A new digital music file format has been unveiled as a revolutionary new way of listening to music and hopes to sweep aside the plethora of formats currently available, such as mp3, WAV, FLAC, AAC etc. The new angle to the MT9 format, other than sounding like a sports car, is that each musical instrument on the song will have it’s own controllability, making you in charge of the music and giving you free range to indulge in Spector-esque levels of control freakery.

Developers at Korea’s Audizen have presented MT9 to the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), an international body responsible for digital technology. “They immediately voted to make it a candidate for the digital music standard format,” CEO Ham Seung-chul told the Korea Times. The list of candidates will be further whittled down at a June conference in Germany.

Do we really need this though? Can this really succeed? As the likes of Youtube proves, just because it’s now easy to make a video and make it available on the internet does not make you a great film-maker. With this technology it’s only a matter of time before classic music gets distorted to please the consumer. Just imaging a brethren of John Bonham fans changing Led Zeppelin’s back catalogue so that Plant & Page are reduced to shuffling about in the background with the mighty thunder of Bonzo drums beating over them like a heard of buffalo. The scamps will be posting their new ‘remixes’ all over the web quicker than a rattle of a cowbell.

Also cost is bound to come into play. The rise of illegal file sharing came about because music was being overpriced. I doubt that this new format will work on the equipment and software we now have, so the consumer will have to fork out again and I can’t see the files themselves being cheap. “What’s that you say Mr. Prince? I can faff about with every instrumental track on your Purple Rain song, making my own delicious version for only a dollar a pop? Yes please!” Mr. Prince is more likely to go purple with rage.

For years we have trusted musicians and producers to know what they are doing and, mostly, they are pretty good at what they do, whatever kind of music you like. Do we really think we can do any better? It’s a bit like going to the dentist and saying, “Not a bad job on those fillings, mate, but do you mind handing me the drill ‘cos I think I’ll have a go at that myself.”

Believe me, it’ll end in tears.

Mister Fusty

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