Could Pono Really (Really) Make Digital Music Sound Better?

In my last post about PonoMusic I expressed skepticism about whether their music files would actually sound significantly better, and criticized them for what I consider misleading advertising as it pertains to "high-resolution" digital recordings. I also promised to keep an open mind, and today I want to entertain the possibility that PonoMusic might end up being a good thing for sound quality despite my skepticism.

So far all of Pono's marketing as it pertains to the sound quality of the music they will be selling has focused on the sampling rate and bit depth of digital recordings. Again from their FAQ:

IS PONOMUSIC A NEW AUDIO FORMAT? WHAT ABOUT PONOMUSIC QUALITY?

No.  We want to be very clear that PonoMusic is not a new audio file format or standard.  It is an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers to get access to and enjoy their favorite music in the highest resolution possible for that song or album.  The music in the PonoMusic.com store is sold and downloaded in industry standard audio file formats.  

The PonoMusic Store uses FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) audio format as its standard, for compatibility, although the PonoPlayer can play most popular high-resolution music formats from other sources.  PonoMusic has a quality spectrum, ranging from really good to really great, depending on the quality of the available master recordings: 

•    CD lossless quality recordings: 1411 kbps (44.1 kHz/16 bit) FLAC files
•    High-resolution recordings: 2304 kbps (48 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
•    Higher-resolution recordings: 4608 kbps (96 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files
•    Ultra-high resolution recordings: 9216 kbps (192 kHz/24 bit) FLAC files

In short, what this is telling us is that Pono will not be offering any kind of breakthrough in digital music technology. 192 kHZ/24bit PCM digital audio has been available in some form or another to consumers at least since the introduction of DVD-Audio nearly 15 years ago. There are already other digital music retailers that offer high-resolution digital music files for download. Likewise, the FLAC format is something of an industry standard for lossless compressed audio (although someone might want to alert Apple to that fact).

This is actually a good thing. The last thing we need at this juncture is a new digital format that isn't compatible with other players or current stereo equipment. Pono has not reinvented the wheel here, and there is no reason why they should. The music from their store will likely work with the equipment you already have (if you are an iTunes user you'll need to convert those FLAC files to something like AIFF or Apple Lossless files, but that is a topic for another day). In addition, their player will play the digital files you already own, as they have promised support for most varieties of PCM based audio files, including the kind Apple currently sells. In my view these are both sensible choices.

So if PonoMusic will not be offering anything new under the sun, why do I hold out hope that their product might actually lead to better sounding music for consumers? The answer, ironically, lies with the precedent set by Apple with their "Mastered for iTunes" program. Mastered for iTunes is a set of tools and best practice standards that Apple has made available to labels to create better sounding iTunes music files. I encourage you to read PDF Apple has made available on mastering music for iTunes, as it contains a set of common sense guidelines without excessive marketing hype. It suggests to me that Apple has a very good understanding of what some of the real problems with current digital music are: namely, excessive use of dynamic range compression and digital clipping. It has been my experience that the care that goes into making music sound its best at the mastering stage matters more (much more) than the eventual sample rate and bit depth delivered to the consumer.

It has long been my view that the mastering process is the critical phase in music production that really needs to be addressed and improved. By and large it is at the mastering stage where sound quality is really getting messed up these days. I applaud Apple for taking steps to address this problem.

If Pono were to issue a similar set of guidelines to labels on best practices for mastering audio for PonoMusic, I think there is a real possibility it could result in better sounding digital music releases. Were Pono to leverage its influence to urge labels to ease back on dynamic range compression, avoid digital clipping, and not apply excessive frequency equalization, it would result in audibly better sounding music and differences that really could easily be heard even at CD level (44.1kHZ/16bit) resolution. Perhaps they could create some catchy name like "PonoApproved" for digital albums that meet their sound quality standards.

Now, to be clear, I don't have any special reason to think this will happen, and given Pono's exclusive focus to date on sampling rates and bit depth as the drivers for better sound quality, I am not particularly encouraged. But some precedent for this kind of thing does exist. Also, if PonoMusic is successful, it could push other digital music retailers like iTunes to offer higher quality, lossless, downloads as an option for consumers. All these things would be very welcome developments, and I'm happy to wait and see how things shake out before issuing any final judgement on Pono. I remain skeptical, but I wish Neil Young and Pono luck in their stated goal of making digital music sound better. If they are serious about it they must take steps to demand better sounding masters from record labels, and if they succeed in doing so we all stand to benefit.

Hype Machine Radio for iPhone

Hype Machine, the music blog aggregator, has just launched a new iPhone app. So now if you want to listen to music from Flowering Toilet (or your favorite music blog) on the go, you can.

Here is how Hype Machine describes the app:

"The app is simple - it turns music blogs into mobile radio stations. You can listen to a skippable radio stream by every blog we monitor, as well as the popular or most recent posts across the site, and read each blog post. There are also genres and personalized features that create streams based on your usage of The Hype Machine and the blogs you follow. We've taken this radio approach because it offers a different experience from both browsing the site and reading a music blog on the go - in the app, the new stuff comes to you, instead of you having to search."

This isn't really my kind of thing, but I thought some of my readers might be interested to know about it, so there you go.

Amazing New Product!

What would you say if I told you there was an amazing new way to organize your CD library with the help of a PC (Personal Computer)? Probably something along the lines of, "No shit, it's called iTunes and it's been around since 2001, welcome to the 21st Century moron."

Okay fine, I probably deserved that, but you didn't have to be so rude about it. But believe it or not, I wasn't referring to iTunes, Winamp, MediaMonkey, fobar2000, or any other digital media player. No, I'm talking about BesTradeUSA.com's DC101 and DC300 (dig those jet age names!) CD Library - Automatic CD storage/retrieval system. I was amazed to read about these products in this Sunday's Providence Journal (though I cannot find a trace of the article on projo.com, I swear I'm not making this up, you can find the same story at Vindy.com). The DC101 and DC300 are state of the art solutions to an age-old problem that no longer exists: how do you organize and catalog all your Compact Discs?

