MQA Off-Topic Spinoff

[Samuel T Cogley]

16 minutes ago, esldude said:

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.  

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

[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. 

[Samuel T Cogley]

2 minutes ago, esldude said:

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. 

 

I never blamed him for anything.  I never got past all the "you're too old", "you don't understand", "you aren't a music lover" shtick.

 

I would be happy if he gave a more detailed answer than, "I want what my clients want", but dude has to pay the bills like the rest of us.  I get it.  Other mastering engineers seem to find room for their own opinion and not hide behind their clients.

[Brian Lucey]

2 hours ago, Abtr said:

How's that? Can you elaborate? 

 

Tracking and Mixing dense material that sounds good, is like jamming more and more people in a phone booth.  Being able to see each face and have them all shine ... it's tricky.  50-200 tracks?  Tricky.

 

Spacious material with 10-20 tracks total needs a great room, great mics, pres and source material (all the same needs as a dense mix, assuming real players) yet there is simply less to deal with.  Assuming the signal path is top tier, it's simply less to make work. Easier.

 

Audiophile recording is not some holy grail accomplishment, it's an equally challenging accomplishment to the pop music you can't appreciate.

[Brian Lucey]

36 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

It would be happy if he gave a more detailed answer than, "I want what my clients want", but dude has to pay the bills like the rest of us.  I get it.  Other mastering engineers seem to find room for their own opinion and not hide behind their clients.

 

Dude is not paying bills, and hardly hiding.   It's a matter of professionalism.  That lost art even greater than DR.

 

I don't judge mixes, I don't judge styles, I don't judge productions.  My job is to enhance the connection between artists and audience and to elevate the production beyond client expectations.

 

Hard as it may to believe, it's takes more discipline to live that way than to do the selfish thing.  I WANT THIS, I WANT THAT, I LIKE THIS, I LIKE THAT !  Childish, and at times, rude.  I am practical and respectful.  

 

What if you had $100,000,000.  What would you do with it?   personally have no idea as I don't waste my life on things that are not happening and will likely never happen.   Mixes come in hot and go out better, that's all I care about.

[Brian Lucey]

1 hour 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.

 

 

 

 

 

So untrue.   I would say you're firmly mid low layman.   

 

Overly compressed mixes are happening in MIXING, mastering is at times LOWERING levels.  When asked for more level LIMITING and not COMPRESSION is used very often.  They are not the same thing.

 

Please stop blaming MEs fro your DR issues, it's artists, and spreading this crap about mastering compression as truth.

-----

 

The REMASTERING world, is not the mastering world.  Please don't combine them.

[Ralf11]

after the last 6 pages, I have to wonder if this is another pasta person

[PeterSt]

6 hours ago, Abtr said:

Interesting, I compared both versions on Tidal and I find the original version better sounding than the MQA version. (Note that I don't have an MQA enabled DAC, so I listen only to the first MQA unfolding from Tidal..)

 

... with what further filtering ?

All is about the filtering and I use my own plus by now 6 months or so experience of "MQA Settings" (via XXHighEnd). This is all not trivial.

Edit : I don't use MQA hardware as well.

[fas42]

5 hours 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.

 

 

 

 

 

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.

[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.  

[Brian Lucey]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

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.  

 

Plus ... the parallel compression creates time artifacts, as the two signals are slightly out of phase from the alterations to transients, always.

[Abtr]

4 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

... with what further filtering ?

All is about the filtering and I use my own plus by now 6 months or so experience of "MQA Settings" (via XXHighEnd). This is all not trivial.

Edit : I don't use MQA hardware as well.

I use no filtering (software or harware)..

[fas42]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

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.  

 

Well, we're not trying to do code breaking of the Enigma machine here! Though the process will in part be similar to solving such problems ...

 

At all times one has to keep in mind that various manipulations should be considered to be part of the Art of the track - and if those are reversed then one is most assuredly wiping the oil painting with turps. Again, the point of the exercise is undo the more extreme squashing of the sound, so that it becomes possible to listen to these sort of recordings over a significant time period on a high peformance playback setup, without overloading on the experience. This is the reason I decided to investigate doing such - and I believe given enough time and motivation just about anything could be achieved.

[PeterSt]

3 hours ago, Abtr said:

I use no filtering (software or harware)..

 

Well, that doesn't look good then. 

So what you literally say is that you use Redbook without a reconstruction filter. I know, this is really "NOS", but this is and measures so bad, that I didn't even see one plot of that in here (CA).

