Can music sound good on MySpace? an experiment

[soundinista]

One question I get asked a lot is: "why do my songs sound so very, very crappy on myspace?". As a mixer, I do mainly indie stuff - yes, I'm pretty smalltime - so myspace, etc. is important for many of my clients. I've been reading, researching and discussing on here and elsewhere, and so I thought I'd try some experiments into whether it's actually possible to compensate in advance for the audio-damage to follow. Yes - I want to make things sound good on MySpace. Call me a romantic fool if you will, but I must follow my dream.

So I've just created a profile (having resisted it so far - not much of a networker) and uploaded 6 different treatments of the same song, to compare the results of various "optimisation" tricks. I'd be interested to hear what you sluts make of them, if anyone has the time to scoot over to myspace and listen to some mp3s, as well as to hear about any other ways you have tried to reduce the online mangling of your loving fashioned mixes.

I'm not going to bother throwing out any kind of "blind test challenge", so the 6 files are:

1) The CD version, simply converted to mp3 at 192 Kb/s. ie. the reference.

2) A few people have suggested leaving more headroom to improve the quality of uploads, so this is the same source, but with the mp3 peaking at -1db (the CD master was limited at -0.3, and after conversion to example 1 above, was peaking at a smidge under 0db). For ease of comparison, all the following files also peak at -1db.

3) Here I'm low passing it myself rather than letting their convertors chop off my high end. I used Sonnox filter at 36db/octave (the steepest filter available to me) set at 11kHz.

4) Using a frequency analyser, I could still see a fair amount going on up there, so this one is with the low-pass moved down to 10kHz. Listening to the results before uploading was pretty alarming! (I'd like to try a steeper filter at 11k, but don't have one - suggestions?)

5) This is me getting fancy with the EQ: I'm trying to compensate for the lack of "air" by boosting from 6kHz in a smoothly rising curve, which is up by 2db at 9.5kHz (tried a few different shapes before settling on this one). This was the best compromise I could manage before it started sounding unacceptably harsh and "essy", though it still sounded woolly at the bottom to me. Woolly and also harsh - the worst of two worlds!

6) So I thought maybe better to restore some balance by also subtracting rather than just adding. Here I've shelved the low end down by 0.5db below 135Hz, and high-passed it at 40Hz. (the CD track was mastered with a filter at 25). After some trial and error, I also found that a parametric dip of -2db at 300Hz seemed to take out some of the wooliness and lack of definition caused by lack of HF crispiness. To my ears, scooping the low mids seemed to have a better tradeoff of perceived improvement to perceived damage than shelving the lows more. All this surgery was making the track a little quieter, so I bumped up the gain before limiter a fraction of a db.

I think this last one may have been more pleasing to my ears, but I was getting tired, and it gets hard after a while to make fine judgments about slightly differing degrees of crappiness. That is why I am now throwing this out to the world, or the world of Gearslutz anyway (which is the world, for some of us).

Since you only get 6 songs at a time, I've restricted myself to EQ tweaks for this round, but I'm planning to try out other options; particularly exciters/enhancers, as an alternative to straining the limits of equalising.

Aside from the guilty pleasure of indulging my anal-retentive/OCD side, I'm aiming to create and refine a channel strip preset which I can pull out of the hat for clients, and run their mix through again for the online version. Hopefully, this little bonus will make them love me and want to keep giving me money, or at least haggle a little less aggressively in future.

I'd be very grateful for any constructive observations or new suggestions, or especially to hear actual examples of tweaks anyone else may have made before uploading, if anyone would care to post a link to their "optimised" song with a description of what they did to it.

Thanks. You'll find the files at:

peter radcliff on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

[dubwise]

Interesting idea. Thanks for letting us hear your experiments.
Not a massive amount of difference in the end results.
I wish we could find out what they do at their end.
More than that, I wish they'd just take files as posted.

[soundinista]

Only thing I've clearly learned so far as that it is good to reduce the gain. I streamed these uploaded files and re-recorded them with Audio Hijack, and they were all louder - 1 by nearly a whole db.

Thanks for listening though.

Can anyone hear any differences? Or have I wasted an afternoon?

[soundinista]

Ok, phase 2:

Last night I was listening very closely with headphones, really trying to hear differences, especially in the top end. Was quite disappointed with how similar (-ly awful) they all sounded.

Could only really detect significant difference(improvement?) in version 5 a little, and version 6, but couldn't decide whether I liked it or not, and got distracted by the fact that it was still quieter (subjectively) than the others.

