More Maxed-out Remasters

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by krabapple, Jul 17, 2002.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. krabapple

    krabapple New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Washington DC
    I wonder if we shoudl start a series on this -- remasters that have suffered
    loss of transients due to indiscriminate maxing out/compression.

    Anyway, I recently posted an example for two Isley Bros compilatons -- where, happily enough,t he latest remaster is actually 'done right' cmpared to the preceding remaster. But here's an example of the bad kind - shockingly enough,from Bob Ludwig. It's a comparison of the Virgin HDCD version of Roxy Music's Avalon, to its former incarnation on Reprise. The page also contains comparisons of three masterings (not by Ludwig) of Pink Floyd;'s 'Comfortably Numb" , from the old CBS CD, the remasterd EMI CD, and the Echoes compilation. (I was directed to these by a post on a thread tha began by praising Roxy's 'Avalon' on rec.audio.high-end)

    http://personal.inet.fi/private/ms99/RoxyMusicAvalon.html
     
  2. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    That really sucks.
     
  3. Sckott

    Sckott Hand Tighten Only.

    Location:
    South Plymouth, Ma
    Interesting how on Comfortably Numb it went from ok, louder to OMG!

    Someone must be behind it all, going LOUDER! LOUDER!

    I don't get it. (???)
     
  4. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    It's hard to resist. Ya just push a button and it happens. ALL LOUD-ALL THE TIME.

    Saw it in action a few days ago at a mastering house (not one of my projects). Dave the mastering engineer really cringed when the client (record company) ORDERED him to "push the button".

    Made me sad actually....
     
  5. nashreed

    nashreed New Member

    Location:
    Tulsa, OK
    :cry:
    I always liked the Reprise "Avalon". That HDCD is really going "off the chart". Don't they have little meters that cab tell them when it's getting too loud? Y'know, my old Fisher stereo with the 8-track player built in had meters on the front that would let you know if your recording was peaking too far to the right. Maybe that's what these folks need?

    James
     
  6. Bob Lovely

    Bob Lovely Super Gort In Memoriam

    Steve,

    Was the button labeled "DX"?

    Bob :mad:
     
  7. Matt

    Matt New Member

    Location:
    Illinois
    I think I've seen the same thing with every HDCD disc I've come across. Why is this?

    A long time ago, on their site, I read something about how they like they make their recordings a little louder, or something to that effect. Can't find it at the moment (the site's changed a lot since then), but I found this, which explains what happens in the decoding process. I don't have the know-how to decipher this, but could this explain why HDCD discs max-out the way they do?

    "Each HDCD decoder implementation goes through the following steps:
    [edit]
    Dynamic Range Restoration—When playing back 16-bit content, dynamic range is restored first. This includes expansion of the instantaneous soft-limiting peak levels (Peak Extend) of up to +6dB performed by the encoder. It also includes expansion of the low-level gain compression (Low Level Extension) of up to +7.5dB based on average signal levels if they were used during the encode process. These complementary gain command instructions are timed to the audio signal so that gain changes are transparent.

    For more information on the new high-bit-rate formats and HDCD technology, please see HDCD and Future Audio Formats in Articles and Papers.

    Gain Scaling—After the dynamic range of the audio signal has been restored, the HDCD decoder performs Gain Scaling. When a peak-extended recording is detected, the HDCD Process Decoder must decrease the average signal level of decoded recordings by 6dB. In order to produce the increased dynamic range—and because the peak digital signal level prior to decoding is 0dBfs (which cannot increase beyond 0dBfs in the digital domain by definition)—the HDCD Process Decoder must “fit in” the up to 6dB greater dynamic range of this 0dBfs signal. See the Gain Scaling Application Note in Articles and Papers for a detailed explanation of this important HDCD feature.

    NOTE: If Gain Scaling is not performed, whenever playback changes between non-peak-extended and peak-extended recordings the listener would have to manually adjust the playback level to maintain the same subjective loudness. This is usually not a problem because most recordings are mastered using Peak Extend for the entire disc, not on just a track-by-track basis."

    The whole page is here: http://www.hdcd.com/players/HDCD_decoderBasics_web.htm

    Technical papers in the Adobe format can be found here: http://www.hdcd.com/partners/proaudio/articles.html

    Again, with HDCD, is there something about it that plays a role in this "maximization"?
     
  8. Ken_McAlinden

    Ken_McAlinden MichiGort Staff

    Location:
    Livonia, MI
    One of the cliches that pops up in CD remaster reviews is the statement "I hear things that I never heard before". Sometimes this is due to careful mastering of original or at least early generational source material. Other times however, it is because things that used to be subtle have now been made obvious via heavy compression. :mad:

    Regards,
     
  9. Matt

    Matt New Member

    Location:
    Illinois
    Just trying to see if I can get this, but does this somehow imply that they compress the sound in the encoding, and then undo that in the decoding (the idea being that musical information that is usually lost in compression is, with HDCD, still stored somewhere, but only readable with an HDCD decoder)?

    I feel like there's something here, but I'm a little lost. Does this work like a volume control, where it turns down the output where needed (if that makes any sense)? If it didn't do this, would that mean there would be clipping or something?
     
  10. Sckott

    Sckott Hand Tighten Only.