For me, the DC101 CD Organizer's name brings back not only unpleasant memories of the classic rock station I was forced to listen to on the school bus, but also a horrific plane crash in 1982. Visually, the DC101's subtly contoured edges recall the elegant slide projector carousels of yore, or perhaps a yogurt maker. BesTradeUSA describes the DC101 thusly:

"The CD Manager/Organizer/Finder allows you to categorize and manage (storage/retrieval) your CD/DVD/VCD/CD-R/DVD-RW titles (e.g. electronic books, financial data, images, photos, video, audio, ..etc). It's only limited by your imagination."

That's right, no more fumbling for your Barry White's All Time Greatest Hits CD to set the proper mood. The DC101 hooks up to your Personal Computer via a USB input, so just type in the name of the CD you want, and let the DC101 do the rest! Your new special lady (or gentleman) friend will not only be impressed by how organized your are, and your unimpeachable sense of style, but also your easy command of the latest technology. I'm not saying the DC101 will get you laid but....well, actually, yeah that is exactly what I'm saying.

If, like me, you own more than 150 CDs, you needn't worry, the DC101 has still got you covered because you can stack and daisy chain up to 127 of them, allowing you to store and organize over 19,049 discs! I imagine you'd need pretty high ceilings to stack 127 of these units one on top of the other, and for stability's sake I would recommend separating them into five stacks of 21 and one stack of 22, or better yet six stacks of 18 and one stack of 19 (better safe than sorry).





If you step up to the deluxe DC300 model, you gain direct keypad entry, a built in USB hub, and CDDB update. But that's not all you get! The DC300 conveniently pushes your Compact Disc out entirely for easy, fingerprint-proof retrieval. Now all you need is a robot to put the CD in your Compact Disc Player, and your life will be as easy as George Jetson's ("Boy Rosie, these nine hour work weeks are killing me!").

The DC300 is available in either elegant almond, or stunning gray, and like the DC101 it can be stacked and daisy chained up to 127 times. The DC300 looks like the actual slide projector to the DC101's carousel, and its simple solidity will let the world know that you are a person of substance.

I have seen the future and it is called the DC101/DC300 CD Library - Automatic CD storage/retrieval system.

When you purchase your DC101 or DC300 organizers, you might also want to check out BesTradeUSA's amazing SNAP SHOT 2110 Digital Camera with 2.1 Mega Pixels (!) and 1.5" LCD display while it is on sale for the low, low price of $199 (MSRP $399). As BesTradeUSA says, "Digital Your Memory."

AAUGH!

So Apple's big news is you can now download the Beatles albums (stereo versions only) from the iTunes store. Finally, the world will get to hear these legendary albums in all their lossy compressed glory.

The only thing I can see that is remarkable about this is that the Beatles waited until the CD was an almost dead format to remaster their catalog. Now they've waited until downloads are almost irrelevant to make their catalog available that way.

And it's pretty lame that Apple hyped it by referencing a McCartney solo tune that John Lennon famously hated. I mean, I'm not one of these "John is God" and the "real" Paul died in 1967 guys, but come on.

Update: I just browsed through some of the reviews posted on iTunes. It seems some people are actually very excited about this. Here's are a couple sample reviews of the Yellow Submarine album:

"Holy Firetruck this is awesome!: Wow. It's been so long. I've waited for this moment feels like forever. My English teacher will be really happy when he finds out it's here!"

or

FINALLY!!!!!!: YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! They are finally selling the beatles on itunes!!!!!now this is sweet!!!!!

What am I missing here? Am I underwhelmed simply because I'm an old fart, and I've owned this music on 45 rpm singles, cassettes, LPs, CDs, etc. and loaded all the albums onto my iPod long ago? (That's a rhetorical question, I know the answer). It's never been hard to get the Beatles into iTunes or onto an iPod, you just couldn't buy it from the iTunes store until today. Why does this matter? Is it because you can now purchase "Hey Bulldog" without also having to buy "Pepperland Laid Waste"? I'm not just trying to be snarky here, I really don't understand the fuss.

Major iTunes Hype

If you go to Apple's homepage today you will be greeted by the message above about an "exciting announcement from iTunes" tomorrow at 10:00 AM Eastern. Despite my recent complaints about Apple and iTunes, I must tip my hat to them for their mastery of the art of hype. No one has any idea what what the big announcement will be, but that doesn't stop everyone from guessing. Apple does an amazing job of keeping things secret and only letting the public know about new products and features on their own terms. Also, no matter how many times these announcements fail to live up the advance hype, people always get worked up over the "next big thing" from Apple anyway.

Bonus SAT answer:

Lucy with football is to Charlie Brown as:
A) Steve Jobs with 'big announcement' is to Apple fans.

There's really only one thing that, in my opinion, could live up to this level of hype: the announcement of an "iTunes Cloud" service where people pay a monthly subscription fee that allows them to access the entire iTunes catalog. As downloads continue to fall well short of making up for the revenue that labels have lost over the past 10 years, it's become increasingly clear to me that the industry will eventually move toward some kind of subscription-based model. iTunes and Apple, with the world's largest digital catalog and the most popular hardware devices that could access a music cloud (iPhones, iPads, etc.), are ideally positioned to be the market leader when this shift occurs.

So if that is the announcement, it would legitimately constitute big news, and a day worth remembering. It would signal a seismic shift in the way pre-recorded music is distributed, and forever change our relationship to it. A music "cloud" would represent a far bigger shift, in my opinion, than the move toward downloads did, because with downloads you still "owned" something. Sure it wasn't something physical anymore, but--in theory at least--it still belonged to you. Once we move to a "cloud" access model, the idea of owning pre-recorded music will rapidly become an anachronism. It won't wipe record collector geeks like myself off the face of the planet in an instant, but it will make the hobby appear even more quaint and inconsequential than it currently does.

