I went to the symphony today

[Il Musico (imported)]

Hello all,

just noticed this thread now. And since it touches my profession, I have a thing or two to say.

The discussion of digital versus analog, and which is best, is as old as digital audio, and is hardly ever held in a sensible way. Because usually the people discussing which is best don't even mention WHAT digital system they are comparing to WHAT analog one! And that's pretty obviously important. When we are comparing a 78rpm record (analog) to a CD (digital), the CD will be obviously better, and any discussion about it would be absurd. Likewise, if we compare a top quality studio tape recorder of the kind used in the 1980's (analog), to cellphone audio (digital), the result would be equally obvious, but opposite.

When we compare a low quality analog system to a low quality digital one, the sound of each will be poor, but in different ways. The analog system will have lots of noise (hiss, and possibly pops and ticks), with the music sounding reasonably natural through it, as long as it doesn't get loud, because the louder it gets, the more distortion there will be. And there will likely be some wow and flutter. The digital system instead will probably have no noise at all, but will have MORE distortion at low levels than at high ones, and will often also have artifacts, that is, alien nonharmonic sounds triggered by the real signal.

In such a comparison, the preference for digital or analog depends largely on whether a person is more sensitive to noise or to artifacts, to distortion at low or at high levels, and it also depends on what music is being used for the test. A plucked solo instrument like a guitar can tolerate a lot of distortion but little noise, while a complex sound like a choir is tolerant to noise but very sensitive to distortion!

One more difference is that the frequency response for a digital system is usually flat, with a well marked upper limit that's often high enough to be above the audible range, while analog systems usually do not have a very flat frequency response, often suffering at the low frequency end in addition to the high one.

But as the quality improves, both analog and digital systems get closer to the real sound, and that forces that they get closer together too. At some point the differences are so small that most people can't hear them.

At present, analog audio systems are inexpensive up to a certain quality level, and from there up the price rises far faster than the quality. Digital systems are far more complex, but then it's cheap to add more quality. So, when high quality is required, it's far less expensive to implement it digitally than in analog ways.

As to audibility: When the total amount of non-original sound (noise, artifacts, and distortions of all sorts) is pretty large, it's easy to hear, and I can immediately tell whether the recording is analog or digital. Personally, the imperfections of an analog system bother me less than those of a digital one. But when the total non-original sound gets small enough to become inaudible, of course there is no way anymore to tell by ear which is the digital and which is the analog version.

The catch is just this: The human ear (at least for some humans!) is quite sensitive to sound defects. If just 0.01% of the total audio power is imperfections, that can sound REALLY nasty! That's about the quality level of the cheapest portable cassette tape recorders. Many people stop hearing the imperfections when they are down to about 0.0001%. To achieve this level with analog recording technology, a studio tape machine is required. Some people claim that the very best vinyl LPs can reach it, but that's only true when they are REALLY good, absolutely scratch-free, and not yet worn, a very difficult thing to find. CDs instead far exceed this level of quality, getting down to about 0.00000004%. That's good enough to fully satisfy almost all people, but some people claim that under certain conditions they can still hear the defects of CDs.

For the techies among you, please note that I have been talking in power percentage. Distortion in music equipment is usually stated as voltage percentage. In this scale, a casette tape might have roughly 1% distortion, a good analog system 0.1%, and a CD 0.002%.

Of course there is a large difference between the intrinsic system limitations, and what is actually available on commercial CDs, LPs, or old fashioned tapes! Companies produce recordings down to a price, and most customers don't even care to pay attention to any defects, let alone complain. So the quality of commercial recordings usually is far below the technical possibilities of the medium.

In my collection of CDs there is a large amount, over 90% (!), of terrible technical quality. There is big distortion, lots of AC hum, traffic noise complete with honks, intense low frequency noise from condenser microphones, problems with frequency response, all sorts of trouble with poor phasing and location of multiple microphones, and many others. Most of these defects are totally independent of whether the final product is digital or analog. But some are, such as wow and flutter of tapes and LPs, which is simply absent in digital systems, or the hum picked up by long microphone cables, which doesn't happen in all-digital studios where the signals are digitized right at the microphones and then transmitted digitally.

So, in the end, digital wins, but only if ALL stages of the production chain are properly implemented. Often they aren't. If there is anything poorly done, it will destroy the quality of the recording, regardless of whether it's digital or analog. Just to give you an example: 15 years ago I recorded concerts with a PC and a soundcard of those days. It was OK, but not great, as that soundcard had a nasty high noise level, being two orders of magnitude worse than a 16 bit 44.1kHz system should be. Then came the day when I upgraded to a Soundblaster Audigy card, praised as the best card one could buy locally at reasonable cost. Indeed it had much lower noise. But it sounded nasty! Loopback testing of the card produced consistent great results. I ws puzzled. Until I noticed that the testing was taking place at 48kHz, the card's highest sampling rate, and of course I was recording at 44.1kHz, because I had to burn my recordings on CDs. After finding a program to do loopback testing at 44.1kHz, surprise! At that sampling frequency, the Audigy is rock bottom dirty awful bad! In the higher audio range, the distortion can reach 20%! That's like the inner tracks of a badly pressed LP, played through a cheap record changer.