This morning listened on small, not very Hi Fi monitors turned down low, trying to listen only to balance, since I couldn't really hear much detail, and kept A/Bing with my original mix (which obviously none of you can do), to pick out what it had lost in the bigger picture.

Identified what I particularly hated about MySpace brutality - In the original, the vocal had a lot of air and presence and was floating right on top of a fairly mellow and warm instrumental mix (quite an artificial "studio" sounding mix with larger-than-life vox). Now the bass had become quite tubby, and was swallowing the voice with it's now too-prominent low mids, as well as obscuring the nice low-end of the Fender-Rhodes and guitar. My original instrument balance was way-skewed.

So decided that I might be onto something, but not at all convinced of the value of low-passing (at least not with a conventional filter - want to try some kind of super-steep anti-aliasing filter).

So - new version. I've deleted the original CD version to make room on MySpace player, since decided that gain reduction was a no-brainer after last night's tests. Now track one is track 2 from the list above, ie. original mix gain-reduced 1db, with no other changes, and this is the new reference file (I'm trying to see if any additional tweaks end up sounding better than this). Every other file in the list has moved up one place - if you get confused what you're listening to, I am updating the track-descriptions on MySpace.

The new track 6 has all the same EQ sculpting as the previous one, except I have omitted the low-pass, so all the highs are shelved up now. Since I couldn't decide on the low-pass comparing filtered with normal, I'm now comparing filtered with exaggerated highs, to see if these "aliasing artifacts" are something real and scary, or just a bogeyman to scare the children.

In case this turns out nasty, I've also bounced a version with a parametric boosting from 6k instead of the shelf I was originally using. I had to centre this near 10k with quite a narrow Q to recreate the same smooth slope I had before (checking with both eyes and ears), and to return the higher frequencies to normal soon above 11k. I'll upload this later.

One thing I'm wondering is; when someone downloads the file, do they get the same mangled one you hear while streaming? Or is it the file you uploaded? If the latter, then this greatly restricts the amount of tweaking we will want to do. I can't get my download button to work (new to MySpace!) so does anyone know? Or if not, can someone test it now, by downloading version 1, and seeing whether a load of high-frequencies you haven't heard before are suddenly present? Thanks.

Thanks to all who have visited so far - I'd love to get some feedback though!

[De chromium cob]

Try converting the MP3 from the CD @ 96Kbs. This is the rate that myspace uses and it will avoid the re-encoding that is so devastating to the sound.

[Chaellus]

My space makes you convert your wav file to mp3....then it reencodes it to there format at 96kbs 22 Khz...so bascilly any inforamtion above 10 khz is shot. tutt

[edit machine]

In my experience you want to upload the largest, most high quality file possible. Shorter songs I have uploaded at 320 kbps mp3 so at least the seemingly automatic 96 kbps encoder starts with the best sounding file possible. I noticed recently that myspace has raised their limit on upload size and I was able to re-upload most of my tracks at 320 kbps.

I would never allow downloads of myspace player encoded files though. There are lots of free places to host 320 kbps mp3's for free. Garageband, Soundstation, and my favorite: Bandcamp, where i have everything from ogg vorbis to apple lossless downloads available in album formats. My account is here if you want to see how streamlined it is: Bandcamp Profile Link I post a link on my myspace profile so any fans can easily get good versions of the songs. That way who cares if they hear it low fi on myspace, as long as they have a good version on their ipod I'm happy.

The big bands have their stuff on myspace, sounding terrible at 96 kbps and getting thousands of plays a day, so there is no reason not to get up there, listeners don't have nearly the critical ear engineers and musicians have. If the vibe is good in your song people will feel it.

[soundinista]

I tried the upload-at-96kHz thing, not convinced. Myspace took just as long to process the track, and I didn't hear any improvement, so I'm doing everything at 192kHz. Hit on this as a standard for these tests since it will allow me to get a 4 minute song in just under 6Mb. That is the limit, right?

I'm presuming that it's best for me to upload the highest quality I can before they screw it up. Also interested in the download issue - does anyone know whether people get to download the original or not?

Meanwhile, the songs on the MySpace page are no longer what I describe above. I think I've decided what basic process to use -still trying to refine it. The most important thing is I think to get rid of top-end very sharply above 11k. Normal low-pass filters, even at 36db/octave, didn't make a significant improvement to my ears, so in the absence of a dedicated anti-aliasing filter (next on my shopping list) I've used a multiband compressor which allows you to mute any of the bands. It's not doing any compressing - I've just set the crossovers to super-steep, and muted 11k+. I think this has almost completely removed the aliasing, and it no longer goes "Tssshhssst" every time the drummer hits a cymbal.

