Absolutely fascinating. When I worked in BBC Radio we had the same arguments - while you might want to keep the sound of musical instruments with their original dynamics, we were endlessly compromising the sound - the "ideal" sound wasn't what you would hear if you were in the room with the performers, it varied according to the time of day, the transmission medium (AM / FM / Digital) and according to where the listener was likely to be at that time (in the car / at home). It's great when you don't have to compromise the sound at all, but people have got used to compression and things can sound a bit feeble and "uncommercial" without it, alas.
I think compression suits the way the majority of people consume their music in the 21st Century, and the flipside to this is that it also makes us lazy listeners.
Sadly, the desire to crank everything up in the studio has affected Irish traditional music recordings too.
I noticed this when working on a new commercial compilation recently. I'd been forewarned by a piper friend who has his own studio and, consequently, was prepared when I came to master the recordings for the label. (And, for technophiles, I used Sony CD Architect which clearly illustrates the amount of sound compression taking place).
All the old tracks from the 1970s and 1980s had relatively low volume levels and wide dynamic range, but the majority of those (especially group recordings) from the late 1990s onwards were ridiculously heavy on the volume. As an example, much as I like the John McSherry/Dónal O'Connor album 'Tripswitch', it's virtually impossible to hear the fiddle on many of the tracks.
When working on the compilation I couldn't tinker with the volume levels (well, I could have done so, but that would meant altering the original recording). However, I was left nonplussed by the desire of some musicians to create a wall of sound effect which, to me at least, went thoroughly against the whole concept of ensemble playing.
By the way, the compilation is called 'Experience Ireland' and was released by the Nascente label.
Pretty much everything I listen to, I hear as an MP3 while I'm driving. Now, the MP3 process generates audio artefacts which, if I wasn't surrounded by road noise I would probably notice. I can mentally tune them out, though (a useful facility to have, especially when I'm sat next to a bodhran in a session).
But the compression thing - yes, it might transform a track so you can hear all of it, but it does kill the dynamic of the music.
I don't, ever, use compression when I transfer stuff. In my listening situation, if it comes to a quiet bit, I'd rather look for a layby to park in and listen it without the road noise.
Even if my music has compression artefacts in it, at least they've still got the soul of the original recording.
Sometimes, the quiet bits mean the most; let's leave them in peace!
I often talk to kids who play music and try to tell them that turning down the amps a little bit would make the music sound better. I hardly succeed. But can I blame them? They are growing up in a very different acoustic environment and have no idea of what we (slightly older ones) are talking about.
I don´t think it matters if is vinyl, CD, MP3 or whatever. There are good productions and products in every field because there are still people who care. What makes me sad is that so much money is spend on productions (I´m speaking of the vast majority) that come to my ear as some undefinable mud and then industries complain about no money for supporting new bands, creative projects etc.
I travel by train a lot,and recently the younger generation have taken to playing their mp3 players through little speakers.Tin cans would sound better.An aural mush.Has the art of hi-fidelity been lost for ever?
I'm astonished that people are referring to this as a new phenomena. The recording industry from even before Marconi have sought ways to compress sound. And the industry's consumers have always sought ways to compress their products. MP3 is is merely more of the same.
I remember when I was a kid my uncle had a favourite recording of Ravel's Bolero. He'd play it for me, and every couple of times through the tune, he'd turn the volume down a bit.
Before electronics, musicians were put into rooms that were literally giant mechanical microphones where the entire ceiling was a huge membrane/diaphragm, the centre of which was attached by elaborate mechanical levers to the needle that gouged the groove in a wax disk. The soloist, of course, was stood in the middle and the arrangements had to be deliberately stripped of their dynamics.
Even in the so called hay day of hi fidelity, just before CDs, there is that telling story of the hi fi buff being taken to his first concert and complaining that the bass response way poor.
The simple fact is that no microphone is as good as your ear. And even though we now have storage systems that can very faithfully store what even the best microphones can hear, no sound production system is at all faithful at vibrating air molecules.
