I think I'm missing something.
"...it is absolutely essential that the recorded instruments
being used to weigh the playback chain initiate sound by pushing air."
Do you mean an instrument has to be recorded with a microphone to
qualify as a test signal? Or that certain instruments that could reach
tape without ever making a "sound" (say, an electric piano lined-into
the board) create unsuitable signals? That seems kinda arbitrary.
It's critical that the person making the (subjective) judgement about
playback quality have recent and intimate experience with whichever
instrument is making the test sounds. The ear and experience are really
what counts.
If I played a cowbell for fifty years and my reference sound for speaker
response was a cowbell, wouldn't you think I would have everything
needed to evaluate the reproduction?
But I may have misunderstood your point.
Steven Austin
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steven Smolian
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 7:46 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Fred Layn's post on the Studer list re: Quantegy
Among the complicating factors are not only what is "born digital" but
"born
electronic." The idea of using a rock record by a favorite band,
subjectively imagined sound (well or poorly realized,) to test speaker
response is preposterous. Regardless of how well you like the music on
your
test record(s), it is absolutely essential that the recorded instruments
being used to weigh the playback chain initiate sound by pushing air.
And,
of course, there are many ways to mike instruments that make waves.
Though
there are no absolutes, at least this concept provides a reference point
and
starting line.
Steve Smolian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Bradley" <db65@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Fred Layn's post on the Studer list re: Quantegy
>By definition, a digital waveform is a series of finite steps, not a
smooth curve.
I disagree with that assessment. A "digital waveform" is a wave, not
a
series of steps. However, that wave is created from a numerical
quantization of a series of steps. The final output, though, is NOT a
series of steps, but a wave representing the original wave that those
steps
were part of. A minor nit-picking technicality, but I'm a stickler in
this
regard. Digital is NOT inferior, only different. Mastering engineers
have
learned to greatly improve the sound quality of analog tape over a 60+
year
life span. Digital has been around less than 30 as a commercially
available format and as such has improved drastically during those 30
years, and at a pace far outdoing the pace with which analog improved.
The biggest problem with sound recording these days is that the labels
and
the radio stations and the club DJs all want the disc to be the
loudest
one
out there, or at the very least NOT softer than the others being
played in
rotation with it. As a result, they tweak and compress and squeeze the
life
out of a digital recording. A properly mastered digital recording, or
for
that matter a properly mastered digital version of an analog
recording,
will sound as good as analog. It all depends on what the engineer
doing
the
recording and the mastering engineer do to capture and reproduce the
sound.
In years gone by, anyone with high quality equipment had money and
experience to go with it and ran a studio properly. Today, people
with
high quality equipment can be the flat-broke high school kid who
doesn't
know what he's doing. The difference in the recordings they produce
will
be astounding.
The other thing to keep in mind is that playback equipment has been
drastically altered in the past 20 years. It used to be that you
could
buy
equipment that was designed to give the absolute best playback you
could
want. These days, more and more of what is out there is portable,
small,
and unable to deliver the quality that used to be out there. They make
up
for it by pushing the bass and dropping the high end and people think
they're hearing smooth, warm sound quality. If that's the market that
most
releases are mastered for, then the sound isn't going to be what it
used
to
be.
> however, I tend to doubt that, if an existing analog sound source is
> converted to a digital file without any further processing, there
> exists anyone who can notice a difference?
That depends on what you're talking about for a "sound source". An
analog
tape of the biggest selling album the Who ever put out? No, probably
not. The digital reproduction of that analog recording can be done in
such
a way as to not lose one bit of the quality if they take the time and
spend
the money to do it right. However, if by "analog sound source" you
mean
an
artist performing in the studio, yes, definitely. A digital recording
will
capture more of the nuances of that performance. That doesn't
necessarily
mean it will sound better. Sometimes those nuances can detract from a
recording. Again, if engineered, produced, mixed and mastered
properly,
it
will rival analog.
And besides, all anyone is going to do with this stuff these days is
rip
it, compress it into a low bit rate MP3 and stick it in an iPod and
think
they're getting great sound. Yuck!
-----------------
Diamond Productions
Specializing in analog tape & film preservation / restoration in the
digital domain.
Dave Bradley President
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