Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
When repairing a friends SC pro-one we found some magic mushrooms and cryptical messages etched into the PCB. Someone else with a Pro1 told me they found something different on theirs, so I guess the boards were all hand dipped and drilled. ajf On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 10:41:34 -0500 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 8:30 AM, Andy Farnell wrote: On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:12:11 - Dave Hoskins cont...@quikquak.com wrote: And it had approx. 20,000 components in the thing! Dave. And they built the early ones by hand. in 1993/94 i worked briefly for Fostex Research Development (that didn't last much longer) in Hanover NH. Fostex let New England Digital die a natural death and then hired a bunch of their engineers. i was not NED but was hired a little later. anyway they told me that no two Synclaviers were the same. each Synclav was unique, and i presume custom built. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp -- Andy Farnell padawa...@obiwannabe.co.uk -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
On 30 Nov 2010, at 02:18, Andy Farnell wrote: I was pondering it this morning. Could it be that when a high energy spike (that could be represented dynamically on a digital system) is absorbed (I think someone said 'eaten' recently) by a soft system like tape or vinyl, it gets dilated in time? This spreading of transients would make them seem louder (integration effect). You could be onto something there or at least something interesting to experiment with. On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:04:16 -0600 Stephen Blinkhorn stephen.blinkh...@audiospillage.com wrote: Not loud/soft passages as such but the individual attacks of percussion or acoustic instruments which seem to contain more detail on vinyl. -- Andy Farnell padawa...@obiwannabe.co.uk -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
I was pondering it this morning. Could it be that when a high energy spike (that could be represented dynamically on a digital system) is absorbed (I think someone said 'eaten' recently) by a soft system like tape or vinyl, it gets dilated in time? This spreading of transients would make them seem louder (integration effect). On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:04:16 -0600 Stephen Blinkhorn stephen.blinkh...@audiospillage.com wrote: Not loud/soft passages as such but the individual attacks of percussion or acoustic instruments which seem to contain more detail on vinyl. -- Andy Farnell padawa...@obiwannabe.co.uk -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
As a physicist and electrical engineer, I am not one who believes that analog or vinyl is inherently or mystically better than digital. In my experiments, perfecting Ambiophonics and giving demonstrations of loudspeaker binaural reproduction, I am often able to compare vinyl to digital recording media using binaural rather than stereo reproduction methods. That is, reproducing two channel recordings of differing vintages and media, using Ambiophonic software to recover and make audible all the ITD and ILD captured by the original microphones and later console processing. I also eliminate most pinna angle errors, and in some cases by using real concert hall IRs to generate signals for surround speakers, I have a much better chance of hearing all the localization, depth, and ambience data actually captured and stored on the given media. Ignoring, considerations of ticks and pops, tape hiss, and sometimes frequency response, I have been able to judge and compare hundreds of LPs, CDs, and DVDs just on the basis of how realistic a stage presence they deliver. That is, is there clarity, depth, full stage width out to almost 180 degrees (if an orchestra or chorus), and cocktail party effect (so I can concentrate on just one singer or instrument). (In the case of vinyl, ticks and pops are off in left field somewhere and are not frontal as in stereo reproduction, more like a cough or paper rattling at a live concert so comparisons to digital are perhaps fairer.) My remarks do not apply to recordings of a single vocalist and guitar, etc. since mono localization or quality is not the issue I am concerned with here. To make a long story short, in general the older the stereo LP the more realistic it seems to be, ignoring some frequency range issues. The reason seems to be that in the early days, the microphone setups were simpler, just two or three spaced omnis, coincident figure eights, or cardioids. Post processing was minimal with few or no spot mics mixed in. Today, too many digital recordings, have a lot of mono soloists or groups and the mic ITD and ILD is pan potted, spot mic'd, and then mixed to binaural garbage. They could not do this in the analog era and I believe it is this lack of such brutal psychoacoustic manipulation of the ITD and ILD that accounts for much of the preference for older vinyl exhibited by audiophiles. Since I use an ELP laser turntable to do these demos and its tick eliminator output is digital, the differences in psychoacoustic realism between different recordings or media cannot be due to analog versus digital. Of course I also have hundreds of CDs/DVDs that have preserved localization cues and have not been processed to death. You can hear some great samples by downloading them from the Ambiophonic website. There is no scientific reason why digital cannot always outperform analog. Ralph Glasgal www.ambiophonics.org -Original Message- From: music-dsp-boun...