    Location:
    South Plymouth, Ma
    Sounds like audiophile halloween. (???) When it's clipped, that's sound down the toilet. :(
     
  11. Matt

    Matt New Member

    Location:
    Illinois
    Sckott, you referring to the HDCD specs or my interpretation of it?

    One of things everyone knows about HDCD is the 4 extra bits of information that's supposedly hidden somewhere (or at least something to that effect), but digital 0 is still digital 0, right? Man, I wish I took an engineering class.
     
  12. krabapple

    krabapple New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Washington DC
    here's the thing though -- I never owned any Roxy Cds except for Viva.
    So when the new Ludwig HDCD sereis came out I finally bought the first two albums (self-titled, and "For Your Pleasure") I thought they both sounded good, if a tad 'forward', but I had nothing to compare them to. Other peopel who did, thought they souned good to. Now, will my listenig be 'tainted;' byu the knowledge that if I were to look at the waveforms, I'd probably see nasty business like that Avalon capture?

    btw, here's an interview with Ludwig talking about his Avalon remaster; all the more perplexing because it sounds like he wanted to do it right (though I see a worrisome reference to a 'Manley tube compressor'):

    http://www.soundstage.com/music/features/interview_bob_ludwig.htm
     
  13. krabapple

    krabapple New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Washington DC
    This is a great question, Matt. Would you mind if I reprint it over on RAHE to see what the engineering mavens there say?
     
  14. Matt

    Matt New Member

    Location:
    Illinois
    No, go ahead! I would like to hear what they can get from that.
     
  15. nashreed

    nashreed New Member

    Location:
    Tulsa, OK
    Here's an idear!

    Why don't they make CD's like some DVD's, where you have two sides: one side is letterbox for the movie nerd, and the other is standard, for (supposedly) the rest of us. They can make CD's double-sided, with one side being "standard"- maxed-out, loud as hell and compressed to high heaven :eek: . Or, you can flip it over and it can be the un-compressed, mastered with care side, for the sick bastards who like music with dynamics! They can do 'em at the same time, and make everybody happy!


    right? :sigh:
    James
     
  16. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    The HDCD remaster of Stephen Stills's self-titled album is highly compressed and loud and maxed-out.
     
  17. proufo

    proufo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bogotá, Colombia
    Or perhaps a database/site with these data. Seems fairly easy to collect as Mr. Salonen did.

    A yearly award to be given to the producer that does the worst, most compressed mastering. Care to suggest a name for the award?

    The White-Out (*) Award comes to mind, based on the CoolEdit GUI.





    (*) White-Out is a trademark of Michael Nesmith's mother.
     
  18. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    When evaluating new CDs I don't just load them up in an editor and evaluate the sound by looking at the wave, I listen and compare it to the older version.
     
  19. krabapple

    krabapple New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Washington DC
    But it's interesting to do both.

    It's a well-known psychoacoustic phenom that people tend to prefer the version
    that's a bit louder. I'm sure I'm as susceptible to this as anyone. It's kinda cool for me to find, when a version seems a bit *too* loud, that it's been over-maxed. I'm going to take a look at the Roxy CDs I have, thogh, becasue they seemed loud, but not obnoxiously so.
     
  20. krabapple

    krabapple New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Washington DC
    Re: Nashreed - This one's for you!!!

    Well, that's a bit extreme, don't you think? And the new Roxys I have *don't* sound bad. The Avalon one in quesoitn was praised by a subjectivist audiophile over on RAHE as being an example of how CD tachnology has 8advanced* in the past 20 years.


    Bu then again, now that you beleve it will sound bad, it's quite likely it *will* sound bad to you.

    How many here would *expect* a mid-80's MCA issue to sound bad , *until* they heard SH had done it? (I wonder how many sold their mid-80's Who's Next because they though the remaster sounded better...)
     
  21. proufo

    proufo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bogotá, Colombia
    And with HDCD-encodings, I'd guess that the test should be done by resampling the analog output of the decoder. HDCD may really be a good thing.

    It would be great for HDCD to provide the best of both worlds, decoded wide dynamics for people who care and LOUD undecoded dynamics for the rest of us and for the car.
     
  22. vinylrec

    vinylrec Senior Member

    Location:
    Delaware, Ohio
    Re: Re: Nashreed - This one's for you!!!



    I've taken enough chances in the past....

    Yeah, I read the same thing in "Mad" magazine.....
    It's a joke. It's a joke!!!

    We could also believe that if it's remastered, it has to sound good.


    Well, not just Who's Next. A lot of those old MCA sound great!!!
     
  23. proufo

    proufo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bogotá, Colombia
    Re: Re: Nashreed - This one's for you!!!

    Hello krabapple.

    Is that Who's Next MCA MCAD-37217/DIDY 001530?

    I know I have the SH work site bookmarked somewhere but can't find it.

    Thanks in advance.
     
  24. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    Re: Re: Nashreed - This one's for you!!!

    Many have actually sold their mid-80's Who's Next.
     
  25. proufo

    proufo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bogotá, Colombia
    Re: Re: Re: Nashreed - This one's for you!!!

    I bought mine used in a shop. Used to belong to Stanley Kubrick as it has his initials :D

    Is a Columbia Record Club issue, with two numbers.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine