Why analogue and not digital?

[evm1024]

Look in all honesty I am having a hard time understanding your point. On one hand I think that you think that this is the cave and are playing with us. On the other I think that you are being rather dense. Then again I think that you live in some kind of fantasy land and truly think that the theoretical perfection of nyquist is important to real world implementations. At other times I'm thinking that you are so geeky that you do not see how absurd your insistence is.

I'll reserve judgment and ask.

What is your point? What do we (I) need to concede to you to get you to move forward to a constructive discussion? How is the perfection of nyquist in a perfect world significant to this discussion??

Regards, Ethan

No, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once.



The error caused by this is called aliasing and imaging. The effects of the error are easily calculated. It is prevented by low pass filtering, the application of which is robust.



That's jitter, and it's also well understood.



That's quantization distortion, also well understood.



Well, yeah, and I wish I had a laser stylus error correcting cartridge on my turntable.

 

[apl]

Look in all honesty I am having a hard time understanding your point. What do we (I) need to concede to you to get you to move forward to a constructive discussion? How is the perfection of nyquist in a perfect world significant to this discussion??

Regards, Ethan

OK, let's see if I can summarize.

I love analog. If I could, I'd track, mix, and master on tape then digitize. But I can't because I don't have the room or budget for all the gear that it takes to do that. You need decks and a board and all kinds of rack effects. And the people who have that stuff produce some wonderful work. Oh, plus you need lots of tape.

I love digital. I can make a very good recording, do all kinds of editing and effects and stuff, and it's very cost effective.

There are some people who want to propagate false ideas about how the digital domain works. Even worse, they posit notions that are simply wrong as reasons not to use digital. I'm simply trying to prevent misinformation.

Recording either way has its problems, distortions, and challenges. Neither domain is perfect.

The perfection I was referring to involves the .wav file. Getting from the electrical analog signal going to converter will introduce errors, but once you've got the .wav file that .wav file will not change. You can then take a group of .wav files into an audio editor and add them together in some proportions and turn down the amplitude of the total. That's mixing. Then you can hit solo on the original file, put the slider at 0 dB, and the output will be an exact duplicate of the original .wav. The math that the plugins use is perfect in the sense that they give the exact same results every time.

So that's what I mean by the perfection of the digital domain.

 

[evm1024]

Let's reply on the technical side

Robust, well understood etc do not mean not there, insignificant, removed.... Here is some thoughts on that....

No, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once.



The error caused by this is called aliasing and imaging. The effects of the error are easily calculated. It is prevented by low pass filtering, the application of which is robust.

Quoting from a paper http://people.csail.mit.edu/unamay/publications-dir/filter-gecco06.pdf

Ideal filter characteristics are practically unrealizable and designers accept this limitation. More vexing to the designer is the fact that performance characteristics are coupled to each other in non-linear and indirect ways.

That's jitter, and it's also well understood.

Here is a paper on jitter that is quite old but I think that the part I quote below it quite important in regards to prior portions of this thread.
http://www.troisi.com/lit/jitter.PDF

Aurally the effects of this type of jitter can be quite harsh even though the side lobe amplitudes are approximately 120dB below the full-scale signal. Since they will have no musical relationship to the signal they will typically be audible as long as other masking agents do not interfere. Taking things a step further, if the generation of clock jitter is induced by a square wave the resultant effect will include harmonic multiples of the jitter frequency in the audio signal. Figure 6 shows the effect of square wave jitter causing
multiple side lobes, harmonically related to the clock disturbance, but dissonant to the content of the audio signal.

That's quantization distortion, also well understood.

Here is an extract from a book a few years old.
http://www.tonmeister.ca/main/textbook/node593.html

Since the quantization error is periodic, it is a distortion of the signal and is therefore directly related to the signal itself. Our brains are quite good at ignoring unimportant things. For example, you walk into someone's house and you smell a new smell - the way that house smells. After 5 minutes you don't smell it anymore. The smell hasn't gone away - your brain just ignores it when it realizes that it's a constant. The same is true of analog tape noise. If you're like most people you pay attention to the music, you stop hearing the noise after a couple of minutes. Your brain is able to do this all by itself because the noise is unrelated to the signal. It's a constant, unrelated sound that never changes with the music and is therefore unrelated - the brain decides that it doesn't change so it's not worth tracking. Distortion is something different. Distortion, like noise, is typically comprised entirely of unwanted material (I'm not talking about guitar distortion effects or the distortion of a vintage microphone here...). Unlike noise, however, distortion products modulate with the signal. Consequently the brain thinks that this is important material because it's trackable, and therefore you're always paying attention. This is why it's much more difficult to ignore distortion than noise. Unfortunately, quantization error produces distortion - not noise.

