Teemu Torma wrote:

Well, if you check some newer pop music, like Michael Jackson's
Invincible, the average level is around -6dBFS, and peaks at 0dBFS.
The sole purpose of this is to make them sound louder in radio than
the other songs. But there's not much dynamic range left, even
though it may not matter in this case.

Yes, I do believe this "follows suit" with my previous comments
regarding "Long View" from Green Day's 1994 CD, "Dookie". All of this
high level, low dynamic range stuff seems to be a common phenomenon of
with music of the '90s. Most of the "loudest CDs" I own seem to kick in
somewhere around 1994 which leads me to suspect that software similar to
"normalize" must have arrived on the mastering scene at some point
around that time - or maybe a few years earlier if one could afford to
buy it. While most CDs mastered prior to that time may have been
mastered "technically correctly", their sonic impact is nowhere near "up
to par" with "today's standards" because of the inexistence of such
software. My efforts to normalize the WAVs from my own CD collection
before encoding them to MP3 is merely an attempt to compensate for this.
And I'm able to derive stunning results from it nearly 100% of the time.

It does not mean that the "professional" is right.

I've learned this! And, believe me, after running around for so many
years having so much blind faith in both the compact disc medium and the
music industry's ability to "get it right" with CD, I'm now learning
just what a fool I've been. When I personally can use nothing more than
a single application such as normalize and make my Eurythmics, "Sweet
Dreams (Are Made Of This)" CD sound nearly as if it's been "officially
digitally remastered" to my ears, I'm blown away!

Check some other remasters, like Pink Floyd's The Wall.
The average level for the album is around -18dBFS.

Yes, I am fanatical about Pink Floyd, "The Wall" and yet the generally
low levels of that particular CD - even with regard to the digitally
remastered version that I own - drives me *up* The Wall! And, in fact,
I'm very near to the time now when I will finally be normalizing it to
-10dBFS as well.

Depends on what you want. If you want to listen a mixed collection
of mp3 files without adjusting volume for each random song, normalize
is one way of doing it, but increasing volume with it does harm the
music (of course, with 128k mp3 does harm it too). Normalizing can
never add anything, it can just take something away.

Y'know, you're a decent person with an obviously respectable point of
view, however, I just conducted some more tests with "normalize" and
both MFSL's older Ultradisc II and Capitol's 1994 digitally remastered
versions of "Dark Side Of The Moon" on CD. I think you'll be surprised
by how much sonic *improvement* the "normalize" application can provide.

I'm going to close this particular reply at this time, but keep an eye
out for my next post to this thread regarding these two Pink Floyd CD
reissues and how they compare. Before/after level readings and
screenshots will be provided!

Myke

--

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In article , Myke Carter
wrote:

Teemu Torma wrote:

Well, if you check some newer pop music, like Michael Jackson's
Invincible, the average level is around -6dBFS, and peaks at 0dBFS.
The sole purpose of this is to make them sound louder in radio than
the other songs. But there's not much dynamic range left, even
though it may not matter in this case.

Yes, I do believe this "follows suit" with my previous comments
regarding "Long View" from Green Day's 1994 CD, "Dookie". All of this
high level, low dynamic range stuff seems to be a common phenomenon of
with music of the '90s. Most of the "loudest CDs" I own seem to kick in
somewhere around 1994 which leads me to suspect that software similar to
"normalize" must have arrived on the mastering scene at some point
around that time - or maybe a few years earlier if one could afford to
buy it. While most CDs mastered prior to that time may have been
mastered "technically correctly", their sonic impact is nowhere near "up
to par" with "today's standards" because of the inexistence of such
software. My efforts to normalize the WAVs from my own CD collection
before encoding them to MP3 is merely an attempt to compensate for this.
And I'm able to derive stunning results from it nearly 100% of the time.

Myke

the tools have always been around to squash music into oblivion.. but
somewhere around the '93-'94 era, like you stated, it became "in" to do
it.

the sonic impact is there from older cd's still, turn up the volume
knob.

--
cyrus

cyrus the virus wrote:

the tools have always been around to squash music into oblivion..

Probably so. But please do not confuse my beloved "normalization" with
"squashing music into oblivion". I am still reeling from the shock of
having successfully whooped the ass of Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. My
routine practice of normalization does not involve forcing peaks to
clip. It does not involve destroying dynamic range. It does not
involve the inadvertent addition of digital distortion to what was
originally a pristine, professionally-sanctioned waveform. All of what
you have read from others about my ill-advised use of normalize when
producing MP3s from WAVs from my CDs has been revealed to be an
overflowing crock of ****. And I can and will easily prove this in the
immediately near future.

but somewhere around the '93-'94 era, like you stated,
it became "in" to do it.

Alright. That's it! I'm blamin' Bill Gates! ;-D

the sonic impact is there from older cd's still,
turn up the volume knob.

This from you is ill-conceived too.

Stay tuned and I will *prove* to you soon that your assumption is 100%
totally incorrect.

We still have a lot to learn,

Myke

--

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Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
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You truly are clueless.

What you have with "normalize" is a compressor and expander in addition to
normalizing.

It really is unbelievable that you won't go read what the terms, clipping,
compression, expansion, dynamic range and amplitude actually mean.

While your little god "normalize" may be doing a wonderful job of smashing
or extending all your music into your preferred range of amplitude, it
doesn't mean it is appropriate or desirable to everyone, particularly the
engineer who mastered the CD in the first place.

There is a reason they call it art and not musak.

I'd be quite pleased if you'd go spray this sacrilege on the
www.homerecording.com BBS. There are some folks around that really do know
exactly what normalize does.

Cheers,
Pete

"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message
...

http://www.mykec.com/mykec/images/20...ey_Smoking.png

In this corner...

Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" (1973)
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Ultradisc II ... "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING"

And in this corner...

Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" (1973)
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Ultradisc II ... "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING"
Simply "normalized" to -10dBFS by Lord Hasenpfeffer (Whoopeee!)

What??? No clipping???
What??? No compression???
What??? No added distortion???
What??? Dramatically *extended* dynamic range???
What... were they smoking?!?!?!

No way!!!

Way!!!

Game over,

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

I have looked at your screen shots. You have definitely limited or
compressed the peaks and expanded the range in addition to increasing the
amplitude. You are not clipping. That terms is not referring to what you
are doing Clipping is where it can't be dealt with by your system.
Completely different thing than limiting or compressing a wave. Clipping is
inadvertent trashing of the wave by a systems inability to deal with the
amplitude input.

If you can post two identical *.wav files of the exact time frame. One from
the original and the second from your remastered version. Something that
has a large range in the original, I can show you precisely what it is doing
to the wave. I can even post some screen shots of a few milliseconds of the
wave so you can see.

Your screen shots are not to any scale that can be seen at 72 dpi on even a
22" monitor. Look at the peaks and valleys of the wave over a few second
time frame rather than the whole song.

You can't make music better by doing any of this, you can only adjust it
such that you like the resulting amplitude better, or that your ear/brain
perceives it to be better. Someone else will differ with you. The point is
you are changing the artists work.

I do essentially the same thing with much of the live recordings I've
downloaded. See www.bluegrassbox.com for some spectacular shows in *.shn
format. I will never purport it to be better or any thing but sacrilege.
You are really stepping on some toes when you do so.

It's not bad, just not better. Don't make it out like they ripped you off.
That particular CD may be mastered at exactly the peak of the equipment used
at the time. It actually may sound significantly better on that equipment
the way it was mastered than the way you have it on your equipment.

