_tangentially related to tarfumes/bird: i think it's only a matter of time before new albums start being marketed in different mixes/masterings. i expected neil young to do it first, actually. barn (spotify mix) and barn (vinyl mix) charting simultaneously or some bullshit. the arcade fire thing is funny. i wanna know how that actually went; like was it a conscious decision? chucklesigh_For more than a decade, going back to when I actually worked for a label, I've been arguing for a return to mono specifically because of people listening on their phones. You could create a super punchy mono mix of a lot of modern metal records and I think they'd sound great on streaming services. Same for jazz.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 03:57 (two years ago) link
love that the diagram mod tries to weasel out of DSD being a stage the process passes *through*, looks like it's just a safety copy being made while the pure analog chain goes past.
― assert (matttkkkk), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 04:17 (two years ago) link
DSD is really good. I doubt there would be much (if any) difference between a record made from a DSD file and a record made from the original.
― formerly abanana (dat), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 04:53 (two years ago) link
If it still (theoretically) makes a difference to eliminate all those extra “steps” shown in the bottom part of the diagram, shouldn’t their customers still be happy to buy the “one-step” records? Or was it all (or 90% of it) really about the myth of pure analog to these guys?
― Disarm u with a SMiLE (morrisp), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 05:44 (two years ago) link
i imagine all these audiophiles going to listen to live music, straight out of the amps, direct from the musicians' fingers as god intended, just going really wild at how amazing life is
― Bruce Stingbean (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 05:50 (two years ago) link
"THIS MUSIC IS GOD WRAPPING ITSELF AROUND US!!!" says the guy who loves his CD player more than anyone else
― Bruce Stingbean (Karl Malone), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 05:51 (two years ago) link
and they are using DSD256 which is 4x the sampling rate of an SACD. see that's the thing. all the controversy and A/B blind testing was in the context of evaluating normal redbook CD vs analog. DSD256 is a completely different animal. all these schadenfreude people expressing glee that audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between "digital" and analog are sort of revealing their own biases.
― Thus Sang Freud, Tuesday, 9 August 2022 11:27 (two years ago) link
whoops meant to use italics not underline.
absolutely dying at the fact that mofi has quietly updated the diagram someone posted upthread.
old version:https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/6322/5922/files/MoFi_UD1S_Tech_Sheet_SuperVinyl_Update_1024x1024.jpg
new version:https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0192/6322/5922/collections/MoFi_UD1S_Tech_Sheet_DSD_R1_800x800.jpg
This is fucking hilarious. It's like a setup for a Spinal Tap joke - "why don't you get an SACD or a DSD download so that you're only left with the DSD transfer from the original master recording?" Pause. "But they only have one step after the lacquer!"
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 9 August 2022 13:50 (two years ago) link
But you are right DSD 256 is a huge boost over SACD....but apparently some of their vinyl releases like Blood on the Tracks actually used a standard DSD64 transfer.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 9 August 2022 13:53 (two years ago) link
https://mofi.com/products/mfsl45ud1s-006_bob_dylan_blood_on_the_tracks_180g_45rpm_2lp_box_set
Damon Krukowski has an interesting take on this in his newsletter today:
The many debates provoked by the incident seem to center around an agreed-upon goal: how to get closest to hearing the original master tape of an album? That is what MoFi has been pitching as their mission, and what their buyers have been paying for.But in my experience, that goal is questionable to start with — as questionable as assuming a high-priced record is a good record. Albums are mixed in order to be reproduced. When that process truly was 100% analog — the last of my own records made that way was Galaxie 500’s second album, in 1989 — the master tape was deliberately mixed with more high end than desired, because it was predictable that some of that would be lost in the reproduction process toward pressed records.In other words, the original master tape is not how those analog albums were meant to sound. The record is.There is a further irony as we add digital into the picture. Digital reproduction does not alter the master the way that analog does. For many commercial CDs, the final product actually is the original master, and vice-versa. Even when a digital master is higher resolution than CDs can reproduce, it is still possible to listen to them via computers without any degradation at all.When CDs first came out, many of them sounded awful in part for this very transparency — they were duplicating analog master tapes more or less directly, rather than interpreting how they were meant to sound at the end of the process for reproducing records. Digital was blamed for those “harsh” CDs - but that is also simply how some analog master tapes can sound.As we