DSOTM - was it remixed in stereo for SACD? (1 Viewer)

[Wayne Bundrick]

Parsons and Guthrie were both closer to the band than Schaffner...

Don't shoot the messenger. If Schaffner's research was accurate then the stated reason the band didn't attend the DSOTM premiere party can be attributed to a statement made by one or more band members in 1973. It's possible that the band members simply didn't feel like attending and made up a few reasons to be mad at EMI. It wouldn't be the first time or the last time a band fed bullshit to the press. If you want to believe that is the case then you have to believe that engineers can spin the truth too.

I don't like the idea of hindsight excuses about less than ideal conditions to downplay the work that was done in 1973 and justify new remixes while the 1973 version remains out of print. The 1973 quad mix is not the first mix to ever be the victim of a series of compromises, whether it was not enough gear in the studio or not enough time to work it to perfection. It is what it is, and it remains highly regarded despite the engineer thinking about the things he couldn't do 30 years ago that he could do today.

 

[Ken Stuart]

By sheer coincidence, I found something that indicates that some engineers are taking into account the factors that I am talking about.

The following is excerpted from a longer article in Mix magazine about transferring the Rolling Stones albums to SACD:

RESPECTING THE ORIGINAL MASTERS

The transferred masters were brought to Ludwig's Gateway complex in Portland, Maine, where the veteran engineer methodically compared them to previously released versions of every song.

“On every single song, we had all of the original pressings — some mega-valuable pressings of these things, like the Ffrr recording of December's Children from Decca, which is worth hundreds of dollars,” says Ludwig. “We compared every version, sometimes the single and the album cuts if we were working on the album or the previous CDs that Abkco did. The thing that really checked out was the singles; they were considered the Gold standard. The speed of the singles was right, and whatever was on the singles is what the producers [i.e., Miller, Andrew Loog Oldham, Glyn Johns and the Stones themselves] had really liked.”

Some of the singles were extremely bright because they were cut for AM radio. Ludwig decided to respect the originals, even if they were mastered differently than the way he might have done them.

“Sometimes, I'd do what I thought was a good EQ, and then I'd put the record on and it was like, ‘Whoa, they got a hell of a lot of vocal EQ out of that, boosting the midrange like crazy!’ I wouldn't have thought to have done that much, but that's what came out at the time. That's what they were thinking, and that's, in fact, what people grew up with. For this project, I had to respect that.”

Ludwig kept his use of compression to a minimum: “We used as much compression as was needed to make it sound like the original, but in no case did we over-compress anything by a long shot. In fact, a lot of the cuts do not have compression on them at all. The idea was to have a really good-quality version of what they originally did.”

Mix magazine article on Rolling Stones SACDs

 

[LanceJ]

MORE confusing stuff:

Stereophile analyzes DSOTM sacd.

LJ

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

MORE confusing stuff:

That validates what I thought I heard when I said the redbook layer sounded a touch compressed.

Regards,

 

[Philip Hamm]

MORE confusing stuff:

Not confusing at all, actually. Not really surprising either. Dissapointing though.

I'm going to make an analog copy of the SACD to MiniDisc, I'll bet that will sound better than the CD layer, even with the ATRAC 4.5 data compression.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

So, the CD layer of the new DSotM is chopped and the transients have been irreparably damaged.

Yet, many 'internet audiophiles' at at least 5 or 6 different internet forums (and usenet) said that this was the best sounding CD version ever.

And these same 'internet audiophiles' expect me to believe them when they claim that DSD destroys PCM, that placing wooden blocks on digital interconnects tightens up the midrange, that playback resolution is as important as mastering, and that the benefits of high-res are readily apparent through low-fi (not even mid-fi) equipment.

They claim SACD rules because of superior handling of transients but they don't notice clipped transients on a CD?

Heck, a lot of them claim that their ears are so golden and their minds are so clear that they are above double-blind testing.

 

[Rich Malloy]

This is exactly what's been often theorized on the forums regarding many SACD/CD hybrids:

Now, with the evidence from JA's graphs, I wonder what the point of limiting the CD's dynamics on a special release like this could possibly be. I've speculated that EMI may have wanted to give the CD layer more "punch" since it is likely the one to be played on the radio. Or perhaps, as JA notes, EMI and Sony have conspired to place DSD in a more audiophile light with this manipulation—which is troubling when you start to ponder which other hybrids might have been altered in this manner.

But, like JA, I'll guess the answer is actually more of a mundane "business-as-usual" attitude at the CD mastering house. The paranoid audiophile in me suspects that the major labels now make it standard practice to push the audio level on all of their rock CDs to give them a more in-your-face sound. The evidence I've read in Mix magazine and that JA and others have gathered would support this contention. I can almost see the young EMI exec jabbing his finger at the mastering engineer and shouting, "The audiophiles have got their prissy SACD layer, now make the other one ROCK!"

So, when it came to the new DSotM re-release, they simply applied the standard sub-standard treatment.

