RE: [SurroundSound] Quadraphonic software decoders

Andrej

Lovely summary there and thanks for it  – you confirm what I always suspected ;-)

 

From: surroundsound@googlegroups.com [mailto:surroundsound@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrej Falout
Sent: 12 December 2014 00:18
To: surroundsound@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [SurroundSound] Quadraphonic software decoders

 

Hey Lokks,

 

On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Lokkerman <phil.steeples@gmail.com> wrote:

 

With some recordings I don't think we are getting a true master or a true up-sample; as I think they  could be using, for example, vintage digital multi-track, outputting mix-down in analogue; then converting back to digital.

 

Ironic as it may be, this is actually in line with the idea of audio fidelity. It preserves, the best it can, the sound that artist/producer was hearing when they made creative decisions.

(I wonder how much fun would be to be able to go to the original studio, and record a master playing on the original house speakers - through the Neumann dummy head placed in the producer's char. LOL)

 

If they took the PCM out of the digital mixdown/master, then used today's advanced upsampling methods, they would almost certainly get more juice out of it, but it would not be what was originally intended/heard.

 

 

I feel that some of the Hi-Res Madonna HDtracks are this way - as it is well documented:http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep07/articles/classictracks_0907.htm) that the "Like A Virgin" album was recorded on a Sony 3324 digital tape recorder with a Sony F1 for the two track ( I know you should get a similar result by a sample/rate conversion but where do the out-of- band signals come from without adding something?)

 

Mathematics :)

 

 

If you Google the Hoffman forums the threads appear to imply that the HDtracks master was from the analogue master -  so that's how you get to a 24/192 master recording, without some form of sleight of hand,  - this was a DAD recording?

 

Some caution is needed here (and in other cases of early "digital" recordings). First, more often then not, a lot of tracking was done to analogue, often in various studios, and then transferred to digital multi-track in studio where record was mixed. Second, a lot of masters where done to both digital and analogue in parallel.

Third, a lot of mastering/cutting engineers of the time did not have digital anything, and a lot of them despised digital (with a good reason, at that point in time. Of course, they would never say so in public for obvious reason of having a mortgage and kids to feed).

That meant that a large number of digital masters where never used past mastering, for other purpose other then marketing (The famous "DDD" utopia). I think there was 1992 when I heard first fully digital mastering chain. It sounded awful. Manager of the facility told me not to worry, as they got it only to be able to tick the check-box of the marketing guys, and don't plan to use it. Imagine a digital compressor in year 92 and be happy they didn't.

All of the above also explains to a large degree why some of the early "digital" recordings actually sounded good. If they where digital to any significant degree. Such as Stevie Wonder JTTSLOP and Hotter then July, where Sievie's management on the covers is profusely thanking Sony for donating most of the hardware for recording studio he built in his new house. Not in those exact words, of course. (BTW, he was famous for graciously accepting prototypes of many vendors, for testing of course... bless him :) Yet, I have so far 3 separate, first hand witness reports, that both where tracked to analogue, and mixed in parallel to analogue and digital. From which point nobody ever recalls seeing the U-matic and/or Beta digital tapes. Ever...

 

So there. :)

Andrej

 

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