MQA Off-Topic Spinoff

[Don Hills]

4 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

I'm actually having a hard time believing that you are actually Brian Lucey. ...

 

Sounds like him... It takes all kinds, in mastering as in any other profession.

 

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/1108509-bored-norm-any-questions.html

[PeterSt]

Back to some topic ...

2 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

This thread exists as I was attacked by some people here for all manner of things, when I was here only to discuss MQA.

 

Wait ... where was that ? Maybe it was on your mind to do that, but it never happened. OK, yesterday maybe. But that is not what you meant.

 

Ah, I recall something about there is one master only and it can't be improved upon (from less than a week ago I'd say). This urges the question : what master is THE one ? is it yours ? then we're f*cked.

So see, this is what happens when people start MANIPULATING (does this work ? ) the data. Question would be : where does this happen first in the workflow anno 2017 ? But it is difficult ...

 

So if about 100% of voices require a form of distortion these days, it can well be built into microphones. Now that won't be true, but virtually. So if we'd want to re-do the (master) mix and leave out the distortion, problem #1 would be that no singer can be recognized after that. Bad remix. Plus the singer most probably can not sing better than me. So it is unwanted.

 

To me it looks that the modern era is thus different from a while back. I mean, a while back people started to improve Bill Evans' recordings to the best of their capabilities. Today ? think of it. What the heck could be improved on what, without undesired result.

 

Quote

a while back people started to improve Bill Evans' recordings

 

What did I say there ? Already that does not work out anywhere. Same guys behind the wheel.

[Teresa]

10 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

Fantasy.  Basis for perfectionism based worldview.   And judgment.  Unreal expectation.  Sad.

 

Have you ever made a record?   From the moment the mix and pre are chosen there are people involved who are making ARTISTIC CHOICES.    There is no purist audiophile recording.  That's marketing ...  geared toward people with a perfectionism streak.

 

No, purist means unadulterated, as in not using gadgets to change the sound.

 

I don’t need to make a recording in order to recognize which recordings sound the closest to what I hear live in person, in a good performance space. Those are the recordings I love! 

 

10 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

Nothing is neutral, it's not possible. 

 

Physics.

 

While perfect neutrality may not yet be attainable that does not mean recording engineers should just throw up their hands and give up. Audiophile recording engineers strive to get as close to neutral as current technology allows. They look for recording locations with good acoustics (concert halls, auditoriums, churches, jazz clubs, etc.) find the best place for microphone placement for the most sonic realism, shun the use of equalization and other signal modifications and only edit to correct obvious bad notes. Yes, they stay within the laws of physics.

 

10 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

" audiophile from the microphones to the finished product"

 

Now you are just making things up.  That's not a real thing.

 

Yes, it is a real thing, 90% of the music in my collection is " audiophile from the microphones to the finished product”, here are a list of said recording companies who make their own recordings which are audiophile from the microphones to the finished product.

 

• Analogue Productions Originals (recorded live direct to 2-track analog with no editing in Blue Heaven Studios, a church-turned-recording studio)
• AudioQuest Music (SACDs are back in print reissued by Sledgehammer Blues)
• Channel Classics
• Chesky Records (Their philosophy is to create the illusion of live musicians in a real three-dimensional space.)
• DMP (no editing within a single song or composition as owner Tom Jung believes editing destroys the flow of the music.)
• Groove Note
• Linn
• MA Recordings 
• Opus 3 
• PentaTone Classics
• Reference Recordings 
• Sheffield Lab 
• Stockfisch Records 
• Telarc (Pre-2009, especially pure DSD SACDs) Pre-2009 Telarc is my favorite audiophile label. 
• ViTaL Records (Vacuum Tube Logic) especially the SACD and DSD versions as rereleased by fonè)
• Wilson Audiophile

 

See they do exist, I’m listening to one as I type this. So I made nothing up. And consider it very rude of you to claim I did.

 

10 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

I hear nothing BUT real instruments in modern work, you just can't appreciate Picasso.

 

Perhaps you have not heard a recording which is audiophile from the microphones to the finished product? Compare such a recording to live and listen for yourself.

 

BTW I don' t like Picasso, some of the ugliest art I have ever seen, much like a lot of the highly compressed, horrible sounding music you call modern.

[PeterSt]

Having said that ...

 

14 hours ago, semente said:

I have mentioned this a few times: the dynamic range depends firstly on the musical programme (tune).

 

Also I seem to be one of the few that rates tonal balance higher than dynamic range. And some remastered recordings whilst more compressed than the first/original releases sound better - to me - because of a more natural, generally warmer/less bright balance. 

 

Ricardo, you should be in my listening room once in a while and notice how tonality and everything completely changes each other month - usually by different software settings only (or improved software, etc.). Really, radical changes. Or, those using the Lush USB cable can testify quite similar and - thus - a stupid USB cable can do such things and that in the general realm (not our software, not our DAC etc. etc.).

