Fwd: FW: Audio Engineering Lecture by John Ward and Bill Campbell
Neil Johnson
circuit design.
Free to attend too!
Neil
From: Toulson, Rob [mailto:Rob.T...@anglia.ac.uk]
Sent: 13 March 2012 13:48
Subject: Audio Engineering Lecture by John Ward and Bill Campbell
“Loss of our Musical Heritage? – The Rise of the Digital Remaster”
Bill Campbell and John Ward, Anglia Ruskin University
Dear all
The next Audio Engineering Society (Cambridge) lecture will be held on
Thursday 22nd March in the Mellish Clark building, room MEL001, from
7-9pm. The lecture will be presented by Bill Campbell and John Ward of
Anglia Ruskin University’s BSc Audio and Music Technology pathway and
the topic will revolve around mastering, remastering and the loudness
war. Bill and John will be discussing their ongoing research, a
detailed abstract is included below.
The Mellish Clark building has recently been equipped with a fantastic
PCM sound system, so this should be an interesting lecture. The room
is buried in the ARU East Rd campus, but can be easily found by
following the campus map at
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/mumford_theatre/findus.Maincontent.0007.file.tmp/cambridge_campus_map.pdf
MEL001 is on the ground floor. The lecture is open to all, (i.e.
including non-AES members) so please feel free to pass on this invite.
On Weds 25th April, Charlie Slee of Thermionic Culture will also
present an AES lecture on valve circuit designs.
I’d also like to draw your attention to the Cultures of the Digital
Economy conference taking place at ARU on 27-28 March, see
www.anglia.ac.uk/code for more details.
Best wishes
Rob
_________________________________________
Dr Rob Toulson BEng PhD CEng MIET FHEA
Research Fellow - Electronics, Audio and Music Technologies
The Cultures of The Digital Economy Research Institute
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, CB1 1PT
Tel: 01223 363271 +2160
Email: rob.t...@anglia.ac.uk
Web: www.anglia.ac.uk\code
Loss of our Musical Heritage? – The Rise of the Digital Remaster
(facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/232899376800001/)
Teaching Music Production and Sound Engineering requires students to
be able to access and hear milestone recordings from the past to
inform their learning and practice. In a wider context, the discerning
audiophile also wishes to hear such recordings as close as possible to
the original studio masters. Unfortunately, to some extent, all they
can now purchase are digital remasters. Remasters are marketed mainly
as improvements to the original releases, but in many cases this claim
is very debatable.
Recordings such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Miles Davis’
Kind of Blue, David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, Queen’s Night at the Opera and
Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, are seminal recordings which
listeners should be able to hear in a way that reveals the passion in
the performance and the skill and artistry in the engineering and
production. This paper will argue that in some cases, extreme digital
remastering is robbing people of access to the true beauty of highly
important and seminal recording, and presenting them with modern
remasters that in some cases lose much of the feel of the originals.
It will also suggest that such radical remastering is actually
cultural vandalism that would not be tolerated in other art forms –
imagine the outcry if The Mona Lisa was retouched in such a way that
all the blues were overemphasised, the contrast reduced and the
brightness increased.
There are a number of ways remastering is approached.
One is to attempt to “clean up”the original mix, remove tape hiss and
repair tape dropouts, generally removing the “patina”, but without any
radical alteration of EQ and dynamics. This method does not
particularly trouble the author although some may argue that it is an
“Intentional Fallacy”
Another is to quite radically alter the studio master with digital EQ,
compression and limiting. It is the latter approach that is most
widely used and which the author finds most questionable, and examples
of this approach to remastering will form the main focus of the
presentation to ASARP.
Other sometimes quite radical methods are used, especially on very old
recordings.
The talk will be illustrated with A/B comparisons of high quality
recordings of original vinyl releases from the author’s own extensive
collection, with digital remasters available on CD. These will include
snippets of some of the recordings named above and others, and will
demonstrate how in some cases the feel, groove and soul of the
originals have been altered. The recordings from LPs have been made at
24/96 resolution and dithered down to 16/44.1 resolution for playback
to enable direct comparisons with tracks from remastered CDs.
Comparable analysis of dynamic range and frequency spectra will be
presented to show quantitatively and qualitiatively how digital
remastering alters the sound compared to the originals, in some cases
reducing the dynamic range to increase loudness and boosting high
frequencies to produce a false perception of higher fidelity. These
analyses will used to explain the demonstrable perceived differences
in voices, instruments, and rhythmic feel and groove.audiophile also
wishes to hear such recordings as close as possible to the original
studio masters. Unfortunately, to some extent, all they can now
purchase are digital remasters. Remasters are marketed mainly as
improvements to the original releases, but in many cases this claim is
very debatable.
