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GAF-Hop |OTXVI| Build a Wall (of Better Top 20 Albums)

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T

Team Jones

Member
Dre3001 said:
I like the album but I think this is Cole's biggest fault.

Whether in arrogance or just unaware of criticisms, Cole's albums could be much better if he had outside help.

With these last two albums Cole seems like he is trying to come off as a discount Lupe Fiasco. He wants to make these artistic "raw" projects but can't seem to fit everything together. The concepts are there, the lyrics are there, but the production is weak and the singing is poor.

I still think his latest project is solid but I definitely can understand lots of the criticisms people have about it.
Click to expand...

Production is weak, but more so lacking.

'4 Your Eyez Only' could be SIGNIFICANTLY better with added production. His attempts to maintain the raw, real, and authenticity of his music shy him away from added production, possibly because he scared of an over-produced sound. As Dre3001 stated the concepts and lyrics are solid, however J. Cole will have to learn that better production can aid in bring the concepts and lyrics alive.


I'm like the album the more I listen to it.
 
S

Syphon Filter

Member
Psychological Intellect said:
Cole projected to do 400-500k FW

WOW, Cole is bigger than Abel.
Click to expand...

UFxeIAh.png


Album is good btw.
 
T

torre_avenue

Banned
Apparently, Quavo was on .WAV radio and confirmed a Quavo X Travis Scott tape.

As someone on KTT put it, it's looking like this:
Migos album (real soon)
Migos Tour
Quavo & Scott collab
Quavo solo album
 
T

torre_avenue

Banned
I can vibe with this Post Malone album.

Broken Whiskey Glass is amazing.

Deja Vu bites "Hotline Bling" a bit too hard for me, mainly in the production.
 
X

xHiryu

Member
torre_avenue said:
Apparently, Quavo was on .WAV radio and confirmed a Quavo X Travis Scott tape.

As someone on KTT put it, it's looking like this:
Migos album (real soon)
Migos Tour
Quavo & Scott collab
Quavo solo album
Click to expand...

shut tha fuck up bro im boutta throw up in hype

Andrew Korenchkin said:
Listened to Logic's Under Pressure.

This guy is not worth paying attention to. At least I tried it, but yeah Logic is corny and mediocre.
Click to expand...

Wrist is hype
 
N

NipplesAndToes23

Member
I'm about to download this dope ass album and I see all these choices for file types. What's the differences between them and which is supposed to sound the best?
 
Andrew Korenchkin

Andrew Korenchkin

Member
Blasian Persuasion said:
MP3 V0 - 71.3MB
MP3 320 - 86.6MB
FLAC - 275.9MB
AAC - 42.4MB
Ogg Vorbis - 52.3MB
ALAC - 280.3MB
WAV - 379.1MB
AIFF - 379.6MB
Click to expand...

All I know is that 320 kbps is my preferred format. FLAC is also very high quality as is supposed to be close to CD quality? Sorry, I'm not too experienced with this. HiResDes could answer this question.
 
T

torre_avenue

Banned
Blasian Persuasion said:
MP3 V0 - 71.3MB
MP3 320 - 86.6MB
FLAC - 275.9MB
AAC - 42.4MB
Ogg Vorbis - 52.3MB
ALAC - 280.3MB
WAV - 379.1MB
AIFF - 379.6MB
Click to expand...
Depends.

If you're a serious audophile, do with .WAV or .FLAC. If you just want to listen to the album, MP3 320 works just as fine. AAC is Apple's codec, iirc. Basically, smaller the file size, """worse""" the quality.
 
T

TheWasTheJoke

Member
Cole is so dissapointing, production was top-tier of FHD and that allowed so many songs to stand. On 4YEO is just a shitheap of forgettable jazz and 'deep' lyricism that screams TPAB stanning without the talent

Pls Save me RTJ
 
N

NipplesAndToes23

Member
Andrew Korenchkin said:
All I know is that 320 kbps is my preferred format. FLAC is also very high quality as is supposed to be close to CD quality? Sorry, I'm not too experienced with this. HiResDes could answer this question.
Click to expand...

torre_avenue said:
Depends.

If you're a serious audophile, do with .WAV or .FLAC. If you just want to listen to the album, MP3 320 works just as fine. AAC is Apple's codec, iirc. Basically, smaller the file size, """worse""" the quality.
Click to expand...

Thank youuu.
 
D

Dereck

Member
What is it exactly about J. Cole that has people even remotely interested in a Cole Kendrick collab album. I mean let's keep it 100,000 Cole got fucking washed on that Black Friday double song thing. There's no way Cole will match Kendrick's energy on an album from what I've heard.
 
