An Open Letter to Neil Young
Neil,
You may not remember me, but we’ve met and chatted briefly years ago at a post house in Northern California while working on a DVD project. Larry Johnson and I were very good friends and he was kind enough to involve my company (AIX Media Group) with the DVD production of “Rust Never Sleeps” [I’m very proud of the Gold DVD that hangs on the studio wall] and an early Bonnaroo DVD. Larry made me a hero when he got my daughter backstage passes to one of the bridge concerts…she was very impressed with the show and with me. I was deeply saddened by his passing.
I’ve known audio engineer Elliot Mazer for years and became friends with John Hamm during the first half of 2013.
And I’m a fan. I’ve seen you live (including in April in Hollywood), purchased your music on vinyl LP, cassettes, CDs, and even Blu-ray. I’ve followed your pursuit of better sound. I was impressed and supportive when you spoke out loudly against the problems with the compact disc format. Your continuing battle against heavily compressed MP3s and calls to get back to the “soul” or music struck a resonant chord with me. I was a believer.
I’ve been involved with high-resolution or high-definition audio since the very beginning as an engineer, producer, and the owner of a small audiophile record label. My company authored and released the very first DVD-Video titles released in the US back in March of 1997. When the DVD-Audio format emerged in 2000, I acquired the tools and went to work learning how to produce and release ultimate fidelity consumer discs…we made the first DVD-Audio disc, too. I’ve stayed current with the march of technology by moving to Blu-ray (we released the first Blu-ray 3D music disc…back in 2013) and launching the world’s first high-resolution digital music download site (only newly recorded high-res productions are available on the site) in 2007.
AIX Records has produced and released almost 100 high-resolution albums. The biggest names on the label are Willie Nelson, Rita Coolidge, Paul Williams, John McEuen, Jennifer Warnes, and John Gorka…not current hit makers but really talented musicians that can sing and play music that touches the heart. And we do it all in high-resolution…both audio and video!
I was thrilled when John Hamm, your former Pono CEO and a true music lover and engineer, sat entranced when I played him some of my favorite HD-Audio tracks in our demo room at AXPONA last April. He insisted on taking a couple of disc back and promised to play them for you. I don’t know if he did or not but I’m sure you would find them among the best recordings you’ve ever heard. The folks at the high-end magazines, many Pono supporters and AIX customers rave about the sound of our productions…very open, clear, dynamic, and warm. If you’re interested, I can certainly hook you up with some files or a disc.
I’m a member of the audio board at the CEA, on the high-resolution working group of the AES, and a long-standing member of The Recording Academy. In fact, I will be on a panel of “Music Creators” at the International 2015 CES High-Resolution Audio Marketplace immediately prior to your session in the same ballroom. AIX Records/iTrax will have a small 10 x 10 booth with a small playback system, some amazing headphones, and demos of our tracks. I know you’ll be swamped but I would love to get a moment of your time while you there.
I’m writing today about Pono and PonoMusic. I’ve followed your efforts to push high-resolution audio since prior to the amazing Kickstarter campaign back in April. I saw you David Letterman with the early prototype, listened to your presentations/interviews at SXSW and All Things Digital. I’ve read the pieces on Computer Audiophile and your own site. I was an enthusiastic supporter. For the first time a major music industry icon was saying the things that I’ve been saying…except when you speak, people listen. My ten-year effort has made a small dent in the traditional music business façade; your Pono effort has split it wide open. Kudos.
But I write this letter because I’m concerned that the message about “rediscovering the soul of music”, master quality transfers, high-resolution music and “hearing things as the artist intended” have been pushed to the back burner in favor of business opportunism and “high-res” download market share. Why did you previously rage against the fidelity of compact discs and then embrace CD rips for over 99% of the available music at PonoMusic? If the fidelity of CDs was unacceptable in the past and equivalent to being “underwater” (see your graphic below), how can you now accept CDs as acceptable?
Figure 1 – A graphic provided by Pono showing the relative qualities of audio formats. [Click to enlarge]
I know they are the “best available” masters right now and that you’ve promised to “upgrade” Pono supporters when real high-resolution versions become available. But in reality, the vast majority of albums on the site will never be remastered and made available on PonoMusic in high-resolution. John Hamm told the assembled group and me at AXPONA last April, “that PONO would not be in the business of remastering”. I realize he’s no longer the CEO, but has that position changed?