Of course given the "just another day" reference, Apple may just be planning to announce that you can download the Beatles catalog from iTunes, which would be quite lame and forgettable. (But would they really reference a Macca solo song to announce acquiring the rights to the Beatles catalog? If so, that sound you just heard was John Lennon rolling over in his grave.)

So will tomorrow be just another day when Steve Jobs pulls the football out from under us and leaves us lying on our backs cursing our gullibility, or will something really big happen? Either way, I once again tip my hat to Apple's spectacular ability to generate hype.

Update: All Things Digital says a "cloud" announcement is not likely given that contracts with music industry companies would have to be in place, and as far as anyone knows that hasn't happened yet. It's also not likely to be a more limited "cloud" that you can upload content you already own to, as the music industry has been arguing that such a service would also require a new contract. In short, given the number of players that would have to be involved, a cloud announcement just isn't something Apple could surprise us all with.

One last thought: Paul McCartney recently moved his solo catalog from EMI to Concord Music Group, so the announcement might have something to do with that. As a result, HD Tracks recently made Band On The Run available as a hi-rez (96 kHz/24 bit) FLAC download (allowing you to choose dynamically compressed and un-compressed versions). But audiophile Macca releases seem like something that would be of interest to too small a percentage of the population to qualify as a big announcement.

Getting Obsessive About Album Art

Sometimes things don't work quite the way they are supposed to. The "Get Album Artwork" feature in iTunes typically delivers good results, especially for newer releases. But for someone with a lot of older albums in their library, it is not always as useful. Sometimes the image quality of older album artwork from iTunes is quite bad. I've seen times where someone failed to crop out the staples on the side of the CD cover, crooked artwork, and other obvious problems. Worse, sometimes iTunes just gives you the wrong album cover.

Take Frank Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours for example. When I used the "Get Album Artwork" feature in iTunes, here is the image iTunes delivered:


Obviously that's not the right album cover. So I tried a Google image search, and this is the highest resolution result I found:


With no offense to whoever scanned this album cover, it looks pretty awful. I'd almost rather have the wrong artwork. The colors look washed-out, the image is grainy, and it's been poorly cropped.

So what's an obsessive compulsive to do? Naturally, I pulled my LP off the shelf, photographed it with my digital SLR, and cleaned the image up in Photoshop. This looks more like what I think Frankie's album cover should look like, complete with the white borders with paste on cover that Capitol used in the 50s and 60s:


Unfortunately, I have not been able to limit myself to only fixing up the really egregious cases. Here is the album artwork iTunes delivered for Soul Asylum's Hang Time:


For most normal people this image would look more than good enough. Unfortunately, when I look at it, all I can see is flaws. The colors aren't quite balanced right, it's too dark resulting in loss of detail, and there are some compression artifacts along with a few minor, but visible flaws.

Google image search didn't really help me out this time either. This was the best result I found. It's balanced brighter than the iTunes generated image, but that just makes some of the flaws more visible. Also at 400X397 pixels, it's on the small side, and the aspect ratio is slightly off:


So I scanned my own CD cover at 600 dpi, then edited it in Photoshop. I used Photoshop's "Gaussian Blur" function to at least partly eliminate the grainy, pixelated look, balanced the colors and contrast to my liking, then used Photoshop's "Clone Stamp Tool" to edit out that stupid "Includes Special Bone-Us Track" line at the bottom. Finally, I downsampled the image to 72 dpi and 900X900 so it wouldn't be too ridiculously huge for iTunes to handle. The result is, I think, a real improvement over the other two images, although nowhere near as dramatically as was the case with In The Wee Small Hours:

Apparently, I am far from the only person who gets overly-obsessive about getting their album artwork in iTunes "just so" because I found a site called Album Art Exchange, where people upload carefully scanned and edited CD cover art, along with the occasional image generated from an LP cover. I'm amazed at the high quality of the images that some people have posted there, and it's become my go-to site for album artwork.

One thing I like about sites like Album Art Exchange is that they help remind me that I am far from the cutting edge in O.C.D., and in fact probably fall into the "normal/hobbyist" category. I notice one person at the Exchange has posted over 20,000 images, almost all of them of insanely high quality. Unfortunately, not nearly all the albums I want high quality images for are available there, so I've started posting some of my stuff at 600X 600, 72 dpi under the screen name "zbop" in hopes of saving those of you with similar music collections the time and trouble of scanning and editing your entire music collection.

There is probably some small irony to the fact that the digitization of everything, which was supposed to make all our lives the last word in convenience, has resulted--at least for some of us--in a series of time consuming and elaborate rituals that are about as far removed from "convenient" as I can imagine.

Metal Box

Finally got it. This thing even looks cool in iTunes.

iTunes Again....

When I posted my iTunes story, I didn't go into too many specifics regarding my interaction with Apple Customer service. This was in part because I wanted to introduce the story within the fictional conceit that the incident involved a brick and mortar record store, but also because I didn't want the post to go on forever.

But there is one specific issue I wanted to share that I think sheds some light on what a sleazy outfit Apple has become. From what I can gather reading other stories from customers whose accounts were hacked this is an entirely typical practice on Apple's part, and I find it both extremely strange and unethical.

Here is a quote from one of the emails I sent to Apple customer service:

"It appears there is an outstanding balance of $36.96 on my iTunes account that my Credit Card company already rejected because they realized that the activity on my account was suspicious. Is it possible to remove this outstanding balance from my account? I understand that charges already made cannot be removed from my account, and have already taken that issue up with my credit card company."

Keep in mind, the $36.96 in question was for an order placed by the person who hacked into my account, but it was never fulfilled because my credit card company rejected the charge after detecting a fraudulent activity pattern on my account. Here is Apple's response:

"Hey Willis,

This is Xxxxx from Apple. You're very welcome. I am glad that I could provide you with some helpful information. Unfortunately, I cannot refund you or do anything with the order until it is paid for. If the item stays delinquent this would prevent you from making any purchases. I would recommend paying for the order. Once the order is paid for, I can refund you for the purchase."

