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Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

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Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#131

Post by semi-extrinsic »

beat wrote: post #126
lb1lf wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-If you wanted to, you could master an LP with 0 dynamic range; it would work just fine. (Provided the average signal level was low enough to keep the needle from going haywire attempting to follow the LF grooves) What quickly becomes a problem for LPs is too much energy in the LF/bass region, which will cause the needle to skip and jump all over the place. The RIAA correction curve is a measure to alleviate this pro…

There's a lot more to mastering than "sent through the last loudness war compressor", for cd as well as vinyl. Not a guess - I've sat in the room with a mastering engineer while working and talked to him about it.

Do elaborate, please! :)

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#132

Post by lb1lf »

beat wrote: post #126
lb1lf wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-If you wanted to, you could master an LP with 0 dynamic range; it would work just fine. (Provided the average signal level was low enough to keep the needle from going haywire attempting to follow the LF grooves) What quickly becomes a problem for LPs is too much energy in the LF/bass region, which will cause the needle to skip and jump all over the place. The RIAA correction curve is a measure to alleviate this pro…

There's a lot more to mastering than "sent through the last loudness war compressor", for cd as well as vinyl. Not a guess - I've sat in the room with a mastering engineer while working and talked to him about it.

I believe you; I hardly know the first thing of the process - and should've made it clear that I didn't. (the comment being intended somewhat tongue-in-cheek)

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#134

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rusk wrote: post #129
lb1lf wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(...)also its technically possible to get better sound quality than digital via high quality, high speed, vinyl and an all analog recording to stamping process -This, with all due respect, is a myth. Much as I love my LPs, by any objective criteria the CD (or any digital media) beats them handsomely. Dynamic range, frequency response, noise floor, channel separation - even on the best mastered, half-speed cut, heavy…

I listen to vinyl myself, and I also have some limited knowledge of the science involved. I don't claim to be any sort of an expert in acoustics but I do have a basic grounding in DSP from my undergraduate days as well as high-school physics to refer to ... I have to say I enjoy vinyl for a number of non-qualitative reasons. Nostalgia. Tactility. The cover art. The fact that the medium feels like it has more of a "wh…

Interesting. Note: deep bass notes are reproduced just fine with digitization. Sampling at 44.1kHz doesn't mean only high-frequency sounds are represented. You only have to sample at say 100Hz or more to get bass notes.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#136

Post by rusk »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #134
rusk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listen to vinyl myself, and I also have some limited knowledge of the science involved. I don't claim to be any sort of an expert in acoustics but I do have a basic grounding in DSP from my undergraduate days as well as high-school physics to refer to ... I have to say I enjoy vinyl for a number of non-qualitative reasons. Nostalgia. Tactility. The cover art. The fact that the medium feels like it has more of a "wh…

Interesting. Note: deep bass notes are reproduced just fine with digitization. Sampling at 44.1kHz doesn't mean only high-frequency sounds are represented. You only have to sample at say 100Hz or more to get bass notes.

I didn't mean to suggest that sample-rate had anything to do with discarding the bass. Name-dropping Nyquist just to show off I have a little knowledge. Just that such signals may be discarded as a matter of course by filters on either side (recording/reproduction) on the basis that they are "inaudible".

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#137

Post by beat »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #131
beat wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot more to mastering than "sent through the last loudness war compressor", for cd as well as vinyl. Not a guess - I've sat in the room with a mastering engineer while working and talked to him about it.

Do elaborate, please! :)

Mastering at album-length is largely about coherence... making a bunch of separately recorded things with often wildly varying sounds sound like a single piece of music. It involves a combination of gentle compression and brickwall limiting, broadband equalization and high-Q deep-cut equalization. Some of it is visual metrics (especially looking for frequency problems), and some of it is just ears. A good master will sound good on any playback equipment. This is where I point and laugh at all the people lauding the "accuracy" of their favorite medium. Speakers and amps are the limiting factor, not the medium! I've been dinged by a mastering engineer for accidentally having a 32hz synth tone (a sub-bass sound) on a mix. He eq'd it away. My mixing system couldn't reproduce it - hardly any can. But it wastes tremendous power and distorts amps and speakers, so out it goes.

For cd, it's usually brickwall-limited to no more than 10db max dynamic range (often no more than 6db). This makes things sound "better" on typical playback equipment, which is... not good, compared to the sound of live instruments in a room.