Well, yeah, and I wish I had a laser stylus error correcting cartridge on my turntable.

 

[evm1024]

Ok

OK fair enough. But remember that when you go after those who spread mis-information that you do not do so in a way that is not also mis-information.

For example if you respond in absolute terms you are spreading mis-information (give an exact answer where none exist).

You have a lot more faith in your computer that I do be it a PC or an embedded processor. I have seen too many non-deterministic math errors in the codes we run here at work.

E

OK, let's see if I can summarize.

I love analog. If I could, I'd track, mix, and master on tape then digitize. But I can't because I don't have the room or budget for all the gear that it takes to do that. You need decks and a board and all kinds of rack effects. And the people who have that stuff produce some wonderful work. Oh, plus you need lots of tape.

I love digital. I can make a very good recording, do all kinds of editing and effects and stuff, and it's very cost effective.

There are some people who want to propagate false ideas about how the digital domain works. Even worse, they posit notions that are simply wrong as reasons not to use digital. I'm simply trying to prevent misinformation.

Recording either way has its problems, distortions, and challenges. Neither domain is perfect.

The perfection I was referring to involves the .wav file. Getting from the electrical analog signal going to converter will introduce errors, but once you've got the .wav file that .wav file will not change. You can then take a group of .wav files into an audio editor and add them together in some proportions and turn down the amplitude of the total. That's mixing. Then you can hit solo on the original file, put the slider at 0 dB, and the output will be an exact duplicate of the original .wav. The math that the plugins use is perfect in the sense that they give the exact same results every time.

So that's what I mean by the perfection of the digital domain.

 

[cjacek]

It's not nonsense. The math is as reliable 2 + 2 = 4. You can exactly reconstruct a waveform with frequency content up to twice the sampling frequency.

As I said before, the digital domain is perfect. Getting into and out of it is not.

I'm not as well versed in the numbers as you seem to be but it's easy to pick up that you're either contradicting yourself or putting a spin on it. The faster you go, the more it goes over our heads..

First, it's all good and then it is not. Well, which is it? I don't know about you but I like my things to get 'into and out', with as much perfection as possible.

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[cjacek]

Seems like I have to repeat myself yet again. I wasnt discussing the pro's and cons of 44.1 vs 96. In a very early post, the guy who started this thread posted your snapshot of the 10khz waveform, or its 44.1 representation, and on that basis made the assertion, or assumption, that with digital recording, audio information - whole chunks of audio information - is lost AT ALL AUDIO FREQUENCIES, right down to 20hz.

That of course is nonsense. You dont believe that, I dont believe that, but he does. Would you mind telling him he's mistaken, that yes, people record at 96khz but not to improve the resolution at 20hz or even 1khz but much further up the audio spectrum. Since he apparently respects your views, maybe he'll believe it coming from you.

I was just trying to help the guy out. I made that very clear in the original post.

Once again, please read the discussion in context. Is that too much to ask?

Cheers Tim

No, what is 'nonsense', rather, is the assertion [or assumption] that with digital recording audio information is NOT lost [yes, at all frequencies]. You don't have to possess a degree in physics or mathematics to know that when you sample a sound per second [whatever the fixed number sample], you're omitting information, whether that is in the form of sound staging, depth, ambiance, coherence, air or what have you..

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Just wanted to add to my previous reply...

Tim, as you’re so hanged up on frequencies, its response and also the limitation of human hearing, let me pose a question to you…

A well encoded mp3 or any other ‘lossy’ format can have a frequency response similar to CD and yet the former doesn’t nearly sound as good. Why?

Take the SACD now… Its sampling rate is through the roof, with no brick wall limiting of frequencies. It totally blows away the mp3 and the CD but yet you say people can’t hear past a certain range, which the CD satisfies. How do you account for the greater sonic capabilities of SACD then?

I personally can’t hear much past 16khz and yet I can immediately tell SACD sounds much better than CD and that the CD is better than mp3.

Hey, maybe to you, an mp3, CD and SACD all sound nearly identical and in which case, forget the above.

