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Musepack Blows

If you’ve spent any time at all downloading music from the various file sharing networks you’ve undoubtably come across files with an MPC extension. If you’re not particulary computer-savvy you simply attempted to play these files in whatever player you use, failed, and promptly deleted them. Good for you. It may have felt like a failure, but believe me, you did yourself a favor.

But, if you’re one of those people given to investigating strange computer problems until you’ve found a solution or run out of options, then you discovered that what you’ve found are indeed audio files, but audio files compressed in a format called Musepack.

I’m here to tell you (mostly because a Google search for “musepack blows” comes up with zero results) that Musepack does, in fact, blow.

Now, don’t take the statement “musepack blows” (which will now appear a number of times in order to produce a search result) to mean that Musepack is not effective at compressing audio. Apparently, Musepack performs very well in listening tests. This does not, however, change the fact that Musepack blows.

In order to play Musepack files you need to download a plugin for WinAmp or various and sundry other audio players. This is fine if your computer is the only place you want to listen to your music. I often enjoy listening to music on my iPod. For this, Musepack blows, because Apple does not support the Musepack format (for this I applaud them). Other people don’t own iPods. While I pity them, they are not safe from the scourge that is Musepack. No digital audio player supports the Musepack format. There are no plugins for digital audio players. This is because Musepack blows.

In the geek world there is a saying, and this saying is true. That saying goes something like “Standard is better than better.” What this means, if you need further explanation, is that higher-quality results alone do not outweigh the benefits of enabling everyone to cheaply and easily work on the same page. Currently, MP3 is the dominant audio compression standard.

Now, this is not to say that new standards cannot be produced. New standards should, by all means, be produced. Some times standards are accepted because they’re the first out of the gate. MP3, which is actually an extension of the existing MPEG standard, is a good example of this. Other times formats become standard because the company that develops them has a certain amount of leverage in the market. WMA and AAC are good examples of this. And some times standards are accepted because they’re free (libre and gratis, or speech and beer, whichever you prefer) and open and a community cares about them. Ogg Vorbis is a great example of this.

No one but lonely geeks whining about listening tests on message boards cares about Musepack. But since lonely geeks are the ones posting music to file sharing networks Musepack is finding a certain following there. It is not, however, finding a following anywhere else. The biggest difference between Musepack and all the other formats mentioned is that there is no third-party support for Musepack. No one has used it in a game and no one has made a digital audio player that supports it. This is because Musepack blows. This is also because Musepack is not so hugely superior to the other four major formats that it merits spending time and money developing hardware and software which supports it. Their frequently asked questions page is very short, which I take as futher evidence that no one really gives a shit.

Let me elaborate further on why Musepack blows. In order for me to get Musepack files to play in my audio players of choice (iTunes, iPod, MP3 player in my car [notice the numerous applications of a standard in the previous list]) I must use the following process:

1. Use a Musepack decoder to make WAV files out of MPC files
2. Use an MP3 encoder to make MP3 files out of WAV files
3. Run MP3 files through MusicBrainz to get good metadata, because most of it is lost during the previous two steps

Now, this is a 3-step process and doesn’t seem very complex right? Right. It’s not complex, but the problem is that both Musepack and MP3 are lossy (as opposed to lossless) compression algorithms, meaning that data is lost duing the compression process (that’s how file sizes are reduced so dramatically). So I’m having to run the same audio through two separate, lossy compression schemes, removing data which describes the original sound each time. So much for the awesome quality of Musepack, huh? And all because Musepack blows.

So, whenever you run across files in the wild with an MPC extension, not only delete them, but publicly denegrate the person who gave them to you. Shame is the great motivator, and the fuckwits pushing Musepack could use a good shaming. Because, at the end of the day, Musepack blows.