A couple of years ago, I took my old Fender tube amp of mine to an ancient cigar-chomping amp guru, who, in his dimly-lit wood-floor one-room cluttered shop (now gone), told me about a young man who brought his amp in for repair because it was "losing power" during gigs. After all his testing, the amp was fine. Apparently this guy played in a band which was so loud, that although his amp sounded loud at the start, as the night progressed, it sounded like it was getting quieter, because he was actually deafening himself. Many folks with headsets stuck on all the time are doing the same thing, and might miss the nuances of an acoustic performance anyhow.
I still like to hear the squeak of fingers on wound strings - it makes it seem more real somehow.
Thanks dafydd, my dictionary (I looked it up) has phatic as:
denoting speech used to express or create an atmosphere of shared feelings, goodwill, or sociability rather than to impart information. I thought I was being emphatic, but I'm flattered you thought otherwise.
Drone, oddly enough, one of the really irritating things I find about sophisticated electronic compression is that it exaggerates the squeak of fingers on wound strings.
And did your mate not consider the possibility that as the night progressed, his amp sounded like it was getting quieter only because all his mates were turning their amps up?
To get, rather boringly, back to the question about the death of hi fidelity:
There have always been really amazing recordings and pretty bad ones - regardless of what era you're talking about. But there's also direct trade-off between storage / carrying capacity and quality.
It's rumoured that the CD is the capacity it is (79 minutes) because someone high up in Sony (Sony-Philips being the joint inventors of CD) wanted a medium that could carry all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony on one disc. Not long after CDs first appeared, people were starting to complain that there were some new (classical) works being recorded which wouldn't fit on one disc.
But the history of technology (audio and video) has shown that, on the whole, although those working within the industry want quality, the market tends to favour quantity / availability of format.
MP3 is just a way of getting more stuff on the same amount of storage media - at the penalty of throwing away some of the quality, obviously.
One thing that's new about digital formats is that they are increasingly independent of the physical recording medium, so you can choose whatever quality you want - you just have to be prepared to wait longer for it to download, or to use up more space on your storage device. So in theory at least, there's nothing to stop people issuing recordings in higher-fidelity - and we've never (potentially) had this ability before. But all the experience suggests that quality sound rarely makes much commercial sense, so my money is on people not really wanting to bother with that when they can get more stuff, quicker, with lower quality.
Bizarrely, you may find the highest hi-fi recordings are being made privately by people like us, rather than by the big corporates.
Hmm, Furtwangler's 1953 version is among the slowest I have at 75min 33sec. I have a couple of Karajan versions and dislike them both, the slowest is 66mins 13secs (1985).
Klemperer's is my favourite and comes in a little over 70 mins I think, I'll have to check.
Yes Mark, It didn't occur to me that potentially, the high frequency cut off that is set for CD quality could be exceeded. Not sure how your computer's D to A converter would cope with it. Hmm.
However, it's worth remembering that one of the really good things that came with digital master recordings being transferred to CDs was the virtually zero background noise. This allowed for a much wider dynamic range. Previously, it was pointless trying to record anything that was much quieter than the hiss on the tape.
Mind you, though Karajan's hiss free hi fidelity is impressive, I'd still much rather listen to my 60s Klemperer.
If you take too much of the background noise/hiss out of a recording you can end up with a sound that is too clean to exist in real life, so it won't sound as realistic as the original live performance. But if you never hear live performances without microphones in sight how would you know? For this reason, when I transfer an old LP to my computer the only clean-up I do of the recording is to remove clicks.
I have a very old LP of Basil Rathbone reading stories and poems by Edgar Allen Poe. A lovely warm sound (even if worn and scratched after several decades of playing) by an actor with a magnificent voice. A few years ago I got the CD version, a 5-CD compilation with more Poe read by Rathbone and a few stories read by Vincent Price. In some respects that CD compilation is a disappointment because the background warmth and resonance has been removed and it now sounds unnaturally clinical.
