TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

I caught the end of a Michael Parkinson show with an interview with Elton John - flicking round the channels as you do on a Saturday night.

Elton John made a comment about analogue recording using tape sounding 'warmer' than digital.  I can't relate to this, perhaps because of the quality of my tape player  :( or more likely my ears.  Do you think that digital recordings can emulate analugue qualities so that you can't tell the difference?

Thanks very much for the work you've put in here - I haven't read all the posts yet but have found the ones I have  very interesting and hope they won't disppear so that I can read them as time allows.

Hi Whistler...

You might find this thread interesting from about halfway down page one... http://www.talkawhile.co.uk/yabbse/index.php?topic=9687.0

Mark and I look at this issue and I think some others contributed a fair bit to the discussion too....

ive heard all this guff from hifi buffs for years now,"theres no bass on cd's" etc all that rubbish
    oh how we loved listening to live at leeds when just as one of the albums quiet bits arrive a bloody great scratch ruined it,when i got the cd i was waiting for the clicks but lo and behold they never came
   and cassettes,dont start me on cassettes,play 2 or 3 times  and the machine gobbled the tape up,or that copy of endless by heaven 17 that only ever played at 2/3 speed
 cds were the best thing that evr happened up till the advent of computers with great big hard drives to store all your cd's and lo and behold there's space in the back room where the piles of cds were
 give me digital any time
dont start me on Elton effing john either,what a get
  

Yes and I think Mark gained quite a lot from the discussion too.

Thanks Whistler,

In a nutshell - I like both for different things and reasons. As final medium Digital is great. I certainly would not want to be carrying my current Itunes catalogue around if it were on 1/2" tape? ;)

Mark

Analogue vs digital. Hmm.

When I were a lad, in the '60s, it were all steam powered. Some of it was clockwork too. A steel needle in a shellac(?) disc. It was ****. Vinyl and diamond is much better. But they all scratch and click.

Tape is better in some ways, worse in others.

The point is they all add distortion. None reproduce the sound faithfully. Some get very close and sound good, and we get used to the 'sound' they make. Then a new technology comes along and it sounds different.

Sometimes a new technology starts off sounding different because it is significantly worse. Early transistor amplifiers had awefull crossover distorsion, and were not as good as valve amps. Few people now argue that valve amps sound better (ok, I know a few still do).

Sometimes a form of distortion is a fundamental part of the sound. Electric guitars played through specific amps or fuzz boxes.

But the job of the recording medium and equipment is to reproduce the sound as accurately as possible. CDs do that as nearly to perfectly as makes no difference. Sometimes that means you can hear nasty things that get lost on disc or tape.

But despite all that, in most domestic systems the speakers make more difference than the rest put together.

And, in the end (...the love you get is equal to the love you make...) it's the music that really matters. If you enjoy it, the rest is unimportant.

Steve (playing Led Zep III, Since I've been loving you, on CD)

I just love digital, end of. It sounds the same in my house as it did in the studio whereas in the vinyl days it never did.

1s and 0s baby, can't be beat....pure, simple, effective and natural as far your ears will ever notice.

(Homer like) - Uhhhhmmmmm, distortion! ;D

Nothing wrong with a little squaring of the sign waves, rock and roll is built on it!

I have a theory that the best way for things would be AAD or ADD where the first link in the chain is the multitrack, and the next is the mixer and the third is the mixdown/mastering medium.

This way, the warmth that comes from analogue tape is preserved and, if mixdown is via an analogue mixer, then the very nice non-clinical feel of the EQ is also preserved, and yet the final product is nicely and compactly kept on a digital medium which has better wear and tear characteristics than any analogue final product.

The think Mark mentions about sine waves, and squaring them... the whole thing about digital playback is based (at the output of the ADC) on essentally an approximate reconstruction of a sine wave (or, at least, a complex waveform composed of a theoretically infinite number of sine waves!) using a variable amplitude square wave... before this reaches your ears (and if this were to reach your ears, it'd be horrible to listen to!), it is passed through a filter whose mathematical function is to smooth off the square wave components' edges (integration), thereby slightly approximating the original analogue waveform as recorded on tape.  This is, and I trust that Mark will correct me if I am wrong, where word-length comes in, as far as 8-bit, 16-bit and 24-bit resolution.  The increasing word-length allows for less squarewave type distortion at the output of the ADC, and means that the time-constant on the integrator can be smaller and, therefore, that the reaction of the integrator can be quicker when presented with the ADC output signal... leading to a more accurate reconstruction of the original analogue signal... which is infinitely more pleasing to the ear than the ADC output signal could ever be.

