You get what you pay for (not).

-Chris

You could assign it album by album, or album group. In other words if you have an album or a group of albums ready to play at a given volume, you can click the readily available save volume button and that volume will be used until you change it, or resave it for that/those albums.

I'm assuming it's an by the ear thing, not a precise measurement thing that Boleary is after--I could be wrong, there's always a first time--and always the most memorable, but I digress.

-Chris

I agree that it's not subjective, or if it is, you're in trouble. You didn't think I meant it was, did you?

The question though is, why is less, more. What could the cause be? That's what I was speculating about, and wonder if you have, or anyone else has, who either thinks that mp3's are the equal of or superior to uncompressed material (in terms of quality of music reproduction to a human's ears).

Do you know what Teresa's complaints were about standard rips, or what she liked better about hi-res and mp3's?

-Chris

Well Peter you may need more than an umbrella, how does bunker sound--the mp3 version anyway? (That was a dumb joke and should be compressed).

"Teresa's deseases"? What are you referring to with that?

Wow that's some interesting stuff. It never occurred to me that compressed could sound better, but it makes a certain kind of sense (intuitive). Would it have something to do the psychoacoustics (I think that's the term I mean)? And the technicalities of hearing (maybe compression could prevent a kind of hearing overload? your ear has less info to respond to and therefore responds to what is there better? Or the better the recording (the higher the res) the more extraneous info is included that somehow messes with the essential musicality or sound we hear when we hear live instruments--because mics and ears are not the same. I'm obviously just speculating. I'll stop now.

I'm not sure you should be volunteering these kind of thoughts being in the business you're in. I wouldn't be offended if you deleted your mp3 post, and mine.

-Chris

Re nothing whatsoever. Well actually it has to do with sending files to Adrian (Flecko). Bear with me.

Dropbox is a free program. It's main purpose is online storage--2gb free, and keeping all you computer's data synched. It becomes a folder on your desktop with various subfolders anything you save in it will appear on your other pcs (and Macs I think).

So what's that got to do with Adrian. Well Dropbox has several other great functions, one is that it contains a Public Folder. Anything you place in it can easily be sent to anyone--Adrian (actually a link is sent via email and they click on it to download the corresponding file). Pretty useful for forums (tests and listening--I'm not a fan of rapidshare and the like) such as this one.

But it's even more useful for people who have Dropbox installed because they can share folders. In other words say a few of us here wanted to test some files, we could place them in the shared folder(s) and each can test/add them to the folder anytime. Also good for you Peter when dealing with XX problems for examining files.

You can also access your files from anywhere via a browser such as Firefox or IE.

I've been using Dropbox for years, actually I'm an original adopter, but I'd never used the sharing function until I sent the files to Adrian--which made me think how useful it could be in a forum like this. It's really simple/intuitive because it's part of your file system; I save all my docs to it, plus my password vault and it's a great safe (encrypted) backup too.

So if anybody's interested, google Dropbox, or if you feel like doing me a favor, pm me with a request for an invitation (include your real email address) and I'll get some extra free storage space for the effort.

-Chris

Re mp3, just in case folks aren't aware of it, one of the major compression areas in compressed sound is right after the attack or loudest part of the signal, because the ear can't adjust quickly enough to hear the lower level. (fodder for the scientists among us (Peter) to use  for the betterment of all XX users).

-Chris

So, I started thinking just before going to sleep, so why did the flute suddenly appear in popular music?

Here's why (I think). Because it is the most convenient of the intruments that can be played solo to good effect and is also a nice accompaniment instrument.

The other instruments that fit into the musical category include the other woodwinds, maybe the trumpet but probably not, the piano, violin, viola, harp, harpsichord and that's about it.

Of these instruments the only ones reasonably portable (and therefore even a possibility for winning the convenience award) are the woodwinds, violin, viola and trumpet. Of these remaining instruments the flute (and recorder) is the most convenient because it doesn't involve reeds, or two parts (bow and instrument) and relative fragility. After all a good hippie wanted it here and now, good and ready, and easy, which is why the recorder was even more popular out in the fields of Woodstock and other idyllic spots.

The instruments left out altogether are either too loud, too low or high in range, or non-melodic (drums, triangle etc.).

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

-Chris

Thanks Peter, that's down right decent of you (just not very clear, although I did cast a thought in that direction).

By the way, re mp3, I don't see why audiophiles have so much against the poor little darlings. And the same people rave about the historical performances of someone like Klemperer and orchestra, and other classical artists who's best work predated the fifties. For some reason quality of recording makes no difference in those circumstances "because it's all about the performance."

Personally I'll take a high bitrate mp3 over any other kind of common copy of music from the past. And I'll be very happy with mp3s of any music that I can't get or afford in a redbook or better format. I have some mp3s that sound so wonderful that I would even consider converting all my less good sounding music to mp3 if they too could sound as wonderful, including those Klemperers.

I've put up my steel umbrella to shield me from flying tomatos and eggs.

-Chris

Here's what my friends said at the time about the flute after trying to play it. "How the hell do you get any sound out of this thing?" Having said that; it's a lot easier than the piano.

