| AlanS wrote on Thu, 11 August 2005 08:18 |
You'd think this would finally be the wake-up call to labels that turning music into 2-by-4's to bludgeon people with is a less than prudent business strategy. When a mass-market company like Creative Labs calls them out it's a good bet that consumers are not being fooled anymore. To quote from CL "...it re-masters and selectively enhances the audio by analyzing and identifying which parts of the audio stream have been restricted or damaged during the dynamic compression stages..."
The Automatic volume feature might be a good thing, however. If it works well, it might make more naturally mastered music less disadvantaged by the blaring competition.
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Although it's good that a company like Creative would attempt to restore "typically mastered" material, Alan, they are way off base when they bring up the quantization from 24 bit to 16 as a factor in losing dynamic range. Yes, we all know that 24 bit has a lower theoretical noise floor than 16 bit, however all of the audible information in the 24 quantized with dither word is contained in the 16 bit word. The quantization process does not alter RMS or crest factor, only raises noise floor of the systems minimum RMS power. Maximum RMS power, average RMS, total RMS power, peak decibels and crest factor remain the same in both examples.
The example (at the top) of a 24 bit song quantized to 16 bit (at the bottom). It's incorrect to assume that you lose "audible dynamics" with a 24 to 16 bit word reduction.
11:36 AM 8/11/2005
Left Right
Min Sample Value: -28604.85 -31305.82
Max Sample Value: 27987.25 28866.58
Peak Amplitude: -1.18 dB -.4 dB
Possibly Clipped: 0 0
DC Offset: -.001 -.001
Minimum RMS Power: -99.9 dB -96.85 dB
Maximum RMS Power: -5.76 dB -4.86 dB
Average RMS Power: -17.34 dB -18.43 dB
Total RMS Power: -16.66 dB -17.37 dB
Actual Bit Depth: 24 Bits 24 Bits
Using RMS Window of 50 ms
Left Right
Min Sample Value: -28602 -31307
Max Sample Value: 27991 28871
Peak Amplitude: -1.18 dB -.4 dB
Possibly Clipped: 0 0
DC Offset: -.001 -.001
Minimum RMS Power: -73.67 dB -73.71 dB
Maximum RMS Power: -5.76 dB -4.86 dB
Average RMS Power: -17.34 dB -18.43 dB
Total RMS Power: -16.66 dB -17.37 dB
Actual Bit Depth: 16 Bits 16 Bits
Using RMS Window of 50 ms
This statement:
"The instruments that are most affected by the dynamic compression applied during mastering operations are obviously those that produce the most transients. For the sound engineer, it's much more comfortable to compress these in order to make them fit easily into the dynamic range offered by 16 bit quantification."
That's not the reason that ME's use final compression or limiting, they compress to raise perceived levels and they do it when the material is 24 bit, it's preposterous to think that ME's limit to store the 24 bit word more effectively within the 16 bit word, it's all about having the material perceived louder and has little to do with retaining dynamic range on word reductions, it's moot to say the least, because hyperlimiting lowers peak levels while raising low level information.
Their before and after graphs don't show me much either, what I see mainly is that peak is raised, however with the final level of a mastered song, the peak level is going to be at the top of the dB axis. So the before example mainly displays that the overall gain is lower on the before clip.
This statement tells me that they are confusing data compression with dynamic compression.
"The processing is also capable of clearly improving the reproduction of compressed sound, such as MP3s." A consumer statement if I've ever heard one. High end designers have been working on algo's to restore dynamic range for over 10 years now and no one has gotten the cigar. So now Creative a consumer company, known more for their soundblaster cards that unnecessarily resample 44.1k material to 48k have come to the rescue and want us to believe that they have succeeded when designers with more knowledge have fallen short of effectively restoring dynamic range on hypercompressed material.
That said, I do agree with you that it is beneficial that someone, anyone, is recognizing that pancaking the music isn't the answer and are at least trying to do something about it, but they don't need to throw this off on ME's that are only doing what their clients request. The article is blanketly blaming ME's for doing their job and I see the motive as profit orientated and not true concern for the sad state of music at the present. They are just jumping on the band wagon, because they have heard the complaints, but I'll be damn surprised if they are going to be the first company to really restore hyperlimiting.