People spend $10's of thousands of dollars on tube amps and such to
specifically reproduce the sound that older works were mastered with. Some
of them show a marked improvement on that equipment.

Cheers,
Pete

"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message
...
Pete Carney wrote:

You truly are clueless.

And I've never even *been* to Seattle at that.
Hmmm... How'd that happen?

What you have with "normalize" is a compressor and expander in addition
to
normalizing.

OK???

It really is unbelievable that you won't go read what the terms,
clipping,
compression, expansion, dynamic range and amplitude actually mean.

My best-guesses in a nutshell a

Clipping - flat-topping the peaks (at any level amplitude)

Compression - supressing the amplitude

Expansion - increasing the dynamic range

Dynamic Range - the dB "distance" between the lowest and highest
amplitudes in a recording

Amplitude - the dB "distance" between a peak and the noise floor

While your little god "normalize" may be doing a wonderful job of
smashing
or extending all your music into your preferred range of amplitude,

I notice that you haven't actually cited reference to anything in the
screenshot which I provided at the start of this thread. Did you
actually look at it or are you just shootin' off?

it doesn't mean it is appropriate or desirable to everyone, particularly
the engineer who mastered the CD in the first place.

Since producing that screenshot, I've visually compared the waveform
characteristics my own "normalized remastered edition" of the MFSL "Dark
Side Of The Moon" WAV against that of the 1994 Capitol digitally
remastered reissue and they're damn near identical in terms of amplitude.

In other words, I've now improved MFSL's original WAV to such a degree
that it now compares favourably with Capitol's digitally remastered one.

Naturally this leads me to question why MFSL would bother to sell such
an obviously weak product on a gold plated compact disc? I consider
that to be a gross violation of the public's trust. Somebody's gotta
call them on this - and I guess it won't be you who does it, huh?

There is a reason they call it art and not musak.

Yes, I am a 20-year veteran recording artist in my own right. I am not
new to art.

I'd be quite pleased if you'd go spray this sacrilege on the
www.homerecording.com BBS. There are some folks around that really do
know
exactly what normalize does.

Why don't you go view my screenshot and tell me what the hell you think
is so patently obviously wrong with what I've done to MFSL's original
WAV - and then tell me what's obviously superior about selling an
original recording such as theirs for $25+ to the public on a gold
plated disc. They're CD sounded like **** to me 6 years ago when I
bought it compared to Capitol's remastered reissue. And now I know why!

Duh!

Myke

--

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On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 03:23:11 -0500, Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:

http://www.mykec.com/mykec/images/20...ey_Smoking.png

In this corner...

Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" (1973)
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Ultradisc II ... "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING"

And in this corner...

Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" (1973)
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Ultradisc II ... "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING"
Simply "normalized" to -10dBFS by Lord Hasenpfeffer (Whoopeee!)

What??? No clipping???
What??? No compression???
What??? No added distortion???
What??? Dramatically *extended* dynamic range???
What... were they smoking?!?!?!

What the **** are YOU on?

You've completely munged the dynamics, that's just so damn obvious, and
you really have no idea that that is what you've done!! Normalise? My
arse.

Don't you comprehend the huge amount of talent, let alone real
understanding of the processes, that went into this? And you come along
with a bit of freeware an no knowledge and preach to us about how you
can magically transform this 'rubbish' into a work of art?

And, I'd hazard a guess that the peaks on the original are -6dBFS
(simply because that's typical of remastering from that period), and
your botch-up goes to odBFS, no matter what your mis-understanding
and/or mis-use of the software leads you to believe, and despite the
lack of any scale on your screenshot.

You really think this is better? You're insane.

How dare you speak as though you are some guru and mislead all those
with little knowledge and much gullibility.

You are now officially a ****wit.

Goodness. I think you may be out of your league here. What you have done it
stupid and worthless in every possible way, except as an experiment to learn
what your software can do. ANY signal processing done to a digital audio
file is destructive in nature. Even changing the volume (as in this case).

Go read some more books on digital audio theory and practice, then consider
what you have done.

- Flint


"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message
...

http://www.mykec.com/mykec/images/20...ey_Smoking.png

In this corner...

Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" (1973)
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Ultradisc II ... "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING"

And in this corner...

Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" (1973)
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Ultradisc II ... "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING"
Simply "normalized" to -10dBFS by Lord Hasenpfeffer (Whoopeee!)

What??? No clipping???
What??? No compression???
What??? No added distortion???
What??? Dramatically *extended* dynamic range???
What... were they smoking?!?!?!

No way!!!

Way!!!

Game over,

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message
Yeah, that's right. So why doesn't Mobile Fidelity Sould Lab have one
too?

I suppose their reasoning is that Pink Floyd fans are all a bunch of
aging boomers who've got money to burn buying gold-plated CDs that sound
like **** and don't know anything else beyond how to pop in a disc,
sit back in a chair and toke just a little bit more.


Becuase MFSL have no business in dicking around with compression on the
source material. Their mission was to give as good as possible a quality
accurate transcription of the original master tape to CD. That includes
retaining the exact dynamic range, compression, EQ, etc that Alan Parsons
left the tape with. .

geoff

You are comparing a CD mastered with a Peak of -6dB taken directly from Alan
Parson's master tape to one with a Peak of 0dB taken from the label's
re-mixed master tape. Aside from any differences the tapes may have in EQ
and mix, one is simply louder than the other. If you listen to any CD at one
level then compare it to the same CD with the volume turned up 6dB, the
louder one will sound better.

There have been hundreds of papers and articles written over the years
discussing this very point. With music, louder almost always seems better.

This is why it is so important to balance the levels to less than 0.25dB
when comparing the sound of electronics in ABX tests.

Forget everything you think you may have proven. Erase it from your head.
Then try listening to the Gold CD with the volume turned up 6dB.

- FLINT


"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message
...
flint wrote:

Goodness. I think you may be out of your league here. What you have done
it
stupid and worthless in every possible way, except as an experiment to
learn
what your software can do. ANY signal processing done to a digital audio
file is destructive in nature. Even changing the volume (as in this
case).

So you disagree with Capitol's efforts at digitally remastering the Pink
Floyd catalog too? Gee whiz... Their CDs sound phenomenal!


http://www.mykec.com/mykec/images/20...4_Remaster.png

Go read some more books on digital audio theory and practice, then
consider
what you have done.

Would you suggest the same to Capitol?

Myke

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On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 17:06:39 -0500, Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:

blah, blah, blah

Correct me if I'm wrong but this thread began in alt.audio.minidisc
regarding a simple question about the difference between compression
and normalization. In the context of minidisc where compilation discs
are made from various sources where levels are inconsistent due to the
different ways each track was produced normalization is an accepted
and practical way of balancing levels so that one is not always
turning the volume up or down. Hell, it's minidisc, often duped from
mp3's....at this point the integrity of the original has already been
well compromised.

That's very different from what you propose, and the fact that you've
generated replies in this group out of context due to crossposting to
two other groups hasn't helped make much sense out of it. Assuming
anyone's bother to read them.

flint wrote:
You are comparing a CD mastered with a Peak of -6dB taken directly from Alan
Parson's master tape to one with a Peak of 0dB taken from the label's
re-mixed master tape.

Correct.

Aside from any differences the tapes may have in EQ and mix, one is simply
louder than the other.

Fair enough.

If you listen to any CD at one level then compare it to the same CD
with the volume turned up 6dB, the louder one will sound better.

"The louder one will sound better"... I like that. I think you
understand me better than most when I say "my remastered WAVs sound
better than their source CDs". Because "the louder one will sound
better", yes, thank you.

