[Slowhand] RE: Human Error (was Standing at the Crossroads)

[Roy D. Houston]

Ken Norris wrote:
<<
Glad to hear that all the bit torrent technology is top-notch....I feel
more fully informed.

>>


While it's true that DIME's standards are high (and The Trader's Den
higher still as they require not only lossless sources but known
lineages as well) and that BitTorrent in and of itself does not lessen
the quality of digital music, there is still merit in the Bob Dylan
paraphrase that you originally posted.

In your first post on the subject, you wrote: "...Bob Dylan said that
nothing recorded in the past twenty years SOUNDS any good."

I believe that I understand what Dylan is getting at.  There are a few
areas where digital technology has arguably produced poorer sounding
recordings.

1.  Modern-day mastering.  

Try this experiment.  Rip to PC an audio track of one CD that was
manufactured in the 80's and one that was manufactured since 2001.  With
an audio editor, compare the look of the wave files that were created
from the rip.  The newer, post-2000 track will look almost like a solid
block whereas the older, 80's track will look overall spikey and uneven.


This is because, in an effort to make music more noticeable, the final
product's overall loudness has been pushed to the limits (and sometimes
beyond).  Abuse of compression is typically the culprit here and in the
past few years the typical mastering job has used compression very
aggressively.  The result of this 'wall of sound' is that the dynamic
range of the music, i.e. the difference between the quietest part to the
loudest part of a song, is drastically reduced.  Initially, this
affected rock, pop, and rap music, but is now being found on recent jazz
releases as well.

Sometimes the compression has been so aggressive it has introduced
digital distortion by clipping the tops off of the waves - on official
releases!  Dynamic range loss and distortion can be heard, producing a
poorer sounding recording.  (Indeed, there is evidence that it can be
felt, too.  There are reports that the ears and body fatigue more
rapidly when listening to overly-compressed music.)

2. Digital field recordings.

This one is more controversial.  Although there are very high-end
digital devices that are used by tapers to record shows, many are
recorded with cheaper mini-disc recorders.

Some of these recorders apply some digital compression to the music.
Thus, in copying a mini-disc recording from one mini-disc player to
another and another, a build-up of digital artifacts will become
increasingly noticeable analogous to a 6th generation analog tape
sounding worse than the master.

Also, field recorders have to cut corners somewhere down the line and
one area is in the A/D and D/A converters.  Poor converters will affect
the sound of the music.  Again, some recorders are better than others
and there are some tapers who opt for using high quality outboard A/D
converters.  While on the subject, the PC is a pretty harsh, noisy
environment to feed music into and some soundcards do a poor job of
shielding the incoming signal.  I actually use an outboard rack with
high-end A/D converters that then feed a pure digital signal into the PC
avoiding the in-chassis PC sound card altogether.

To my ears, mini-disc recordings sound harsh, and there have been
occasions when I have preferred an analog source of a show to that of a
digital one, when both were available.


3. Bootleg remastering

It seems that anyone with a PC and an audio editor considers himself
fully qualified to "re-master" a show.  There have been countless
examples of people taking nth generation copies, blindly applying a
software noise reduction program and/or grossly over EQ'ing to take a
bad source and make it worse!!   Have you ever listened to a
noise-reduction re-master and heard a faint, shimmering, phlanged sound
on top of the music?  That is noise reduction abuse.

A few tips for noise reduction based on my experience:
1. Make multiple noise profiles.  For old analog sources, I sample the
leader tape and the end of both sides of the cassette blank space and
test which profile works best for various sections of the music.

2. When previewing the NR profile, use the 'noise only' setting, if your
software offers it.  It allows you to listen to what the noise profile
will throw out.  If you hear any hint of music, back off the reduction
amount until all you hear is white noise/hiss.  Then back off a smidge
more.

3. Ask yourself if the noise can be removed with EQ.  A 60hz hum might
be more effectively eliminated by a notch filter created via parametric
EQ.  Slight tape hiss via a roll off of higher EQ bands, etc. etc.

Now, before I end this post, let me state that I believe there is
goodness in compression, noise reduction, EQ, etc.  But, like in all
things, in moderation!  

Kind Regards,

Roy