Low bit

Low bit (short for low bitrate, also known as lobit) is a musical aesthetic characterized by lossy data compression artifacts caused by encoding songs at low bitrates. Artists making low-bit music believe that if a song is good, it can be appreciated at any bitrate or on any speakers.

Overview

The low-bit style emerged as an avant-garde reaction to the perceived bitrate snobbery in the organized music piracy (on peer-to-peer networks) and net label scenes. It also shares a strong do-it-yourself ethic with punk ideology.

Low-bit music is distributed primarily through net labels. Unlike most net labels, many low-bit labels do not focus on representing a single music genre. Instead, the catalog of each label reveals the personal tastes of the curator.

Because of the small file sizes of low-bitrate encodes, it is possible to download an entire EP from a low-bit label in the same time it would take to download one song from a standard net label. This makes low-bitrate releases accessible to listeners who have only a dialup modem as well as conserving space on portable music players with limited memory.

See also

• Netlabel

External links

• an English-language interview with mathias of 20 kbit/s
• a Russian-language interview with mathias of 20 kbit/s
• Lowbit Community
• Lowbit Netlabels List.

Low-bitrate labels

• 20 kbit/s - godfather of lobit
• Tibol - the first Low-bitrate radioshow ever known
• Microbit Records - only lobit
• lalala4e - netlabel based in mexico with artists from all over the world with a variety of genres such as lobit, techno, electro, dance, field recordings, chiptune.
• abulia concepts - experimental chiropody and lowbitrate
• bootlegs for real life - bootlegs and mix sets @ 13 kbit/s
• fashion proof - new face from the east coast of America
• gainlad - playful chip music and techno out of south America and worldwide
• mp3death - run by a net label pioneer who started broke bunnie in 1996
• NORTHAMERICANHARDCORE - punk rock, noise music, hardcore techno, and other raw sounds
• stars in rehab - run by an old school Demoscene member
• Unaware Records - All electronic subgenre-encompassing netlabel from South West England.
• 8Ravens - lowbit net-label for 8 kbps music.
• Unicode Music - Italian lowbit netlabel.
• Oh! Bleep Records - Low-bit netlabel based in Australia.
• Lome - Lo-bit netlabel for minimalist music.
• Sphicot and Tharoop - Lo-bit netlabels from Finland founded by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen.
• Microbit Project
• 4M.@-RECORDS
• 8Ravens
• Sirona records - in Grenoble, France also releasing Lo-bit sometimes
• DEX AND THE CITY RECORDS (Latvia)
• TOP OF THE FLOPS