Re: Sampling frequency on Radio programmes - Taking it off topic
When people talk about music/audio quality there can be a tendency towards group think. I just wanted to open up the discussion to the other more subtle, subjective. parameters of quality and how they are lost in the musician to consumer (mass market) production process . We are all in agreement here really :). Kevin On 20 April 2015 at 11:52, michael norman michaeltnor...@gmail.com wrote: On 20/04/15 09:59, Jim web wrote: This is drifiting OT but since the comments below were made I will respond on this occasion and hope people are OK with that... beyond that if anyone wants to discuss this - take it to uk.rec.audio. :-) In article CA+L9MatjHhgt_m=rrfjozuivedc_zp_v+efhqsnrwxjl3lg...@mail.gmail.com, Kevin Lynch klyn...@gmail.com wrote: Jim's article is well considered and only tells part of the story of music mastering for distribution. His definition of a good audio recording says a lot about his purist perspective. Yes. My 'purist' approach is pretty simply. It is that when the musicians and engineers have made a source recording master they are happy with, then - so far as technically possible - *that* is what the end-user's result should sound like when played on decent equipment. FWIW I know perfectly well that, say, Jimi Hendrix used electric guitars which have no real 'acoustic' sound, and then distorted and compressed the results on it way to the final master tape. That was done using his judgement and talent. What he *didn't* do was then add *more* clipping and avoidable distortions of quite different kinds as have appeared, time after time, on the CDs released after his death. [1] You can more easily make a similar point for classical music and jazz where there often *is* a genuine orginal sound to be heard in a venue and into which the musicians judge what they perform. However the vast majority of people who produce, buy and consume music are not audiophiles and they do not care about fidelity of their listening experience. I agree. That why, for example, I didn't bother to try analysing any 128kbps mp3 files. Although admittedly, another reason is that I don't have any. 8-] More below... This 2008 Wired article fleshes out the story https://medium.com/cuepoint/why-do-all-records-sound-the-same-830ba863203 my favourite quote. Bands, producers and record labels have always wanted to make loud records, for radio play and jukeboxes. That did leave out the small but key word some. And the title in the URL you give is perhaps of interest here. :-) TBH I don't think that when, say, Mark Elder conducts the Halle he wants the end result to follow the recipy you quote. But yes, I've seen that 'justification' trotted out many times. And as a long-term AES member, seen it argued about. However the key point to note is that it states a belief system on the part of those who believe it. In some cases they may be judging their audience well. (Indeed, I suspect many people have never even heard really well mastered and reproduced music. So may have no idea what is possible.) But even allowing for that, the believers have dodged putting their faith to a simple critical test. This is to symultaenously release a clipped and massively level compressed version in parallel with releasing a less processed version. Then tell the potential customers about it, and let them choose which they prefer, given the ability to hear both first. However the 'wizards' who get paid to compress and clip generally don't do this. They just rely on the mantra that 'louder sells more'. All that said, the main point of the health check is to spot digital recording/processing errors and faults. Not just clipping or level compression. If you prefer the results, that's a personal choice you're entitled to make once you are fully informed. However to really decide you'd need to listen to an *unaffected* version for comparison. if you haven't heard that you can't know if you wouldn't prefer it. TBH I doubt in most cases those producing the CD had any idea at the time that they'd used undithered integer gain changes, etc, and caused the effects shown. Chances are they just moved a gain slider to change the level without knowing that happened. Indeed, you can find an example on my webpage where the first issue of a CD shows problems, and a later re-masting doesn't. If they'd *wanted* the flaws they'd have repeated them. Jim [1] BTW Anyone who likes Joni Mitchell might also wish to be aware of the misuse of 'HDCD' on some of her CDs, making them sound worse than the equivalent LP or earlier plain CD versions. Again, apparently applied by Jim This is all, as you say, totally OT for this list but does illustrate a number of things. As you say it is as much about belief systems as anything else. Probably the same people who argued back in the day that an amplifier was a straight wire with gain are now arguing that no human being can
Re: Sampling frequency on Radio programmes - Taking it off topic