I've tried to bring back some brightness with a combination of EQ and a heavy dollop of tube emulation centred on the 6-11k range. I've stopped messing with the low end.

I also noticed that the stereo image seemed to narrow on Myspace - I presume that's because the missing high frequencies carry a lot of direction cues - so I increased the width before upload also.

I have now 3 before/after examples on Myspace, of very varied styles. I was getting concerned that working with only one-song might give me results that don't translate well. In fact I think I was getting obsessed with low-mids because the song I chose first is very low-middley (upright bass, fender-rhodes, no loud guitars), so I took another song with distorted guitars, and then an orchestral piece. All three have received the same treatment.

I don't know whether it will be possible to develop a "one-size-fits-all" process for sounding better on Myspace - that's what I'm trying to find out. Also, I've accepted that you just can't get the same mix - there's no substitute for "air"; boosting the lower highs necessarily gives you a much more aggressive sound, so I'm trying to make that work. A/Bing against my original mixes, I'm mainly focussing on trying to preserve the same balance of instruments, and vocal position and character as the CD track, so at least the music has a chance to shine, even if the sound is crappy.

So the short answer to the question I posed as the thread name is: "No". But maybe there's a fall-back position, and I'm determined to find it.

Please let me know what you think of the examples currently posted, and thanks for observations/suggestions so far.

By the way - I've also limited the optimised tracks a db or so more than my original masters. I realise this makes direct comparison difficult.

[soundinista]

Originally Posted by edit machine

I would never allow downloads of myspace player encoded files though. There are lots of free places to host 320 kbps mp3's for free. Garageband, Soundstation, and my favorite: Bandcamp, where i have everything from ogg vorbis to apple lossless downloads available in album formats. My account is here if you want to see how streamlined it is: Bandcamp Profile Link I post a link on my myspace profile so any fans can easily get good versions of the songs. That way who cares if they hear it low fi on myspace, as long as they have a good version on their ipod I'm happy.

Ah -you seem to have answered the download question there. I'll try reading more carefully in future. So it is the mangled version they get then? Thanks for info.

This is good also, because my "optimised" files for upload sound pretty damn ugly. I wouldn't want anyone to have those on an i-pod. Was afraid you had to choose between streaming a muffled and aliased mess but downloading a decent-sounding mp3, or a mutant mp3 which nonetheless streams nicely.

[edit machine]

Originally Posted by soundinista

I'm doing everything at 192kHz. Hit on this as a standard for these tests since it will allow me to get a 4 minute song in just under 6Mb. That is the limit, right?

You can push the limit, I have uploaded files bigger than 6mb, I'm not sure about downloads being the original or the mangled file but you could test it. Set one of your songs for downloading and then download it yourself, click apple+i on the song name in i-tunes and you can see what encoding rate the downloaded file is at.

[soundinista]

As I said above though, can't seem to get the downloading to work - I'm a Myspace newbie, and probably being very stupid.

I'll try again tonight when I get home - have to get to work now.

Thanks again for prompt and informative contribution, and to all.

[Flying_Dutchman]

Originally Posted by De chromium cob

Try converting the MP3 from the CD @ 96Kbs. This is the rate that myspace uses and it will avoid the re-encoding that is so devastating to the sound.

You mean that we should use our 44.1kHz, 16- bit wave file, than create a 96kbps mp3 file, 22kHz, stereo, and than uplad to myspace, right?
Would it make a difference to create the mp3 file from a 88.1kHz, 32-bit float file?
Thanks!

[taturana]

higher bit rate will help the sound of your mp3.

[dubwise]

Originally Posted by taturana

higher bit rate will help the sound of your mp3.

Based on what? Got links to examples?

I'm not disagreeing, but the point of this thread is experimentation, not conjecture.

[Edward_Vinatea]

All mixes need to be perfectly mastered if you want them to sound decent on MySpace.com. There is no magic tweak to one's mixes to improve the player's sound.\\

That said:
If you want to upload a full song in stereo with the best possible sound quality to MS and this song exceeds 8 minutes, you have a problem. The limit upload size at MySapce.com is 6 MB. This means that you will need to compromise the quality of the mp3 you render to the MS player or chop it up so that it fits within your desired bit rate and depth.

Therefore, for 8 minutes long material, you should render your mp3 at 96 Kbps/44.1 kHz. The upload size should be approximately 5.25MB.
For 5 minutes long material I recommend bit rate at 128 Kbps/44.1 kHz. The upload size should be approximately 4.55MB.
For 4 min. songs I recommend bit rate at 196 Kbps/44.1 kHz. The upload size should be approximately 5.48MB.
For 3 min. songs I recommend bit rate at 256 Kbps/44.1 kHz. The upload size should be approximately 5.50MB. All in stereo, of course. You can try adding a few more KB to squeeze a few more seconds to each rule.