Louder = more audible frequencies = more clarity in the upper and lower
ranges = livlier, more energetic sounding music = better MP3s = more fun
= more personal satisfaction = my original argument.

There have been hundreds of papers and articles written over the years
discussing this very point.

Obviously, then, many then still prefer "quiet", "dull" and "muddy"
sound, no?

With music, louder almost always seems better.

Almost always, yes. Thank you.

This is why it is so important to balance the levels to less than 0.25dB
when comparing the sound of electronics in ABX tests.

Yes! Because by balancing the levels you eliminate significant
variables which would otherwise mask other less obvious differences.

I can't tell you how sweet it is whenever I encounter two copies of the
same song from two different CDs to simply be able to equalize their
levels (with "normalize") so that I can *then* discern which one of them
is mastered from a cleaner source. I do this constantly while creating
MP3s. Only the "winners" survive. All previously encoded MP3s which
fail in this competition are deleted forever - and I always keep notes
in my MP3 headers which remind me later about the CD from whence it came.

Forget everything you think you may have proven. Erase it from your head.
Then try listening to the Gold CD with the volume turned up 6dB.

Why don't I just make a digital copy of my 1994 Capitol remaster to an
Imation CD-R with the digital input gain turned down to -6dB?

In fact, I think I could even make that my standard practice for *every*
CD copy I create. And then if anyone complains about it, I'll just tell
'em to "pump up the volume" because "it's *supposed* to be that low".
How far d'ya think *that'd* fly? It's the same thing.

No harm, no foul,

Myke

--

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Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
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Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:

flint wrote:
If you listen to any CD at one level then compare it to the same CD
with the volume turned up 6dB, the louder one will sound better.

"The louder one will sound better"... I like that. I think you
understand me better than most when I say "my remastered WAVs sound
better than their source CDs". Because "the louder one will sound
better", yes, thank you.

Louder = more audible frequencies = more clarity in the upper and lower
ranges = livlier, more energetic sounding music = better MP3s = more fun
= more personal satisfaction = my original argument.

The argument has been whether increasing amplitude in the digital input is a
good thing, not whether louder sounds good. It is the amplifier that makes
the loudness to happen.

Forget everything you think you may have proven. Erase it from your head.
Then try listening to the Gold CD with the volume turned up 6dB.

Why don't I just make a digital copy of my 1994 Capitol remaster to an
Imation CD-R with the digital input gain turned down to -6dB?

In fact, I think I could even make that my standard practice for *every*
CD copy I create. And then if anyone complains about it, I'll just tell
'em to "pump up the volume" because "it's *supposed* to be that low".
How far d'ya think *that'd* fly? It's the same thing.

It would be better thing in my mind. Limiting or even worse, clipping, the
high peaks by increasing the volume makes more harm than the slight amount
of added noise by doing the reverse. I have never seen even a "quiet"
remaster (in pop/rock arena) to not have it's peaks at very close to 0dBFS.

Teemu

George W. wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 17:06:39 -0500, Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but this thread began in alt.audio.minidisc
regarding a simple question about the difference between compression
and normalization.

You need no correction.

In the context of minidisc where compilation discs are made from
various sources where levels are inconsistent due to the different
ways each track was produced normalization is an accepted and
practical way of balancing levels so that one is not always
turning the volume up or down.

This is true.

Hell, it's minidisc, often duped from mp3's....

Not in my case. I always "dupe" mine from either normalized or "batch
normalized" WAVs (whichever is appropriate for the task at hand). My
WAVs are ripped straight from my own CDs. I also often create my own
MP3s from my own CDs for convenience purposes and for being better able
to judge the fidelities of like songs on different source discs.
Normalizing balances the levels in such cases so that differences in the
source qualities from which both CDs were mastered becomes more readily
apparent.

That's very different from what you propose, and the fact that you've
generated replies in this group out of context due to crossposting to
two other groups hasn't helped make much sense out of it.

I was at first impressed to have found so many technical experts lurkin
about in a MiniDisc newsgroup! I don't know who's responsible for
the crossposting. Certainly not I. However, I am appreciative to have
found such an interesting and diverse cross-section of opinions
regarding what I've been using "normalize" to do with my WAVs. (All
references to "Liniots" and "****wits" and "trolls" aside, of course.)

Assuming anyone's bother to read them.

Based upon some comments I've received from others in
alt.music.minidisc, quite a few of them over there seem to be paying
attention.

Hi everybody!!!

Myke

--

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Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
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Teemu Torma wrote:

The argument has been whether increasing amplitude in the digital input is a
good thing, not whether louder sounds good.

Actually, my argument seems to have been munged into being a continual
defense of my preferential use of the Linux application named "normalize".

It is the amplifier that makes the loudness to happen.

You score two points!

Limiting or even worse, clipping, the high peaks by increasing
the volume makes more harm than the slight amount of added noise
by doing the reverse.

Point taken.

I have never seen even a "quiet" remaster (in pop/rock arena)

Nor have I.

to not have it's peaks at very close to 0dBFS.

Correct. And while many "older CDs" remain unavailable in digitally
remastered form, it is very sweet to at least be able to elevate the
loudnesses of older, quieter and, therefore, lackluster sounding
pop/rock CDs into the general range of more modern, remastered CDs.
While this obviously does not improve the fidelity of the original
recording, it certainly makes them much more of a pleasure to hear with
my computer.

I honestly believe that if a record label wanted to do it, it could
simply re-issue "normalized" versions of the CDs in its catalog, slap a
"Newly digitally remastered!" sticker on their wrappers and sell 'em to
a loud-hungry public - and, again, there would be dancing in the street.

Perception is everything.

Myke

--

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Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

In article ,
Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:

Actually, my argument seems to have been munged into being a continual
defense of my preferential use of the Linux application named "normalize".

It is the amplifier that makes the loudness to happen.

You score two points!

Limiting or even worse, clipping, the high peaks by increasing
the volume makes more harm than the slight amount of added noise
by doing the reverse.

Point taken.

I have never seen even a "quiet" remaster (in pop/rock arena)

Nor have I.

to not have it's peaks at very close to 0dBFS.

Correct. And while many "older CDs" remain unavailable in digitally
remastered form, it is very sweet to at least be able to elevate the
loudnesses of older, quieter and, therefore, lackluster sounding
pop/rock CDs into the general range of more modern, remastered CDs.
While this obviously does not improve the fidelity of the original
recording, it certainly makes them much more of a pleasure to hear with
my computer.

Well, I've looked through the source code for "normalize", and
from what I see, all it's doing (in normal mode of operation) is a
simple volume-boost. It's not increasing the dynamic range of the
music signal at all... it's just lifting it up to a higher point in
the 16-bit digital number space curve. It may, in fact, actually
reduce the useful dynamic range of the signal a bit, if there are
peaks in the original signal which end up having to be gain-limited in
order to avoid clipping.

This means, quite simply, that the effect of running a "whole album"
normalization such as you are doing is has a very specific and easily
describable effect:

It is _precisely_ the same as simply turning up the volume knob on
your computer or CD player by a few dB!

No other difference. No improvement in dynamics. No change in
frequency response or content. No improvement in the actual amount of
musical information present in the recording. None at all.

Well, that's not strictly true. The "normalize" program makes a
fairly common mistake. It's rescaling an audio signal by a
non-integer scale factor (which is OK), but it is *not* re-dithering
the signal when it does so. It's just rounding, and that's not OK.

By doing this, the normalization process is adding distortion -
it's adding a signal-correlated quantization noise.

