Why does music sound like crap on myspace?

It’s because when you upload your songs to myspace’s music server they automatically down convert to 96 kbps. The only reason that really big bands music sounds good on myspace is because they allow record labels to pay to not have their songs down converted.

Why do they do this?

MP3 files encoded at high quality 320 kbps are huge, usually around 9 – 15 megabytes. Once they have converted everything to 96 kbps it cuts storage costs in half (server space) and songs are around 1 – 4 megs. Oh and in case you didn’t know KBPS stands for Kilobits per second. Basically a lower kbps means lower quality but the trade off is smaller files and faster streaming (myspace player).

What can I do about it?

Your only option for better sounding music currently is to use a stand alone player. You would have to upload your songs somewhere else using a service like mediafire and then link the songs into a flash player. But one of the big things for bands is play counts which is something you don’t get without the myspace player.

How can I possibly make songs sound better on myspace?

No matter what you do putting songs on myspace will sound bad but there are a few things you could do to make them a little better. These are all things I have learned from other people and from experience mastering music for myspace.

1. Use a high quality program to convert your MP3’s to 96 kbps before you ever upload them. If they are already at 96 kbps myspace won’t touch them. The good thing about this is myspace probably uses a converter which makes things sound grainy with too much high end harshness. There are some good programs such as Sony Soundforge (what I use) and alot of other free stuff – you just have to do the research. I found a good program that does just conversion called SWITCH the other day so check that out.

2. Roll off some high end on your recordings. For some reason when music is down converted it tends to get really harsh in the high end and cymbals and guitars start to sound like musical chain saws. If you recorded a song yourself then just roll off just a bit of highs around 2 khz but not too much.

Why does (insert band here) have louder music than my band?

Part of the mastering process involves limiting (using a limiter). What this does is push everything up in volume but never lets it get past a certain volume (0 decibels). The good news: This means your music can be really loud! The bad news: This means your music won’t sound as good. Limiting and compression takes all the dynamics out of your music so the soft part will be just as loud as the loud parts and vice versa.

For those of you who like to visualize things imagine two brickwalls one being the ceiling and other being the floor and then imagine a group of people in between them, some short and some tall. What would happen is the bottom floor would start to get higher and higher until the group of people start getting close to the ceiling. Eventually the tall people have to duck to avoid being crushed and the little people are fine. If you looked at it from the side it would be really hard to tell the difference between those who were tall and those who were short, everyone would essentially look the same height.

In audio, the the tall people I talked about above would be the the peaks or the spikes in volume such as snare drums, the occasional vocal line and many other things. You could hear everything nicely until the two walls get close together and then some things start to get lost. Research has shown that when people are presented loud music and then presented the same music except not as loud people pick the louder song as the one of choice. Once time has passed though people start to realize that they actually like the softer version better because it has more DYNAMICS and you can feel it get louder and softer. If you listen to music which has been heavily limited and there are no dynamics your ears gets fatigued (which can actually happen) and it becomes less enjoyable.

The point is louder music is not always better music! There are trade offs which you have to taken into consideration if you want the loudest songs EVER! Think about it.

Rory Willis of RCW Recording works with artists from the Bowling Green and Nashville area. He can be contacted at 270-303-3001 or www.myspace.com/rcwrecordings