Is the Sound on Vinyl Records Better than on CDs or DVDs?

14 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts, Toward Better Sounding Music Tags: , ,

(Reprinted from HowStuffWorks)

The answer lies in the difference between analog and digital recordings. A vinyl record is an analog recording, and CDs and DVDs are digital recordings. Take a look at the graph below. Original sound is analog by definition. A digital recording takes snapshots of the analog signal at a certain rate (for CDs it is 44,100 times per second) and measures each snapshot with a certain accuracy (for CDs it is 16-bit, which means the value must be one of 65,536 possible values).

Comparison of a raw analog audio signal to the CD audio and DVD audio output

This means that, by definition, a digital recording is not capturing the complete sound wave. It is approximating it with a series of steps. Some sounds that have very quick transitions, such as a drum beat or a trumpet’s tone, will be distorted because they change too quickly for the sample rate.

In your home stereo the CD or DVD player takes this digital recording and converts it to an analog signal, which is fed to your amplifier. The amplifier then raises the voltage of the signal to a level powerful enough to drive your speaker.

A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound’s waveform. This means that no information is lost. The output of a record player is analog. It can be fed directly to your amplifier with no conversion.

This means that the waveforms from a vinyl recording can be much more accurate, and that can be heard in the richness of the sound. But there is a downside, any specks of dust or damage to the disc can be heard as noise or static. During quiet spots in songs this noise may be heard over the music. Digital recordings don’t degrade over time, and if the digital recording contains silence, then there will be no noise.

From the graph above you can see that CD quality audio does not do a very good job of replicating the original signal. The main ways to improve the quality of a digital recording are to increase the sampling rate and to increase the accuracy of the sampling.

The recording industry has a new standard for DVD audio discs that will greatly improve the sound quality. The table below lists the sampling rate and the accuracy for CD recordings, and the maximum sampling rate and accuracy for DVD recordings. DVDs can hold 74 minutes of music at their highest quality level. CDs can also hold 74 minutes of music. By lowering either the sampling rate or the accuracy, DVDs can hold more music. For instance a DVD can hold almost 7 hours of CD quality audio.

CD Audio DVD Audio
Sampling Rate 44.1 kHz 192 kHz
Samples per second 44,100 192,000
Sampling Accuracy 16-bit 24-bit
Number of Possible Output Levels 65,536 16,777,216

DVD audio discs and players are rare right now, but they will become more common, and the difference in sound quality should be noticeable. To take advantage of higher quality DVD audio discs, however, you will need a DVD player with a 192kHz/24-bit digital to analog converter. Most DVD players only have a 96kHz/24-bit digital to analog converter.  So if you are planning to take full advantage of DVD audio be sure to look for a 192kHz/24-bit DAC.

(Thanks Dave!)

Acoustic Ke$ha: Stripped-Down Sensitivity or Dreck Laid Bare?

14 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , ,

The post below is reprinted, along with video attachments, from BuzzFeed. My comments are beneath it.

Ke$ha Made A Beautiful Acoustic Version Of “Die Young”

Who knew that underneath her hit pop song was a really gorgeous ballad?

Ryan Broderick, BuzzFeed Staff

It’s really easy to write off a pop star like Ke$ha (especially because she still insists on using that dang dollar sign). But it’s also really exciting when someone like her takes a step back, strips off all her usual radio pop nonsense and does something genuinely really nice.

This ambient, pretty gorgeous version of “Die Young,” off her upcoming album, Warrior, gives a really startling insight into the person underneath the auto-tune.

And this isn’t the first time Ke$ha’s take a quick foray to genuine musicianship. Last year she released a bafflingly subdued and heartfelt cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” which is definitely a must-hear if you missed it.

Original post:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/keha-made-a-beautiful-acoustic-version-of-die-yo

____________________________________________

I understand the concept, Ryan Broderick of BuzzFeed staff. Sometimes stripping away the noise and letting an artist’s voice, melody and song be heard in a more intimate, sympathetic setting brings out the song’s beauty and the singer’s gifts. Good examples would be Robyn’s reworkings of her dance pop hits and Kylie Minogue’s brand new Abbey Road Sessions album.

That’s not what’s happening here.

Really nice? Ambient? Gorgeous? Genuine musicianship? Are we listening to the same stuff? I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me: it could use the synth dance backing track to cover up all that “gorgeousness” because it just reveals Ke$sha’s limitations as a singer and bad judgment as an artist.

Her acoustic “Die Young” is merely ordinary–the stuff a thousand teenage girls do as well on YouTube on a daily basis. But the festival of secretions that is her “subdued and heartfelt” take on Dylan is something that made me feel ickiness penetrating my brain through my ears. It wasn’t just unpleasant to hear; it was something I wish I could unhear. I mean, thanks for spraying all that “musicianship” all over one of my favorite Dylan songs. Hope you didn’t permanently ruin it for me.

Yeah, good thing she “stripped off all her usual radio pop nonsense” to “do something really nice”–like have an emotional breakdown with the mic on. There’s a difference between conveying emotion (which is what an actual good singer can do) and simply demonstrating your own emotion (which, when done so artlessly, can leave listeners cold or maybe wondering what the hell kind of issues you have).

