Yes, tape drop-out, left channel ~2:20"

Quote
Rank Stranger
Yes, tape drop-out, left channel ~2:20"

Not much he can do about that is there?

Surely bob should know what the original ruby Tuesday sounded like before remastering it wrong

Well, it isn't on the original vinyl lp!
Maybe he had a doze?

Quote
Rank Stranger
Well, it isn't on the original vinyl lp!
Maybe he had a doze?

Tape and the passing of time are not best friends.

Might a different master tape, or the same one used for what ever copy you consider to be the original lp, but unfortunatley the one Bob got had that drop out.

It's on the tape, not due to him making a mistake.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-06-07 15:50 by His Majesty.

Quote
His Majesty

Quote
Rank Stranger
Well, it isn't on the original vinyl lp!
Maybe he had a doze?

Tape and the passing of time are not best friends.

Might a different master tape, or the same one used for what ever copy you consider to be the original lp, but unfortunatley the one Bob got had that drop out.

It's on the tape, not due to him making a mistake.

Yes. It's because of wearing of the master tape.
Should he edit that part like bootlegger?

sonically impoverished...what a great line!

I like to think that the best of the new artists will be able to take high resoulution digital music to a new level, learn to work within the parameters and limitations of the format and deliver some GREAT product. It has started to happen and I'm all for it. We are not ever going to go back to super expensive, finicky analog tape machines of the past.

I think someone will invent a device which loosens up the rigidness of digital recordings and makes them more forgiving, like analog tape used to be. The positive aspects of digital recording so much outweigh the analog ones that we are never going back. Time to learn to work with what we've got, which is a hell of alot and try to make good records regardless.

To me it's more about the performance and the take than all the knob twiddling done by all the best pro's in the business. As long as they don't ruin the take by over compression and over tending, all will be well. Give me all the dynamic range of the original performance, no more no less. peace

today's style of digital computer generated music often does sound like crap. no warmth. i think it often sounds like crap, because it IS crap. if you use lousy digital equipment it is inevitable the sound will be harsh, cold and distorted. analog tape certainly had its limitations (copying / tape degradation, noise or hiss etc) but there are still sounds that were produced on analog, ie often and even on over-saturated tape, that sounded great and have yet to be reproduced digitally. cassettes, to me, improved the sound of an LP. there was expanded dynamic range; digital music, to my ears, can't hit that level, not without distortion. i guess its each to their own, on this one.

Given a choice between crackly jumpy LPs, hissy cassette tapes and a CD with a skip button on the remote - I know which one I prefer.

Quote
GravityBoy
Given a choice between crackly jumpy LPs, hissy cassette tapes and a CD with a skip button on the remote - I know which one I prefer.

My personal choice will always be CD too. For convenience, clarity of sound... But it appears that recently music on CD is so compressed that it becomes impossible to listen. It's not anymore music, it's just a wall of sound.

Alas mp3 is like junk food : if you were raised on the thing you'll never realize it's sh!t : sh!t for the tongue or the ear.

I hope what's left of the record labels will finally realize HD files transferred from original tapes is the way to go as far as quality's concerned.

Big HD files might also protect record labels from piracy, sth Hollywood understood long before the music biz : "stealing" a Bluray disc is off the Net is virtually impossible : who'll have the patience to get 8 10 or 14 GB of data thru Rapidshare links for one BR film?

Quote
dcba
Alas mp3 is like junk food : if you were raised on the thing you'll never realize it's sh!t : sh!t for the tongue or the ear.

I hope what's left of the record labels will finally realize HD files transferred from original tapes is the way to go as far as quality's concerned.

Big HD files might also protect record labels from piracy, sth Hollywood understood long before the music biz : "stealing" a Bluray disc is off the Net is virtually impossible : who'll have the patience to get 8 10 or 14 GB of data thru Rapidshare links for one BR film?

Some Paul McCartney albums were re-released this way on HDtracks. Also recent Stones SACD's are direct transfers from original tapes.

