In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:
In article , Arny
Krueger wrote:
Compared to modern GUI tools, SOX's command line UI is pretty
daunting from an ease-of-use standpoint. Tools like Cooledit have
been publicly released and widely used for about 17 years.. If open
source floats your boat, Audacity would seem to be a massive step
forward from SOX, especially if you add one of the zillions of
plug-in equalizers.

Think the problem is Jim won't use anything that doesn't run on linux.

Well I think the 'problem' is misunderstanding what I have in mind. :-)

FWIW I think programs like Audacity work OK on Linux. And I think I
have experimented with it in the past. However my interest is in being
able initially to experiment, but then to have the ability to 'batch
process' files when needed with presets I have chosen.

Remastering has generally been thought as being a per-album or per-track
operation.

The problem being to have those involved do this (or not!) in an
appropriate manner! :-)

FWIW Out of curiousity, last night I did a comparison of two versions of
the 'Mercury' 1812 Overture recording. One on the CD issue from the 1990s,
the other from the new box.

They aren't exactly identical if you just read the discs and compare them.
But they are if you offset one set of data by about 30 milliseconds. Then
the two CDs are identical, sample-for-sample.

This is a shame as it has been clear for years that the transfer from the
1990s is heavily clipped. So it looks like the record company neither know
nor care about this. Which does cast doubts on some of the other transfers
for the same reason.

But the start question was to see if others thought there was anything
like an 'EMI sound' *for the CDs they have released* in terms of the
spectral balance being different to the original LP releases.

I can't speak for the recording processes used by every label, but in
the U.S. it was very clear to me as a listener that at least Motown,
RCA and Columbia had a "house sound" that they mastered their
recordings to match.

I'd say that was also true for classical EMI, Decca, etc. However my
curiosity is the systematic difference I suspect often exists for EMI
recordings between old LP transfers and later CD transfers. And, if so,
what the reasons may be.

Alas, as with the Mercury example, it may just be because those involved
haven't actually compared or checked.

In some cases I can see why a 'flat transfer' with no attempts to tweak or
'improve' make sense. But in other cases some adjustment may well be
sensible. The difficulty is to have those doing the work always deal with
this well! :-/

Regardless of which, a lot of the Mercury box - and EMI recordings - are
very enjoyable. But it is unfortunate when problems mar them which could
have been avoided.

Slainte,

Jim

--
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