Not enough consumer demand for hi-res (Cookie Marenco)

[duxservit]

Some of you folks may have seen this posting today from Cookie Marenco, through the Blue Coast mailer:

 

Simply put, there is not enough demand from artists, record labels and (ultimately) consumers of music that warrants the expense.

 

If there was more consumer demand (and we hope that happens) for better quality, there would be more money to spend in higher quality recordings from the start. Sadly, what we have seen over the last five years are major studios being sold and turned into apartment buildings. Musicians have turned bedrooms into recording studios. Production has turned into software editing tools instead of capturing a great musician's sound.

[Rt66indierock]

Which means what for Blue Coast?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[Panelhead]

I feel her pain. John Tucker handed me a couple of her SACD's at a RMAF in the LSA room several years ago. Very well recorded. Purchased both, even the lullabies.

Never heard another of Cookies discs.Think the music has ramped up. Just no exposure to Blue Coast since.

[duxservit]

Which means what for Blue Coast?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

Good question.

 

Makes me wonder what hi-res content would be available in the future to play on that new Sony $3000 Hi-Res Walkman :-)

[jabbr]

I find myself listening to my Analogue Productions recording more than Blue Coast despite the superior recording technique. If Blue Coast had the same material as AP, I would buy that. I.e. for me the Artist/Performance is primary though I purchase the best recordings available.

[mrvco]

I bought a Keith Greeninger DSD download from Blue Coast this summer. It's pretty good, but doesn't quite have enough magic to make it into my regular rotation. I've had a hard time finding anything else that really grabs me on their site.

[jjraffin]

I find myself listening to my Analogue Productions recording more than Blue Coast despite the superior recording technique. If Blue Coast had the same material as AP, I would buy that. I.e. for me the Artist/Performance is primary though I purchase the best recordings available.

 

I'm listening to both. I hope Blue Coast stay as I will miss great recordings of some of the artists such as Fiona Joy.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[mocenigo]

Some of you folks may have seen this posting today from Cookie Marenco, through the Blue Coast mailer:

 

Simply put, there is not enough demand from artists, record labels and (ultimately) consumers of music that warrants the expense.

 

If there was more consumer demand (and we hope that happens) for better quality, there would be more money to spend in higher quality recordings from the start. Sadly, what we have seen over the last five years are major studios being sold and turned into apartment buildings. Musicians have turned bedrooms into recording studios. Production has turned into software editing tools instead of capturing a great musician's sound.

 

This is very sad, but in the world of classical music I have noticed that the labels specialised in Hi Res often do not get access to the best artists, with a few exceptions. OTOH some orchestras (LSO, CSO, Concertgebouw...) release their music as SACDs, recorded either as 24/88.2, 24/96 or directly in DSD, which is quite nice even if not the best possible recording quality with the best recording technicians. Yeah, studios are being closed, and these are all offers of live performances, which, if you think, is emotionally even better (and I do not mind that hires better captures audience noise!). As long as I can rip my SACDs I will purchase these. I have a few hires recordings of classical musical performances that are dull from the artistic point of view - and even though the sonics are spectacular, for me that was wasted money.

 

The world is in trouble, but it is not yet the end of the world (even for hires recordings of excellent classical performances!). I understand that in the world of pop and rock the situation is much more grim...

 

Roberto

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[cookiemarenco]

Some of you folks may have seen this posting today from Cookie Marenco, through the Blue Coast mailer:

 

Simply put, there is not enough demand from artists, record labels and (ultimately) consumers of music that warrants the expense.

 

If there was more consumer demand (and we hope that happens) for better quality, there would be more money to spend in higher quality recordings from the start. Sadly, what we have seen over the last five years are major studios being sold and turned into apartment buildings. Musicians have turned bedrooms into recording studios. Production has turned into software editing tools instead of capturing a great musician's sound.

 

Thank you, everyone... for your concern.... we're still in business selling high resolution downloads, still making DSD recordings in the studio and don't plan on closing down. The excerpt was a generalization of the recording industry in general.. and we appreciated everyone's concern.

 

I was answering questions by both the surround and high resolution stereo community that have recently come to my attention. Music lovers want to know why (in general) there aren't more recordings available by all labels, including the major labels. Many consumers don't understand that high resolution music begins in the recording studio. Today, 95% of the projects recorded start as 44.1.. not considered high resolution audio.