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[Tim Gillett]

Just wanted to add to my previous reply...

Tim, as you’re so hanged up on frequencies, its response and also the limitation of human hearing, let me pose a question to you…

A well encoded mp3 or any other ‘lossy’ format can have a frequency response similar to CD and yet the former doesn’t nearly sound as good. Why?

Take the SACD now… Its sampling rate is through the roof, with no brick wall limiting of frequencies. It totally blows away the mp3 and the CD but yet you say people can’t hear past a certain range, which the CD satisfies. How do you account for the greater sonic capabilities of SACD then?

I personally can’t hear much past 16khz and yet I can immediately tell SACD sounds much better than CD and that the CD is better than mp3.

Hey, maybe to you, an mp3, CD and SACD all sound nearly identical and in which case, forget the above.

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First of all, I've never owned or listened to an SACD. You have so you're one up on me.
But if I was buying SACD's instead of CD's I'd want to get something more for my extra money, so I'm glad you're hearing a difference. Waste of money if you couldnt, hey. Especially when SACD's cant be played on normal players.

But what is it you're hearing? The problem is we didnt control the production process. Even if there is a noticeable improvement in audio, the question is what is the cause (or causes) of the improvement?
It could be the better audio potential of the SACD (the CD has a s/n limitation of 96db and an upper frequency limit of 20khz). But those CD specs are pretty damned good for release of finished, mastered productions to the public. You'd want to be very sure that it wasnt something else before implicating the limitations of the CD, though I admit it's possible. Even so I think the differences would be marginal and only detectable with extremely careful listening under excellent listening conditions, AND only on master material that exceeded the audio limitations of the CD.

I believe (Wiki SACD article) that for re releases onto SACD, remastering engineers can take more time and effort to retrieve maximum fidelity, partly I guess because it's meant to be a premium audio format and they have to give the customer at least something better sounding than the CD release, considering they are paying extra money than for the CD version.

So yes, I hope you are hearing it better on SACD, but as to why, that is not something anyone like us could be sure about unless we had access to the original master recordings.

I guess a good test we could do in or own homes or studios would be to take the SACD and convert it digitally down to 16 bit 44 and then burn to CD. But I dont know enough about the SACD to know if that would be valid or even possible given possible copy management protection. Maybe someone else could chime in here.

I was never happy with the liner note at the back of CD's calling the sound "perfect".
Sometimes the word "perfect" might be better expressed as "strikes a perfect balance" between competing factors, like cost and quality.
For many less than premium quality recordings, transferring to the CD format is extravagantly wasteful, and lower sample and bit rates, and yes mp3 compression, are often entirely appropriate. It depends on many factors.

But yes, there are definite limitations to human hearing and so beyond a certain point, there is no advantage in pushing fidelity higher and higher, whether in analog or digital. That's "nature". If Sony/Philips had been designing CD's for dogs, cats or bats, it would probably have been a different sample and bit rate.

Cheers Tim

 

[Dr ZEE]

There are some people who want to propagate false ideas about how the digital domain works.

Cool! I am on your side when it comes to confronting those bastards.

Even worse, they posit notions that are simply wrong as reasons not to use digital.

I don't see it as "worse", honestly, and in that case I may let the injustice slip through my fingers. Again, I admit , I AM! unfair toward digital advocates (I have my reasonings, which is a separate topic and rather is a complex one).
So, If somebody will not use digital due to false information, I would not worry about it, because, the alternative for those poor mislead individuals will be nothing less than analog recording. Hey, this way I may even have a chance to find some new recordings out there that I actually can truly enjoy. That would be cool. And, from where I stand, when it comes to truly enjoing a recording fairness and objectiveness does not apply.

Well, so, again, I am NOT simply trying to prevent misinformation, I am only trying to prevent misinformation which I personally find to be worrisome.

Nevertheless, on a principle level, I DO NOT advocate spreading deliberate misinformation of any kind. It's just that I reserve my "right to select priorities" and pay more close attention to what I find to be more important, based on subjective evaluation of matters, but, of course

Now, since you are the man who is simply trying to prevent misinformation, then here's a question for you:
Are you on my side when it comes to confronting people who want to propagate false ideas about how the digital domain works, what it is and what it actually does and posit notions that are simply wrong as reasons to use digital?

