You know how it is when you record yourself talking, and then play it back – and it no longer sounds like you. Everyone else thinks it sounds like you. But not you…
Well, I was doing some voice recording today, and it sounded like me. B’Wha? Oh! I have new studio monitors! I can’t believe it makes that much difference. But it does. That whole garbage I’ve been told about your head resonating. Wrong!
I’m guessing it has to do with one being so familiar with ones own voice that you can immediately pick out that it sounds ‘off’ if it isn’t reproduced exactly. Get yourself a passable mic and some good speakers, and you can finally hear that you do indeed sound like you think you sound when you talk.
Amazing!

To all the people who listened to my music over the last few months and years… I’m sorry everyone. I’m really very very very sorry. You see – I just had no idea.
Today I bought some studio monitors, and I listened to my music. And it isn’t pretty. Oh, the mixes are fine – the problem lies in how I distribute them. I used to think (WAY back in the day) 128 kbps mp3 was fine. It was what all the cool kids were using. I eventually upped my recordings to 160, then 192 and 256. I switched to 256 AAC encoding a few months ago beliving it was “indistinguishable” from the raw form.
Holy cow was I wrong.
While listening to some of my pieces now, I occationally say “What the heck happened to the high end in this piece??”. Without fail – I’m listening to a compressed version that was destined for the web site.
Oh – the high end is still there… it is just… bad?
In any event – I’m going to have to change my format again. Possibly to 48kHz Apple Lossless (inside mp4). It is noticably better then CD quallity. Well – you can notice it if you have good speakers.

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