 

The last 5 weeks, I've started writing a newsletter that is sent to 30,000 of our subscribers. In the newsletter, I've been addressing questions we're commonly asked about studios, artists and gear. For some reason, this latest post struck a chord for many people and has been reposted many times. For the full newsletter, here is the link.

Why Don't More Companies Produce Music in High Resolution? -- Blue Coast Records

 

You can sign up for the newsletter at Blue Coast Records | Exceptional Acoustic Recordings where you'll receive out weekly music offering and my weekly newsletter. We have more than 50 high resolution albums recorded to DSD and/or tape from Blue Coast Records. We also have a platform where we distribute more than 300 high resolution albums at Downloads NOW! | We don't plan on soon stopping our distribution service.

 

Here is an excerpt of the question I was answering.. asked by one of our customers....

You may not be able to answer this question, but you’re the only person I know in the industry: why don’t companies record and produce music in high-resolution formats? Is the process just that much more expensive?

 

I ask because I get frustrated when I happen upon an artist I like, most often an acoustic guitarist like Don Ross, and the only format in which I can purchase his or her music is MP3, which often sounds muddy, muted, messy, or just plain bad through my inexpensive DAC and mid-priced headphones. (I can’t imagine how sloppy those tracks would be through the much higher-end gear you offer on your website!)

 

Thank you, again, for your support of high resolution audio.

 

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records

[mocenigo]

Thank you, everyone... for your concern.... we're still in business selling high resolution downloads, still making DSD recordings in the studio and don't plan on closing down. The excerpt was a generalization of the recording industry in general.. and we appreciated everyone's concern.

 

Thank you for replying here, Cookie. I am a great admirer of your work, both for its quality and the fact that you must be one of the few women in a male-dominated field, which is an achievement on top of the absolute quality of your work (if I am mistaken and the field is not male-dominated, well, that would be one of the few good news in the field...).

 

What are in your opinion the chances that we will see more hi-res in the classical world in the near future? My instinct is: probably from the non-mainstream label.

 

Also, you state that 95% of recordings start as 44.1, but I was under the impression that SONY and DGG were already recording at a higher quality for some years. Was this just wishful thinking? (and even were I right, the chances of them re-releasing must be slim).

 

Roberto

[Kal Rubinson]

Some of you folks may have seen this posting today from Cookie Marenco, through the Blue Coast mailer:

 

Simply put, there is not enough demand from artists, record labels and (ultimately) consumers of music that warrants the expense.

Is this news? Most listeners care only about content and convenience. The proportion of the music market that gives a damn about high quality is small, has always been small and always will be small. Recording companies, especially larger ones, make their business decisions based on that to optimize return and profit. Most performers are interested in exposure and, of course, income and those are generally not associated with investing time, effort or resources in optimizing sound quality.

 

Since we are a niche market, the only thing we can do is support those (primarily) niche businesses and artists that recognize and cater to us.

[mav52]

With Blue Coast maybe its their collection of artist, if you don't like the music they manage , there is not going of be a lot of sales. Maybe Cookie sees this as a problem, but not everyone likes that music Blue Coast provides. HD Tracks seems to be moving along pretty nicely.

 

Kal nailed it " Most listeners care only about content and convenience.". If a provider provided a huge collection of music that catered to all music genres and the ease to obtain that music in numerous formats was available I say demand for hi-rez would be moving on rather nicely. Tidal does that for streaming but their issue is money management.

[orgel]

I find myself listening to my Analogue Productions recording more than Blue Coast despite the superior recording technique. If Blue Coast had the same material as AP, I would buy that. I.e. for me the Artist/Performance is primary though I purchase the best recordings available.

 

I think this is exactly right. ECM certainly isn't perfect when it comes to their sales/distribution approach, but IMO they hit the balance between quality of content/performance and quality of recording better than any other commercially viable label.

 

--David

[cookiemarenco]

Thank you for replying here, Cookie. I am a great admirer of your work, both for its quality and the fact that you must be one of the few women in a male-dominated field, which is an achievement on top of the absolute quality of your for (if I am mistaken and the field is not male-dominated, well, that would be one of the few good news in the field...).

 

What are in your opinion the chances that we will see more hi-res in the classical world in the near future? My instinct is: probably from the non-mainstream label.

 

Also, you state that 95% of recordings start as 44.1, but I was under the impression that SONY and DGG were already recording at a higher quality for some years. Was this just wishful thinking? (and even were I right, the chances of them re-releasing must be slim).