Vinyl is a different beast. It needs RIAA equalization on the master (which is reverse-eq'd by the playback equipment) to managed the size of bass grooves and keep the needle from jumping out of the track, and to make the highs physically big enough for the needle to pick up well. Dynamics are constrained by the physical limitations of the media. So it's a separate master.

That's not a big deal, though. The constraints of vinyl slot in quite well with the constraints of speakers and amps! This is why vinyl, despite its on-paper inferiority, can sound as good or better than digital.

But in the end, it's all about the speakers. I mix on a pair of Tannoy System 12 speakers and an old UREI studio amp that would be the envy of many hi-fi nerds - but I don't consider a mix done until it sounds good on my stock iPhone earbuds and shitty car stereo. Mix to the output, not the medium.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#138

Post by Paul_S »

guitarbill wrote: post #65
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The dominance of digital and streaming services has stolen this experience from us, and we are fighting to get it back. I used to collect books. It was a big part of my life. Now I pretty much only buy books on Kindle. I almost sort-of miss buying books. But only in theory. In practice I much prefer having my current library in my pocket at all times. Same with music. I have my entire library on my hard drive, and I…

> In practice I much prefer having my current library in my pocket at all times. This. Once I got a Kindle, I actually read more . Because you know it's convenient and has a build in light. Spotify let's you publish/share playlists, so that's also sorted. The only issue I have is that you don't really own anything. I just de-DRM Kindle books and assume that the availability of songs I like to listen to will increase…

Build NAS, run mpd.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#139

Post by UweSchmidt »

croon wrote: post #107
UweSchmidt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I had the priviledge to hear a high quality LP (Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms) on high-end equipment (100k speakers, 40k amp, 35k Player) and switch back and forth to a FLAC that came from another expensive looking box directly into the same amp. There was a definite difference in quality between the LP and the FLAC file, especially when switching from good (LP) to bad(file). I can only assume but not guar…

A lot of people like the vinyl "sound". What do you mean by your usage of "quality"? What was the "expensive looking box"? How was it connected to the amp? Where did the DA-conversion happen? What was the source for the FLAC? I'm sorry, but this is barely even anecdata.

Didn't mean to prove anything here. I mentioned myself that I can't prove the FLAC was up to par and there might be all sorts of biases at work, who knows.

The "box" had the hard disks and DAC inside, don't know the correct term. Connection was with short, chunky cables. We switched back and forth using a switch on the amp without any delay. I wouldn't blame the hardware in this situation.

I haven't listened to much vinyl in my life but maybe it subconscioulsy triggers some memories but I do not consciously prefer vinyl in any way and as a contrarian I wouldn't mind calling out BS.

Describing sound is hard but I experienced the music a lot better with the LP, would try and call the FLAC "flat, boring, less dynamic" when comparing directly.

All I'm saying is, if you get the chance, listen to a good LP on some audiophile's equipment.

Re: Music's weird cassette-tape revival is paying off

#140

Post by beat »

notahacker wrote: post #130
torrent-of-ions wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastering shouldn't increase the dynamic range. It should rather preserve all meaningful dynamic range, while making the most of the medium.

Well if we're being strictly accurate it could mean preserve meaningful dynamic range of the master recording in a manner which ensures that it'll sound like it has a greater dynamic range when played using the new output medium than the vinyl recordings which everyone's actually used to listening to the song on . But that's rather cumbersome phrasing amounting to essentially the same thing, besides which I'm pretty…

Actually, mastering decreases dynamic range, largely to increase apparent volume (apparent volume is RMS, not peak-to-peak. To be very vague, the RMS of 0 to -10 is -5, and the RMS of 0 to -20 is -10. The more dynamic range, the less apparent volume).

The intent of the mixing engineer and mastering engineer is to make a recording that sounds good everywhere, not just on studio monitors. When I mix records (I've produced several), I check every "final" mix on cheap earbuds and in my bad car stereo. Sounding good on my very expensive Tannoy studio monitors is meaningless if it doesn't sound good in someone else's car.

For that matter, most pop records are mixed on subjectively awful speakers. The most popular pro mixing speaker is the Yamaha NS-10. They sound shrill, piercing, and nasty, with a sharp eq spike right in the 2khz range where ears are most sensitive. If you can make a mix sound good on those, it should sound good anywhere! A lot of mixers also rely on Auratones, which are tiny 5" drivers, often used in mono. No lows, no highs. They're incredibly honest about levels.

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