Regarding the current playing time of CDs (max 80 minutes), is there any technical reason why the 4+GB of a standard DVD isn't being used to provide the highest quality audio recordings of long works such as operas, oratorios, and the longer orchestral works (e.g. Mahler, Furtwangler, Bruchner) and some extraordinary long piano works (Sorabji, for a start)?
In the old days of LPs some record companies weren't above speeding up a recording (and thereby increasing its pitch) post-production so as to squeeze it onto one side of an LP. A good example is Supraphon's 1968 recording (SUA ST 50916) of two of Beethoven's string quartets played by the Prague Quartet. Both sides have been speeded up by about 6%, raising the pitch by a half-tone. The dead give-away, if you haven't got absolute pitch, is that the speeded up playing, especially the vibrato, and the resonances of the instruments don't sound quite natural. I think the reason Supraphon went down this route was that if they had got those tracks onto the LP without speeding up the master tape, they would have had to apply more dynamic compression to the LP recording, especially near the centre, than they felt was appropriate for the music. I have since copied that LP onto my PC and reversed the speeding-up so the recoding now runs at the speed and pitch the quartet would have heard themselves playing in the recording studio.
I'm not referring to taking out removing his, I'm referring to the technology to record without it.
A lot of re-issues of vinyl recordings on CD are actually digital recordings of the vinyl itself, the masters being long lost. I agree that this is worse than pointless.
And another common trick to boost the length of a vinyl lp was to put more grooves onto the disk, making them closer together and thinner. You can hear echos of the gooves on either side of the one you are playing
“the desire of some musicians to create a wall of sound effect” (MacCruiskeen)
This is one important reason (there are several others) why I now no longer play cello in symphony orchestras. I've got fed up with the wall of sound coming from the brass, woodwind and percussion. I've come to the conclusion that programmes are often chosen for their dynamic effect to impress the audience, so the effect as far as the strings are concerned is that their sound is often obliterated – mercifully so in some instances, imho
Orchestrally, I now play in the cleaner ambience of a 25-piece string chamber orchestra of players of matched ability, where every player can hear, and be heard by, the others.
And, of course, the highlight of every week is playing the fiddle in the civilised dynamic of the session.
Regarding "The Death of Hi Fidelity": Currently, satellite radio wears the crown for killing Hi Fi. I know all the information is digital but it all takes bandwidth, or will require advances in encoding and decoding algorithms. Providers are currently making low-fidelity choices. Previously it was the audio streamers and before that the downloadable Mp3 encoders. I think HD Radio will be next.
>>And another common trick to boost the length of a vinyl lp was to put more grooves onto the disk, making them closer together and thinner. You can hear echos of the gooves on either side of the one you are playing<<
I found cross-track noise to be more of a problem with cassette tapes.
Regarding compression: Back in the early 80's my jazz-rock band did (practice-room) demo recordings of several pieces, and these recordings eventually got us a recording contract with a small label. The studio engineer was obsessed with trying to get the music acoustically perfect for the worst listening environment (a moving automobile). So he compressed and compressed and compressed. Even today I find the results disturbing, but not everyone else did...
All that to agree, really, with the idea that audio recording professionals have long had motives for giving high fidelity lower priority than many other things.
Nothing really compares to some old 78 hiss....
But, yes, I agree. These young people have no idea what they are doing to their hearing by not getting full-spectrum sound, with full dynamics.
In some respects I find it amusing that we are supposed to mourn the death of hi-fi. I am sufficiently old enough to still recall playing my old 45's and albums on a scratchy old mono record player. Then the world was revolutionised by the stereogram and finally came all those independent gizmos that were always beyond the average persons' pocket. You know - the amplifiers, pre-amplifiers, tweakers, woofers and G-d knows what else.
I was raised around music that snapped, crackled and popped and at the time it all added to the character of the music. I wore huge padded headphones that made my ears drip with sweat while listening to pre-Dolby cassettes that hissed like a malignant serpent. As for noise reduction - that was Dad telling me to turn the b***** noise down.
