From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V4 #224 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Tuesday, August 17 2004 Volume 04 : Number 224 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel [LkDylaninthmvies@aol.] Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel ["Fortissimo" ] Re: [loud-fans] Let's [Dan Sallitt ] Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel [LkDylaninthmvies@aol.] Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel [Aaron Mandel Doesn't Nero normalize by default? Maybe it's just louder and normally > louder = better when the ears are involved. Or at least there's a common > perception that louder = better. > > Best, > > JFB > Loud is the new loud. I think Nero does normalize by default. I haven't played around with the software. I just click "CD copy" of whatever I'm burning (I leave noodlings up to people like Mitch Easter or Greg Calbi). I talked about this with my boss at work, and he is a Deadhead/Phishhead who has a lot of shared fan stuff. He is also into computers, (built his own) and he assures me that it is impossible for a copy to sound better than a master, him stating you always lose something in the transfer, digital media being no exception. I don't know if that's 100% true. I can remember twenty years ago my brother taking a store bought cassette of Yello's YOU GOTTA SAY YES TO ANOTHER EXCESS with Dolby B noise reduction and transferring it to a metal cassette in Dolby C, and it sounded better than the original. I hear little things on LN that I hadn't really noticed before on surface listen...Donette's backing vocals being more pronounced, little nuances Scott does on guitar.... I don't know why it sounds better. It just does. If only the album could/would be reissued with a proper supervised remaster by Scott, like there was talk of last year. Can you imagine with current technology what that 1987 recording would sound like with Scott at the controls? Damn. I've listened to the album continuously over the weekend at work in the car, and it is such an amazing piece of art. To think Scott masterminded this work at the age of 26? 27? My God. A couple of bits remind me of My Bloody Valentine, and their first album came out I think a year later? (btw Gil, "The Waist And The Knees" drumming is awesome. I never tire of it) Rodent remastering...the wave of the future, - --Mark S. np: The Field Mice (not intentional) WHERE'D YOU LEARN TO KISS THAT WAY? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 08:15:07 -0500 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 04:45:29 EDT, LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com said: > In a message dated 8/14/04 7:29:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time, > butland@nbnet.nb.ca writes: > > > > Doesn't Nero normalize by default? Maybe it's just louder and normally > > louder = better when the ears are involved. Or at least there's a common > > perception that louder = better. > Loud is the new loud. I think Nero does normalize by default. I haven't > played around with the software. I have version 5.5.4.9 (it came w/the TDK drive I bought a couple years ago), and it doesn't normalize by default. It's easy to make it do so, though: in the Explorer-like window that you use to order tracks (not using the wizard), select all the tracks, then right-click on them to bring up the properties dialog window. The second tab gives you options, such as normalization. > me that it is impossible for a copy to sound better than a master, him > stating > you always lose something in the transfer, digital media being no > exception. I'm also not sure, but a digital copy is just transferring a coded series of ones and zeroes from one place to another: it's pure information, not sound - so a copy should be identical, so long as no transcription errors are introduced. > I don't know if that's 100% true. I can remember twenty years ago my > brother > taking a store bought cassette of Yello's YOU GOTTA SAY YES TO ANOTHER > EXCESS > with Dolby B noise reduction and transferring it to a metal cassette in > Dolby > C, and it sounded better than the original. What's going on here is that what ears hear is not necessarily what machines measure. "Loudness," for example, doesn't map consistently with decibels. You can prove this for yourself, by looking at the cool little graphic a sound-editing program gives you (I'm guessing one came with your Nero software - at least it did with mine). Particularly on older recordings, or low-fi recordings (like live shows), there'll be weird little spikes that are very transient - sibilant consonants, percussion - - that won't really sound louder to the ear, but which peak the meter. If you reduce those, so they're about equal with (visually) the rest of the peaks, you probably won't hear any difference. Also, the more something's compressed (the lower the difference between quiet and loud sound), the "better" it sounds to most people. This is because (I think) we know that a scream is louder than a whisper, but if the whisper is actually