don't argue? --- Joel Reitzloff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > actually, the machines producing your favorite sounds are producing > AT > LEAST, and DONT ARGUE 24bit sound, sometimes even at 48000 or higher > khz.
First, CD Quality is 16 bit, 44.1khz. 48khz is NOT enough of a difference that you would be able to hear it (I'd give you the math proof, but it's a bit geeky and only the people that already know it would understand it anyway.. has to do with the relationship of the sampling frequncy to the frequencies percieved, and the shrinking perceptable detail range of higher frequencies)... As a matter of fact, 44.1khz is about twice what the average person is able to percieve, which is "good enough" to eliminate "all" perceptable aliasing anamolies... in other words, it's already well out of audible range, and the only reason it goes that high is to provide good detail and low noise in high frequencies that vinyl cannot even produce. If you tried to cut a vinyl with the amount of high frequency energy that a CD can reproduce, nobody could track it anyway.. you'd just have the record burn sound on a brand-new record. As far as perceptable audio quality goes, the dynamic range (the amount of audio content that can be percieved as far as amplitude is concerned) has far more to do with perceptable quality in the small differences we're talking about here. Every time you add a bit do the bit-depth, you DOUBLE the dynamic range available, which leaves much more room for detail across all frequencies. Going from 16 bit to 24 bit may not sound like a big deal, but it's a lot more than you think.. to put it in perspective, if you had a detail scale that was linear the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit would be more like the difference between 16 and 4096 on the scale as far as the raw amount of information that can be reproduced. On the other hand, like the sampling frequencies, you probably COULD NOT hear the difference very well unless the detail level was doubled, so it makes more sense to relate it in smaller numbers. I know that I personally can tell a huge difference between 16 and 20 bit sounds (at high volumes and low signal levels), but I cannot hear much difference between 20 and 24 bit - until I've done mix-downs... it's important to mix and run any effects convolutions at higher bit-depth because every time you mix two signals, you lose HALF of the detail range. That adds up quickly. As for your "don't argue" comment - a LOT of producers are still using samplers from several years ago that sampled and played back at 16 bit.. and MANY of us are still using gear from the early 80's (even digital gear like my yamaha DX7 that's nowhere near 24 bit). The old analog gear never hits the digital domain until it goes through our A/D converters and into our digital mixing environments - at this point, it's usually at least 20 bit, and likely 24-32 bit conversion, and it doesn't drop down to 16 bit again until the CD master is burned... at which point, it's DITHERED to 16 bits, which is a process that preserves more of the sound's detail than would be preserved if we just smashed it into 16 bits and cut off the rest of the detail. This detail loss I'm talking about is mostly perceptable in high-frequency clarity (the types of frequencies that vinyl has never been able to produce), and dynamic range.. I am fairly certain that the dynamic range is more important to the fuller, "warmer" sound of analog gear than anything else.. there's no question that I can tell a huge difference between hearing an orchestra live and hearing an orchestra on CD. It sounds very flat on CD.. the sounds trail and fizzle and die prematurely.. it looses a smootheness and cohesion that you would have live. I think that vinyl does a better job of preserving this effect, but I can't tell you specifically how or why except maybe that digital is more discreete - no matter what those bits are, they never effect each other, whereas, on a vinyl cutting, the amplitude level of the audio a few miliseconds ago is still having an effect on the current level.. it causes a softening, or blurring effect, much like the effect you would see if a photographer intentionally blurred a photograph a little to make it softer and smoother. You can hear this effect yourself by listening to the difference between analog and digital clipping... Digital clipping sounds very harsh, similar to static on a television, only much more intense and solid.. there's NO smoothing going on. When you overdrive an analog input, clipping still occurs, but the signal levels from one moment to the next (we're talking miliseconds here) have more effect on each other, causing a warmer, smoother, and softer sound that's actually desireable in many circumstances. It sounds more organic and natural. > when this is mixed down professionally and PRESSED (NOT BURNED, > DIGITALLY) > to vinyl, that sound is kept, because of it's format. Not exactly. Vinyl cannot reproduce high energy levels at high frequencies. It looses some of the natural air or ambience you'd hear in a live situation. Vinyl also poses restrictions on the stereo field. In the digital domain, you can pan any frequency anywhere you like.. on vinyl, if high-energy sounds are panned all over the place, you'll bounce the needle right out of the groove and make the record unplayable. The vinyl cutting also introduces more blending and smoothing to the sound if it was originally a discreete, digital signal (though this usually has a desirable effect, it still colors the sound.. it's not TRUE