OK, can I come live in your cave then? I’ll bring my records.
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Very well said. Me too.
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Hmm. The problem with averages is that the numerical figure doesn’t really refer to anyone, and by definition half the population is on the ‘wrong’ side of the figure. 2kHz over provides a bit of a buffer, but there’d still be a significant fraction of the population able to hear beyond 22kHz.
(That said I use CDs, but my hearing is pants anyway)
[quote=“JonS, post:24, topic:38111”]
“…by definition half the population is on the ‘wrong’ side of the figure
[/quote]”
Well … no, that’s not how averages work.
Simple example - take the numbers 1.1.1.1, and 11. Average is 3, and only 1/5 of the elements are greater than the average.
Perhaps you’re thinking of the median. By definition, the median has half above and half below.
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Technically, yes: you are correct.
But in a large enough, and normally distributed population (like, for example, hearing within the human population) the difference is moot.
I would not say that records are immune to the loudness war, it is just that CDs started the trend. You can easily master a CD that is not uniformly loud. While records have limits as to loudness (excursion of the needle, as you mentioned) this is a soft limit. Digital formats have a very hard limit. At any time, the voltage can be anywhere between 0 and 65,535. You cannot have -1 and 65,536 is also not allowed. However, between those limits, everything is virtually distortion-free. What I imagine really happened is that, given such hard limits, producers tried to push the music as loud as possible. It is not that you cannot do this with records, I think it is just that nobody bothered.
Simply stated, the loudness war is a choice. You can choose to wage war too, or make a track that sounds too quiet compared to other songs. By far the easiest way is to use a compressor, turn up the compression, turn up the gain, and away you go – if you choose to go this route.
I have heard of nobody that can actually hear beyond 20 KHz. Keep in mind that the ones that can even hear 20 KHz are younger people. In my mid 40’s I can tell you that I have lost some of my own high range. I once got some frequency generation software. My kids could hear tones coming out of my computer speakers that were clearly inaudible to me. The upper limit of your hearing drops as you get old.
Hmmm … I’ve seen no evidence that human hearing is normally distributed. Do you have a pointer you could give?
Thanks.
Which is silly since technically the CD is capable of enormous dynamic range. You’d need sensitive speakers and beefy amplifiers to take advantage of it, though.
A database of CD dynamic range is available here, but it’s sometimes misleading. I checked out R.E.M’s murmur, and it’s listed as DR-14 (good). I tested my own tracks, and got DR8 (marginall). Fucking remaster… (and it sounds pretty undynamic too on my setuo-- similar to “accelerate.”)
It would be great if adjusting compression was available as a standard on all playback devices (is it available on any of them?). Then, recordings might span a decent dynamic range, and the crushing could be added at the end, where appropriate. My car stereo could crush it down and pump it up when the windows are open, less so, when the windows are closed. A radio station could compress the crap out of it to be the loudest station in the area, and I could play it in my quiet listening room with no compression, to hear the full dynamic range.
With loudness wars, the real mistake is that compression is applied when the recording is made, locking it in to an assumed playback environment. If only our transition to digital had ditched the balance and treble/bass controls and added compression, the one true fancy doo-dad that was needed during that time.
Is it too late?
Do you keep physical books on a shelf? Maybe a few nice collector’s edition blurays? Old videogame cartridges? The generation that only just now finds itself with disposable income grew up swimming in ephemeral digital media. We’ll never physically own most of the media we consume in the way that was required a few decades ago. But owning a piece of physical media is a way of showing your alliance to an artist or subculture. The stuff you choose to own and live with is a way of defining your identity. That sounds really shallow and materialistic but it’s no different than the clothes you choose to wear, the car you drive, the haircut you have, etc. And since this is art, I consider it somewhat better than buying into a corporate brand identity like only owning Apple brand gadgets or Sony game consoles or Ford trucks.
As for why vinyl itself and not CD’s or digital? If you’re cynical you might call it nostalgia. I prefer romance. Whether or not the sound is any better is irrelevant. It represents what we consider to be the definitive version of that piece of art. The action of setting a disc and placing a needle on a physical soundwave is sort of the same thrill that people feel when they open a book and turn and smell the pages. The spinning record is our shared mythological symbol for music itself. Or at least, popular music as we know it.
