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True. But we are seeing a shift in formats. CDs are coming out. All the big dubstep albums currently pencilled in will be coming out on cd.

Given how prolific dubstep artists are, i think cd albums or collections really make sense. Both in terms of revenue and backlog clearing.

If people are going to make (more) money out of this then all avenues needs to be considered.

For me a DMZ album or CD compilation would make total sense right now.

Chef and Darkside's download project will also serve a similar purpose.

I'd be a little surprised if dubplate, when it relaunches didn't have at the very least the ammunition backcat available for download.

seckle wrote:and for the non dj's why would you need anything more than a 192kbs mp3's? bleep.com/road is HUGE now.

192kbps is the MP3 equivalant of a cassette copy...it should all be about wavs or FLACs when you're paying for them

Obviously it's important for the DJs and producers to maintain that exclusivity, but leave it too long and the tracks can run the risk of becoming a bit stale. Mud (for example) had lost a lot of it's initial impact on me, simply because I've heard it x amount of times in downloaded sets or at dances. BUT... I got excited again when I heard it was on DMZ009 and that I'll finally get to own it and play it myself. Tracks like this can aquire a kind of 'legendary' status if left unreleased for so long...it probably helps with the quality control aspect in the long run.

It varies with different labels, of course, and a lot of it is up to the discression of the producer and the label itself.

Pangaea wrote:finally get to own it and play it myself

its not that old!

Pangaea wrote: 192kbps is the MP3 equivalant of a cassette copy...it should all be about wavs or FLACs when you're paying for them
.

192kbps is CD quality. The majority of ipod users rip to 128kbps. 320kbps mp3s are lossless. Wavs take ages to d/l and don't really have any real benefits for home use or even djing out as the difference in audio quality is in practise nominal.

threnody wrote:

Pangaea wrote: 192kbps is the MP3 equivalant of a cassette copy...it should all be about wavs or FLACs when you're paying for them
.

192kbps is CD quality. The majority of ipod users rip to 128kbps. 320kbps mp3s are lossless. Wavs take ages to d/l and don't really have any real benefits for home use or even djing out as the difference in audio quality is in practise nominal.

Ok, 'cassette copy' is a bit harsh, but MP3s are a lossy format. Most of mine are 192kbps and I struggle to tell the difference, but I always like to have the highest bitrate possible. Lossless formats ensure that you're buying the best quality possible; I mean, you can always re-encode from them if you wanted a smaller file for the iPod etc.

waves are too godamn big, i have neough music on my comp as it is.
i dont need to be havin 3 hard drives just to store music...

for personal use 192 mp3 is perfect.

Wavs are huge, this is true...but burn the files to a disc and essentially you've got a perfect CD version of the tracks...brilliant for the stuff that's never going to see a CD release in the first place.

We'll all be putting tetrabytes worth of data on discs soon, anyway

Pangaea wrote: We'll all be putting tetrabytes worth of data on discs soon, anyway

Here's hoping. I'm done with low disc space. Put a new hard drive in about a year ago and already caned it 3 times....no doubt every1 is the same!!!

ok, if economics are the issue, do artists make money off record sales??
not much, afaik...

so if they keep their tracks exclusive to a limited amount of hands, they get more gigs, which is where the money is, right??

imo, i dont think that $$ is the issue, but the law of supply vs demand is definitely in effect. keep the people looking for more, but some tunes do get played out too much before a release, or they never see the light of day...that is a problem, but a common issue in dubplate culture.

right now there are a shitload of tunes comin out. my want list for tracks slated for imminent release is scary.

as long as the artists keep makin good music, and we get to hear it, i cant complain...as a dj, however, it is frustrating, but it aint nothin new.

i also love it when vinyl comes out, and i've never even heard of the tracks before...so maybe i should just stop listening to so many barefiles mixes


doubt it.

new artists and labels are poppin up everywhere. with the state of digital media and apps like serato, and/or cdjs, we're lucky vinyl is still comin out, especially in such a fresh sub-sub-sub-genre of music.

count your blessings

boomnoise wrote:Given how prolific dubstep artists are, i think cd albums or collections really make sense. Both in terms of revenue and backlog clearing.

For me a DMZ album or CD compilation would make total sense right now.

yes yes yes!

threnody wrote:192kbps is CD quality. The majority of ipod users rip to 128kbps. 320kbps mp3s are lossless. Wavs take ages to d/l and don't really have any real benefits for home use or even djing out as the difference in audio quality is in practise nominal.

