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hinz[_2_] hinz[_2_] is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

Can it be said that treble needs to be cut in a mix if the recorded
material is deficient in some way? I mean some live recordings of rock
bands for example, with roughly recorded setups, where the mix seems to
be turned 'low-fi' on purpose to make the deficiencies less noticable.

I used to think that it was just that the gear used in the 60s/70s
didn't pick up above 14kHz say, but that seems to be untrue. Rather the
highs are cut in the mix as a choice.

Another example: Take the Dark Side of the Moon album recorded
masterfully by Alan Parsons, he was able to keep all the high
frequencies in 1973, whereas the follow ups 'Wish you were here' and
'Animals' are dull sounding in comparison, even though the recordings
were made later with newer technology.
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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

In article , hinz wrote:
I used to think that it was just that the gear used in the 60s/70s
didn't pick up above 14kHz say, but that seems to be untrue. Rather the
highs are cut in the mix as a choice.


Put a lot of top end, and an LP becomes very difficult to cut. So bright
music will be cut pretty quiet on LP. The system is slew-limited, because
you can only move the stylus so fast. Easy to get high frequencies with
small excursion, hard to get it with a lot of excursion.

Another example: Take the Dark Side of the Moon album recorded
masterfully by Alan Parsons, he was able to keep all the high
frequencies in 1973, whereas the follow ups 'Wish you were here' and
'Animals' are dull sounding in comparison, even though the recordings
were made later with newer technology.


Are you comparing the original LP versions, the different-sounding LP reissues,
the original (harsh) CD reissues, or later reissues? All are tonally different.

In great part it is a matter of fashion. With classical music it's easy to
know if it's tonally correct, because the playback sounds like the sound in
the studio. With rock music there is no such reference point. With rock
music it's tonally correct if the producer says it is. Producers are different
and fashions change with time.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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hinz[_2_] hinz[_2_] is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

Scott Dorsey writes:
In article , hinz wrote:
I used to think that it was just that the gear used in the 60s/70s
didn't pick up above 14kHz say, but that seems to be untrue. Rather the
highs are cut in the mix as a choice.


Put a lot of top end, and an LP becomes very difficult to cut. So bright
music will be cut pretty quiet on LP. The system is slew-limited, because
you can only move the stylus so fast. Easy to get high frequencies with
small excursion, hard to get it with a lot of excursion.

Another example: Take the Dark Side of the Moon album recorded
masterfully by Alan Parsons, he was able to keep all the high
frequencies in 1973, whereas the follow ups 'Wish you were here' and
'Animals' are dull sounding in comparison, even though the recordings
were made later with newer technology.


Are you comparing the original LP versions, the different-sounding LP reissues,
the original (harsh) CD reissues, or later reissues? All are tonally different.


I must admit I haven't played the LPs in decades. Dark Side used to be
admired though for its fidelity and was a test LP for high-end systems.

In great part it is a matter of fashion. With classical music it's easy to
know if it's tonally correct, because the playback sounds like the sound in
the studio. With rock music there is no such reference point. With rock
music it's tonally correct if the producer says it is. Producers are different
and fashions change with time.
--scott


The producers went for a much duller sound for Wish you were here and
Animals; my suspicion is that this was because the source material
(especially drums) was not recorded as well as it was for Dark Side. The
next album (The Wall) again has exceptional tonal quality with all the
highs.


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Ty Ford[_2_] Ty Ford[_2_] is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

Early CD players skrimped on the D/A section and the buffer amps to get the sound out to the RCA output jacks. There was only ONE D/A circuit that switched back and forth from one track to the other.

Once that was solved by having separate D/A converters and the buffer circuits were improved, so did the sound.

16-bit multitrack sessions were ditched for 24-bit sessions (or higher). That also helped a lot.

There was a wide variance in LP playback systems and that was made worse by people who often used graphic EQ in their systems and set them for "smiley face" with boosted bass and treble.

Having said that, there had been a movement for some time in the analog recording world to increase HF response. Dolby and other noise reduction circuits, back coated recording tape to allow the tape to be hit with stronger signal without print-through, people messing with other things.

Listen to original pressings of the first Pure Prairie League LP. The brights are horrible
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Phil Allison[_4_] Phil Allison[_4_] is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

Ty Ford Knows **** All about Audio:


Early CD players skrimped on the D/A section and the buffer amps to
get the sound out to the RCA output jacks.