Now I watch my kids play their music on MP3 players the size of my thumb while putting little pads in their ears that distort the sound beyond belief. But still they bounce around and nod their heads rhythmically along with a busload of their brothers and sisters every morning on their way to work/ college.
Did I mind that the sound quality wasn't perfect - not really. In those days as far as I was concerened such levels of perfection were for the idle rich or the geeks. Now I can afford 'hi-fi' I have become too old to bother to want to learn the difference between a pre-amplifier and an amplifier. Similarly, do my kids worry about the purity of the sound coming from their microscopic earpads. Not really - they just want to be able to immerse themselves in the music while living like I did at their age on a limited budget. They don't have the crackles any more .. instead they have the baked bean can factor to face. Now while that may be important for the likes of Karajan et al, my kids assure me that it adds to the thrill when they blast out the latest track by Turisas or Nightcrawlers.
As for doing anything to their hearing, well the same was said of my generation. I can still remember my Mum saying 'You'll go deaf listening to all that rubbish!' Despite her fears it doesn't seem to have harmed my generation any more than any of our predecessors. I see no reason to assume the next generation will be any different.
Maybe the fact of the matter is that hi-fi has never been dead - it has just always been too expensive for the average Joe/ Jill to know what they are missing.
So I confess, tonight I will go over to my battered CD player and play my MP3 disc. It will lack the perfection in sound quality that many of you understand. But while you grieve your death I shall sit captivated listening to Altan or Planxty while maybe pondering on what on earth is the difference between a tweater and a woofer ... and does it really matter?
May you New Year be joyous and your compression not cause you any distress
While I'm no audiophile in the techy sense, I have to agree (chokingly) with llig - you can't beat your own ears.
For over 15 gigs with the Full Fidelity experience, - www.wmw.ie.
Lots of trad, plenty of bluegrass and oldtimey, and loads more - nearly all fully acoustic.
I hate it that you can't hear the rewind sounds anymore which used to be a nice cue - now the engineer has to tell you what he's doing verbally.
When I'm working out an arrangement of a new tune with my band, one of the first things to consider is typically where we want the dynamics. Then when you get into the studio, the dynamics are one of the first things to get removed. You want good separation so you can adjust the mix, get the right mic placement on each instrument, avoid phasing issues, etc. You put up baffles, glass walls, and then everyone's playing through headphones because you can't hear each other. What's always the first request: can you turn my phones up? It drives me batty. Maybe it would help if I couldn't hear 'em anymore myself.
"You want good separation so you can adjust the mix"
This is merely an engineer's attempt at trying to earn his crust. If you have worked out your arrangement OK then by far the best way to mix your recording is live, with your own personal dynamics. If when you listen back, one of you is too loud of too quiet, it will teach you to play at the better level.
Infact, you'll get as good if not better a recording if you eschew the studio entirely. Rent a nice large-ish room (preferably in the country), a top notch recording device (analogue or digital, whatever your preference) and two very very expensive michrophones.
The death of hi fidelity
The death of hi fidelity
There's an interesting aricle here.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity
Back to vinyl!
# Posted on December 30th 2007 by dafydd
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Absolutely fascinating. When I worked in BBC Radio we had the same arguments - while you might want to keep the sound of musical instruments with their original dynamics, we were endlessly compromising the sound - the "ideal" sound wasn't what you would hear if you were in the room with the performers, it varied according to the time of day, the transmission medium (AM / FM / Digital) and according to where the listener was likely to be at that time (in the car / at home). It's great when you don't have to compromise the sound at all, but people have got used to compression and things can sound a bit feeble and "uncommercial" without it, alas.
I think compression suits the way the majority of people consume their music in the 21st Century, and the flipside to this is that it also makes us lazy listeners.
# Posted on December 30th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Sadly, the desire to crank everything up in the studio has affected Irish traditional music recordings too.
I noticed this when working on a new commercial compilation recently. I'd been forewarned by a piper friend who has his own studio and, consequently, was prepared when I came to master the recordings for the label. (And, for technophiles, I used Sony CD Architect which clearly illustrates the amount of sound compression taking place).