HD music is really the way to go for quality music. When you listen to it on good audio equipment it's on par with vinyl sound.

Quote
kowalski


HD music is really the way to go for quality music. .

Live instruments acoustic, electric with harmony vocals are the real quality music we all need. Go and see a live show at the local venue in anytown USA to recharge your quality batteries and restore your faith in the sounds than can be made. peace

A Japanese guy made an interesting observation about Brown Sugar.
For your information.

1994 Virgin


2009 UMG


2010 SHM-SACD

This is all great, but what matters is whether iTunes and other clones of that business model can offer a digital format that reproduces the desirable aspects of vinyl. If there's no business case for it, we're stuck with loud recent CD quality.

Nice curves Toru!

"Live instruments acoustic, electric with harmony vocals are the real quality music we all need. Go and see a live show at the local venue in anytown USA to recharge your quality batteries and restore your faith in the sounds than can be made"

I don't agree : gigs might suck, you might have a drunken @sshole next to you, the mix might suck (most P.A. guys have bangd-up eardrums after years in the biz) etc etc.
I don't attend shows at all anymore and I DL live aud tapes from p2p sites.

Quote
dcba
Big HD files might also protect record labels from piracy, sth Hollywood understood long before the music biz : "stealing" a Bluray disc is off the Net is virtually impossible : who'll have the patience to get 8 10 or 14 GB of data thru Rapidshare links for one BR film?

When MP3 appeared, it was taking forever to download a single track over a modem connection... And HDDs were around 1Gb... Even downloading tracks on napster over DSL was taking time around 2002... Now you can have 100Mbps Fiber Optics connections in most cities...

One thing about mastering and remastering : apart from making a song collection into a coherent album (in terms of levels, EQ, fade-ins & outs...), it will also optimize the mix for the final format (cassette, vinyl, CD...) and its specifications : dynamic range, bandwidth...

Which is why old albums which were not mastered specifically for CD sounded so thin when re-issued on this format. The same can probably be said of CD-optimized remasters which are being used for newer vinyls.

Which remasters are the Ludwig ones? From what year?

Quote
Toru A
A Japanese guy made an interesting observation about Brown Sugar.
For your information.

1994 Virgin


2009 UMG


2010 SHM-SACD

So Toru,

Are you saying that you get clear brickwalling on the UMG, some on the Virgin, and none on the SACD? It seems volume is quite low on SACD. Is that an issue at all? Which is better to the ears, Virgin or SACD?

Quote
treaclefingers

Quote
Toru A
A Japanese guy made an interesting observation about Brown Sugar.
For your information.

So Toru,

Are you saying that you get clear brickwalling on the UMG, some on the Virgin, and none on the SACD? It seems volume is quite low on SACD. Is that an issue at all? Which is better to the ears, Virgin or SACD?

UMG:
Greater portion of blue part means that the dynamic range which influences sound quality has been damaged.
This loudness level causes headache.

SHM-SACD:
This waveform is contributing the recreation of the studio sound quite correctly.
Yes, the volume is low on SACD, but when you turn up the volume you will know the advantage in freshness and resolution.
In conclusion, he is saying that ultimate Sticky Fingers in the present digital format must be SHM-SACD.

Quote
studiorambo
This is all great, but what matters is whether iTunes and other clones of that business model can offer a digital format that reproduces the desirable aspects of vinyl. If there's no business case for it, we're stuck with loud recent CD quality.

There are already online music retailer that offer digital music in HD (or high resolution).
HDTracks has the complete Rolling Stones 60's catalog in HD for example.

[www.hdtracks.com]

These HD releases are made from Bob Ludwig 2002 remasters and they sound particularly great.

Quote
Palace Revolution 2000
Which remasters are the Ludwig ones? From what year?

Bob Ludwig remastered post-1970 albums in 1994 for the Virgin reissues.
He also remastered the 60's albums in 2002 for ABKCO hybrid SACD reissues.
So he remastered pretty much all Stones albums from 1964 to 1991.

