Favorite Music

[Croconil]

man I only own 4 albums and not even 'master of puppets'

THE SCANDAL!

[zanzibar]

Ah yes, Zan once again you have pointed out the sloppiness of my assertions. However the CD vs LP argument is not quite so cut and dried as you seem to think. Have a look at this article. http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/LPvsCDformats2.php
It provides some food for thought.

Also I would like to suggest that listening to music is not solely about what you can hear as sub-sonic and supersonic waveforms can be felt even if only subliminally. Of course rock-heads are more sensitive to earth tremors than softskins.

Of course thrash death (is there much difference?) metal afficionados would not seem to require much fidelity from their recordings as it is all noise to me.

BTW nice move ignoring the signal in my post and commenting on the noise.
Signal = On Topic, Noise = Off Topic (slightly related, however)

There are a couple problems with that article.

1.  They seem to discount the copying process as relevant.  When you record analog audio, then convert it to digitial, the way you record the analog audio will have a major effect on the data you end up with on the "copy".  Said differently:  The copy isn't a true copy, so the experiment is weak.

2.  The numbers they give point out that the CD recording gets both louder and quieter than the vinyl, yet they say that the vinyl has a lower noise floor.  This simply isn't true to experience.  CDs have a lower noise floor than vinyls, period, provided that the recordings are of equal quality and provided that the source audio has been normalized.  Also key is rectangular versus triangular differing and bitrate.  They actually admit that vinyls have a higher noise floor, but they qualify their statement by saying that most of that noise isn't in the higher frequencies.  One must question which is actually preferable - an audible rumble (vinyl), or a hiss so high that you can't even hear it (CD).

3.  They talk about the interaction of noise with the audio data.  If the audio is normalized, that is, it's made to be loud without clipping, then such noise as is produced by the medium will not make a difference.  And it's much easier to normalize audio in a digital format than it is in an analog one.  With digital, you can work at a crazy high bit rate with a super super low noise floor.  Then when the audio is normalized, only then do you downgrade the audio quality to a format suitable for CD.  With DVD though, you don't have to downgrade the audio quality nearly as much.  Further, you even have the option of keeping all those precious high frequencies that most humans can't percieve.



When listeners are asked to compare two playings of the SAME recording, one on an analog medium and the other on a digitial medium, both played through the same sound system, any differences that exist are simply impossible to percieve.  You can look at the waveform under a microscope if you want to.  But people simply can't percieve the differences under ideal conditions.

Now, you CAN hear the difference between a vinyl and a CD of the same album.  But there are dozens of reasons why that difference is there, and the theory behind the digital medium is not at fault.

[Radiant Memphis]

Fav. new band that never was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWQre8jcfAM

[zanzibar]

Fav. new band that never was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWQre8jcfAM

That was awesome.  I loved the "underwater friends" part 7 minutes in.

[bilbous]

2.  The numbers they give point out that the CD recording gets both louder and quieter than the vinyl, yet they say that the vinyl has a lower noise floor.  This simply isn't true to experience.  CDs have a lower noise floor than vinyls, period, provided that the recordings are of equal quality and provided that the source audio has been normalized.  Also key is rectangular versus triangular differing and bitrate.  They actually admit that vinyls have a higher noise floor, but they qualify their statement by saying that most of that noise isn't in the higher frequencies.  One must question which is actually preferable - an audible rumble (vinyl), or a hiss so high that you can't even hear it (CD).

audio normalization Normalization is often used when remastering audio tapes for CD production, in order to maximize the bandwidth on an audio CD, and to make it sound louder. It is often combined with dynamic range compression and hard limiting to increase the apparent volume of a CD

So what I get from this is that the actual signal being reproduced is different. Not only has the bandwith for the cd been restricted but the signal has been boosted so that sounds that would have been too quiet to have been reproduced in the cd format have increased in volume so that they get included. This would not be necessary if the capabilities were the same.

Edited to fix link.

[zanzibar]

Normalizing:  All this means is that you're increasing the volume of the audio.  Sometimes, this term is used to describe changes to EQ, but that isn't true normalization.

Dynamic Range Compression:  this makes the louder parts quieter so that you can make the whole track louder as a whole.  There is no reason you have to do this, and many people don't do it.  When I make digital copies of analog recordings, I don't abuse this function.  However, modern tastes in pop rock are to have very compressed, radio-ready tracks.  But there's no reason you HAVE to do it and it's a reflection on the producer, not the medium itself.

Hard Limmiting:  This process lowers the volume of freak peaks which are way too loud for no good reason.  If the peaks are left in, they become distortion no matter the medium.