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The problem is that CD mastering isn’t really as high resolution as it could be (the real masters are high-res analogue tape or high-res digital). They set the resolution for CDs in the 80s when they developed the technology and it’s not really as seamless as we would think in these days of Retina displays etc. So yes, vinyl has problems with its analoggyness and the needle being used, but it’s still higher resolution than CD/FLAC. Some people can tell the difference, and back in the 80s people complained about it. A few people. It’s not an issue for me personally.
But ultimately the sound is reproduced by analog means and thus subject to distortion in the final steps of playback not to mention listening environment.
Fragle? Not so much, as others have also mentioned, I’ve got records from the 60s that have survived many moves that are still in good condition. I’ve also got CDs where a minor scratch rendered the whole thing unplayable. As for backups, well the first thing I do when I buy a record is to “back it up” to the computer. Portability of course depends on having a strong back.
My experience as an engineer and owner of small labels that have almost always done vinyl (or cassettes way back in the day) is that I mix differently for analog or digital releases based on what mastering/pressing house I’m using for the project and for the target storage media. I actually do an entirely separate mix for MP3/AAC based distribution as well.
My label imprints still do vinyl because people tell me thats what they want for the genres I work in. No one has ever asked me for WAV or FLAC.
Why do I as a consumer pick a particular media to purchase? Sometimes the reason is that the music I desire is only released in one media format, other times the voice is driven by where I expect to experience contents of that media.
You and others brought up “loudness” for vinyl vs other formats. Rest assured that with a skilled mastering engineer and choice of playback format/speed, one can master (here meaning the lathe operation) vinyl just as “loud” as CD. Part of the initial emergence of the 12" single was based upon getting one track not only long enough but “loud enough” to be suitable for club playback. A very few mastering engineers can even achieve a “loud” 7" but only up to an absolute maximum of 4" by my experience.
No it isn’t.
Vinyl has the equivalent of a resolution of 13bits and a 32KhZ sampling rate (13/32) at best, compared to CD’s 16/44. FLAC’s maximum resolution and sampling rate is 32/655 (yes, that’s 655KhZ!).
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So, why would you master differently? If you have a mix that sounds good for vinyl, why can’t you just use the same mix for CD? I would argue that changing the mix, is more like creating a new song – admittedly one that is not THAT different from the previous version, but different enough…
For 99% of the people, there is no difference between a300Kbps MP3 and a .wav. I guess the market just isn’t there. Plus, they are about three times bigger, so more storage space. I know of plenty of people of rip CDs to FLAC. Their choice. For me, the MP3 format is good enough.
For me, it lets me choose whether to use MP3, AAC or any other format in the future. MP3 is good enough in most cases, but it can’t encode harpsichord for some reason (I don’t think I have any music with harpsichord in it, it’s just an example that I know of).
“MP3 is good enough in most cases, but it can’t encode harpsichord for some
reason…”
An odd assertion, and one which I doubt. I just took a harpsichord track
off a CD, encoded it as mp3, and t sounds as good as any other mp3.
Maybe things have improved recently, but I remember there being problems with pre-echo, evidence supported by consistent double blind tests by multiple people (I wasn’t involved in the actual tests).
I’ll try to look through at Hydrogenaudio later, they used to do a lot of testing on LAME.
It isn’t a “whole new mix” to the point where its a new version, more like different EQ and final mastering filters with maybe some level adjustments. The reasons are about playback environments. The vast majority of my vinyl customers will be using the media in clubs or reggae sound system events where lots of the processing and amplification in the environment is tailored to a heavy bass sound. For this it is much more important that I have a very clear low end separation between the baseline and drums and crisp but not brittle high end. Stereo separation and effects are pretty much worthless for these especially because all the very high power sound system amps sum down to a mono mix anyway.
If I’m mixing a project for someone else that I know will targeted to CD, thats most likely going to be played back in a home or car environment where there isn’t as much power to the low end but it still needs to sound “good” so I’m more likely to bring up the bass and drums and ease off on the higher frequency elements because most home or car playback systems get brittle too easily. I use a different EQ curve on the final master there as well.
Digital distribution gets reproduced most often on not so great headphones which can’t handle much besides midrange meaning roll the midrange back a bit but keep the lower and higher steady and avoid “too much” dynamic action at the high mid and high frequencies because thats whats gonna shock someone and make em yank the headphones off.
Of course I could just do one mix and call it a day but thats just not my style.
That plus I’m not doing retail and don’t want to do retail. I don’t run my own webshop, I use a aggregator to do that “distribution” level between me and retail. Lets me focus on what I do best and increases my sales reach.
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