What's in the numbers Kbps

Posted by: Slabwax on 22 September 2008

Thanks for all the replies in my last post Sorry it turned into a bit of a flame war not my intent.

So I'm ripping the cds in Itunes/apple lossless. When I look at the info it lists kbps with numbers ranging from 970-530 and every thing in between Is this normal?

Thanks
Dean
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by David Dever
Yes, because the bit rate when encoding in Apple Lossless varies with the complexity of the music waveform.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by Slabwax
Thanks David

Dean
Posted on: 23 September 2008 by pcstockton
FYI,

I just picked up the new Metallica, why i dont know....

In any event, when compressed to FLAC, it was well over 500MB. This is by far the largest I have ever seen from a single CD.

If the music is extremely dynamic or loud, or complex as Dave mentions, the resulting FLAC files are quite large.

Consequently, mono recordings are tiny, and vocal/acoustic music tend to be very small as well.

My Andreas Segovia rips are right around 200MB!

The same principle applies to MP3s when using "Variable Bit Rate", V0, V2 etc...
Posted on: 23 September 2008 by gary1 (US)
I've read that the new Metaalica CD is very loud due to heavy compression your file size would go along way to explain what was done. Hope you enjoy there have been alot of complaints about this release being inferior to the CD released for the film.
Posted on: 23 September 2008 by pcstockton
Gary,

Oh yes this album is LOUD. Basically unlistenable. The drums are especially distorted. Not to mention that the compositions are basically ripoffs of earlier works.

It ranks right down there with Chili's Californication and White Stripe's Icky Thump. I still cant believe Steve Hoffman allowed his name to be associated in ANY fashion with that one.
Posted on: 23 September 2008 by gary1 (US)
quote:
Originally posted by pcstockton:
I still cant believe Steve Hoffman allowed his name to be associated in ANY fashion with that one.


PC, it's called sellout ($$$$).

With all the success any money these guys have made you'd think at this point they would be concerned about making great music/albums and well produced and recorded ones at that.
Posted on: 23 September 2008 by pcstockton
In his defense, he said there wasn't much he could do about it. The master tapes he was given for the vinyl mastering were compromised to start with.

Jack White and his "vintage" equipment in the studio, going for a dirty, loud sound.

He should have simply breached the contract imho.

I find that EVERY OTHER Steve Hoffman work, either mastered for vinyl or digitally remastering (DCC), are truly top notch.
Posted on: 23 September 2008 by gary1 (US)
Well, I'm sure he's not turning down the money.