Keen On... Bob Weir: Why Mp3 Music Is An Assault on Your Ner

[@bzfgt1]

Now I know what's wrong with my ner.

[@IggyMontpellierPro]

bzfgt bzfgt Lucky you. I still don't know!

[@bobbogr1]

if you want to see how bad MP3s are, turn them up. They vary form one to another, but as a rule they fall apart at high volume.

[@jamespowers4371]

The look Mr. Weir gives the camera when the interviewer tries to describe the Grateful Dead with mere words.....PRICELESS!! ROFLMAO!

[@HCliff-hf7ek]

They didnt so much give away their music as allow us to come and harvest it.

[@gph9674]

Interesting that after all the years, Thomas Edison's wax tube sounds better than an MP3. As for the tape head. Awesome that a band would make room for tapers right next to the sound board. Proud Dead Head.

[@gratefulaya192]

***** best headphones ever made were in 91 by Orpheus www.wired.com/2013/01/orpheus-headphones/

[@harmono8766]

That's pure B.S. come on you are not using your brain cells.

[@STSGuitar16]

Well, I mean, if they're going to be recording anyway you might as well give them a good spot to do it so that everyone can truly enjoy the final recording. If you know that fans will record a show no matter what, even by sneaking stuff in if they have to, it just makes sense to make it acceptable and let them document the show in the best possible quality.

[@incongra]

haha imagine anyone telling a member of the Grateful dead "you have to be brief here"

[@joeryan1369]

This was very informative. I never questioned myself about about the sound quality of digitized music in comparasion to analog recordings. It looks as if I may have to do the same type of experiments to hear for myself. Thanks for sharing this and thanks to bob and Andrew keen for creating the interview.

[@MrCraigary123]

Im 16 have vinyl, cassette, 8 track all of that... I seen bobby in concert with phil a year ago... It was a furthur show and it was awesome... They scarletfire was amazing....

[@veritastriumphantchurch776]

If Live Dead was analog and poor quality, by god it still holds up today

[@chibby79]

Bob is pretty spot on.Just a matter of waiting for technology to catch up,get circulated,and get cheap.For now,we're just going to have to suffer.

[@_noname617]

why's there an open seat dividing them?

[@mybingobrain]

Covid

[@deemenpleemen1832]

Bob Weir looks like he is playing an old Bob Weir in a Saturday Night Live skit.

[@boydthiel5868]

I often have the same negitive thoughts about listening to mp3. A regular CD is much better than mp3. Bob's100% correct about how we all stream for free rather than buy a better quality such as super audio sounds. I have two advanced Grateful Dead DVD. The music sounds so much better than a CD.

[@stacyblue1980]

+Boyd Thiel oh yea man i know. I hated my MP3 player. It was okay. Good quality but it was not as personal ya know? It did not feel as if it was personally yours and just YOU and your ears. Its strange. I have always collected vinyl and CDs are definitely much better. Thanks :)

[@Moreoff]

Congratulations on the placement & position of Bob's microphone.

[@IggyMontpellierPro]

Moreoff They had to put it there. He was gonna smoke it if he realized it was near his mouth.

[@buckodonnghaile4309]

Bob Weir's famous potato salad is on full display in this video and I for one find it magnificent.

[@bernlin2000]

Equipment is still important: ipod with earbuds will never sound very good, but 500 dollar headphones hooked up to a good sound card with V0 mp3's will sound brilliant. And you lose the pops and crackles of records. Really, that's the only thing you lose, and maybe that is something some people would prefer to keep.

[@mikeyj.3605]

I love listening to LPs and cassettes. It does sound much more authentic and is a much more pleasurable listen. I have to be honest though. All the epic Grateful Dead shows that I have been listening to for years now are not readily available on LP and cassette. To be able to listen to soundboard quality Grateful Dead, compared to the hissing cassette bootlegs I used to have to kiss people's asses for copies of, is like night and day. What a difference! Especially with the mind altered just the right way to get that, I can't believe this is happening before my ears, GD experience. It came as a bit of a surprise to hear Weir bash MP3's so hard, but MP3's haven't stopped me from enjoyable all the soul, fantastic interplay, spine tingling moments, and the incredible live energy from the Dead's audience. Having sub woofers these days also helps out with the live sound , especially with Phil's bass, which is so predominate in the Dead's live sound. The Grateful Dead catalog of live recordings, with all the live nuances in it, is so vast and incredible, it must be the biggest collection of music that most people have no idea is there. Too bad for them. I bet Bob has a nice collection of vinyl Grateful Dead.

