7 Apr
2013
7 Apr
'13
7:31 p.m.
Folks,
I've got music ripped to my hard drive (hybrid wavpack for the curious),
and i'm a little obsessive about my tagging. I've got a 'mastering' tag
wherein i put the name of the mastering engineer and whether or not the
track is an "original master recording". These original master recordings
are usually DCC, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs or Audio Fidelity labels.
So now i'm staring at the rest of my collection wondering what to put in
there. These original master recording discs are older (20+ years) when
mastering was analog.
My questions are:
Most recent CDs were mastered digitally, therefore is the original
master equivalent (at least in quality) to the CD i own?
At about what year did most CDs become digitally mastered, rendering
original master recordings moot, if they are?
I *swear* i remember buying CDs when they came out and they used to tell
you how things were mastered. Didn't they used to indicate AAD, ADD, DDD
for (recording, editing, mastering)? Why did they stop doing this?
Is there any way to tell/reasonably guess if a CD has been digitally
mastered without those codes?
Thanks,
--
Bearcat M. Şándor
Feline Soul Systems
Voice: 872.CAT.SOUL (872.228.7685)
Fax: 406.235.7070
Jabber/xmpp/gtalk/email: bearcat(a)feline-soul.net
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Yahoo: bearcatsandor
AIM: bearcatmsandor
My public pgp key is included for verification of my identity
7 Apr
7 Apr
8 p.m.
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 11:30:52 -0600
Bearcat M. Şándor <hometheater(a)feline-soul.com> wrote:
I've got music ripped to my hard drive (hybrid
wavpack for the curious),
and i'm a little obsessive about my tagging. I've got a 'mastering' tag
wherein i put the name of the mastering engineer and whether or not the
track is an "original master recording".
I know a number of people who would shake your hand. With the trend towards
digital streaming distribution, there's a lot of metadata about an album that
is going missing. Engineering and other credits that used to find a way onto
an album or CD cover are not as likely to be passed on now.
Most recent CDs were mastered digitally, therefore is
the original
master equivalent (at least in quality) to the CD i own?
Yes. As long as the file's not gone through any transformations, but
simply copied, it's the same as if you were listening to the originally
rendered final mix from the studio.
I *swear* i remember buying CDs when they came out and
they used to tell
you how things were mastered. Didn't they used to indicate AAD, ADD, DDD
for (recording, editing, mastering)? Why did they stop doing this?
That's the SPARS code: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARS_code
I think that it died as it became increasingly irrelevant and fewer people
cared. It was never a measure of quality and as the digital audio tech
improved it lost much of the stigma it used to have.
It's sort of like the way that we used to hear about 8-bit, 12-bit, 16-bit
and 1-bit D->A converters on CD players. It used to matter because the
hardware worked hard to try and keep up with the reading, processing and
error handling of the data stream, so it mattered, and average ears could
tell the difference. As the hardware improved and the DSP became more
sophisticated, such things didn't matter any more.
Is there any way to tell/reasonably guess if a CD has
been digitally
mastered without those codes?
Unless noted otherwise, I always assume a full digital chain, though that
can easily be incorrect. I know that when the band A Troop of Echoes (from
Providence, RI) had their first album (all digitally recorded) mastered,
the engineer(*) chose to print it to a tape recorder and pull it back into
digital from tape to get a certain compression that he liked. That is
an analog step that was not noted in the liner notes. I don't know that
anyone can listen and tell that that conversion had been part of the process.
(*) Jeff Lipton @ Peerless Mastering
--
======================================================================
Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa
8:13 p.m.
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 13:59 -0400, Joe Hartley wrote:
It is, many studios only for esoteric or at least as a principle even
without esoteric reasons do produce analog. Believing the claims of a
friend, who is music reviewer, a lot of doom and psychedelic bands have
the policy to produce analog only, that doesn't prevent against loudness
war and other issues done by talent free engineers and they sell the
recordings usually as CDs.
On Sun, 7 Apr 2013 11:30:52 -0600
Bearcat M. Şándor <hometheater(a)feline-soul.com> wrote:
No production I know does sound on LP and/or CD as the original master
tape.
Most recent CDs were mastered digitally,
therefore is the original
master equivalent (at least in quality) to the CD i own?
Yes. As long as the file's not gone through any transformations, but
simply copied, it's the same as if you were listening to the originally
rendered final mix from the studio. Is there any
way to tell/reasonably guess if a CD has been digitally
mastered without those codes?
Unless noted otherwise, I always assume a full digital chain, though that
can easily be incorrect.
8:01 p.m.
On Sun, 2013-04-07 at 11:30 -0600, Bearcat M. Şándor wrote:
AAD, ADD, DDD for (recording, editing, mastering)? Why
did they stop
doing this?
It's pointless information. It doesn't matter, if a production is DDD or
AAA, just the result is important. I prefer AAA over DDD, but I can't
hear if something is AAA or DDD, what I can hear is if the production is
to my taste or not and this does depend to the audio engineer and not
what equipment in the chain was digital and what analog.
They should give information about the production process of LPs and
CDs, "this LP was build on the quick on very thin and cheap vinyl" or
"this CD was build on the quick, without error control" or "this LP/CD
was build as it should be done".
8 Apr
8 Apr
10:17 p.m.
On Sun, Apr 07, 2013 at 11:30:52AM -0600, Bearcat M. Şándor wrote:
Most recent CDs were mastered digitally, therefore is
the original
master equivalent (at least in quality) to the CD i own?
Depends on what is meant by 'mastering'. If it just means preparing
the metadata etc. required to press a CD, the answer would be 'yes',
apart from the fact that the original probably has more than 16 bits,
and maybe a higher sample rate. Which is more or less irrelevant if
the recoding to 16 bits was properly dithered and resampled.
If 'mastering' means applying EQ, compression etc. then the answer is
'no'. But for a CD that should not be necessary as the medium doesn't
impose any technical limits that are more stringent that the artistic
ones applied anyway while mixing. That is completely different to the
situation that existed for analog media.
Digital production tools make it easy to have more than one 'master',
(depending on intended use) so the concept of a unique master doesn't
always apply. I do a lot of 'contemporary classic' recordings, a type
of music that tends to have a rather high dynamic range. I keep a fully
edited Ardour session which will in general not have much dynamic
processing applied, just some manual adjustments if necessary, and
maybe a few dB of peak limiting which will be active only on short
occasional peaks. That session could be called 'the master', but even
everything done there is reversible, so it doesn't need to be final.
Many of these recordings end up on Italian and other European radio
networks, and most copies I prepare for that use have some compression
(1:1.3 or so) applied to reduce the dynamic range. As far as the RAI
and EBU are concerned, those versions are the 'master'.
At about what year did most CDs become digitally
mastered, rendering
original master recordings moot, if they are?
Anthing *recorded* the last 20 years at least has a very high chance
of being entirely digital. Note 'recorded', not 'released'.
I *swear* i remember buying CDs when they came out and
they used to tell
you how things were mastered. Didn't they used to indicate AAD, ADD, DDD
for (recording, editing, mastering)? Why did they stop doing this?
Because it became irrelevant, or - in the case of re-released 'vintage'
recordings from the pre-digital era - either obvious or a bad idea from
a commercial perspective.
Is there any way to tell/reasonably guess if a CD has
been digitally
mastered without those codes?
See above, look at the recording dates. Exceptions will probably be
noted in the booklet or credits.
Ciao,
--
FA
A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)
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4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Bearcat M. Şándor -
Fons Adriaensen -
Joe Hartley -
Ralf Mardorf