all got used to digital, engineers learned to mix differently for the CD — the high end that went into the master was going to stay that way, so you had to make sure it sounded right at the start. You could also load the bass way more heavily than before, because you didn’t have to worry about bouncing a needle out of its groove.Now we get to a nutty problem about the vinyl revival. If an album was originally mixed with digital reproduction in mind, because it was made in the era of CDs… and you now put that master through the analog reproduction process for vinyl without compensating… you get a muddy sounding record, too heavy in the low end and without sparkle in the highs.Or is that analog “warmth”?What this all points to, for me, is the contingency of listening. I don’t believe there is a single ideal for audio, as much of the MoFi-sparked debate seems to presume, because there is no one way to hear a recording. How the recording sounds depends on how we are listening to it, more than how it got there.For example: our albums always sound one way in the studio, where we hear them through Yamaha NS-10s, a speaker no one loves but many engineers have learned to use as a predictive tool for how recordings will sound after reproduction.They always sound better — fuller, more spacious — once our brilliant mastering engineer Alan Douches has done his part to prepare them. But they still never sound the same way twice.When we listen to them in the car, they have no bass because the car has so much of its own.When we listen to them at home, they sound one way in the dining room where we have small speakers, and one way in the living room where we have bigger ones, and one way in our office where we have a boombox.They sound different on LP and on CD, and via digital download at full resolution.And they always sound worst streaming! (Because of lossy compression. That’s a story for another day.)So here’s my take on the MoFi controversy. Let the mastering engineers do their thing, using whatever technology they find best. Get the reproduced music however you can. And focus on the analog component you are going to have to add to the chain in the end, no matter what. Your ears.
But in my experience, that goal is questionable to start with — as questionable as assuming a high-priced record is a good record. Albums are mixed in order to be reproduced. When that process truly was 100% analog — the last of my own records made that way was Galaxie 500’s second album, in 1989 — the master tape was deliberately mixed with more high end than desired, because it was predictable that some of that would be lost in the reproduction process toward pressed records.
In other words, the original master tape is not how those analog albums were meant to sound. The record is.
There is a further irony as we add digital into the picture. Digital reproduction does not alter the master the way that analog does. For many commercial CDs, the final product actually is the original master, and vice-versa. Even when a digital master is higher resolution than CDs can reproduce, it is still possible to listen to them via computers without any degradation at all.
When CDs first came out, many of them sounded awful in part for this very transparency — they were duplicating analog master tapes more or less directly, rather than interpreting how they were meant to sound at the end of the process for reproducing records. Digital was blamed for those “harsh” CDs - but that is also simply how some analog master tapes can sound.
As we all got used to digital, engineers learned to mix differently for the CD — the high end that went into the master was going to stay that way, so you had to make sure it sounded right at the start. You could also load the bass way more heavily than before, because you didn’t have to worry about bouncing a needle out of its groove.
Now we get to a nutty problem about the vinyl revival. If an album was originally mixed with digital reproduction in mind, because it was made in the era of CDs… and you now put that master through the analog reproduction process for vinyl without compensating… you get a muddy sounding record, too heavy in the low end and without sparkle in the highs.
Or is that analog “warmth”?
What this all points to, for me, is the contingency of listening. I don’t believe there is a single ideal for audio, as much of the MoFi-sparked debate seems to presume, because there is no one way to hear a recording. How the recording sounds depends on how we are listening to it, more than how it got there.
For example: our albums always sound one way in the studio, where we hear them through Yamaha NS-10s, a speaker no one loves but many engineers have learned to use as a predictive tool for how recordings will sound after reproduction.
They always sound better — fuller, more spacious — once our brilliant mastering engineer Alan Douches has done his part to prepare them. But they still never sound the same way twice.
When we listen to them in the car, they have no bass because the car has so much of its own.
When we listen to them at home, they sound one way in the dining room where we have small speakers, and one way in the living room where we have bigger ones, and one way in our office where we have a boombox.
They sound different on LP and on CD, and via digital download at full resolution.
And they always sound worst streaming! (Because of lossy compression. That’s a story for another day.)
