GHOSTS IN THE MP3
In order to be as accessible to the general public of smartphone users on platforms such as Spotify, songs must go through some type of processing, whether it be WAV, AIIF or MP3. The first song ever to be converted into MP3 format was Susanne Vega’s “Toms Diner” by Karlheinz Brandenburg, as the intricacies of her a-cappella vocal performance was imperative to capturing the essence of the performance, however made it “nearly impossible to compress” (Brandenburg, 2000). It is speculated that the recording of Tom’s Diner took place on a high-quality condenser microphone in order to pick up on Vega’s vocal inflections.
However, the current state of the MP3 conversion algorithm was not developed enough to match the quality of the microphone.
In the act of MP3 conversion, certain frequencies are lost as a means to decrease the size of the file by excluding frequencies that would be perceived as one tone by the human brain, imitating the psychoacoustic process called “auditory masking”. Frequencies that the brain cannot identify as seperate from each other become subject to auditory masking, and therefore only the louder frequency is perceived. These distinctions vary from person to person, and are the result of the cochlea filters in the ear and dependant on the extent of the basilar membrane placements of the individual. Brandeburg took advantage of this filtering this to aid in refining the process so it would discard any unnecessary frequencies that would be masked so that they would not be encoded in the MP3, thus perfecting the formula.
The uncompressed files have since been made accessible to the public, and in 2014 artist Ryan McGuire compiled the lost mp3 compression material to create the song “moDernisT”. . McGuire converted the original uncompressed WAV file to an 320kbps MP3 file and then “[taking] the difference” (McGuire, 2014) between the uncompressed and compressed audio files by comparing them and removing the frequencies that were included in the final version of the song. This left McGuire with an eerie rendition of Toms Diner comprised of the leftover artefacts and lost audio.
References
2013. Suzanne Vega Photoshoot. [image] Available at: <https://www.longislandpress.com/2013/03/02/long-island-featured-events-march-2013/suzannevega/> [Accessed 18 June 2021].Corbett, I., 2012. What Data Compression Does To Your Music. [online] Soundonsound.com. Available at: <https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/what-data-compression-does-your-music> [Accessed 16 June 2021].GOOD. 2021. This Creepy Song Is Made Entirely Of Sounds Lost During The MP3 Compression Of A Pop Hit. [online] Available at: <https://www.good.is/articles/sounds-lost-through-mp3-compression> [Accessed 18 June 2021].Jolly, N., 2018. Inventing the MP3: The one song critical in the format’s development. [online] The Brag. Available at: <https://theindustryobserver.thebrag.com/inventing-the-mp3-how-one-song-was-critical-in-its-development/> [Accessed 9 June 2021].McGuire, R., 2014. moDernisT_v1. [video] Available at: <https://vimeo.com/107845118> [Accessed 18 June 2021].McGuire, R., 2014. The Ghost in the MP3. [online] Theghostinthemp3.com. Available at: <https://www.theghostinthemp3.com/theghostinthemp3.html> [Accessed 10 June 2021].Schmundt, H., 2000. eCompany Now - Magazine Article - Printable Version - Ich Bin Ein Paradigm Shifter. [online] Web.archive.org. Available at: <http://web.archive.org/web/20001003052745/http://www.ecompany.com/articles/mag/print/0,1643,6590,00.html> [Accessed 14 June 2021].Schwartz, R., 2018. This Creepy Song Is Made Entirely Of Sounds Lost During The MP3 Compression Of A Pop Hit. [online] GOOD. Available at: <https://www.good.is/articles/sounds-lost-through-mp3-compression> [Accessed 16 June 2021].Schwartz, R., 2018. This Creepy Song Is Made Entirely Of Sounds Lost During The MP3 Compression Of A Pop Hit. [online] GOOD. Available at: <https://www.good.is/articles/sounds-lost-through-mp3-compression> [Accessed 16 June 2021].