Recordings such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Miles Davis’
Kind of Blue, David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, Queen’s Night at the Opera and
Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, are seminal recordings which
listeners should be able to hear in a way that reveals the passion in
the performance and the skill and artistry in the engineering and
production. This paper will argue that in some cases, extreme digital
remastering is robbing people of access to the true beauty of highly
important and seminal recording, and presenting them with modern
remasters that in some cases lose much of the feel of the originals.
It will also suggest that such radical remastering is actually
cultural vandalism that would not be tolerated in other art forms –
imagine the outcry if The Mona Lisa was retouched in such a way that
all the blues were overemphasised, the contrast reduced and the
brightness increased.
There are a number of ways remastering is approached.
One is to attempt to “clean up” the original mix, remove tape hiss and
repair tape dropouts, generally removing the “patina”, but without any
radical alteration of EQ and dynamics. This method does not
particularly trouble the author although some may argue that it is an
“Intentional Fallacy”
Another is to quite radically alter the studio master with digital EQ,
compression and limiting. It is the latter approach that is most
widely used and which the author finds most questionable, and examples
of this approach to remastering will form the main focus of the
presentation to ASARP.
Other sometimes quite radical methods are used, especially on very old
recordings.
The talk will be illustrated with A/B comparisons of high quality
recordings of original vinyl releases from the author’s own extensive
collection, with digital remasters available on CD. These will include
snippets of some of the recordings named above and others, and will
demonstrate how in some cases the feel, groove and soul of the
originals have been altered. The recordings from LPs have been made at
24/96 resolution and dithered down to 16/44.1 resolution for playback
to enable direct comparisons with tracks from remastered CDs.
Comparable analysis of dynamic range and frequency spectra will be
presented to show quantitatively and qualitiatively how digital
remastering alters the sound compared to the originals, in some cases
reducing the dynamic range to increase loudness and boosting high
frequencies to produce a false perception of higher fidelity. These
analyses will used to explain the demonstrable perceived differences
in voices, instruments, and rhythmic feel and groove.audiophile also
wishes to hear such recordings as close as possible to the original
studio masters. Unfortunately, to some extent, all they can now
purchase are digital remasters. Remasters are marketed mainly as
improvements to the original releases, but in many cases this claim is
very debatable.
Recordings such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Miles Davis’
Kind of Blue, David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, Queen’s Night at the Opera and
Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, are seminal recordings which
listeners should be able to hear in a way that reveals the passion in
the performance and the skill and artistry in the engineering and
production. This paper will argue that in some cases, extreme digital
remastering is robbing people of access to the true beauty of highly
important and seminal recording, and presenting them with modern
remasters that in some cases lose much of the feel of the originals.
It will also suggest that such radical remastering is actually
cultural vandalism that would not be tolerated in other art forms –
imagine the outcry if The Mona Lisa was retouched in such a way that
all the blues were overemphasised, the contrast reduced and the
brightness increased.
There are a number of ways remastering is approached.
One is to attempt to “clean up” the original mix, remove tape hiss and
repair tape dropouts, generally removing the “patina”, but without any
radical alteration of EQ and dynamics. This method does not
particularly trouble the author although some may argue that it is an
“Intentional Fallacy”
Another is to quite radically alter the studio master with digital EQ,
compression and limiting. It is the latter approach that is most
widely used and which the author finds most questionable, and examples
of this approach to remastering will form the main focus of the
presentation to ASARP.
Other sometimes quite radical methods are used, especially on very old
recordings.
The talk will be illustrated with A/B comparisons of high quality
recordings of original vinyl releases from the author’s own extensive
collection, with digital remasters available on CD. These will include
snippets of some of the recordings named above and others, and will
demonstrate how in some cases the feel, groove and soul of the
originals have been altered. The recordings from LPs have been made at
24/96 resolution and dithered down to 16/44.1 resolution for playback
to enable direct comparisons with tracks from remastered CDs.
Comparable analysis of dynamic range and frequency spectra will be
presented to show quantitatively and qualitiatively how digital
remastering alters the sound compared to the originals, in some cases
reducing the dynamic range to increase loudness and boosting high
frequencies to produce a false perception of higher fidelity. These
analyses will used to explain the demonstrable perceived differences
in voices, instruments, and rhythmic feel and groove.
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Phil Macphail
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