I dont think 192kbps is even near CD quality. If I rip to WAV / FLAC and MP3 then each sounds prgessively less rich and weaker lower ends. It has to be a CD or vinyl - I will only buy 320kbps from Bleep because they are pennies (~£1) and for my mp3 player I wont rip to anything less than 320kbps and when I play FLAC it sounds great when I play wavs it sound perfect - try a good mp3 players with some sennheiser px100's and you can hear the difference, no you can "feel" the difference.

If you wear an iPod with default phones or an inferior device then 128k mps might be fine but not for bass heads with good kit.

I must admit i do tend to feel like i've suckered myself when i buy an mp3, i mean realistically it isn't CD quality, but if its 320 i cant really tell the difference. I would much rather have .wavs, after all then you can burn them and have proper CD quality, and encode your own mp3 to keep on your computer. I was kinda tempted to get scuba - twista from dj download this week, but its just not worth it for 192 quality. But it isn't on bleep yet; bleep seem to take ages to get some tunes up. Half the time I end up buying the vinyl copy of tunes I bought on mp3 eventually anyway, so it just seems like a crap deal. Bleep could do some kind of discount thing where you can buy mp3, and then get it discount from warpmart if you decide to get the same release on vinyl later on. But basically I'd probably use it way more if it was wav and not mp3.

I think exclusive downloads for dubs which aren't out and in some cases may never come out is a good idea, i mean you could get tunes out way faster that way. Again wavs would be preferable but 320s would be better than nout. More CD compilations like the Benga Newstep album would also definitely be a good idea. I can't afford to buy everything I want on vinyl, but with compilations like the Benga one it gives me a load more tunes that I can mix on final scratch to give me more variety in what tunes I mix.

Definitely with the idea of a DMZ cd aswell...

RobJC wrote:I think the delay also so act to sort out the wheat from the chaf so to speak - producers and DJ's come out with new stuff all the time, and what sounds good to us individually might not sound good to them, or get the reaction they want out on the floor. I think that the overall feeling that producers are teasing us with new dubplates, and then not delivering a release plate is a bit far fetched, but at least we are getting access to new sounds all the time, keeping it fresh.

Hear Hear

seckle wrote:it's not labels making the delay, it's the whole distribution system. the vinyl distro business survives on rock music right now. dance music vinyl operates on losses, so expect delays.

It's okay, it might be right if you don't think of DMZ's "Changes". How old is that track? - at least 1,5 years old. I can't believe that it's a simple distribution problem. I mean it's all about exclusivity that makes the audience interested. Every producers and djs need to give something exclusivity when playing to the dancers, listeners to give reason why to choose them instead of the other djs - it's clear. It's a kind of business. Dubplates business.

on a related note, DMZ007 and DMZ008 just came out on www.bleep.com ...

snagged immediately...no worries about dodgy pressings either.

im not too bothered about this to be honest - you can't expect a producer to release every single track that they've made. in addition, 20 or so people calling for a track to be released doesn't necessarily mean it will sell well.

its vinyl or nothing, even 16bit 44.1kHz is lossy. Everything else is ok if its all there is. I'm amazed at how quickly and easily people accept reductions in fidelity.

say half the producers export a 16bit wav at 41.1khz, then cut the plates from this

i seriously think you'd be extremely hard pressed to tell the difference between a cd, a wav and a 320kpbs mp3

how did that kode 9/space ape - Fukkaz track do? that only came out on 320kbps MP3.. and it's one of the very few MP3's i've actually paid for. It'd be interesting to know how sales of that compared with their vinyl releases. as far as i know that track isn't coming out on vinyl...

ramadanman wrote:say half the producers export a 16bit wav at 41.1khz, then cut the plates from this

i seriously think you'd be extremely hard pressed to tell the difference between a cd, a wav and a 320kpbs mp3

All mp3's are lossy, even FLAC's are slightly lossy compared to WAV. There should be no difference between CD and WAV. MP3 is inferior and I agree with everything that genfu said above.

MP3 is old technology its from MPEG Layer1 (old skool) AAC is from MPEG Layer4 (new skool) but are still lossy.

I am only prepared to accept mp3 if a) it is cheap i.e. I recognise it is "cassette" quality but I am payng £1 rather than £5 for the vinyl.

Comparitively then I would expect to pay £5 for the CD or £2-3 to download the WAV as I am getting no packaging, excluding the middlemen and it is at the mercy of my hard drive (rather than my sons sticky fingers on the CD).

Can someone answer a question for me tho?

Skream is a prolific (and pretty darned good) producer. Many of his tracks may not make it to vinyl for full release. Why can't he (and others) create a site where we can pay for and download the WAV file? This means that producers can sell their wares direct to punters and take all of the profit. I guess it is becasue to make any serious money they have to sign a publishng deal and that takes away their right to sell their own music?