This made absolutely no sense to me. First of all, the customer service rep had already explained to me she could not refund charges already made to my account, and if I wanted the nearly $1,000 already charged to my account back I would have to take it up with my credit card company. Now she was telling me she could refund a transaction, but I had to pay for it first. Notice the language she uses here too: the item was "delinquent" and if not paid for I would no longer be welcome as an iTunes customer. What she didn't mention was that Apple had also frozen my account so that I was unable to access many of my previous music and video purchases.

Needless to say, I was not eager to authorize a fraudulent transaction with no real guarantee Apple would refund it. At the time I didn't want to get into a long, drawn out email exchange on the issue, but I wish now I had asked her more questions to get a full articulation of Apple's policy. Instead, I replied:

"I will have to wait until my credit card provider sends me a new card before I can update the information. Once I get the new card I will update the information, and then contact you again about getting the purchase refunded."

When I received my new credit card I did not immediately update my information with iTunes. Eventually I decided that paying the $36.96 would be worth it to get access to my previous purchases back. Once I provided my new billing information, Apple immediately charged the $36.96 to my credit card. Unfortunately, when I emailed them about refunding the transaction I never received a response. Once again, I was forced to go to my credit card company to get the transaction canceled. Worse, despite paying the "delinquent" charge, my iTunes account remained locked for over a month afterward.

I continue to be shocked at how widespread the iTunes problem appears to be. One guy posted his experience on his blog, and got 258 responses, most of them from readers whose iTunes accounts were also hacked. One reader posted a reply he received from Apple that I found very revealing. (Because this was posted by someone else, I cannot verify the authenticity of this response, but it is entirely consistent in tone and content with my correspondence with Apple, as well as that of other Apple customer correspondence I have seen.)

"Unfortunately I am unable to remove or credit the purchase in question I have tried and there is no way to remove it from the account. You do have two options available to use with I will go over with you below. The first option is to simply enter a valid credit card into the account and pay for the outstanding order. Then I will refund the order back to you so you don’t have to pay for the order in question. This is the simplest way to keep your account active and able to update applications and use the iTunes Store.

The second option if you still refuse to pay for the outstanding order in question is to create a new account with iTunes. You will need to create a new account and provide complete billing information including providing a valid credit card. Then after creating the account you can continue to use the account. Do understand that all CMA, iTunes+ offers and applications updates will not be on this new account. You will need to repurchase the applications for them to update with the new account. Music purchases from the old account will not work with the new account.

So as you can see both choices do choices to make and I would honestly just pay for the outstanding order so you can continue to use the account just like before. You can take all the time you want to decide on what you want to do. I will be looking forward to hearing from you soon."

This is the clearest articulation I have seen of this very simple fact: If your iTunes account is hacked, Apple will be more than happy to hold your previous purchases hostage until you agree to pay them an additional sum. I am reminded of the old Woody Guthrie lyric, "Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen." Today Woody would have to change his fountain pen to a keyboard, which is unfortunately far less poetic. Pretty Boy Floyd where have you gone?

Given how unfriendly U.S. law is to consumers, I have little doubt that what Apple is doing here is totally legal. But, legal or otherwise, I consider it unethical and downright sleazy. Anyway, if you want to continue doing business with Apple's iTunes store, you should be aware of the tough road you have ahead of you if you ever have a problem with your account.

iTunes Fraud Story in Wall Street Journal

Ben Worthen and Yukari Iwantani Kane highlight the problems iTunes users have experienced after having their accounts compromised in The Wall Street Journal's lead Tech story today.

Ben interviewed me for the story and I am quoted near the end. I talked to Ben several times as he was preparing the article and was very impressed by his intelligence and thoroughness.

You can read about my frustrating iTunes experience here.

iTunes Update

For those of you following my iTunes saga, as of yesterday I was able to log into my iTunes account successfully. I'm not sure why I was suddenly able to log in again, considering that on June 14th iTunes and Apple's help site were still telling me that my user ID did not exist. I had unsuccessfully attempted to log in as recently as June 14th in order to refresh my memory in advance of a conversation with a reporter about my problems with iTunes. I've gotten a couple press inquiries on the subject, and I'll keep you posted if anything comes of them.

I have no clue as to why I was able to access my account again after a month of being unable to do so. I didn't do anything differently than during past attempts. I can see my transaction history again, and all the unauthorized transactions are still listed. I took the opportunity to take screen shots and compile them into a single list, so I have them for my records in case something happens to my account again.

Looking at the transaction details for the unauthorized transactions there is a weird mix of Christian themed purchases (Veggie Tales, an app called "Bible Shaker") and semi-pornographic purchases (an app called "Phone Sex Girls 2.0", etc.). The only logical conclusion I can draw from this is that my iTunes account must have been hacked by Prince.

Follow up thoughts on the iTunes post

I wanted to follow up briefly on my original post regarding my recent problems with the iTunes store, in part because some readers left comments that made interesting points that I thought I should address. Also, reading the comments has pushed me to think a little bit more about some of the issues involved in an incident like this.

Some readers suggested that buying music from a local independent retailer is a better alternative to buying music from iTunes. I totally agree. In fact, I buy the vast majority of my music from my local indie retailer, In Your Ear in Warren, RI. The owner is a friend of mine and I know he considers me a valuable customer. I have bought very little music from iTunes over the years, and what I have bought is mostly stray tracks, and a couple "iTunes exclusives" from bands I like. By far, my preferred method is to keep things local, and I have long been an advocate for that. (My car even sports a "Support Your Local Record Store" bumper sticker.) That said, I can’t agree with the perspective that says anyone who buys from iTunes deserves to get screwed.

I also don't see it as my business to tell anyone to not shop at iTunes if they want to, which is why I only went so far as to recommend funding with a pre-paid card for safety reasons. I'm not going to tell people not to buy from iTunes because I had a bad experience with them.