It turns out that a very similar problem was likely the cause of many
of the complaints about "digital sound" during the early years of the
CD. Analog tapes were digitized using converters which didn't dither
the signal, and there's reason to believe that this probably
contributed somewhat to the "graininess" or harshness of many of the
early CD releases, and to the perceived loss of ambience and low-level
detail in some cases.

By using "normalize" on your CDs, you have re-created this error in
your resulting product.

If you really do want to gain-boost/normalize your CDs, I suggest two
things:

- Study up on digital recording theory and technology, so that you'll
understand that doing so adds precisely _no_ musical information,
and has no beneficial effect which couldn't be achieved by simply
turning up the CD player's volume control a bit.

- Use a better gain-alteration program - one which actually redithers
the signal after scaling it. This will ensure that the
normalization process doesn't add distortion.

I honestly believe that if a record label wanted to do it, it could
simply re-issue "normalized" versions of the CDs in its catalog, slap a
"Newly digitally remastered!" sticker on their wrappers and sell 'em to
a loud-hungry public - and, again, there would be dancing in the street.

Perception is everything.

Marketing and reality often have little to do with one another.

If you want to market your "normalized" versions as superior, that's
your business... but please don't expect people who understand the
truth of the technology to agree that they are in any way superior to
the un-normalized versions.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

What I don't get is why you think that a louder CD is better than turning
the volume up on the amplifier. Why go through all this work of copying the
CD to your computer and processing it and burning a CD when all you are
doing is turning the volume up? My preamp has a remote control that I can
use to turn up the volume while sitting in my listening chair. It works
great and I don't get the nasty artifacts that ALL digital processing bring
to the party.

You keep calling the Gold CD inferior simply because the volume is a touch
lower. That is like saying a 60 watt light bulb in inferior to a 75 watt
bulb. Or a 25 watt soldering iron is inferior to a 50 watt soldering iron.
This is not a solid argument. Possibly the program you are using to turn up
the volume on the audio is also adding a form of distortion you really like
to listen to. Maybe it makes the music "crisper" and "sharper" which are two
ways a layman might describe subtle harmonic distortion.

Your argument is weak and you are conviced that you have solved the problem
with every older CD every pressed. Well more power to you. I hope you enjoy
all the work you have in front of you "improving" every CD ever made. But
why try to force the rest of us to agree with you?

If I enjoyed messing with my CDs by altering their sound with digital
processing, I would keep it to myself and enjoy it. But screwing with the
intended results of the producers is nothing I would be proud of.

- FLINT

Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:

cyrus the virus wrote:

the tools have always been around to squash music into oblivion..

Probably so. But please do not confuse my beloved "normalization" with
"squashing music into oblivion". I am still reeling from the shock of
having successfully whooped the ass of Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs.

What is your measure of that whooping? Waveform pictures
tell nothing. Try level matched double blind listening
evaluations with a statistically signfigant number of
listeners.

My
routine practice of normalization does not involve forcing peaks to
clip. It does not involve destroying dynamic range. It does not
involve the inadvertent addition of digital distortion to what was
originally a pristine, professionally-sanctioned waveform.

I'm afraid you are wrong. If you increase the RMS level of
a normalized piece with the use of limiting/compression you
are doing all the things you think you are not. I'm afraid
your ignorance of the technical apsects of the process is
showing and I say that with all due respect regarding any
other matter.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

flint wrote:
What I don't get is why you think that a louder CD is better than turning
the volume up on the amplifier. Why go through all this work of copying the
CD to your computer and processing it and burning a CD when all you are
doing is turning the volume up?

OK. First of all, I do not go about ripping and normalizing my WAVs
only to then burn them back to CD-Rs. I own over 2,100 compact discs -
most but certainly not all of which belong in the pop/rock category. My
current task at hand is to rip and encode MP3s of every CD in my library
so that I can carry most if not all of it with me in only one or two
large Case Logic zipperbooksful of home-burned CD-Rs.

As I am doing this, I also make duplicates of each US Top 40 hit that I
encounter. These duplicate are then given unique filenames containing
year, month, date, peak, artist and title information so that as I go
about doing all this work, my "hits" will automatically be sorted
chronologically regardless of the order in which I've encoded any given
file.

Please click he http://www.mykec.com/?page=AT40

Over time as more and more "hits" were added to my MP3 library I became
increasingly frustrated in how so many of them were either significantly
louder or quieter than each other due to their having been encoded from
so many different source CDs. Enter "normalize".

As soon as I began using "normalize", I also began noticing how "weak"
and "bad" nearly all of my previously encoded files were sounding in
comparison to the newer, "normalized" ones. Further experimentation
revealed that a significant number of my older, non-remastered CDs could
be "batch normalized" quite safely - usually by a good 5-8 decibels - in
turn making them sound (to my ears) using a single, typical level of
volume virtually as "strong" and as "good" as any of my 24-bit digitally
remastered CDs do. From this I've concluded that the simple process
which I've come to know as "normalization" (by way of this little
"normalize" application) almost certainly plays a significant role in
the digital remastering process - including, of course, all of the other
obvious elements (e.g. higher resolution source material, EQ'ing,
sometimes remixing, etc.) that also usually occurs which is beyond my
individual control.

You keep calling the Gold CD inferior simply because the volume is a touch
lower.

It's not just a touch lower. It's a lot lower. And it sounds bad
because of it. When I first bought Capitol's 1994 remaster, I couldn't
believe the difference between those two CDs. But now that the
amplification issue is within my ability to digitally correct, I think
it might be a fun exercise in boredom now to re-evaluate the relative
fidelities of the source materials used to produce these 2 CDs once
their levels are safely equalized.

Your argument is weak and you are conviced that you have solved the problem
with every older CD every pressed.

At least as far as my common pop/rock CDs are concerned, I am thrilled
now to be able to create MP3s from all of the older ones which sound
approximately equally as loud as my newer remastered discs, yes.

Think of it this way... Instead of just taking 15-20 songs from various
individual CDs and having to equalize their levels prior to burning them
to a new "mix-CD", I am over time creating a "mix-LIBRARY" of more than
2,100 full-length albums. So, just as it is a "good thing" for the
songs of a mix-CD to all share relatively similar levels - it is also a
"good thing" for all of the MP3s created from my older CDs to have
relatively similar levels with those that are made from my remastered
discs. Before I discovered "normalize", this was for me not possible.
How's that for an explanation?

But why try to force the rest of us to agree with you?

In nearly every discussion somebody always has to say something like
that. I don't understand why, because I personally don't care what you
or anyone else might choose to do with your time/life/music/whatever -
unless, of course, you/they have some valid information that could help
me with mine.

If I enjoyed messing with my CDs by altering their sound with digital
processing, I would keep it to myself and enjoy it.

As a musical/noisical recording artist in my own right, I do not believe
in recreational file-sharing. Nearly 100% of everything I've ever done
with my personal music library has never been heard by anyone other than
my wife, my boss and my closest friends and/or relatives.

But screwing with the intended results of the producers is nothing
I would be proud of.

Well, if it means having to choose between (1) once again enjoying an
older CD that's been "normalized" to -10dBFS or (2) stashing it away
forever in a drawer somewhere because I think it sounds like ****, I
think I'll choose the former.

Because until last night when I finally decided to do these tests with
both of "Dark Side Of The Moon" CDs, my MFSL disc hasn't seen the light
of a laser even once in the past 5 years. What good is it to have a CD
that you know you'll never play again? I'm actually surprised that I
hadn't already taken it to a pawn shop or something to get rid of it
before now. After all this, though, I'm really glad I didn't!