[bilbous]

So what you are saying is that you squash the signal to make it fit into the CD format? If I squash a cake to make it fit into a tin is it still a cake? Seems to me that it would still be cake but no longer a cake. It also seems to me that the method of producing a CD is similar to the method of storing a photograph in a jpeg file. It may not look any different but that doesn't mean that no information has been lost. Sure you can use all kinds of filters to smooth out the artifacts introduced by the lossy compression but that doesn't make the result identical to the original ... even if you can't tell the difference without extreme measures.

[zanzibar]

So what you are saying is that you squash the signal to make it fit into the CD format?

That isn't even slightly what I'm saying.

[bilbous]

perhaps you could clarify then.

[zanzibar]

Peak Amplitude:   -0.42 dB
Minimum RMS Power:   -81.79 dB
Maximum RMS Power:   -9.67 dB
Average RMS Power:   -34.04 dB
Total RMS Power:   -23.65 dB
Actual Bit Depth:   16 Bits

This is a bit of an aside, but I just made a clip in Cool Edit Pro of generated noise, starting loud then fading to nothing.  These are the statistics for it.


Rereading the article, they make the claim that the noise floor for vinyl is actually lower then that for CD.  This simply isn't true either.  Digital noise is spread out among the audible spectrum of sound, and it's all lower than what most people can or will percieve.  Vinyl, on the other hand, has a massive amount of noise in the bass and lower to true mid frequencies.  -50 dB is audible.  -88 dB is not typically audible, unless you're cranking the system because the audio is too quiet.  They also nitpick over other differences in the two mediums, but the differences they chose to emphasize are so small that I'm convined they came from the transfer process and are not a general property of the medium.


To answer your question, I meant just what I said.  Compression effects are used due to taste, not necessity.  Today's producers are obsessed with having super loud tracks that are very compressed and radio ready.  I'll take some screen shots of various songs to show you what I'm talking about.



Edit:  Here's a screen shot of the waveform for Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring".

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d46/_zanz/IgorStravinsky-TheRiteofSpring.jpg

Notice that there are big differences between the loud and soft parts.  You can get this same dynamic range in rock and roll, but people tend not to.

Why is that?  It's the damned producers who want to give everything a super slick sound.

Here's the waveform of a song by a band called "The Donnas" who were getting a lot of radio play at one point:

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d46/_zanz/thedonnas-takeitoff.jpg

The part at the beggining has a bass drum going "thump, thump, thump, thump" over a simple guitar riff.  When the song kicks in, it gets as loud as it can and then it doesn't really change from that.  Why is it like that?  Does it mean that CDs don't have a good dynamic range?  No.  It's like that because of the way it was produced.  Multi-band compression was used to get what some people feel is a fuller, more hi fi, more "professional" sound.  Historically, compression effects like this were used on tracks to make them ready for radio.  In radio, you want to have a strong signal as much as possible because of the noise associated with cheeper or older sound systems.  Now though, it's unnecessary most of the time, but they do it anyway.

[bilbous]

If you like. Please try to use the actual cd audio for your example and not data ripped into mp3's as mp3 is a distinctly lossy format and outside the scope of what I have been talking about. I was not talking about anything a home user might do with a graphic equalizer or other device. I am not sure that the conversation is terribly relevant to all genres of music as most metal bands seem to lack the nuances that progressive rock bands aim for and certainly have much less internal variety than traditional classical music. I admit that this might not be accurate as I do not follow metal bands I think it is fair though. Also I think that music mastered solely for CD pressing will have different considerations than music originally mastered for vinyl and remastered for CD.

I am no expert on audio technology and I very much doubt that you have the amount of knowledge that would so qualify you as such either. I am not suggesting that you do not have more experience in this than me as you stated an interest in the music development industry elsewhere but you are not someone who has been a recording engineer for a major label for twenty-odd years whode input would be more definitive. We could do web searches for a year and not come to any agreement, there is a lot of nonsense out there.

It just seemed to me that you would not have to take extra measures when producing a CD as opposed to a record if there were no differences in the capabilities of the medium.

[zanzibar]

I was not talking about anything a home user might do with a graphic equalizer or other device.

Anyone can use the effects I'm talking about.  They're easy to get.  The reason why professionals are professionals has less to do with the tools they have and more to do with how they use them.

I am not sure that the conversation is terribly relevant to all genres of music as most metal bands seem to lack the nuances that progressive rock bands aim for and certainly have much less internal variety than traditional classical music. I admit that this might not be accurate as I do not follow metal bands I think it is fair though.

Uh, what? I don't see what this has to do with anything.  As a student of classical music, I'm well aware of the diversity within the classical tradition.  And there is also a heck of a lot of diversity and "progressiveness" within metal.  If you don't know much about the genre, and since I can't see how this ties into the conversation, I'm not sure why you made the above comments.