This is drifiting OT but since the comments below were made I will respond on this occasion and hope people are OK with that... beyond that if anyone wants to discuss this - take it to uk.rec.audio. :-) In article CA+L9MatjHhgt_m=rrfjozuivedc_zp_v+efhqsnrwxjl3lg...@mail.gmail.com, Kevin Lynch klyn...@gmail.com wrote: Jim's article is well considered and only tells part of the story of music mastering for distribution. His definition of a good audio recording says a lot about his purist perspective. Yes. My 'purist' approach is pretty simply. It is that when the musicians and engineers have made a source recording master they are happy with, then - so far as technically possible - *that* is what the end-user's result should sound like when played on decent equipment. FWIW I know perfectly well that, say, Jimi Hendrix used electric guitars which have no real 'acoustic' sound, and then distorted and compressed the results on it way to the final master tape. That was done using his judgement and talent. What he *didn't* do was then add *more* clipping and avoidable distortions of quite different kinds as have appeared, time after time, on the CDs released after his death. [1] You can more easily make a similar point for classical music and jazz where there often *is* a genuine orginal sound to be heard in a venue and into which the musicians judge what they perform. However the vast majority of people who produce, buy and consume music are not audiophiles and they do not care about fidelity of their listening experience. I agree. That why, for example, I didn't bother to try analysing any 128kbps mp3 files. Although admittedly, another reason is that I don't have any. 8-] More below... This 2008 Wired article fleshes out the story https://medium.com/cuepoint/why-do-all-records-sound-the-same-830ba863203 my favourite quote. Bands, producers and record labels have always wanted to make loud records, for radio play and jukeboxes. That did leave out the small but key word some. And the title in the URL you give is perhaps of interest here. :-) TBH I don't think that when, say, Mark Elder conducts the Halle he wants the end result to follow the recipy you quote. But yes, I've seen that 'justification' trotted out many times. And as a long-term AES member, seen it argued about. However the key point to note is that it states a belief system on the part of those who believe it. In some cases they may be judging their audience well. (Indeed, I suspect many people have never even heard really well mastered and reproduced music. So may have no idea what is possible.) But even allowing for that, the believers have dodged putting their faith to a simple critical test. This is to symultaenously release a clipped and massively level compressed version in parallel with releasing a less processed version. Then tell the potential customers about it, and let them choose which they prefer, given the ability to hear both first. However the 'wizards' who get paid to compress and clip generally don't do this. They just rely on the mantra that 'louder sells more'. All that said, the main point of the health check is to spot digital recording/processing errors and faults. Not just clipping or level compression. If you prefer the results, that's a personal choice you're entitled to make once you are fully informed. However to really decide you'd need to listen to an *unaffected* version for comparison. if you haven't heard that you can't know if you wouldn't prefer it. TBH I doubt in most cases those producing the CD had any idea at the time that they'd used undithered integer gain changes, etc, and caused the effects shown. Chances are they just moved a gain slider to change the level without knowing that happened. Indeed, you can find an example on my webpage where the first issue of a CD shows problems, and a later re-masting doesn't. If they'd *wanted* the flaws they'd have repeated them. Jim [1] BTW Anyone who likes Joni Mitchell might also wish to be aware of the misuse of 'HDCD' on some of her CDs, making them sound worse than the equivalent LP or earlier plain CD versions. Again, apparently applied by clueless 're-mastering' wizards or plain human error along the way. -- Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html ___ get_iplayer mailing list get_iplayer@lists.infradead.org http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer
Re: Sampling frequency on Radio programmes - Taking it off topic
On 20/04/15 14:16, Kevin Lynch wrote: When people talk about music/audio quality there can be a tendency towards group think. I just wanted to open up the discussion to the other more subtle, subjective. parameters of quality and how they are lost in the musician to consumer (mass market) production process . We are all in agreement here really :). Kevin Kevin Quite so. Is it something we should be discussing here though ? Just asking Mike ___ get_iplayer mailing list get_iplayer@lists.infradead.org http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/get_iplayer