 

FYI, I do use filtering in-software on to my NOS DAC and it is the trick to overrule MQA's filtering (when it is presented as Hires).

[Samuel T Cogley]

13 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

So untrue.   I would say you're firmly mid low layman.   

 

Overly compressed mixes are happening in MIXING, mastering is at times LOWERING levels.  When asked for more level LIMITING and not COMPRESSION is used very often.  They are not the same thing.

 

Please stop blaming MEs fro your DR issues, it's artists, and spreading this crap about mastering compression as truth.

-----

 

The REMASTERING world, is not the mastering world.  Please don't combine them.

 

Fair enough.  But the topic is loudness, not compression.  How much loudness is too much?  Simple question.

[Abtr]

58 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Well, that doesn't look good then. 

So what you literally say is that you use Redbook without a reconstruction filter. I know, this is really "NOS", but this is and measures so bad, that I didn't even see one plot of that in here (CA).

 

FYI, I do use filtering in-software on to my NOS DAC and it is the trick to overrule MQA's filtering (when it is presented as Hires).

 

I see.. Of course I use the reconstruction filters of my modi multibit DAC. But no additional filtering for MQA..

[Abtr]

7 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Fair enough.  But the topic is loudness, not compression.  How much loudness is too much?  Simple question.

 

@Brian Luceydoesn't seem to be able to answer simple questions about sound. My own unanswered simple question is: which do you prefer, the DR10 or the DR6 version of The Black Keys' album Turn Blue..?

[Samuel T Cogley]

54 minutes ago, Abtr said:

 

@Brian Luceydoesn't seem to be able to answer simple questions about sound. My own unanswered simple question is: which do you prefer, the DR10 or the DR6 version of The Black Keys' album Turn Blue..?

 

I think he has some strong feelings about audiophiles, and those feelings are not what someone would call complementary.

 

Quote

MQA has been targeting the weakest players in our world, the audiophiles.  And they’re targeting those most dependent on pimping new tech, the audiophile press.

 

I predict you will not succeed in getting a straight forward answer to a straight forward question.  His presence here is to protect his brand, and nothing more.

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

On 11/20/2017 at 2:39 PM, fas42 said:

 

Nope. "HDR" playback works at all volumes - something that many people may not realise is that competent replay still works beautifully at very low SPLs - the sound never degrades into background filler, but retains its subjective impact and vitality. When you hear a live musical event from quite some distance away the measurable SPLs are very low, but you have no trouble discerning the "liveness" of what you're hearing. And exactly the same behaviour occurs with capable audio reproduction.

 

In practice, I can't see how this works without having to constantly control the volume.  Up for the quiet parts, down for the loud parts.  I'm not against the idea of "HDR audio", but I can't see the practicality of it.  With headphones or IEMs, perhaps.  But not with speakers unless you're in a quiet room with good gear.

[fas42]

22 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

In practice, I can't see how this works without having to constantly control the volume.  Up for the quiet parts, down for the loud parts.  I'm not against the idea of "HDR audio", but I can't see the practicality of it.  With headphones or IEMs, perhaps.  But not with speakers unless you're in a quiet room with good gear.

 

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?

[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.  

[Brian Lucey]

11 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Fair enough.  But the topic is loudness, not compression.  How much loudness is too much?  Simple question.

 

It's all situational, there is no number, no dogma.

[Brian Lucey]

35 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?

 

False

 

In stereo playback the room is 50% + of the experience.

 

Put your best system in a gymnasium, and get back to us.

[Brian Lucey]

2 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

I think he has some strong feelings about audiophiles, and those feelings are not what someone would call complementary.

 

I love audiophiles who are not assholes.  They listen, invest in playback, love music and are open minded to the musical work of artists.  Dogmatic DR audiophiles are rigid and rude if this is any example.

 

Quote

 

I predict you will not succeed in getting a straight forward answer to a straight forward question.  His presence here is to protect his brand, and nothing more.

 

 

More projecting.  If I was trying to look good I would be polite to everyone.

[Brian Lucey]

3 hours ago, Abtr said:

 

@Brian Luceydoesn't seem to be able to answer simple questions about sound. My own unanswered simple question is: which do you prefer, the DR10 or the DR6 version of The Black Keys' album Turn Blue..?

 

Which of your children do you prefer?

 

Just because I don't care about you enough to see all your questions, or answer a dumb question  ... is not ignoring it.   I skipped over your posts for a while now as you seem less than friendly and with an agenda.