 

Roberto

 

Prior to starting Blue Coast Records, I founded a recording studio and was active in the community as a producer and recording engineer. We still maintain the recording studio recording, mixing and mastering for all the labels -- major and independent, including our own.

 

The good news for you, Roberto, is that classical music (as a genre) probably has the highest percentage of higher sampling recordings than most music with a customer base that buys higher resolution audio. Sadly, classical only represents about 1.6% of the market share in sales in the overall music recording industry. So, if you're talking about Sony and DGG as recording classical music at higher sampling rates, that is probably true. But, if you look at how the majority of the recordings of all music is being made, that's another story.

 

NARAS (the foundation behind the grammy) had an active group focused on higher resolution recording. I was part of that group and had regular meetings with the top engineers from all genres as to the problems that existed for not recording at higher formats. It's a long story, but I understand their issues and it will be difficult to resolve. No one can enforce engineers to record at higher resolutions.

 

The confusion for the consumer is this..... A recording made at 44.1 does not get better by upsampling to a higher resolution format. Even when recording at a higher resolution, there are 6 stages of production to deliver where the recording can be degraded to a lower resolution. It's up to the consumer to choose whether they want to know more about how the recording process works and how it affects what they are hearing and buying -- it's not easy to understand.

 

Thank you for mentioning I am a woman. I find it amusing when someone writes to me as Mr Marenco. I hope one day there are more woman audiophiles and producers. But until that time, I'll do what I do to present the music I love produced as I want to hear it.

 

Enjoy!

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records

[cookiemarenco]

Is this news? Most listeners care only about content and convenience. The proportion of the music market that gives a damn about high quality is small, has always been small and always will be small. Recording companies, especially larger ones, make their business decisions based on that to optimize return and profit. Most performers are interested in exposure and, of course, income and those are generally not associated with investing time, effort or resources in optimizing sound quality.

 

Since we are a niche market, the only thing we can do is support those (primarily) niche businesses and artists that recognize and cater to us.

 

Kal, I completely agree. It's not news... it's been going on since the CD was released. It amazes me how often I'm asked by consumers why there isn't more high quality content (which is how this conversation got started). Then again, you and I have been dealing with this directly for years... maybe most consumers are still not aware since they keep asking me... so much so, I wrote a newsletter on it that happen to get reposted and cause some stir. It's not news.. it's reality.

 

Hope you are well! BTW, During the next year we're going to focus on surround recordings to see what happens.

 

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records

[cookiemarenco]

With Blue Coast maybe its their collection of artist, if you don't like the music they manage , there is not going of be a lot of sales. Maybe Cookie sees this as a problem, but not everyone likes that music Blue Coast provides. HD Tracks seems to be moving along pretty nicely.

 

Kal nailed it " Most listeners care only about content and convenience.". If a provider provided a huge collection of music that catered to all music genres and the ease to obtain that music in numerous formats was available I say demand for hi-rez would be moving on rather nicely. Tidal does that for streaming but their issue is money management.

 

Thank you for your concern, but we're not having a problem with sales with Blue Coast Records. My original quote that started this thread was taken out of context. I was answering a question in a newsletter from a customer who asked "why isn't there more high resolution audio available" -- he was referring to a more general question.

 

Blue Coast Records sales are fine. We specialize in a very particular kind of music, recorded in a way that I like. I produce these recordings for me and if someone buys them, great! If not, I'm still going to make them. I'm a recording engineer with a studio and would be hired to make these recordings anyway. If I love them and believe they deserve wider recognition, we'll release them.

 

We're not trying to compete with HDtracks. We don't aspire to have the biggest catalog. We became successful with Blue Coast Records and other labels came to us for distribution. I did not want to do it, but I couldn't resist distributing the San Francisco Symphony... so we started Downloads NOW!

 

Downloads NOW! handles distribution of 70 independent labels. Unlike HDtracks and some other high resolution distributors, we can distribute worldwide. Also, our focus is on acoustic music, not mainstream. For the symphony and others in acoustic music, we are told we sell 2.5x more than HDtracks. We choose not to deal with the major labels.

 

I agree with you... if you don't like our Blue Coast Records music... don't buy it. Pretty simple. No complaints. I'm going to produce it anyway.

