7 ms·

I listened to my first MP3 ever (Creed's "Higher") in 1999 on Winamp. It really whipped the South American camelid's posterior. Dang. I'm old.

IggleSniggle 5y ago
After years of listening to Adlib MIDI soundtracks on the computer, I was absolutely blown away to be hearing “Yesterday” by the Beatles coming out of the speakers. I played that tiny little file (not a whole CD!) countless times on repeat. Just unbelievable that such a thing could be coming from a tiny (relatively) little file.
- geocrasher 5y ago
  Yes, I remember feeling that awe as well. For giggles, I just went to YouTube and listened to "Higher" again, and man... that really took me back. Haven't listened to it in years. Still one of my favorite heavy metal songs of all time. I also remember being so thrilled to be able to store several MP3's on my 64mb Sharp Zaurus SL-5600.
  - ficklepickle 5y ago
    Wait, creed is metal? I always thought of it more like Christian rock. A good tune, all the same. A 64mb CF card in an RCA Lyra for me. Drop the bitrate to ~64kbps and you can jam most of an album on there :D
    - IggleSniggle 5y ago
      I really don't think Creed qualifies as metal in 2021, but the metal influence is very clear imho. I vaguely recall that they walked a line with American Christendom, being a sort of "Christian crossover" band. I think it's kinda interesting how they made an aesthetic of "consistently singing out of tune" which I think helped them cement their status as more "metal" than "Christian" allowing them to attract from a wider variety of fan-base. Really it's kinda interesting the line they walked, in retrospect. --- Interestingly, I've started dropping bitrate a lot recently, because I like to keep my podcast content pre-loaded. Definitely feels like a throwback: "Gah, my audio content is up to 4gb, I need to either get my listen on, drop bitrate, or reduce my intake!" I wonder when I'll stop caring about how much space I have on my phone.
jvolkman 5y ago
I remember being jealous of my friend's Pentium (66? 90?) when mp3 playback slaughtered my 486.
- raphman 5y ago
  The original Fraunhofer MP3 player, Winplay3, had settings to reduce decoding quality - which helped a lot on my 486. https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110 https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110
- IggleSniggle 5y ago
  When “Pentium” was the name of the very most precious metal one could obtain
  - giarc 5y ago
    That has to be one of the best advertising campaigns in history. I've heard non-technical people in the last few years still say things like "I think our new computer has a Pentium or something". The word Pentium was synonymous with quality and speed.
    - trulyme 5y ago
      They might be right, though I wouldn't say the name is synonymous with speed anymore. Intel is still using this name for entry level cpus [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium
      - bee_rider 5y ago
        They should have left Celeron as the low-end SKU. Then they could use Pentium again nowadays. Core was a sensible branding to emphasize the fact that they were multicore when it was a new feature, but now that's old hat. Now is actually a decent time for a naming scheme change, right? Apparently Golden Cove is supposed to be a bit of a jump.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
wgx 5y ago
You may enjoy this for a nostalgia hit: https://webamp.org/ https://webamp.org/
nikcub 5y ago
The first scene releases of mp3's were in 1996[0]. It was 1997 when things got rolling, just as Winamp was released. I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD quality and you had to downscale. We also picked which songs to download locally based on their size Spiderbait's song "Calypso" was probably the most popular mp3 download in '97 since it was only 2.5MB and a lot of people just wanted to try this new mp3 thing everybody was talking about. The decoder Winamp used was actually amp - developed by Tomislav Uzelac[1]. I can't remember how he dodged patent issues, but he had his name and an ask for donations in the about box of v1 iirc. Winamp owe a lot to amp - the first version was essentially a skin + port of his library to Windows. I'm pretty certain Winamp v2 also used amp, just as it was blowing up to become the most downloaded program online. Nullsoft and Justin were absolute legends. He wrote an AOL ad removal / blocking tool and WASTE while at AOL. I can't think of any similar startup or subsidiary today that has even close to the attitude / courage they had. [0] https://www.mp3scene.info/releases/year/1996/ https://www.mp3scene.info/releases/year/1996/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomislav_Uzelac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomislav_Uzelac
- marcodiego 5y ago
  I think only the first versions of winamp used amp, it was replaced later. Interestingly, the old amp code can still be compiled and ran on modern systems with little modifications. I've did it a few months ago.
- jihadjihad 5y ago
  Oh wow, WASTE, that brings back some memories. I hadn't heard of it until college, where everyone on campus used it to share music / videos / etc. I never knew that the history of it was linked to Nullsoft and Winamp.
- MisterTea 5y ago
  > I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD quality and you had to downscale. I remember pentium 90's struggling to play mp3's on Win95/98 while at uni. They would play but you couldn't do much else otherwise they would stutter. Even minimizing and maximizing the mp3 player would cause stuttering.
racl101 5y ago
> I listened to my first MP3 ever (Creed's "Higher") My condolences.