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

If your goal is to make a bunch of MP3s with similar average levels, then
you have succeeded and I applaude you. MP3 encoding is distorting your audio
way beyond what even the cheapest normalizing software could do.

I never accused you of sharing music, I only acused you of creating a huge
stink in this group by sharing (in words) what you are doing and bragging
about it like you are inventing something.

I get the impression all you want to do is solve a simple problem with a
simple solution - great.

It was the subjective comments about a recording merely because it was not
recorded at a level you like that bothered me so much.

- FLINT

Bob Cain wrote:

What is your measure of that whooping?

1 (one).

Waveform pictures tell nothing.

I was accused of clipping, limiting, compressing, and reducing the
dynamic range of my original WAVs by "normalizing" individual files or
"batch normalizing" whole groups of related files with the Linux
application known as "normalize".

My waveform pictures *do indeed* reveal that not one of these
accusations are true. Every single one of them is *false*.

Try level matched double blind listening
evaluations with a statistically signfigant number of
listeners.

Such "listening evaluations" are worthless when it comes to proving that
I've neither clipped, nor limited, nor compressed, nor reduced the
dynamic range of MFSL's original WAV by "normalizing" it to an average
target level of -10dBFS.

You simply misunderstand my purpose in presenting the screenshots!

I'm afraid you are wrong. If you increase the RMS level of
a normalized piece

Stop right there... If I were to do this with "a normalized piece" then
yes, you would be correct - but the WAVs from my personal CD collection
which I subject to this particular treatment are not already normalized!

I'm not just bulldozing my way through my entire CD collection and
normalizing everything in sight. No way! I *always* scan the levels
and peak readings of every file from every CD before I even touch them
with "normalize" and then make my judgement calls from there. Most
modern, standard CDs (i.e. 1994-present) are already perfectly fine.
Virtually every 24-bit remastered CD I've encountered is too. But a
majority of the older CDs I own (i.e. 1983-1993) need a *significant*
degree of "normalization" assistance if they're to sound anywhere near
as good as the newer ones at roughly the same volume setting on my
amplifier.

This is my whole point, my argument, my *beef* with the entire system
that for so many years had me believing that if I bought a CD I was
getting "the best there was to get" - which was a complete and outright
*lie*.

I'm afraid your ignorance of the technical apsects of the process
is showing and I say that with all due respect regarding any other
matter.

That's fair enough, I suppose, given your previous misinterpretions of
just what it is that I'm doing with the WAVs I've been ripping from my
CDs. At least you haven't called me a "Liniot", a "****wit" or a
"USENET troll".

Thank you very much,

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

flint wrote:
If your goal is to make a bunch of MP3s with similar average levels, then
you have succeeded and I applaude you.

Thank you! Applause accepted.

I check my work frequently by actually listening to the "normalized"
MP3s I've created because I *am* concerned greatly about not
deliberately contributing to (what I perceive as being) the poor
fidelity that's already a part of my life.

MP3 encoding is distorting your audio way beyond what even the
cheapest normalizing software could do.

Yes, and so does my local news/talk AM radio station. (To which I just
have to say, "Aw, damn," before going on about my usual daily affairs.) g

One nice thing, however, about my US Top 40 hits collection. I do spend
the money and take the time to burn the WAVs for *those* to CD-Rs before
I delete them. This is because I am already aware that one day
something better than MP3 is going to come along and make me feel the
need to do it all over again. At least my practice of saving the WAVs
will save me a lot of time in the future since I will not have to go
about re-ripping them all over again. But for now, I find the
*convenience* of my MP3s due to the compactness of their filesizes to be
an overwhelming asset in their favor over sonic purity when it comes to
listening to my music wherever "turntables with moonrock needles" cannot
be located.

I never accused you of sharing music,

No, I didn't mean to imply that you did. I was simply providing a more
illuminated view of what I do actually do with my files (i.e. keep them
to myself) since it seems that you would do the same.

I only acused you of creating a huge stink in this group by sharing
(in words) what you are doing and bragging about it like you are
inventing something.

For a common guy like me to finally have a means via freeware to do what
I do with my CDs, WAVs and MP3s it *is* similar to having invented
something. Sure, the tools that I'm using to do what I'm doing aren't
unique to me - but have you ever met anyone else in your life who's
actually decided to do something like what I'm actually doing?

For me, I think it *is* something to get excited about because every
other person I've ever met who was into ripping and encoding MP3s does
nothing but rip and encode MP3s - because it's a relatively easy process
for them to learn and do. I take it a giant step further, however,
because if I'm going to bother doing all this work, I'm damn sure going
to do everything I can to achieve the most consistently superior results
that I am able to achieve.

It's not a matter of bragging at all. It's a matter of attempting to
wake a few others up to an otherwise unheard of, unseen reality. If I
choose to share with a friend an MP3, they get from me something that
almost always sounds extremely good. Meanwhile, because they know
nothing about "normalize", if/when they reciprocate, I get something
that usually sounds pretty crappy in comparison. So, yeah, naturally
I'm going to promote my view. But promotion of my view and bragging
about it aren't the same.

Now as for the "huge stink" in this group, I'll credit that to all those
who believe they've found valid reasons to label me a "Liniot", a
"****wit" and a "USENET troll" while I've gone about simply attempting
to defend my integrity as a man who actually does care more than most
about the fidelity of the music to which he listens on a regular basis.

I get the impression all you want to do is solve a simple problem with a
simple solution - great.

Yes. I'd also "really like it a lot" if more people would normalize
their damn MP3s before making them. Because, trust me, all of the MP3s
I made from my "older CDs" prior to my discovery of "normalize" sound
like **** to me and I know I will eventually have to spend even more
time recreating them than I at first believed I would. sigh

It was the subjective comments about a recording merely because it was not
recorded at a level you like that bothered me so much.

Understood. However, regardless of its "mission", I still believe that
MFSL either (1) should keep any ****ty CDs they produce off the market
or (2) print the damn (lousy) peak/level readings for each of their CDs'
tracks clearly somewhere on the backside of their packaging so a guy
like me can see exactly what he's getting before he lays down some heavy
bucks for it. IIRC, Capitol's 1994 Remaster only cost me about half of
what that MFSL disc did ... and I enjoy it twice as much!

Over,

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

......I still believe that
MFSL either (1) should keep any ****ty CDs they produce off the market
or (2) print the damn (lousy) peak/level readings for each of their CDs'
tracks clearly somewhere on the backside of their packaging so a guy
like me can see exactly what he's getting before he lays down some heavy
bucks for it. IIRC, Capitol's 1994 Remaster only cost me about half of
what that MFSL disc did ... and I enjoy it twice as much!

Over,

Myke

Myke -

1. MFSL is out of business. They lost their market when people stopped
caring about carefully produced recordings of the original master tapes.

2. There is nothing deceiving or wrong about selling a CD with peaks
at -6dB. In the early days of CD production (and many experts still agree),
the goal was to set the levels so the noise floor (point of inaudibility)
3dB or so above digital zero. As long as the peaks were all well below 0dB,
it was a good thing.

- FLINT

This is my whole point, my argument, my *beef* with the entire system
that for so many years had me believing that if I bought a CD I was
getting "the best there was to get" - which was a complete and outright
*lie*.


The average level of the signal on a CD will not affect the "sound" of that
signal. All you are doing is turning the volume up and declaring it "Better"
than a "defective" original. Just because the CD isn't as loud as you prefer
doesn't make it sound any worse. Who lied to you about the recordings. I can
assure you that the MFSL CDs sound as good or better than the originally
released CD made from the original tapes mastered for LP production.

- FLINT

Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:


This is my whole point, my argument, my *beef* with the entire system
that for so many years had me believing that if I bought a CD I was
getting "the best there was to get" - which was a complete and outright
*lie*.

Myke, I'm afraid you've completely lost me. I have no idea
what you want that a volume control doesn't equate to. I
can't imagine what you think might be missing. Best and
truth have nothing whatsoever to do with level in any
universe I've visited recently.


Later,

Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

Meanwhile, what really scares me the most as a consumer is my fear of
the possibility that much of what is being and has already been passed
off as "digitally remastered stuff" to a sonically illiterate public is
really nothing more than the "same old stuff" with a simple,
"normalization" applied to boost the amplitude.

Okay, lesson two:

The many of the original CDs were produced from the master tapes used to
make LPs. In fact, there is a design in the CD format called de-emphasis,
which removes the RIAA curve used for making LPs from the CD signal so CD
producers could save time getting CDs out. If you ever see the "EMP"
indicator on your CD display, you are playing a CD made from a tape mastered
for LP.

When people like MFSL and others proved there was a huge market for using
the original master tapes (those the producer loved the most), they began
"re-mastering" from the original multi-track recordings. However, they did
not intend to change the sound from the original intent of the artists or
producers, they just wanted to create a CD that most closely resembled what
they heard when they mastered the tapes in the first place.

Along the way, the industry decided that using the noise floor as the
reference for the loudness of a recording was not the best idea. They
instead switched to using 0dBFS as their reference for the highest peak in
the recording. In the past couple of years they have started chopping off
the peaks with limiters and compressors and a thing called an "distresser"
to get the average level as high as possible. The goal being to have the
loudest sounding CD on the market, thus better sounding on the radio
(remember my comments about the perception of louder music?).

Also, I recently purchased some "remastered" CDs where they have not
attempted to replicate the original sound the artists and producers got.
Instead they have used different effect processors and added serious
compression to make the classic music sound similar to the current trendy
crap.

But you see, tastes have changed and they no longer primarily produce music
for LP.

- FLINT

flint wrote:

The average level of the signal on a CD will not affect the "sound" of that
signal.

You and I might understand this but Joe Sixpack doesn't - and in my
little MP3-makin' world - Joe Sixpack, unfortunately, is *everywhere*,
whether he's welcome there or not...

If Joe were ever to care enough to actually sit down and compare 2
different versions of the same music on CD, he's more than likely going
to want to compare them at the same level of volume in order to
eliminate that variable.

If the two discs are not mastered at the same level of volume and all
Joe does is simply listen to each of them, side-by-side, one right after
the other, I guarantee you he's going to pick the louder one and
consider the quieter one to be "inferior" if not outright "defective".

And if you try to tell him that they're really the same thing and all he
has to do to make them sound equally well is crank up the volume just a
little bit more, I guarantee you he'll look you straight in the eye and
say, "But I shouldn't *have* to crank up the volume if it really is the
same as that other one over there."

Perception is key.

And if he really wants to buy it right then, Joe will take the
"superior" CD and may even also perceive you to be a liar.

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

You and I might understand this but Joe Sixpack doesn't - and in my
little MP3-makin' world - Joe Sixpack, unfortunately, is *everywhere*,
whether he's welcome there or not...


WE cannot change the world all at once.

I only respond to these to help YOU to understand your misconceptions of
audio levels. I don't care about Joe Sixpack. Not only would he not care
about this, but he wouldn't be running Linux on his PC.

YOU claimed the MFSL CD was inferior, so I wanted to correct your
understanding of why you felt this way.

YOU claimed to have been lied to by MFSL, so I wanted to correct your
perception.

However, your goal is to make a mix tape that doesn't jump around in
loudness. To accomplish this goal you have found a perfectly acceptable
solution. Good for you.

I was bothered by the effect YOUR comments would have on any Joe Sixpacks
that might be reading this.

This is not a case of anyone trying to rip us off with crappy sounding
recordings. This is a case of the preferences of the mastering houses when
they set levels for CDs over time. Today's music sounds louder than music
from the past. There are two reasons: 1. Switching from using the noise
floor as a reference for CDs to using the highest dynamic peak as a
reference. 2. Compressing the crap out of music. The dynamic range of modern
pop/rock music is so limited, they could use a 10 bit (or smaller) digital
signal to capture all of it. ARGH!!!


- FLINT

Bob Cain wrote:

Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:


This is my whole point, my argument, my *beef* with the entire system
that for so many years had me believing that if I bought a CD I was
getting "the best there was to get" - which was a complete and outright
*lie*.

Myke, I'm afraid you've completely lost me. I have no idea
what you want that a volume control doesn't equate to. I
can't imagine what you think might be missing. Best and
truth have nothing whatsoever to do with level in any
universe I've visited recently.

Scratch that. Based on your last couple of posts I do
understand that you are just trying to make the levels of
your tracks the same.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message
...
Along the way, the industry decided that using the noise floor as the
reference for the loudness of a recording was not the best idea.

Why not? Were others besides me calling them too often on the phone to
voice their complaints?

Why not? When CDs hit the market, there was a fear that they would be too
loud and damage speakers and equipment (remember the Telarc 1812 Overture
with "digital canons'?). So, they chose to go with lower peaks and not lose
any sound in the noise floor. Later, someone decided that philisophy was
bunk since everyone had better speakers and electronics now. Once a few CDs
came out with peaks at 0dBFS, every was forced to follow suit or sound
quieter. This was also the same period when they started re-issuing older
CDs as remastered.


Also, I recently purchased some "remastered" CDs where they have not
attempted to replicate the original sound the artists and producers got.
Instead they have used different effect processors and added serious
compression to make the classic music sound similar to the current
trendy
crap.

Namely? I'm interested in knowing if I too have some of these
"remasters" so that I might be better able to conduct a few more Joe Keg
sound experiments.

I won't say which CDs, as I do not want to taint anybody's enjoyment of the
music.

Kinda makes you wonder now if all the "collector's edition vinyl" that's
still being pressed these days are all mastered "with emphasis" from
masters originally intended for making CDs.

Modern LPs are a niche market and the master tapes are very carefully
produced specifically for the LP transfer. With all the signal processing
available today, thee LPs sound amazingly better than the old ones.

- FLINT

flint wrote:

I only respond to these to help YOU to understand your misconceptions of
audio levels. I don't care about Joe Sixpack.

Yeah, but if you happened to find yourself *working* for him sometime
you just might. (And I'm not gonna say anything else about that! *LOL*)

Not only would he not care about this, but he wouldn't be running Linux
on his PC.

I'm not gonna say anything else about *that* either! :-DDD
(You're starting to hit just a little too close to home there, flint!
It's makin' me nervous!)

YOU claimed the MFSL CD was inferior, so I wanted to correct your
understanding of why you felt this way.

And you have - quite handily, I might add. However, the music industry
obviously considered it to be bad practice to use the noise floor as a
peak reference point too, somewhere down the line. Otherwise they
wouldn't have changed it. And that's not in defense of clipping for the
sake of loudness either. I just don't see anything wrong with taking
more willful advantage of the larger range for amplitudes that CDs make
available. If it's really only a matter of turning it up or turning it
down, and you're not doing anything that harms the original dynamics,
and the range is right there waiting for you to use it - I say, by all
means, do.

YOU claimed to have been lied to by MFSL, so I wanted to correct your
perception.

Well, yeah, I guess they did deliver on their promise to provide me with
an approximately "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING", so to speak - but even
with the noise floor being used as their peak reference level, they
still had plenty of opportunity to make better use of all that available
range - and didn't for no apparent reason.

