SADiE DSD recorder information.

There's a lot of speculation going on around here about what you can and can't do inside of the DSD format. I have access to one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on this subject. He's a very close friend and old roommate who works for a company called SADiE (Studio Audio Digital Editor) whose North American headquarters is based in Nashville. Three years ago he moved to England and now works at the company's main office. He built the systems that were used by both Jon Astley and Bob Ludwig for the Stones remasters . I've told him about the discussions over these new discs. Here's what he has to say.

Jon went to LA months ago to sign the deal to get the masters and transfer them - true, he did no mastering. He transferred these thru his dCS converters onto a prototype (and loaner) SADiE Stereo Mastering DSD Editor and backed up the audio to AIT tapes. Those tapes were sent to Bob Ludwig in the States, who also had a loaner SADiE Stereo Mastering DSD Editor where the mastering occurred.

Bob could have used our EQs & limiting that I put inside his unit but knowing him like we do, he used external analog kit. As mentioned before there are NO external rack processors available that can deal with DSD. The one external box that might get fed DSD and do something to it is a Sony SBM Direct box, which decimates & dithers DSD down to PCM. I've only ever seen one of those boxes, at that was in Ray Staff @ Sony Whitfield Street's mastering room last year. I'll talk about this process later.

Along the same lines, there are NO PLUGINS such as CEDAR/No-Noise/TC Works/WAVES/etc that can deal with DSD - it's radically different DSP-wise.

THERE IS ONE POSSIBILITY THAT EXISTING PLUGINS COULD HAVE POSSIBLY TOUCHED DSD, BUT NOT IN IT'S PURE FORM. THIS PROCESS IS NOT POSSIBLE ON OUR SYSTEM. One of our competitors, Merging Technologies, use a Phillips Tri-Media DSP chipset on their audio cards, thus are close buddies with Phillips. Merging's DAW, called Pyramix, are cheating quite a bit and causing a stir over on the Mastering forum. They have three different modes of working on their DAW:

1) recording session (which can be pure DSD) but they don't do any level changes/fades/pans/native DSD DSP

2) editing session (in which they DOWNSAMPLE THE DSD FROM 2.822MHz 1-bit DSD to 352,800kHz PCM 32-bit floating point). HERE IS WHERE EXISITING PCM PLUGINS COULD POSSIBLY TOUCH WHAT HAD BEEN PURE DSD and been de-noised/reverbed/whatever. SADiE NEVER downconverts the DSD - we're always playing/recording/editing/EQing/limiting the audio in it's pure DSD form. There is a 'guide' PCM track underneath at the same time, but you choose if you want to hear the PCM or DSD on us, and obviously if you choose to hear the DSD stream, you're hearing PURE DSD.

3) recording master session (in which no editing can occur, but the edited downconverted PCM in step 2 is then UPSAMPLED BACK TO DSD WITH FILTERING INVOLVED SO IT'S FURTHER MUTILATED and allegedly rolls off audio around 80kHz because of possible level overs and aliasing in the upconversion). Note that this is a RECORDING MASTER 2-track or multitrack resulting file, NOT A 'CUTTING MASTER', which actually includes the start/ends/countdowns/text for the player's LCD screen/etc. Pyramix and Sonic Solutions CAN NOT make a Cutting Master, only SADiE can in-the-box. Everyone else sends off Recording Master AIT tapes to Phillips to be finished off and turned into a Cutting Master, which isn't exactly kosher - a mastering engineer should be the last man to manipulate an album's contents before it goes to press, dontcha think?

So there's no CEDAR no-noise for DSD yet?

Correct - there's no noise removal system on the planet for DSD. Geez, we can just barely play/record/mix/crossfade/EQ/compress multiple streams of DSD at the moment, much less have effect boxes for denoising/reverbs/etc. I guess if someone didn't know any better they could run through an external CEDAR box and de-noise there but you'd have to look for a new job. That would totally compromise the validity of the DSD resolution now wouldn't it? I have heard of guys trying to use Dolby units but without much success. Decoding unencoded Dolby just plain sucks.

Explain how the Alison Krauss disc has two differently mastered versions on it, one on the DSD layer and one on the redbook layer.

