Listen to new music with adaptive lossless streaming

Audio-visual

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Music lovers can now check out new artistes with downloadable mobile music albums that stream the music to them smoothly by adapting the quality to either online or offline use.

Called Orastream, the technology was first tested by Techgoondu back in December 2011. It will play back at a lossless CD-like quality if a track is streamed, say, over Wi-Fi at home, but it will switch to a less demanding compressed quality if the user decides to stream the tracks over a cellphone network while on the move, for example.

Three artistes, including award-winning composer pianist Tze from Singapore, have now signed on to release their music on these mobile albums, which come in the form of downloadable iOS apps. The Singapore firm behind the technology, MP4SLS, calls these albums or apps digital catalog LPs (DLPs), in a tribute to the old record format.

Will this concept fly? Well, it certainly gives musicians a lot of options to distribute their music in a very nicely-packaged downloadable app, where they can include cover notes and all sorts of other add-ons, besides the usual FLAC or MP3 track downloads today.

For consumers, it is firstly a way of getting their music anywhere they want smoothly. Secondly, it’s also a smart way to get interactive with the artistes directly, while sharing their “like” for the new music with friends on social media networks.

In terms of concept, and technology, this is one excellent piece of work from developers who originated from the labs of the Singapore government-funded A*Star research group. Now, it’s a question of whether the content will follow the delivery medium.

If your interest has been piqued so far, check out the following artistes who have songs for download.

About Tze n Looking Glass
Tze n Looking Glass is Singapore’s unique contemporary fusion band, creating music that is an exotic fusion of East and West – a blend of improvisational jazz, and Chinese, Indian and fusion classical music.

About Sul and November
This is the maiden album by Sul of love songs in slow rock. Created and performed by Sul, these songs are expressions of love for friends and family. 

About Phil Ogden and Analog Revolution
These 2 DLP albums are a selection of love and party songs by British music producer, Phil Ogden.