S

Syphon Filter

Member
Dereck said:
What is it exactly about J. Cole that has people even remotely interested in a Cole Kendrick collab album. I mean let's keep it 100,000 Cole got fucking washed on that Black Friday double song thing. There's no way Cole will match Kendrick's energy on an album from what I've heard.
Click to expand...

The two current best collaborating is a good idea.
 
H

HiResDes

Member
File size question is pretty complicated but here's how I see it if you plan on archiving, ie converting to smaller file sizes and or CD later always go with the lossless file formats like FLAC or ALAC. However where I differ from true audiophiles is on my views about lossy formats. I believe when properly encoded from a lossless format most people couldn't hear the difference from say a V0 format mp3 or 192kbps AAC to FLAC, WAV, ALAC when properly adjusted to the same volume. AAC is particularly the best format for saving space as it is the most efficient at really lossy bitrates like 192kbps and under. I would say the threshold for most listeners being able to discern true losses would be at a rough 192kpbs for mp3 and maybe as low as 128kpbs for AAC. Most people aren't sporting Sennheiser HD800s and the like.
 
O

overcast

Member
enzo_gt said:
whew, who would have imagined that by 2016, all three of Kendrick, Cole and Drake would have failed us with their latest big releases

#ZeroHeroes
#NoIdols

haven't listened to the new Cole yet but not expecting much based on how exceptionally awful the single was
Click to expand...
Naw. Kendrick dropped another influential classic that resulted in many rappers (and other genres) leaning towards political/higher concept albums.

He also sprouted the neo soul movement on a major level.

GOAT
 
N

NipplesAndToes23

Member
olympia said:
i like it too
Click to expand...

I wanted to, but there were too many skippers for me. Why the fuck is "Chris Tucker" on there?
HiResDes said:
File size question is pretty complicated but here's how I see it if you plan on archiving, ie converting to smaller file sizes and or CD later always go with the lossless file formats like FLAC or ALAC. However where I differ from true audiophiles is on my views about lossy formats. I believe when properly encoded from a lossless format most people couldn't hear the difference from say a V0 format mp3 or 192kbps AAC to FLAC, WAV, ALAC when properly adjusted to the same volume. AAC is particularly the best format for saving space as it is the most efficient at really lossy bitrates like 192kbps and under. I would say the threshold for most listeners being able to discern true losses would be at a rough 192kpbs for mp3 and maybe as low as 128kpbs for AAC. Most people aren't sporting Sennheiser HD800s and the like.
Click to expand...


WTF is Ogg Vorbis
 
B

Bacon

Member
Maybe it just perfectly fits my mood atm but damn I didn't have Leave off of Post Malone's new album on repeat all day.
 
P

PGamer

fucking juniors
Blasian Persuasion said:
MP3 V0 - 71.3MB
MP3 320 - 86.6MB
FLAC - 275.9MB
AAC - 42.4MB
Ogg Vorbis - 52.3MB
ALAC - 280.3MB
WAV - 379.1MB
AIFF - 379.6MB
Click to expand...

Here's a quick and dirty reference guide.

Formats can be divided into three groups: uncompressed, lossless compressed, and lossy compressed. Uncompressed means that the audio data is stored without any compression to reduce file size. Lossless compressed means that the audio data has been compressed to reduce file size but no data is destroyed in the process so they will sound identical to uncompressed formats. Lossy compressed files are compressed and audio data is destroyed in the compression process but in return lossy compressed formats are able to achieve the lowest file sizes of the three.

This is highly debated but in general high quality lossy formats will sound basically the same as lossless formats to most people. Lossless is a good choice if you want a format that is archival quality or if you just have a lot of storage space to spare. One limitation of lossy formats is that you should not convert lossy formats to other formats as that will further reduce audio quality (ex. FLAC -> WAV is good, FLAC -> MP3 is good, MP3 -> AAC is bad, MP3 -> MP3 is bad). Most people will generally be better off with lossy formats like MP3 for most casual use.

As far as uncompressed formats go I would not recommend using them unless you have a specific reason to such as in audio production, with certain hardware, for legacy support, etc.

Lossy Compressed Audio Formats:

MP3 V0 - This is the highest quality variable bit rate (VBR) MP3 format. Variable bit rate means that the bit rate of the audio encoding will change depending on whether the encoder determines it needs a high bit rate to achieve high quality audio playback or not. For example 10 seconds of silence will require significantly less data than 10 seconds of complex instrumentals. A VBR encoder will use less data to store that silence compared to the instrumental. V0 can encode up to 320 kbps.