 

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records

[Jud]

Even when recording at a higher resolution, there are 6 stages of production to deliver where the recording can be degraded to a lower resolution. It's up to the consumer to choose whether they want to know more about how the recording process works and how it affects what they are hearing and buying -- it's not easy to understand.

 

* * *

 

Enjoy!

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records

 

I for one am extremely interested in knowing more about how the recording process works. For starters, I'd love to know what the 6 stages are (denial, anger...?).

[cookiemarenco]

I agree, David. I grew up on ECM as a jazz pianist myself. Many of my friends record for ECM. In fact, one of our Blue Coast Artists (Art Lande) has 3 or 4 recordings with ECM.

 

ECM inspired Windham Hill... not the same kind of music but the idea of branding a label where people were assured a quality and sound. I worked at Windham Hill in A&R as a producer and modeled that same concept for Blue Coast Records. We now have several artists from ECM and Windham Hill.

 

We also have artists who have recorded with Rounder Records. If you're interested.. Art Lande, Alex de Grassi, Tony Furtado have all recorded for either ECM, Windham Hill or Rounder. We're now distributing Andy Narell's new recording and soon to be distributing Michael Wolff -- excellent players with long histories with labels.

 

Our problem at Blue Coast isn't quality of content.. it's the cost of marketing and letting you know the great talent we have. We spend no money on advertising and trying to get reviews. Sorry, there's only so much time in a day. What we've done instead is built a mailing list of 30,000 people who like what we do and have discovered our talented artists. We've focused on our customers.

 

enjoy your music!

 

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records

[mocenigo]

The good news for you, Roberto, is that classical music (as a genre) probably has the highest percentage of higher sampling recordings than most music with a customer base that buys higher resolution audio. Sadly, classical only represents about 1.6% of the market share in sales in the overall music recording industry. So, if you're talking about Sony and DGG as recording classical music at higher sampling rates, that is probably true. But, if you look at how the majority of the recordings of all music is being made, that's another story.

 

Only 1.6%? A part of my brain knew this already, and indeed even suspected that it was even less, but another part of my brain feels the pain at reading the truth However, better than nothing, and as long as donations and subventions continue, the field should thrive.

 

I understand the difficulties to get hi-res. Since the margins and the market are both small, if all you have is a good 16/44.1 or 20/44.1 ADC, you stick to it and do not invest thousands of dollars in hi-res ADCs. It is difficult to justify - and it is better to have an excellent 44.1 recording than no recording at all.

 

Now, consider the fact that I am a lover of contemporary music. That's probably a tiny fraction of the classical music market. I think I may have supported part of the market almost single handedly – ok, I am exaggerating, but there have been times when I ordered 20 CDs from ART in one shot, or when I ordered a dozen SACDs from Collegno in one order, ten years or so of the Donaueschingen Musiktage (each 3-4 SACDs) from NEOS... Most of these are claimed to be recorded and edited at 24/48 or 24/96, and the SACD layer does sound a bit better than the rebook one.

 

Will this market survive? Sometimes I am a bit pessimistic. For me, at least I am ripping everything, and it will take many years to listen a few times to my records collection. I will have plenty to listen to until my death, but we are talking here about art, hence a living, evolving thing, and there should be recorded testaments of performances, of interpretations. It would be sad it this disappeared. Let us keep our fingers crossed.

 

Thank you for mentioning I am a woman. I find it amusing when someone writes to me as Mr Marenco. I hope one day there are more woman audiophiles and producers. But until that time, I'll do what I do to present the music I love produced as I want to hear it.

 

I (as a man) work in a very male-dominated field (product security for a semiconductor company - not the network/it/incident response security part, but the more research/development/analysis part of it). Of our group about 20% of the members are women, which is above average for the sector. And this is increasing with time. When I was a university professor, I was also involved in popularising STEM with young kids. As long as as parents and teachers we continue repeating that it is fine and beautiful when girls are interested in mathematics, science and engineering, the situation will improve. I really do believe you are a role model.

 

I confess that whenever I see a given name I cannot immediately classify as male or female, I look up the person. So, I knew you are a woman soon after I heard of Blue Coast Records, long ago. There is no excuse for not looking up and assuming everybody in a technical field is a man in the ages of internet!

 

Roberto

[cookiemarenco]

Thank you to everyone who has expressed concern and suggestions to this thread.

