Sound Quality _ this is what has gone wrong with CDs and music today...

[6anbatte]

Hey Trevor

LOL!

"Dream Flight"? Excellent. Let's hope your ears are up to it as I doubt your hi-fi is!

[MightyZ]

Thanks Return of Jesco - maybe it is because I am a teacher/lecturer by trade

I think my Sound Engineer recently tried to explain to me what you were saying about odd and even harmonics, but I soon lost him

MightyZ

[ACEtone]

what is wrong with CDs is they are 44.1k instead of the agreed 48k by the developers just before they made the commercial compromise.
We got screwed.
But certainly it is possible to get good sound on a CD if it is done right.

What is wrong with music today is anyone's guess.

[MightyZ]

I have it on good authority that the human ear cannot distinguish beyond 44.1 so it is irrelevant - I'm still going for the step function vs smooth curve of analogue argument

MightyZ

[leggo rocker]

The 'ears can't hear this' bit doesn't convince me. I am sure we 'listen' to music with other parts of our body receiving information that our ears can't. I think that ranges that can't be heard by the ear may be detected and missed if they are taken away. Who knows what the brain can do?

But the stepped sound is a very valid point. It's just like digital photography. Even with very high resolutions the eye isn't fooled, it *knows* it's looking at pixels and not particles. For this very reason some CCDs have been developed to deliberately break up the edges of the pixels so they aren't square. Of course, wet film technology is also not perfect, but then the eye can spot a photograph and distinguish it from the real thing.

[leggo rocker]

Those entering this debate late should wind back and watch the video so they know what the hell it is we are discussing here.

See this:

[link](http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/52 ... engineers/)


The youtube video is at the bottom, and despite youtube destroying the sound quality with low bitrate mp3 you can still clearly hear how badly the audio compression destroys all the punch and clarity...

[stepping razor]

The youtube video where you hear the bad audio compression not only destroys all the punch and clarity, ,but also sound quality, it all sounds like one instrument and you cant pick out the seperate instruments, because they all sound the same. no gaps, as in space, they seem to think they got to fill in all the gaps, unlike reggae dub which the space and gaps are an integral part of dub, in the end its how you record on to a cd which needs a little bit of common sense of setting levels.

Say your in a studio at home or not, and have some 48 recording tracks to play with, a lot of people would try and fill up most of the 48 tracks, but thats where the producer comes into it to mix the 48 tracks down so it don`t sound like a muddle and a mess with 12 keyboard tracks, 14 guitar tracks, etc.

If you don`t get it right from source then it will be wrong right down the production, copying, re-release line. so bit rates dont came into it to make things sound better if the masters are recorded wrong on to a format.

As far as I`m concerned CDs sound better when not put through computers and recorded on a very good CD recorder. When you start using the computer to so called fine tune it, really what you`re doing is re-mixing it, which is alright if its your music you have made, but not for when you have to re-mix King Tubby cos it dont sound roght, cos you ain`t got the original and have to re-mix it to sound like the original. What a waste of time and they say computers are quicker.
If it ain`t broken why fix it!!!

peace

[MightyZ]

Always trust a good pair of ears and a talented sound man over some digital wizardry - that is my view!

After all I listen with ears - not a digital device!

MightyZ

[ACEtone]

I was at last able to view the video - don't know why it wouldn't work a few weeks ago...anyway...
I've personally experienced the pressure to compress my productions because even with a moderate amount of limiting/compression to get the loudness up my productions sound quieter than the tracks before and after on the few radio shows that play my stuff.

Obviously the DJs in question are enlightened enough to listen to the music and hear it on its own merits and not reject it because it is not loud enough, but these are not mainstream DJs. My music if musically appropriate probably wouldn't be accepted by commercial radio because the drop in loudness would be perceived as detrimental to the overall desired effect of the broadcast.

Still, it is interesting that there are commercially successful producers willing to stick to their principles and mix for dynamics and not for loudness as the article outlines.

I can't see it affecting audio productions on a large scale however and it is worth noting that FM radio further compresses music and voice - it is just the standard way of doing things.

[stepping razor]

You only use a compressor if the sound your recording is too loud and can`t change it, like recording a dance and if it`s not compressed then it will distort the sounds on the format used.

Compressed music sounds bad to my ears and can tell straight away that it`s compressed and/or recorded on some computer which will compress it. I think so many peoples ears have been damaged through loud music at dances and clubs so they need it louder and louder while their hearing gets worse and worse.

Really you need a format that will last at least 500 years like records made of non-rust metal, which we have in master stampers, so the only music left on format with the cockroaches surviving what is to come, which is what they do. Most of the formats ain`t going to last golbal warming, plastic, and yet more plastic.
The tablet of stone is not CDs bubberling up cos it`s got a bit hotter, it shows what a throw away world we live in.

Non-rust metal and strong stone like granite and marble are the tools to use. Marble turntables and non-rust metal records. That would get the DJs getting muscles again and you think records are heavy.

The music industry was once a trade, but no more. Right down from starting out to the big major labels are having problems, and if you dont sign up for iTunes as a artist then forget it. The computer companies are running the music bizz not the music bizz.

And when there`s no format cos the electric don`t work and the formats dont work your only left with how music began with live musicians with real instruments which is what has kept the industry going all these years, you take that out and your left with a sinking ship of watered down zero`s and 1`s in a binary digital code that has so many limitations that real musicians feel, whats the point of the techno bod revolution to make us conform to the hard sell fashion of computer music, which is a very expensive way of making music coz you need another bit of techno equipment for that other bit you got, to work.

As with all the great producers and engineers the hands on way is where it`s at and will stand the test of time.
Why get a computer to copy a human? cos their not Prince Jammy or King Tubby but they want to be with a computer.
That really makes me laugh, whats happened to some originality? well we will let the computer sort that out.

So the only way to make money in music is live touring gigs, which show up a lot of groups cos they cant play live.

peace