I have long advocated (I write a daily article about high-resolution audio read by many thousands of readers) that the entire production chain from microphone to speaker be documented in terms of equipment, recording format, mixing gear, mastering information, conversion etc. And I want this “metadata” or the “provenance” of each recording to be included with the files provided by the likes of HDTracks and PonoMusic. I know it’s very hard to acquire that information and that the labels are committed to doing better as more masters get transferred. But consumers interested in high-resolution audio want to know that their dollars are being spent on music that will sound better than previous versions now. Today, many are disappointed in the catalog of so-called “high-resolution” music downloads.
My goal is to fully inform music lovers to the realities of formats, specifications, fidelity, production paths, source audio quality vs. deliver containers, and try to build on honesty and excitement. I believe this is the only path forward.
From my vantage point, this isn’t happening at the labels, download sites, organizations, and at Pono. I’m hoping that being “righteous” includes being open and honest about the decisions that you and your company are making. There is an emerging market for better sound…but launching a very high quality player and then pushing rips of CDs through it isn’t “getting the soul the music”. I hope you agree and get back to the original message before it’s too late.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss high-resolution audio with you and/or your representatives.
Respectfully yours,
Mark Waldrep
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I’m still looking to raise the $3700 needed to fund a booth at the 2015 International CES. I’ve received some very generous contributions but still need to raise additional funds (Thanks to you readers, I’m almost there!). Please consider contributing any amount. I write these posts everyday in the hopes that readers will benefit from my network, knowledge and experience. I hope you consider them worth a few dollars. You can get additional information at my post of December 2, 2014. Thanks.
Great letter; I hope you get a reasonable response.
Brilliant. I hope he reads it.
Your letter truly expresses the want of better results. We are now as it seems at the fork in the road with signs pointing to a better way or the same or less. Which road will all those that “say they want better” go down? If Mr. Young really wants what’s best for us and him he will go down the right road of true Highres, if he is just looking for product sales he really won’t do much toward true “High Resolution” and things will stay the same. I hope he will take the time to read your letter and within himself he comes to a decision to do it right.
Mark, I am new to HD musical reproduction, with the combination of some free time and the Pono project allowing me to do much reading, research and investigation of the topic. I’ve been reading your daily posts now for about 4 or 5 months and I find them highly informative although some days it takes a few reads to begin to ken what you’re saying. Your open letter to Neil, however is bang on. It is clear headed, acknowledges his efforts in moving the whole thing forward and most importantly, it calls his attention to the elephant in his room. You might want to post it on one of the groups on the Pono website to get your thoughts out to a wider audience. Well Written!
I have a connection to Neil and the Pono folks…I’m sure he’ll be aware of the letter. Whether anything happens…I doubt it.
“this buds for you” Great letter simple to the point ,unfortunately business and Kickstarter got the best of Neil on Pono.I believe the legal loop holes to remaster are beyond Neil and his wallet. I’m a big fan of Neil and his bands and music which he should stick to but he’s up against the wall on this it’s taken a toll I believe on his life,family and band members.
Best of luck that your message will find a receptive ear
I think the Pono team is doing the right thing by marketing the heck out of Pono to a broad audience and making it viable business first. Focus only on some esoteric and idealistic standard and you don’t have a business that can sustain itself initially. Let’s just say Pono only put 192/24 res from original masters in its store. It would be very expensive to acquire the content and very few people would be willing to pony up 30 bux an album to get the ideal. Soon the site would be shut down and any hope of bring high res to a mass audience would be dead. Start with a large selection of regular res and high res content to drive traffic to the site and revenues, and you might be able to get past year 1 with a viable, sustainable business. I think Pono’s decisions are business decisions which are necessary. I think Neil knows “realities of formats, specifications fidelity, production paths, source audio quality vs. deliver containers” but I think going down this path initially will mean early death to the whole enterprise.