 

Somewhere there was a misconception that Blue Coast Records sales are down. They are not. I appreciate the suggestions how to increase sales, though. We're always up for increasing sales.... but not at the expense of what we do and how we do it.

 

Threads are not easy to follow. We tend to read only the last few and not get the entire content of what was said or written. I get it... who wants to read pages of small print. Sadly, this is how rumors get started.

 

The thread started with an excerpt of a newsletter I had written answering an innocent question from a customer as to "why there isn't more high resolution audio available."

 

Briefly, my answer was... if you don't start with a great recording, then you can't manufacture the quality later. Quality recordings are expensive to make. Sadly, the public is not buying enough music (in general) to support keeping the doors open of great studios. The last year we've seen several great studios in New York close. Capitol and Fantasy were once on the verge of turning into apartment buildings. These studios are being replaced by protools in bedrooms.

 

This is not new or news... it's the reason we started Blue Coast Records. My own frustration as a studio owner faced with the demand for cheap recording in lower quality pushed me to record in the highest quality I possibly could and release it under Blue Coast Records.

 

It's what I do... and happy to say that sales of Blue Coast Records exceeds the revenue from the studio when fully operational. Now, I miss being an engineer for hire. I like producing projects from other labels. The good news is the quality stays high and I have a distribution outlet for these recordings.

 

Thank you for your support of high resolution audio/music. Glad I've found this community.

 

Enjoy!

Cookie Marenco

Blue Coast Records.

 

PS.. need your help.. I'm going to be busy making records the next few weeks. Can someone please respond to those that continue to write that we're going of business and please set the record straight? Thanks.. appreciation in advance!

[cookiemarenco]

I for one am extremely interested in knowing more about how the recording process works. For starters, I'd love to know what the 6 stages are (denial, anger...?).

 

Thank you for asking.. it's quite a long and confusing tale.. I give presentations on the subject that take an hour per stage. My newsletter (soon to be blog I think) will highlight each stage in upcoming releases.

 

Glad you're interested!

Cookie

[orgel]

I agree, David. I grew up on ECM as a jazz pianist myself. Many of my friends record for ECM. In fact, one of our Blue Coast Artists (Art Lande) has 3 or 4 recordings with ECM.

 

Yes indeedy. I love the Rubisa Patrol albums that Art did for ECM way back when.

 

Thanks for mentioning that Blue Coast is now distributing Andy Narell's recordings. I'd missed that, so I'll be sure to stop by Downloads NOW! and see what I can pick up. Keep up the great work!

 

--David

[tailspn]

Now, consider the fact that I am a lover of contemporary music. That's probably a tiny fraction of the classical music market. I think I may have supported part of the market almost single handedly – ok, I am exaggerating, but there have been times when I ordered 20 CDs from ART in one shot, or when I ordered a dozen SACDs from Collegno in one order, ten years or so of the Donaueschingen Musiktage (each 3-4 SACDs) from NEOS... Most of these are claimed to be recorded and edited at 24/48 or 24/96, and the SACD layer does sound a bit better than the rebook one.

 

Will this market survive? Sometimes I am a bit pessimistic. For me, at least I am ripping everything, and it will take many years to listen a few times to my records collection. I will have plenty to listen to until my death, but we are talking here about art, hence a living, evolving thing, and there should be recorded testaments of performances, of interpretations. It would be sad it this disappeared. Let us keep our fingers crossed.

 

Hi Roberto,

 

Unless I misunderstand your posts here, you rip (SACDs) rather than purchase downloads. You also hope that at least your genre of recorded music interest, a definite niche within a niche, survives, grows, and prospers. It may interest you to know that the return to the label and artist from a CD/SACD/music BluRay averages about 25% of the sale price, whereas the return from the same download averages 60%.

 

If you would really like to support them, here's at least one way.

 

Tom

[Rt66indierock]

Is this news? Most listeners care only about content and convenience. The proportion of the music market that gives a damn about high quality is small, has always been small and always will be small. Recording companies, especially larger ones, make their business decisions based on that to optimize return and profit. Most performers are interested in exposure and, of course, income and those are generally not associated with investing time, effort or resources in optimizing sound quality.

 

Surprising but most listeners have demanded better quality and received it. This audio improvement is in their cars. And I took a quick look the top 200 selling albums you tell me who would benefit from recording in hi resolution. I didn't see any.

[Jud]

Thank you for asking.. it's quite a long and confusing tale.

 

 

I'll look forward to being long and confused.