MQA Off-Topic Spinoff

[esldude]

51 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

Anyone else want to personally attack me and go off topic ?

 

There is clearly no moderation here.

 

lol

 

What a mess.

 

 

Sure why not?

 

Your comment about a foodchain is telling about your attitude which you disguise as otherwise.  You seem to have some fear of your own realizing you are just a middle link in this chain.  

 

 

[esldude]

Brother's is a good example of working within the DR8 or 7 range and making what you can of it. It does show lots more skill than 95% of mastering at least.  You don't notice the constriction too much unlike so many recordings. 

 

I found it interesting that EQ with 3 db slope across the 40-20khz band up or down destroyed the careful balance of elements.  So nicely crafted.  The low end is still too muffled and constricted for my tastes, but in the balance of everything else a good result.  

[esldude]

Just now, Brian Lucey said:

 

More rude fucking people.

 

I know my place in the chain 100%, it's my career.  Arrogant audiophiles do not know theirs.  

 

Get it yet?

No, you are still the one not getting it.  You act as if anyone not digging your version is old and stuck.  If you could back off a step, and you don't seem like you can, you might notice all anyone here has done is express a preference for more dynamic range than is the norm.  At most some have asked why there can't be more or tried to see if you thought a little more would be better.  Some may not appreciate your place in the chain places restrictions on what is possible, but people who don't know your constraints are interested in asking questions.  

[esldude]

11 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

You have no idea what the mixes sound like.  Or what is the process.   There is this myth that mastering is in charge, and we are not.

 

Every record I do, sounds better after mastering.  That's why I have work.

 

This is so simple if you know how things work. 

Yes, and that I understand.  I of course can't know everything you do sounds better than the mix, but that is your job and you are good at it.  I'll take your word for it. 

 

Again, ease up partner.  You can't make DR if it ins't in the mix.  The arrogant audiophiles don't know if you get mixes with plenty of DR and master most of it out, or mixes with none to start with.  You could be less abrasive explaining that.  If you were, you probably would find yourself among friends here.  Music is louder than ever, and not everyone likes it.  

 

Let me ask you this, if wanting music less loud is oldies fundamentalism, what is the age cut-off for your work?  And how does that fit with comments of yours that you think it has peaked and now is easing off even if not going back as far as some like?  Is that an indication you might be getting old?  No not a serious question.  Wondering if the idea it got out of hand was some fundamentalism on your part. 

[esldude]

4 hours ago, Charles Hansen said:

 

Sorry ESL Dude,  the rest of this post (which I deliberately deleted) was simply more off-topic opinions that should be on a different thread if there were actually a moderator around.

Okay, so did Chris make you a moderator?  Oh, no he didn't.  So no thanks for your moderation pal. 

[esldude]

I thought all "modern sounding" mastering meant that every track on an album was the loudest.  There should be no difference in album normalization and per track normalization.  If there is, then its stuck, its old, and it should be disregarded according to mastering master Brian.  Could it be that those 70 or 80% who preferred otherwise were all old? Possible I guess that Tidal only has 20% youngsters (or hip with it modern oldsters) in their customer base.  Very puzzling.  

[esldude]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Wow, you’re projecting again. You’re holier than thou attitude and belief that only you and others who make music can possibly appreciate any of this stuff, is really telling about you. You’re compensating for something. Perhaps a belief that your work would dry up if things changed. 

 

Of all the people I know who make music, including several Grammy winners, you’re the only one who has the time and likes to come on a forum and argue with people who’d much rather learn from you. You’ve managed to make people dislike you, who really wanted to like you. 

 

I interviewed Bill Schnee for a two part series on this site. His kindness and willingness to educate people was incredible. You can’t help but like him. Same for Doug Sax and Al Schmitt. 

 

Nobody likes music more than the people on this site. Yet, you talk to us like we are some mythical stereotypical audiophiles. 

 

Given your stance that you serve your customers only, perhaps you could explain why you even care about MQA. If your customer wants it, you get paid the same to use it or not. It’s a service business. Perhaps you’re using the old saying that no press is bad press. Now, many people who’ve never heard of you before, know your name as the guy who hates MQA. 

I just wanted this up a second time to make sure it is seen. 

 

Of all the people I know who make music, including several Grammy winners, you’re the only one who has the time and likes to come on a forum and argue with people who’d much rather learn from you. You’ve managed to make people dislike you, who really wanted to like you. 

[esldude]

36 minutes ago, semente said:

Who is he by the way?

Brian Lucey.

[esldude]

16 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

If "unadulterated/uncompressed" tracks are available then it becomes very easy - if not, iterative smart guessing by software algorithms can untangle what is available. It all depends on whether someone decided to archive the original material in a safe place - which will highly variable.

 

I can see a future trend where albums are released as a set of "raw" tracks of the sound elements - and the consumer can mix them to suit, via some hardware that combines them on the fly when playing - everyone is now their own mastering engineer! Presets for those who like that, complete manual control for others who want total command. Yes, far more data being shipped around and stored, but that's where the future is heading, right now.