I suspect Ke$ha either a) has watched too many bleary Amy Winehouse performances and thinks raw self-destruction is kind of a cool image to adopt (maybe to make inroads with the angsty Evanescence crowd?) or b) is desperate to be taken more seriously than she deserves, given that she’s probably the most one-dimensional act since KC & The Sunshine Band.

Either way she comes across as a poseur to me.

I do agree about that pointless dollar sign though.

How to Dismantle Bono’s Image as a Great Philanthropist

13 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Best of the Blog, General Posts Tags: , ,

(Reprinted from Thought Catalog)

From a post by Ben Branstetter entitled “6 Liberals This Liberal Can’t Stand”

1. Bono

Aside from his music (U2 being one of those bands it’s safe for Boomers to like mostly because it’s where he works out his messiah complex), Bono is also an avid douche. While I cannot deny him the power of his philanthropy, it’s hard not to wonder how many mosquito nets he could buy if he sold off his collection of designer aviator sunglasses. That, and his humanitarian efforts are often laughed at by charities and economists alike. Take, for example, Product Red, the vestige of every enlightened liberal in your college. Built on the idea that people love buying things for themselves more than they like changing lives, the project to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria was largely a boondoggle, with companies such as Nike, The GAP, and Apple refusing to reveal what portion of their special (RED) products would actually go to charity, not to mention they spent $100 million on advertising for the project and, five years after it’s launch, had only raised $18 million. Also, all three of those companies use foreign labor associated with sweatshops, meaning people with these horrid diseases were likely making clothing for upper-class American teenagers who believed they were actually helping to fight those same diseases. You want to support a cause? Make a direct donation and skip the fashionable t-shirt.

Or let’s look at U2’s 2006 world tour for their album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, a tour more largely seen to sell his ONE campaign for international aid. The gross ticket receipts of that tour managed to hit over $448 million dollars (putting it fifth for the world’s most lucrative tour though the top spot is also held by U2 for their 2009 360 Tour which netted the band over $760 million). That’s gluttonous compared to the ONE Campaign’s 2010 earnings of $14.9 million, of which only 1% actually goes to charity (the rest is spent on employee salaries). So remember, when you see his egoistic, holier-than-thou, eternally-unshaven mug on your TV asking for money, donate to an actual charity instead of buying the latest brand because some self-styled Irish demigod told you it was cool.

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Articles Branstetter cites for support include:

Bono and Bob Geldof increase Africa’s problems say Charity (NME): http://www.nme.com/news/bono/32704

Bottom Line for (Red) (New York Times Business): http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/business/06red.html?pagewanted=all

U2’s Bono in Charity Scandal (Fabulous Buzz): http://fabulousbuzz.com/2010/10/03/u2s-bono-in-charity-scandal/

Did Obama’s Taste In Music Help Him Win?

12 Nov 2012 2 Comments

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

(Reprinted from NME)

As Barack Obama goes through the rigmarole of humping those boxes back into the Oval Office, he might reflect that he owes his continued employment to popular music. No, bear with me.

Rarely has a political leader made such capital of his musical tastes, and rarely have so many praised stars returned the high-five. Not since the heyday of Tony Blair and his groovy-dad endorsements has a politician gone cap in hand like this to the Cool List and seen it pay off. It might seem like facile conjecture, but we know Obama and Blair share an understanding of the heft of perception. Policies and position on the spectrum might be the foundations of an election win; the face that fits is the architectural clincher. And if Jay-Z’s taking care of the cornicing, so much the better.

Barack Obama, Beyoncé and Jay-Z

On the iPod

We’ve all done this one – picked out the coolest stuff from our iPods to impress the, erm, electorate. They don’t need to see the Rolf Harris and Pinky & Perky tracks that are on there “for the kids”. Politics is about getting your message across clearly and concisely without umming, ahhing and fudging around the embarrassing bits. Hit ‘em with a few randomly* (*precisely) chosen favourites like James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Eminem, Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane, Fugees and Gil Scott-Heron, and you’ve picked off some crucial demographics.

When you’ve got a rival like Mitt Romney, who namechecks country stalwarts Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith, it’s easy to bag the cool vote. And Romney even admits that acts he digs – like The Eagles and The Killers – might not be wild about being mentioned. The message is that pop supports Obama, so that’s a hell of a chunk of youth onside already, potentially. As well as another few million who merely think they’re still young and cool.

Bruce Springsteen

Shout-outs

It’s been a two-way street for the Big O. Bruce Springsteen’s been composing ditties for him and Jay-Z and Beyoncé have thrown their considerable cultural weight behind him. They may have been a bit heavy-handed with the puns/rhymes but these guys are power-brokers. While this kind of backing may put some people off, you have to play the percentages at least, and Obama’s a canny operator.

How to Wake Up a Kid

12 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts, On a Lighter Note Tags:

Jazz For Cows

12 Nov 2012 2 Comments

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts, On a Lighter Note Tags:

Who’d have thought?

(Thanks Dave!)

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