I just noticed!

[lost highway]

But YHF didn't have the sound level variation problems that AGIB had. They both had their problems.

 

The "problems" you speak of are more often called dynamics. Unfortunately in the last ten years new fancy digital mastering techniques have completely taken all of them out and made the loudest cd possible. Some people (maybe mostly nerds) still like albums that can get quieter, but in todays market they seem challenging to peoples exhausted ears. If you imagine the comic book store owner from the simpsons saying this that is fair, but AGIB was sonically one of the most refreshing album to come out in ages.

[froggie]

> As long as the first note of Sky Blue Sky doesn't blast me away like the first note of Summerteeth does, I'm fine with Jim Scott.

 

 

i remember the first time i heard that tune.. had a the volume up a bit louder than i should have

[TCP]

Do the O'Rourke nay sayers even know what mixing is? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of the best mixed albums in our digital audio world. The mixing is part of what makes the album one of Wilco's best.

[Guest Jules]

Do the O'Rourke nay sayers even know what mixing is? Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of the best mixed albums in our digital audio world. The mixing is part of what makes the album one of Wilco's best.

giddyup Halcyon.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

Others, however, see it this way:

 

There's more colour and depth to [sBS] than the flat towel-around-your-head production of AGIB.

I'm one of those others.

[willywoody]

Others, however, see it this way:

I'm one of those others.

 

 

and you know this based on a stream or a supposed cd quality copy on oink?

[TCP]

analogue=best. digital = crap. always. it will never reach the natural sounding-ness of analogue.

maybe way in the future.....

I was wondering if you could tell me, why exactly, analogue sounds so great but digital sounds like "crap"?

[Chris_H_2]

So this is the guy responsible for blasting my eardrums out at the beginning of "Wishful Thinking" on Kicking Television . . .

[willywoody]

I was wondering if you could tell me, why exactly, analogue sounds so great but digital sounds like "crap"?

 

you asked and very slowly i'll track down the links:

 

http://www.great-music.net/analog.htm

 

just say when you've had enough

[willywoody]

I was wondering if you could tell me, why exactly, analogue sounds so great but digital sounds like "crap"?

 

 

http://www.cloud9recording.com/pages/jh24andprotools.html

 

the main thing i've read previously is that when tubes distort they give off odd order harmonics, primarily 3rd order, whereas solid state gives off second order harmonics. supposedly, the odd order harmonics are more pleasing and less grating to the human ear than second order harmonics.

 

i'll keep looking for some more links to make more sense.

[willywoody]

http://www.recordingeq.com/EQ/req1099/ultimate.htm

 

a good discussion of analog vs digital recording and mixing.

[willywoody]

http://www.segall.com/atr.html

 

here's a brief discussion on sampling rates and how the cd medium is limited by such.

[tongue-tied]

i saw a phone commercial advertising mp3 sound, and i thought it was bad when mp3s were advertised as near-CD quality. now mp3s are the standard. i guess the good news is to those who think 128kb/s mp3s sound good today, it's only going to get better and better for them while those of us waiting for it to sound as good as a record will just be waiting.

 

Walter Sear's writing is pretty informative and entertaining: http://members.aol.com/searsound/articles2.html

[cryptique]

you asked and very slowly i'll track down the links:

 

http://www.great-music.net/analog.htm

 

just say when you've had enough

http://www.cloud9recording.com/pages/jh24andprotools.html

 

the main thing i've read previously is that when tubes distort they give off odd order harmonics, primarily 3rd order, whereas solid state gives off second order harmonics. supposedly, the odd order harmonics are more pleasing and less grating to the human ear than second order harmonics.

 

i'll keep looking for some more links to make more sense.

http://www.recordingeq.com/EQ/req1099/ultimate.htm

 

a good discussion of analog vs digital recording and mixing.

http://www.segall.com/atr.html

 

here's a brief discussion on sampling rates and how the cd medium is limited by such.

Wait. So you yourself don't seem to have any opinion on this ... you're just trusting what you read on the internet?

 

 

These articles, essays, whatever -- are hardly definitive on the subject you've chosen to tackle.

 

Now, let me be clear: I'm a big fan of analog. However, making a broad, sweeping statement such as "analogue=best. digital = crap. always. it will never reach the natural sounding-ness of analogue" is just plain foolish. Technology advances, in case you haven't noticed, and it has already reached a point where I would defy you to tell the difference between a pristine analog source and a high-quality digital source such as a well-executed SACD or DVD-Audio disc. Despite all the audiophile whining about "warmth," I would wager that when put to the test, you would score no better than coin-flip level on choosing which was which.

 

It's true that poorly mastered, inferior CDs have been the norm for years, and haven't exactly held up their end from an audiophile perspective -- and that probably explains this maniacal devotion to analog technology. But I no longer buy into this maxim that digital is somehow inherently inferior. The human ear is a talented organ, but there are limits to what it can discern (ask your dog) -- and digital technology has been testing those limits for some time now.