So here’s my take on the MoFi controversy. Let the mastering engineers do their thing, using whatever technology they find best. Get the reproduced music however you can. And focus on the analog component you are going to have to add to the chain in the end, no matter what. Your ears.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 13:56 (two years ago) link
That's pretty otm. The problem MoFi helped build up with their marketing is the idea that for a vinyl record only an all-analog chain will suffice with the aim of getting close to that original master as if you were playing directly off it - it's strong implied in all the hype arguing for the appeal of their vinyl products. But it's not that simple or doctrinal, it's really just the mastering that makes something sound good, and that can encompass a ton of things, not just a single puritanical approach. Even MoFi's own engineers have said this in the past (but on their own, not on MoFI's behalf), if you hand in a straight copy of a master tape, that's NOT mastering. Doing nothing except making a high-quality transfer is not what a mastering engineer is supposed to do and it's highly unusual for a recording artist to want that.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 9 August 2022 14:06 (two years ago) link
That second sentence probably needed to be chopped into two. (also, strongly, not strong)
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 9 August 2022 14:07 (two years ago) link
A lot of the MOFI site isn't loading correctly for me, so I'm not getting product descriptions other than the very basic lists of titles. But as I understand it, these one-step, 45 RPM 'Box Sets' are dividing formally single-LP albums into doubles, which to me is extremely funny when we're talking about Roth-era Van Halen albums which they have in the pipeline and were all 30-35 minutes to start with, so in that case the MOFI audience is paying $125 per title to get the fancy pants experience of listening to two 12-inch EPs and flipping sides every 8-10 minutes just so they can say they hear Dave & Ed & Mike & 'Lex better than ever before.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 14:28 (two years ago) link
I look forward to the book of 78's that will be the next generation of MoFi album reissues.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 9 August 2022 15:05 (two years ago) link
Galaxie 500 guy otm.
This is true to an extent, but early CDs were all over the map. You had what Damon describes -- essentially a flat transfer -- but then you also had CDs that used excessive noise reduction, so much so that on, for instance, the early CD(s?) of Kind of Blue sticks-on-cymbals went missing, as did parts of solo bass passages, and everything else sounded like it was trying to get out from under a heavy blanket. Labels were essentially throwing a bunch of different approaches to mastering at a wall to see what stuck, but in the meantime, selling those trial runs to consumers.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 9 August 2022 16:52 (two years ago) link
also the highly obscure “de-emphasis” flag which was set for tracks where the CD player was supposed to apply a high frequency roll off filter - perhaps to combat the high end “goose” Damon was talking about? I don’t think it’s been used since the early 80s but a rip which doesn’t take that into account can sound godawful.
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 10 August 2022 01:07 (two years ago) link
Pre-emphasis was not compensating for RIAA equalisation, it was for boosting SNR with early ADC gear that was sometimes only 14-bit (Philips originally specced for 14-bit redbook but Sony rounded it up a nice, computer-friendly 2 bytes). 14-bit would have been plenty for playback but less than ideal for ADC, even 16-bit is cutting it close unless proper attention is given to signal levels when recording
obviously there's been no reason at all for using pre-emphasis for over 3 decades now
― chihuahuau, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 02:08 (two years ago) link
There are occasional discs from the 90s and probably beyond that have the pre-emphasis flag set on, possibly by mistake in at least some cases. And also some older discs that seem to have been mastered with pre-emphasis while the flag is off.
― Noel Emits, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 09:50 (two years ago) link
if the ADC process was never updated beyond the point where preemph is justified then it should still be used even today
it's impossible for a listener to know if it's intended or not without details of what happened in the studio or at least having a different CD pressing of the same master that "sounds right" to compare against
― chihuahuau, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 11:08 (two years ago) link
could always compare it to the vinyl I guess
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 10 August 2022 11:23 (two years ago) link
When it should be on and it's left off, the sound is really unpleasant - thin, piercing and shrill. I don't know if there's been a case where it was left on when it should be off, but if that did happen, you'd have an extremely dull sound. Anyway, since the sound quality would be really bad, it almost becomes a moot point of whether the PE flag should be on or off.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 13:37 (two years ago) link
As matttttkkkkk says, rips generally won't take it into account (there was even something about EAC having to remove support for it?) and I've spotted a couple just by the sound, it's quite pronounced.
