I read last year that the next Archives box could be released in 2019. Has anyone heard anything to confirm this?
...Worth noting that Neil's gorgeous signature lead guitar tone (showcased on Cortez The Killer, Driveback etc) has the dynamic range of a faulty washing machine. In Larry Cragg's words, it's "compressed to hell". So more dynamic range is often a great thing, but it's not always the case. In many cases reducing the dynamic range of a complete mix is an artistic choice, as it is with individual instruments. Live records in particular can sometimes benefit from a bit of dynamic compression to help simulate the volume and "wall of sound" effect of a live gig (or "live in studio" performance) without the listener having to crank it up loud enough to damage their hearing. Analog-style compressors in particular can help glue things together in a pleasing way. For that reason I'm a little wary of the dynamic range numbers that are often used here to rate the sound quality. More is sometimes (often) better, but not always so. It's just another flawed way to put a false rating on the sound quality; although admittedly a more tangible one than audio resolution. Very wise! Hopefully it will be out soon, judging by the amount of recent stand-alone releases coming from that era.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about waiting for Archives II, "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
The news of Pegi’s death is awful and a real shock. Always had a soft spot for her and her story. Truly a remarkable woman!
Ends before Geffen years I understand so that makes it 81. Have little faith we will see it in May though.
Remember when CD players and then DVD players would be 4x oversampling, or 16x oversampling? What they were doing was taking the data, converting it into a huge file, and then doing all the stuff you gotta do to get it to playback nicely way way out of the range where it can even have harmonic knock on effects on others sounds. In order to get 20khz sounds, when you've only got 22.05 khz to play with means that all that anti-aliasing and filtering and other stuff that you gotta do has to be done in a bandwidth that can effect the overall sound. Now when you've just got the whole file, there's no need for any post processing, you just take the whole sound, even with all the stuff you can't hear, and that's that. It's not about people hearing magically like dogs or the importance of 49khz cymbal fade outs. You know the funny thing though? I kind of prefer old non oversampling 16 bit players, the distortion is nice, in a digital fist to the face kind of way.
Poor Pegi, now we know why the Bridge was cancelled. She was an integral part of Neil’s sound for a while much like Linda was to Paul. May she rest in peace. I can’t help wondering if that means Neil will be able to go back to the barn. It looked like a wonderful space to record and rehearse in the Horseback video. Presumably the children will inherit the ranch now.
Check this out, some of the descriptions of the above regarding sample rate and bit depth are a bit off, this is a very clear article - Digital Audio Basics: Sample Rate and Bit Depth | PreSonus The reason for higher sample rate is to move the cutoff points where aliasing (missing frequencies) becomes a concern farther and farther above the range of hearing and harmonics that impact hearing. I have a studio with relatively high end converters (UAD apollo) and nice monitors (focal shape 65s). The Archives sound fantastic running through that setup. I have a nice Thorens turntable, luxman reciever (or a DIY tube rig) and klipsch Chorus II speakers and my turntable also sounds great, as does my CD player running into a Musical Fidelity DAC. All three are enjoyable. Hi Res Digital is going to be the most accurate, but often I find the turntable more engaging. If I compare directly by syncing up recordings on all three mediums using a computer running hi res into the dac and attempting to level match as best as possible (huge impact on sound quality = louder always sounds better and impacts the frequency curve) all three sound different. It is a fact that in the vinyl pressing process, there are hi and low pass filters placed into the chain. The music is then ran through an EQ to greatly increase the high frequency content and decrease the low frequency content, and then the record is cut and this EQ is later reversed by the RIAA curve on your phono amp. There is a noticeable improvement when recording in 16 bit 44.1 to moving to 24 bit 96khz, but the bulk of this is the greater dynamic range lets you record quieter, which lets you work at lower levels in the box and not clip anything through the recording/mixing process, and then boost the final result without losing any resolution. After the mixing and mastering process, these extra dynamics are not typically utilized - most rock recordings only change by a few dbs at most, nowhere near the 100+ available in 24 bit. I do believe the real difference between CD and high res is moving the cut off way, way out of the range. If you learn to listen to high frequency content, especially in the cymbals, and if you know what they sound like, there is something there. This is where the HUGE difference between MP3's and non compressed formats lies. MP3 cymbals sound terrible! CDs sound fine, and hi res sounds right. All of this is to say there are a ton of variables in the processing and playback of CDs, Digital Files and Vinyl, and all will sound different. Neil's hyperbole is a bit much - use what sounds good to you! However, the archives is convenient, sounds fantastic and is right there. It has become my go to "reset my ears" set of recordings in my studio when mixing.