All the old tracks from the 1970s and 1980s had relatively low volume levels and wide dynamic range, but the majority of those (especially group recordings) from the late 1990s onwards were ridiculously heavy on the volume. As an example, much as I like the John McSherry/Dónal O'Connor album 'Tripswitch', it's virtually impossible to hear the fiddle on many of the tracks.
When working on the compilation I couldn't tinker with the volume levels (well, I could have done so, but that would meant altering the original recording). However, I was left nonplussed by the desire of some musicians to create a wall of sound effect which, to me at least, went thoroughly against the whole concept of ensemble playing.
By the way, the compilation is called 'Experience Ireland' and was released by the Nascente label.
# Posted on December 30th 2007 by Floss the Tethers
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Pretty much everything I listen to, I hear as an MP3 while I'm driving. Now, the MP3 process generates audio artefacts which, if I wasn't surrounded by road noise I would probably notice. I can mentally tune them out, though (a useful facility to have, especially when I'm sat next to a bodhran in a session).
But the compression thing - yes, it might transform a track so you can hear all of it, but it does kill the dynamic of the music.
I don't, ever, use compression when I transfer stuff. In my listening situation, if it comes to a quiet bit, I'd rather look for a layby to park in and listen it without the road noise.
Even if my music has compression artefacts in it, at least they've still got the soul of the original recording.
Sometimes, the quiet bits mean the most; let's leave them in peace!
# Posted on December 30th 2007 by Wurzel
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I often talk to kids who play music and try to tell them that turning down the amps a little bit would make the music sound better. I hardly succeed. But can I blame them? They are growing up in a very different acoustic environment and have no idea of what we (slightly older ones) are talking about.
I don´t think it matters if is vinyl, CD, MP3 or whatever. There are good productions and products in every field because there are still people who care. What makes me sad is that so much money is spend on productions (I´m speaking of the vast majority) that come to my ear as some undefinable mud and then industries complain about no money for supporting new bands, creative projects etc.
# Posted on December 30th 2007 by Reelin´ man
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I travel by train a lot,and recently the younger generation have taken to playing their mp3 players through little speakers.Tin cans would sound better.An aural mush.Has the art of hi-fidelity been lost for ever?
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by dafydd
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I'm astonished that people are referring to this as a new phenomena. The recording industry from even before Marconi have sought ways to compress sound. And the industry's consumers have always sought ways to compress their products. MP3 is is merely more of the same.
I remember when I was a kid my uncle had a favourite recording of Ravel's Bolero. He'd play it for me, and every couple of times through the tune, he'd turn the volume down a bit.
Before electronics, musicians were put into rooms that were literally giant mechanical microphones where the entire ceiling was a huge membrane/diaphragm, the centre of which was attached by elaborate mechanical levers to the needle that gouged the groove in a wax disk. The soloist, of course, was stood in the middle and the arrangements had to be deliberately stripped of their dynamics.
Even in the so called hay day of hi fidelity, just before CDs, there is that telling story of the hi fi buff being taken to his first concert and complaining that the bass response way poor.
The simple fact is that no microphone is as good as your ear. And even though we now have storage systems that can very faithfully store what even the best microphones can hear, no sound production system is at all faithful at vibrating air molecules.
get over it.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
A closely reasoned response llig,except for the final phatic remark.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by dafydd
Re: The death of hi fidelity
A couple of years ago, I took my old Fender tube amp of mine to an ancient cigar-chomping amp guru, who, in his dimly-lit wood-floor one-room cluttered shop (now gone), told me about a young man who brought his amp in for repair because it was "losing power" during gigs. After all his testing, the amp was fine. Apparently this guy played in a band which was so loud, that although his amp sounded loud at the start, as the night progressed, it sounded like it was getting quieter, because he was actually deafening himself. Many folks with headsets stuck on all the time are doing the same thing, and might miss the nuances of an acoustic performance anyhow.
