MacFormat Interview with Higgs Boson

This is a transcript of a MacFormat Interview I had with Cliff Douse

Cliff claims to "talk to those in the know" in the music industry. However, although the technology has moved-on, you might find this conversation interesting.

Q. What’s your verdict on the current crop of digital music web sites on the Internet?

Higgs: Companies like peoplesound.com were a good idea at the start but their original concept was flawed in that they weren't so much interested in the music as the advertising revenue generated by site visits. Despite setting up an A&R dept to sort out what music should be put on the site practically every musician got a deal. There were literally thousands of artists - even hundreds in the jazz-fusion category! A similar situation exists with MP3.com. I my view it all reached saturation point some time ago.
Q. There are a number of digital audio formats currently being used. Which one would you say is the best?

Higgs: It's hard to say which digital audio format is actually the best, personally if I want to compress my music I use mp3 encoded at 256 kbps, which is virtually indistinguishable from uncompressed CD. But, of course no musician in his right mind would master to mp3 or any other compressed format especially if they’re recording at 24bit for DVD-quality music.

Q. Do you think that as more artists, record companies and digital web sites make more music available, traditional CD shops might eventually disappear altogether?

Higgs: No, not in the foreseeable future, I think I'm right in saying that Internet CD sales still only account for just over 1% of sales worldwide. However, this will definitely all change when the price of broadband came down and then many people would be able to download an album’s worth of music in under 5 minutes. Major record companies or any company which produce things that can be recreated in software e.g. VST soft synth plugins and even hardware manufacturers must be extremely worried by the relentless development of Internet technologies and their apparent inability to outwit the pirates.

Q. Or perhaps more frustrated or power hungry artists will deal with the public directly via the Internet and eventually put record companies, distributors and shops out of business?

Higgs: If artists pursue the avenue of cutting out the middle man, they are going to have to accept that in order to compete against both the legitimate sources and the pirates the price will have be low, which will no-doubt have a detrimental effect on the future quality of their recordings, and that unless they have a huge existing fan base promotion will be extremely difficult because there is no such thing as a level playing field even on the Internet. There's really only one way to promote music effectively, and that's to combine Radio and Television play with your CD in the shops. The major artists combine these elements with the Internet playing only a minor role as an information portal. Whenever I hear someone saying that there album is only available on the Internet, it usually because they failed to get a distribution deal and don't have enough money to promote.

Q. Sales of MP3 players have been reputedly disappointing. Do you think this shows a lack of interest in the format?

Higgs: I think consumers are spoilt for choice at the moment. I was nearly kidnapped the other day by a Sony salesman who was desperate to sell me a mini disc player, but I’m hanging in there for a decent portable DVD player, imagine, with improved MP3 encoding you will be able to squeeze your entire album collection on one DVD. Job done!

Q. Now that Napster’s gone legitimate, other pirate digital websites such as Gnutella, with unspecific servers, have taken on the pirate mantle. What impact do you think these sites will have on the music world?

Higgs: Piracy is always going to be there. When PS2 came out Sony claimed that their system was virtually un-crackable, but even as it was being launched there were already chipped PS2's able to play copied games being advertised in various Playstation magazines. The point is that no matter how much they spend on trying to cover every angle the pirates almost always are one step ahead of the game.
Q. Broadband has been used by people at home in the UK for more than a year now but it doesn’t really seem to have taken off yet. This must surely hinder the development of digital music?

Higgs: It's really very simple, monthly rentals are too high. In my area it's £2000 per year. When NTL get here with Broadband at £20 per month, I will definitely be a subscriber.

Q. How do you see the future of digital music progressing?

Higgs: Coded Technologies have now managed to maintain the quality of a 128k MP3 file, which as we all know is under CD quality down to 64k. I believe it is available as a WinAmp and MacAmp plug-in. This is the way things are going at the moment but goodness knows what exciting technologies are just around the corner.

Q. Finally, a lot of audiophiles still whinge that digital recordings just don’t sound as warm as traditional analogue recordings. Digital formats sound much better these days but will they ever achieve that?

Higgs: Yes, there are already technologies in place, which operate as an integral part of many DAWS or are available as optional extras that will recreate the “analogue” effect of tape saturation and tube compression. The advances are incredible and are unbelievably realistic.

Higgs Boson is a British musician, music producer and composer. Inspired by the edges of science and named after a sub-atomic particle associated with the beginning of time, Higgs exploded onto the European jazz scene with a critically-acclaimed debut album featuring a plethora of respected musicians from the UK jazz circuit.