In a sense, the digital component is only the way in which the music is stored on a medium; the sound you get going into - and coming out of - the process is actually analogue.

My god!  All that without notes!

And me all knackered and tired on account of having secondary allergies clogging my throat up.  What would I be like if I weren't so bleeding ill???!!!

All good stuff. I'll try to add to this tomorrow or Sunday, when I have more time. I think Mark (Liam), James and David all have good points.  ;D

There's nothing quite like a fair and reasoned debate of someones deeply entrenched views, is there? ;)

Steve

I too am a great fan of distortion, but I'd like it to be added by the player/engineer, not by the playback medium.  :D

Non-Techie/pleb viewpoint...

I can't honestly say I can tell the difference much really.  A nice new LP (before I scratch it to within an inch of its life) always sounded as good as a CD to me.  Admittedly I never had the same album on both LP and CD so couldn't do a direct comparison.  There's a bit of a glitch somewhere in my CD ripping process at the minute that sometimes puts clicks and odd noises onto my MP3 player so I feel right at home anyway.

I think I agree with whoever said earlier that the speakers make as much difference as anything else.  With my current system which is nothing special and is running pathetic speaker leads, I'm hard pushed to tell the difference between CD and tape unless the tape is really worn out.

But overall I prefer digital.  Simply because of the convenience factor.  I don't know how I'd survive without my MP3 player nowadays!  And I just put a playlist together with 20 or so songs from across my entire collection, in about 1 minute flat, to suit my exact mood right now.  You can't do that without digital!

I bought the Led Zep remasters box set when it came out, and listening to it on headphones was amazed to hear multi layers of guitars playing on a track(cant remember which one!) which I had never heard before!  The electric was there , but so were various acoustics that I had had not noticed before.

Have listened to it time and time again but never hear the extra layers. Do ears become accustomed to things or is it just age slowly closing down the receptors?

Pardon,

No, it's just headphones bring out and highlight certain things that speakers don't. Listening at high levels can make things in the balance sound very different also. As can listening really quietly.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the really quiet listen, as if emanating from a mono radio at the 6.30am wake up :-\

I love playing old vinyl on my Linn Axis turntable. Of course its not as convenient as my cds, minidiscs, or mp3s but that's part of the experiencel The fact that you have to make an effort, set up the arm, adjusdt the stylus, keep the records clean. Even getting up from the sofa while you're halfway through a bottle of claret to turn the disc over all add to the experience. And probably make you listen that bit closer than something you can just remotely pause while you pop off to make a coffee.

In other words, the experience isn't just technical... it's also the things that you do along with the listening?

Yeh, I'd go for that 100%... I'm in no doubt that we aren't made just to consume.. there's little rituals that we built up around our consumption habits... for example, drinking alcohol in a pub with friends and/or a good book rather than at home alone (except, as Tony just said, the occasional bottle of claret or whatever at home when listening to music... and maybe even enjoying the solitude in that).

There is a strong active psychological thing going off when we do anything that seems like a passive pursuit, with all these little rituals and other behaviours we engage in.  "Setting up my stall" is my thing: getting my listening environment right as possible, and then having certain things to hand, and ensuring a break in the procedings by having some alcohol in the mix... listening on headphones (by preference... auditory integrations problem!) ensures that I don't have listening to do when I go, say, to make a cup of tea... or do anything else, for that matter!

I would have to say that I'd find listening (as a totally passive enterprise) utterly boring.

I'm assuming that passive means you are not actually listening?

I recall, when CDs first appeared, listening to some of my favourite albums (before remastering) and swearing that the evil format of CD would never pass our threshold. The sound was just too different. Obviously we eventually succumbed (especially as production of vinyl wound down and releases became available on CD format only).

We now have many albums on both vinyl and CD (and sometimes on tape and DVD as well, but let us not digress), with a variety of playing devices from the good to the downright ugly. In addition we have a very few mono (that are just about still playable) and stereo versions of the same album. The difference between a mono vinyl/stereo vinyl/CD copies of most albums is obviously marked, and in some cases it almost does not sound like the same album, but I would not expect them to sound the same. After all, I would not expect, say, a 1960s radio to sound like a modern digital one. However, this is not to say that any one of the mediums is 'better' than the other.

I find that the mood I am in and the sort of sound I want very often dictates the medium and what I play it on.