only marginally louder than the scream (as recorded), when that scream comes, we experience it as being even louder than the already loud whisper. Also (as any metal band knows), louder generally sounds better. Cheap hi-fi-salesman trick o' the day: customer is interested in two units, one of which gives you way better commission. Customer wants to A/B same record on two systems. You turn up the volume on Le Grand Commission system a bit; customer thinks it sounds way better. Ka-CHING! Plenty people here can explain all this technically (and correct any misimpressions I may have)...like Doug or Tim, I'm thinking... - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree :: what they are made of, where they come from, or how often :: they should appear. :: --Lemony Snicket ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:30:26 -0400 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Let's > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-loud-fans@smoe.org [mailto:owner-loud-fans@smoe.org] On Behalf > Of Vallor > Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 4:01 AM > To: loud-fans@smoe.org > Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Let's > > > I was the one who mentioned that drawing. I wanted to have it enlarged > and > > put on a T-shirt. So, WHO did this drawing? Would they mind if I put > it > on a > > shirt? What is "E and TBM"? > > Sorry, I guess that was vague. Will Seargeant is the guitarist for Echo > And > The Bunnymen. Let's Active toured with them in mid '84 (I suppose that's > right, as the Cypress album came out in late '84, Ocean Rain earlier that > year). I recall going into the restroom backstage at the Warfield in SF > and > as I walked in, Ian McCulloch crawled out of this tiny restroom closet. I > suspected drugs or something untoward, but I was assured by Sara that > wasn't > his thing...I suspect he just wanted some alone time. I gotta say, it > remains one of the strangest encounters I've ever had. > > Let's Active were pretty friendly with the Bunnymen and I was told that > Zippy Schultz (I think that's the name on the picture) was in fact Will. I asked Faye about this this week and she confirmed what JRT says. The AFOOT cover art was done by Faye not many years before the album, whereas the CYPRESS cover was from a very young Mitch. The "Art as it Happens" sleeve art for CYPRESS was in fact by Will Sergeant. Faye:"He drew that picture of our band while we were playing a show in England and he ran up and stuck it on my monitor speaker. Cracked me up" > Someone also asked about other women in Let's Active a while back. Lynne > Blakey (who had a band called Holiday with Linda Hopper from Oh, OK...they > released one mini-LP) played guitar on, I believe, two Let's Active tours. > Prior to that, Eric Peterson (all of 17 at the time) played guitar on > their > very first tour with REM. > > Eric was in the dB's breifly. I understand Lynne is still making music to > some extent (allmusic has her credited as singing on a few 90's Velvet > Crush > albums and she's on the new Alejandro Escovedo tribute/benefit CD singing > and playing guitar in some capacity). Al is a great guy and it's very sad > that he's been ill. Game Theory toured the mid-west with the True > Believer's > in 1985 and they were just wonderful guys to tour with, I recommend people > buy the CD set (Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo) as > it'll help out a great guy and it has people of interest to this list > (Chris > Stamey, Calexico, Howe Gelb). > > Lynne was also the inspiration/subject matter of The Replacement's song > "Left Of The Dial". Right Dan, I think Lynn dated Westerberg for a while. For the past several years she has been playing in Glory Fountain with John Chumbris. They have two albums to date, the last of which THE BEAUTY OF 23, is in fact a beauty and one of my favorites from 2002. More recently Lynn has been in Tres Chicas with Caitlin Cary (Whiskeytown) and Tonya Lamm (Hazeldine). They have an album out this Summer on Yep Roc. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:52:36 -0400 From: Dan Sallitt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Let's > Right Dan, I think Lynn dated Westerberg for a while. For the past > several years she has been playing in Glory Fountain with John Chumbris. > They have two albums to date, the last of which THE BEAUTY OF 23, is in > fact a beauty and one of my favorites from 2002. More recently Lynn has > been in Tres Chicas with Caitlin Cary (Whiskeytown) and Tonya Lamm > (Hazeldine). They have an album out this Summer on Yep Roc. Blakey also co-wrote the beautiful song "What Will You Do?" on Cary's WHILE YOU WEREN'T LOOKING. - Dan ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 15:59:25 EDT From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel In a message dated 8/16/04 9:21:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time, tonerbomb@warpmail.net writes: > I'm also not sure, but a digital copy is just transferring a coded > series of ones and zeroes from one place to another: it's