Vinyl

acdc7369 wrote: The problem is not with the digital format itself, it's that so many CDs that you purchase in the store are not mastered the same way the vinyl LP of the same album is mastered.  Every mastering engineer will make the final mix sound good on his system. The remastering process is the biggest atrocity to ever happen to music.  It is the record companies' attempts to give older recordings a more "modern" sound.  The "modern" sound is over-compression (which results in loss in dynamics) in an attempt to make the sound more LOUD.  It's an illusion, however: they really just make the originally loud dynamics as quiet as the rest of the music, and then turn the whole thing up.  In fact, they turn it up SO much that they go past the theoretical digital maximum, thus inducing clipping on the CD source itself! This creates a very static-y sound, depending on how much they actually clipped.  Clipped signals are also capable of damaging stereo equipment.  Remastered CDs are just one large bar of noise and static that gets extremely fatiguing to the ear.  It's happening on most modern recordings too, for at LEAST the past 20 years.  In these cases, there is no question that the vinyl format is definitely superior: it doesn't carry a clipped signal!  It astonishes me that clipping signals is actually considered acceptable by the record companies! In my opinion, most early CDs sound much better than their remastered counterparts.  But I still don't think (most of them) hold a candle to the vinyl format. Of course there are exceptions to the rule. I've heard people say that the reason people listen to vinyl is for nostalgia, and having clicks, pops, noise, etc. being a necessary part of the "vinyl experience".  That's complete nonsense.  Nothing drives me crazier than when I listen to a vinyl that has a bunch of noise and clicks and pops.  I listen to it because I think it's the general case that it's mastered much better than any official CD counterpart in existence, and therefore higher quality. Anyway, IMO vinyl rips are the way to go.  It eliminates all the disadvantages to the digital format that have been abused by modern mastering engineers, as well as eliminating all the disadvantages of the analog format (wearing down).  But it literally is case-by-case: some CDs sound better than the vinyl.  If the CD is mastered well (most of them aren't), then it should sound better than the vinyl.

acdc7369- you know what you are talking about. Excellent information

This is the "loudness war" - and Mike is correct, it doesn't apply to all modern masters or remasters.

To de-brick wall audio is to defy physics, simply put

halabalushindigus wrote:  acdc7369- you know what you are talking about. Excellent information

Umm, no offense but he doesn't really.
He's rehashing that same "OMG MASTERING BAD" argument that people do after they read a few articles on the internet about how limiting is killing everything and everyone.
It's not true and it's a situation that's been blown out of proportion by everyone and their dog that feels the need to hop on the bandwagon of bashing modern day mastering to be "cool and trendy" and to feel better about themselves.
Proper, well done mastering with heavy limiting and compression actually helps to bring forward lots of little nuances and details in the sound that would otherwise be lost on the listener, so to say remastering is an atrocity is just absurd quite frankly,

It also remains a fact that many modern records, remastered, or just simply stuff that was produced recently and released recently as new music, still retain a lot of dynamic range.
It's a myth that today's music in general lacks dynamic, because it's not all like that.
And some music (some death metal for example) is inherently undynamic anyway in its volume levels, and being mastered loud serves to fit the aesthetic.
Some records, like Converge's "Jane Doe" for instance, in fact benefit from being severely smashed and clipping because it only heightens the artistic intent of the artist.
The whole loudness wars thing has just been blown out of proportion by people with little understanding of audio and people that just believe what they are told.
Listen with your ears rather than looking at waveforms.
I can name PLENTY of modern records with heaps of dynamics (the last two Katatonia albums, all Paramore's albums on the songs that were written specifically with a lot of volume dynamics).
There are also some records that went too far ("Planetary Duality" by The Faceless which pumps severely, or Hypocrisy's "Virus" album which is so severely smashed I can't get through more than about 2 songs without turning it out).
That being said, I find limiting, compression and clipping all hugely useful tools for when I'm mixing, because it can help open up headroom, cut down piercing transients, keep low frequencies under control and make a mix easier to work with in general.