For example, if I want to listen to Led Zep or Thin Lizzy sounding really 'dirty' and loud (akin, I suppose, to how I THINK they sounded live), I will play the stereo vinyl and listen to the overall 'feel'. If I want to listen to all the nuances then I will sit down with a drink and listen carefully to the CD version via the 'proper' stereo. The vinyl version, listened to carefully on the same set up can be another experience altogether.

Also, I DO like to have music on in the background whilst I do something else (I suppose this is what David means by  'passive' listening). However, I do not find it passive at all, but rather can sometimes let my mind tune in and out and pick up a new experience. It is also usually a great mood enhancer and can make a dull chore less so, or a great experience more so.

After all, how many of us associate a piece of music with something else, such as a particular experience or a great film. Often hearing the music becomes the trigger to a memory, even though you  might not have been aware of what was playing at the time, so the listening experience could not have been totally passive.

Sandra

As in just letting it flow over one, or even as just sitting there and having nothing to do but listen... this is a difficult one to define... I suppose there's "hearing" (which, in essence, you brilliantly define very simply!), and there's listening but doing nothing else along with it (i.e., missing out on the things that mean you have to actively listen.... again, not a satisfactory definition from me... mea culpa, but I'm very ill today).

I suppose I mean removing from the process all those activities that lead to making the act of listening an enjoyable process....

I find all of this very interesting. How people listen, what they listen on. It proves that it's all about perception.  I hear your point Andy, however I also agree with Sandy - Quote: Also, I DO like to have music on in the background whilst I do something else.

I have to have many types of ears in order to survive a working day in the studio, let alone a month or more...  By that, I mean I listen in different ways, all the time, for different reasons. I Change my listening perspective constantly, as with the speakers I listen on. There is no definitive way to listen? Analytical, engineering, as a job listen yes, but that's boring if you do it all the time.

That's why I don't really worry about analogue or digital, or the speakers I'm listening on much, providing my reference and judgement is credible.  It's the music that counts. :)

An interesting thing about what happens when people listen to music - I often enjoy listening to music while reading, but my wife cannot. Conversely I cannot read while a spoken word programme is on (Radio 4 or 5) but she can.

I've written some of my best software with music playing.

Now what's going on there?

Hi Steve,

Hmmmm, my wife studies & teaches educational practice. We talk about how there are different types of learning and teaching. Get it wrong and it's futile. The education system, the curriculum, the individual? I fear I'm digressing?..

The same can probably be said for how we function as individuals. Our aural and visual traits, and how we perceive the world is often a reflection of how we learn. We're all individuals! ;)

P.S. I love noodling on the guitar whilst watching the news. Keeps my fingers nimble, and I digest some news without it dominating my life. My wife hates it!

Digressing a little maybe, but it is all about perception.

(Ooh, Bruce is playing Whole Lotta Love on 6 music... Love it :D)

Maybe it someting about the subconcious mind. No, on reflection, I think it must be about the subconcious.

You know how a thought pops into your head sometimes? Just our of the blue! Sometimes when I am trying hard to think about a tricky problem at work my mind will wander and an embaressing moment from 20 or 30 years ago will pop up.  ???

There is a theory that the consious mind is a thin veneer on top of the sub-concious. The mind works on lots of stuff woithout us realising, then bits of it appear in the concious mind .

There again it might all be the acid... ???

Rats. I hit post without spell checking that. Hope the (other) pedants don't notice... ;)

Same here Steve (on both your observations).

I find music helps me to concentrate, and can listen to and appreciate music at the same time as doing other things, whilst my husband just cannot concentrate with it on.

The other thing (and please don't laugh) is that as someone who has always been interested in dance and movement I very often 'see' music in terms of movement and choreography, especially when listening to it carefully, which gives an added dimesion. On the other hand, maybe it is just because and I am a bit batty, or its a hangover from the sixties.

Sandra

Hi Sandra

Batty is good.

And if you are like me in this respect, and your husband is like my wife, then it can't be a male/female thing. Hmm.

Similarly I really enjoy driving and listening to music or talk radio. I have no problem at all concentrating on driving at the same time as listening. But I can't hold a meaningfull conversation while driving. Hmm.

Now being a bloke, and an engineer bloke at that, I can't get the hang of dance/movement etc. Sometimes a good piece of music will make me feel like dancing, but if I try it comes out all wrong.  :( Or at least it feels wrong.

   Ah, the Pope has died. May his God go with him.

Back to the topic - well sort of - there can be strange connections between the senses. There is a human phenomenon where sounds invoke colour in some people. I can't remember the name - think it has 'synth' in it somewhere. When a person hears a certain note they see a certain colour. Does anyone have this (I don't)?

