Inspired by tape loop works by artists such as Hainbach, and born from my own curiosity about audio quality, comes this little experiment.
The piece consists of a small segment of music repeated 16 times. Each time the segment repeats, it is converted from a WAV (16-bit PCM, sample rate 44100 Hz) to an MP3 (96kb/s, sample rate 22050 Hz); to evoke the idea of reuploads being reconverted from a stream to a file over and over and over again.
I chose those MP3 settings because they're within the realm of what I'd consider listenable, but so that the process would actually make noticeable changes over time. I made a trial run with 128kb/s MP3s without a sample rate reduction and the effect is much slower in being noticeable, and I'm already nervous about uploading this >10m piece - imagine I subject you to a 45 minute piece during a synclisten? If that ends up happening, it won't be because of me, no siree.