[@D-Fens_1632]

This tech has made us both snobs and settlers. I've been stuck having to use a bluetooth FM transmitter for FLAC files in my car. I'm totally anal about using the latest Charlie Miller cleanup of a direct digital copy of a vault SBD reel for a show, yet I'm listening to it on this awful system. Any CDs I play in the car sound infinitely better than using the FM transmitter, the difference is shocking. And that's the inferior CD. I'm both a snob and I settle.

[@aaronventimiglia9635]

how are we supposed to get all of these old live dead shows if not for mp3, does bob really want use to burn cds or burn records if thats if possible of all these live dead shows, mp3 has made all these great live dead shows accessible

[@garrettwelch9489]

Aaron Ventimiglia lossless audio torrents

[@schoonat]

Bobs impression of a cult band member...lol! Good to see him joking around still, even if this interview is few years old.

[@gergsport]

Andy Schoon do you mean expression?

[@ReedRosson1987]

I'm not sure I agree with Bob here entirely...and you can listen to vinyl-to-MP3 and it's louder and interesting...I prefer vinyl Im a freak for vinyl... fun being a vinyljunkie..but mp3's can be awesome ..I love bob but this is a vague and somewhat erroneous discussion

[@synchronicity492]

Reed Rosson: MP3 is not awesome. It's about "high fidelity" vs basically or almost crap (IMHO). I guess it's what you pay for. MP3 does not have the same quality in sound, or sound as good, as CDs. Especially CDs remastered and/or vinyl. It's like radio where the highs and lows get chopped off because it would require a whole lot more power (and money) to reproduce the sound of the source over the airwaves. In technical terms MP3 files are less bytes and use less bandwidth which translates to LESS quality in sound. It's about marketing: the smaller file size of MP3s facilitated the use and sales of Ipods - which could store hundreds if not thousand of tunes. On the other hand you could upload CDs on them, but they'd fill up quick equaling much less tunes; (BTW a desktop computer has plenty of room to download your CD's). Small single speakers are available to make music from your cell phone louder via Bluetooth, but it's just not the same. And I get it, it's convenient, portable, inexpensive and CHEAP to produce. Still, to me, it's kind of the antithesis of sound reproduction. Therefore Mr. Weir is correct in that it is an attack all right - but it is more like an attack on your soul! Did I go too far? Let's just say this, it is not really how music should be heard. A gross analogy might be, is to compare the sound at a decent concert to what you can hear at home. That's over the top I know. To reproduce the sound of a concert you'd need an audio system costing in the thousands of dollars. And who could afford it? Yet, we could make an effort to build up a better sound system at home and bring a little "high fidelity" back into our lives. I suppose it's a sign of the times, being that everything costs a lot, and the economy is not great (IMHO) and the average Joe's median wages have been stagnant for twenty years or more, barley or not at all keeping up with inflation. (And with the advent of sending good paying middle-class jobs overseas to places like Red China, I guess the amount of funds one can have - well it makes it tough. It's almost as if THEY don't want us to gain or to be able to accumulate much wealth.) But I digress, didn't mean to go off topic.

[@misterbones13]

I AGREE WITH THE GUY ABOVE-HE SEEMS REALLY SMART,like he knows his stuff! The DEAD provided us with the last TRUE AMERICA-the GRATEFUL DEAD SHOW! Especially 3 day shows with camping,like VENTURA! (Best west coast venue,ever!) MISTERBONES13

[@jamjax]

Bob is so well spoken. As always. But this guy doesn't really have his stuff together for his side of the interview. Thank god for Bob.