Could they have still been "excuseable" from an industrial perspective
if they'd used an even quieter signal which ultimately forced me to have
to turn it up to damn near eleven?

However, your goal is to make a mix tape that doesn't jump around in
loudness.

Actually, my goal is to make a mix *library* of over 2,100 full-length
recordings - but the principle remains relatively unchanged.

By doing this the way I am, I *should* in the future be able to grab
just about any of the MP3s I've made since discovering "normalize" and
play them in any "mix" I want without ever having to ride the pump.

To accomplish this goal you have found a perfectly acceptable
solution. Good for you.

I hope it could be good for a lot more people than just me, though, too.

Things really do sound better to me now.

I was bothered by the effect YOUR comments would have on any Joe Sixpacks
that might be reading this.

I can see a little bit of sense in your being concerned about that, yes.

This is not a case of anyone trying to rip us off with crappy sounding
recordings. This is a case of the preferences of the mastering houses when
they set levels for CDs over time.

However, you still haven't attempted to explain to me *why* the change
occurred ... and until you or somebody else does that, I'm left prone to
believing that enough people in the industry finally started to realize
that what they were doing sucked eggs (i.e. a lot of helpless people
were getting ripped off!) *LOL* :-D

This is, mind you, the exact same reason why I stopped only ripping and
encoding - and started normalizing in between the two as well! I've
still got too many of those older 2001/2002-vintage MP3s hangin' around
my hard drive and damn near every single one of them *sucks eggs*. :-)

Today's music sounds louder than music from the past.

Not after I get ahold of it.

The dynamic range of modern pop/rock music is so limited, they could
use a 10 bit (or smaller) digital signal to capture all of it. ARGH!!!

Yes, I'm sure you're right, but then one day Joe Sixpack would surely
get wind of it and think it was defective.

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

Bob Cain wrote:

This is my whole point, my argument, my *beef* with the entire
system that for so many years had me believing that if I bought a
CD I was getting "the best there was to get" - which was a complete
and outright *lie*.

Myke, I'm afraid you've completely lost me. I have no idea what you
want that a volume control doesn't equate to. I can't imagine what
you think might be missing. Best and truth have nothing whatsoever
to do with level in any universe I've visited recently.

Do you think perhaps I may have been already feeling a bit "too ripped
off" by the RIAA after 23 years of constant bombardment with a line of
Pink Floyd LPs, then Pink Floyd CDs, then Pink Floyd remasters, then
Pink Floyd 24-bit remasters, and now next I'm sure it'll be Pink Floyd
DVD-As??? Y'know? It's like, c'mon. Honestly, when you bought that
133MHz Pentium processor PC, did you really believe that there wasn't
already a fully developed 500MHz Pentium III processor "waitin' in the
wings" somewhere just being held back from release until everybody'd
been ripped off by being made to buy cheap-ass 350s??? Please.

You don't think all this skepticism in me just suddenly came down with
yesterday's rain, now do ya?

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message
...
.... I just don't see anything wrong with taking
more willful advantage of the larger range for amplitudes that CDs make
available. If it's really only a matter of turning it up or turning it
down, and you're not doing anything that harms the original dynamics,
and the range is right there waiting for you to use it - I say, by all
means, do.

You are not taking advantage of anything. You are not improving the sound.
All you are doing it turning up the volume. If you weren't also compressing
these songs as MP3s, I would deride you fro adding distortion in the proces
of "normalizing" the signal. ALL DIGITAL PROCESSING IS IN NATURE
DESTRUCTIVE.

Well, yeah, I guess they did deliver on their promise to provide me with
an approximately "ORIGINAL MASTER RECORDING", so to speak - but even
with the noise floor being used as their peak reference level, they
still had plenty of opportunity to make better use of all that available
range - and didn't for no apparent reason.

They made full use of the dynamic range. There is nothing missing from their
CD. Every single sound that was on the original master tapes is on that CD.
All the quiet stuff and all the loud stuff. It was not compressed or
limited. It was not hindered in any way while producing the CD. They only
chose not to push the peaks to 0dBFS.


Could they have still been "excuseable" from an industrial perspective
if they'd used an even quieter signal which ultimately forced me to have
to turn it up to damn near eleven?

It doesn't matter how high you turn up your amp. If you like listening to
music at a certain level, then turn it up until the music is as loud as you
want it. There will be no more distortion than with the later release of the
CD.

I hope it could be good for a lot more people than just me, though, too.

You are adjusting the levels of MP3s so they are similar. If your goal was
to discuss this, then your subject line should have been "Normalizing audio
for consistent loudness". That is a different discussion and wouldn't have
gotten so many people ****ed off. This isn't about what is "better" or
"superior." This is about your preference that the music, whether new or
old, have a similar level when you make a mix collection.

- FLINT

flint wrote:

When CDs hit the market, there was a fear that they would be too
loud and damage speakers and equipment

Ok, ok. So when the CD was first rushed to market (the high-end market)
the homework still hadn't been handed in to be graded. I'll buy that.

(remember the Telarc 1812 Overture with "digital canons'?).

Yes, I do remember that, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, I never
got to hear it. What were the final results? Did anyone ever report in
as having destroyed their Polks with one of those things? I never found
out about it one way or the other. But, man, were those the days!

Later, someone decided that philisophy was bunk since everyone had
better speakers and electronics now.

Except all the $50G tube-ampers of course.

Once a few CDs came out with peaks at 0dBFS, every was forced to
follow suit or sound quieter. This was also the same period when
they started re-issuing older CDs as remastered.

Lemme guess, this was sometime around 1993/1994, no?

I won't say which CDs, as I do not want to taint anybody's enjoyment
of the
music.

Oh, c'mon. You can tell *me*!

I'll Pink Floyd just lost their shirts 'cuz of me.

Modern LPs are a niche market and the master tapes are very carefully
produced specifically for the LP transfer.

Well, that's good to know because I actually buy a few of those every
now and then - if I like the group well enough.

With all the signal processing available today,
thee LPs sound amazingly better than the old ones.

Hmmm... I personally wouldn't know about that because, while I *open*
them to look at all the pretty pictures in side, I never play them -
'cuz I also buy the CD version as well.

Thanks,

Myke

--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message


Y'know sump'm, I think I've finally identified a major "missing link" in
our discussion here.

No, you haven't 'identified it'; it is extremely well-known.

MP3 is 'brute force' merely by virtue of it's encoding rate being
user-selectable, almost universally to highly detrimental values - exactly
those that excite you so much by their 'small file-size'.

However, I guess you'll manage to turn it around and totally contradict
yourself yet again, ending up claiming it is actually a Good Thing,
especially if put through a particular command line application in your OS
of choice.

geoff

Troll wrote:
"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message

Y'know sump'm, I think I've finally identified a major "missing link" in
our discussion here.

No, you haven't 'identified it'; it is extremely well-known.

But it hasn't been brought up yet in our discussion.

Low amplitudes are certainly something to be avoided when recording to
MiniDiscs because they'll undoubtedly cause the ATRAC compression
filters to remove the weakest, most susceptible frequencies that are
present in the soundsource.

MP3 is 'brute force' merely by virtue of it's encoding rate being
user-selectable, almost universally to highly detrimental values -
exactly those that excite you so much by their 'small file-size'.

For general listening purposes, 192KBps and even 128KBps MP3s are well
beyond adequate.

And by way of your deliberate misinterpretation of my use of the term,
"brute force", it is clear that you have depleted your potential for
injecting meaningful contributions into this thread.