As for MP3s in general they are known for being supported with pretty much every digital music player out there. The downside to MP3s is that the format is kind of dated and newer formats achieve comparable quality at lower file sizes.

MP3 320 - This is the highest quality constant bit rate (CBR) MP3 format. The difference between 320 and V0 is that 320 encodes at a constant 320 kbps regardless of what the audio is. It is generally considered to have comparable quality to V0 but at a larger file size. Due to this V0 tends to be more popular with many users. 320 is known as being the highest quality MP3 format in terms of bit rate but whether or not there are any real world benefits for the trade off in file size is debatable.

AAC - AAC was developed as the successor format to MP3 but it never really took off to a huge degree in consumer music players as MP3 had become ubiquitous by the time it was released. AAC achieves comparable quality to MP3 at lower file sizes. These days AAC is known primarily due to Apple as it's their format of choice for the iTunes music store. In general I would only really bother with AAC if you are a heavy user of the Apple ecosystem (iTunes/iPhone/etc.)

Ogg Vorbis - An open audio format that also achieves comparable quality to MP3 at lower file sizes. Ogg Vorbis is mostly notable for being an open format that doesn't require any licensing fees to use and is/was popular in the open-source community. These days Ogg has largely been overtaken by Opus which has even lower file sizes. I generally wouldn't recommend using Ogg Vorbis unless you have a specific reason to.

Lossless Compressed Audio Formats:

FLAC - FLAC is generally the most popular of the lossless compressed audio formats and is getting more support these days although not nearly as much as something like MP3. Like other lossless formats FLAC achieves "CD quality" audio but in return has noticeably larger file sizes than lossy formats. FLAC is a good choice if you want something that is archival quality, you desire high quality audio over low file sizes, or you just have lots of disk space to spare. FLAC is what I personally use when available. I would not typically recommend FLAC if limited storage space is a problem (ex. on many phones).

ALAC - ALAC is Apple's lossless audio format. It is largely comparable to FLAC but is mostly supported with Apple products. Like AAC I generally wouldn't bother with it unless you are a heavy Apple user and want a lossless format that is natively supported by iTunes/iPhone/etc.

Uncompressed Audio Formats:

WAV - WAV is the standard raw uncompressed audio format on Windows. There is basically no reason to store your music in WAV as lossless formats will have identical audio quality at lower file sizes. I would use this only if you have a specific reason to.

AIFF - AIFF is Apple's raw uncompressed audio format. Much like WAV I would not recommend storing your music in this format unless you have a specific reason to.
 
H

HiResDes

Member
Tokubetsu said:
Wild how Ab-Soul just came out of nowhere and dropped the best rap album of the year.
Click to expand...

Wild how Toku has went deaf over the past year or so

PGamer said:
Here's a quick and dirty reference guide.

Formats can be divided into three groups: uncompressed, lossless compressed, and lossy compressed. Uncompressed means that the audio data is stored without any compression to reduce file size. Lossless compressed means that the audio data has been compressed to reduce file size but no data is destroyed in the process so they will sound identical to uncompressed formats. Lossy compressed files are compressed and audio data is destroyed in the compression process but in return lossy compressed formats are able to achieve the lowest file sizes of the three.

This is highly debated but in general high quality lossy formats will sound basically the same as lossless formats to most people. Lossless is a good choice if you want a format that is archival quality or if you just have a lot of storage space to spare. One limitation of lossy formats is that you should not convert lossy formats to other formats as that will further reduce audio quality (ex. FLAC -> WAV is good, FLAC -> MP3 is good, MP3 -> AAC is bad, MP3 -> MP3 is bad). Most people will generally be better off with lossy formats like MP3 for most casual use.

As far as uncompressed formats go I would not recommend using them unless you have a specific reason to such as in audio production, with certain hardware, for legacy support, etc.

Lossy Compressed Audio Formats:

MP3 V0 - This is the highest quality variable bit rate (VBR) MP3 format. Variable bit rate means that the bit rate of the audio encoding will change depending on whether the encoder determines it needs a high bit rate to achieve high quality audio playback or not. For example 10 seconds of silence will require significantly less data than 10 seconds of complex instrumentals. A VBR encoder will use less data to store that silence compared to the instrumental. V0 can encode up to 320 kbps.

As for MP3s in general they are known for being supported with pretty much every digital music player out there. The downside to MP3s is that the format is kind of dated and newer formats achieve comparable quality at lower file sizes.

