Why live music sounds better than your mp3

Ever download some tunes and feel unmoved and unimpressed by them, only to find you loved them when you saw the band play live? It could have been the adrenline of live music, but where does that come from? Why is it that live music sounds better than playing it in your ipod? It could have something to do with the performance, but most likely, it has to do with sound waves and frequencies.

Once you take a sound and record it, it smushes it into what theoriectically, looks like this:



Once you take the music and compress it into a mp3, the sound levels between what is intended to be the loudest or the softest, shrink, which produces a monotone effect that steals the emotional power you hear when songs are played live. Instead of beats or notes being emphasized, they sound like they are synthesized and flattened. This has an effect on the eardrum by making the inner ear close up the compressed sound. Thus, the listener gets bored and tempted to skip the song in the ipod.

So next time you are listening to a new band and you don't entirely dig them, wait until you can see them live to get the full effect. You may be surprised. This happened to me when I listened to Black Light Burns and other bands. I didn't dig the songs I streamed, so I didn't buy the album. However, live music lets you hear the details that the sound guy is hopefully paying good attention.

If you can't get to them live, and you are a total nerd like me, then find someone who owns the music on vinyl. Just because something is "remastered" to CD or MP3, doesn't mean it actually sounds better. The sound on records is not nearly as compressed as other forms of listening and the subtle details you are missing out on are better heard.