― Noel Emits, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 14:30 (two years ago) link
Ah, that's right. I recommend SoX if you have a Mac.
install SoX tools first: https://macappstore.org/sox/
Or another way to install is to run in the Terminal app the following:
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null
Press enter/return key. Wait for the command to finish - this took about 5, maybe ten minutes, it could vary depending on your internet connection as it is downloading the appropriate tools.
Run:brew install sox
Then with Terminal still open, type in the right command for each wav or aiff file that needs to be converted.
sox thepath/name/for/your/track.aiff thepath/name/for/whereyou/wanttoput/your/track-withnewname.aiff deemph
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 15:28 (two years ago) link
I do have an old version of EAC that can read the flag. It doesn't apply the EQ, for that I use a plugin in Foobar.
― Noel Emits, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 15:41 (two years ago) link
How often was this flag used? Never heard of it. Is it well supported by CD players?
― maf you one two (maffew12), Wednesday, 10 August 2022 15:54 (two years ago) link
I think it's standard for all CD players. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's baked into the standard authoring of CD's, even when it's not used - there's basically a data set that specifically addresses it - so even though it isn't picked up by a computer when creating files that are supposed to duplicate the audio data, it's not something that can be dropped from standard playback on any standalone CD player.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 16:01 (two years ago) link
So I guess whenever they had to cut vinyl from DSD transfers, it would have been DSD64 from 2011 to January 2014. More details here:
https://mofi.com/blogs/news/mofi-president-jim-davis-addresses-the-digital-lp-mastering-controversy
It's too bad they didn't say this from the start because I think a lot of people would've been sympathetic. I was surprised when they got Dylan, Miles Davis and other Sony owned titles because Sony rarely licensed any of their titles to audiophile labels - like if people knew that was the "catch," it wouldn't have been a huge problem because at least they finally got those titles on audiophile reissues. Hiding that fact just created this looming thing that snowballed over time.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 19:17 (two years ago) link
(The "catch" being they needed to create DSD transfers as the master tapes could never leave Sony's facilities.)
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 19:18 (two years ago) link
check out this record cut straight from the Universal masters
https://craftbits.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/chip-dip-lp.jpg
― marcel the shell with swag on (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 10 August 2022 19:55 (two years ago) link
LMAO
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 20:31 (two years ago) link
that Damon post is very good!
― brimstead, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 21:14 (two years ago) link
What's the benefit of the of the DSD multiples? With DSD128/256/etc you can push the quantisation noise further out of the audible band? Cos that's the thing with 1-bit, right - shedloads of noise, that has to be shaped somewhere. Also, according to Lipshitz et al, you can't dither it, so the noise remains correlated with the signal, therefore A Bad Idea as an archive medium. But I really don't remember the back and forth on that, it was 20 years ago... Team PCM here ;)
Quite agree with the idea that MoFi should've just got ahead of this, and owned it. What a terrific tool to have at your disposal as a maker of boutique editions of LPs - the ability to go and make a completely transparent clone of a precious original master (set up and calibrated by yr expert tape-op) on site, and take it away on an SSD, and do what you like down the line. I wonder if the agreement was "delete that file in one month".
― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 22:04 (two years ago) link
This didn't get mentioned - and at this point it's too late - but people could point out the Steve Hoffman masterings for DCC Compact Classics as an example of reissues that were often mastered from copies (typically analog copies if it was for a gold CD). The company never mentioned it, and it ceased to exist 20 years ago anyway. It's not really a secret anymore, but those gold CD's still fetch a good deal of money and to be fair usually sound great.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 10 August 2022 22:26 (two years ago) link
yeah the absolutist "every atom on the master tape intact" attitude is absolutely smoked by the right EQ choices and attention to phase etc. But it remains hilarious how banal the records are which are subjected to this degree of fetishisation.I would buy some good Throwing Muses remasterings in a heartbeat - those records are tangled and dense, and some of the CDs sound like absolute crap. Thinking of looking into the vinyl but I have a great digital setup which is so much easier to navigate.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 11 August 2022 00:43 (two years ago) link
I don't know, stuff like the Muses LPs and Husker Du - they sound the way they do because of how they were recorded. No remastering is going to change that.
Oh and "House Tornado" is glorious in its opaqueness.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 11 August 2022 01:36 (two years ago) link
My dream reissue project would have been Hüsker Dü at DCC Compact Classics. Restoring the bass and bringing in some warmth via vacuum tubes would probably have done wonders, especially given how it was recorded. Hoffman's masterings never used additional compression, but they typically went for a BIG sound.
