It occurred to me that this is the first and only time that I’m aware of an artist expressing an opinion one way or another on the sound of the MQA version of their work. As I would look to the artist as the true Authentic source of how they intended the music to sound, I wondered if you’re aware of any other artists that have expressed an opinion on what they think of the MQA processed version of their music?
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Chris, the issue here is one of principle.
The moment MQA’s premise that “the artist has authenticated it” is broken is the moment the whole MQA edifice crumbles. It is as simple as that.
HOW MANY artists have personally “authenticated” their masters? Because even rights owners such as Warner are NOT the same thing as the “artist”.
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Did anyone with an ounce of self-awareness ever credit them as going to approach artists to authenticate anything. It’s comically naive. It’s a money-grabbing marketing batch job designed to spew up another magical format as a supposed differentiator.
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It’s not about credit, it’s misleading advertisement. So if NY’s point is true, MQA is a sham. And I hope it is not.
LOL, of course it’s a sham.
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Cool. When did Marvin Gaye sign off on the MQA version of What’s Going On?
What Neil Young did is a courageous thing a lot of artists don’t do because it usually means losing a lot of money. But there are thousands of artists like him (and even more mastering/production engineers) who are fed up with not getting involved in the “authentication” of their own albums…
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Lets remind us what mastering engineer Bryan Lucey had to say about the MQA process in relation with the masters:
There’s also some harmonic distortion which some people could find pleasing, If I want that distortion in the master I would’ve put it there in the first place. The results of MQA I would call fatal to the source material even as they are very subtle.
and
I’m most concerned about the bogus claims that MQA is fixing approved masters. Not possible, and a rude assertion to trillions of hours of hard work by teams of people making records for decades. Pure marketing hyperbole .
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Neil Young has been a grumpy old f*rt pretty much all his life, even when he was a kid. None of this should be surprising, and none of it should have any impact on the MQA/no MQA debate. Neil is one of my all time favourite artists, and I have a ton of his music on CD/download, so his taking the hump and running home with his ball doesn’t affect me. He has been - until that is he got sucked into the whole Monsanto bulls**t - one of rock’s great artists, but he showed with the Pono thing and a whole load of other cra) that he’s just like any other self-aggrandizing attention seeking fading rock star. Thanks for all the memories Neil, but TBH it’s better to burn out than to MQA.
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Worth a read
Great band
That just shows a complete failure to even try to understand… Doh!
Chris-
Nonsense. “He must have had input” - said based on what? We already know the “authentication” bit is BS and just a marketing ploy - multiple artists, producers, and engineers have said they had nothing to do with the MQA version of their albums. Thousands and millions of albums in MQA format don’t get dumped on the market thru some artist approved and individually album processed MQA protocol. Not possible.
Thinking there will be a great trade in his albums in MQA format is delusional. The number of people subscribed to Tidal masters is miniscule in the big picture, of those the number of big NY fans even less, and the number of those who’d want the MQA version - instead of the Neil approved hi-res versions is probably nearing zero.
I get that you like MQA, that’s finne. Try to step out of the MQA propaganda fan boy bubble once in awhile.
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Rarity brings value, so delusional seems a bit strong there. People will collect anything if it’s rare, even more so if it’s illegal. That’s just the way of the world. Just to be clear, I have no interest I collecting the stuff.
I have tried to understand.
What I understand so far is that the “master” and “authenticated” claims of MQA lie somewhere between unverifiable marketing hype and outright fraud.
The “quality” part is subjective and therefore debatable (although scientifically questionable) but nonetheless sounds OK or at least not awful to me.
The other thing I understand is that the number of people seeking and/or consuming MQA content is a fraction of a rounding error in the overalll music streaming business. It is a rent seeking solution in search of a nonexistent problem which must therefore be manufactured.
Clearly you understand it differently.
Take it up with MQA and Tidal…
I’m confused. As far as I know there are no MQA processed Neil Young CD’s or High Rez downloads so how does someone collect Tidal streams?
As far as “hi-res” downloads are concerned, of course there are:
But if you are specifically talking about MQA downloads, nope.
“no MQA processed Neil Young CD’s or High Rez downloads”
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Aaaand, speaking of “follow the money”, an interesting coincidence…
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