pure > information, not sound - so a copy should be identical, so long as no > transcription errors are introduced. > > I understand the difference between analog and digital recording on an elementary level, but, if it is just zeroes and ones, why do companies who make CD-Rs make some that cost significantly more that are made specifically for musical recording? Is it just deceptive marketing for extra cash? It would seem to me that a CD recorded on two different CD-Rs, regardless of brand or style, recorded on the same computer at the same settings should sound and be identical in their structure. How could a CD-R that is "for musical recordings" be any different or better than a regular one? This also brings into question those old gold CDs from 10-15 years ago that were touted as superior in sound quality. I have R.E.M.'s RECKONING on one of those, and it sounds fantastic, but how does that disc differ in its structure from the AM+ series version from A& M that would make it sound better? I would think that would be about how the album was mastered, not the media that it was mastered onto. Also, another thing that is perplexing to me. How come my '80s minted CD of Aztec Camera's HIGH LAND, HARD RAIN plays fine, but is riddled with holes? Am I just lucky enough to have a CD that has all the necessary data in the non-holed places? I have a 1987 vintage Door's Greatest Hits that is the same way, and it plays fine. However, I couldn't give the thing away if I wanted to. Even if you cannot answer all these questions, Jeff, I'm putting them out there so perhaps someone else on the list can take a stab at them. And, most importantly, how many licks does it really take to get to the bottom of a Tootsie Roll pop? It had to have been more than three. Mr. Owl jerked that kid around. - --Mark S. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:36:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: > I understand the difference between analog and digital recording on an > elementary level, but, if it is just zeroes and ones, why do companies > who make CD-Rs make some that cost significantly more that are made > specifically for musical recording? Because of a deal someone made. I can't remember the details now, but the gist is that someone lobbied for a system where standalone CD recorders -- which for a little while seemed like they might get popular -- would only record onto special CDs that have a digital signature set by the manufacturer which says "okay for music!" And then the manufacturers of those CDs pay a surcharge to the major labels. So this system went into law, or was just signed onto by everyone involved, and CD makers started making "music" CDs. They aren't any different from regular CDRs, except that you could use them in one of those stereo-component CD burners that doesn't hook up to a computer. In theory, every time you buy one of those, some money is going to the major labels, so you'd think they would be more expensive, but in practice that doesn't seem to actually happen. Not around here, anyway. I assume something like that is also the reason that you never see music mentioned on the packaging for "computer" CDRs, even though you can totally use them to burn music onto. a ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 17:26:13 -0500 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation: remastered by a gerbil on an exercise wheel On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 15:59:25 EDT, LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com said: > In a message dated 8/16/04 9:21:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time, > tonerbomb@warpmail.net writes: > > > those old gold CDs from 10-15 years ago that were touted as superior in > sound > quality. The *data* is digital (just information) but the physical media are just that: objects, upon which that data is encoded. The better the quality of that physical media is in encoding the data, the better the data is truly encoded (so less need for error correction) and the more durable, etc. I think also with the "gold" CDs they often claimed to have gone back to the master tapes and cleaned 'em up. There's also some technical stuff beyond me about sampling rate, etc. - anyone? > Also, another thing that is perplexing to me. How come my '80s minted CD > of > Aztec Camera's HIGH LAND, HARD RAIN plays fine, but is riddled with > holes? Different CD players have differing (better or worse) error-correction technology. These work by, essentially, guessing at what missing data might be. If you have a wave form that's steadily descending, and all of a sudden there's a drop to zero, and then the descending waveform resumes, error-correction will "guess" that that gap is a mistake, and average the data to "fill in" the blanks that result in that waveform. - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: "In two thousand years, they'll still be looking for Elvis - :: this is nothing new," said the priest. ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V4 #224 *******************************