On one hand, it pains me to have to suffer through shitty quality, but on the other, I WANT to hear the music, which tends to leave one at a bit of a crossroads: Suffer the shitty quality of YouTube, or not listen to the track at all… In the end, when there’s no where to get a better quality, you kinda have to submit your ears to the shitty ‘HQ HD OMG IT’S SO GOOD ITS LIKE EARSEX’ 96kbps-equivalent shit on youtube.

PS re last line: i hear you’re already a… dead mouse :P

As to the rest? Fuck digital! Gimme my vinyl and open reel, baybee. Question: Do you master to vinyl with the 192kHz hi-bit stuff? If not would you puhleeeeez consider it? And how ’bout a ‘limited edition audiophile’ vinyl set??? Just sayin’.

Take the VMAs for example, they seemed to have made a big deal about you being the house dj, showing up, etc, and then when it came down to it they showed tiny bits and pieces of you between commercials, so that the other people performing there (if you can call it that) wouldn’t be dwarfed by your show. They didn’t want people like Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Kanye and the rest to basically get shit on by how much better you are than them, so they lured people in with your name and a little bit of you between screens and then gave us garbage.

Now, I know you’re speaking in terms of musical file quality and such, but think about it, if MOST people are ready and willing to listen to the vomit coming out of 95% of the VMA performers’ mouths on a daily basis, 3, 4, 5 times a day on some repetitive radio station, the few of them who stray off and actually look for REAL music (those who’ve actually heard of you) are just used to hearing shit fabricated music, so that super static you get when you turn the radio up real loud at 128kbps, that only people with “the ear” happen to notice, doesn’t seem to bother them because they’re not LISTENING to the music, they’re just hearing it.

I think you know what I mean…

My question is, do you offer your music in FLAC format anywhere? I’ve already downloaded a few albums off iTunes, but that quality is mediocre at best.

Thanks man, and keep up the amazing work.

Chris Bowen
chris.bowen02@gmail.com

i totally hear you on that. i think what you gotta realize is that sometimes it can be hard to wait and wait in anticipation for a track to be released. especially when all you have to listen to is a shitty youtube hackjob ripped from a video someone took on their phone. for example, your new mix for you need a ladder! from the moment i heard that track @ your coachella set i got hooked on that dirty baseline and just couldnt settle with the original version of the song cuz its just not nearly as hard. so after scouring the net for anything that remotely resembled what i am sure your fully mastered version sounds like, i had to settle with ripping a decent live version of the track, and cutting lopping, mixing…pretty much giving it the frankenstein treatment…in order to create the track. its kind of funny that i came on to this blog today of all days and read this article. see i was planning on putting the track out there for everyone to download…maybe throwing my name on it just like that beau damion guy did with your “Dub5tep” track just to gain some moderate recognition. i think you should be humbled that people would spend hours on their computer just trying to emulate a fraction of what you do…cuz thats pretty cool. listen dude you are the mau5! and your real fans, the ones who download the poor quality tracks, the live set rips, that scour the net for unreleased tracks and demos…we know whats up. i dont listen to the “october” live set rip (the one where the volume goes up and down mid track) and think oh shit joel is off his game. i think fuck i am stoked for him to come to the coliseum on july 10th!

HOWEVER

i do respect what you have to say…and i do respect you as an artist. so i will be keeping “sofi needs a ladder (orri edit)” to myself. im not too sure if you read these or not…but if you are interest in listening to my moderate interpretation of your song (just for a good laugh) send me an email n ill give you a link

keep it up mayn!

Orri Sachar
orrisachar@gmail.com

But about “high quality”: It’s relative. Sure, your music sounds great at live shows. It’s mixed close to the source and it’s played over a sound system that costs more than most of the attendee’s homes.

Even in your home studio, you’re probably listening to your music on a pair of cans that have ultra-flux-capacitors and halogen-magnets and super-dynamic-gold-plated Sennheiser nameplates on them. But you are not your audience. Your audience is not you.

Your audience is listening to your music (and every other artist in the world) on a stock car stereo. Or maybe a modest home stereo. But more than both of those, they’re listening on an iPod and a $15 pair of Tawainese ear buds. And they’re listening on the subway, or in a noisy restaurant, or on a plane.

To them, “high quality” means that the bass isn’t thin and that the high hats don’t clip. If the dynamic range is slightly compressed, so much the better. That way they don’t need to fiddle with their volume knob as much. Widen the sound field slightly and boost the 20-40hz to make up for the crappy drivers and you’ve got a “high quality” recording.

It doesn’t matter if you think it’s low quality. You are not your audience. Your audience is not you.

I know you weren’t whining here. You’re just trying to educate people (“You better learn something about this music”). That’s cool, and hopefully people don’t take it as a Lars Ulrich rant. You don’t want to be like that guy – not with this generation of listeners. So who *do* you want to be like? Do you want to be a studio artist or a performer? If you want to be a performer, then spend your effort reinventing the music and don’t worry about the mixtapes. Embrace them. People want to hear you than they can legitimately get their hands on (“and you wonder why we took it underground”). Shit, if it were me, I’d start recording my performances to DAT@48 (clean track and separate crowd noise). Take it home, remaster it, let the audience ambience bleed through on the sickest breaks and release it as a free download on your site. Maybe charge $5 for really massive sets. That way YOU control the quality. And it’s way better than some other joker getting the credit (and the money) for your music. “This is OUR house. And OUR house music.”

For what it’s worth, I own[ed] a bunch of DJ Dan’s releases when I was more into the scene than I am now. I bought all of them. Loved the guy. You know what my favorite album is from him? A live set. How Sweet It Is – 1998. You know why it’s my favorite? Because “I was there, man. I was there when he dropped this break right here and the whole crowd was going apeshit, man! I looked across the room and saw this hot chick who was totally feeling it too. She looked at me. I looked at her. We both smiled. It was fucking awesome.”

You aren’t going to get that from a 16 bit 44.1khz WAV file in your studio.

Oh, and she’s my wife now =)

Again; mad love, much respect.
-Ryan

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpID=956&NewsID=968993&CategoryID=15105&show=localnews&om=1

Please respond and let me know whether or not you’d be willing to see me. Thank you for your time!
Gaby Izarra