Digital Props Part II

[mep]

Steve Williams was kind enough to send me a demo CD that he had obtained from a friend of his. I was primarily interested to hear it because of the Boz Scaggs live version of “Low Down.” I heard this cut at the RMAF and was duly impressed. Whoever made this CD did a hell of a job as it’s chock-a-block full of some really great sounding recordings. Most of them are live acoustical versions of songs you know, should know, or wish you did know.

The Boz Scaggs cut is worth having even if the rest of the CD was junk which it’s not. Some woman asks/begs Boz to play Low Down. The song starts off with a very real sounding guitar in your room and someone tapping their foot on a wooden floor to keep time. I don’t remember hearing the foot keeping time at RMAF. Boz sounds like he is in your room singing to you.

The next cut is Joan Osborne doing an acoustical version of “One of Us.” This version of the song gave it a whole new meaning for me. I never heard her voice sound better or more realistic.

There are a slew of other interesting and very well recorded songs. Some of the handclaps at the end of the live songs are almost shocking in their realism. Another favorite of mine is Jill Sobule singing “I Kissed a Girl.” This is another acoustic version that simply sounds outstanding and very sexy in a lipstick lesbian sort of way. Timbuk 3 singing “The Future is so Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” is another stunner. So is Tori Amos doing a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire.” This is basically Tori playing piano and singing a very sexy version of this song. The piano sounds outstanding by the way.

If all digital sounded this good, I would have been a believer a long time ago. Props where props are due I say.

 

[amirm]

Is this a personal compilation Mark?

 

[fas42]

And I wonder if someone has been doing some subtle normalising and EQ'ng of tracks. Most digital sounds better if every last ounce of the 16 bits is used, without resorting to anything more than very subtle compression: reason being that then you automatically turn down the volume control to adjust to your normal listening level, and any low level digital nasties are correspondingly attentuated.

Frank

 

[Steve Williams]

Steve Williams was kind enough to send me a demo CD that he had obtained from a friend of his. I was primarily interested to hear it because of the Boz Scaggs live version of “Low Down.” I heard this cut at the RMAF and was duly impressed. Whoever made this CD did a hell of a job as it’s chock-a-block full of some really great sounding recordings. Most of them are live acoustical versions of songs you know, should know, or wish you did know.

The Boz Scaggs cut is worth having even if the rest of the CD was junk which it’s not. Some woman asks/begs Boz to play Low Down. The song starts off with a very real sounding guitar in your room and someone tapping their foot on a wooden floor to keep time. I don’t remember hearing the foot keeping time at RMAF. Boz sounds like he is in your room singing to you.

The next cut is Joan Osborne doing an acoustical version of “One of Us.” This version of the song gave it a whole new meaning for me. I never heard her voice sound better or more realistic.

There are a slew of other interesting and very well recorded songs. Some of the handclaps at the end of the live songs are almost shocking in their realism. Another favorite of mine is Jill Sobule singing “I Kissed a Girl.” This is another acoustic version that simply sounds outstanding and very sexy in a lipstick lesbian sort of way. Timbuk 3 singing “The Future is so Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” is another stunner. So is Tori Amos doing a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire.” This is basically Tori playing piano and singing a very sexy version of this song. The piano sounds outstanding by the way.

If all digital sounded this good, I would have been a believer a long time ago. Props where props are due I say.

It is a terrific disk of compilations, well recorded with none of the foufrou suggested by Frank and as Mark said, the Boz Skaggs cut is as close to the real thing as I have heard

 

[garylkoh]

Yes, I agree that it's a fabulous disk. Gregadd sent it to me for RMAF.

Mark, did you manage to ID tracks 1 and 4? Both Soundhound and Shazam failed to do it for me.

 

[fas42]

It is a terrific disk of compilations, well recorded with none of the foufrou suggested by Frank

That's good to hear ...

Frank

 

[mep]

Yes, I agree that it's a fabulous disk. Gregadd sent it to me for RMAF.

Mark, did you manage to ID tracks 1 and 4? Both Soundhound and Shazam failed to do it for me.

Gary-Track 1 is the Yuri Honing Trio and the song is "Walking on the Moon." Track 4 is Dave Allen singing "King of California."

 

[JackD201]

Is this the famous compilation done by M in Texas? I sure would like a copy of this.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

And I wonder if someone has been doing some subtle normalising and EQ'ng of tracks. Most digital sounds better if every last ounce of the 16 bits is used, without resorting to anything more than very subtle compression: reason being that then you automatically turn down the volume control to adjust to your normal listening level, and any low level digital nasties are correspondingly attentuated.

Frank

Actually, Frank digital compression brings up the overall volume level making it much "louder" than the same music mastered without compression. Thus the term "loudness wars." You turn down the compressed CD. You turn up the uncompressed one.

Tim

 

[fas42]

You turn down the compressed CD. You turn up the uncompressed one.