[@w7777777s]

Hey, I'm an analog guy through and through, but after watching that, "analog good, digital bad", except when we do state of the art digital, 'cause we're special" interview and reading the previous comments here, I would come to the conclusion that we humans love in no particular order - 1. euphonic distortion 2. free music 3.analog physical media and it's rituals 4. drugs

[@brianjansen3103]

If I have enough of the right drugs I can enjoy almost anything

[@sheltiemanva]

What Bob is talking about their is mainly early digital. We have come to sample rates now that were not possible with original CD's. The next big thing (right now, the memory stick quite honestly for the clever)like DVD audio, is an entire level above CD. It has to do mostly with how many times a second the "clock" chops stuff up. They thought we could not hear it. We really cannot, but we can FEEL or TELL that something is not rigth on a primal level... The newest digital recordings can b MAGIC

[@greg1030]

CAUTION! Do NOT be wearing headphones during the first seconds of this video or you may get too deaf to hear any difference between Weir's rightful hatred of mp3s and 24 bit music downloads!

[@Eltercero]

''so now you're coming back into the music industry''

[@derekmtheriault]

Shakti (Sanskrit pronunciation: [ˈʃʌktɪ]) (Devanagari: शक्ति; from Sanskrit shak, "to be able"), meaning sacred force or empowerment, is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism.[1] a mysterious psychospiritual force.[4] Shakti exists in a state of svātantrya, dependence on no one, being interdependent with the entire universe.

[@jeangophile]

MP3's are an assault on our nervous system? I always prefer vinyl, tube amps, and so on but this is nonsense!

[@dklangjets]

When the digital format came to prominence, there was a "tinny" sound on the high end, but today digital files are written to compensate for the high end that gives it such a sound. Bob would have had a point years ago

[@stillaliveandwell5291]

Digital has improved. If I start out an evening listening to vinyl I cannot switch to digital. If I start out listening to digital I can happily switch to vinyl.

[@kyleh8500]

Bob's right. I remember when everything went digital. There was something wrong with the sound of the digital music.

[@ryanjensen4692]

I’d love to hear more, what exactly was different? The way it made you feel?

[@InfamousMedia]

Neil Young raises this idea as well

[@drummerben04]

Totally agree that the Internet hasn't helped the music industry but I don't believe CD's or MP3's are worse or better then analog. There are many factors as to why an LP would sound better then a CD and let's get down to it. When CD's first came out the mastering jobs they were doing was horrendous and not usually from the original master tapes. Take the Beatles for instance, the 2009 remasters sound light years better then the 80's masters. How well of a mastering job has a lot to do with it, secondly it is the devices we are listening to MP3's on. A lot of the coldness we hear has to do with the tinny earbuds everyone is using these days or even the speakers we use today. I guarantee if you listened to a vinyl with a bad set of headphones it's going to sound bad. We also used tube amplifiers back then instead of the cold transistor amps that we use today, that definitely warms up the sound.

[@drummerben04]

Now how can you listen to full analog glory in the 21st century? It's actually quite difficult to do so as almost the entire music industry today does not record to analog tape anymore. So any new artist can release their albums on vinyl but unless they recorded to analog tape you're simply listening to a digital recording on vinyl which sort of defeats the purpose. Even if the artist has recorded to analog tape such as a reissue of "Good Vibrations", 99% of the vinyl sold in stores today is not cut from the original master tapes. Instead the industry uses a digital copy of the master tape to cut the vinyl. A few exceptions are the 2014 Beatles Vinyl box set where apple records made it a point to use mastering techniques identical to methods that would have been used in the 60's. That box set was made in limited numbers though and rather expensive. Now even if you buy a vinyl record that has been cut from the original analog master tapes, you won't experience full analog glory unless you are powering your speakers from a vacuum tube amplifier. Unfortunately good tube amplifiers cost a fortune in today's market, sometimes thousands. So unless you have thousands to spend to experience full analog glory, your best bet is to buy a good mastered CD with a decent pair of headphones or speakers.

[@drummerben04]

What's beneficial about digital technology is the fact that it never degrades, it never loses frequency response, and in fact has better frequency response then cassette tape. As you keep scratching your vinyl it will eventually become very hard to listen to. Every time you play an analog tape it loses it's magnetic charge thus frequency response until it eventually becomes inaudible. You can remagnitize a tape but unfortunately that will erase everything on it. You can also carry with you your entire music library, that I find amazing.

[@dterbest111]

Finally! When CD's came out what, 25 yrs ago? I said they in no way equal the quality of analog and here is one of my heros echoing that thought. Thank goodness

[@TorkG8]

Vinyl records all the way!!!!!!!