One poster suggested that it is unfair to expect Apple to "know" I wouldn't want to buy a particular release because a big electronic store like iTunes is totally different than a store run by person with cognitive abilities. This is a fair point. The reason I framed the incident in the way I did was to point out the differences between retailers that you have a personal relationship with, and e-tailers that create a kind of simulated personal shopping experience. Would it be unreasonable to expect Apple's iTunes store to be "smart" enough to automagically recognize when someone attempts to purchase something unusual on my account? In isolation, yes. But when a pattern of purchasing emerges that is totally out of character with my previous purchasing patterns (as was clearly the case here), Apple could easily detect that if they cared to.

My credit card issuer caught the fraudulent activity not because they pay a bunch of humans to sit around and study transaction sheets for suspicious activity, but because they employ sophisticated algorithms that can detect patterns that are out of the ordinary. Fraud detection algorithms are much more sophisticated than I think many realize, and they are nothing new. Banks and credit card issuers have been using them since the 80s. I am honestly a little surprised that Apple doesn't have some similar system in place for iTunes.

That said, no algorithm can detect fraud 100% of the time. Even the very best algorithms will miss something or generate a false positive on occasion. But what this experience suggested to me is that Apple has no fraud detection algorithms in place for its iTunes store whatsoever. If they did, the algorithm would certainly have picked up on the suspicious purchasing pattern that started with a single $1 purchase, then quickly escalated to numerous more expensive transactions.

Should we expect an online store like Apple iTunes to have robust fraud protection? I'll leave that for others to decide. The question here to mind is what do we get in return for all the information that we share with Apple? Because, believe me, Apple benefits from the information we give them about ourselves. In the case of iTunes we get recommendations for things to buy and the ability to create Genius playlists. What we don't get is even the weakest form of fraud protection. For some that will be a fair trade, for others not.

For me, all of this raises another issue, which is: How many of your digital eggs do you want to put in one basket? This is going to be an increasingly relevant question with the proliferation of devices like the iPad.

Currently, I use an iPod to listen to music on the go and LPs and CDs to listen to music at home. I use DVD, Blu-Ray and Netflix streaming service to watch movies. I get my phone and internet service through Cox. My cell phone service is through T-Mobile. My GPS system is a Garmin. My books are all still made of paper. There is an undeniable appeal to the idea of being able to combine all these functions (and more) into a single device or closely related family of devices. Certainly this is the kind of integrated system that Apple is hoping we will soon find impossible to live without.

But there is an obvious value to keeping these things separate that I think is perhaps under-discussed. If something goes wrong with my Garmin, I can always fall back on Google Maps to get directions. If my iPod breaks, I can still listen to LPs at home and CDs in the car. If I have a billing dispute with T-Mobile, I can still make phone calls from home, etc. There is a certain level of redundancy to a patchwork system of devices that helps us avoid catastrophic failures.

But what happens as we move toward a model in which all of these functions are integrated into a single device or family of devices linked to a single corporate entity? It's clear to me that is currently the direction we are headed, but I don't know that the implications of this move have been explored as thoroughly as they should be. What privacy issues will be involved? Will you actually own anything on the device, or only be allowed to use it at someone else's discretion? What happens if you decide you want to switch to a competing device/service? What happens when there is a billing dispute? Will there be sufficient government oversight and regulation to prevent monopolistic behavior? Is the convenience gained worth the risk of losing access to everything at once?

I don't necessarily have answers to these questions. But perhaps it would be wise for consumers to think a bit about them before making the leap into this new paradigm.

The Problem With Today's Record Store

I wanted to relay a recent bad experience I had with my local record store owner. Maybe some of you have had something similar happen in the past. I guess I'm just venting really, but hopefully this can serve as a cautionary tale for others about the things that can go horribly wrong between a customer and merchant.

I've been shopping at this particular store for the past 6 years or so. I haven't bought a lot of stuff there, but I still like to think of myself as a good customer. Mostly, I've picked up albums from the likes of Belle and Sebastian, Iron & Wine, Robyn Hitchcock and Luna. I've also picked up the occasional movie or TV show, and sometimes a random single by The Mills Brothers, Quincy Jones or Beck. The owner knows a bit about my tastes because I've actually told him quite a lot about my music preferences over the years. Like any good record store owner with a long-term customer, he's made some recommendations for me. I always found his suggestions rather prosaic and predictable, but basically on target. It was at least nice to know he was was trying to get to know me and my preferences.

I thought everything was fine until one day I had my credit card stolen. The joker who stole my card waltzed into this record shop and charged up almost a thousand dollars worth of stuff over the course of a single day. He told the owner he was buying the stuff for me. I would have thought the owner would know better because most of the stuff this joker bought was not to my taste at all. Without casting aspersions on anyone else's taste, I'm just not a Miley Cyrus and Glee kind of guy, and anyone who knows anything about my taste in music should know that. Weirder still, the joker also bought a bunch of 8-track tapes, even though the owner knows I don't own an 8-track player. But he never asked a single question, and just went ahead and charged the stuff. I guess he was happy to have the business. I know times are tough in the music retail biz, but I was under the impression that he was actually managing to do pretty well.

So anyway, my credit card company spots that there's something unusual going on, and I get a call from their fraud detection unit the very same day. I told them I had not authorized any of those purchases, and they disputed the charges for me.

Here's where things start to get really weird. After I disputed the charges, I guess the owner got pissed off at me or something (although the situation was obviously not my fault, and frankly he should have known something fishy was going on). In retribution, the record store owner breaks into my house and steals back a bunch of the music and all of the movies and TV shows I had bought from him in the past. Even more bizarre is that fact that he chooses to just steal the records, CDs and DVDs themselves, but leaves all the covers and album art in place so I don't even realize anything is missing until I decide I want to play one of the albums. So now a lot of the stuff I've bought over the years is gone, and as far as I can tell I have no way to get it back.