 

It goes the other way around : once you have "a best" neutral system, it is quite easy to notice that any pumped up Remaster is colored. It bores because of that same flavor all over and in the end it is "wrong".

IME of course (haha).

[semente]

8 hours ago, esldude said:

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. 

Who is he by the way?

[PeterSt]

10 minutes ago, Teresa said:

10 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

I hear nothing BUT real instruments in modern work, you just can't appreciate Picasso.

 

Perhaps you have not heard a recording which is audiophile from the microphones to the finished product? Compare such a recording to live and listen for yourself.

 

Nah, the problem has to be different. With the shyt all reaching the billsquash100, the mastering engineer can just as well use Bose milk packs and worse to judge his/her own work.

DO WE GET THAT ?

 

Do we agree ?

[synn]

@Teresa that’s a great list of audiophile grade sources for music. I would also recommend Bowers & Wilkins: Society of Sound. Some of the best recorded live and studio music in my collection is from there.

[synn]

Also, Picasso made some of the ugliest “Art” I have ever seen as well. I am a renaissance man myself.

 

maybe there is a pattern...

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Do we agree ?

 

Ad a loud well-distorting subwoofer of course. Sorry I forgot that.

[synn]

1 minute ago, PeterSt said:

 

Ad a loud well-distorting subwoofer of course. Sorry I forgot that.

 

No way I can disagree once you added the subwoofer.

[PeterSt]

Just now, synn said:

Also, Picasso makes some of the ugliest “Art” I have ever seen as well.

 

WTF ? ... Karel Appel then ?

 

Ok, we go all the way via Van Gogh up to Rembrandt, if necessary. 

[semente]

9 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Having said that ...

 

 

Ricardo, you should be in my listening room once in a while and notice how tonality and everything completely changes each other month - usually by different software settings only (or improved software, etc.). Really, radical changes. Or, those using the Lush USB cable can testify quite similar and - thus - a stupid USB cable can do such things and that in the general realm (not our software, not our DAC etc. etc.).

 

It goes the other way around : once you have "a best" neutral system, it is quite easy to notice that any pumped up Remaster is colored. It bores because of that same flavor all over and in the end it is "wrong".

IME of course (haha).

 

I have little experience with rock&pop remasters but I understand that the landscape is quite grim.

The classical music remasters (EMI, Phiips, Decca, DG, Supraphon) I was referring to do sound more naturally balanced to my ears, and I don't notice that "trend" of an even colouration.

[firedog]

4 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

Bottom line ...  2 speakers is never TRULY recreating a live event.  Sorry.   It's just a degree of illusion

 

Yes. That is obvious to everyone here. Why do you think you are telling us something we don't know?

 

The point of good reproduction is to recreate the recorded event as accurately as possible; in other words,to make the best illusion of live possible. None of us think a live musical event is  reproduced fully accurately in our homes. But we've experienced highly accurate/ successful illusions of live events that make it seem "as if" one was there. Obviously not the same as actually being there...DUH!
 

In cases of purely studio (never live) music, the purpose is to create the most accurate illusion of the musical event the artists were trying to create with the recording. In every recording the artist is trying to create some kind of illusion which involves the listener hearing the music is space - even if it is an imaginary space. So here the point is to most accurately reproduce the "illusion" the artists involved in the recording intended. 

No one here thinks anything else is going on. I don't understand why you keep thinking you are informing us of something we don't understand in this area - you aren't. 

[synn]

Short version:

 

everyone: Recorded doesn’t sound like live,  but we like it when a live performance is recorded and mastered well.

 

brian: WRONG. Recording DOESN’T sound like live!

 

everyone: ...

[PeterSt]

Why does it creep on me that this is going to be the funniest thread ever.

It looks like everybody is kidding the 60 year olds. Except for Brian of course. He is only 50. And some wiser guy who runs this forum.

 

Envision ... a whole group of 60's. We'd all get a discount in the diner !

 

 

Danse amoreuse by Karel Appel. He was a great visionair and saw us in his future.

 

PS; Chris, I can not imagine that this is not allowed to put in here (author rights) but delete the picture if you don't feel safe.

 

[semente]

1 minute ago, firedog said:

 

Yes. That is obvious to everyone here. Why do you think you are telling us something we don't know?

 

The point of good reproduction is to recreate the recorded event as accurately as possible; in other words,to make the best illusion of live possible. None of us think a live musical event is  reproduced fully accurately in our homes. But we've experienced highly accurate/ successful illusions of live events that make it seem "as if" one was there. Obviously not the same as actually being there...DUH!
 