[@tiemyshoes92]

why are all interviewers annoying... Maybe because I came here for Bob Weir.

[@ken-mb5cp]

tiemyshoes92 They all have egos. Terry Gross is good

[@jmsjms296]

Weir, you're weird

[@michaeldowst7395]

As a 14 year old who loves the Grateful Dead and other bands from that era I would prefer to hear some of their stuff on vinyl. The biggest problem is that vinyl is so expensive. If you were a 14 year old kid I'm sure you would choose listening to an album on youtube for free rather than paying over $20 for it on vinyl.

[@jasonhervey6067]

Michael Dowst - No, the biggest problem is that I can't store vinyl in the cloud and have it everywhere I go. I also can't spin vinyl in my car, where I do most of my listening.

[@DeadheadRI]

Love the TRI concept.. (~)8-#

[@terrya450]

everything is mp3 even the radio station i work at runs off MP3s

[@jpwjr1199]

That’s horrible

[@RocknCorruptrepublic]

"nobody sits down and listens to 20 minutes of music like they used to sit down and listen to a side of an LP.." lol what? I often love listening to a full album at a time.. sometimes I make an album or two (esp. if it's a deluxe or extended version), or everything by a single artist, its own playlist.. am I just really weird then? :P

[@PhosphorDigital]

Hey TechCrunch: Watching this here, because the T.C. page where this video also lives is trying to run a crapload of scripts for tracking and who the hell knows what. Don't need that, don't want that, don't like that.

[@unclejakemusic]

Cassettes were supposed to kill the industry because people could copy music and give it away. Then CDs could be burned in less time. Then MP3s made the free transfer of music even easier. Yet still the music industry is a huge business. Artists have had the "starving" reputation forever. The talented ones (either as musicians or marketers) will always thrive. Unfortunately, the digital age has opened the door to artists who aren't even worth the 15 minutes of fame they achieve.

[@sheltiemanva]

Make sure you scour sites like sugar megs and the online show catalogs. FLAC is your friend and throw that FUCKING ipod away and get yourself a Sansa that will play a flac direct. Actually, get yourself a squuezebox and a decent D/A converter. You will shit at the difference. I have an ipod classic and I love it...for audiobooks when I am driving. It does not have ANY music on it. Ipods are a fucking assault on all music.

[@nerfherder999]

smart digital listeners require lossless formats (FLAC, Ape, etc), But still, isn't digital recording the problem? Not the format? Steve Albini and that older camp who rallied against digital a decade ago were saying that recordings must be committed to TAPE, then transferred and mixed on digital. This seems to work. It's analog to analog, so nothing is lost. Digital recording itself, turns the analog inputs into step-wise sampled data, which isn't the same thing as analog transmission.

[@nerfherder999]

smart digital listeners require lossless formats (FLAC, Ape, etc), But still, isn't digital recording the problem? Not the format? Steve Albini and that older camp who rallied against digital a decade ago were saying that recordings must be committed to TAPE, then transferred and mixed on digital. This seems to work. It's analog to analog, so nothing is lost. Digital recording itself, turns the analog inputs into step-wise sampled data, which isn't the same thing as analog transmission.

[@WilliamStade]

I'll tell you once I have them... the TRIstreams, ok? I'll look for them, google search with TRI as the keyword. the user-friendly entrances. Nothing wrong with true progress in audio quality was heard as a resounding chord, e-commerce research always is good too, yes? I'n any case, pleased to meeet all of you.

[@420mota1]

@deepdreamher- search KZbin for "Bob Weir Bohemian Grove" and you'll see it in his own words- I know it's hard to believe, but it is unfortunately true. He brags about hanging out with an OSS (early CIA) bigwig there, as if that's something to be PROUD of, smh.

[@bumbaclot77782]

Mainstream music isn't worth paying for because its not written well, as far as MP3 quality, change the quality before hand you won't be able to store as much music on your MP3 player but it will sound way better. If you don't realize how shitty your music sounds buy better headphones.

[@iampennochio]

Music has been free for thousands of years of human history. Any argument that says now we need to charge for it is rubbish. In fact more people might take it up if it wasnt so readily available. Music will suffer naught by making it free. Humans who want to charge for it might suffer but not music.