The redbook layer of an SACD can be one of three things:

1) When you record DSD (using a chip called the E-Chip), there's a PCM recording made at the same time (used for waveform displays, traditional metering, etc). You could use this, as it's an unadulterated PCM copy of what's come in via DSD. Yes, it's an on-the-fly conversion (decimation, to be precise) that the E-Chip does. This PCM is then sent to another chip called the D-Chip, which handles all things PCM. On our SADiE, both chips are in there, and you can monitor via headphones/analogue out/AES digital out what is coming in DSD at the moment.

2) On some DSD recording/editing systems, they may not make a PCM downsampled version when they record. They have to use what's called SBM Direct (Super Bit Map Direct) to dither&decimate down to PCM. This could be the redbook layer, as it's made after the master DSD layer is finished.

3) You could put anything you want to as long as it's on the CM (cutting master) tape for the redbook disc. If you wanted, you could put a completely different album's worth of material on the redbook layer from what's on the DSD layer cos it's completely segregated (start flags, countdowns, data stream have NOTHING to do with the DSD stream).

Sounds like there's a lot of confusion on this forum. I could let Jon know what's up and have him jump in if he wanted to?

If you want to keep Jon as one of your buds I don't think you should send him to a place where there's so much negativity regarding his work.

Good idea.

 

Personally, I don't think ill of Jon Astley. I don't even know him. I *DO* know that there are things he's done that I and many here, don't agree with. Negitivity is not personally AT Jon. We've heard a lot, and sometimes wonder just "why", generically. Nothing more or less.

If Jon wants in, I sincerely doubt any of us will hog-tie him. We'll all have a large understanding, and I bet even Jon can benefit from it.

That being said, I still have all the Who remasters. I still play them often. Spade is a spade. He's invited for Poker night on Fridays!

BTW, THANKS for stopping by. Your insight proves to be a wealth of information. I understand you would rather remain annonymous, otherwize I would have said "Thanks, _____!"

 

I'm not a fan of Jon's mastering. I have a real problem with his work on several albums. I think my friend told him about some of my complaints once. Ooops!

 

I'm just shy. My name is Jamie.

 

Jamie, speaking of mastering, have you worked with Glenn Meadows?

 

He's mastered a few things I've mixed. Glenn is just a wealth of information. Incredible how many huge records he's mastered. I've always likened his mastering to that of Vic Anesini at Sony. Kind of soft (not refering to loudness) yet sonically smooth. Glenn was a big fan of digital gear which I'm not yet sold on. I never knew what I was hearing in his room. He had these huge monitors, TAD drivers I think, with huge horn tweeters that took some getting used to. His relationship with Masterfonics (now Emerald) ended last year. I don't know if he quit or was let go. Seems kind of odd either way since he was one of the original owners. Anyway, he is teaching a class at SAE which is a Disney owned audio school that is right across the street from the old Masterfonics.

My personal preference is for Hank Williams at Mastermix. Since Glenn is teaching and Denny died he's the only guy in town. He has a decidedly hands off approach which I like. I also like that he uses mostly analog gear and always has a tube stage thrown in somewhere. I get more of my original mix through the mastering stage with him. A lot of guys try to remix your record for you. Hank once worked on a song for 30 mins only to push bypass. He just knows when to stay out of the way. His room is one of the most perfect listening environments I've ever been in. Incredible imaging. I feel naked when I listen to my mixes there. Every blemish is exposed.

 

I definitely prefer Hank Williams's mastering over Glenn's mastering. Hank does master many major modern country releases and it is lifelike, Steve.

 

Jamie, BTW my name is Bradley Olson and as many people here know including Steve, I am a country music buff and collector and as a hobby a researcher of it. BTW, Glenn has mastered many Jimmy Buffett recordings and I am a fan of his music. If you click the WWW graphic under my post, you can learn a lot about me and my personal and work life and as part of my job, I am able to use my computer data entry background and music knowledge together.

 

Glenn does a good job. If the original mixes were decent I bet the CDs sound good. Glenn is very accurate when it comes to using the proper tapes and versions of a mix.

 

Not to "thread crap", but...

Glenn's MCA gold version of "Who's Next" is *very* bright and has a LOT of noise reduction on it. I was stunned when I first heard that - "where did all the hiss go?"

