What Will Recorded Music Sound Like in 2050?
I’ll admit it. I’m an audio snob. MP3s sound harsh, many CDs can sound shrill and record labels and mastering engineers ruin too many recordings by compressing the crap out of them. And while modern vinyl is nice, it’s not very convenient or portable, is it?
We seem to be in some kind of technological rut. Actually, it’s worse than a rut. We’re going backwards. Today’s CDs are based on technology from the 70s while MP3s are using 1980s knowledge. Vinyl? That goes back to at least 1900.
So this begs the question: with all the advances we’re seeing in electronics these days, what might recorded music sound like when we reach the midway point of the 21st century? Will there be any improvement in fidelity?
Maybe that’s the wrong question, though. Check out this article from CNET:
Last weekend in NYC John La Grou was a keynote speaker at the Audio Engineering Societyconvention. He based some of his assumptions about how recorded music will evolve onMoore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors squeezed onto integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. That prediction was made in 1965, and if anything, Moore underestimated the cost savings we’ve enjoyed. La Grou rolled out statistic after statistic that painted a rosy future for music, gaming, and film tech advances in the coming decades.
John La Grou speaking at the Audio Engineering Society convention in NYC (Credit: Steve Guttenberg/CNET)
La Grou believes that highly advanced gestural control and brain/machine interfaces will transform the way music is recorded and played back. That might preclude using a microphone to record the sound of an instrument or vocals; music in 2050 will be virtual and mostly electronic.
Whoa. Keep reading.
