Optimizing Audio for Myspace Flash Player

drakewire · 22nd October 2006

perhaps I missed the boat here. However, is anyone aware of how to optimize audio for Myspace. A band turned me on to the fact that the audio compression that myspace supposedly doesn't do, does infact severely degrade sound versus say tagworld and the like.
If you pay close attention to the Mixes of a great deal of the Larger artist such as the Fray etc. There mixes appear Louder than they do on a normal CD. Im thinking because they are over compensating for the fact that the player starts off in a mid position... But I am just taking a guess here. I really dont know which section on GearSlutz this falls into so I figured Id just put it in the High End Catergory since most of us in here have probably run up against the same or similar situation...
Should the Mix be dithered to 96Kbps since this appears to be the Myspace download format... Which would eliminate Myspace from compressing the format... Or do they do it anyway. To convert the file from MP3 to SWF...
I am sort of knowledgable of Macromedia products now Adobe, but I have tried everything and maybe some one knows an easier way...

idiophone · 22nd October 2006

I have no enlightenment to offer, but I have noticed that when I've uploaded the same mix twice, it sounds VERY different. The myspace audio process is a mysterious thing, indeed.

drakewire · 23rd October 2006

nothing came up with issues dealing with this...
So I emailed Myspace. They replied with a crock I think... "We dont compress the Format, we just adjust the bitrate... " HA HA. And....????
LOL I think this is a joke Kiddos.... The fact is this... I think since the download rate is a 96Kbps file even though you may upload a 320KBps file, it will convert it.. So I tried this out... Bingo....
IF you use WaveLab or Sequoia just dither it to 16 bit MP3 at 96KBps... Get it sounding good there... Since Myspace's compression is a true false dither box.. So if the format matches it doesnt change the file in anyway...

~
Long time to figure this one out... Im just amazed no one has flamed this one before

Rednose · 23rd October 2006

I like to use wavelab with the "Franhofer" codec.

guerillamixer · 23rd October 2006

I believe that downloading and streaming are done at two different rates - 96 and 192 kbps.

I'd try using 44.1k as opposed to 48k as well - could be just my experience but the 48k files I uploaded once sound extra crunchy..

The best bet is to upload, listen, then try again.

drakewire · 23rd October 2006

In a perfect world bands wouldnt have to slut themselves to Myspace for exposure...
If you think about it... Lets take for example one band...
The Fray
almost 30 million plays....
You know how much they got paid for it?
Zero...
You know how much myspace made off of it...
about 650,000.00 dollars...
Wow...
Seems like to me this is an unfair imbalance...
Just my two cents...

macmod · 24th October 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by drakewire

In a perfect world bands wouldnt have to slut themselves to Myspace for exposure...
If you think about it... Lets take for example one band...
The Fray
almost 30 million plays....
You know how much they got paid for it?
Zero...
You know how much myspace made off of it...
about 650,000.00 dollars...
Wow...
Seems like to me this is an unfair imbalance...
Just my two cents...

''You know how much myspace made off of it...
about 650,000.00 dollars...''

How?
Cheers,
Macmod

**Lindell** · 24th October 2006

I'd like to know this to....

u b k · 24th October 2006

in my experience, if your mix sounds really good, it sounds really good on myspace.

gregoire
del
ubk
.

Fleaman · 24th October 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by drakewire

In a perfect world bands wouldnt have to slut themselves to Myspace for exposure...
If you think about it... Lets take for example one band...
The Fray
almost 30 million plays....
You know how much they got paid for it?
Zero...
You know how much myspace made off of it...
about 650,000.00 dollars...
Wow...
Seems like to me this is an unfair imbalance...
Just my two cents...

Me wondering how this was figured too?

But even if myspace was obviously making $$$ off advertising and a band like The Fray increases those revenues, think of the hundreds of thousands of bands that have very little play and site traffic....I bet the advertising revenue for those low traffic pages doesn't cover the costs myspace endures. Not to mention all the non-music myspace pages....which I'm guessing there are millions of personal myspace pages that have very little traffic.