However, I guess you'll manage to turn it around and totally contradict
yourself yet again, ending up claiming it is actually a Good Thing,
especially if put through a particular command line application in your OS
of choice.

Well, my normalized MP3s do unquestionably sound better than those which
are not. I listen to them all the time. When they play in random
shuffle mode, it's patently obvious which ones have and which ones have
not been normalized.

It seems to me that if the older method of measuring peaks vs. the newer
method of measuring peaks is real, what sense does it make to create
collections of MP3s from CDs which hail from both eras? Tis best to
normalize the old and leave the new one alone for a superior balance lf
loudnesses across-the-board.

Of course, you still don't believe certain frequencies can become too
weak to be heard at lower amplitudes while others remain less affected.

Well, I just conducted a test. I put on my Capitol 1994 Remastered CD
of Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" and turned the volume knob all
the way down - and son of a gun, I couldn't hear *any* of the
frequencies that are recorded on that disc! Although thanks to you I
wasn't fooled by this. I knew beyond all doubt that even though I
couldn't hear them, those frequencies were still on that gold disc -
safe and sound.

Myke


--

-================================-
Windows...It's rebootylicious!!!
-================================-

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:59:08 -0500, Lord Hasenpfeffer
wrote:

I have no disagreement with you here about the nature of the music
itself. My initial argument was that "normalize" has enabled me to
frequently produce 128KBps MP3s which sound better to my ears and brain
than do the original source CDs from which the original WAVs were
ripped. That in and of itself is the point I'm *trying* to prove by all
of this. Everyone keeps telling me I'm full of **** when I say this and
I know that I am not!

No, everyone keeps telling you that you're full of **** because you
claim to have 'whopped the ass of MFSL', when all you have done is
shove the signal through a meatgrinder that makes it sound 'better' to
*you*. Not 'better' in any absolute sense, just the way *you* like it.


The point is you are changing the artists work.

No, I'm changing the work of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab - which I
personally believe should *not* be possible. I paid them in exchange
for something I should not be able to improve on my own - yet that is in
no way what I received - by any stretch of the imagination.

HTF do you know? Do you have access to the original master tapes? Do
you understand what MFSL was set up to *do*?

And my experience is such that I have learned that a *majority* of the
other standard, commercial compact discs within my personal collection
are mastered just as horribly as my MFSL Ultradisc II version of "Dark
Side". And for this I am *thankful* to have "normalize" on my side. It
has truly proven to be a "magic bullet" in my arsenal for improving the
sound of my CDs before I encode them to MP3.

If that's what floats *your* boat, then fine. Just don't give us all
this crap about how you have produced a 'superior' sound with your
scrunched and squeezed multi-processed MP3..................

They sold to me (and obviously an untold number of other people) a
****ty WAV on a gold-plated disc at a very high price. Have you a
better term for this than I?

The closest possible approach to the original master tape.........

Y'know, I'd really like to believe you but at this point without no
reasonable explanation from someone who was actually on the MFSL staff
at the time this disc was produced, I simply cannot. Their CD sounds
like mud. After "normalizing" it to -10dBFS, however, I have made it
"come alive" on my desktop.

Um, I'm not sure that produce something that sounds good and loud on
desktop speakers was entirely the intention of the MFSL staff......
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 04:59:13 GMT, flint wrote:

The many of the original CDs were produced from the master tapes used to
make LPs. In fact, there is a design in the CD format called de-emphasis,
which removes the RIAA curve used for making LPs from the CD signal so CD
producers could save time getting CDs out. If you ever see the "EMP"
indicator on your CD display, you are playing a CD made from a tape mastered
for LP.

OK, just to take this OT even more...

Emphasis in relation to CD refers to HF lift applied to the source
material when mastering to CD, which is then removed on replay, in an
attempt to increase the perceived noiselessness of the system. A silly
idea that as far as I'm aware was never used - that is, there are no
commercial CDs that use emphasis. OK, bold statement, but I bet there
aren't many, and none are from the last 15 years or so.

This emphasis was not intended to be applied to the master. In the same
way, RIAA EQ was never applied to the master ('Master' meaning the tape
that left the mixing room as being the final product). Have you seen
the RIAA curve? It is so severe that is would be unlistenable to, so
any idea that removing this EQ in order to master to Cd is wrong.

However, ignoring what kit the end product is to be used on when mixing
and mastering is silly, so recordings made when 33rpm vinyl was king
took into account the limitations of the medium, in the same way as
mixing for the cinema, mixing for TV (which is what I do), mixing for CD
and mixing for shellac, all take into account the end conditions. So,
the original mix for Dark Side of The Moon would sound different to a
remix done today by the same people, probably. That's OK by me, but
bunging it through some 'normaliser' (which, as evidenced by the
screenshots, also buggers the dynamic range (so it isn't actually a
'normaliser anyway, by definition) ), is absolutely not on.

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 17:06:39 -0500, Lord Hasenpfeffer wrote:

Some yesterday were telling me that by using "normalize" to
boost the amplitude of my original WAV that I was reducing the original
dynamic range - which I've now proven is obviously not the case.

Eh? You blind too?

Not only have you reduced the dynamic range (which normalisation doesn't
do, so you are not normalising), in some places you have actually
INVERTED the dynamic range!!!

To give you a clue(!), look at the peaks around 11 minutes and 24.5
minutes. In the original the peaks are higher at 24.5 than at 11.
You've made the peaks at 11 higher than at 24.5!

"Lord Hasenpfeffer" wrote in message

Low amplitudes are certainly something to be avoided when recording to
MiniDiscs because they'll undoubtedly cause the ATRAC compression
filters to remove the weakest, most susceptible frequencies that are
present in the soundsource.

And moreso with MP3, which you delight in listening to extensively.

MP3 is 'brute force' merely by virtue of it's encoding rate being
user-selectable, almost universally to highly detrimental values -
exactly those that excite you so much by their 'small file-size'.

For general listening purposes, 192KBps and even 128KBps MP3s are well
beyond adequate.

128 is defintie insufficient. 192 is seldom-used, 160 more common, and much
better than 128 though still audibly inferior to uncompressed (datawise).

And by way of your deliberate misinterpretation of my use of the term,
"brute force", it is clear that you have depleted your potential for
injecting meaningful contributions into this thread.

As you like...

However, I guess you'll manage to turn it around and totally contradict
yourself yet again, ending up claiming it is actually a Good Thing,
especially if put through a particular command line application in your
OS
of choice.

Well, my normalized MP3s do unquestionably sound better than those which
are not. I listen to them all the time. When they play in random
shuffle mode, it's patently obvious which ones have and which ones have
not been normalized.

'Better' to you being 'louder'. Although barely perceptably.

It seems to me that if the older method of measuring peaks vs. the newer
method of measuring peaks is real,

What new and old methods of measuring peaks ? There has always been one
consistent method.

Well, I just conducted a test. I put on my Capitol 1994 Remastered CD
of Pink Floyd, "Dark Side Of The Moon" and turned the volume knob all
the way down - and son of a gun, I couldn't hear *any* of the
frequencies that are recorded on that disc!

I have little confidence in your abiity to hear any subtleties at all, let
alone identify or describe them. Describing your playback chain might help.

geoff

"Martin Tillman" wrote in message


and mixing for shellac, all take into account the end conditions. So,
the original mix for Dark Side of The Moon would sound different to a
remix done today by the same people, probably.

But none of these variations are remixes (apart from the 5:1 toys). We are
talking about different *masters* of the same mix. Some EQed, some maybe
'restored', some (such as MFSL ?) left pure but treated scrupulously, as
with kid-gloves.

geoff