Hello I thought someone on the list might appreciate this open discussion on the microsound Digest about what could be described as 'digital audio fatigue'.
Calum ------------------------- I'm really sensitive to a something like a fatiguing effect of digital graininess... i notice it particularly after the contrast of changing from cd to record and vice-versa. if i've had anything like a couple of days of listening to records (where sounds emerge from inky blackness) then i almost can't bear to listen to cd's. My cd transport and separate filter (dac) are both quite good quality. The efffect is real for me and puts me on edge. I also notice a sluggishness in rhythmic and percussive material which contributes to a grating feeling and hence extra stress. It doesn't matter whether its electronic or acoustic music only. Am I alone in this? For me the effect is particularly noticeable during night-time listening. Best wishes, David ------------------------------ digital graininess? are you saying the Nyquist theory is wrong? the major source of "digital sound" are digital mixers and editing systems. they very seldom implements the correct math (like dithering in all the right places). this is especially true of software that runs native on a personal computer. some systems (especially on personal computers) even use floating point math which intruduces more errors. all these errors may be ignored if looked at one-and-one. but with a typical mix (on top of which many use a lot of plugins) they really start to add upp quickly. this distortion is not harmonically related to the signal. but it is signal-dependent (i.e. distortion) and not noise. the other source i know of is jitter from the cd-transport that wrecks the job of the DAC. you can alsways use a good low-jitter player like a Linn Genki. or the Pioneer DV-668 which is exceptional compared to the normal stuff from the usual japanese/american sources. otherwise you have the normal stuff in commercial hardware that adds fatigue when listening. like cheap powersupplies shared with all too many stages. but these are all in the analog domain. SACD/DSD records have their own problems as they will feed high levels of >20kHz noise and distortion artifacts into your system that may cause it to distort badly in the audible range. but PCM as such? unless Nyquist is proven wrong it cannot be the cause of any "digital stress". many engineers have now started to add noise to their mixes. this can be plain noise or recorded tape noise fron analogue tape recorders. this is to make digital mixes more listenable. there are even CD:s available with noise you can add to your mix. I havent heard these but I know many commercial mixers have always used noise actively in their mixes to get a brigher overall sound. ------------------------------ hmmm, i get the same thing ,i think it is due to the nature of the digital recording medium itself ,it is the exact opposite of analog(or nature) when it comes to recording, its behavior,...and when things work against our analog ears ,obviously this is one of the side effects. basically when we speak softly or normally our voice sounds even and such, smooth, and when we shout our vocal chords introduce slight distortions, just like anything in nature. analog desks for instance have headroom above the 0(unity gain) and when signals go above this range they also begin to introduce a natural saturation or the "hot" sound, just like nature....but digital on the other hand does not have this headroom, so what happens is that when you speak softly into the microphone , in essence you are getting a grainy/poor quality/distorted sound because not all of the bits were captured , and the funny thing is when you scream and due reach the 0 or just about, you are in essence getting a "smooth" sound because the distortions /graininess/poor quality are absent due to the full bit resolution capture, and if you go above 0 in digital your screwed, cool ha? Its too bad that when designers were introducing digital recording they were obsessed with getting analogs flaws out of the way(noise,etc) ,but totally left out the positive natural aspects of analog...that was a bad move i think..but im sure in the coming years it will head right back where digital borrow's all those flaws once again.. m. ------------------------------ If anyone is interested in understanding the practicalities of digital encoding, and why digital encoding introduces problems like aliasing, this article may shed some light on the subject: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep00/articles/synthsec.htm I find it interesting because it shows the relationship between sample and hold and digital encoding. From the article: "An analogue signal can be reconstructed, without error, from samples taken at equal time intervals, provided that the sampling rate is greater than twice the highest-frequency component in the original signal." -- homepage: http://alex.bash.sh music: http://noise.me.uk ------------------------------ >I'm really sensitive to a something like a fatiguing effect of digital >graininess... I doubt this has anything to do with digital per se. The CD audio standard is not ideal- 16 bit doesn't cover the full dynamic range of human hearing, and there have always been problems encoding the highest frequencies in the audible range at 44.1 kHz. Add in the myriad errors and distortions introduced at all stages of digital production, from recording to mixing and processing to playback, and you can get a fatiguing product- not to mention the fetish in some genres of music for ultramaximizing everything til it sounds like an orchestra of sledge hammers. Try listening to a well-made digital recording at high audio standard in a proper setup, and see if the fatigue still sets in... best, Ian ------------------------------ mike_north I didn't mean to start a discussion with regard to 'digital stress' with the mailing ....however the discussion that I posted the article from comes from the surround sound mailing list[general info link below]....there is quite the discussion about this topic as it relates to digital reproduction techniques/dac's/disc & player jitter etc...and how it effects audio quality going on there....you might want to check it out...... http://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound ------------------------------ From: jl > many engineers have now started to add noise to their mixes. this can > be plain noise or recorded tape noise fron analogue tape recorders. > this is to make digital mixes more listenable. there are even CD:s > available with noise you can add to your mix. I havent heard these but > I know many commercial mixers have always used noise actively in their > mixes to get a brigher overall sound. that's very interesting, would you perhaps be able to point out some good articles on that topic? i've been trying to do this in various way for a while now and the results are very hit and miss. some guidelines would be invaluable to me. on a related note, everybody around me who presses records presses those from cd masters, even those that mixdown to tape. does anybody have experience with getting around that and pressing from tape? i would like to try that once and should have the oportunity in the near future, what are some of the pitfalls? how do i avoid them? any pointers would be greatly apreceated. yours, kas. ------------------------------ There's a more theoretical article in the Computer Music Journal. I think it's the same issue as Kim's "Aesthetics of Failure" article. Kind of a cultural studies take on noise in recordings in the age of digital audio. Ah, heck, I might as well give an actual citation. Link, S. "The Work of Reproduction in the Mechanical Aging of an Art: Listening to Noise." _Computer Music Journal_, 25:1, pp. 34-47, Spring 2001. Don't let the unimaginative Benjamin reference fool you: this is a very good article. P ------------------------------- To subscribe to the digest, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from the digest, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To post to the list, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------- a m b i t : networking media arts in scotland post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] archive: http://www.mediascot.org/ambit info: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and write "info ambit" in the message body -------------------------------------------------
