KNOW MORE ABOUT MP3s

By Karl Coryat

If you make records and have never heard of MP3, do yourself a favor and learn all about it. The music industry is changing fast, and MP3 is the most significant technological advance for recording musicians since the cassette 4-track—possibly since even the phonograph.

When the World Wide Web appeared, it became possible for anyone to get their words and pictures out to the masses. Nowadays, if your Web site is good enough thousands—perhaps even millions—of people will find their way to it, even if you've never approached a publisher. But we musicians had long been handcuffed by the huge size of audio files, which were impractical for Internet uploading and downloading, even over fast network connections. That has all changed with MP3, a file format that allows audio files to be shrunk to less than one-tenth the original size. A song that might take up 40 megabytes on a standard CD is only about 3.7MB as an MP3.

Now you can put your music on the Web where anyone can find and download it, and there's a growing list of Web sites devoted to MP3. The format's flagship site, MP3.com (www.mp3.com), allows anyone to join its artist community and upload songs at no charge. MP3.com creates an "instant play" streaming-audio version of each song, so visitors can listen to only a few seconds if they want, and the site even links to your band's own page. But perhaps the best part is the "DAM-CD" program: In addition to your publicly available songs, you can upload others that people can hear only by purchasing a CD from MP3.com. You choose what songs you want on your DAM-CD, decide on the song order, and set the price. If someone orders your DAM-CD, MP3.com burns, packages, and mails the disc, and you get 50% of the purchase price—that's some 35% better than most record labels pay. Best of all, you can sell as few or as many DAM-CDs as you're able, and MP3.com lets you distribute your music anywhere else, too. When was the last time you heard of a label doing that?

Naturally, record companies are getting nervous. In addition to creating a power shift from the corporations to artists, MP3 is causing labels to lose money through piracy. There are stories of high-school kids selling the complete works of R.E.M., for instance, on a single CD for five dollars. Pirated music is also being traded on the Net. After ignoring the situation for several months, the industry is trying to catch up by looking into copy-protection schemes and alternate formats. But it seems MP3 is not going away for a while.

What does the format sound like? Not quite as good as a CD, but alarmingly close, all things considered. It's full-bandwidth, with little or no frequency loss; dynamics are compressed a little, the low end isn't quite as clean, and on some songs unusual high-register artifacts appear. Listening through headphones at moderately loud levels, you can definitely tell the difference. On speakers at low-to-medium volumes, MP3 basically sounds like a CD.

Here's how to get started: Go to MP3.com and read the excellent FAQ (list of Frequently Asked Questions). The site lets you download free software to convert sound files or CDs to MP3s, and to play MP3s on your PC or Mac. The simple, tiny programs work on all but the oldest machines and operating systems. MP3.com also guides you through the artist-signup program, which includes uploading a band photo, album covers, and bio info. (As of March the site claimed to be picking up over 150 new artists per day.) Once you've joined, you can follow your songs on the MP3.com charts, which are updated daily and classified by dozens of genres, each listing hundreds of tunes.

What's in the future for MP3? That's very uncertain. Its popularity is making software developers work overtime looking for an even better standard. Microsoft claims to be perfecting a better-sounding format that compresses files to half the size of MP3s; it might be out by the time you read this. But one of MP3's most attractive features is its open architecture—the very reason software companies would like to see MP3 done in by more lucrative technology. Keep your eyes peeled for MP3 news—this revolution has only just started.




Other MP3-related Web sites include MP3 Web (www.mp3web.com), a portal site with hundreds of links; The MP3 Place (www.mp3place.net), another portal that also lists the most popular legal and underground music sites; and AudioDreams (www.audiodreams.com), which hosts an e-mail MP3 newsletter as well as a popular ICQ chat area for MP3 trading.