[Arny Krueger]

Lots of negative things have been said about digital and the old Ry Cooder
"Bop Till You Drop" album.

For example:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...3c6ba8fd5fc29f

From: (John Atkinson)

chung wrote in message
...

S888Wheel wrote:

Good thing some one came up with dither to help digital with
this problem. Funny thing though, CDs were already proclaimed
champion by the measurement folks before they were being dithered.
Now an undithered digital recording is considered defective.

Can you provide an example of a CD recording with no dithering applied?

There were many released in the 1980s, Ry Cooder's "Bop Till You Drop,"
for example.

Here's an item I ran into from arguably the most technically competent
person on the scene:

http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2001_08.html

"The Ry Cooder Bop Till You Drop album was the first digitally recorded pop
album. It was recorded on the 3M 32-track digital recorder at Amigo studios
in North Hollywood California. We booked the Village Recorder in 1981 to cut
tracks for Nightfly and decided to try the 3M digital machine. We ran a
Studer A-80 24-track analog machine in parallel with the 3M for the test.
After the band laid down a take we performed an a-b-c listening test. The
analog and digital machines were played back in sync while the band played
along live. We could compare the analog machine, the digital machine, and
the live band. The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital
machine. We re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was
the clear winner. We rolled the Studer out into the street, (just kidding)
and did the rest of the recording on the 3M 32-track machine. When it came
time to mix, we mixed to the 3M 4-track machine.
"The 3M 32-track used 1" digital tape and the 4-track used 1/2" digital
tape. They both ran at 45 ips. I guess 3M wanted to sell you lots of tape.
The digital audio was recorded at 50kHz 16bits. There were no 16bit
converters in 1981, so the 3M system used a 12 bit Burr-Brown converter and
4bits of an 8bit converter as gain-ranging to produce the 16bit results. The
"brick wall" analog filters on the 3M machine hand-wound coils and took up
most of a circuit board. They sounded good.

"The biggest drawback to the 3M system was the minimal error correction.
After a couple of months working on the same piece of tape, the error count
started to rise above the correctable level. There were adjustments on the
front of the machine to fine tune the decoding of the data recorded on tape.
You could adjust each track for the least amount of correctable errors and
then transfer the tape digitally to another 3M machine. You now had a clean
error-free tape to work on for a couple of months.

Note that in a live versus analog versus digital comparison,

"The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital machine. We
re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was the clear
winner."

[[email protected]]

On Mar 1, 7:22?am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
Lots of negative things have been said about digital and the old Ry Cooder
"Bop Till You Drop" album.

For example:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...3c6ba8fd5fc29f

From: (John Atkinson)

chung wrote in message

...

S888Wheel wrote:
Good thing some one came up with dither to help digital with
this problem. Funny thing though, CDs were already proclaimed
champion by the measurement folks before they were being dithered.
Now an undithered digital recording is considered defective.
Can you provide an example of a CD recording with no dithering applied?
There were many released in the 1980s, Ry Cooder's "Bop Till You Drop,"

for example.

Here's an item I ran into from arguably the most technically competent
person on the scene:

http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2001_08.html

"The Ry Cooder Bop Till You Drop album was the first digitally recorded pop
album. It was recorded on the 3M 32-track digital recorder at Amigo studios
in North Hollywood California. We booked the Village Recorder in 1981 to cut
tracks for Nightfly and decided to try the 3M digital machine. We ran a
Studer A-80 24-track analog machine in parallel with the 3M for the test.
After the band laid down a take we performed an a-b-c listening test. The
analog and digital machines were played back in sync while the band played
along live. We could compare the analog machine, the digital machine, and
the live band. The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital
machine. We re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was
the clear winner. We rolled the Studer out into the street, (just kidding)
and did the rest of the recording on the 3M 32-track machine. When it came
time to mix, we mixed to the 3M 4-track machine.
"The 3M 32-track used 1" digital tape and the 4-track used 1/2" digital
tape. They both ran at 45 ips. I guess 3M wanted to sell you lots of tape.
The digital audio was recorded at 50kHz 16bits. There were no 16bit
converters in 1981, so the 3M system used a 12 bit Burr-Brown converter and
4bits of an 8bit converter as gain-ranging to produce the 16bit results. The
"brick wall" analog filters on the 3M machine hand-wound coils and took up
most of a circuit board. They sounded good.

"The biggest drawback to the 3M system was the minimal error correction.
After a couple of months working on the same piece of tape, the error count
started to rise above the correctable level. There were adjustments on the
front of the machine to fine tune the decoding of the data recorded on tape.
You could adjust each track for the least amount of correctable errors and
then transfer the tape digitally to another 3M machine. You now had a clean
error-free tape to work on for a couple of months.

Note that in a live versus analog versus digital comparison,

"The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital machine. We
re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was the clear
winner."

I see nothing there to conflict what I said about the CD not being
dithered. Any evidence that it was dithered? If I was incorrect I have
no problem being corrected.

Scott