[@TheTestingGrounds]

I listened to what must have been a 100th generation of Harpur College 5/2/70, which sounds horrible and fast to boot, hundreds of times. I'd rather listen to that than Dicks Picks vol. 8. Must have been the doses?

[@God0Mighty1]

Having commented to the hole who said the fact that you're 14 is of no concern to anyone, disagreeing with him, I gave your comment that has 'received too many negative votes' another thumbs down. Sorry, Jack.

[@alansommer]

That's a terrible host... Bobby is always great and I guess those hosts just don't get him at all. There's obviously an intelligence gap.

[@icecoldhubbas]

To say that the internet is bad for musicians is wrong Bob. Look at Justin Bieber. KZbin is his career. .....and what the fuck is Bob talking about with MP3's?

[@johnstallings4049]

'Ur coming back into the music industry?' Weir's! Love 💕 you Bobby!❄️🌍❄️

[@neworleansbeats]

The problem with modern music... COMPRESSION, whether digital or not. Dead and Co. Play some goddamn slow you can fall asleep between notes anyway probably really done too many drugs...

[@jasonhervey6067]

Actually, I was going to say that after being a fan of the Grateful Dead for many years now, that Dead & Co. is an assault on my nervous system.

[@buckodonnghaile4309]

I have to agree, I dont mind some Dead covers/cover bands and I've enjoyed some of the the jams coming out of Phil's venue (Terrapin Crossroads) but Dead&Co. is painful to me.

[@synchronicity492]

Ha ha

[@gonzalosierra2393]

i dont think theres nothing wrong with quality of sound, but the quality odf music, music nowdays is made by people who arent musicians

[@saxfreak01]

Lossless, yes, but the original source that they are a lossless replica of is digital. That's the problem.

[@maryvanlandingham7947]

no joke ------ it drains your universe ----- lets prove it then feed that research through media and the tv...

[@gr8ful818]

Siri take that back plural. Doctors daughters oh my gosh I’m gonna have to pull out your new favorite guitar player

[@maxw.midgett4975]

Bob Weir's guitar tone is an assault on your nervous system. (Sorry, I had to...)

[@PeckmannFilms]

Music should be free or cheaper than what it is. But I will pay for a performance all day long!

[@carlrudd1858]

BORING... my gawd you people are easily amused.

[@aquaculture01]

either way if its through the internet at some point in time the sequence is analog-ditgital-analog. What Bobby should have said is that the quality of the mp3 will depend solely on the frequency and the bit count of the binary word used to move theses files around digitally. Most mp3's are just poor quality due to the sampling rate and bit length of the encoded bit words.

[@aquaculture01]

if you want digital music that sound good use the .wav file standard or better. The more samples the less sound that will be lost.

[@gr8ful818]

In keep cooking and teach your daughter as well I’m sure your wife will school you on that checking is a great thing to have in your back pocket besides music

[@morriswil32]

Bob looks like the Hollywood made up version of old. I just don't believe it's true

[@gr8ful818]

This is funny I am trying to go to sleep in my new home land New Mexico and I ran across this 10 years ago from you keep on keeping on Bob

[@gr8ful818]

Let’s go been ready to launch for a while life is a trap you have to live it and enjoy every moment grandmother parent cousin Ant sister that enjoy life

[@ArthurCothary]

No, it's Clint Eastwood. And Jerry was quite a bit more interesting than he.

[@arlenmargolin4868]

I think people will listen to garbage cans and broomsticks with strings on it if that's all there is to listen to people's need for music goes pretty deep

[@bernlin2000]

His hair still isn't as white as Jerry's when he died :-P

[@oreokookie1000]

oh man, stop hatin on Bobby ....you never were on the bus anyhow.

[@brianhurt3801]

Look you could not carry enough batteries or tapes to record anything of any real quality you were in the crowd though the music was loud , people sang including me with the band there was no device hardware that a fan could buy to encapsulate a dead concert at that time ,I was a taper back in the day ,the dead invented concerts and sound generation the wall of sound , you can take all of their concert music and play it back to back and never hear the same song sung or played the same it was all played differently that's what made it so great

[@gr8ful818]

Seriously I said seriously not Siri’s it’s going to get stranger so let’s go along with the show

[@dp1582]

oh no he went to an exclusive club and you weren't invited.

[@nal146able]

Give Bobby a break!! he thinks that 240p is high tech!