@music.columbia.edu [mailto:music-dsp-boun...@music.columbia.edu] On Behalf Of Ross Bencina Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 10:53 PM To: A discussion list for music-related DSP Subject: Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks... Andrew Reilly wrote: On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 05:56:17PM +0100, Rainer Buchty wrote: On Mon, 22 Nov 2010, Stephen Sinclair wrote: (Vinyl just sounds.. different.. better.. but I couldn't tell you why.) Jumping on this (being a long-time lurker on this list), I never believed the above statement until I bought some LPs which I also had on CD. Until I had my own kind of revelation playing the old Art of Noise LPs and CDs in comparison... My own CD-vs-LP revelation came a few years ago when I bought some sufficiently high-grade analog/digital IO gear, and had a go at digitising some of my favourite LPs. I noticed two things immediately: 1. replaying the PCM sounded *exactly* like the LP, and 2. the mean recorded level (in PCM) was *significantly* lower than the normal signal level of pre-recorded CDs. That's a great test :-) I could get the signal level back up towards CD-level by using compression of various sorts, but in doing so the result wound up sounding like the CD version, rather than the LP version. The obvious conclusion is that the LP mastering process has to use a different paradigm than that for CDs, since the limitations of excursion and dynamics are different. Agreed. I have friends who press new LPs and dub plates pretty regularly -- although this is indie and dance music, I imagine similar same processes would apply to audiophile material: When the masters are cut, the signal is compressed/tweaked to squeeze it in to the available dynamics of the medium and the cutting lathe -- this is done at the lathe, often under direction of the producer to get a decent dynamics/compression trade off. This is quite different from producing a digital master in a mastering studio and sending it off to the CD plant
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
On Mon, 22 Nov 2010, Stephen Sinclair wrote: (Vinyl just sounds.. different.. better.. but I couldn't tell you why.) Jumping on this (being a long-time lurker on this list), I never believed the above statement until I bought some LPs which I also had on CD. Until I had my own kind of revelation playing the old Art of Noise LPs and CDs in comparison... I truly wonder if that is just some psycho stuff (the older generation is used to crackles'n'pops, plus the haptics are just different: putting on an LP is more of a ritual whereas playing a CD is just slamming it into the tray) or if there's really something to it which can be measured like perceivable effects of the RIAA curve (well, the used amplifiers/attenuators), tanh() compression of the signal, and the likes. Maybe stuff like this has already been researched on DAFX and the likes. If so, any pointer would be welcome. Rainer -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
On Sun, 28 Nov 2010 21:55:00 - Dave Hoskins cont...@quikquak.com wrote: Hi Nigel, Yes we _expect_ that. And hence my point is precisely the opposite. I don't think that's the claim by vinyl lovers I think it is precisely the claim made by vinyl lovers, once How would you compare digital and vinyl copies? You'll have to master a new track to tape, then follow the same process to the the final pressing, using the same settings/compression values for each device. As you say, all other things being equal, the comparison would just be a blind test... which sounds 'better'? It has nothing to do with 8bit samplers at the beginning, or anything else about the recording, if this is the test for the final medium differences only. Exactly. We must separate the specific question of medium effects from the romanticism for bygone processes. That said, it's hard to contrive a sterile test that isn't some awful bleep of sinewaves like an old psychology experiment. A sensible experiment would have a range of music form different eras and production chains. Vinyl is free from the sampling world of digital, so I guess that's what gives it that particular 'softness' (sorry) Well that's the theory. And the dispute has always been that while on paper people cannot, or should not, percieve a preference for vinyl due to a 'better quality', a significant number of people do claim that. It is easy to 'dismiss' them on technical grounds once you bring measurement into the game. What I am challenging is that you have to get them to agree to your value judgements too. After all, we who design synthesisers often spend a lot of time screwing up the waveforms to make them sound more analogue. And people who prefer that will pay extra money for it. It isn't a relativist or deflationary argument to say that worse is better when seen from the point of view of different values. over a 44100kHz CD. That would be test to settle a historical dispute. Let's compare a modern scenario, the best digital 192kHz 24bit, with the best vinyl has to offer, pristine wax on a audiophile turntable. :) a. Dave. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp -- Andy Farnell padawa...@obiwannabe.co.uk -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