And the final thought: If The Fray thought it was an unfair balance, they could just remove their page. But my guess is the Fray is in an even more imbalanced situation---a Record contract....which probably requires them to have and maintain a myspace page.

Mark Warren · 24th October 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by drakewire

nothing came up with issues dealing with this...
So I emailed Myspace. They replied with a crock I think... "We dont compress the Format, we just adjust the bitrate... " HA HA. And....????
LOL I think this is a joke Kiddos.... The fact is this... I think since the download rate is a 96Kbps file even though you may upload a 320KBps file, it will convert it.. So I tried this out... Bingo....
IF you use WaveLab or Sequoia just dither it to 16 bit MP3 at 96KBps... Get it sounding good there... Since Myspace's compression is a true false dither box.. So if the format matches it doesnt change the file in anyway...

~
Long time to figure this one out... Im just amazed no one has flamed this one before

Great tip if that's how it plays out. So just fanagle the mix down to an mp3 at that bit rate and it should upload exactly as it was created? Thanks!

drakewire · 25th October 2006

Lets take the Fray for example...
On any given page they have one or two advertisements. Myspace earns about 8.25 to 9.50 per thousand impressions of one ad. So if the have two advertisements on one page thats what they earn. So take for example the Fray

I mean this purely speculative as they may have earned more or less.

But lets say they earned 16.25 for every thousands hits to the site 9583235
would be
9583235 / 1000 = 9583.32 * 16.25 equals 155, 727.00

This is from intial impressions....
However, Myspace uses an auto loader to autoload impressions whil eyou browse ever thirty seconds. so realistically they maye have earned alot more than 650,000 dollars off the advertisements since they have thirty million plays...
Of course if they had been played on the radio thirty million times they would have earned exponentially more...

The thing is for exposure the bands lose out on a huge revenue stream that myspace enjoys.
The facts are simple the bandwidth and space that it takes to power myspace is nominal at best in respect to how much it earns off the back of musicians... Take that away, and they would literally have no market...
After all its a networking site where mostly people just share pictures and comments... (I.E Email)

duvalle · 25th October 2006

here are my 2 cents:
since i audio export into mp3 (320kb) directly out of cubase sx3 the sound improved greatly. i mix stuff for mp3 rather loud (l2 etc.).

check:
myspace.com/duvalle

"rolling eazy" is as loud and fat as i can get it by now ...

blackcatdigi · 25th October 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by drakewire

IF you use WaveLab or Sequoia just dither it to 16 bit MP3 at 96KBps... Get it sounding good there... Since Myspace's compression is a true false dither box.. So if the format matches it doesnt change the file in anyway...

~

So have you verified this?

And why do you specify WaveLab or Sequoia? Wouldn't any codec work?

Hhhmmm.

drakewire · 25th October 2006

it in as much as trial and error on a couple of different computers with a couple of different sets of speakers... And it appears to bypass the compression....
You can use and mp3 encoding you like, I was just using wavelab as an example... In fact it can sometimes give a good result especially when your going from Wav to mp3 at such a fast bit rate..

csl · 26th October 2006

Once I noted MySpace produces 96kbps 22kHz mp3s I thought I'd compress as this format and upload, but MS still spent a while 'processing' it, and it did sound different when I played it back. I think you'd probably get a better result uploading as high a quality file as possible, keeping within the 10MB size limit, as it seems to process indiscriminantly.

psychosis · 23rd February 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by guerillamixer

I believe that downloading and streaming are done at two different rates - 96 and 192 kbps.

I'd try using 44.1k as opposed to 48k as well - could be just my experience but the 48k files I uploaded once sound extra crunchy..