[@OGRE_HATES_NERDS]

oh no! not my ner! what am i gonna do without my ner??

[@carlrudd1858]

Not much here.... move on down the trail.

[@Turgorful]

The proverbial self-cancelling comment.

[@bob733333]

I agree that analog tape is better.

[@willowufgood261]

I hate it when my ner is assaulted

[@bernlin2000]

5:42, I'd say your son is probably right, if he's good about getting good material. Good quality mp3's only leave out frequencies that can't be heard by humans, and they don't those digital artifacts so common on poor quality (128 kbps and below) files. Keeping high-quality, variable-bitrate mp3's is the way to go, unless you have massive amounts of hard drive space, then FLAC is indistinguishable from a CD copy

[@madpicken]

i don't think the webcasts audio are higher then 16bit/44.1khz (cd quality)

[@Jaaaackjack]

Well this didn’t age well at all did it

[@bernlin2000]

You're missing so much Mickey goodness with such a narrow range: you forgot 23 years of their career! I highly recommend you at least look at the 1977 concerts, and the late 80s, early 90s also has some really great stuff

[@daveyboy8907]

Vinyl is the only way..

[@stacyblue1980]

he answered the last (double) question just as i thought he would . Sweet Bobby thank you

[@VariableDegrees]

In this way, you can sate the probably permanent public desire for "free" music in the form of downloadable recordings, but still have a business opportunity in the form of live performance. I don't think you can put the genie back int he bottle here. But you can adapt to changing social and technological circumstances. And this doesn't have to be a compromise. It -does- mean you will actually have to be a good musician, which will upset a good many recording "artists" and publisher-suits.

[@GratefulDeadForever]

FLAC lossless all the way! As far as cds not sounding good that's also usually caused by record labels simply not pressing discs as good as they could and using too much cloning. For example, I bought Nightfall Of Diamonds when it was first released in 2001 while a friend of mine bought his six months later and the sound on his was awful compared to mine. His had more of a tin sound with much less bass and it sounded more hollow. At least Rhino seems to do a better job with older discs.

[@Turgorful]

The reason the music industry is in crisis is that its focus is largely about the industry and less about the music. It's the classic case of having no clue what the customer wants and simply offering solutions that appeal to the investment community. It's the same management idiocy that sank Detroit.

[@gr8ful818]

A great driver Rob

[@VariableDegrees]

The issue of monetizing music is one I don't think even we musicians have been progressive enough about. It's actually quite simple: Learn from the dead. I don't mean extended improve so much as learning to reinterpret a studio cut for a live stage. Learn how to approach a song from a different angle so the paying audience gets something new, and thus, of greater value. Recordings should add value to performance, not the other way around, how an industry stuck in the past wants to function.

[@sheltiemanva]

The classic Ipod can be bought with a large drive, but you cannot swap it easily. (Not really made to open up by the user at all) AND the Ipod Touch has no more space than a Fuze in its native form. Also, try to bypass the D/A converter in that great Ipod and see what happens. You have to spend a lot of money to do it with a Wadia-proced unit. Sansa can bypass into a D/A for a lot less if you know what you are doing. Sansa Fuze is a superior unit for music...hands down.

[@Umberto2]

I will say this much about TRI, which I think is a fantastic endeavor - I've had serious problems with the feed. It often cuts out during performances and can't keep a continuous stream. Perhaps it might be on my end, but has anyone else had this problem with TRI streams?

[@Karmalize]

CULT BAND BOBBY'S HANDS

[@gratefuldavid]

I don't know what shows you guys are going to but as an "old" deadhead I love seeing young people there. It means that the music will never stop. I can understand why 420mota1 would attract assholes since he clearly is one himself. As for you John, are you sure they're not just curious as to what brought you to the concert?

[@ibebangin8101]

I downloaded this video on why people don't pay cash money for music on the internet........It's ironic.

[@RogerBaswell]

Myth buster : Early CDs sounded bad because of the mastering not the format.. . Agree with Bob on MP3 though....

[@jewels4037]

so bob weir died too/?.

[@martinrogers48]

sound board vers audio

[@Funkaface]

Or maybe you've just been induced to too much short clips of youtube and t.v. to actually follow an intelligent conversation that encompasses many different elements of art. Bob Weir is the man.