 | |
| Launch date | Before November 2003 |
|---|---|
| Platform(s) | Platform independent |
| Pricing model | Visitor's choice |
| Availability | World Wide Web Flash reader, downloadable art-covers |
| Website | onclassical.com |
OnClassical is an Italian independent record label. It features classical music mostly for single instrument or chamber ensemble.
Founded in April 2003 [1] by Alessandro Simonetto, harpsichordist, producer and sound engineer, it enlists selected first-prize international contest winners and young talented musicians who do not hold exclusive contracts with managers or traditional recording houses.
OnClassical was the first Italian label to produce, realize, distribute and sell recordings through the web and amongst the first to apply the new philosophy of Creative Commons to MP3 and other files. [2]
OnClassical has no relationship with societies of rights collecting due to the facts it only threats public domain music.
The website started as a simple collection of classical music audio performances of some of the most important pianists such as Maurizio Baglini, Rustem Hayroudinoff, Gianluca Luisi, Alberto Nosè, Mariangela Vacatello and other. Only in January 2004 (second version) it evolved as an online record label and a mobile recording studio working with its own equipment. The third, of February 2005 (the 14th), and the last version, of July 2007 (the 14th), have always maintained the graphic unchanged (white blackground with yellow left border) and the main concepts tied to contents and licences.
Since 2006 the house only publishes self-produced recordings through a more careful selection.
Albums are sold in a CD-quality uncompressed format (PCM / WAV, at 44.1 kHz × 16-bit [3] while more recently only Studio Masters FLAC are actually available (recent albums at 88.2 kHz x 24 bit). No DRM are present inside the files. Compressed formats can be found through the online stores such as Amazon, iTunes, emusic, Qobuz, eClassical and many other shops.
The recordings are considered of high quality. [4] [5] Some recordings have also been licensed for notable record labels such as Naxos or Brilliant Classics.
Today the catalogue has more than 60 titles. One of the main discographic projects is the recording of the complete works for clavier of Buxtehude and Bohm as performed by Florentine organist and harpsichordist Simone Stella now also released by Brilliant Classics.
OnClassical company furnishes the largest quantity of the classical music for Jamendo pro: the commercial program for music licensing at jamendo.com. [6]
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs. WMA Pro, a newer and more advanced codec, supports multichannel and high resolution audio. A lossless codec, WMA Lossless, compresses audio data without loss of audio fidelity. WMA Voice, targeted at voice content, applies compression using a range of low bit rates. Microsoft has also developed a digital container format called Advanced Systems Format to store audio encoded by WMA.
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a Compact Cassette, using 3.81 mm / 0.15" magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. The recording is digital rather than analog. DAT can record at sampling rates equal to, as well as higher and lower than a CD at 16 bits quantization. If a comparable digital source is copied without returning to the analogue domain, then the DAT will produce an exact clone, unlike other digital media such as Digital Compact Cassette or non-Hi-MD MiniDisc, both of which use a lossy data reduction system.
Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format.
An audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. An audiophile seeks to reproduce the sound of a live musical performance, typically in a room with good acoustics. It is widely agreed that reaching this goal is very difficult and that even the best-regarded recording and playback systems rarely, if ever, achieve it.
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format.
Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is a trademark used by Sony and Philips for their system for digitally encoding audio signals for the Super Audio CD (SACD).
Open-source record labels are record labels that release music under copyleft licenses, that is, licenses that allow free redistribution and may allow free modification of the tracks.
A netlabel is a record label that distributes its music through digital audio formats over the Internet. While similar to traditional record labels in many respects, netlabels typically emphasize free distribution online, often under licenses that encourage works to be shared, and artists often retain copyright.
In digital recording, an audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is saved to a storage device. To play back a digital recording, the numbers are retrieved and converted back into their original analog audio or video forms so that they can be heard or seen.
Telarc International Corporation is an American audiophile independent record label founded in 1977 by two classically trained musicians and former teachers, Jack Renner and Robert Woods. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, the label has had a long association with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Although it started as a classical music label, Telarc has released jazz, blues and country music recordings.
Soundstream Inc. was the first United States audiophile digital audio recording company, providing commercial services for recording and computer-based editing.
This is a partial list of commercial or professional recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, organized chronologically. You can alphabetically sort each column by clicking on the small box at the top of that column.
Jamendo is a Luxembourg-based music website and an open community of independent artists and music lovers. A subsidiary of Belgian company AudioValley, and Independent Management Entity (IME) since 2019.
Creative Commons is maintaining a content directory wiki of organizations and projects using Creative Commons licenses. On its website CC also provides case studies of projects using CC licenses across the world. CC licensed content can also be accessed through a number of content directories and search engines.
Brilliant Classics is a classical music label based in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden. It is renowned for releasing super-budget-priced editions on CD of the complete works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many other composers. The label also specialises in new recordings of early music, chamber, organ and piano music.
HDtracks is a high-resolution digital music store offering DRM-free music in multiple formats as well as cover art with audio CD-quality and high-definition audio master recording quality download selections.
Simone Stella is an Italian harpsichordist, organist, composer and producer.
Qobuz is a French commercial music streaming and downloading service. It was founded in 2007 by Yves Riesel, expanded to a limited range of overseas markets, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain, and launched in the US in May 2019. It offers a tiered subscription service and, like its competitor Tidal, provides free-of-charge streaming only for a trial period.
High-resolution audio is a term for audio files with greater than 44.1 kHz sample rate or higher than 16-bit audio bit depth. It commonly refers to 96 or 192 kHz sample rates. However, there also exist 44.1 kHz/24-bit, 48 kHz/24-bit and 88.2 kHz/24-bit recordings that are labeled HD Audio.
