KVR Audio

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 1:58 am

jancivil wrote:I was exporting 1080p [V] or higher to get the 192kbps they used to provide. They quit. I began noticing it on certain things, definition lost, not like bad quality but things I know are there but they're not there now. Vs Soundcloud which I quit bothering with around 3 yrs ago because of the degraded quality, noticed it significantly in some bass, cymbals can be dodgy...

Interesting... I don't "do" a lot of youtube, but I could have sworn over the past year or so videos that I went back to after a year or two or three had a noticeable reduction in quality... I thought I was imagining... but here we go: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/commen ... ube_audio/

128kbps aac it is... actually it seems it's ~126kbps aac or ~156kbps opus, subject to youtube's discretion. https://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/ ... 720p-1080p

Bah... frustrating... are we in the age of "unlimited broadband" yet? They were yammering about it 25 years ago... I guess it's still a fiber pipe dream...

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Fri Oct 13, 2017 9:28 pm

I haven't sorted through all that, but there's some confusion, of course
To get the 192kbps, one had to click on the 1080 option, as far as I could determine.
One person I trust reported noticing the diff between 720 and 1080 right away on a track where it would matter like that.

And, they host the 24-bit audio (technically 23-bit), I actually use it as a backup for audio.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 6:48 am

jancivil wrote:I haven't sorted through all that, but there's some confusion, of course
To get the 192kbps, one had to click on the 1080 option, as far as I could determine.
One person I trust reported noticing the diff between 720 and 1080 right away on a track where it would matter like that.

And, they host the 24-bit audio (technically 23-bit), I actually use it as a backup for audio.

From what I'm reading, 192kbps isn't an option anymore. Unless I'm reading wrong.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:31 am

All I know is this: Everything I listen to on soundcloud sounds like it was all mixed/mastered by the same person. It's as if they are HP's and LP's exactly the same way.

People can troll me for having an opinion, but that is how I feel. I do not have this sensation with youtube. Youtube varies. Some uploads sound fine, others not so much. Soundcloud sounds like everything is mixed by the same person.

Troll away.

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 12:43 pm

All this platforms are more "hosting" platforms and sometimes helpful to sell music. Soundcloud, Hearthis, Reverbnation, Bandcamp etc. None of this are helpful to be heard or to build a fanbase.
Soundcloud groups are unfortunately gone... "Hearthis" groups are too small to have many listeners. So.. forget it

The important platforms today to reach new listeners are Facebook, Youtube and internet radio stations. For the internet radio stations, you must have high quality stuff because the channel directors are often very picky.
For Youtube you must have some knowledge to make interesting videos, it's IMO not enough to have a still-image + music.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 4:46 pm

incubus wrote:Troll away.

No need. Soundcloud is well known for it's terrible quality. Don't trust your ears, just look at the fancy pictures: https://soundcloudcommunity.com/upload- ... ndex4.html

"No one uses Soundcloud in poorer and developing countries so let it go". Priceless.

It occurred to me based on various SC threads I've seen... like this https://www.justmastering.com/article-mixingformp3.php ... that maybe SC is destroying audio quality not by it's encoding but by normalization/maximization, which pushes a normal hot mix way over the line into crap territory. If they're doing some sort of poor man's "iTunes LevelMatch" or "broadcast compression" using a generic maximizer prior to encoding then that's an even bigger problem than just clipping distortion from intersample peaks.

I'm going to carve out some time today to do some of my own testing... if I start with my own 128kbps lame, what do I end up with? What about 128kbps fraunhofer? What if I normalize the WAV or mp3 myself right up to 0dBFS? Is it always transcoded, if so to what, and what happens to the audio?

I know... a lot of people have already explored these fruitless avenues... feel like I need to see it for myself.

Vortifex · Post by **Vortifex** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 5:57 pm

SampleScience · Post by **SampleScience** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:32 pm

While searching for Bandcamp oriented promotion, I found this website:

https://ravenguide.com/tips/

From what I've read, it's sensible well-thought advice. I've learned a lot of things I wasn't even aware of. Good stuff.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:12 pm

kbaccki wrote:
jancivil wrote:I haven't sorted through all that, but there's some confusion, of course
To get the 192kbps, one had to click on the 1080 option, as far as I could determine.
One person I trust reported noticing the diff between 720 and 1080 right away on a track where it would matter like that.