** Complete bull**** presented as fact.

The only thing Ty Ford knows how to do.


There was only ONE D/A circuit that switched back and forth from one
track to the other.


** The first Sony CD players did that and it worked extremely well.

The performance was better that nearly any player that followed and better than nearly any stereo amplifier available.


Once that was solved by having separate D/A converters and the
buffer circuits were improved, so did the sound.


** Since there simply was no problem there was nothing to solve.

Later players were made more cheaply then the early Sonys.


Snip rest of this bull****ting fake's *audiophool* nonsense that Ty has been making his living from for years.



.... Phil


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Les Cargill[_4_] Les Cargill[_4_] is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

hinz wrote:
Can it be said that treble needs to be cut in a mix if the recorded
material is deficient in some way? I mean some live recordings of rock
bands for example, with roughly recorded setups, where the mix seems to
be turned 'low-fi' on purpose to make the deficiencies less noticable.

I used to think that it was just that the gear used in the 60s/70s
didn't pick up above 14kHz say, but that seems to be untrue. Rather the
highs are cut in the mix as a choice.

Another example: Take the Dark Side of the Moon album recorded
masterfully by Alan Parsons, he was able to keep all the high
frequencies in 1973, whereas the follow ups 'Wish you were here' and
'Animals' are dull sounding in comparison, even though the recordings
were made later with newer technology.


DSOTM, Animals and "Wish You Were Here" were very consistent on the
original vinyl. DSOTM has a lot of phasey stuff in the high end, though.
It sounds like tape wear and saturation.

--
Les Cargill
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Default Treble in recordings

Ty Ford wrote:
Early CD players skrimped on the D/A section and the buffer amps to get the sound out to the RCA output jacks. There was only ONE D/A circuit that switched back and forth from one track to the other.

Once that was solved by having separate D/A converters and the buffer circuits were improved, so did the sound.

16-bit multitrack sessions were ditched for 24-bit sessions (or higher). That also helped a lot.

There was a wide variance in LP playback systems and that was made worse by people who often used graphic EQ in their systems and set them for "smiley face" with boosted bass and treble.

Having said that, there had been a movement for some time in the analog recording world to increase HF response. Dolby and other noise reduction circuits, back coated recording tape to allow the tape to be hit with stronger signal without print-through, people messing with other things.

Listen to original pressings of the first Pure Prairie League LP. The brights are horrible



The worst one I ever heard was Don Felder's solo album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIz6rx07-Lo

--
Les Cargill
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hinz[_2_] hinz[_2_] is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

Les Cargill writes:
hinz wrote:
Can it be said that treble needs to be cut in a mix if the recorded
material is deficient in some way? I mean some live recordings of rock
bands for example, with roughly recorded setups, where the mix seems
to be turned 'low-fi' on purpose to make the deficiencies less noticable.

I used to think that it was just that the gear used in the 60s/70s
didn't pick up above 14kHz say, but that seems to be untrue. Rather
the highs are cut in the mix as a choice.

Another example: Take the Dark Side of the Moon album recorded
masterfully by Alan Parsons, he was able to keep all the high
frequencies in 1973, whereas the follow ups 'Wish you were here' and
'Animals' are dull sounding in comparison, even though the recordings
were made later with newer technology.


DSOTM, Animals and "Wish You Were Here" were very consistent on the
original vinyl. DSOTM has a lot of phasey stuff in the high end, though.
It sounds like tape wear and saturation.


That's interesting. I listened to some vinyl pressings on YT and they
are indeed a lot more consistent in comparison. They really changed the
CD remix, making DSOTM much brighter and the others duller than they
were. DSOTM still seems a bit clearer on the cymbals mainly.




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Ty Ford[_2_] Ty Ford[_2_] is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

yawn

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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

In article , hinz wrote:

That's interesting. I listened to some vinyl pressings on YT and they
are indeed a lot more consistent in comparison. They really changed the
CD remix, making DSOTM much brighter and the others duller than they
were. DSOTM still seems a bit clearer on the cymbals mainly.


This is frequently just a matter of what the current style is when the
reissue is made.

You'll notice the LP releases of the first Beatles albums were tonally
quite different between the Parlophone and Columbia releases. The US
releases were very midrange-heavy, because that's what they thought US
customers wanted.