I think the Archives sounds fantastic too. I do think the improvement between 44.1 and higher-res is entirely placebo effect. This in itself is not a bad thing. The placebo effect can be quite powerful and beneficial. It only becomes a problem when people start believing CD sounds worse, which is an easy trap to fall into when Neil has been telling us that is the case for 10-15 years. If hi-res is better, it's hard to believe that without also believing that 44.1 is worse. In short, it's a placebo effect that creates more problems than it solves. As for mp3s, it's very easy to encode them badly, which is partly where their poor reputation comes from. A poorly-encoded mp3 does indeed sound bad, with horrible cymbals and "wishy-washy" high frequencies in general. But a cleanly-encoded mp3 at a reasonable bitrate (such as those included with the NYA blu-ray set) should sound excellent and indistinguishable from CD and hi-res. In a blind test, that is! Once people know in advance which is which, we can suddenly hear an "obvious" difference. Which strikes me as being evidence for the placebo theory, and against the idea that the benefits (and downsides) of hi-res are anything more than psychological.
Gary Ward and Lost Planet do all the NYA Video Production from the Archives (editing, finishing, restoring etc.).So they pay an external company for all the videos which we see in the Archives.
According to Wikipedia: The audio data on a DVD movie can be PCM, DTS, MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2), or Dolby Digital (AC-3) format. In countries using the PAL system standard DVD-Video releases must contain at least one audio track using the PCM, MP2, or AC-3 format, and all standard PAL players must support all three of these formats. A similar standard exists in countries using the NTSC system, though with no requirement mandating the use of or support for the MP2 format. DTS audio is optional for all players, as DTS was not part of the initial draft standard and was added later; thus, many early players are unable to play DTS audio tracks. Only PCM and DTS support 96 kHz sampling rate. Because PCM, being uncompressed, requires a lot of bandwidth and DTS is not universally supported by players, 96 kHz sampling rate is rare for DVDs. The official allowed formats for the audio tracks on a DVD Video are: PCM: 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling rate, 16 bit or 24 bit Linear PCM, 2 to 6 channels, up to 6,144 kbit/s; N. B. 16-bit 48 kHz 8 channel PCM is allowed by the DVD-Video specification but is not well-supported by authoring applications or players; AC-3: 48 kHz sampling rate, 1 to 5.1 (6) channels, up to 448 kbit/s; DTS: 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling rate; channel layouts = 2.0, 2.1, 5.0, 5.1, 6.1; bitrates for 2.0 and 2.1 = 377.25 and 503.25 kbit/s, bitrates for 5.x and 6.1 = 754.5 and 1509.75 kbit/s;[12] MP2: 48 kHz sampling rate, 1 to 7.1 channels, up to 912 kbit/s. DVDs can contain more than one channel of audio to go together with the video content, supporting a maximum of eight simultaneous audio tracks per video. This is most commonly used for different audio formats – DTS 5.1, AC-3 2.0 etc. – as well as for commentary and audio tracks in different languages.
Not one song from "On The Beach" is in the Top 40 streamed songs on the Archives. I though that it was one of the more popular albums amongst Neil Young fans and that there would be at least two or three songs from the album in the Top 40.
In the NYA top 5 albums there're the last 4 new albums plus Harvest. Instead in a now very limited market, Neil still sells decently on the physical sector, vinyl and cds. Anyway little numbers.