 

"maybe way in the future," you said. I'm saying the future is here.

 

Let me quote from the segall.com article:

 

The need to be downsampled to 44.1kHz and 16bit (known as 'Redbook CD') to be played on common players remains the downfall. Battles between Digital Video Disc formats as music delivery systems continue to confuse the public and cause only a few to buy the players and duplicate titles already owned.

He stops short of saying that Digital Video Disc formats remain inferior ... and in fact, he identifies the common "Redbook CD" as digital's downfall. SACD and DVD-Audio are not constrained by the same limits that hinder standard CDs, and while it's true that there is a format war that must be settled before these superior digital formats are widely accepted, the fact is that they are here, and the articles that you've linked to haven't addressed the comparisons between these newer digital formats and good ol' analog.

 

I'm sure you'll find an article eventually that does so. I look forward to reading it.

[willywoody]

i saw a phone commercial advertising mp3 sound, and i thought it was bad when mp3s were advertised as near-CD quality. now mp3s are the standard. i guess the good news is to those who think 128kb/s mp3s sound good today, it's only going to get better and better for them while those of us waiting for it to sound as good as a record will just be waiting.

 

Walter Sear's writing is pretty informative and entertaining: http://members.aol.com/searsound/articles2.html

 

another pertinent passage:

 

 

"Why do vacuum tubes sound 'different' than transistors in audio applications? Russell Hamm and I published our research in the May 1973 issue of the Audio Engineering Society Journal. We had been curious for years about why transistors sounded so different. Our research, which is often quoted and mis-quoted, revealed some interesting facts.

 

Attack transients (initial wave front information) from a good microphone can hit your mic pre-amp at plus 90 dB. The poor amplifier, whether tube or transistor, can pass about 40 dB. The rest is clipped. Clipping the excess 50 dB results in distortion. When we studied this distortion, we found that tubes would distort in even harmonics (mostly at the octave) and that transistors distorted producing odd harmonics, the 3rd and 13th partial predominating. You didn't have to be a pipe organ designer to know which distortion was more acceptable to the ear. Through the intervening years, many people have been trying, with varying success, to design transistor circuits that would sound like vacuum tubes. Finally, many manufacturers just went back to vacuum tube circuits.

 

Another nice thing about tube electronics is that when over-driven (too much input signal on the screen grid), they go into distortion slowly, similar to the way the human ear goes into distortion. With transistors, no such luck. As with digital overload, you hear it instantly when you have gone too far."

 

seems i may have mixed up my even order / odd order harmonics in a previous post. sorry about that.

[willywoody]

i didn't make the analogy of analog =good/ digital= crap. someone else did. there can be really good digital recordings but they won't sound as good as a really good analog recording.

 

i do believe the "hype" as it is based on actual measurable differences as was more succinctly and correctly described by mr sears in his writings. i also believe my ears. the best sounding albums and cds i own are analog recordings.

 

i apologize for not being able to track down many of the more inclusive articles i've read over the years. there are a lot more discussions that i couldn't track down.

 

as to dvd-a and sacd, i agree they overcome many of the limitations of cd. unfortunately, they are near dead in the water except for classical recordings. i bought an sacd player a little over a year ago and there's very little released in the format i want to hear. in fact many of the reissue labels that were supporting it haven't released an sacd in over a year. dvd-a is not fairing much better. it looked like the frankenstein dual disc might step in and help but few dual discs have a dvd-a layer rather having a standard dvd layer, albeit better than cd at least. just don't put one in a slot loading player or you may never see it again.

 

so i got a turntable this year, after 15 years without one, and am throwing my dollars into vinyl. one of the main reasons was to hear wilco sound as good as possible and while their cds sound great the albums, especially agib, sound better.

[cryptique]

i didn't make the analogy of analog =good/ digital= crap. someone else did.

Yup. My apologies -- since you were the one posting supporting articles, I assumed you had also posted the original comment ... I need to look more closely at who posted what.

 

as to dvd-a and sacd, i agree they overcome many of the limitations of cd. unfortunately, they are near dead in the water except for classical recordings. i bought an sacd player a little over a year ago and there's very little released in the format i want to hear. in fact many of the reissue labels that were supporting it haven't released an sacd in over a year. dvd-a is not fairing much better. it looked like the frankenstein dual disc might step in and help but few dual discs have a dvd-a layer rather having a standard dvd layer, albeit better than cd at least. just don't put one in a slot loading player or you may never see it again.

Blaming the format war is a diversion. I believe the question in regard to this is, does one or both of these formats provide the capability to match the "warmth" and other assets of an analog format?

 

Actually, it seems that there are two questions here: one about digital vs. analog recording techniques, and one about digital vs. analog playback formats. I have been addressing the question of playback.