Another myth is that it's always the record companies want the loudness. Wrong.
It's usually the clients that ask for it to be smashed.
Sometimes mastering engineers receive mixes that are smashed before mastering even occurs (Death Magnetic is a prime example, with well known mastering engineer Ted Jensen himself being embarrassed to have been involved with the album)

Anyway, most of the sound we hear lies in the actual tracking process, editing and mixing anyway.
The best job a mastering engineer can do is to keep things as transparent as possible (this assumes they have received a well tracked and mixed recording)

Also, eh, I don't find Steven Wilson's productions to be THAT amazing anyway.
They sound good, undeniably, but no one in their right mind could really say they line up to a mix from Chris Lord-Alge, Randy Staub, Daniel Bergstrand, Jens Bogren , Andy Wallace or James Paul Wisner.
There's only so much you can do with cheap Apogee converters and AFAIK little to no outboard gear and the fact unlike the aforementioned, he is also a musician and composer who doesn't quite have the time to learn as much about mixing as dedicated mix engineers.



Edited by Petrovsk Mizinski - January 28 2010 at 08:52

Oh come on.  Give me a yes!

You can't revert a cake back to the ingredients (chocolate , fruits, sugar etc) but if we're dealing with virtual reality, we should be able to re-synthesize it!!



By looking at the clipped one, it's obvious* it should be smooth in original shape - and it should be no big deal for a piece software to do an actual calculation - it's just math. Of course, the original might had had dozens of tiny spikes on the top of the hill, but even if it's true, the calculated estimation is better than a clipping loss. And perhaps even that problem can be solved - by analyzing a  track and finding a similar curve (slope) that is preserved because it's below the clipping level and applying it to a clipped wave.


Hmmm...an idea worth of developing or utter nonsense


*okay, somewhat obvious. Since a clipping threshold is a constant horizontal value, it should be a good guess.

But it's not physical!

Simply by pasting samples of preserved wave on the top of clipped ones you will get the result. Of course, it would be necessary to do all the possible permutations to get an acceptable result. If an average song contains 500000 amplitudes, the combination are a factorial of 500000, a fast processor should do it in less than several trillion year...okay, nevermind. Back to my cup of coffee.


I came up with a good idea, and it turned out the universe is too small for it. Damn.

Petrovsk Mizinski wrote: To de-brick wall audio is to defy physics, simply put halabalushindigus wrote:  acdc7369- you know what you are talking about. Excellent information Umm, no offense but he doesn't really. He's rehashing that same "OMG MASTERING BAD" argument that people do after they read a few articles on the internet about how limiting is killing everything and everyone. It's not true and it's a situation that's been blown out of proportion by everyone and their dog that feels the need to hop on the bandwagon of bashing modern day mastering to be "cool and trendy" and to feel better about themselves. Proper, well done mastering with heavy limiting and compression actually helps to bring forward lots of little nuances and details in the sound that would otherwise be lost on the listener, so to say remastering is an atrocity is just absurd quite frankly, It also remains a fact that many modern records, remastered, or just simply stuff that was produced recently and released recently as new music, still retain a lot of dynamic range. It's a myth that today's music in general lacks dynamic, because it's not all like that. And some music (some death metal for example) is inherently undynamic anyway in its volume levels, and being mastered loud serves to fit the aesthetic. Some records, like Converge's "Jane Doe" for instance, in fact benefit from being severely smashed and clipping because it only heightens the artistic intent of the artist. The whole loudness wars thing has just been blown out of proportion by people with little understanding of audio and people that just believe what they are told. Listen with your ears rather than looking at waveforms. I can name PLENTY of modern records with heaps of dynamics (the last two Katatonia albums, all Paramore's albums on the songs that were written specifically with a lot of volume dynamics). There are also some records that went too far ("Planetary Duality" by The Faceless which pumps severely, or Hypocrisy's "Virus" album which is so severely smashed I can't get through more than about 2 songs without turning it out). That being said, I find limiting, compression and clipping all hugely useful tools for when I'm mixing, because it can help open up headroom, cut down piercing transients, keep low frequencies under control and make a mix easier to work with in general. Another myth is that it's always the record companies want the loudness. Wrong. It's usually the clients that ask for it to be smashed. Sometimes mastering engineers receive mixes that are smashed before mastering even occurs (Death Magnetic is a prime example, with well known mastering engineer Ted Jensen himself being embarrassed to have been involved with the album) Anyway, most of the sound we hear lies in the actual tracking process, editing and mixing anyway. The best job a mastering engineer can do is to keep things as transparent as possible (this assumes they have received a well tracked and mixed recording) Also, eh, I don't find Steven Wilson's productions to be THAT amazing anyway. They sound good, undeniably, but no one in their right mind could really say they line up to a mix from Chris Lord-Alge, Randy Staub, Daniel Bergstrand, Jens Bogren , Andy Wallace or James Paul Wisner. There's only so much you can do with cheap Apogee converters and AFAIK little to no outboard gear and the fact unlike the aforementioned, he is also a musician and composer who doesn't quite have the time to learn as much about mixing as dedicated mix engineers.