I won't hold my breath, but hey , you never know.
So, uh..., just in case if you ARE on my side there, then you can start right now right here (I mean where ever you are), and , for example, Stop refering to that lovely thing on your screen that you adore so much as "slider" , because nor it is a slider and neither does it slide.
Well, that's a start, but then as you (and if you) keep going you may actually realize that the entire "Digital Audio Empire" thrives and is heavily dependent on presentation of "things" as what they are not and proclamations of how those "things" do what "they" don't.
(NOTE - "things" and "they" are in quote marks, as there ARE NO "things" nor "they" ("them", that is ) there)

*******

one more thing:

The math that the plugins use is perfect in the sense...

If "a math" isn't perfect, then it's not Math (well, the "Math" within itself, sort of speak, I suppose heh heh), so
- Try to keep that in mind, or you may have hard time confronting those ugly misinforming the public bastards.
- and, well, one way or the other, if the math that plugins use was not perfect, then....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, , then, UHHHHHHH! I know! - then we actually could have some real fun with those plugins . .

...they give the exact same results every time.
So that's what I mean by the perfection of the digital domain.

You can see it as "perfection" if you choose to see it that way. Yet, in reality, the fact that that "digital domain system "gives" the exact result every time" is an indication of rather limitation than perfection. It depends on how you look at it.
That "system" is just as perfect as a set of switches, or put it even more simple - it's just as perfect just as a switch. You flip the switch "ON" - lamp comes on, you flip the switch "OFF" - lights out.

Hey, if you can handle a "switch", then one day you can become a "switchmen-king" and take over the "world"!
Just make sure, first that, wherever any train in the "world" goes - there is one of "your guys", and you gotta keep your eye on them.
Here's one:

 

[apl]

I don't see it as "worse", honestly, and in that case I may let the injustice slip through my fingers. Again, I admit , I AM! unfair toward digital advocates (I have my reasonings, which is a separate topic and rather is a complex one).
So, If somebody will not use digital due to false information, I would not worry about it, because, the alternative for those poor mislead individuals will be nothing less than analog recording.

So if someone posted something like...

Avoid digital. It makes people's hair fall out.

...you wouldn't call them on it?

 

[ausrock]

Well I know I probably wouldn't, chances are that their hair loss is a result of it being pulled out due to the frustration of dealing with one or more aspects of the digital format.


apl,

I've gathered you are an "engineer", of what discipline I don't know but I'm afraid it doesn't impress me sufficiently for me to give much credence to your "arguments"....................in at least part of my "professional working life", some of the most monumental fucks ups were the work of Tertiary/University qualified "engineers". It doesn't matter what "title" one is entitled to use, what level of education one has achieved, what one has achieved in either professional or personal life, the cold hard facts are that while one is entitled to one's personal opinions and preferences, there is no guarantee that one's beliefs are right or correct.................while they may be right or correct for one individual, there's no reason to assume that they are right or correct for others.

 

[apl]

Well I know I probably wouldn't, chances are that their hair loss is a result of it being pulled out due to the frustration of dealing with one or more aspects of the digital format.

Yeah, going digital assumes one understands the perils of doing anything on a computer.

apl,

I've gathered you are an "engineer", of what discipline I don't know but I'm afraid it doesn't impress me sufficiently for me to give much credence to your "arguments"....................in at least part of my "professional working life", some of the most monumental fucks ups were the work of Tertiary/University qualified "engineers". It doesn't matter what "title" one is entitled to use, what level of education one has achieved, what one has achieved in either professional or personal life, the cold hard facts are that while one is entitled to one's personal opinions and preferences, there is no guarantee that one's beliefs are right or correct.................while they may be right or correct for one individual, there's no reason to assume that they are right or correct for others.

I have similar experience with such people.

I don't believe I've thrown that card out in this discussion. I usually use it for acoustics issues, like people need to treat their recording space. I know mshilarious mentioned it here.

Anyway, since you didn't exactly ask, here is the first piece of digital equipment I used professionally back in the late 80s.

 

[Dr ZEE]

To the guy who lost his hair I say: "I hear you, man".

To the guys for whom remaining hair matter I say: "You've been warned."

/later

 

[apl]

To the guy who lost his hair I say: "I hear you, man".

To the guys for whom remaining hair matter I say: "You've been warned."

/later

Complicit with lies to advance your agenda? Are you a politician or something?

 

[Dr ZEE]

Complicit with lies to advance your agenda?

