Underworldlive version 3.0 thread

[Spooky Shoes]

Damnit I'm going to have to find something to deal with .aiff format.

[TheBang]

Nice. I like this forward progress. Here are my constructive criticisms:

1. As others have said, would be nice to be able to buy individual tracks. I also have the promo CD's, but I'd like digital copies of the unmixed originals.
2. The MP3 pricing is not bad. A smidge high in comparison to, say, Amazon MP3 or iTunes, but not bad.
3. The lossless premium seems maybe 50-75p too high.
4. Would prefer the lossless to be FLAC, or zipped at the very least, to conserve bandwidth and disk space. (The download may already be zipped, I don't know. I'm just going by the posted file size which appears to be uncompressed in any way.) Or like NIN did, offer ALAC in addition to FLAC (for easy iTunes/iPod compatibility). I see no reason to offer uncompressed lossless.
5. For Lenny Penne, since you're requiring that customers purchase all 5 in either MP3 or FLAC (no mix-and-match), I think it should be easy (and only fair) that Lenny Penne be given in matching format (MP3 or FLAC).

[Jan]

Originally Posted by TheBang

2. The MP3 pricing is not bad. A smidge high in comparison to, say, Amazon MP3 or iTunes, but not bad.
3. The lossless premium seems maybe 50-75p too high.

I think the princing is alright, at least I know I support Underworld directly. How much do they get for a 79p download on iTunes? I'll bet no more than 5p.
Also, the Euro is very strong compared to the Pound...

Originally Posted by TheBang

5. For Lenny Penne, since you're requiring that customers purchase all 5 in either MP3 or FLAC (no mix-and-match), I think it should be easy (and only fair) that Lenny Penne be given in matching format (MP3 or FLAC).

I agree.

Originally Posted by TheBang

1. As others have said, would be nice to be able to buy individual tracks. I also have the promo CD's, but I'd like digital copies of the unmixed originals.

UW got nothing for the promos. I think it's only fair to pay now for the whole thing. Of course, there are other legitimate reasons for preferring single tracks, like if you don't like the remixes or already bought digital tracks from Beatport.

[Sean]

I'm just a bit bummed because as much as I'd love to have that bonus Lenny Penne remix, I already shelled out a bunch of money for all of the 12" releases when they first came out. I really just can't bring myself to spend another $25 US on all the same mixes again just so I can get one more new one. 25 bucks is a lot to spend for one remix.

Cheers to Underworld for offering it as a bonus that way, but it sure would be great if loyal fans like me could just purchase the new remix without having to buy all 5 singles a second time to get it.

Although....maybe I could sell my 12" copies so I can buy the full quality digital versions. There could be hope yet!

[holden]

Originally Posted by Sean

Cheers to Underworld for offering it as a bonus that way, but it sure would be great if loyal fans like me could just purchase the new remix without having to buy all 5 singles a second time to get it.

Wasn't this LP remix played on Annie Nightengale's show in July 2006? Feel like i have a rip of it somewhere. It was okay, if memory serves!

I agree with TheBang about having FLAC lossless files instead of aiff. i guess it really is premium, though.

Thanks, aNt and UW for the digi-shop! Looking forward to seeing/hearing what comes next (hint,cough...can we get Bamboo, Darc, To Heal w/Rick's Dad, etc up there, as suggested by the boys?)

[TheBang]

Originally Posted by Jan

UW got nothing for the promos. I think it's only fair to pay now for the whole thing.

There are plenty of other times where UW doesn't get my money directly though e.g. I bought AHDO on the secondary market. It would be nice to buy these if I had unlimited funds. Unfortunately, having already paid $150+ for the promos and vinyls, I can't justify spending more again for the same stuff.

See, that's the thing. In early 2006, Underworld had said that in addition to the vinyls the tracks would be available for purchase on their website. They never were though. If they had been made available then as they are now, I probably would have bought those instead of the promo CD's. And when they make them available, I buy all kinds of things directly from them: Live in Tokyo, all the LHN discs, In the Belly of St. Paul.

[big screen satellite]

nice to see Karl is influenced by my pictures... (as from today's picture)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigscre...7602490711784/

[Jan]

I've just listened to the lossless Play Pig (Pig & Dan Mix 2) from the store when I noticed some typical MPEG artifacts... The pre-echo artifacts at 0:03 are quite obvious. I'd certainly expect to hear them on the MP3 version but not on the lossless one. It's the same on the promo CDs. Some of the remixes are affected, but the UW tracks seem fine.

I thought I'd check the spectrum of the tracks to confirm my suspicion (some examples):
Play Pig (Pig & Dan Mix 3)
JAL To Tokyo (Paul Woolford Dub)
That looks like some MPEG compression to me. Maybe the iTunes MP3 encoder.
It surprises me that those files are supposed to be the lossless masters. Has there been an encoding error or are these really the best versions available? Have these 'lossy' masters also been used for the vinyl version?

Furthermore the 300x300 pixel artworks seem a little too small for PC viewing. I rather expected something like 300 dots per inch than 300 dots for the whole cover. Some words are barely decipherable.

[Spooky Shoes]

Originally Posted by Jan

UW got nothing for the promos.

Which truly is a shame but that is by their choice, make the promotional material appeal to collectors by including material that is not available on the standard release, send it out to some douche on the rotation list who is not going to use it for it's intended purpose but supplement his/her income by selling it to the highest bidder. Sadly it is whomever makes the material available who makes the money.

Originally Posted by negative1

well, its a start..i guess.

Indeed it is but at times I can't help feeling that I am being punished for loyalty and having an obsessive compulsive disorder when it come down to the music though.

Originally Posted by negative1

good for people that don't have it yet..
good job..

Agreed.

Originally Posted by negative1

now what about:
loads of birds
other exclusive mixes (japanese releases) etc...
ie : ancient phat farm coat (full 19min version)

the lenny penny mix was on a promo cd..

also it would be nice to have other unreleased promos
(of JAL to tokyo)

anyways, there's a lot more,
looking forward to newer releases also..

Fingers crossed for lossless versions of tracks of that have so far only been available as MP3's..

Originally Posted by TheBang

It would be nice to buy these if I had unlimited funds. Unfortunately, having already paid $150+ for the promos and vinyls, I can't justify spending more again for the same stuff.

I've spent roughly the same.

OWB (Japanese) ended up costing me £50+ after I got stung for duty.

I would rather spend this money directly but as it stands this option doesn't exist.... Here's hoping.

[geoff]

Seconded, nice progress.

Will the older riverruns be made available in lossless format?

I imagine that would be a sticky situation, (how should they be priced for people who purchased the mp3 versions?) -- but I hope you can work something out.