Also I think that music mastered solely for CD pressing will have different considerations than music originally mastered for vinyl and remastered for CD.

What "considerations" are you refering to?

I am no expert on audio technology and I very much doubt that you have the amount of knowledge that would so qualify you as such either.

Ad hominem.

but you are not someone who has been a recording engineer for a major label for twenty-odd years

I've been playing in rock bands for over a decade and I've done a lot of home recording.  I'm not entirely unlearned on the subject either as I have studied recording and have talked to a lot of people about it and have done a lot of reading on it and have done a lot of experimentation and trial and error with it.

whode input would be more definitive.

Ad hominem.  Attack what I say, don't attack me.

We could do web searches for a year and not come to any agreement, there is a lot of nonsense out there.

Or perhaps you could reply to what I wrote...

It just seemed to me that you would not have to take extra measures when producing a CD as opposed to a record if there were no differences in the capabilities of the medium.

What extra measures are you refering to?

[bilbous]

I was not talking about anything a home user might do with a graphic equalizer or other device.

Anyone can use the effects I'm talking about.  They're easy to get.  The reason why professionals are professionals has less to do with the tools they have and more to do with how they use them.

The topic I was discussing was  the qualitative differences between commercial albums and commercial CD's. If you are talking about anything else perhaps that is where our disagreement lies.

I am not sure that the conversation is terribly relevant to all genres of music as most metal bands seem to lack the nuances that progressive rock bands aim for and certainly have much less internal variety than traditional classical music. I admit that this might not be accurate as I do not follow metal bands I think it is fair though.

Uh, what? I don't see what this has to do with anything.  As a student of classical music, I'm well aware that of the diversity within the classical tradition.  And there is also a heck of a lot of diversity and "progressiveness" within metal.  If you don't know much about the genre, and since I can't see how this ties into the conversation, I'm not sure why you made the above comments.

The point about internal variation in classical music was not differences between compositions but differences within compositions some ranging from pianissimo up through fortissimo. Have briefly perused the wikipedia entries relating to metal it seems they have one thing in common which is the louder the better although this may be a poor description of the underlying theme. Certainly I would not expect any such extremely quiet sections in such music as is found in Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Just Take a Pebble" song. A genre characterized by extreme volume would not seem to be a candidate for normalization as there are few quiet parts that need boosting.

Also I think that music mastered solely for CD pressing will have different considerations than music originally mastered for vinyl and remastered for CD.

What "considerations" are you refering to?

Differences in the target media.

I am no expert on audio technology and I very much doubt that you have the amount of knowledge that would so qualify you as such either.

Ad hominem.

Nice term but it was not an attack, it was a statement of definition which was finished in the next section.

but you are not someone who has been a recording engineer for a major label for twenty-odd years

I've been playing in rock bands for over a decade and I've done a lot of home recording.  I'm not entirely unlearned on the subject either as I have studied recording and have talked to a lot of people on it and have done a lot of reading on it and have done a lot of experimentation and trial and error with it.

This qualifies you to speak to commercial music production?  Tell me what label you are signed with, one recording I can go down to the local music chain and buy that you mastered and I'll concede that you are an "Expert" though I won't really believe it.
Do you have access to the million dollar equipment on a day to day basis that a professional studio engineer pumping out album after album has? I don't think so.

whode input would be more definitive.

Ad hominem.  Attack what I say, don't attack me.

and I'll think you know as much as this guy. Again it was not an attack it was a statement of principles.

We could do web searches for a year and not come to any agreement, there is a lot of nonsense out there.

Or perhaps you could reply to what I wrote...

I was offering to agree to disagree. Sorry if I was too obscure.

It just seemed to me that you would not have to take extra measures when producing a CD as opposed to a record if there were no differences in the capabilities of the medium.

That's nice.  What are you basing your impressions on?

It is self-evident. You may not agree that it occurs, that is a different matter.

And please try not to misrepresent what I say. At least when I offer my take on what you have said I allow for some misinterpretation and invite correction. I don't normally start complaining about being attacked.

If you are so sure that you are always right then it is futile trying to discuss anything with you.

[Kiern]

Get on topic.  Quit polluting my thread.

[Phinehas]

Well, I'm not a big music fan, as you might have deduced from the fact that I've yet to post in this thread. I like music, but I'm not musical at all, and therefore I have no concept of what is "good" or "bad" music. So I pretty much just listen to whatever strikes my fancy, and don't listen to whatever doesn't strike my fancy. Fairly simple. Here's a song that I like, even though I can't say I've heard of any other song from this band...

Goodbye.