In cases of purely studio (never live) music, the purpose is to create the most accurate illusion of the musical event the artists were trying to create with the recording. In every recording the artist is trying to create some kind of illusion which involves the listener hearing the music is space - even if it is an imaginary space. So here the point is to most accurately reproduce the "illusion" the artists involved in the recording intended. 

No one here thinks anything else is going on. I don't understand why you keep thinking you are informing us of something we don't understand in this area - you aren't. 

 

Rock and other music (even jazz) hardly ever exists as a musical event to be recorded.

It generally consists of a mix of distinct (in tame and sometimes in place) recorded takes that are then combined in a desk.

Each instrument line and vocals is then EQ'ed and level and dynamic range adjusted to create what we call a recording which is in truth the music.

 

If the producer (and the artists) decided that the final product is to have a narrow dynamic range for artistic reasons then who are we to complain?

 

On the other hand, when a recording has a wide dynamic range and this is then squashed during mastering and/or remastering for release then we really have to stand up and shout!

 

 

Classical music on the other hand is most often recorded live, though generally not in front of an audience, with the ensemble playing simultaneously together in the same space.

And in my strongly opinionated view it should be picked up in a documental manner, so as to better give the domestic listener an impression of being present in the room where the original event took place. This means adequately positioned (distant), minimalist mic'ing.

 

R

[firedog]

4 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

  MQA is being applied with no oversight, and fucking up catalogs of work as we speak.  It's an insulting travesty to the Recorded History  of Music.

 

My customer  is the artist and they wants the thing they approved to be released. 

 

Substitute the letters DR for MQA in your quote. It will accurately reflect some (not all) of what people here  have been trying to say, and for whatever reason - perhaps your own stereotypes - you seem unable to understand. 

 

We hear entire catalogs of music we love being redone with large amounts of volume compression added for seemingly no reason except to make it seem loud/modern. And it often isn't done by the "artist", it is done by_  or on the orders of - some functionary at a record label who clearly  has little regard for the "art" involved. 

 

With non legacy music DR is less of an issue, but it still is undeniable that excessive volume compression is often applied to recordings not for "artistic'" considerations, but out of "fear" (that's a quote from you).  When that happens it also "fucks up" recordings and is a travesty. 

 

BTW, I like Rembrandt and Picasso....

[synn]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Why does it creep on me that this is going to be the funniest thread ever.

It looks like everybody is kidding the 60 year olds. Except for Brian of course. He is only 50. And some wiser guy who runs this forum.

 

Envision ... a whole group of 60's. We'd all get a discount in the diner !

 

 

Danse amoreuse by Karel Appel. He was a great visionair and saw us in his future.

 

PS; Chris, I can not imagine that this is not allowed to put in there (author rights) but delete the picture if you don't feel safe.

 

 With high enough DR, one might be able to make out a face in that...

[PeterSt]

Here is another one :

 

 

Little moon men.

But there Appel did not get it. Little moonING men. That's what we must be. But he was polite, back in 1946.

[firedog]

4 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Rock and other music (even jazz) hardly ever exists as a musical event to be recorded.

It generally consists of a mix of distinct (in tame and sometimes in place) recorded takes that are then combined in a desk.

Each instrument line and vocals is then EQ'ed and level and dynamic range adjusted to create what we call a recording which is in truth the music.

 

If the producer (and the artists) decided that the final product is to have a narrow dynamic range for artistic reasons then who are we to complain?

 

On the other hand, when a recording has a wide dynamic range and this is then squashed during mastering and/or remastering for release then we really have to stand up and shout!

 

 

Classical music on the other hand is most often recorded live, though generally not in front of an audience, with the ensemble playing simultaneously together in the same space.

And in my strongly opinionated view it should be picked up in a documental manner, so as to better give the domestic listener an impression of being present in the room where the original event took place. This means adequately positioned (distant), minimalist mic'ing.

 

R

Nothing I wrote contradicts anything you wrote here. 

[semente]

Just now, firedog said:

Nothing I wrote contradicts anything you wrote here. 

 

Sorry, I may have misread.

[PeterSt]

2 minutes ago, synn said:

With high enough DR, one might be able to make out a face in that...

 

Oh wait again ... Brian, with some higher DR, I suppose shouting comes across, well, louder ?

[semente]

3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Here is another one :

 

 

Little moon men.

But there Appel did not get it. Little moonING men. That's what we must be. But he was polite, back in 1946.

 

Here's a better mastered version  :

 

 

 

 

P.S.: I would say not, there seems to be a reddish cast

[PeterSt]

1 minute ago, semente said:

 

Here's a better mastered version  :

 

 

It IS better !

More noisy, but still louder as well. Well done !

 

(btw, this works the same with audio bbbbut ... there's a flavooooor)

[synn]

I am guessing a modern remastering of Pieta would look something like a giant cube of marble.

 

you can’t fight PROGRESS!