On 22/11/2010, Stephen Blinkhorn stephen.blinkh...@audiospillage.com wrote: Consistency and order - that's what we need more of today! ;) Only in sound reproduction terms, trust me ;) Vinyl is like a good synth - some days it just doesn't work out right but when it does it's magic. CDs are like a sampler - you know what you're going to get every day. I think Prophet 5 rev1 and Creamware Pro 12 ASB might be better points of comparison. You still get most of the magic - but you don't get the horrible failure nodes, and that's an acceptable price to pay for the top couple of percent more you could have got on a REALLY good day. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
Yes, it turns out for manufactured CDs the electro-metalisation is a sensitive process and certain batches of CDs from the 90s just die. AFAIK it's very rare now. Anyone stung by the DataTrak disaster disks may remember problems with early CDR technology, definitely NOT a good strategy for data backup. But that is a different UV reactive polymer and a different problem. On Sun, 21 Nov 2010 12:40:23 +0100 Peter Schoffhauzer sco...@inf.elte.hu wrote: robert bristow-johnson wrote: i've had CDs that i burned lose bits. dunno why. i don't think any CDs i bought have lost bits unless they got badly scratch. not yet, anyway. I had some CDs that had tiny see-through holes in the surface of the disk after quite a few years. I don't know what caused them - probably faulty material, or it's just a natural degradation, no idea. The more interesting thing was that they were still playable despite I could see through the holes. Probably there was enough error correction to fix those missing bits :) Some guy I know said he tried drilling 1mm holes into the surface of a CD, and it was still playable. Peter -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp -- Andy Farnell padawa...@obiwannabe.co.uk -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
On Nov 20, 2010, at 2:34 PM, Victor Lazzarini wrote: This is because they have probably not experienced building a 1000+ vinyl collection only to see it disintegrate along the years, with crackles, pops and scratches. Every time I picked up one of favorite albums and discovered a new scratch that appeared from nowhere (even with my very obsessed care of the collection). No, thanks. CD came along and I'm very thankful for it. With good care, they keep well. i've had CDs that i burned lose bits. dunno why. i don't think any CDs i bought have lost bits unless they got badly scratch. not yet, anyway. Vinyl: it just made you want to murder someone. i only have a hundred or two vinyl records. some were from the 70s and i bought them new (for $6), some i have purchased at record boutiques since. none were/are perfectly clean, but i used Discwasher. (now i use the Discwasher brush with distilled H20, since i cannot find a source for the cleaning solution, and i clean records wet only occasionally.) i don't particularly feel like murdering anyone when i'm listening to my Wishbone Ash: New England album (particularly the song (It always seems you) Rescue me). classic, and i don't think you'll find it on CD (unless someone lifted it offa a vinyl LP and burned the CD). Victor, i don't argue with you about the S/N. even with only 16 bits, if the CD is mastered well (decent dither and noise-shaping, and at least 1 sample within 6 dB of the rails), it's much cleaner and better than the vinyl LP. i have heard an NPR program recently about archiving that says that CDs risk breaking down and being inaccessible in the far future, much more risk than these old Edison cylinders. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
Re: [music-dsp] [OT] vinyl? No, thanks...
I know, but what if you suddenly get needle jumping about in the middle of it? My impulse is to get the record deck and throw it out of the window. Victor On 20 Nov 2010, at 19:46, robert bristow-johnson wrote: i don't particularly feel like murdering anyone when i'm listening to my Wishbone Ash: New England album (particularly the song (It always seems you) Rescue me). classic, and i don't think you'll find it on CD (unless someone lifted it offa a vinyl LP and burned the CD). -- dupswapdrop -- the music-dsp mailing list and website: subscription info, FAQ, source code archive, list archive, book reviews, dsp links http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/music-dsp http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