Yes!, but only in your imaginary world. Just the same as only in your imaginary world there's a guy who "lies" about hair.

In the real world there are bunch of victims sitting infront of flat screens (with one hand on the mouse and the other hand being occupied by picking their noses) "sliding" "sliders", adjusting "their" "spring reverbs" "parameters" and, of course, getting the same perfect result every time.

Are you a politician or something?

Nop. I am just a foot soldier of an army of one. Also, I've seen few other armies just like mine around.

/later

 

[famous beagle]

But yes, there are definite limitations to human hearing and so beyond a certain point, there is no advantage in pushing fidelity higher and higher, whether in analog or digital. That's "nature". If Sony/Philips had been designing CD's for dogs, cats or bats, it would probably have been a different sample and bit rate.

Cheers Tim

I must say, I think this is a limited view and is placing too much trust in our current level of scientific prowess. If science teaches us anything, it's that we still have so much to learn.

Think about how the model of the atom has changed throughout the years (or before that, even, the molecule). There was a time when we didn't know that neutrons, protons, or electrons existed, and that "misinformation" was taught as fact in schools.

I've read a few studies that demonstrated how many people respond differently to music and sounds that includes frequencies well above the accepted human range of hearing (such as 40khz and above). The general concensus was always that sounds containing those higher frequencies were more pleasing.

Obviously, this may be on a pyscho-acoustic or unconcious level, but as I've said in other posts before, many things that we all accept as fact occur on an "unconcious" level.

Take the harmonic series, for instance. If you play an open A string on a guitar and ask someone to sing the notes they hear, what are they going to sing? They'll sing the fundamental for sure, maybe the octave, and the 5th above that maybe, if the string is allowed to ring out long enough. But no one (or practically no one) is going be singing the slightly flat b7th note that's occuring 2 octaves + a b7th up, or how about the one that's 3 octaves and a slightly flat 9th?

No one would sing those notes, unless they were trained in the harmonic series and were just spitting out what they knew.

But the point is, those notes are there, and even though we can't conciously hear them, they greatly affect what we perceive. I think the same thing could certainly be possible with regards to frequency range.

 

[ausrock]

Maybe rather than say "unconcious level" we should say "subconcious level"

 

[famous beagle]

Maybe rather than say "unconcious level" we should say "subconcious level"

lol ... yeah that's probably what I was looking for.

 

[Tim Gillett]

I guess if there's a market out there for ultrasonic music recordings, there's bound to be someone ready to make money out of making and selling them.

Speaking personally, I probably wouldnt be buying shares in the company.

Cheers Tim

 

[famous beagle]

I guess if there's a market out there for ultrasonic music recordings, there's bound to be someone ready to make money out of making and selling them.

Speaking personally, I probably wouldnt be buying shares in the company.

Cheers Tim

I think you missed my point!

 

[evm1024]

Tim really Take heed

I guess if there's a market out there for ultrasonic music recordings, there's bound to be someone ready to make money out of making and selling them.

Speaking personally, I probably wouldnt be buying shares in the company.

Cheers Tim

Tim, really you should take heed of famous beagle's well thought out response. To state with conviction limits on human hearing and what is or is not heard and processed is folly.

This is just the kind of mis-information that is used to justify the digital perfection myth.

APL, MSH, help you folks are the champions of scientific and technical facts (no wait, I'm a Research Systems Engineer so I am too!) and will not allow the facts to be ignored and mis-information to go un-challenged.

Here it is right here. A paper from post 97 showing that human do respond to sounds over 20 kHz.

http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/83/6/3548

This is science man and needs to be taken into account!

Let me drop a few lines of it on you from the conclusions!

------------
Despite the fact that nonstationary HFCs were not perceived as sounds by themselves, we demonstrated that the presentation of sounds that contained a considerable amount of nonstationary HFCs (i.e., FRS) significantly enhanced the power of the spontaneous EEG activity of alpha range when compared with the same sound lacking HFCs (i.e., HCS).
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By Gumby, Humans are able to perceive HFC (just not as individual sounds). Perhaps hearing is more complex that just a set of microphones onthe side of your head.

And....
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We interpret these findings to mean that the hypersonic effect does not simply result from a neurophysiological response to isolated frequencies above an audible range, but from a more complex interaction to which HFCs and LFCs both contribute.
------------

So with all due respect HFC are perceived and thus the question becomes not if they are detectable but one of how significant are they....