As far as the Stones discs go, personally I don't really care *how* they used noise reduction - the fact is they *did*.

 

After reading the initial post, I wonder how there can possibly be any actual music on these new remasters.

Reminds me of the Steven Wright joke about waking up and discovering that "everything in my apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica".

And his roommate says "Do I know you?"

 

I think it would be a very plus thing if Jon Astley posted here. I think sometimes we have to be very careful about slamming people. I'm sure he would have tons of ideas to contribute and maybe he can get an idea of why some people are critical of his work (without it being personal towards him as a person). I'm sure he cares about what he's doing (like all of us with our work) and would be fascinated with some good differing opinions. Sometimes, I think we forget that these "names" on the credits are also real people who are trying to do a great job. We all have things to learn to imrove/evolve of skills in what we do. If Peter Mew wanted to share his ideas and beliefs then of course he should be welcomed with open arms. In fact, the more ideas the better. Learning is partially about being "open" to different approaches and ideas.

Todd

 

The problem with Jon is I *don't* think he cares. When you press on him why he messed something up, he either makes something up or blames someone else. I've talked to Jon in the past, as has a friend of mine. He's very good at telling people what he thinks they want to hear (especially ICE), but not much else.

Someone who cares doesn't use "whatever tapes were handy" to put a CD reissue together in a couple of days (A Quick One). Someone who cares doesn't put out a song with a missing lead guitar (Under My Thumb). Someone who cares doesn't master something with very obvious noise reduction artifacts (Ultimate Collection, others).

This isn't about Jon "making a mistake here and there" - it is the way he does things, period.

This is a guy who claimed they didn't have a copy of "The House That Track Built" to listen to to see how Young Man Blues sounded on it. That's either a flat out lie (since, after all, they used the cover of it for the tray of O&S) or not caring at all. If you were putting out a CD that said "previously released on XXX LP", wouldn't you listen to XXX LP first to make sure you got it right?

 

Luke, I do hear very clearly where you're coming from but I think Jon Astley would be the only one who would be able to know what his level of commitment on a project is. Yes, his work speaks volumes about these mistakes but maybe there are other reasons, etc. that we just don't know about or he just didn't know about. Heck, I'm trying to give someone I never met some benefit of doubt. Sadly, a lot of people will never be at the level of Steve (and other great people out there) but he seems to be getting these special projects (connections or not) and it would only be a benefit for us (and maybe him) if a reasonable diologue could one day happen. I really can't believe that someone would spend their time doing all this work and just not care. Yes, there are some people out there like this but I find that pretty rare. Sometimes people just have deveoped bad habits or they "think" they're doing everything that needs to be done but in reality they could use a little constructive guidance or even just some polite criticism (postive/negative). "Less is more" is a very difficult concept for a lot of people to grasp. Jon Astley may really believe that he's "improving" things and hopefully one day he may realize that perhaps a lot of that "doctoring" is just not needed and the quality level will actually jump with less. How will he know if he isn't participating with sharing different ideas (who knows, maybe he does already?). I think this forum is a great place for people (even Jon Astley) to share ideas and learn something. I'm sure even Steve has learned a lot here.

Todd

 

Todd,

The thing is, there HAS been "dialog" with Jon in the past, and it hasn't gotten anywhere. He keeps doing dumb things, and keeps shifting the blame away from himself. I don't see that suddenly changing.

 

Luke,

Sometimes people are at point in their life when they are unwilling to listen to other ideas or critcism. We may "know" we're right about the topic but sadly the other person just cannot hear reason. It sometimes takes a lot of skill and different approaches to figure out how to get a "closed" person to hear us. It can be done but takes work and also we have to be careful that we're not guilty of the same thing. Sometimes it can't happen (my ended marriage)...

todd

 

Well the fact remains, he IS respected and he does get asked to get involved in projects.

Weather there is a story here or not, doesn't mean he should be concidered a "bad guy". His information could not only be valueable to you Luke, but could provide insight that might educate us all further, for better or worse. If an engineer is caught hovering his butt over your Cheerios, then I might change my feelings about it. Otherwize, he should be allowed the freedom and the pleasure of meeting with all of us for chip, dip and a sip. No?

 

Todds whole post: Hammer hits nail. Nail drives through in one blow.