^ I just checked the album gain of the WYWH remaster: -3,75dB. That's a lot of headroom - about 6-7dB more than the really loud recordings.

And of course I could have told that without resorting to measuring the album gain ... just listening to the recording shows that it's very well done.

Slartibartfast wrote: clarke2001 wrote: Speaking as someone who played with a couple of different synthesizers, I can tell you that sine waves are more interesting when they are clipped.  And I am actually being partially serious.

I'm an analog synth freak myself, and I absolutely agree. Actually, that picture above is giving quite a sweet distortion.
Alesis Ion/Micron synths (not real analogs but nevermind) are capable of modulating sine wave in interesting ways (without going deep into FM synthesis). I'm curios if there's any synth with an oscillator capable of changing sine wave's width - in a same way square wave turns into pulse wave.

halabalushindigus wrote: Umm, no offense but he doesn't really. He's rehashing that same "OMG MASTERING BAD" argument that people do after they read a few articles on the internet about how limiting is killing everything and everyone. It's not true and it's a situation that's been blown out of proportion by everyone and their dog that feels the need to hop on the bandwagon of bashing modern day mastering to be "cool and trendy" and to feel better about themselves. Proper, well done mastering with heavy limiting and compression actually helps to bring forward lots of little nuances and details in the sound that would otherwise be lost on the listener, so to say remastering is an atrocity is just absurd quite frankly, It also remains a fact that many modern records, remastered, or just simply stuff that was produced recently and released recently as new music, still retain a lot of dynamic range. It's a myth that today's music in general lacks dynamic, because it's not all like that. And some music (some death metal for example) is inherently undynamic anyway in its volume levels, and being mastered loud serves to fit the aesthetic. Some records, like Converge's "Jane Doe" for instance, in fact benefit from being severely smashed and clipping because it only heightens the artistic intent of the artist. The whole loudness wars thing has just been blown out of proportion by people with little understanding of audio and people that just believe what they are told. Listen with your ears rather than looking at waveforms. I can name PLENTY of modern records with heaps of dynamics (the last two Katatonia albums, all Paramore's albums on the songs that were written specifically with a lot of volume dynamics). There are also some records that went too far ("Planetary Duality" by The Faceless which pumps severely, or Hypocrisy's "Virus" album which is so severely smashed I can't get through more than about 2 songs without turning it out). That being said, I find limiting, compression and clipping all hugely useful tools for when I'm mixing, because it can help open up headroom, cut down piercing transients, keep low frequencies under control and make a mix easier to work with in general. Another myth is that it's always the record companies want the loudness. Wrong. It's usually the clients that ask for it to be smashed. Sometimes mastering engineers receive mixes that are smashed before mastering even occurs (Death Magnetic is a prime example, with well known mastering engineer Ted Jensen himself being embarrassed to have been involved with the album) Anyway, most of the sound we hear lies in the actual tracking process, editing and mixing anyway. The best job a mastering engineer can do is to keep things as transparent as possible (this assumes they have received a well tracked and mixed recording) Also, eh, I don't find Steven Wilson's productions to be THAT amazing anyway. They sound good, undeniably, but no one in their right mind could really say they line up to a mix from Chris Lord-Alge, Randy Staub, Daniel Bergstrand, Jens Bogren , Andy Wallace or James Paul Wisner. There's only so much you can do with cheap Apogee converters and AFAIK little to no outboard gear and the fact unlike the aforementioned, he is also a musician and composer who doesn't quite have the time to learn as much about mixing as dedicated mix engineers.

I don't even know where to start destroying you. I'm not "rehashing" any argument, and I'm not just "believing something I'm told".  In fact, I've never heard anybody anywhere write an article stating anything I said.  It's an opinion I've formed based on the facts that I presented.  You're extremely ignorant and insulting for even assuming that I'm jumping on some sort of fictional "bandwagon" that doesn't even exist.  If anything, YOU'RE on the bandwagon for preferring the undereducated norm.  Have you ever taken any digital signal processing courses?  Do you even know anything about how digital audio reproduction even works?  