MP3 320 - This is the highest quality constant bit rate (CBR) MP3 format. The difference between 320 and V0 is that 320 encodes at a constant 320 kbps regardless of what the audio is. It is generally considered to have comparable quality to V0 but at a larger file size. Due to this V0 tends to be more popular with many users. 320 is known as being the highest quality MP3 format in terms of bit rate but whether or not there are any real world benefits for the trade off in file size is debatable.

AAC - AAC was developed as the successor format to MP3 but it never really took off to a huge degree in consumer music players as MP3 had become ubiquitous by the time it was released. AAC achieves comparable quality to MP3 at lower file sizes. These days AAC is known primarily due to Apple as it's their format of choice for the iTunes music store. In general I would only really bother with AAC if you are a heavy user of the Apple ecosystem (iTunes/iPhone/etc.)

Ogg Vorbis - An open audio format that also achieves comparable quality to MP3 at lower file sizes. Ogg Vorbis is mostly notable for being an open format that doesn't require any licensing fees to use and is/was popular in the open-source community. These days Ogg has largely been overtaken by Opus which has even lower file sizes. I generally wouldn't recommend using Ogg Vorbis unless you have a specific reason to.

Lossless Compressed Audio Formats:

FLAC - FLAC is generally the most popular of the lossless compressed audio formats and is getting more support these days although not nearly as much as something like MP3. Like other lossless formats FLAC achieves "CD quality" audio but in return has noticeably larger file sizes than lossy formats. FLAC is a good choice if you want something that is archival quality, you desire high quality audio over low file sizes, or you just have lots of disk space to spare. FLAC is what I personally use when available. I would not typically recommend FLAC if limited storage space is a problem (ex. on many phones).

ALAC - ALAC is Apple's lossless audio format. It is largely comparable to FLAC but is mostly supported with Apple products. Like AAC I generally wouldn't bother with it unless you are a heavy Apple user and want a lossless format that is natively supported by iTunes/iPhone/etc.

Uncompressed Audio Formats:

WAV - WAV is the standard raw uncompressed audio format on Windows. There is basically no reason to store your music in WAV as lossless formats will have identical audio quality at lower file sizes. I would use this only if you have a specific reason to.

AIFF - AIFF is Apple's raw uncompressed audio format. Much like WAV I would not recommend storing your music in this format unless you have a specific reason to.
Click to expand...

You say AAC and Ogg Vorbis achieve comparable quality to MP3 at lower file sizes, but that's not really accurate, they're wholly superior to MP3 at comparable bitrates, which is more accurate to say.
 
P

PGamer

fucking juniors
HiResDes said:
You say AAC and Ogg Vorbis achieve comparable quality to MP3 at lower file sizes, but that's not really accurate, they're wholly superior to MP3 at comparable bitrates, which is more accurate to say.
Click to expand...

That doesn't necessarily hold true at high bit rates where there's essentially going to be no audible difference between any of those formats. I was mostly taking into account 320 and V0 as opposed to 128 or something like that. I don't generally recommend listening to low bit rate MP3s unless there's no other option.
 
H

HiResDes

Member
Even at 256 kbps, AAC achieves superior quality, though admittedly the difference is less discernible. When you get down to 128 kbps AAC achieves audio quality that's so far superior to MP3 that there isn't even a contest. 128kpbs AAC is near studio quality audio whereas 128 mp3 is rubbish, therefore there's no comparison.
 
D

Dereck

Member
Every time I put on this Cole album it just ends up becoming background music, and I'm trying to give it a thorough listen. Not working out well for me.
 
H

HiResDes

Member
I don't understand why people devote so many repeat listens to Cole, I mean at least Frank Ocean has dense lyrics but Cole is so surface I've never been like oh FHD is so layered breh.
 
D

Dereck

Member
It's not that I'm listening to his album more than once, I keep replaying tracks and like 30 seconds in I'm like, OH, the track I forgot!, I keep losing interest and really I'm not doing anything else.

OnGTCza.png
 
H

Helmholtz

Member
Post Malone album definitely very enjoyable. Dude has a nice voice.
I think it's kinda like Weeknd album for me in that most of the tracks are good and nice to listen to, but ultimately kind of forgettable.
 
E

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
The production on this Cole is so frustrating. No one would bat an eye to this production or these basic rhyme schemes that try so hard to evoke some emotion out of you but fail to resonate if this was a rapper of lesser stature.

I don't think the songs are all bad, or that it's a bad project just because the concept kind of falls flat in execution, or I'm just super cynical of all of these extra-conscious efforts from MCs lately, but I'm really struggling to think of projects or songs that make any sort of impact on me. First thing I think of is Lupe's Madonna, and I truly think few mainstream efforts have even come close to that TBH.
 
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