I still like to hear the squeak of fingers on wound strings - it makes it seem more real somehow.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by drone
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Thanks dafydd, my dictionary (I looked it up) has phatic as:
denoting speech used to express or create an atmosphere of shared feelings, goodwill, or sociability rather than to impart information. I thought I was being emphatic, but I'm flattered you thought otherwise.
Drone, oddly enough, one of the really irritating things I find about sophisticated electronic compression is that it exaggerates the squeak of fingers on wound strings.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
And did your mate not consider the possibility that as the night progressed, his amp sounded like it was getting quieter only because all his mates were turning their amps up?
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
He meant fartic, Michael, but was politer than I. Sorry to disabuse you.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Yes - people have 'amp wars' in a band
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by Hup
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Hold on, looking up "disabuse"
love it!
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by Ray Mariani
Re: The death of hi fidelity
To get, rather boringly, back to the question about the death of hi fidelity:
There have always been really amazing recordings and pretty bad ones - regardless of what era you're talking about. But there's also direct trade-off between storage / carrying capacity and quality.
It's rumoured that the CD is the capacity it is (79 minutes) because someone high up in Sony (Sony-Philips being the joint inventors of CD) wanted a medium that could carry all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony on one disc. Not long after CDs first appeared, people were starting to complain that there were some new (classical) works being recorded which wouldn't fit on one disc.
But the history of technology (audio and video) has shown that, on the whole, although those working within the industry want quality, the market tends to favour quantity / availability of format.
MP3 is just a way of getting more stuff on the same amount of storage media - at the penalty of throwing away some of the quality, obviously.
One thing that's new about digital formats is that they are increasingly independent of the physical recording medium, so you can choose whatever quality you want - you just have to be prepared to wait longer for it to download, or to use up more space on your storage device. So in theory at least, there's nothing to stop people issuing recordings in higher-fidelity - and we've never (potentially) had this ability before. But all the experience suggests that quality sound rarely makes much commercial sense, so my money is on people not really wanting to bother with that when they can get more stuff, quicker, with lower quality.
Bizarrely, you may find the highest hi-fi recordings are being made privately by people like us, rather than by the big corporates.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Hmm, Furtwangler's 1953 version is among the slowest I have at 75min 33sec. I have a couple of Karajan versions and dislike them both, the slowest is 66mins 13secs (1985).
Klemperer's is my favourite and comes in a little over 70 mins I think, I'll have to check.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Yes Mark, It didn't occur to me that potentially, the high frequency cut off that is set for CD quality could be exceeded. Not sure how your computer's D to A converter would cope with it. Hmm.
However, it's worth remembering that one of the really good things that came with digital master recordings being transferred to CDs was the virtually zero background noise. This allowed for a much wider dynamic range. Previously, it was pointless trying to record anything that was much quieter than the hiss on the tape.
Mind you, though Karajan's hiss free hi fidelity is impressive, I'd still much rather listen to my 60s Klemperer.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
If you take too much of the background noise/hiss out of a recording you can end up with a sound that is too clean to exist in real life, so it won't sound as realistic as the original live performance. But if you never hear live performances without microphones in sight how would you know? For this reason, when I transfer an old LP to my computer the only clean-up I do of the recording is to remove clicks.
I have a very old LP of Basil Rathbone reading stories and poems by Edgar Allen Poe. A lovely warm sound (even if worn and scratched after several decades of playing) by an actor with a magnificent voice. A few years ago I got the CD version, a 5-CD compilation with more Poe read by Rathbone and a few stories read by Vincent Price. In some respects that CD compilation is a disappointment because the background warmth and resonance has been removed and it now sounds unnaturally clinical.
Regarding the current playing time of CDs (max 80 minutes), is there any technical reason why the 4+GB of a standard DVD isn't being used to provide the highest quality audio recordings of long works such as operas, oratorios, and the longer orchestral works (e.g. Mahler, Furtwangler, Bruchner) and some extraordinary long piano works (Sorabji, for a start)?