Compressors have their purpose and they were originally used correctly.  The voice, for example, has a much larger dynamic range than most instruments in a conventional band, and therefore a compressor would be appropriate.  However, an electric guitar needs very minimal compression, if any at all, because the tubes essentially act as compressors on their own when they saturate.  But there is absolutely no need to compress the master track in the way that's being done today. It brings out absolutely nothing because the individual instruments' dynamics have already been altered to their proper ratios on the master track.  Further compressing the track accomplishes absolutely nothing - it brings out NO more detail whatsoever.  All it does is make everything "loud" when that could have been accomplished with a volume knob and creating the same effect, except the dynamics of the master track would have been preserved.

I find your statement that many modern recordings retain dynamic range is false.  Sure, there are a few exceptions to every rule but I highly disagree with your claim of "many".  Everything I hear just sounds like its constantly one volume, all the time.  And the waveforms tell no lies.  But even when I do take your advice and "listen to my ears instead of the waveforms", that doesn't help at all - it's clearly not working for you.  If you can't hear the absence of dynamics in modern recordings and remasters, and if you can't hear the LOUD static that gets created when the master track is clipped, then you're deaf.

Since I found it hard to believe that death metal and emo bands that you listed would ever have any dynamics, I decided to humor myself and check out Paramore's "Ignorance".  Sounded very static-y and had absolutely no dynamics.  Then I peaked at the waveform and what a shock.  Loaded down with massive compression and clipping.  The song almost looks like a bar of noise that's just clipping and distorting the entire time...so I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.  You can't have dynamic range (variation in amplitude) when there is NO variation in amplitude on the waveform itself!

I also disagree with your assertion that death metal is underdyanmic.  That's one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard.  I think an over-compressed death metal record is NOT impressive sounding because it has no dynamics.  Death metal is LOADED with dynamics, and compression makes it sound weak.  The drums have no bite to them!

Of course, my thoughts on over-compression are an opinion.  However, my statements on clipping are fact.  There is no advantage to intentionally clipping a source.  It destroys the integrity of the digital medium and only loads your signal down with distortion.  Why on earth do you need a source to be clipped?  Is it to compensate for the incompetence of your stereo system?  It's called a volume knob.  Turn it up if it's not loud enough for you. But why would you ever want to listen to a piece of music that is completely distorted on purpose?  It's like playing your CD through a solid state guitar amp with the distortion channel on.  There is literally no difference! You might as well have the record company scratch the sh*t out of the CD and sell it that way because the distortion induced by the CD player's digital error correction sounds cool.  

It IS the record companies that demand it.  Have you heard any of the Alan Parsons Project remasters?  Alan Parsons is a much better engineer than all of the people you listed, and he doesn't think very highly of the loudness war.  Yet his remasters were smashed to sh*t.  Why? I highly doubt he had the last word!  You see, loudness has always been a ploy that record companies have used to get people to buy their records.  It's been done since the days of 45s.  Albums were pressed loudly to attract the attention of customers.  Today, that same logic applies.  Except they can't just compress everything and make it ridiculously loud...they have to clip it too.  The consumer LIKES it loud!  Sure, some artists may call for it...but most of them probably don't even understand what's happening to their music. I can assure you they would be outraged if they actually understood completely what was going on.  Recording and Mastering engineers get the guns to their head.  Why do you think Ted Jensen mastered Metallica that way?  Because he likes having food on his table!


Edited by acdc7369 - January 30 2010 at 02:04

acdc7369 wrote: But why is it that vinyls sound way more dynamic than their CD counterparts a lot of the time? Compression would eliminate dynamics, and I prefer vinyls because they generally tend to be more dynamic.

I don't think this is true - at least not from my experience. I guess it mostly depends on which vinyls and CDs you listen to - and which combinations you choose to compare. Maybe for someone who mostly listens to 70s vinyls and their remastered versions on CD it might appear like CDs are often worse than vinyls. I have a totally different perspective, since I am usually listening to modern recordings on CD. Many classic albums too of course, but I grew up with modern mastering techniques (90s and onward), so maybe I am simply more used to it. Not the overly compressed sound (I don't like that), but the kind of production that is done originally for digital formats.

[QUTE=acdc7369]
Fortunately, analog compression doesn't cause any kind of clipping or distortion that it is caused in the discrete domain.
[/QUOTE]

Every kind of compression adds distortion ... but there are different kinds of distortion. It can be harmonic and actually improve the perceived quality of the recording. But even then, it can't be called audiophile since it changes the original recording. Personally I would prefer an audiophile recording/mastering, preserving the original sound as well as possible ... and if I like a touch of analog/harmonic distortion I can always use a good tube amp to listen to it.