Pedal, Led Zeppelin, really? What album, what track? I'll have to give it a listen, as I probably have the track.

-Chris


California Dreaming, Mas and Pas

Hey, what's that supposed to mean? I just want you to know I'm not laughing!

Ok, now I am, but I don't know why.

-Chris

No I didn't. The only flute I knew of in popular music was Jethro Tull, Yusef Lateef and Herbie Mann, none of which I particularly loved. although Yusef had a few moments and Herbie one album I really liked (At the Village Gate--I think) but the flute playing wasn't particularly terrific or terrific sounding. Actually, suddenly I hear a song in my head, my feet are tapping... (I must have an audiophile quality head) "Going up Country," Canned Heat.

Any of it any good? Golden Earring sounds familiar but I can't place them. Or is it the Steely Dan song I'm thinking of? I used to play a few folk bars wtih folkies and the streets, oops another song is sounding as I write, although I think it was recorder. Jefferson Airplane second album, and LOVE, right? Or am I dreamin'? It's late as usual. I also improvised Vivaldi while people ate at the West Bank Cafe in NYC. I say Vivaldi, because diners asked me if what I was playing was Vivaldi. So... it was.

Coincidentally I went to a concert today (rare event in my parts these days) of flute and organ (church organ). I'm not terribly fond of flute any more, but this was terrific. Who would have thought that organ and flute would go together. When done right, they go together, don't you doubt it young fella! Wow, it was really touching and moving and quite beautiful in parts. Benedetto Marcello or Marcello Benedetto, who knows with them thar Baroque Italians, and a great 8 note octave modern piece by the organist, John Weaver. And of course Bach, but you knew that.

Hey, I'm just sharing, that's what you do here in the U.S., especially in kindergarten and pre-school.

-Chris

Flecko, Thanks, that's great.

How about if I send you a couple of tracks from the "Debby," album--the original cd transfer, for you to compare to all the others? Tell me which tracks and if you think 320 mp3 would  be good enough for this comparison (I can also send flac, there just much bigger of course).

-Chris

Re why the old recordings are often very good.

Given basic good quality equipment (which surprisingly they seemed to have had back in those late 50's and early 60's dark ages) I think basic recording techniques and simplicity were the key factors. They didn't have all the fancy options, funding to employ them, and as many marketing concerns and as much interference from the money men. So once they got the tracks down on tape, all the info was there in fairly unadulterated form ready for a good remasterer to bring to cd. And since audio systems are better today (for the most part) then they were back then, they can enable us to hear further into these old recordings.

Sure, new "masters" were created from those originals and they were often eq'd to death and denoised and what not, but a determined and vigilant remasterer (for lack of a better term) usually found the original and therefore had lots of good information to work with, and could come out with the very good cds we are lucky enough to find today on occasion. I say on occasion because unfortunately most of the remasterers were neither determined nor vigilant and often remastered from the most eq'd and denoised masters--or the first masters--they came across in the vaults (and apparently there are dozens or more per recording). So apparently it was not a question of poor tape quality or the like, but rather poor human quality.

According to something I was reading, sometimes when the good guys came across heavily eq'd masters and couldn't find the originals they were able to de-eq them, at least to a degree. I'm curious how they went about doing that. Did they just apply the opposite eq of what they determined was used on the tapes? If so, that sounds like a pretty messy process.

It would be nice if we could compile a list of high quality remasters somewhere (Here or at CA or...?) so that it wouldn't be such a hit and miss operation when it comes to finding/buying them. For instance Steve Hoffman from MCA or Bill Inglot from Rhino stuff is probably all very good, but they seemed to have done mostly oldies, and how does one find cds by remasterer (they were usually not even listed in the early cd days when these guys reigned).

-Chris
 

Sorry, no link. It's a book published for the Kindle. Really it's three interviews conducted in the early 90s or late 80s. The two main interviews are of Steve Hoffman and the guy from Rhino at the time. The book is "The Men with the Golden Ears," by Tom Graves.

-Chris

Here's an interesting quote from the DR website (Our Aim page).

"The DR system is intended to avoid black and white judgment of dynamic quality. While DR7 is low for rock music or very low for Jazz, it is quite acceptable for electronic club music which has nowadays often values below DR4. All values above DR12 have generally a high dynamic quality."

Also I was reading about some digital remaster guys from MCA and Rhino in particular, guys who cared and had a sterling reputation. One of them (Steve Hoffman) said that tapes from before 1967 were bullet proof, from 1967 - 1974 they were less so and from 1974 on they would often deteriorate significantly within two years. He was talking about this in the early 90's I think. I mention this because tape deterioration has been mention a few times in this thread. Evidently the older the tape the better the chance it is still good.

He also mentioned how amazingly many masters, eq'd masters and copies etc. of given material there is, and how most of them are cr*p. And that the most difficult part, by far, of creating a good remaster is finding the original, about 90% of the effort. He also mentioned that tape deterioration was never a problem for him when dealing with pre 1967, and only a minor problem pre '74.

-Chris