I disagree. The Chesky brothers Norman and David have a very healthy business and they aren’t putting CD rips on their site. Even if Neil and Pono were to go for the 20 million tracks that they feel are necessary to launch their business at a large scale…it would very nice to acknowledge the truth behind the online content. It’s about being honest and transparent.
I agree. .. It doesn’t trouble me that they carry all the cd quality tracks. They need a business case to prosper and catering to an as yet very small group of consumers would probably not be sustainable. As long as they follow through on adding to the hires catalog. I like that Neil Young seems to be pushing hires from both diretions – providing it to the consumer on a sustainable platform, and encouraging artists to provide more hires tracks. The road out of the swamp of mp3 mediocrity will be a long one – a journey, not a sprint.
Just look at HDTracks…they’ve stuck to newly mastered transfers of albums from a variety of sources and do very well with it. Pitching CD resolution as high-resolution is deceptive and will turn people off. Neil is pushing his business not high-resolution audio.
More deceptive than selling up-sampled cd’s as hires download?
There are only a very few sites I trust for real hires music with sterling provenance. Until proven otherwise (and it will be, if he goes that route) I expect Pono to be another trusted site.
The content that Omni is making available to the PonoMusic site are not even upsampled…they are straight rips of CDs. Not that upsampling would get you any sonic improvement. But at the little 88.2 kHz light would go on.
“The content that Omni is making available to the PonoMusic site are not even upsampled…they are straight rips of CDs.”
At Pono, are they not marked as such? I often see several versions of a cd, all listed at 44.1/16. With some of those albums, I see hires versions, some at 92, some at 176.4 and some at 192. I assume those are not up-sampled, but true hires versions. Are you suggesting they are not? If so, then that’s one more place to be wary of.
If on the other hand you are saying that many of the albums listed only have 44.1/16 versions available for download, I get that. But those tracks are clearly listed as 44.1. I occasionally use the “per track” option of those down-loadable tracks to fix my hard drive version of a ripped disc with one or two damaged racks.
The vast majority (almost 99%) of all of the tracks available at PonoMusic are standard definition recordings done with analog tape or native standard definition PCM digital. The “so-called” high-res versions (about 15,000 albums that have been retransfered and remastered by the majors) are available at HDTracks and other sites. The ones that Omnimusic is making available for PonoMusic are straight CD rips and are identified as 44.1 kHz/16-bits. My complaint is that Neil’s whole message started out with “CDs and standard resolution digital are insufficient” to bring true musical bliss to listeners…and then he populates his site with 99% CD rips.
I believe you are correct you start with viable business plan which means building an audience and then when you have the money and power to command market share will you be able to remaster and come out with PONO 2 which will be a more what Mark is aiming for. Chances of dealing with Neil or Elliot I would say is not going to happen if you intend to rock there boat, would you want someone stepping on your dream?
In my world you start with a vision, mission, whatever…and you do everything you can to build on that. You don’t say one thing and then do another…especially when you know your integrity will diminish.
As a consumer, i don’t want to be lied to. I don’t want to be conned into selling me X, while pretending that it is Y.
I don’t accept lies and manipulation from Pono salesmen who put their high acoustic morals on display. Specially for all the anti-rhetorics by which they are damning file formats other than hi-res, including CD. And because of all the cheap attacks on people worldwide who enjoy non-hi-res formats because they must have ‘bad ears’ or ‘limited taste’ or ‘lack of musical soul’ or whatever.
Mark is totally right in his criticism. Integrity first. You cannot build a respected, sustainable company that starts out by deceiving people. Selling pimped-up CD transfers for hi-res formats is not about “putting the soul back into the music” but is about putting our money into the company’s bank account.
The Pono ‘dream’ or ‘ecosystem’ relies on people’s desire for honesty and transparency in the music business. The Kickstart supporters invested their money because they expected to deal with a reliable and honest company-to-be. Yet it is ominous that Pono is sacrificing these very values from their very start.
I’ve always found that telling the truth…even if it’s something people don’t want to hear…is better than lying or playing fast with the facts.
Mark- This is the letter I’ve been hoping to read from you; a respectful reminder to a peer that your goals are ultimately the same. Many of your readers, listeners and customers are, I’m sure, energized and inspired both by your efforts and by those of Neil Young and his Pono project. I sincerely hope that the two of you can get together and perhaps re- inspire each other. Thanks to you both.