If you want the best possible sound, render a 320Kbps/44.1/16 and edit out your song showing just the first or last 1 minute 35 seconds. Make it MONO instead of STEREO and you can double the length to 3 minutes. Any other higher sampling/resolution rate will be render a song too short for one's enjoyment.


Regards,

[soundinista]

Originally Posted by Edward_Vinatea

There is no magic tweak to one's mixes to improve the player's sound.\\

No of course not - it's never going to sound GOOD. But I think there are ways to reduce the damage.

So far I have become convinced of two things -

1) Myspace clearly make you louder, and so material uploaded which peaks at, or close to, 0db is going to clip on there. Headroom of 1db seems to ensure no clips.

2) The characteristic "tcchhsssshhh" sound of crappy mp3s can be largely avoided with a low pass just below 11k, though it has to VERY steep - making a sharp corner if you look at a frequency analyser.

EQing/exciting to compensate for high frequency loss has to be a subjective decision, and is possibly too program-dependent to give a recipe for, but the two points above seem clear and demonstratable to me, and definately a worthwhile step if you design and save a plugin-chain preset to take care of these operations with no fiddling about.

At the end of the day though, yeah - it's Myspace, and it's never going to sound wonderful. We can't turn shit into gold - just maybe try to make it smell a little less bad.

Thanks for all input - it'd be great to hear from someone who's listened to what I've uploaded. Need some confirmation that I'm not just imagining improvements, because I don't want to have wasted my time. Anyone else hear the differences?

[Flying_Dutchman]

Let´s please get some facts, no suggestions, please
i crawled through google, but there are no 100% informations,
maybe i´m just too stupid, or googled the wrong words...

I read here that there is 22khz going with the myspace player,
well i analyzed metallica and testament and well, there is amplitude above 10k

so is it true that myspace gets it a 22.1khz?

Does the myspace player has it´s own brain, does it re-convert a 192kbps to a lower rate?

Does anybody know this 100%??

myspace got very important, so lets do our homework, it´s our window to the world

cheers

[Edward_Vinatea]

Originally Posted by Flying_Dutchman

I read here that there is 22khz going with the myspace player,
well i analyzed metallica and testament and well, there is amplitude above 10k

so is it true that myspace gets it a 22.1khz?

22.05kHz sampling rate sounds about right to me. IMO, the MS player filters out everything above 11kHz, thus the reason it sounds so muffled. So, if you apply high shelving at about 6K, all you are doing is alter the eq up to about 11kHz, then rest is most likely filtered out. This is jsut an opinion and is not based on any data from MS.

Regards,

[edit machine]

Originally Posted by Edward_Vinatea

The limit upload size at MySapce.com is 6 MB. This means that you will need to compromise the quality of the mp3 you render to the MS player or chop it up so that it fits within your desired bit rate and depth.

I just now uploaded at 7:21 minute song that is 16.7 MB at 320 kbps mp3 to my myspace player. First song in the player.

Originally Posted by soundinista

As I said above though, can't seem to get the downloading to work

I enabled one of my tracks for download but could not find an option to download it on my page either, very confusing, anybody know where the button is on a myspace page when you enable the song for download?

[soundinista]

Originally Posted by Flying_Dutchman

Let´s please get some facts, no suggestions, please

This is not conjecture -

I recorded the streams from Myspace of the first 2 songs on my page - "Nice Dreams" by Penny Black Remedy, CD version and filtered version. Then I put a frequency analyser on what I got.

The CD version has a very similar EQ curve to my (un Myspaced) mix right up to 11k, where it drops off in a practically vertical line down to pretty well nothing. After that however, it rises again in an extremely narrow spike centred at 12k which then drops down to nothing again just below 14k. The apex of the peak has an amplitude of about -16db (compared to around -8db at 10k).

The filtered version still shows this spike, but it is both quieter (-22db) and narrower.

So I filtered off all frequencies below 11k and listened to the HF noise I'd recorded on both versions.

The main difference (apart from amplitude) was that the noise in the filtered version was pulsing in time with the music, following mainly cymbals and hi-hats, whereas the untreated version was much more smeared, and in the loud parts, constant.

This seemed to re-inforce my subjective impression, from listening to both versions at full bandwidth, that the CD version was dirtier, with less detail at the remaining top end, and with clearly audible aliasing artifacts.

