Neutral Milk Hotel

[Numerator]

to me hipster is an attitude, not what you like.

Hipster is like "The stuff I listen to the best music and all the rest are plebs"
or simply liking it because no one else likes it.

exactly!
I listen to so-called "hipster" bands but I love all kinds of music and sharing music and like it when bands I like get "big"

[saurus]

I was kind of wondering when people were gonna drop the whole hipster thing in this thread and ones for groups like animal collective etc.

I love In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, that album conjures up the most vivid images for me.

[Jonse]

Just now listening to NMH for the first time.

Really liking "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" so far.

Only problem, it's horribly brickwalled. If it were mastered better I could probably enjoy it even more.

[The Telepathic Kid]

Just now listening to NMH for the first time.

Really liking "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" so far.

Only problem, it's horribly brickwalled. If it were mastered better I could probably enjoy it even more.

that's lo fi for you.
You'd hate Guided By Voices.

[Jonse]

Just now listening to NMH for the first time.

Really liking "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" so far.

Only problem, it's horribly brickwalled. If it were mastered better I could probably enjoy it even more.

that's lo fi for you.
You'd hate Guided By Voices.

Lo-fi = Clipping audio normalized to around -8db?

When I think lo-fi, I think like muffled, cassette, pop and hiss or low bitrate sounding music.

I mean, I'm just not sure it works in favor of this album. All the instruments under the mix I can tell sound fine, they've been recorded properly. It's like they just layered them all on top of each other, amplified it and then de-amplified it.

I don't know, never heard Guided By Voices. Are they the kind of lo-fi that destroys their recording afterwards or the kind that puts sounds together that have been purposefully made lo-fi and/or records it with lower quality equipment?

[Cupz]

Are they the kind of lo-fi that destroys their recording afterwards or the kind that puts sounds together that have been purposefully made lo-fi and/or records it with lower quality equipment?

You can hear the difference?

[Jonse]

Are they the kind of lo-fi that destroys their recording afterwards or the kind that puts sounds together that have been purposefully made lo-fi and/or records it with lower quality equipment?

You can hear the difference?

Yes. One is usually clipping horribly and it makes my ears extremely uncomfortable.

[Numerator]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReZwDbZQRK8
lest we forget

[noby]

Yes. One is usually clipping horribly and it makes my ears extremely uncomfortable.

It doesn't clip. I think the way the album is mastered makes it sound fucking fantastic.

[Jonse]

Yes. One is usually clipping horribly and it makes my ears extremely uncomfortable.

It doesn't clip. I think the way the album is mastered makes it sound fucking fantastic.

I mean if you like it, that's fine.

[noby]

That's because you're importing mp3 files.

[Jonse]

That's because you're importing mp3 files.

...And?

[noby]

...And?

And that's why Audacity says it's clipping. Take any uncompressed audio file that is close to the -0db level and compress it to mp3. The resulting file will clip. I could demonstrate this but unfortunately I don't have any flac files on my laptop.

E: Here's 440hz square wave sample generated in audacity with an amplitude of 0.99. Below is that same waveform exported to V0 mp3.

[Jonse]

...And?

And that's why Audacity says it's clipping. Take any uncompressed audio file that is close to the -0db level and compress it to mp3. The resulting file will clip. I could demonstrate this but unfortunately I don't have any flac files on my laptop.

I tried it with 1969, since most of Geogaddi is pretty loud.

http://i.imgur.com/kpE3b.png

So, I don't really see what you're saying here. I believe you that it happens but I'm not sure what lossy compression would do that causes audio to clip from a lossless file.


Is all of the NMH clipping caused by lossy compression? Because I would highly doubt it could be that significant. I've never heard, ever in the history of music I've listened to, one album that was as seriously distorted transitioning from flac to mp3 as this one apparently is. It could also be V0, as I never get music rips in it or other variable/<320 CBR formats and don't know about the technical aspects of it at all.

Is this: http://i.imgur.com/XVLHD.png caused by that? Do you know? Because if it is I'm going to get the flac version of this album immediately. I really like the songs and would prefer to hear it without it.

Also, I think your image hosting source is fucked up. I get a picture that says "fuck you, go away".

[noby]

I tried it with 1969, since most of Geogaddi is pretty loud.

http://i.imgur.com/kpE3b.png

So, I don't really see what you're saying here. I believe you that it happens but I'm not sure what lossy compression would do that causes audio to clip from a lossless file.

Not loud enough.

Is all of the NMH clipping caused by lossy compression? Because I would highly doubt it could be that significant. I've never heard, ever in the history of music I've listened to, one album that was as seriously distorted transitioning from flac to mp3 as this one apparently is. It could also be V0, as I never get music rips in it or other variable/<320 CBR formats and don't know about the technical aspects of it at all.