Steve

Ah, the Pope has died. May his God go with him.
Steve
You reckon Dave Allen's waiting to greet him at the Pearly Gates then?

I have no problem with background music as such. I was just saying the analogue tends to concentrate the...concentration...more.
I've recently put a good quality cd/minidisc micosystem in the kitchen. The logic is this. I can put on a cd and listen to it whilst cooking. It not only affords me more time to listen to music but encourages me to spend more time in the kitchen preparing real food. Two advantages for the price of one then. 

Sounds like a good plan Tony. Does it work? in the kitchen that is...

Let's be carefull about 'background music'  Not the same as muzak! >:(

It works fine. Acouple of months ago I couldn't cook for my life. Today I prepares lunch for two visiting friends. I popped a cd of medieval music on the minisystem and spent the next hour preparing vegetarian carrot and onion soup with cucumber, tomato,and feta salad, served with fresh wholemeal bread. Good food prepared with good music.
You could argue that the sound of the onions frying interfered with the purity of the cd, sound but..hey..it's all part of the experience.     

I do similar things to what your wife does, then.  Amongst other things.  I may be the only producer ever to consciously use personal construct theory to help a band to get something on tape.  The personal constructions (essentially ideas, but somewhat more!) we make about our world are at once guided by and guide our learning... which is why the simple notion of "get it wrong and it's futile" is a truism: this has implications for how we respond to music.


I think you're observation here is absolutely accurate, Mark.  Like I say, though, the influence is actually a two-way one... it's an interactive process in that the way in which one part of the system behaves influences the behaviour of the other.  My professor at the University of Oulu was strong on organism-environment systems theory (which, during an invited lecture course I did there, I referred to as Järvilehto Theory... in front of Järvilehto, my then professor!), and I go along with that sort of interactionist-developmental perspective (you may see this come out sometimes in the Autism Awareness thread in the Arms).  As to whether I believe as solidly as most do in the idea of traits... nah... but I do see biological influences on behaviour (which traits are supposed to link to... but in fact only very poorly!) as I do situational influences (again... the link here is very tenuous).  About 68% of the variance in human behaviour comes essentially from the interaction of the biological and the situational influences.  And that is as true for appreciating music as much as it is for learning.  And learning influences musical taste to quite some degree... partly through reinforcements unwittingly given by those in our social environment.

At this point, I'm getting into professor mode myself, so I'll stop now, before I really start to bore **** out of the rest of the forum members.

Nice logic.  And if you find that you do spend more time in the kitchen preparing real food (as opposed to this very convenient, but not really that healthy things that I myself get...), then the logic has lead to a very good solution to a problem.  This is a logical/rational-experimental way of doing things (yeh... some psychologists see living as a series of "experiments" that we do to test basic hypotheses)... a behaviourist would take ages to think of a solution like that... because they are all data-based, not rationale-based.

I should do the same thing myself.

David
- not a behaviourist ;)

That's getting very close to what I think I meant, but has some way to go, possibly...

I think I'm getting more at this idea of just "being entertained without involving oneself in that process" as opposed to being involved in one's own entertainment"... even that isn't as clear as I wish it was.

Bugger :(

But it was heading there, Sandy... nice one.

Yeh... the Freudian model of mind, as a system with three interlocking parts... id (driven by the need to be pleased by things), super-ego (driven by the duty to please others) and the ego (not driven by anything but, rather, coming about as a result of the resolution of conflict arising from the needs driving the other two parts of the system).  And there is no doubt that this bit of Freud's theory is actually surprisingly accurate.  The thin veneer you refer to is the "iceberg tip" that remains in conscious thought, and contains all three of these parts; whereas the un-conscious mind contains mostly id elements.  To some extent, these bits and their interactions can influence music appreciation, as well as what we do when we listen to music, since their interactions can affect our perceptions of that music (and perception differs from sensation, since it is how the mind. such as it actually can be said to exist, actively constructs an organised gestalt from the mass of sensory input we get during any small interval of time).

Here ends the first lesson in the course Psych106: the psychology of music at the FolkCorp University.

*Realising his having slipped into prof mode AGAIN, David quickly gets down from the dais and buggers off right fast to the snug at the CorpArms*

I do enjoy saving David's posts up for a sunday. It's like having a whole extra supplement delivered with the papers.... :)

Yes, they do make for a good read. Keep it up David  :D

Thank you, gentlemen....

I'm always scared that I use too much science stuff... I was always into sciences as a kid (autistic, high IQ... what else would one expect?), and my peers hated me for it.

Nice to know that people find it in such a positive light here.

Again, I thank you both.