I've tried contacting the record store owner to resolve the issue, but he doesn't take my phone calls and won't answer my emails. When I show up at his store, the door is locked for me, even though everybody else can still come and go as they please. It's like I've been dropped into some weird record collector geek version of The Twilight Zone.

About now you're probably thinking I'm either pulling your leg or I've lost touch with reality because nothing so bizarre could possibly happen in the real world, right? Well, yes and no. You see, if you replace the words "record store owner" with "Apple iTunes" this is almost exactly what happened to me. Back when people primarily bought physical products from brick and mortar stores the kind of incident I describe would have been unthinkable. But as we move towards a virtual goods/e-tailer model, equivalent incidents are becoming more and more common.

Here is what really happened. Someone got access to my iTunes account, changed my account name and password, and proceeded to charge almost a thousand dollars worth of merchandise in a single day. They bought stuff I would never buy like Veggie Tales videos (a Christian themed children's cartoon) and Celine Dion albums. They also bought a number of iPhone apps, even though I don't own an iPhone (a fact that Apple knows better than anybody). My credit card company contacted me about the suspicious charges, and disputed them for me. When I contacted Apple about what happened they were totally unhelpful. Now they seem to have closed my iTunes account entirely, and I can no longer access any of the protected AAC music files, television shows or movies that I "purchased" from iTunes in the past. They are as good as gone. iTunes customer service does not respond to my emails inquiring about how to get my account reactivated. I cannot get through to anyone via phone, I just get a message directing me to their customer service website, and I can't really use that because as far as Apple is concerned, I don't have an account with them anymore.

As far as I have been able to gather, this is a widespread problem, so much so that Japanese Government has made an official inquiry with Apple about its billing practices. According to a story from MyFox New York, this a scam that is being used to funnel cash into a PayPal account or to a credit card (yeah, I don't know how that would work either, but then I'm not a genius cyber-criminal). However the scam works, it is apparently quite common, and suggests that there is a huge hole in Apple's security. In preparing this post I came across hundreds and hundreds of similar complaints from iTunes users who have had their accounts compromised. In fact, I found so many complaints from people who had the exact same thing happen to them that I had to stop looking, or I would have spent the rest of my life reading nearly identical tales of futility and frustration. Suffice to say my experience is not unique, and the problem is widespread.

Based on my experience, and what I have learned in its aftermath, I would strongly urge anyone with an iTunes account to remove their credit card information from their Apple iTunes account immediately. If you want to continue to do business with iTunes I recommend using pre-paid iTunes cards to fund your purchases, at least until Apple gets its security issues resolved. At the moment Apple does not admit there is a problem. In fact, the one person I managed to get on the phone at Apple informed me that iTunes was so ultra-super-secure that if my account was hacked it would be the first time it ever happened to anyone. The conversation reminded me of listening to one of those old Politburo spokesmen in 1982 saying "Premier Brezhnev is a healthy and vital Russian man and could never be ill," or Iranian President Ahmadinejad saying "there are no homosexuals in Iran," or, well you get the idea.

Fortunately, I only ever bought a relatively small amount of DRM protected iTunes tracks, and I upgraded many of the ones I did buy to DRM free iTunes plus tracks, which I can still access. I don't really care about the TV shows, and the movies were all downloads that came with DVD or Blu-Ray purchases, and I was unlikely to watch them on my iPod anyway. Nevertheless, I always felt like those things were "mine" when in fact they belonged to Apple all along and I was only allowed to play them at the pleasure of the corporation. I'm certainly glad that I'm not someone who downloaded a lot of music and movies from iTunes, or bought an Apple TV and elected to give Apple total control over my home entertainment experience. For me this incident has been little more than a minor inconvenience (albeit one that has been going on for three months now with no resolution in site), but I can imagine it being much worse for a different kind of media consumer.

Update: As of 06/16/10 my iTunes account appears to be fully functional again.

iTunes Goes DRM Free

I never found Apple's DRM (digital rights management) on iTunes downloads overly restrictive, and in retrospect it was essential in getting the major labels to commit to legal downloads. I've yet to bump up against the DRM copy protection ceiling. Nevertheless, DRM always bugged me, and I'm glad to see it go the way of the dodo.

But DRM aside, there is more good news in Apple's recent announcement of upcoming changes to their iTunes store.

First, in addition to being stripped of DRM, all songs on iTunes will now be AAC encoded at 256kps. Previously, some songs were available without DRM and at 256kps (designated as iTunes+), but until now the only major label that had agreed to sell their music in this format was EMI. By the end of March, everything on iTunes will be available exclusively in this higher bit rate format and much of their catalog has already been upgraded.

Many audiophiles would probably argue this point, but in my experience, digital files ripped using AAC encoding at 256kps sound very good (nearly indistinguishable from uncompressed CD-resolution files). Files that have been encoded using lossy compression algorithms like AAC or MP3 are not the same as uncompressed files (information has been lost) but they do have the potential to sound very good if the sampling rate is sufficiently high. In my experience with AAC encoding, 256kps is high enough to sound excellent in most cases, while 128kps (the previous iTunes standard) is generally not.

iTunes users will be able to upgrade their library of previously purchased music at the cost of 30 cents per song or 30% of the original purchase price. Many will (justifiably) complain about having to pay for this upgrade. It is particularly irksome that you cannot choose which songs you want to upgrade individually (it's all or nothing). If you've downloaded a lot of music from iTunes, this could end up being a costly upgrade and not worth the expense. Welcome to the real world where it rarely pays to be an early adopter.

The second change at first glance also appears to be a mixed bag for the consumer. Apple plans to introduce variable pricing, something the music industry has been requesting demanding for a long time. Downloads of individual songs will now cost either 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29. On the whole I think this is both a smart move for Apple, and on balance will be good for consumers as well: the most sought after tracks will be priced a little higher, while most songs will end up costing less. Honestly, it never made much sense to price the latest single by Rihanna the same as "Apes-Ma," the 39 second track from Captain Beefheart's Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (even though I would personally prefer the later to the former).

