It's oh so quiet...shh...shhh

February 6, 2004 10:59 AM

Hey, shut up, I can't hear! What else will 99¢ get you from the iTunes Music Store? Nothin', that's what.
posted by marzenie99 (30 comments total)

I've read this in a few different places now, and I don't understand why everyone is so fascinated. The encoding process for the iTunes store is almost certainly entirely automated. Why would we expect them to manually select and delete silent tracks? In fact, if you're buying an album that happens to have a silent track, wouldn't you expect the iTunes store to include that?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:08 AM on February 6, 2004

Yea. This seems like a non-issue to me. I mean it's not even a case of, "Hey I bought Hey Ya! and got nothing but silence." In which case, I still wouldn't care.
posted by Witty at 11:16 AM on February 6, 2004

If you buy the CD, you have no choice but to pay for the silent track. With iTunes, you have the option to skip it. (create your own!)
So I would think this is a good thing.
posted by 2sheets at 11:21 AM on February 6, 2004

I am fully prepared for rants by Apple fanatics telling me how AAC-encoded silence sounds better than mp3-encoded silence or WMA-encoded silence.
posted by meehawl at 11:22 AM on February 6, 2004

Pootie don't needs no music, Pootie don't need no words. Pootie too good! Pootie too good!
posted by gnutron at 11:33 AM on February 6, 2004

John Cage composed "4'33"," a 1952 piece with a pianist that features just over 4 1/2 minutes without sound.

That's not true. There's no music for 4 1/2 minutes, but the "piece" is comprised of the ambient sounds in the theater (people coughing and whatnot). A good recording will let you hear that.
posted by jpoulos at 11:33 AM on February 6, 2004

" I am fully prepared for rants by Apple fanatics telling me how AAC-encoded silence sounds better than mp3-encoded silence"

I have a couple of albums with silent tracks [Laraaji's "Flow Goes The Universe", and Brian Eno's "18 Keyboard Studies"] I never was able to rip the silences to MP3; the resulting files were essentially empty and nothing would play them. Seems like AAC has MP3 beat, hands-down.
posted by Blue Stone at 12:06 PM on February 6, 2004

"John Cage composed "4'33"," a 1952 piece with a pianist that features just over 4 1/2 minutes without sound."

Rememeber how he used to that one move where he did the splits and punched ya right in the mean bean machine?
posted by lotsofno at 12:07 PM on February 6, 2004

I'd pay 99 cents for some peace and quiet. Such a deal.
posted by attackthetaxi at 12:18 PM on February 6, 2004

I'd pay 99 cents to not wade through unprovoked comments by people who are "prepared" for Apple fanactics to tell them something.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:28 PM on February 6, 2004

>> John Cage composed "4'33"," a 1952 piece with a pianist that features just
> > over 4 1/2 minutes without sound.
>
> That's not true. There's no music for 4 1/2 minutes, but the "piece" is comprised
> of the ambient sounds in the theater (people coughing and whatnot). A good
> recording will let you hear that.

My own band does a cover of this rearranged for chamber orchestra (tricycle, bathtub with legs, and 50lb sack of cement.) It needs work, though, because it generally takes more than 4'33" for the cement to harden in the bathtub.

On the other hand I once heard a really tight, cookin' bluegrass band get through the piece in under half a minute.
posted by jfuller at 12:31 PM on February 6, 2004

Did someone really just say mean bean machine?
posted by xmutex at 1:09 PM on February 6, 2004

I encoded the live performance of John Cage's 4'33" by the London Symphony off the BBC broadcast. You can download it (video included) here
posted by Mwongozi at 1:33 PM on February 6, 2004

I've resisted posting this link for days, and now it is everywhere, so it was only a matter of time.
posted by Slagman at 1:37 PM on February 6, 2004

I would like my 4’ 33” of silence to be preceded by some cackling, and a weird voice saying “Wipeout.”

On the other hand I once heard a really tight, cookin' bluegrass band get through the piece in under half a minute.

p.s. In a non-related matter, I have recently learned that Chopin’s Minute Waltz is a) not supposed to be played in a minute and b) not necessarily a waltz.
posted by LeLiLo at 1:45 PM on February 6, 2004

I just turn my speakers off and use the PC clock to time 4'33" of silence.

Is that piracy?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:50 PM on February 6, 2004

Hello, darkness, my old friend...
posted by arto at 2:03 PM on February 6, 2004

I just turn my speakers off and use the PC clock to time 4'33" of silence.

Is that piracy?

ha! that's funny stuff....
posted by paulrockNJ at 2:08 PM on February 6, 2004

.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:19 PM on February 6, 2004

But what do you hear if you play 4'33" backward?
posted by kindall at 2:19 PM on February 6, 2004

strangeleftydoublethink said:
I'd pay 99 cents to not wade through unprovoked comments

Obviously you do not pay attention to the whinings of consumers arguing over the merits of various lossy formats and flavours of DRM. Face facts: they all suck.

But I will gladly take your 99 cents (Euros please!) and in return, when and if I dare to venture forth a comment, aphorism, or unregulated or indeed even contemplate daring to engage in a psychologically orthogonal speech act of any kind, I'll send you an advance email warning you so you can avoid damaging your sensitive sensibilities. How's that sound?
posted by meehawl at 2:56 PM on February 6, 2004

These are encoded in a "lossy" format, right? The less noises there are in a track, the more significant any loss must be. So if it's all silence, ANY loss means the entire track is DESTROYED. Plus, I bet they compress down to just a few thousand bytes. On a real CD, you'd be getting the tens of millions of additional zero bytes that were intended by the artist. Totally unacceptable, this.
posted by sfenders at 3:52 PM on February 6, 2004

What's funny to me is a) these are DRMed like everything else and b) you can get both "explicit" and "clean" versions of silence from Slum Village.

The original story is here, btw.
posted by O9scar at 4:00 PM on February 6, 2004

posted by shepd at 4:01 PM on February 6, 2004

I win!
posted by shepd at 4:01 PM on February 6, 2004

I wish there were more silent tracks. They could split up those hidden tracks that have 20 minutes of silence then a song. I hate when those pop up in my playlist.
posted by smackfu at 5:22 PM on February 6, 2004

Rememeber how he used to that one move where he did the splits and punched ya right in the mean bean machine?

I'm embarrased to admit I actually got that joke, although I can't remember the control sequence.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 5:31 PM on February 6, 2004

posted by dmt at 2:37 PM on February 7, 2004

The emperor wears...what?
*Everything* is new for a newborn.
posted by Finder at 11:15 PM on February 7, 2004

I've got your MIDI file right here.
posted by Fofer at 8:51 AM on February 8, 2004