IggleSniggle 5y ago

After years of listening to Adlib MIDI soundtracks on the computer, I was absolutely blown away to be hearing “Yesterday” by the Beatles coming out of the speakers. I played that tiny little file (not a whole CD!) countless times on repeat. Just unbelievable that such a thing could be coming from a tiny (relatively) little file.

geocrasher 5y ago
Yes, I remember feeling that awe as well. For giggles, I just went to YouTube and listened to "Higher" again, and man... that really took me back. Haven't listened to it in years. Still one of my favorite heavy metal songs of all time. I also remember being so thrilled to be able to store several MP3's on my 64mb Sharp Zaurus SL-5600.
- ficklepickle 5y ago
  Wait, creed is metal? I always thought of it more like Christian rock. A good tune, all the same. A 64mb CF card in an RCA Lyra for me. Drop the bitrate to ~64kbps and you can jam most of an album on there :D
  - IggleSniggle 5y ago
    I really don't think Creed qualifies as metal in 2021, but the metal influence is very clear imho. I vaguely recall that they walked a line with American Christendom, being a sort of "Christian crossover" band. I think it's kinda interesting how they made an aesthetic of "consistently singing out of tune" which I think helped them cement their status as more "metal" than "Christian" allowing them to attract from a wider variety of fan-base. Really it's kinda interesting the line they walked, in retrospect. --- Interestingly, I've started dropping bitrate a lot recently, because I like to keep my podcast content pre-loaded. Definitely feels like a throwback: "Gah, my audio content is up to 4gb, I need to either get my listen on, drop bitrate, or reduce my intake!" I wonder when I'll stop caring about how much space I have on my phone.

jvolkman 5y ago

I remember being jealous of my friend's Pentium (66? 90?) when mp3 playback slaughtered my 486.

raphman 5y ago
The original Fraunhofer MP3 player, Winplay3, had settings to reduce decoding quality - which helped a lot on my 486. https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110 https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110
IggleSniggle 5y ago
When “Pentium” was the name of the very most precious metal one could obtain
- giarc 5y ago
  That has to be one of the best advertising campaigns in history. I've heard non-technical people in the last few years still say things like "I think our new computer has a Pentium or something". The word Pentium was synonymous with quality and speed.
  - trulyme 5y ago
    They might be right, though I wouldn't say the name is synonymous with speed anymore. Intel is still using this name for entry level cpus [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium
    - bee_rider 5y ago
      They should have left Celeron as the low-end SKU. Then they could use Pentium again nowadays. Core was a sensible branding to emphasize the fact that they were multicore when it was a new feature, but now that's old hat. Now is actually a decent time for a naming scheme change, right? Apparently Golden Cove is supposed to be a bit of a jump.
- dehrmann 5y ago

wgx 5y ago

You may enjoy this for a nostalgia hit: https://webamp.org/ https://webamp.org/

nikcub 5y ago

The first scene releases of mp3's were in 1996[0]. It was 1997 when things got rolling, just as Winamp was released. I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD quality and you had to downscale. We also picked which songs to download locally based on their size Spiderbait's song "Calypso" was probably the most popular mp3 download in '97 since it was only 2.5MB and a lot of people just wanted to try this new mp3 thing everybody was talking about. The decoder Winamp used was actually amp - developed by Tomislav Uzelac[1]. I can't remember how he dodged patent issues, but he had his name and an ask for donations in the about box of v1 iirc. Winamp owe a lot to amp - the first version was essentially a skin + port of his library to Windows. I'm pretty certain Winamp v2 also used amp, just as it was blowing up to become the most downloaded program online. Nullsoft and Justin were absolute legends. He wrote an AOL ad removal / blocking tool and WASTE while at AOL. I can't think of any similar startup or subsidiary today that has even close to the attitude / courage they had. [0] https://www.mp3scene.info/releases/year/1996/ https://www.mp3scene.info/releases/year/1996/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomislav_Uzelac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomislav_Uzelac

marcodiego 5y ago
I think only the first versions of winamp used amp, it was replaced later. Interestingly, the old amp code can still be compiled and ran on modern systems with little modifications. I've did it a few months ago.
jihadjihad 5y ago
Oh wow, WASTE, that brings back some memories. I hadn't heard of it until college, where everyone on campus used it to share music / videos / etc. I never knew that the history of it was linked to Nullsoft and Winamp.
MisterTea 5y ago
> I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD quality and you had to downscale. I remember pentium 90's struggling to play mp3's on Win95/98 while at uni. They would play but you couldn't do much else otherwise they would stutter. Even minimizing and maximizing the mp3 player would cause stuttering.

racl101 5y ago

> I listened to my first MP3 ever (Creed's "Higher") My condolences.