These changes make purchasing music from iTunes a much more compelling option moving forward. The iTunes store remains the gold-standard in terms of ease of use, but it had been losing ground to the competition in terms of sound quality and pricing. These changes reverse that trend and will force other music download providers to improve their services or go the way of DRM.

It All Started With A Mixtape...

My wife just got her first iPod, and a couple days ago she asked me if I could re-create the first mixtape I gave her in an iTunes playlist. Could I recreate a mixtape I had made nearly thirteen years ago for her iPod? Yeah, I could do that. If she had asked me to do something simple like change a diaper or take out the garbage, I probably would have said "in a minute," then promptly forgotten about it. But creating a playlist for my wife was something I was willing to get to work on immediately.

The timing of her request was fortuitous because today happens to be our tenth wedding anniversary, and re-compiling that first mixtape provided a good opportunity for a trip down memory lane. To make a long story short, I am a lucky guy. Very lucky.

Beyond my eternal eagerness to fuss with my music, I was touched by the sentiment behind my wife's request. It showed me that after all this time (though I shouldn't need reminding) that she still thinks of me as something more than the father of her children and husband (not that those are unimportant things). Even though she knows me so well now, she still thinks of me as an interesting person, someone whose ideas and passions are worth exploring. I find this thought comforting because I know I feel the same way about her.

It didn't take me very long to put the playlist together because I had already loaded most of the tracks onto my own iPod. I exported tracks from my iTunes library and imported them into hers. Then I purchased the one track I didn't already have on my iPod from the iTunes store rather than rip it from vinyl. Next I scanned the original cassette cover, cleaned the image up a bit in Photoshop, then pasted the picture to the tracks' meta-data to replace the original artwork. Viola! A perfect digital simulacrum of an analog cassette mixtape (minus the added analog hiss and plus some artifacts from lossy compression).

The speed and ease with which I was able to complete the playlist was somewhat disturbing. I remember the amount of time it took me to create the original tape. Back then I had to do everything in real-time. I couldn't just drag, drop and be done with it. I had to listen. I had to give things some thought. I had to carefully match the sound level of each track, making sure the volume never peaked too high on my cassette deck's VU meter, all the while maintaining a relatively consistent volume level.

Today iTunes makes everything a little too easy. If two tracks don't flow together properly, there's no need to rewind and erase, just move the offending track elsewhere in the mix. iTunes also automatically normalizes the volume of the mix with its "sound check" feature (though, it must be said, not as well as a skilled mixtape wizard would have). And of course there's no need to actually listen to the thing (if indeed you can still call it a "thing") before you finish it.

Back in the day, putting together a good mixtape was hard work. Some might call it a lost artform. I wonder what a young man seeking to impress a special lady does these days without the mixtape as an ally? Do they loan their potential sweetie a flash drive or email them a Rapidshare link? The RIAA might have something to say about that. Do they gift some very special tracks via the iTunes store? That could get expensive fast (90 minutes of music would cost considerably more than a good blank type II audio cassette). And besides, what if that special somebody you have your eye on has already downloaded the She & Him track you just know will win her heart? You just wasted 99 cents buddy. Cripes, what if she owns a Zune instead of an iPod? Life today is complicated. I'm glad I did my romancing during a simpler era. I wasn't very good at it then, but I don't think I would have the skills needed to pass along my genetic code in the brave new world of digital media.

Listening to the simulated mixtape on my own iPod, it is clear to me that I gave this tape some serious thought. However, it's not always clear to me exactly what I was thinking. Flying Saucer Attack? Spectrum? I could have easily given my future wife the (entirely unfounded) impression that I was a frequent recreational user of prescription cough-syrup. Knowing what I now know about Marjorie's attitude toward drug abuse, that could have been a fatal mistake. What if this mix had given her the wrong idea about me? My mind spins toward all sorts of invariably-unpleasant alternate realities (most of them involving permanent bachelorhood and my parents' basement). I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and I have to shake myself back to reality. Mercifully, I'm not living in some alternate universe where an ill-considered mixtape cut short a promising romance. I can hear Marjorie and our two children quietly breathing as they sleep. I'm not sure how I ended up living in this the best of all possible worlds, but one thought is inescapable: I am a lucky guy.

I find it slightly embarrassing to remember that Marjorie was not the first woman for whom I had made a mixtape. As best I can recall, before Marjorie these tapes were almost never warmly received. I strongly suspect most of them were discarded before they were even listened to (I could almost see the the silent thought bubbles these tapes would engender: "What no Peter Cetera? What kind of freak is this guy?"). Einstein once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." So why did I keep doing it? Why did I make a mixtape for Marjorie when I should have known it was most likely a waste of a perfectly good type II cassette? Because I hoped things would turn out different this time. Because I wanted her to like me. And by that I mean I wanted her to like me, Pete Bilderback, the kind of doofus who thinks it's a good idea to put a cheesy instrumental produced by Joe Meek or a song warbled by Will Oldham on a mixtape for a woman he's trying to impress. Miraculously, she did!

Somehow it worked. I don't know how. I don't know why. But it worked. She liked the guy who made her the mixtape. A few years later she agreed to marry him. A few years after that she gave him a perfect son, then a perfect daughter. Maybe it didn't really start with the mixtape, but not a day has gone by since we got married ten years ago that I haven't counted myself lucky. Every day I have spent with this marvelous woman has been a gift and I want to thank her for everything she's given me. Thank you.