In the old days of LPs some record companies weren't above speeding up a recording (and thereby increasing its pitch) post-production so as to squeeze it onto one side of an LP. A good example is Supraphon's 1968 recording (SUA ST 50916) of two of Beethoven's string quartets played by the Prague Quartet. Both sides have been speeded up by about 6%, raising the pitch by a half-tone. The dead give-away, if you haven't got absolute pitch, is that the speeded up playing, especially the vibrato, and the resonances of the instruments don't sound quite natural. I think the reason Supraphon went down this route was that if they had got those tracks onto the LP without speeding up the master tape, they would have had to apply more dynamic compression to the LP recording, especially near the centre, than they felt was appropriate for the music. I have since copied that LP onto my PC and reversed the speeding-up so the recoding now runs at the speed and pitch the quartet would have heard themselves playing in the recording studio.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by lazyhound
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I'm not referring to taking out removing his, I'm referring to the technology to record without it.
A lot of re-issues of vinyl recordings on CD are actually digital recordings of the vinyl itself, the masters being long lost. I agree that this is worse than pointless.
And another common trick to boost the length of a vinyl lp was to put more grooves onto the disk, making them closer together and thinner. You can hear echos of the gooves on either side of the one you are playing
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
“the desire of some musicians to create a wall of sound effect” (MacCruiskeen)
This is one important reason (there are several others) why I now no longer play cello in symphony orchestras. I've got fed up with the wall of sound coming from the brass, woodwind and percussion. I've come to the conclusion that programmes are often chosen for their dynamic effect to impress the audience, so the effect as far as the strings are concerned is that their sound is often obliterated – mercifully so in some instances, imho
Orchestrally, I now play in the cleaner ambience of a 25-piece string chamber orchestra of players of matched ability, where every player can hear, and be heard by, the others.
And, of course, the highlight of every week is playing the fiddle in the civilised dynamic of the session.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by lazyhound
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Regarding "The Death of Hi Fidelity": Currently, satellite radio wears the crown for killing Hi Fi. I know all the information is digital but it all takes bandwidth, or will require advances in encoding and decoding algorithms. Providers are currently making low-fidelity choices. Previously it was the audio streamers and before that the downloadable Mp3 encoders. I think HD Radio will be next.
>>And another common trick to boost the length of a vinyl lp was to put more grooves onto the disk, making them closer together and thinner. You can hear echos of the gooves on either side of the one you are playing<<
I found cross-track noise to be more of a problem with cassette tapes.
Regarding compression: Back in the early 80's my jazz-rock band did (practice-room) demo recordings of several pieces, and these recordings eventually got us a recording contract with a small label. The studio engineer was obsessed with trying to get the music acoustically perfect for the worst listening environment (a moving automobile). So he compressed and compressed and compressed. Even today I find the results disturbing, but not everyone else did...
All that to agree, really, with the idea that audio recording professionals have long had motives for giving high fidelity lower priority than many other things.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by BarryM
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Nothing really compares to some old 78 hiss....
But, yes, I agree. These young people have no idea what they are doing to their hearing by not getting full-spectrum sound, with full dynamics.
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by Guernsey Pete
Re: The death of hi fidelity
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/115/4/861
# Posted on December 31st 2007 by dafydd
Re: The death of hi fidelity
In some respects I find it amusing that we are supposed to mourn the death of hi-fi. I am sufficiently old enough to still recall playing my old 45's and albums on a scratchy old mono record player. Then the world was revolutionised by the stereogram and finally came all those independent gizmos that were always beyond the average persons' pocket. You know - the amplifiers, pre-amplifiers, tweakers, woofers and G-d knows what else.
I was raised around music that snapped, crackled and popped and at the time it all added to the character of the music. I wore huge padded headphones that made my ears drip with sweat while listening to pre-Dolby cassettes that hissed like a malignant serpent. As for noise reduction - that was Dad telling me to turn the b***** noise down.
Now I watch my kids play their music on MP3 players the size of my thumb while putting little pads in their ears that distort the sound beyond belief. But still they bounce around and nod their heads rhythmically along with a busload of their brothers and sisters every morning on their way to work/ college.