And, they host the 24-bit audio (technically 23-bit), I actually use it as a backup for audio.
From what I'm reading, 192kbps isn't an option anymore. Unless I'm reading wrong.

above, I wrote:I was exporting 1080p [V] or higher to get the 192kbps they used to provide. They quit.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:19 pm

kbaccki wrote:
incubus wrote:Troll away.
No need. Soundcloud is well known for it's terrible quality. Don't trust your ears, just look at the fancy pictures: https://soundcloudcommunity.com/upload- ... ndex4.html

"No one uses Soundcloud in poorer and developing countries so let it go". Priceless.

It occurred to me based on various SC threads I've seen... like this https://www.justmastering.com/article-mixingformp3.php ... that maybe SC is destroying audio quality not by it's encoding but by normalization/maximization, which pushes a normal hot mix way over the line into crap territory. If they're doing some sort of poor man's "iTunes LevelMatch" or "broadcast compression" using a generic maximizer prior to encoding then that's an even bigger problem than just clipping distortion from intersample peaks.

I'm going to carve out some time today to do some of my own testing... if I start with my own 128kbps lame, what do I end up with? What about 128kbps fraunhofer? What if I normalize the WAV or mp3 myself right up to 0dBFS? Is it always transcoded, if so to what, and what happens to the audio?

I know... a lot of people have already explored these fruitless avenues... feel like I need to see it for myself.

What upsets me is that I feel like I got better sound quality with crappy mp3's back in the day than I do with all these services.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 12:06 am

As far as I have seen, it's generally inadvisable to provide a site with already seriously compressed files to smoosh some more. I don't know why Soundcloud sounds the way it sounds technically, I would need to care about using it a lot more to think about targeting a 'master' for it to do its damage to. And that ship has sailed.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 3:21 am

jancivil wrote:
kbaccki wrote:From what I'm reading, 192kbps isn't an option anymore. Unless I'm reading wrong.

above, I wrote:I was exporting 1080p [V] or higher to get the 192kbps they used to provide. They quit.

Indeed, you did. I even remember reading those bits. Old age, I guess. But not so old I can't hear how crappy an MP3 sounds on Soundcloud.

kbaccki · Post by **kbaccki** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 3:36 am

jancivil wrote:As far as I have seen, it's generally inadvisable to provide a site with already seriously compressed files to smoosh some more. I don't know why Soundcloud sounds the way it sounds technically, I would need to care about using it a lot more to think about targeting a 'master' for it to do its damage to. And that ship has sailed.

From my perspective it's still potentially attractive from the standpoint of free and well-known, at least for a hobbyist like me. If I were promoting and selling content I wouldn't even deal with it.

What's unattractive is the sound quality, and also for me the whole UX thing. Especially their mobile offerings. Even as a hobbyist, for anything I actually want to be proud to show off to somebody I would not provide a SC link to.

On the sound quality... I'm just wondering if there's a magical mix/master elixir that effectively offsets whatever unholy hell SC unleashes on uploads... otherwise it's not worth the trouble, IMO. If so, the recipe can be made known, if somebody hasn't done so already (though I haven't seen mention of such a potion anywhere).

tapiodmitriyevich · Post by **tapiodmitriyevich** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 4:43 am

chaosWyrM wrote:the majority of people listening to music via youtube (and thats a pretty substantial number i think) arent 'watching' it at all.

My guess as well. Behaviour of my wife at computer: Start up Youtube and have it run, for music, in the background. I'm also doing this at work, for music which is not present locally.

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:14 am

But I feel like when I'm listening to youtube, it's normal mostly. Not the excessively HP/LP'ed soundcloud.

Maybe they should rename it with their new-found wealth: Soundcloud, some of the mids, with no fillers.

SoundCloud replacements