You don't appear to know the parts of compression.  Nor how compression really is done in recordings.  You have at least the attack, release, ratio and knee of the compressor settings plus any low or high pass settings.  This is about as simple as any of the compression gets. 

 

You have several settings, and no you aren't going to intelligently guess or figure out what those were.  Next is the issue where you can have different amounts and settings of compression covering various bands of the audible band.  Next is all of these may have been done in more than one stage.  You are not going to be able to undo all of that or undo enough of it you are getting anywhere close to reversing the process.  This is true of music going back 50 years, and gets more complex the closer to current day the music was recorded, mixed and mastered.  This ignores that some newer compression devices are FFT based.  Or that they oversample during their application.  

 

Now all of this is ignoring how EQ, or delay or reverb would cloud the matter.  Compression may have been done differently to different parts of the mix before it was put into a stereo track (which means there is no fixing it).  Then mastering will do a bit more and do limiting and you'll never disambiguate all of this.  Not going to happen. 

 

People have this idea that 80 db of dynamic range is squeezed into 20 db.  But it is a process not nearly so linear as most people are picturing.  The various settings give various sounds and are nothing like a straightforward process.  This process is nothing like a simple compander. 

[esldude]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

Double post. 

 

[esldude]

6 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

 

Why do you think this? No loss of fine detail occurs - it is the equivalent of having a very, very smart volume control following the waveform as it goes through, and instantaneously amplifying, or attenuating the sound, far faster than you can hear such happening. If done with exactly the right amounts of gain at each point then what you hear is now largely "correct".

Here is a simple video of compression at its very simplest. 

 

We haven't talked about side chaining compression (where one track sort of controls compression of another track) or the use of parallel compression of tracks or any number of techniques commonly in use for decades.   It is nothing like riding a gain knob up and down to go back to the pre-compressed state.  

 

[esldude]

15 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I appreciate all this. I spent quite some weeks playing with the Reaper audio software, which has very good effects modules which allow one to play with all this. And one can manually guess, and get very close just by viewing the waveform - there are visual characteristics that mark the compression imposed, and one uses those as clues. Of course there are going to be complex applications of compression, but that is part of the sound of the track, in itself - you don't want to undo the "art" of the producution, you're trying to restore some sanity to the amount of squashing that's been done. In fact, my experiments started because I had a sampler pop track which was ridiculous in its presentation - surely something can be done about this? And, it turned out so ... I ended up getting pretty close to what a garage band - the group in question - would have sounded like, live.

You should read some of the gearslutz thread someone linked above which was a Brian Lucey thread.  Sometimes he isn't doing, but 3 db of it himself because of the mixes he starts with.  

 

You might sort of half way undo a one step compression done to a garage band. Even then someone with a little experience with this will find you still missed getting back to the original.  As far as that approach on released commercial music.  Not even 1/10th of one percent will be so simply done at any stage. 

 

Years ago I had a dbx 3BX dynamic range expander.  A hardware analog attempt at what you are talking about.  You could change things, but you couldn't really make it definitively better.  This was maybe 25 years ago mostly with LP and some early CD.  Only attempting to expand range by 50 %.  Its a pipe dream.  

[esldude]

22 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes, it can get very complicated! But we're not trying to uncomplicate it - we're engineering the sound to be more reasonable to listen to - without introducing audible artifacts.

 

Sorry, have got to head out, right now - won't be around to debate this, for a while ...

I get what you are thinking.  I am not against it.  It simply isn't something that can be accomplished.  The sound you get will be different doing that, it won't be toward the earlier version, it'll just be a different adulteration. 

 

Despite B. Lucey's proclamations, I prefer more DR, more than was the norm even way back when.  For what I want out of music more than a modest amount of compression does not serve the artist and the art in my opinion.  I can have that opinion even if the artist's opinion differs.  What is available via the artist's intent or commercial realities effect upon it will be what I get to choose from.  I can choose to purchase or consume it if I find it satisfying or to ignore it should I find it otherwise.  The reality is very nearly never will you get tracks you can un-adulterate.  

[esldude]

9 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

While I freely admit my knowledge of these things is something like the high side of layman or the low side of amateur, there is a significant different between compression used on studio tracks, and a "mastering limiter" used on the final product.  The latter is where the evil happens.

 

 

 

 

Maybe. With modern mixes you probably are treading the line where high ratio compression and soft limiting aren't all that different.  I agree with Lucey that blaming the mastering guy for the evil in the current climate is misplaced. 

 

Perhaps we could ask B. Lucey for some insight on this. 

[esldude]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Indeed that can be the case. Limiters are more 'sneaky' in their action - when viewing the waveform at a particular spot everything looks hunky dory, because of the look ahead by the algorithms, to make sure the transitions are smooth.

 

I will most assuredly assert that the developing of a reasonable, mature process for undoing the worst damage wrought on the final mix will not be trivial, straightforward to do. Which is not the same thing as saying that it can't be done, full stop. Again, I don't care one iota whether I've secured a perfect reversal - if 99% of the listeners can't pick it, and are fully happy with the listening, then ... job's done.