The best bet is to upload, listen, then try again.

you should never use 48k
cd quality is 44.1 so you don't want your stuff converted all the time

the myspace player is 22050 sample rate 96kbps
thats not the big problem,
when the myspace player converts the mp3,
it causes aliasing on the high end

but you know what, its so bad,
theres no real way to fix it,
only make it more tolerable

psychosis · 23rd February 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by csl

Once I noted MySpace produces 96kbps 22kHz mp3s I thought I'd compress as this format and upload, but MS still spent a while 'processing' it, and it did sound different when I played it back. I think you'd probably get a better result uploading as high a quality file as possible, keeping within the 10MB size limit, as it seems to process indiscriminantly.

yes,
you're exactly right.
this is why there's no real solution
because converting yourself would have fixed it,
if the myspace player didn't convert automaticly

covert to 256k, it sounds the best to me

the worst part is,
they don't even offer advice on how to get a good sound out of it
the don't even tell you what kind of mp3s to use
and when anybody tries to ask them whats up about it,
they just dismiss them
i see it all the time on these forums

I've been trying to find a solution for this problem for a long time,
nothing works unless you totally eq out the high end down to like 8k!!
and compress everything as much as you can

psychosis · 23rd February 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Warren

Great tip if that's how it plays out. So just fanagle the mix down to an mp3 at that bit rate and it should upload exactly as it was created? Thanks!

nope, it still converts
and sounds twice as bad

upload at 256k
cut of the high end of the track your having trouble with at somewhere between 8-11k and compress it as much as you can

its an improvement
but if ur having problems with snares and high hats like me
you cant fix it,
because high hats are usually around 16k
and snares are around 8-11k
so they're right in that range that craps out

peter_martin · 23rd February 2010

Simple solution, don't use myspace.

It sounds terrible.

Your better off giving a 128kbps mp3 that you control on the bit torrent networks.

I had 10,000 hits in three weeks on my myspace page, that did not equate to a single additional sold record.

Myspace exists to completely remove the emotional connection between the artist and people that enjoy what the artists do.

Pristian · 10th November 2010

Best sound quality for my last track: 32khz_320kbps.

check out here: NO OFFENSE on Myspace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

johnnywellas · 11th November 2010

Wouldn't it be possible to embed other player into the myspace profile, bypassing the default one? Something that could stream AAC+, for instance?

22nd October 2006	#1
drakewire Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 832 Thread Starter	Optimizing Audio for Myspace Flash Player perhaps I missed the boat here. However, is anyone aware of how to optimize audio for Myspace. A band turned me on to the fact that the audio compression that myspace supposedly doesn't do, does infact severely degrade sound versus say tagworld and the like. If you pay close attention to the Mixes of a great deal of the Larger artist such as the Fray etc. There mixes appear Louder than they do on a normal CD. Im thinking because they are over compensating for the fact that the player starts off in a mid position... But I am just taking a guess here. I really dont know which section on GearSlutz this falls into so I figured Id just put it in the High End Catergory since most of us in here have probably run up against the same or similar situation... Should the Mix be dithered to 96Kbps since this appears to be the Myspace download format... Which would eliminate Myspace from compressing the format... Or do they do it anyway. To convert the file from MP3 to SWF... I am sort of knowledgable of Macromedia products now Adobe, but I have tried everything and maybe some one knows an easier way...

23rd October 2006	#3
drakewire Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 832 Thread Starter	ran a search on the net nothing came up with issues dealing with this... So I emailed Myspace. They replied with a crock I think... "We dont compress the Format, we just adjust the bitrate... " HA HA. And....???? LOL I think this is a joke Kiddos.... The fact is this... I think since the download rate is a 96Kbps file even though you may upload a 320KBps file, it will convert it.. So I tried this out... Bingo.... IF you use WaveLab or Sequoia just dither it to 16 bit MP3 at 96KBps... Get it sounding good there... Since Myspace's compression is a true false dither box.. So if the format matches it doesnt change the file in anyway... ~ Long time to figure this one out... Im just amazed no one has flamed this one before

23rd October 2006	#6
drakewire Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 832 Thread Starter	the best bet In a perfect world bands wouldnt have to slut themselves to Myspace for exposure... If you think about it... Lets take for example one band... The Fray almost 30 million plays.... You know how much they got paid for it? Zero... You know how much myspace made off of it... about 650,000.00 dollars... Wow... Seems like to me this is an unfair imbalance... Just my two cents...