Tim

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. If your DAC, for example, is injecting some digital nasties into your preamp, the level of that unpleasantness will be reduced if you turn down the volume on the preamp -- so a slightly compressed track will tend to sound better than the unaltered, by virtue of you twiddling the volume control.

An interesting CD, literally the first we bought, was a Kiri Te Kanawa collection, which was mastered at a very, very low level. Even at maximum volume it sounds no louder than a kitchen radio most of the time. And on the first track, which starts very softly, you can literally hear a digital "breathing" or garbling in the decay, the sound of not enough bits being used to do the job, when they actually had vast reserves to play with ...

Frank

 

[MylesBAstor]

Actually, Frank digital compression brings up the overall volume level making it much "louder" than the same music mastered without compression. Thus the term "loudness wars." You turn down the compressed CD. You turn up the uncompressed one.

Tim

Well maybe with CD you do. Not with analog or tape. I turn down and and on occassion turn up the volume. For the dynamic range is really expanded at both the soft and loud end of the spectrum.

 

[fas42]

If you have a system that has a limited volume range like my HT, as in you can't overdrive the power amps, it really shows, really makes it obvious the dramatic range of average volume levels on CDs. I have an Odetta live where I keep wanting to up the level, it's just barely loud enough to convey the feeling of the moment, about as much volume as a small TV; yet a recent, compressed pop track has my ears ringing by the end, at 3/4 volume. So talk of CDs having limited dynamics is a load of hooey ...

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Well maybe with CD you do. Not with analog or tape. I turn down and and on occassion turn up the volume. For the dynamic range is really expanded at both the soft and loud end of the spectrum.

It doesn't matter if it is analog or digital, if it is highly compressed, the soft parts have been made louder and, therefore, the overall volume of the recording is higher. It was no different when they were using analog compression to get 45s to blast from car radios in the 60s than it is now that they're using digital compression to get mp3s to blast out of earbuds. Compression can, of course be used differently, with different effects, but compression of the entire track is for the purpose of increasing the loudness of that track. And it doesn't make you want to turn it up.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

If you have a system that has a limited volume range like my HT, as in you can't overdrive the power amps, it really shows, really makes it obvious the dramatic range of average volume levels on CDs. I have an Odetta live where I keep wanting to up the level, it's just barely loud enough to convey the feeling of the moment, about as much volume as a small TV; yet a recent, compressed pop track has my ears ringing by the end, at 3/4 volume. So talk of CDs having limited dynamics is a load of hooey ...

Frank

Correct. I must have misunderstood your other post. If it's any consolation, "loudness" is no more pleasant on more powerful systems.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

It's actually worse

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

It's actually worse

That has been my experience. And absolutely the worst is a good headphone system.

Tim

 

[mep]

So talk of CDs having limited dynamics is a load of hooey ...

Frank

No it's not. You have one compressed CD which makes your ears ring (no dynamic range) and another that is recorded too low and you can't turn it up enough and now you declare all is well in the world of CD recording?? Don't forget, we are not talking about the theoretical dynamic range of CDs, but rather the real world problem of severe compression being used in modern digital recording.

 

[fas42]

No it's not. You have one compressed CD which makes your ears ring (no dynamic range) and another that is recorded too low and you can't turn it up enough and now you declare all is well in the world of CD recording?? Don't forget, we are not talking about the theoretical dynamic range of CDs, but rather the real world problem of severe compression being used in modern digital recording.

I agree with you 100%, there is absolutely no need for that level of compression to be used. I had a look at the waveform of that recording, and it's quite frightening: there are snatches of close to maximum voltage swing of frequencies over 15kHz, something which never, ever happens in real life, and peaks that have been chopped off at half their real height. I'm actually thinking seriously of attempting to rescue that recording as a technical exercise, trying to restore it by adding the peaks back again and decompressing it, getting some sanity back into it.

Yes, I know there are a million ways of compressing, reversing is not simple or trivial, but I've got the technical skills to try this: use software to intelligently analyse what's going on and counter the damage. Anyone else doing this, and if no-one is, would anyone be interested in using my "services" for doing such ...??

Frank

 

[mep]

Yes, I know there are a million ways of compressing, reversing is not simple or trivial, but I've got the technical skills to try this: use software to intelligently analyse what's going on and counter the damage. Anyone else doing this, and if no-one is, would anyone be interested in using my "services" for doing such ...??Frank

First of all, I don’t believe you can uncompress a compressed file. The information that was on the waveforms that were compressed are “damaged” and without knowing what compression algorithm was used, your chances of “restoring” the dynamic range are slim to none. Even if you could prove that you could restore the dynamic range correctly and you wanted to use this forum to market your new found skills, I would think that you would need permission from Amir and Steve to do that.

I thought you were hard at work on building your 2.4kW amp. What happened to that effort?

 

[Bruce B]

First of all, I don’t believe you can uncompress a compressed file. The information that was on the waveforms that were compressed are “damaged” and without knowing what compression algorithm was used, your chances of “restoring” the dynamic range are slim to none.

That is correct... once it has been compressed, even with knowing what algorithms that were used, it's lost forever.