Okay Frank, how about some parallel compression. 

 

I have a track, and make a duplicate track.  I do some compression on the duplicate.  I then mix it back into the original.  This gives me a track with higher loudness, higher average level, but leaves any spiky transients intact without being blunted.  Given the result of that how can you work backwards to get close to the original track?  At the very least this is a non-trivial problem.  

[esldude]

23 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

In practice, very well. "Good gear" is the first priority, quiet room is very far down on the list - put it this way: you have a grand piano in your listening room; a highly accomplished pianist comes in, and commences to play a wide array of pieces in style, from the most subtle dream state conjurings, to almighty, thunderous Chopin or Liszt extravaganzas - is the fact that the room is "quiet" or not have the slightest bearing on the experience?

Yes it will.  A certain amount of quiet is needed.  If there is a jackhammer in the street or even if my neighborhood trash collection is going on (they use ridiculously loud trucks audible from 3 blocks away) it would indeed impact the experience.  

[esldude]

7 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

I love industry professionals who are not assholes. 

+1

[esldude]

12 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

I'm not sure we were ever talking about the same thing.  I commented on the notion of "HDR audio".  I assumed this hypothetical new format would have a dynamic range that was higher than the highest dynamic range found in recorded music today.  And in my experience, that would almost certainly be classical music.  I was simply proposing that any DR higher than the highest DR found in currently available content was a non-starter, because it would be so impractical from a playback standpoint.

 

Good point you are making. 

 

HDR video is useful because prior video had a dynamic visual range which is less than our eyes have.  We don't have the same situation with sound.  Recordings can more or less equal the range of our ears or perhaps exceed it.  For other reasons we don't even come close to using the range that is available.  

[esldude]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

My immediate response: what's the point? For any reason, whatsoever ...

 

16/44.1 is perfectly capable of capturing the full range of the most extreme orchestral exercises - I have a recording which starts with an climactic fanfare - if set at the right level, and people were unaware, then a few changes of underwear may be called for - the piece then continues, with fff passages galore, and no irritating anomalies.

 

Decades ago I did an exercise where I listened to a classical piece attenuated by 60dB, in 16/44.1 format. The volume had to be set on maximum, and I could just barely hear it with my ear against the speakers - and there was the piece, fully intact; very noisy, as if it was raining quite hard - but none of the sense and impact of the piece was lost, at all. So, I was listening to something with 60dB DR, and, it worked - it was impractical because the gain of the amplifying chain needed to be so much greater to even hear it.

Some of the impact had to be lost.  Your sensitivity to sound at lower frequencies is much lower at such low loudness levels.  Ditto for the highs.  You necessarily lost some of the potential impact.  Your brain may very well have adapted and it still sounded okay.

[esldude]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

MQA has reduced HF content. The "core" decodes to 96 kHz, then the "render" filters roll off the high frequencies somewhat.

Maybe some aliasing is replacing the lost HF.

[esldude]

1 hour ago, semente said:

 

This is from an interview with Daniel Weiss:

 

Your equipment supports up to 24 bits, 192kHz. Is that completely overkill?

Yes. Bob Stuart of Meridian once gave a talk at AES and his proposal was to keep it at 60 kHz.
The closest one we have as a standard is 88,2, but more equipment supports 96.
96 is coming from the studio standard, doubled from 48. But 88,2 or 96 will be plenty.

Yes and Stuart gets this referencing J_J Johnston which is where Lavry also gets the idea. It's based upon the fact  a small number of people do hear to 23-25 khz. Johnston suggested 60-65 khz sample rates would allow a wider transition band rolling off at 30 khz. This in his opinion is enough for a fully blameless transparent digital system you could be sure no humans could find fault with if done well.

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

For non-ringing transition band you need 1st order anti-alias filter. You can calculate where that would fall into -96 dB (16-bit) or -144 dB (24-bit) level to avoid aliasing...  And then place your Nyquist based on that.

 

DSD certainly fixes that problem!

 

I don't think the idea was a non-ringing filter.  If the ringing is all above 25 khz, and the filter easier to make perform as desired if it ins't crazy steep, then no one can hear any effects of ringing.  Any slight aliasing or imaging is above 25 khz.  So 25 khz and below could potentially be pristine.  

[esldude]

20 hours ago, Miska said:

 

That's the thing, to make it not crazy steep and keep it all above 25 kHz and have analog reconstruction filter that doesn't have any phase shifts at 25 kHz and yet doesn't leak any images...

 

I've done the math, and the answer is DSD in terms of bandwidth and all those other properties. PCM resolution window is rectangular until you start using noise shaping, and when you do that you can begin to reduce number of bits and then you gain DAC linearity as a result and it all leads to...

I don't think the intent was ever to make the filter analog. Still digital and still steep. But a 7500 hz wide transition is less steep than 2050 hz.