Non-Dairy Tape
Side one:
Air Miami - "I Hate Milk"
Number One Cup - "Divebomb"
The Tornados - "Telstar"
Love - "Stephanie Knows Who"
Barbara Manning - "[Untitled]"
Stereolab - "Doubt"
Kendra Smith - "Stars Are In Your Eyes"
Flying Saucer Attack - "In The Light Of Time"
Spectrum - "Undo The Taboo"
Yo La Tengo - "Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)"
Cardinal - "Silver Machines"
The Moles - "Already In Black"
The Velvet Underground - "Sweet Jane"

Side two:
Son Volt - "Windfall"
Palace Music - "New Partner"
The International Submarine Band - "Blue Eyes"
The Byrds - "Reputation"
Camper Van Beethoven - "Heart"
Fairport Convention - "Si Tu Dois Partir" and "Matty Groves"
The Magick Heads - "Standing At The Edge"
The S.F. Seals - "Joed Out"
Sally Timms - "Half Past France"
Buffalo Springfield - "Flying On The Ground Is Wrong"
Opal - "Fell From The Sun"
The Bats - "The Other Side Of You"
Barbara Manning - "B4 We Go Under"

Fetchin' Bones now on iTunes, etc.

I noticed that Fetchin' Bones three (long out-of-print) Capitol albums are now available as downloads on iTunes, and at Amazon. I'm pretty sure this is Bad Pumpkin's debut in any digital format, never having been released on a certain shiny silver format that was popular in the later part of the twentieth century.

I still have the first album and Bad Pumpkin on LP, but somewhere along the line I lost my copy of Galaxy 500, which may have been my favorite album by the band. So I took the opportunity to download it from iTunes. Listening to Galaxy 500 again is like a visit from an old friend (and not the kind of old friend who stops by to complain about their kids and boring job either, the kind of friend who still knows how to party). Beholden to no genre or conventions, Fetchin' Bones' music still sounds incredibly fresh to my ears.

I consider the digital reissue of albums like this a very encouraging sign. Fetchin' Bones aren't that obscure, but the bulk of their music has been unavailable commercially for years. With the multiple digital distribution models available today, there's no good reason for even relatively obscure music not to be made available in a way that allows artists and their labels to earn royalties on their work. Of course, if more obscure indie-rock gets re-released officially, I'll have little left to post beyond my Chipmunk Punk album. [Actually, I see Chipmunk Punk is available through the Chipmunks' iMunks website, so forget that.]

My only complaint is that the download of Galaxy 500 did not include the original CD-only bonus tracks, including their earth-shattering take on "Superfreak." (If any of my readers have a copy of that let me know, I'd love to offer it here.)

Perhaps I should give Monster another chance too?

Happy Birthday iPod

Apparently the iPod turns five today. So happy birthday iPod. It may well be true that as Farhad Manjoo writes in Salon the iPod and digitization of music have "altered how we experience music more fundamentally than any technology since the advent of audio recording."

Manjoo points out how complicated our relationship to the iPod tends to be. Though he loves his iPod, he says he sometimes wishes it had never been invented...It's great to have so much music at your fingertips, but doesn't the iPod tend to foster a kind of musical ADD in which you skip from song to song without ever truly soaking in anything? Does walking around with headphones all the time cut you off from the rest of the world? Etc., etc.

What Manjoo misses, I think, is that these are the kind of questions that come with the introduction of any new technology, and the more revolutionary the technology, the greater the anxiety about change. Take a look at debates that raged about the train, the automobile, and even the typewriter when they were introduced if you don't believe me. One would be hard pressed to find any technology, no matter how helpful, no matter how much it enriched our lives, that wasn’t met with some level of ambivalence and resistance. Though there are no records to document this, I expect the first humans to take to cave dwelling complained that it had cut them off from the "authenticity" of their nomadic experience as hunters and gathers.

Such fears tend to fade over time. I remember in the early-eighties predictions that the advent of "test tube babies" would have a radical effect on our lives and that the technology was moving forward before we had time for adequate debate on the pros and cons of the procedure. Some worried the test tube baby would mean we would cease to be human (again, if you don't believe me take a look at the debates from the time). Who worries about that now?

The same people today claim we're not ready for BioNanotechnology because we haven't pondered all the moral implications long enough. To hell with them, I want to be turned into an invincible nonobot-cyborg that can lift cars, see through buildings, shoot lazers out of my eyes, and has an iPod that knows what I want to listen to before I do implanted in my brain as soon as possible. Sign me up. I'll let others wring their hands and worry about what it means to be human. If we ever listened to these kinds of people no new technology would ever go anywhere because we'd be stuck debating its merits ad infinitum. We'd still be living in caves debating whether fire was on balance good or bad for humanity.

I think Manjoo also misses the fact that people tend to appropriate technologies in ways that work for them, and don't necessarily use them in a uniform manner. People find ways to personalize technology. Consider for example the plethora of aftermarket products that are available for the iPod. This is actually a sign of a robust and healthy technology, not a flawed or incomplete one. No one argues that there is some basic problem with the automobile because people customize it. The very fact that people want to customize it merely indicates that they want to personalize their relationship to to the technology, and by extension that it is important to them.

For instance, I only rarely listen to my iPod through headphones, but it has made my daily commute much more pleasant with the added accessory of a radio transmitter. What could possibly be wrong with listening to the music I want to hear in my car? When I do listen through headphones it is usually through a pair of Grado SR80 headphones (I never took the stock ones out of the box). And my iPod is clad in a fluorescent green silicon skin. It protects the iPod from scratches true, but it also personalizes it--makes it more uniquely mine.

I was surprised to see a couple of "audiophile" complaints about the iPod pop up in Manjoo's article, as these usually get passed over as applying only to nutcases. First, the complaint about compression of music (the reduction of dynamic range) is valid and real. But this has been an ongoing problem that started well before the advent of the iPod, and is probably more linked to the introduction of the CD changer than to the iPod. As for the digital compression process (reduction of file size), it is true that it reduces audio quality, especially at the frequency extremes. But in my experience this is not a problem in the high noise environment of the automobile or for casual listening, and I still have my turntable and a decent CD player for those times when I want to relax and really sink into the music. And if you insist on audiophile quality from your iPod you can use Apple Lossless compression, get a good pair of Grado headphones, and buy an audiophile quality headphone preamp. Your life will be a little bulkier, but the point is it's your life and your iPod and you can use it however you want to.