I love the “to a peer” statement. I’m not at Neil’s level…he’s a bona fide celebrity and exceedingly talented musician. I’m a tech head, marginally talented musician, knowledgeable audio engineer/producer that wants the fidelity of recordings to improve. We’ll see what happens.
Very well said Mark. Please keep us posted on any response from the Pono camp. That should be more than interesting!
Don’t hold your breath.
What if you encouraged Mr. Young to at least offer special high resolution recordings of himself? Say, a specially recorded version of his recent solo set. Or even of his next Bridges concert? You’d be just the man to do them, of course. This would provide some unique material for Pono and really show off the player/format/system…and he could encourage his fellow musicians to do the same. Make it as easy for them as possible and capture their performance in the best possible way. People can then compare these recordings to the old vinyl masters transferred to 192/24. It would be great to hear you record Mr. Young in the manner you’ve captured John Gorka, Carl Verheyen, and Laurence Juber. I’d pay for it. (The recordings, not the sessions, of course. 😉
When I saw Neil’s solo concert in April here in Los Angeles AND was in regular touch with his CEO John Hamm, I pitched the very idea. If I could get Neil to perform just a few tunes and let me to a John Gorka style recording, the game would be over. He would get it and all of his celebrity friends would get it too. I’m hoping for that day. Then John was removed as CEO and I’m back to the status quo.
Very well written letter. We can only hope that Neil Young or someone else that is important at Pono reads this and responds to the most important issue, the provenance of “hi-res audio.”
Look forward to you and Neil’s conversation it’s the reality of money against no money and the sad fact the buying public doesn’t really care.
Calling out the emperor and his “new clothes”? Excellent. Don’t expect a response.
I will be surprised if Neil or someone from his camp gets in touch. But I will keep you posted.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I think Neil Young started Pono with noble intentions but soon found out that what he was trying to do was not possible. Is it possible that he thought that simply offering 24/192 files of original masters was going to sound better than 16/44.1? Maybe he just does not have the technical knowledge to understand that his dream of higher quality sound was more complex then he was aware of.
By the time Neil found out that his original concept of High-resolution was unobtainable – it was too late! He was already sinking in quicksand.
From what’s I’ve gleaned from the people that I know that have worked with Neil, he doesn’t have to be an audio whiz or engineer…he has other people for that. But none of those people will tell him something that he doesn’t want to hear. He reacts to the sound of the recordings…and has little knowledge of the tech stuff behind it. But that’s OK by me. I cringe when I hear him try to take tech.
If you see Neil at CES say “congrats” on the Pono store, now open for business to the public. Sure there are a lot of CD quality files BUT there are also many high resolution downloads. Resolution is shown for each album, singles are downloadable, and, all in all, the site looks pretty good for a young company (did you see what I did there?). And if you get a chance I’d really like your opinion of what a Pono player sounds like with a high res file playing. Near as I can tell you’ve never heard one.
I did see and actually spoke with Neil very briefly as he was exiting in the ballroom today. He said some interesting things…(he hates surround music)…and some strange things…(everything on the PonoMusic site is high-resolution audio). It was just more of the same old Neil Pitch…some laughs and grins. The press ate it up.
And now Neil Young is saying at CES 2015 that Pono will play DSD files “soon, sooner than you think”. (ref: audiostream.com)
They avoided DSD previously because they were on a mission to get the players out and didn’t feel it was necessary. The problem is going to be the lack of content in DSD format. Remember PonoMusic wants to be the “high-resolution” equivalent to iTunes….at a premium price. But there are only around 10,000 (I’m being generous) recordings that were released (not produced) using DSD 64. WHat will they do to the 2.1 million tracks that they have on their site that have been ripped from CDs? Are they going to convert those to DSD? I doubt it.
Maybe that is exactly what they will do. You have already shown that they don’t care about provenance.
It is a tragedy that NY could not get together with Meridian to advance the common cause. PONO and MQA would be a marriage made in heaven.
Hector
The technology isn’t appropriate for Pono…it’s a streaming server thing.