A good friend suggested that one thing that differentiates digital from analog is that with analog you can hear the spaces between notes. I have notice this myself and all my interns tell me when they listen to records, especially for the first time, that they can hear the instrument actually being in the space and the sound is continuous. With digital they seem not to notice the same thing.Comments?
Comments?
I am somewhat surprised that your interns have picked up on this. It must be because you take on college students and/or do drug screening with your background checks.
Well, of course, with digital audio, the sound is not continuous because it is only sampled. So the audio strobes on and off many tens of times each second, or however many times per second is equivalent to 44.1/2, the Nyquist goal.
It works nothing like that. Look at the analog output on a scope. No space. No strobing. Just a smooth analog waveform. This is basic stuff. Let's not get too deep in the weeds with it.GR
I have notice this myself and all my interns tell me when they listen to records, especially for the first time, that they can hear the instrument actually being in the space and the sound is continuous. With digital they seem not to notice the same thing.
Have you and your interns listened to SACD? Room detail / reverb was the very first thing I noticed the first time I heard that format. Because I was used to hearing 16/44 through a rather lousy disc player in my living room.The reason I bring up SACD and not the 24/96 files we listen to everyday is because of the setting you/they're probably listening in. Get some good digital (that includes 16/44 done right) in your/their home living room and without your/their work hat on, and listen then. Compare that to the inner groove area of the records and decide what you prefer.
Perhaps it's a comment on the dynamic analog records of yore,versus the squashed digital records of today."spaces between the notes" because of the dynamics, not because of the format itself.JT
He's got to be joking. I hope.
In all my years as a mastering engineer I have never heard SACD. I guess I should at some time. Isn't SACD considered a "dead" format at this point?
Well, of course, with digital audio, the sound is not continuous because it is only sampled. So the audio strobes on and off many tens of times each second, or however many times per second is equivalent to 44.1/2, the Nyquist goal. However, with a good clock, we should not be able to notice the sound gaps... Unless there is something shining on the sound, like a light bulb at 60 Hz, say, while the sine wave you are auditioning at full volume is, say, 100 Hz. I am somewhat surprised that your interns have picked up on this. It must be because you take on college students and/or do drug screening with your background checks. It's true that analog is continuous and has a much quieter noise floor to begin with than digital carriers. The problem with analog is that, because of its continuity and excellent SNR, it's very easy to make a perfect copy of the original, be it vinyl or tape, with no generation-loss or sound degradation, unlike with the various digital "file formats," so, unfortunately, analog is not very safe against piracy, which is one of the biggest concerns of today's recording artists. My biggest gripe with digital audio is actually that it's not possible to apply more than one type of dither before the signal self-erases.Ymw (hopefully) v, Laarsų( )
I have a method to reproduce digital recordings in analog formats and thereby demonstrate the inherent flaws in digital recording as compared to the pristine nature of analog magnetic recording.Take a reel of tape with the recording embedded into the oxide particles. Now, carefully slice the recording into "samples" using a demagnetized razor blade and a calibrated edit block. Depending upon the sampling rate you wish to use, be it 44, 48, 96, 192 etc, you will need to calculate the number of cuts per length of tape give the tape speed of the recording.Example : if the recording is at 15 ips, and you wish to emulate the same thing at Fs of 96k, you will be making a 96,000 sections out of each 15 inch length of tape. Each section of the analog "sample" in the above example will be 0.0001562 inches in length, so make sure you have a sharp razor and be sure keep the samples in order and in proper orientation to the tape path flow. If you lose a piece on the floor, that is considered a "drop-out" or uncorrectable error. Then, using the finest of Scotch blue edit tape, put the samples back together for a cohesive recreation of digital audio. Using this process, you can easily demonstrate how digital audio ruins an analog recording by breaking up the continuous flow of program material inherent in analog recording.I personally recommend beginners trying this first at 30ips and a Fs of 44.1K. this reduces the work load to a mere 44,100 slice per 30 inches of tape, and that's almost a yard (English) or meter (Metric) of tape. Each sample in this test is much larger than the prior example, with each section or sample increasing to a comparatively large 0.0006802 inches in length. This is best for the beginning editor until they have the skills to tackle 3.75ips at Fs192Khz.Once this is mastered, we can pursue the even greater degradation of the Reed-Solomon interleave used for error correction in digital audio. This will entail having three copies of the original analog recording and a lot more Scotch tape. You will also need a -very- fine tipped Sharpie to label each matching piece from each of the tapes as 1,2,3 such that the interleave of the data may be emulated. A magnifying glass may be of use here in the labeling process, but that is for the advanced users. Please master the first technique and let me know when you have it down pat, then we shall continue into the evils of data compressed digital audio. Make sure to have a heat shrink gun available for that training.You can thank me later.
Tried it and it didn't work for ya ? bummer...
When making sarcastic posts it is useful to add emoticons or perhaps a PS pointing out that you are kidding. Some people actually believe this nonsense. JR
I was 18,956 slices into this before I realized there was no emoticon. Glad I came back to re-read this thread.
Just trying to be helpful... JR
