"Remastered" CDs - the truth
 

I believe most radio stations now use some kind of digital jukebox
system to store music, in some kind of compressed digital format (that's
psychoacoustic compression as opposed to dynamic range compression).

Yes they do its called ENCO among others such as RCS master controller
and BCX etc...usually compressed though with the ever falling costs of
digital storage some now leave it in the original WAV format!..

Which means it would be trivial to run a gain adjustment script across
the entire music library, and set the perceived loudness to 89dB.
Uncompressed tracks then sound louder.

The hammering is done by the ORBAN or OMMNIA processor's....

It's not just music either. I've noticed increasingly with film
soundtracks that stuff gets compressed to "make it sound louder". Now
here there really is no excuse, all DVD players have DRC built in as
part of the Dolby Digital/AC3 spec. Which I always set to "max", ie no
compression, but if I was in the unfortunate position of having to play
the audio from a DVD movie through the TV's own speakers, I'd probably
set it to Normal or even Minimum (compression turned on).

Yep a generation is growing up not knowing any different and thats very
sad....


--
Tony Sayer

"Remastered" CDs - the truth
 

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
I believe most radio stations now use some kind of digital jukebox
system to store music, in some kind of compressed digital format (that's
psychoacoustic compression as opposed to dynamic range compression).

Yes they do its called ENCO among others such as RCS master controller
and BCX etc...usually compressed though with the ever falling costs of
digital storage some now leave it in the original WAV format!..

CGap now store all music uncompressed (linear WAV) for playout, as they
found that multiple bit-reduction passes ended up with the sound quality
being unacceptable, even by their generous standards. If you imagine a
fairly likely scenario, a news report can be recorded live on a Mini-Disc
machine (ATRAC), edited on a laptop (Linear) sent to the station over ISDN
(MPEG2 or APT-X), goes onto a playout system (MPEG2 MPEG3 or APT-X) sent out
to the digital multiplex, coded MP2.

It's no wonder the end result wasn't of the highest quality after all those
code-decode cycles. Radio stations now are trying to maintain signals
linear as much as possible, right up until the final MP2 coding for
DAB/DSAT/DTT delivery. For FM, it stays linear, if you allow the NICAM STL,
right up to the transmitter.

Mini-Disc is being replaced by solid-state recorders, (Mayah, Denon,
Marantz, etc) and ISDN is being replaced by IP connections, especially now
that reliable point-to-point and point-to-multipoint links over the public
internet are becoming available (TieLine for example).


Which means it would be trivial to run a gain adjustment script across
the entire music library, and set the perceived loudness to 89dB.
Uncompressed tracks then sound louder.

The hammering is done by the ORBAN or OMMNIA processor's....

That's where the problems lie, excessive processing. I remember one
Programme Director being proud of his station having less than 1dB of
dynamic range........

It's not just music either. I've noticed increasingly with film
soundtracks that stuff gets compressed to "make it sound louder". Now
here there really is no excuse, all DVD players have DRC built in as
part of the Dolby Digital/AC3 spec. Which I always set to "max", ie no
compression, but if I was in the unfortunate position of having to play
the audio from a DVD movie through the TV's own speakers, I'd probably
set it to Normal or even Minimum (compression turned on).

Yep a generation is growing up not knowing any different and thats very
sad....
Tony Sayer


Or worse, actually preferring the sound compressed to 1dB dynamic range. As
I mentioned earlier, possibly in another thread, I was talking a while back
to a record producer who said they were processing CDs through a Broadcast
Processor, as kids wanted their CDs to sound like they heard them on the
radio. There's a nightclub in Ireland that uses an Orban 8400 to process the
PA to get maximum loudness. Madness..........

S.

"Remastered" CDs - the truth
 

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

But then she's also got hot pink seat covers and steering wheel
cover.
And a fake Burberry baseball cap? :-)

Nope. Although she does do quite a good impression of Vicky Pollard...
"yerbutnobutyerbut..."

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

"Remastered" CDs - the truth
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Glenn Richards wrote:
Radio is the problem - the record producers figure that as you are
hopping through the channels, you will stop on the one that is the
loudest. A ridiculous concept, but it is what drives the music
industry right now.

Except the track that I posted the visualisations of was recorded in
1981, before such nonsense existed.

Not really. Think of Spector's 'Wall of Sound'. You could use most of his
stuff as line up tone. ;-)

:-)))

I used to enjoy looking at Rolling Stones masters made at Bell Sound in
New York, particularly on the Scully or Ampex tape machine's own
VU meters. Wack! over to the end stop for three minutes, drop to
-30 then wack again over to the end stop. But the sound was
entirely appropriate for the material.


Yes. But it seems to be what the 'public' wants. Look at the number of
those who complain about ads in TV sounding louder than the progs. The
only practical way round that is to process the whole lot to within an
inch of its life. And make it sound like Talk Radio.

Many sound mixers who come from a film background have quite a shock
when they start to do TV comnmercials. For external shots,. they are used
to four maybe five tracks of ambience, traffic, birds, footsteps, etc - all
wonderfully subtle stuff, beautifully laid in, and cut together but
completely lost in most "Finalised" TV adds.

Never mind the quality. feel the width!
Iain