24th October 2006	#9
u b k Gear Guru Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: The Land of Sunshine Posts: 11,035	in my experience, if your mix sounds really good, it sounds really good on myspace. gregoire del ubk . __________________ • Introducing UBK-1: Motion Generating Character Compressor • • Finally... Plugin Compression with Vibe, Color, and Authority • ____________________

25th October 2006	#12
drakewire Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 832 Thread Starter	oh sorry for not explaining that one Lets take the Fray for example... On any given page they have one or two advertisements. Myspace earns about 8.25 to 9.50 per thousand impressions of one ad. So if the have two advertisements on one page thats what they earn. So take for example the Fray I mean this purely speculative as they may have earned more or less. But lets say they earned 16.25 for every thousands hits to the site 9583235 would be 9583235 / 1000 = 9583.32 * 16.25 equals 155, 727.00 This is from intial impressions.... However, Myspace uses an auto loader to autoload impressions whil eyou browse ever thirty seconds. so realistically they maye have earned alot more than 650,000 dollars off the advertisements since they have thirty million plays... Of course if they had been played on the radio thirty million times they would have earned exponentially more... The thing is for exposure the bands lose out on a huge revenue stream that myspace enjoys. The facts are simple the bandwidth and space that it takes to power myspace is nominal at best in respect to how much it earns off the back of musicians... Take that away, and they would literally have no market... After all its a networking site where mostly people just share pictures and comments... (I.E Email)

22nd October 2006	#2
idiophone Gear interested Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 11	I have no enlightenment to offer, but I have noticed that when I've uploaded the same mix twice, it sounds VERY different. The myspace audio process is a mysterious thing, indeed.

23rd October 2006	#4
Rednose Lives for gear Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,433	I like to use wavelab with the "Franhofer" codec.

23rd October 2006	#5
guerillamixer Gear nut Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 139	I believe that downloading and streaming are done at two different rates - 96 and 192 kbps. I'd try using 44.1k as opposed to 48k as well - could be just my experience but the 48k files I uploaded once sound extra crunchy.. The best bet is to upload, listen, then try again.

24th October 2006	#8
Lindell Moderator Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Sweden Posts: 2,328	I'd like to know this to....

25th October 2006	#13
duvalle Lives for gear Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: H City Posts: 1,060	here are my 2 cents: since i audio export into mp3 (320kb) directly out of cubase sx3 the sound improved greatly. i mix stuff for mp3 rather loud (l2 etc.). check: myspace.com/duvalle "rolling eazy" is as loud and fat as i can get it by now ...

25th October 2006	#15
drakewire Lives for gear Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 832 Thread Starter	I have only verified it in as much as trial and error on a couple of different computers with a couple of different sets of speakers... And it appears to bypass the compression.... You can use and mp3 encoding you like, I was just using wavelab as an example... In fact it can sometimes give a good result especially when your going from Wav to mp3 at such a fast bit rate..

26th October 2006	#16
csl Gear addict Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England Posts: 404	Once I noted MySpace produces 96kbps 22kHz mp3s I thought I'd compress as this format and upload, but MS still spent a while 'processing' it, and it did sound different when I played it back. I think you'd probably get a better result uploading as high a quality file as possible, keeping within the 10MB size limit, as it seems to process indiscriminantly.

23rd February 2010	#20
peter_martin Lives for gear Join Date: May 2009 Location: Somewhere in Texas Posts: 544	Simple solution, don't use myspace. It sounds terrible. Your better off giving a 128kbps mp3 that you control on the bit torrent networks. I had 10,000 hits in three weeks on my myspace page, that did not equate to a single additional sold record. Myspace exists to completely remove the emotional connection between the artist and people that enjoy what the artists do.

10th November 2010	#21
Pristian Gear interested Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: france Posts: 1	Best sound quality for my last track: 32khz_320kbps. check out here: NO OFFENSE on Myspace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

11th November 2010	#22
johnnywellas Gear Head Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 38	Wouldn't it be possible to embed other player into the myspace profile, bypassing the default one? Something that could stream AAC+, for instance?

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