Quote
dcba
Nice curves Toru!

"Live instruments acoustic, electric with harmony vocals are the real quality music we all need. Go and see a live show at the local venue in anytown USA to recharge your quality batteries and restore your faith in the sounds than can be made"

I don't agree : gigs might suck, you might have a drunken @sshole next to you, the mix might suck (most P.A. guys have bangd-up eardrums after years in the biz) etc etc.
I don't attend shows at all anymore and I DL live aud tapes from p2p sites.

Totally agree with Naturalust on this one: was playing a gig with a couple other fine bands a few weeks ago, beautiful women were dancing, the bands were smokin', clearly having fun and I found myself thinking, "there is NOTHING like live rock 'n' roll."

dcba, it's bizarre to me that you don't attend live shows any more for the reasons you gave but obviously that's your business.

This thread is great, and you guys are spot on. The one thing that hasn't been touched on is the constraints, or lack-thereof...

Take videogames for example... Some folks are very nostalgic for the 8-bit gaming era, Nintento for example... Contra, Castlevania, River City Ransom, so forth... Those games were epic at the time. They crammed so much 'game' into such a small cart, with so many limitations...

Contrast those games to the same 'series' in today's world. Now they have almost unlimited storage for audio/graphics/levels, so forth... Today's game creators can literally do ANYTHING they want. Because of that, their creativity suffers. Instead of a finite canvas, they have an infinite canvas. Their efforts are all over the place, unless they have a big vision (Mass Effect, Skyrim).

Take that analogy and transfer it to music. Late 60s and early 70s rock, working within the confines of limited compressors, fighting analog hiss/noise with every additional step, grounding issues, building soundboards from scratch... The tech was beautiful in its pure analog goodness and raw sound, but it was a difficult work environment... NOW, anyone can go build an amazing studio for a few thousand.

Today's artists are recording too loud, too brittle and too compressed, to start with. Then they over-master and brickwall the hell out of everything. Then people listen to the music on laptop speakers or ear-buds.

So in summary: Its everyone's fault. Those of us who have beautiful HD audio/video setups and cars with balanced sound systems are in the minority. Most people want loud, not clean-clear-balanced sound. I hope the next leap will be back to searching for fidelity and good song writing.

It's silly and against progress and creativity to think returning exclusively to acoustic/electric instruments etc is the way things should be. No, we do 't all need that...

Do not fear technology, it's just a tool and now more than ever it is easier to realise creative ideas than ever before.

Nothing beats a live band. Nothing beats a room full of people all on same wave length grooving to a guy with two turntables either.

So long as there are emotional connections being made via music, it's all good.

Well said, His Majesty!

Quote
treaclefingers

Quote
Toru A
A Japanese guy made an interesting observation about Brown Sugar.
For your information.

1994 Virgin


2009 UMG


2010 SHM-SACD

So Toru,

Are you saying that you get clear brickwalling on the UMG, some on the Virgin, and none on the SACD? It seems volume is quite low on SACD. Is that an issue at all? Which is better to the ears, Virgin or SACD?

I look at alot of wave files in a typical day and it appears to me that the above tune was obviously remixed for the UMG release and that the UMG mix was used to create the SHM/SACD versions. Look at the overall level from start to finish. You can see the gain has been ridden starting with the UMG wave file. That increase in gain from the beginning of the track to the end of the track was just not present on the Virgin release. You are thus comparing apples to oranges here. Of course the effect of listening will be different on these later mixes.

What I don't see on any of them is a real large difference in dynamic range. No areas of the wave file that approach the 0dB line throughout the song. This greater dynamic range is somewhat "simulated" by reducing the overall volume for the SACD mix but if you turn the whole thing UP, you would get the same waveform as the UMG mix.