Did I mind that the sound quality wasn't perfect - not really. In those days as far as I was concerened such levels of perfection were for the idle rich or the geeks. Now I can afford 'hi-fi' I have become too old to bother to want to learn the difference between a pre-amplifier and an amplifier. Similarly, do my kids worry about the purity of the sound coming from their microscopic earpads. Not really - they just want to be able to immerse themselves in the music while living like I did at their age on a limited budget. They don't have the crackles any more .. instead they have the baked bean can factor to face. Now while that may be important for the likes of Karajan et al, my kids assure me that it adds to the thrill when they blast out the latest track by Turisas or Nightcrawlers.
As for doing anything to their hearing, well the same was said of my generation. I can still remember my Mum saying 'You'll go deaf listening to all that rubbish!' Despite her fears it doesn't seem to have harmed my generation any more than any of our predecessors. I see no reason to assume the next generation will be any different.
Maybe the fact of the matter is that hi-fi has never been dead - it has just always been too expensive for the average Joe/ Jill to know what they are missing.
So I confess, tonight I will go over to my battered CD player and play my MP3 disc. It will lack the perfection in sound quality that many of you understand. But while you grieve your death I shall sit captivated listening to Altan or Planxty while maybe pondering on what on earth is the difference between a tweater and a woofer ... and does it really matter?
May you New Year be joyous and your compression not cause you any distress
D
D
# Posted on January 1st 2008 by Welshman
Re: The death of hi fidelity
Thanks for that, Welshman. I nice pull up to remember that the best music is that you play yourself with your mates.
# Posted on January 1st 2008 by fidkid
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I used to be able to hear pipistrelle bats. I can't anymore
# Posted on January 2nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I wonder if that's because pipistrelle populations have been declining for decades.
# Posted on January 2nd 2008 by fidkid
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I stil see lots
# Posted on January 2nd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: The death of hi fidelity
My mistake; they're getting rare here in the States due to habitat loss. I see that they're still common throughout Scotland.
# Posted on January 2nd 2008 by fidkid
Re: The death of hi fidelity
They're common here in Flanders too.I have some living in the roof of my veranda.
# Posted on January 2nd 2008 by dafydd
Re: The death of hi fidelity
While I'm no audiophile in the techy sense, I have to agree (chokingly) with llig - you can't beat your own ears.
For over 15 gigs with the Full Fidelity experience, - www.wmw.ie.
Lots of trad, plenty of bluegrass and oldtimey, and loads more - nearly all fully acoustic.
# Posted on January 2nd 2008 by RockyRoader
Re: The death of hi fidelity
I hate it that you can't hear the rewind sounds anymore which used to be a nice cue - now the engineer has to tell you what he's doing verbally.
When I'm working out an arrangement of a new tune with my band, one of the first things to consider is typically where we want the dynamics. Then when you get into the studio, the dynamics are one of the first things to get removed. You want good separation so you can adjust the mix, get the right mic placement on each instrument, avoid phasing issues, etc. You put up baffles, glass walls, and then everyone's playing through headphones because you can't hear each other. What's always the first request: can you turn my phones up? It drives me batty. Maybe it would help if I couldn't hear 'em anymore myself.
# Posted on January 3rd 2008 by monkey440
Re: The death of hi fidelity
"You want good separation so you can adjust the mix"
This is merely an engineer's attempt at trying to earn his crust. If you have worked out your arrangement OK then by far the best way to mix your recording is live, with your own personal dynamics. If when you listen back, one of you is too loud of too quiet, it will teach you to play at the better level.
Infact, you'll get as good if not better a recording if you eschew the studio entirely. Rent a nice large-ish room (preferably in the country), a top notch recording device (analogue or digital, whatever your preference) and two very very expensive michrophones.
# Posted on January 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Discussion: Blinded by technology ~ influences beyond our control!?
# Posted on January 17th 2008 by ceolachan
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16417
Making the connections...
Sorry Dafydd, I'd missed this... We were away...
# Posted on January 20th 2008 by ceolachan