EDIT: Hah, was just about to post this before Gerald's above. I know what he means, but tubes in a mastering chain can do wonders for hard-sounding solid state recordings.
― birdistheword, Thursday, 11 August 2022 01:42 (two years ago) link
xxp I've never heard anything up to House Tornado on CD aside from the "In A Doghouse" reissue! which ones would you say sound bad, and is the aforementioned reissue included in that assessment?
― thinkmanship (sleeve), Thursday, 11 August 2022 02:52 (two years ago) link
GMBB House Tornado is the album I was specifically thinking of - I love the opacity and density, but the overall sound of the CD is like when I used to set a graphic EQ aged 13, with the treble and the bass pushed up and the midrange scooped out. I love that album so much I am almost willing to take a punt on an LP in the hope it would be less tiring of a listen.I quite like the CD of the debut, but Hunkpapa has horrible 80s production flourishes so I'm not sure it would ever sound natural. Real Ramona is better and pretty much everything after is fine to good, The Curse excepted. The 2003 self-title is an example of how to nail the complexity with a good master, despite being scraped together on weekend sessions via Pro Tools iirc. And having had a poorly pressed EP of Chains Changed I was so happy they did it justice on the Doghouse comp.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 11 August 2022 03:11 (two years ago) link
I'd be happy to do a "needle drop" (as the young ppl say) of my House Tornado LP, at 16/48k-PCM (I think that's what my Pro-Ject Phono Box USB V does), but I bought it 33 years ago and I played it to death for at least the first decade ;) And the first few years were on a late-'70s Crown music-centre :/
I have to admit, the last time I listened to songs off that record were through streaming services, but it did visit the turntable through the audiophool years, so I guess it must sound ok?
(For want of a longer USB cable, I can never be bothered digitising vinyl).
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 11 August 2022 09:55 (two years ago) link
To my great embarrassment I have a Sire promo LP I bought years ago when I didn't have a working turntable, and since I've had a working turntable the LP has been at my ex-wife's house, so I need to get my shit together and reclaim my vinyl ... thank you though!
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 11 August 2022 11:11 (two years ago) link
Needledrops are funny. I was thinking of upgrading my table until I downloaded some well regarded needle drops that I couldn't distinguish from my table when A/B'ing. My digital chain is no slouch neither.
― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, 11 August 2022 13:17 (two years ago) link
Matt - we're on the same page as far as assessment of the Muses catalog. I even sold "The Curse", it's just an irredeemable bootleg. I guess I just adjust to the sound of things I love, though it's true I can sort of "hear what's missing" if I really think about it, but it doesn't bother me much. The Chameleons debut, "Script Of The Bridge" was remastered once, and then Mark Burgess did it himself, and I really can't tell the difference. That just points to the weakest link in the digital chain - our ears!
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 11 August 2022 13:50 (two years ago) link
Ha, this reminds me of my very earliest internet encounters - mentioning how terrible I thought The Curse sounded on rec.music.4ad in summer '93 and getting "flamed" for it. Also singing the praises of His Name Is Alive's "heavy metal" set at 13 Year Itch and being told it didn't happen. And here we are.
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 11 August 2022 14:06 (two years ago) link
Yeah I've read an interview with Kristin where she expressed bafflement that 4AD wanted to released a bad recording of a pretty average show. At least the cover is beautiful!
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 11 August 2022 22:31 (two years ago) link
oh and to anyone 4AD sympathetic interested in sound quality, avoid the Cocteau Twins remasters, they sound comically bad under the sure guidance of "tin ears" Guthrie.
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 11 August 2022 22:32 (two years ago) link
His Name Is Alive's "heavy metal" set at 13 Year Itch and being told it didn't happen. And here we are.
― brimstead, Thursday, 11 August 2022 22:42 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KO3pWCgBrY!!
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 12 August 2022 01:13 (two years ago) link
Hurrah! Metal might be overstating it but, skipping through that, there’s a bit 13-14min in where I thought “well, this isn’t like the records”. I think it was also Unrest and Muses that night. A lifetime ago.
― Michael Jones, Friday, 12 August 2022 08:17 (two years ago) link