[Calexico]

If a cryptique falls in a starbucks, does it echo in stereo?

[willywoody]

Yup. My apologies -- since you were the one posting supporting articles, I assumed you had also posted the original comment ... I need to look more closely at who posted what.

 

Blaming the format war is a diversion. I believe the question in regard to this is, does one or both of these formats provide the capability to match the "warmth" and other assets of an analog format?

 

Actually, it seems that there are two questions here: one about digital vs. analog recording techniques, and one about digital vs. analog playback formats. I have been addressing the question of playback.

 

no problem i'm enjoying the discussion. yes, i do believe sacd and dvd-a can match the warmth of vinyl playback on the right equipment. i still marvel at how good some of the rvg engineered jazz reissues sound on sacd but not all sound great. many of the really great sounding ones were mastered on analog equipment after the dsd conversion. same goes for the incredible sounding ccr releases, also mastered on analog equipment. however, willie and the poor boys was transfered flat to dsd with no extra mucking about according to the mastering engineer, steve hoffman. but to note, all of those jazz and ccr albums were recorded in analog.

 

basically, cd can't match vinyl playback but comes close. sacd and dvd-a are close to vinyl and maybe equal under the right conditions. unfortunately, if the music is recorded poorly, transferred to digital poorly, or mastered poorly it's not going to sound real good in any format but vinyl is more forgiving of a poor recording than the digital formats, imo.

[So Long]

let me just say that Jim O'Rourke is a genius behind the board, and I can only wonder what would have been the result if he had mixed Sky Blue Sky...

[lost highway]

Yeah poor Jim, his name causes dork wars. I miss him (I'm gonna go to Japan and say hi). We can talk khz somewhere else.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

and you know this based on a stream or a supposed cd quality copy on oink?

I prefer the warmth of the sound of the new SBS material coming through my tinny computer speakers to the sound of AGIB on my fine home stereo equipment. I'm really looking forward to getting the final CD version.

[TCP]

Willywoody, I appreciate you trying to help me, but I think you missed my point (though it wasn't really clear what I was saying!). I know all about digital audio. I am in my 5th semester of audio production school! I was just wondering if "sean Patrick" knew what he was talking about or if he was just being ignorant, which I suspect he was. Analog sounds warmer yes, and recording on tape is a 1:1 representation of the wave form, but to say digital sounds like shit, is really, really, silly.

[sean Patrick]

hey there.

sean patrick = me.

i have a bachelors in audio technology. soon going for a masters, hopefully at university of michigan.

i have been recording now for about 5 years. on various formats.

i also have had in-depth e-mail converstaions with walter sear for the last year which opened up my eyes.

 

i grew up with the sound of vinyl in my parents house. all the old classic albums. everything from django to cream, you know? it was great. i bought my first cd player 10 years later, when i was about 14. i noticed a difference then and now.

i have been in a band now that has been recording demos and other randomness now for years, always digital. and i must say, it sounds bad. it doesnt matter where it is, if it is in a studio with protools recording at 192 or on your laptop at 44.1. i think it is rubbish. we are in a mp3 culture. this is now engrained in us as the norm, where it isnt. its marketing. listen to a mp3 then the wav of the same file. hear the bubbles. it sounds like you have a phazor effects pedal on.

 

i bought a nagra last year upon graduating from school. a nagra is a mid 60's mono 1/4 tape machine. portable and swiss. amazing. that opened my eyes more than anything. after buying it i told walter sear and he told me that he had 2 and recorded about 200 film soundtracks, (i suspect most were porn). that was great i thought.

i think anyone who calls me ignorant or pompus is being silly. this is a forum. was i disrespecting your mother? no. was i speaking about what i know and love, yes. my opinion.

 

again, i would love for everyone to fit into my apartment and listen to kid a or a ghost is born on vinyl vs cd.

little things pop out due to the subharmonics mixing and mating, making wonderful music that most digital formats wont be able to replicate until im an old man.

 

also, i like jim o. he has better musical taste in my opinion. i like what he has done musically. on the other hand, i dont like jim scotts track record. rhcp? ok. strange. i also dont like the recordings of being there or summerteeth.

i was thinking jim o would be wilcos nigel godrich, their 6th member or 7th. that would of been cool.

 

just my opinion.

i thought people would want to hear my pov. seeing that i have a professional and academic background.

im a fun guy. i hate fights.

 

 

sean.

[WilcoFan]

I concur!!! A hearty good bye to J. O' Rourke!!

-robert.

 

Yes. Since YHF, the albums have been mastered at a very low level. When I put in pre-YHF albums, I can pump them up really high before they start to sound like crap. Unfortunately to me YHF and AGIB sound very muddy. Case in point: the first notes of "At Least That's...", you're like, "Has the album started yet?"