suckers alice & blob have been building the new download store.

in a few days you'll be able to pre-order the Final Boss CD and then download it as soon as the transaction clears.

I spent forever making awesome encodings at top resolutions. I didn't even rip the CD for source material -- I took the 24-bit renders from the mastering lab, re-trimmed, and dithered them to 16. Because you're nerds you're probably all like "well duh, how else would you make digital versions of your album" but I can almost guarantee that I'm the only musician on earth who has put his paid downloads together like this. AND THUSLY the FLAC version is an even fancier deliverer of bits than the CD itself. If you can hear the difference though, you are a space alien or a witch.

Once your user account (same as bbs or vsp account) is authorized for the downloads, the latest version is available to you forever.

Final Boss is in VBR MP3 and AAC (both ~320b), and also FLAC.

The older albums will follow suit soon.

Hooray!

This is totally faboo.

-Yook, Alien Space Witch

Victory!

- Earth bound, audio neophyte.

cool ^_^...

cant wait to download....

Just let me know when/where to send my credit card digits!

Huzzah! I await with bated breath....

Is there really an appreciable difference between FLAC and mp3? I haven't noticed one, except for the larger filesize.

Maybe I need studio monitors to be able to tell.

excitement +1

Please allow me to shower you with money.

Even if you had them, you might not be able to tell. Few people can tell the difference between a great mp3 rip (192 kbps+) and FLAC. Heck, most people can't event tell the difference between an mp3 ripped at 160 kbps and one ripped at 192 kbps (I know I sure can't).

Then, when you add in the low quality earbuds or PC speakers that you're probably using...

Yeah, my appropriation of the term "Alien Space Witch" had nothing to do with being to hear stuff good. I actually have punk-rock-show-standing-by-the-stack-without-earplugs-damaged hearing, _and_ I use crappy 'puter speakers. So, for me, it all kinda sounds the same.

No, I just think that the phrase "Alien Space Witch" is awesome.

-Yook, Anti-Audiophile

<---- suggests cheering thrice for alice and blob.

hip hip

ACTUALLY! MP3 sounds like shit, to my ear. It's fine if there's a lot of space in a recording, but any time you've got a lot going on, the details get lost and you're left with mud mud mud.

Dig out your old CD of The Downward Spiral, find a place on the album that is particularly busy, and try encoding it different ways and A/B comparing your mp3 to the CD. Even without fancy hardware you should be able to tell that it is ass. I only use mp3s on the site because they're currently supported by every device. I'm hoping in a few years I can drop the format.

AAC on the other hand sounds great. As far as I can hear.

FLAC is (as the acronym reveals) lossless. Meaning input and output are the exact same bitstream. So the filesize you should be comparing it to is the 10+MB/min of the uncompressed CD.

Front, maybe you are just one of the fortunate/unfortunate people to have more sensitivity to audio. Kinda like how some people are very sensitive to taste, so they eat what I think is bland food.

Or maybe I'm like Yook, and my hearing has been damaged from too many concerts.

I encourage you to do the tests at home. I am really no audiophile and my hearing is halfway to totally shot, but it sounds pretty obvious to me on even halfway decent headphones that MP3 is none too fine in the details.

My encouragement is really only so that you'll be all like "oh yeah! I hear it now!" and then switch over to AAC (aka M4A) for your future CD ripping.

PS, album presales are ready for testing. I'm putting the URL in the VSP forum so a few of you can test it out.

LIKE SMALL PET RODENTS.

oh, and! The first single, WALLFLOWERS, is on the mp3 page.

There exists ABX software for doing blind comparisons of different codecs in the comfort of your own home. If you are feeling saucy.

It is my opinion that Wallflowers should supplant one of those standard wedding songs were people all get up and do ridiculous dances and then try to drag the nerds out to do it with them.