to the source). > speakers are > analog, > and they must put out analog sound. therefor, when your CD plays, the > data > is converted by the speaker so it can play. The data is converted by D/A converters, not be the speaker. The sound is already analog in the form of electric current when it hits the speaker, even if you have digital speakers.. the D/A converter is actually built into the speaker cabinet. > when you burn higher > quality > music to a cd, the quality is automatically dithered to 16bit, > sometimes > with adverse effects. It's not "automatically" dithered. If it's not INTENTIONALLY dithered, it'll simply be truncated, or chopped, which has much more adverse and noticeable effects. In practice, only true audiophiles could tell you the difference between the higher bit-depth and the DITHERED 16 bit version.. the difference is very subtle. > the vinyl produces a sound for the speakers, > that > digital can only emulate, and can for the most part only reach 16bit > quality. say you like the quality of the cleanest CD you've ever > heard, now > imagine TWICE that quality! kinda hard.. huh maybe that's why people > tend to > go crazy to the vinyl On the dance floor those subtle differences vanish completely - there's no way the average raver is going to be able to tell whether you're mixing from vinyl or from CD unless they're watching you. The environment is just NOT condusive to critical listening. If you're not convinced, do a blind listening test with the same material at your next warehouse bash.. The only way you'll be able to tell a difference is if the sound is being colored by different EQ, a different mixer, or different amps. > > Something I don't understand here - so much music is made with > samplers > and > > other digital devices, so presumably the sound coming out is > quantised to > > 16-bit/44.1KHz by definition anyway - how can writing that > quantised sound > > onto vinyl suddenly give it a better dynamic range / quality ? I think I've adressed this question. =) > > I suspect there's a bit of retro-fetishism going on here (not that > there's > > anything wrong with that - just that vinyl rules for reasons other > than > > sound quality). Vinyl rules for different reasons, too. Have you ever tried to mix a set off CD? It's just not as fun, or as natural, or as intuitive. There's just something magical about having your hands on the actual grooves that are being played, and that will never be possible with CD's. Even if a CD player came along that let you manipulate the CD by hand, scratch, and queue, the resolution on a CD is too compact to give you the precision you get with vinyl, and remember those discrete numbers I was talking about? The CD player would have to come with DSP power so that it could interpolate (generate, pull out of it's arse) values between one bit and the next to prevent aliasing problems when you're manipulating the CD at much-slower-than-normal speeds. On Vinyl, the sound quality remains pristine when you slow down the playback rate - that's because *all* the information is there, not just a 44.1 thousand samples per second. ;) You can actually hear the stair-stepping effect if you slow the digital sound down by half, and it becomes painfully obvious at a quarter speed. Interpolation would lessen the effect, and current technology could handle it, but it would be a completely new type of mixing, a new format (CD's would be too difficult to manipulate by hand), and it would have a restricted market (only dj's). What are the chances of that happening? On the other hand, digital does have some significant advantages for dj's as well - like the ability to sample a phraze while you're mixing, and re-trigger it whenever you like, or the ability to que up a phraze *in memory* to scratch - even if that phraze was on a disk you played 30 minutes ago. A digital turntable could have built-in digital effects, and could simulate all the effects you can produce on a real turntable (I can think of ways to digitally reproduce all my tricks.. I'm a computer programmer as well as a musician) - and there's no question that an optical scanning format would not wear out as easily or *ever* produce record burn if you scratch a phraze too much (but the effect can be simulated if you want it). This debate had a clear winner in the 80's.. digital sampling was too slow, noisy, too discreete, and just did not produce the quality that professionals expect. In modern times, with 24+ bit depths, DSP algorithms that could easily simulate the warmth of analog, sampling rates reaching the gigahertz range (new 1 bit technologies), the question is not which is better - the question is, what's the best way to fuse the two, and how long will it be before we hold onto our vinyls for nostalgia and collector's sake? Those of you shaking your head and thinking, "not in my lifetime" may be in for a shock, but don't throw out your $500 carts just yet. I don't think dj's will even start to ditch their records for at least 10 years. The digital records I mentioned do not exist yet - and we're a relatively small market, which means that production costs on the technology will have to fall considerably before it will happen. In the mean-time, the features and DSP I mentioned are already showing up in "dj" cd players and computer software that you can buy today. I think you'll agree though that at this point, it's still a lot more fun to mix vinyl. =) - eric ===== -- http://www.mp3.com/stations/symphony_electronique http://www.mp3.com/erichamilton __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