In fact, on the third tune (the orchestral piece) I can distinctly hear that "buzzy" sound on the voice practically all the way through on the CD version.

[soundinista]

Originally Posted by Edward_Vinatea

the MS player filters out everything above 11kHz, thus the reason it sounds so muffled. So, if you apply high shelving at about 6K, all you are doing is alter the eq up to about 11kHz, then rest is most likely filtered out.

Yep - I know. I'm trying to use what highs there are, to compensate for the absence of highs there are not. I'm not labouring under the impression that we can somehow put back the missing "air", and I'm well aware that boosting 6-11k is a very different thing to still having natural high-end at 11k+.

As I said in my post above, the question of whether to add any compensatory boost is subjective, possibly program-dependant, highly unscientific, and causes a change in the character of the mix which you may find undesirable, or not worth the tradeoff.

[soundinista]

Originally Posted by edit machine

I just now uploaded at 7:21 minute song that is 16.7 MB at 320 kbps mp3 to my myspace player. First song in the player.

Really?! I'm going to try that. Good news if we can all do that!

Just listened to your tune - sounds very good. What resolution were the other tunes on there uploaded at btw? just so we can compare how they came out.

Only problem for me was that I find it harder with electronic music to judge how much distortion is being added in Myspace, since we don't know how distorted it's meant to be (not being able to compare with your originals) especially when you use those classic lo-fi beatbox sounds.

Also I took the great liberty of recording and analysing your songs just now (please don't sue me). You get the same spike that I do - just wanted to check it's not some unique quirk that applies only to me.

Nice work though - sounds as if you like your 80's English suicidalists then? I have a soft spot for them myself.

[Edward_Vinatea]

Originally Posted by edit machine

I just now uploaded at 7:21 minute song that is 16.7 MB at 320 kbps mp3 to my myspace player. First song in the player.

That's good news. It means that they have upgraded their player's CODEC's specifications from 2 years ago! It was about time. My account was set up in 2005 and it can only play 4 tunes. I noticed that there are 6 song players now. Is yours one of these? Could it be this is just for new accounts? I'll have to delete one song from my account to see if I can do what you did. Anyway, they should have announced these changes though. Thanks for the tip

[recallbeats]

easy way: use external player on the myspace.com like in my page:

Recallbeats on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads /forwarded to myspace/ and with this player u can play mp3s at any bitrate!

[edit machine]

Originally Posted by Edward_Vinatea

My account was set up in 2005 and it can only play 4 tunes. I noticed that there are 6 song players now. Is yours one of these? Could it be this is just for new accounts?

I have a 6 song player now, but my account started off a few years ago with a 4 song player that was automatically upgraded. I am pretty sure the ability to upload larger files is a more recent development.

[vegafreak]

Helpful thread! thanks for the posts!

[mstrom]

Hi

I've been trying all sorts of sample rates with the myspace player but results have been pretty poor. Variable Bit Rate conversion seems to help a little. Some songs seem to be more affected by the "myspace sound".
With this project I have attached another player below the myspace player. That way if someone is interested I can point them to listen the other player for better quality.

Whitespace on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads


By the way Peter nice jazzy vibe going on.

[Mozart]

Originally Posted by recallbeats

easy way: use external player on the myspace.com like in my page:

Recallbeats on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads /forwarded to myspace/ and with this player u can play mp3s at any bitrate!

Where did you get the code from?

[soundinista]

Originally Posted by mstrom

Variable Bit Rate conversion seems to help a little

.

Does it? I'll give it a go.

With this project I have attached another player below the myspace player. That way if someone is interested I can point them to listen the other player for better quality.

That's a good sounding player, I want it! Don't need an analyser to tell me you've still got all those high-frequencies which I crave.

Good to have the opportunity to compare the same songs on both players. Nice mellow songs, by the way, liking that. Okay, you've answered my original question: it's a lot easier to embed a decent player like this than to mess around with the EQ, trying to make up for frequencies which simply aren't there. Thanks. Just tell me where I can get it please.

By the way Peter nice jazzy vibe going on.

Thanks! That's from "Full Circle" by Eva Abraham which should be released here in the next few months. She's a composer/songwriter for other artists and for movie-soundtracks, and also a session singer. She's a very multi-talented person who's been around the London music scene for years, doing lots of different stuff, without ever (yet) becoming a name in her own right. She put together a heavyweight lineup for this album, including some of the old Galliano crew, and Byron Wallen playing trumpet on that cut. Just want to give her a little plug on here.

[mstrom]

I can't remember were we got that player at the first place. I'll get back to you later. Mostly it's not about the player. It's just bypassing the "myspace prosessing".