The Elimination of Noise - Alexandra Remmling

Damon Krukowski discusses the concept of noise in his book Loudness wars, Real Time and Listening to Noise in The New Analogue: Listening and reconnecting in a digital world. He believes that noise is a fundamental component of achieving the full music experience. Noise is not solely the literal noise from the music but it is also all the external noise that accompanies it. However,  Krukowski says that we’ve lost noise in the transition to digital recordings from analogue media. There has been an emphasis on signal which is the thing we are listening for such as a certain vocal or beat but it comes at the expense of noise. Most individuals listen to music through streaming services which are very convenient and give us access to many songs but there is a degradation in sound quality compared to analogue media.  Not only has the literal noise been eliminated in digital recordings but so has the ancillary information that can be considered noise as well since it contributes to the overall listening experience of the music. For example, the experience of visiting the record store, the artist and song information that used to be very easily accessible are all things that contribute to the listening experience and has an impact but has now been eliminated. Krukowski believes that we will never get this noise back however, perhaps this elimination of noise is worth it for the convenience of digital media.