Cedille launches new download program
In an era when the recording industry has seen sales shrink in the face of constantly emerging new technology as well as the economic downturn, Chicago-based classical music label Cedille Records has been a beacon of success.
Cedille, a trademark of the not-for-profit Chicago Classical Recording Foundation, is in the midst of its 20th anniversary celebration, with a catalog of nearly 120 titles to its credit.
Jim Ginsburg, founder, president and executive producer for Cedille, knows that to remain relevant in such a highly competitive field, you need to stay ahead (or at least abreast) of technology. That's why Cedille has just launched a program offering digital-quality downloads of its albums from its website, cedillerecords.org, utilizing the highly regarded FLAC technology, costing the buyer about $10 per download. This is less expensive than ordering a regular compact disc from the site or buying it at a store. Those methods of purchase will remain available for the entire Cedille catalog, according to Ginsburg.
FLAC stands for "Free Lossless Audio Codec," which means, in layman's terms, that the download will give the recipient audio resolution the equal of a traditional CD. It is encoded at 16 digital bits at a sampling rate of 44.1 kilohertz, the industry standard since the shiny little discs first hit the market in the early 1980s.
So what's the big deal? Haven't MP3 downloads been available for years? Yes, and Cedille still offers MP3 downloads at the advanced 256 kilobits per second download rate as compared with the industry standard 128 KBS. That means better sound, but not the same as playing an actual CD in your home or car. Basically, MP3 files are compressed at a rate that lessens the audio quality. The FLAC technology was designed specifically to handle audio files with no degradation from the original. It's the same principle used when large printed documents are converted into ZIP files for downloading, then "unzipped" by the recipient.
For FLAC, the customer converts the audio file back into a regular music computer file (called a "wave" file, with a. wav document extension), which means it can then be played directly on a variety of hardware or software media players, or actually burned onto a blank CD. The "transcoding" software that enables you to do this is widely available.
"With this technology, you are hearing music exactly as you would hear it on the CD," said Ginsburg. "It's done in such a way that it doesn't take up as much room on your hard drive as the completely uncompressed file. The software that plays the FLAC files decodes the compression, and it's completely the same as a CD, without losing any audio quality."
FLAC files can be imported and played directly on a variety of hardware and software media players, such as Winamp for Windows or VLC for Mac. But, as noted, certain other media players, such as Windows Media Player and Apple's iTunes, require easily installed plug-ins to make the FLAC files work. Also, iPods do not accept FLAC files as-is. "But you can convert the FLAC file into an uncompressed 'wave' file, and that will play on your iPod," Ginsburg said.
Prospective purchasers can for free download a Cedille album's liner notes from its website.
"I learned by discussing with audiophiles that we were no longer limited to MP3s and things of lesser quality than actual CDs, and FLAC was one of the formats that kept coming up in our research as a way to get CD quality in a download," Ginsburg said. "We're generally considered an audiophile label, so we decided we really should be offering this to our customers."
Cedille's 20th anniversary was honored April 30 on WFMT 98.7-FM, with a 12-hour "day of music" played from about 40 of the label's recordings.
Cedille's latest recording, titled "The Balkan Project," has just been released as the label's second album with the Chicago-based Cavatina Duo, comprised of flutist Eugenia Moliner and guitarist Denis Azabagic. It is available at area stores and on the Cedille website, both as a physical CD or a FLAC download.