My question to the more technically-savvy among us: is the non-use of peak limiters, etc., for SACD a matter of choice or a matter of not having the available technology to do it? That is, will (pop/rock) SACDs soon sound as bad as CDs once engineers have the same ability to ruin them, or do they have that ability now and are choosing to master them properly for the "audiophile" community?

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I'm no audio professional, but my understanding is that such tools that work in the "DSD-domain" are not yet commercially available, although there have been cases where a transfer was done from analog to hi-rez PCM, digital tools (noise reduction et al)were used, and then the hi-rez PCM was converted to DSD.

Regards,

 

[Rich Malloy]

Hence, my fear of "mainstreaming" SACD.

 

[LanceJ]

DSD de-noising is already here:

DSD noise removal thread

LJ

 

[Ken Stuart]

And these same 'internet audiophiles'...

There is no evidence that any of the paragraphs in your message are positions advocated by the same people.

If we can deal with each issue separately, we might be able to come to some sort of approximation of the truth.

In the case of the 30th Anniversary DSotM, Mr. Atkinson used very scientific methodolgy (described in detail in the link) to discover that the redbook layer was not treated in the same way as the stereo SACD mix.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

There is no evidence that any of the paragraphs in your message are positions advocated by the same people.

It would not be appropriate to name names. I am active on many online forums and I assure you that some people who have raved over the new redbook layer also make many golden-eared claims on many issues.

I am not claiming that everything sounds alike. Then again, I also don't make esoteric claims that I can't back up with anything beyond subjective, sighted anecdotes. I'm also the first to admit that, as has been proven in the scientific and medical communities, expectation influences opinion in most people.

 

[Philip Hamm]

I just copied the whole album from SACD using analog connectors to MiniDisc (Sony JB-920 - ATRAC 4.5) and I believe that the passage described in the article is the loudest point on the album.

It is very possible that the peak limiting is only present on that particular section of the song "Money". As I write this post I am 23:00 into copying the MiniDisc digital audio (recorded at a level that never clips) to my computer so that I can take a look for myself.

If that is the case, then the entirety of the rest of the album, with the exception of one 2 minute passage, is unaffected by this problem.

That's no excuse, the album should have been Normalized as a whole piece (which is what I'm about to do), not peak-limited.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Just as I thought. No other passage on that album comes close to that one section in Money. Assuming the rest of the dynamics were not fudged with, this peak limiting problem only affects that single section of "Money" and the rest of the album is unaffected.

Which means those golden eared audiophiles probably were right. But I have my CD now.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Philip,

There is limiting, and there is compression.

The fact that only one track has truncated peaks is no indication that the dynamics of the rest of the entire album were not mucked with.

I have heard, but have not verified, that previous versions of the album peak during 'Eclipse'.

Frankly, it's a concept album. Even one botched song means the album is toast IMO.

 

[Lewis Besze]

There is limiting, and there is compression.

Exactly,the article mentioned that the entire CD was louder,which could mean compression.
This was the first layer[cd] I've heard,and noticed the "in your face" style of this track,however I thought it was just "remixed".Well well.......

 

[Philip Hamm]

Exactly,the article mentioned that the entire CD was louder,which could mean compression.

If the peaks in question were brickwall limited, from my analysis of the waveform from the SACD (and the article) the resulting rest of the album would be 1-3 dB louder on the CD layer than the SACD layer, all things being equal. There's no reason to assume that compression was or was not added. There is direct evidence that brick-wall limiting was.

With peaks that are 1-3dB higher than the whole rest of the album, I would say that the Floyd intended this section of the song to be quite "in your face" indeed! However, brickwall limiting isn't necessary if you master the record right.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Philip,

My original comment was that many people have praised the Redbook layer of the new disc as being the best CD of DSotM yet. What you find with your homebrew disc from the DSD layer does not necessarily relate.

The CD layer has certainly been mucked with more than the track 'Money'. Last night I ripped it with EAC, and half the tracks on the disc peak at 100% (something that never happens on a classic analog-mixed album unless there is limiting or clipping). Then I ripped my MFSL copy, and sure enough the highest peak is on 'Eclipse' (as it should be, this is the climax of the album both musically and thematically; it is the crescendo in more than one respect). If only the new 'Money' had been monkeyed around with, 'Eclipse' would have the next highest peaks, and all the other tracks would fall somewhere below that.

However, if 'Money' has the highest peaks on the SACD, it is possible that the DSD master has been dinked around with also, perhaps in the analog domain before mastering?

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Limiting is a form of compression because it effectively reduces the dynamic range of the encoded signal. I agree that the signature "sound" of the application of look-ahead peak limiters is different than that of traditional analog compression. If the digital limiting is light, it's barely noticeable. As it becomes more prevalent, it begins to sound substantially worse than analog compression to my ears.

I think the largest signal peak on the album comes during "Eclipse", but the loudest passages on "Money" are more sustained and the compression due to limiting is more noticeable.

Regards,

 

[Philip Hamm]

(something that never happens on a classic analog-mixed album unless there is limiting or clipping).

Not entirely true. If the waveform has been Normalized to 0dB this will happen (but rarely) and is not a problem. IMO everything should be Normalized.

I'll look at the copy I made again tonight to see the loud passages.