

 

We don't need Pono to put the soul back in music, in fact unless it is involved in the actual production of the original masters it won't have anything to do with soul. What we need is good recordings, and great remasters instead of the compressed stuff made from non-original first available copies of whatever. And please give us dynamic range back. Now that would make a difference.

 

We need everything to return soul to music, including never using less than 24 bit 96kHz and preferably 192kHz or higher or even better 5.6MHz DSD or 2 track 15 ips analog tape.

 

I would like to see the return to tubes for all recording equipment, the end of the use of pro-tools and most other editing equipment including dynamic range compressors. I would love to see recordings make like the direct to disc LPs were of yesteryear. Put up the mics in the best location, record and that’s it.

 

First paragraph of the Pono news release:

March 10, 2014 – (Santa Monica, CA.) - PonoMusic is a revolutionary movement conceived and founded by Neil Young with a mission to restore the soul of music - bringing the highest-quality digital music to discerning, passionate consumers, who hunger to hear music the way its creators intended, with the emotion, detail, and power intact. "It's about the music, real music. We want to move digital music into the 21st century and PonoMusic does that. We couldn't be more excited - not for ourselves, but for those that are moved by what music means in their lives," said Neil Young, founder and chairman of PonoMusic.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

This is what bugs me about Pono. The attitude. Just read this carefully and parse this paragraph for yourself. The hi-lite or lo-lite for me is "restore the soul of music." Really? You're going to do that? Wow!

 

All us poor schmucks have been listening to soul-less muck all these years hungering for the real thing day after awful day. As a matter fact 99.9% of the population that fancies music has never heard the soul of music (at least in a recorded version). Unless of course it just suddenly died one day; oh yeah, I remember now, the day the music died back in American Pie days. So, vinyl had soul?

 

And I'm so jazzed that they, Neil Young et al are so excited, not for themselves, no, but for us, the forlorn schmucks that might have been moved by the meaning of music if we'd only been given the chance to experience the "real" thing (recorded version). And now we will. The Pono express is on its way to save the day.

 

BTW, I have nothing against the actually thing. It's no big deal to me one way or another and doesn't seem very likely to make a big splash, at least according to my reading of what it actually will be.

 

Chris

 

I agree with that First paragraph of the Pono news release as for me music lost it’s soul and comfortability with the introduction of CD, which at the time I called a music destroyer. For me it still is today, if high resolution digital did not exist I would still be spinning LPs and prerecorded reel to reel tapes. High resolution digital brought the soul that I was able to hear in every single analog format to the digital realm. CD and MP3 are unacceptable for music in my humble opinion!

 

While I was writing this post I listened to Earl "Fatha" Hines M&K RealTime Direct to Disc LP and right now I'm playing Earl Klugh's Finger Paintings MFSL LP both as 24/96 music files on my computer. Both have soul and beauty aplenty, however the original LPs played in pure analog are even better in my humble opinion.

 

I will be thrilled if Neil Young can return most of the soul that analog formats of yesteryear had in the convenience of high resolution music files.

[Teresa]

Boomboxes are gear with very distorted sound. Good systems sound like music, not gear. That's why people own them.

 

1+

 

Sam, I agree a good stereo system sounds like music not gear when playing well engineered recordings in a decent playback format.

 

The ideal is to get equipment out of the way and let the music bloom so one can forget they are listening to equipment and become one with the music.

[REShaman]

Boomboxes are gear with very distorted sound. Good systems sound like music, not gear. That's why people own them.

 

Hello Sam,

 

I concur. And Pono as a consciousness, ritual, and discipline could be the bridge, if actualized as an intended pathway, to deliver high quality rendition of music we are open to receive with enjoyment as our outcome. We both hear and feel it when the Spirit of Music is present.

 

Enjoy the music,

Richard

[Hiro]

Speaking of which, you have a new record coming out.

 

Well, A Letter Home [Young's forthcoming album, recorded at Jack White's Third Man Studios] is going to be very confusing to people because it is retro-tech.

 

What does that mean?

Retro-tech means recorded in a 1940s recording booth. A phone booth. It's all acoustic with a harmonica inside a closed space, with one mic to vinyl.

 

Directly to vinyl?

Directly to vinyl.

That's nutty.

It's a funky old machine, it sounds like Jimmy Rogers or something.

Does that approach jive with Pono?

Well it's a creative process. Pono can play it back as good as any digital playback. Whatever it is. So it can play this back and that's it.

So you can make a lo-fi record but have a high resolution sound.

You can make a lo-fi, analog record, direct to vinyl, transfer it to 192, and you have a high res copy of a lo-fi vinyl record.

Q&A: Neil Young Plots Retro-Tech Revolution With Pono, New Album 'A Letter Home' | SPIN | Interviews