Is this: http://i.imgur.com/XVLHD.png caused by that? Do you know? Because if it is I'm going to get the flac version of this album immediately. I really like the songs and would prefer to hear it without it.

Mp3 and other lossy compression algorithms rely on filtering out certain frequency bands. This alters the shape of the waveform, but it doesn't always result in smaller amplitude as one would expect. Here's an example of 440hz square wave with 90% amplitude, and below the same waveform with a steep low-pass filter at 2khz applied to it. The RMS level if the signal drops, but the resulting signals peaks are higher and go over the -0db limit resulting in clipping. The same effect can be observed in mp3 file compression where the peaks of the source file are close to the maximum.

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea doesn't clip. It is heavily compressed though and close to the -0db, but I like the sound. It makes it sound big and meaty, I don't think all music should sound as natural as possible, but of course simply brickwalling everything isn't always good and doesn't fit for all types of music.

Also, I think your image hosting source is fucked up. I get a picture that says "fuck you, go away".

Really? That's odd, it's my friend's uploading service. I had no idea of such behaviour. Here's the file.

[Jonse]

I tried it with 1969, since most of Geogaddi is pretty loud.

http://i.imgur.com/kpE3b.png

So, I don't really see what you're saying here. I believe you that it happens but I'm not sure what lossy compression would do that causes audio to clip from a lossless file.

Not loud enough.

Is all of the NMH clipping caused by lossy compression? Because I would highly doubt it could be that significant. I've never heard, ever in the history of music I've listened to, one album that was as seriously distorted transitioning from flac to mp3 as this one apparently is. It could also be V0, as I never get music rips in it or other variable/<320 CBR formats and don't know about the technical aspects of it at all.

Is this: http://i.imgur.com/XVLHD.png caused by that? Do you know? Because if it is I'm going to get the flac version of this album immediately. I really like the songs and would prefer to hear it without it.

Mp3 and other lossy compression algorithms rely on filtering out certain frequency bands. This alters the shape of the waveform, but it doesn't always result in smaller amplitude as one would expect. Here's an example of 440hz square wave with 90% amplitude, and below the same waveform with a steep low-pass filter at 2khz applied to it. The RMS level if the signal drops, but the resulting signals peaks are higher and go over the -0db limit resulting in clipping. The same effect can be observed in mp3 file compression where the peaks of the source file are close to the maximum.

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea doesn't clip. It is heavily compressed though and close to the -0db, but I like the sound. It makes it sound big and meaty, I don't think all music should sound as natural as possible, but of course simply brickwalling everything isn't always good and doesn't fit for all types of music.

Also, I think your image hosting source is fucked up. I get a picture that says "fuck you, go away".

Really? That's odd, it's my friend's uploading service. I had no idea of such behaviour. Here's the file.

Well then what is this sound: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38909028/06%20H ... 45%201.mp3


Not what I'd thought people called heavily compressed. Sounds more like when I layer a bunch of sounds in audacity without tweaking them.


I guess my point would be, how did they get a clipping sound without clipping their album?

[noby]

Well then what is this sound: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38909028/06%20H ... 45%201.mp3

Not what I'd thought people called heavily compressed. Sounds more like when I layer a bunch of sounds in audacity without tweaking them.

I guess my point would be, how did they get a clipping sound without clipping their album?

The album was recorded to analog tape at extremely high volumes resulting in analog clipping and distortion, in the same style as for an example The Velvet Underground did on their album White Light/White Heat. Analog clipping is completely different from digital of course.

[Jonse]

Well then what is this sound: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38909028/06%20H ... 45%201.mp3

Not what I'd thought people called heavily compressed. Sounds more like when I layer a bunch of sounds in audacity without tweaking them.

I guess my point would be, how did they get a clipping sound without clipping their album?

The album was recorded to analog tape at extremely high volumes resulting in analog clipping and distortion, in the same style as for an example The Velvet Underground did on their album White Light/White Heat.

Makes sense. That's what I was thinking posts ago but I didn't know if that was the case.


I wonder why they decided to do that. It doesn't seem like they did it as much with On Avery Island.

[noby]

Makes sense. That's what I was thinking posts ago but I didn't know if that was the case.

I wonder why they decided to do that. It doesn't seem like they did it as much with On Avery Island.

It's a stylistic choice. People often perceive such saturated sound as pleasing. I wouldn't call OAI much different though, it largely relies on the same lofi aesthetic.

[Jonse]

Makes sense. That's what I was thinking posts ago but I didn't know if that was the case.

I wonder why they decided to do that. It doesn't seem like they did it as much with On Avery Island.

It's a stylistic choice. People often perceive such saturated sound as pleasing. I wouldn't call OAI much different though, it largely relies on the same lofi aesthetic.

I do respect that opinion however honestly if they return someday I think they probably should try a more dynamic sound.


Still, good band.