What would be great is a recording which may or may not have the overall volume of the UMG mix but contains big enough swings in the dynamic range to keep the ear interested and the brain happy. If I knew how to get screenshots of the wave files and put them up here I would be happy to demonstrate graphically what I am talking about. peace

Quote
Naturalust
I look at alot of wave files in a typical day and it appears to me that the above tune was obviously remixed for the UMG release and that the UMG mix was used to create the SHM/SACD versions. Look at the overall level from start to finish. You can see the gain has been ridden starting with the UMG wave file. That increase in gain from the beginning of the track to the end of the track was just not present on the Virgin release. You are thus comparing apples to oranges here. Of course the effect of listening will be different on these later mixes.

What I don't see on any of them is a real large difference in dynamic range. No areas of the wave file that approach the 0dB line throughout the song. This greater dynamic range is somewhat "simulated" by reducing the overall volume for the SACD mix but if you turn the whole thing UP, you would get the same waveform as the UMG mix.

What would be great is a recording which may or may not have the overall volume of the UMG mix but contains big enough swings in the dynamic range to keep the ear interested and the brain happy. If I knew how to get screenshots of the wave files and put them up here I would be happy to demonstrate graphically what I am talking about. peace

SHM-SACD version is a new transfer made in 2011 from original master tapes. It has nothing to do with UMG remasters. And when you listen to them they sound clearly different. UMG remaster while very bright sounds totally flat to my ears. The SACD version on contrary is rocking and very entertaining - like it should be.

I looked up the SHM-SACD version on amazon....$71.00!! So is it worth it?

Another deliberate interpretation by Andreas Koch will help.
Below is an excerpt from [www.positive-feedback.com]

Fig.2 below shows the typical dynamic range of a DSD signal sampled at 2.8224MHz which can be greater than 150db in the audio band below 20kHz.
The slowly rising noise floor at higher frequencies also follows to some degree our hearing threshold for transient signals that have been proven to be audible up to 100kHz.
Of course, DSD at double the rate (5.6448MHz) has an extended audio range of 0-40kHz above where the noise floor then starts to rise gently.



Fig. 2 also shows the theoretical dynamic ranges of high resolution PCM signals at various sample rates. Note the steep brickwalls that PCM signals typically have.
It is those brickwalls that can generate very audible side-effects such as pre-ringing, if not processed with special algorithms (such as in all Playback Designs products).
By design DSD signals do not generate these side effects.

As we can see from this, DSD is characterized by the following:

-great dynamic range in the audio band (0-20kHz)

-slowly rising noise floor in higher frequencies (no brickwalls)

-extended frequency range into MHz

This makes DSD a serious contender in the choices of high resolution audio formats. Sometimes DSD is criticized for its high frequency content (as shown in Fig. 2).
But all DACs limit the amount of noise that actually gets through to the analog side.
This noise is generally not correlated to the music signal and therefore is easy for our psychoacoustic hearing system to filter out, but most listeners do not even hear it.
Double rate DSD addresses this problem by pushing the ramp of the rising noise floor up on the frequency axis by about 20kHz
thus reducing the absolute noise floor in the higher frequencies quite dramatically.

Conclusion

While DSD continues being used on every SACD, it may also have an additional new growth life as a separate download format.
Its sonic performance makes it competitive with any high resolution PCM format, many listeners would argue it is even superior.
Its bit efficiency alone almost guarantees a success in that application.
Yesterday any audio format was strongly married to some type of hardware carrier (i.e. vinyl, CD, SACD etc.)
and that hindered the evolution of the encoding formats, be that in PCM or DSD.
But today we are entering an era where the hardware does not impose the same limitations. It is becoming flexible and upgradeable thanks to software control and computer platforms.
This is not only true for storage, processing, simple playback functionality, but also for physical links (i.e. USB ) all the way to the place where music is made, in the DAC.
When yesterday the encoding format had to adapt to the hardware carrier (packaged media), today the table is being turned: the hardware adapts to the encoding format.
In other words today's computer technology can grow with whatever format we may choose for today or tomorrow.
Today it may be a combination of high rate PCM and DSD, tomorrow it may be mostly DSD.