Some reissues were clearly bungled, having been made from equalized
distribution master tapes or made with incorrect playback eq or azimuth.
It's not surprising to find US reissues of European recordings made
by playing back CCIR-equalized tapes on an NAB machine (and if there aren't
any markings on the box or tone ladders on the tape the only clue is the
sound). But a whole lot of other reissues were squashed and brightented
to meet the fashion of the day when they were released.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


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geoff geoff is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

On 4/08/2019 3:36 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
In article , hinz wrote:

That's interesting. I listened to some vinyl pressings on YT and they
are indeed a lot more consistent in comparison. They really changed the
CD remix, making DSOTM much brighter and the others duller than they
were. DSOTM still seems a bit clearer on the cymbals mainly.


This is frequently just a matter of what the current style is when the
reissue is made.

You'll notice the LP releases of the first Beatles albums were tonally
quite different between the Parlophone and Columbia releases. The US
releases were very midrange-heavy, because that's what they thought US
customers wanted.

Some reissues were clearly bungled, having been made from equalized
distribution master tapes or made with incorrect playback eq or azimuth.
It's not surprising to find US reissues of European recordings made
by playing back CCIR-equalized tapes on an NAB machine (and if there aren't
any markings on the box or tone ladders on the tape the only clue is the
sound). But a whole lot of other reissues were squashed and brightented
to meet the fashion of the day when they were released.
--scott


Many first generation remastered CDs had the treble that was there
cranked to make up for the higher treble that didn't exist. Which is why
many sounded harsh and glary.

geoff
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Default Treble in recordings

geoff wrote: "
Many first generation remastered CDs had the treble that was there
cranked to make up for the higher treble that didn't exist. Which is why
many sounded harsh and glary.

geoff "

One reason I avoid them in most cases.






(Waiting for some jerk to tell me I don't know any better!)
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Default Treble in recordings

"However remasters done after mid-2000s or so are generally
much much better.

geoff"

Subjectively better, I suppose.
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John Williamson John Williamson is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

On 04/08/2019 15:33, wrote:
"However remasters done after mid-2000s or so are generally
much much better.

geoff"

Subjectively better, I suppose.

Substitute "Are a much more accurate reproduction of the master recording"

--
Tciao for Now!

John.


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Default Treble in recordings

John Williamson wrote: "
Substitute "Are a much more accurate reproduction of the
master recording"

--
Tciao for Now!

John. "

Do you know of any examples you can list here, that I can check out?
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John Williamson John Williamson is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

On 05/08/2019 15:58, Ralph Barone wrote:
John Williamson wrote:


For some reason, record companies tend not to leave their masters lying
round on the web.


But they do tend to leave them lying around in buildings with inadequate
fire detection and suppression systems :-)

True.... :-/

Not to mention the early digital stuff on Betamax cassettes...

--
Tciao for Now!

John.
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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

John Williamson wrote:
On 05/08/2019 15:58, Ralph Barone wrote:
John Williamson wrote:


For some reason, record companies tend not to leave their masters lying
round on the web.


But they do tend to leave them lying around in buildings with inadequate
fire detection and suppression systems :-)

True.... :-/

Not to mention the early digital stuff on Betamax cassettes...


Actually, I have had pretty good luck playing that PCM F-1 stuff back. The
sound quality is kind of harsh but that's how it was in 1985 too.

It's Exabytes that have been the worst playback nightmare.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


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Default Treble in recordings

John Williamson wrote: "Not unless you have access to the
master tape archives at a studio and the machine used to record
the album or track.

If you do, then you will have all you need to do the comparison.
For some reason, record companies tend not to leave their
masters lying round on the web. "

What I meant was: remasters of albums that sounded closer to the studio masters.
If you cannot rattle off a few then I don't believe they exist.
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Default Treble in recordings

Theckmah the Retard gibberered in message
...

If you cannot rattle off a few then I don't believe they exist.


Nobody here gives a **** what you believe in your tiny retarded mind. You
can stamp your little feet and fill your diaper, and nobody cares, li'l
buddy.

I know that you're retarded because of that incident in a different forum,
where you actually called yourself a retard. You tried to get past the forum
rules by using a spelling error, but your post was deleted by the moderators
anyway; your attempt to get the word past the moderators was obviously too
retarded to succeed. So which do you prefer to be called, "retard" or
"retarded dumb ****"? FDSKJ. FCKWAFA. AARDF.

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Default Treble in recordings

On Monday, August 5, 2019 at 12:33:48 PM UTC-4, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Actually, I have had pretty good luck playing that PCM F-1 stuff back. The
sound quality is kind of harsh but that's how it was in 1985 too.

It's Exabytes that have been the worst playback nightmare.


I recall Sony changing the formula of the F1 3/4" tapes and later finding that they didn't store well. A lot of stereo master were lost. Don't recall the exact details like what year they changed the formula and how many masters decomposed.

Scary!

Regards,

Ty Ford
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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

Ty Ford wrote:
On Monday, August 5, 2019 at 12:33:48 PM UTC-4, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Actually, I have had pretty good luck playing that PCM F-1 stuff back. The
sound quality is kind of harsh but that's how it was in 1985 too.

It's Exabytes that have been the worst playback nightmare.


I recall Sony changing the formula of the F1 3/4" tapes and later finding that they didn't store well. A lot of stereo master were lost. Don't recall the exact details like what year they changed the formula and how many masters decomposed.


That was PCM1610 format. And if you used 3M tapes, they were fine...
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


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Default Treble in recordings

OP,
buy a nice graphic equalizer and adjust it until you like what you hear.

and yes, different recordings will need different settings.

Don't worry, be happy.

m

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Default Treble in recordings

Here's a nice read...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM_adaptor
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Default Treble in recordings

On 8/7/19 10:35 AM, Ty Ford wrote:
Here's a nice read...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM_adaptor


This helps to explain the choice of sampling frequency for the CD,
because the number of video lines, frame rate and bits per line
end up dictating the sampling frequency one can achieve, that
sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz was thus adopted in the Compact Disc.


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Default Treble in recordings

geoff wrote:
Many first generation remastered CDs had the treble that was there
cranked to make up for the higher treble that didn't exist. Which is why
many sounded harsh and glary.


Maybe.

On the other hand, there are recordings from the seventies, like Hotel
California, that were clearly made by people blasted out of their skulls
on cocaine who are massively boosting the top end.

The original 45 and the consequent LP are listenable because the top end
had to be tamed down just to cut it. But the CD reissue sounds just like
the master and is painful to hear.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Scott Dorsey Scott Dorsey is offline
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Default Treble in recordings

In article , Tobiah wrote:
On 8/7/19 10:35 AM, Ty Ford wrote:
Here's a nice read...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM_adaptor


This helps to explain the choice of sampling frequency for the CD,
because the number of video lines, frame rate and bits per line
end up dictating the sampling frequency one can achieve, that
sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz was thus adopted in the Compact Disc.


Except that 44.1 isn't exactly the same as 44.056, so there's a minimal
pitch shift involved with PCM F-1 (but not PCM 1610) transfers. People
fought for years about whether it could be audible, which it probably
can't be.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


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Default Treble in recordings

Scott Dorsey wrote:
In article , Tobiah wrote:
On 8/7/19 10:35 AM, Ty Ford wrote:
Here's a nice read...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM_adaptor


This helps to explain the choice of sampling frequency for the CD,
because the number of video lines, frame rate and bits per line
end up dictating the sampling frequency one can achieve, that
sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz was thus adopted in the Compact Disc.


Except that 44.1 isn't exactly the same as 44.056, so there's a minimal
pitch shift involved with PCM F-1 (but not PCM 1610) transfers. People
fought for years about whether it could be audible, which it probably
can't be.
--scott



It's about 1.72 cents. Not much, but it might be audible in ... sort of
a tuning context.

In performance? No. I've seen tuning *offsets* for some instruments 10x
that.

--
Les Cargill
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Default Treble in recordings

Scott Dorsey wrote:
geoff wrote:
Many first generation remastered CDs had the treble that was there
cranked to make up for the higher treble that didn't exist. Which is why
many sounded harsh and glary.


Maybe.

On the other hand, there are recordings from the seventies, like Hotel
California, that were clearly made by people blasted out of their skulls
on cocaine who are massively boosting the top end.

The original 45 and the consequent LP are listenable because the top end
had to be tamed down just to cut it. But the CD reissue sounds just like
the master and is painful to hear.


They hired Szymczyk and dumped Glyn Johns because Szymczyk would do what
he was told. So... okay. Ego is a hell of a drug...

That's actually the first CD I ever bought. What I had attributed to
surface noise from the LP was actually on the master.

Sounded good on the radio, though.


--scott


--
Les Cargill
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