Apparently the Audigy always works at 48kHz, and then converts the output to the sampling rate wanted by the user. And this conversion has a bug!

The solution was simple: record in 48kHz, and convert to 44.1kHz in software. That way I got good quality.

This little story shows how easy it is to mess up a recording, and produce results far worse than the theoretical limits of a given system.

The recording, playing and amplyfying chain these days is pretty close to "perfect", measured by the human ear. Unfortunately microphones are not, and speakers are a bad joke! So, when everything else is reasonably correct, the speakers are the limiting factor. And there are no digital speakers yet, regardless of the stupid advertising of some audio companies...

As for compression, not all MP3 encoders were born alike, and of course the user has a wide range of choice regarding the trade-offs between quality, file size and encoding speed. Too many people use very basic encoders at 128kb/s fixed bitrate, joint stereo, all settings at default, and then whine that MP3 is poor. Not so! MP3 has the ability to produce outputs ranging from VERY poor, but very small too, to good enough to be indistinguishable from the original. It just takes a good encoder, configuring it properly, and not striving for the absolutely smallest file sizes.

Well, for a forum aimed at the great subject of cutting off some things, this technical post is already long enough! I will stop it here.

Il Musico

[moi621 (imported)]

Succinctly,

why is a good thick Deutsche Grammafone record disc so much superior to any digital substitution?

The failure of digital to capture true base is experienced by many.

Reminds me of when the USM's fire some howitzer during the production of 1812 Overture at Fourth of July event.

These things are "pop guns" compared to the sound of black powder cannon intended. An no smokeless power either.

If we are going to experience cannon, then . . . .

The filming of Gettysburg involves a firing of truly historical cannons events. No smokeless powder. Unfortunately recorded digitally

Moi

Analog more Real the Digital.

Technicolor more colorful then Digital

Imagine, how bland Digital Flavors would be.

[Dave (imported)]

I'll take my own thread a bit off the direct path...

105 mm Howitzers are bigger than the period guns used in 1812. Not only bigger, they got better metallurgy metals that can take heavier loads of gunpowder.

I heard Howitzers used for a 4th of July concert inside the old and now torn down Three Rivers Stadium and the howitzers required special aiming because inside that circular stadium, the shock waves could break all the glass inside the stadium.

There are discs of period firearms and those great cannon shots that everyone loves in the 1812 overture are not thundering but more big bangs and loud pops compared to modern guns.

PS - I like the howitzers, they impress. They aren't authentic though.

[moi621 (imported)]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cCuQ5gN ... re=related

Ya gotta luv it.

Admittedly not the deep roaring boom but,

every time I see the USMC do it, I hear, "pop".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVB5B6wn1c8

I have read that when the re-enactment for Gettysburg was occurring for the film and the cannons were doing the "real thing" some re-enactors were in "tears" over the emotional effect of it all.

It sure was nice of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to compose it for

It is OUR Overture. Tune in any 4th of July.

Moi

[Dave (imported)]

EXTON is the most recent company to record the Pittsburgh Symphony.

They use a couple dozen microphones and four and five recordings (three of which are live in front of an audience) and they are spectacular records in many channels. The Assistant conductors who get to sit in the recording area and listen on monitor speakers so they can mark the score for weaknesses or missed interpretations (there are no mistakes at this level of quality) or coughs, rustling, etc...

If I remember correctly, to record the Mahler 5th, Heinz Hall shut off the air conditioning system for Exton and in the hall you could hear the absence of the blowers and motors. It was the most amazing effect to hear the normally silent hall go that much more silent. I think this was the piece. So hose that tell you that they hear machinery in recordings, I can tell you it is really there.

However, I still return to William Steinberg's recordings of the four Brahms Symphonies when I get really low... Why, because even with the lousy mikes and the ancient equipment, I love the interpretation and I love the brass and the smoothness of his interpretation. It's like coming home and relaxing in your own warm, stuffed chair.

[Dave (imported)]

MOI,

the 1812 overture is filled with Russian Church music. The broad melody that everyone knows and loves is a Russian hymn.

Which is not to say it isn't thrilling, emotional music and that it isn't suitable for the 4th of July.

I would say Victor Herbert's American Fantasia is more appropriate. This youtube is kinda scratchy but still good. They ahve to change records because those records didn't record too long and this is, after all Victor Herbert conducting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

TBymHDOblto

That concert I spoke of in the old Three Rivers Stadium paired 1812 Overture with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Copland.

Those are the most "American" composers that I know except for the popular songs of Irving Berlin and the rest of Tin Pan Alley.

[Dave (imported)]

I went to youtube again and searched for the opening of the American Fantasia.

It has been re-orchestrated into the Festival March because they did. I don't know why they did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

tkpQ5Hglwqs&feature=related

However, this second version is bassy and thrilling and that wonderful inspiration of a march that we all want from a orchestra.

You realize that the very first performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was written for a band as small as 18 instruments and at most 24 instruments. Now, we only know it as scored for full orchestra.

The genius Mozart never had an orchestra as large as today's orchestras. Think cutting the strings down to four for each section and you get an idea of how small the sound might get. But then, it's Mozart and he's God Almighty in music. Mozart on kazoos would still be genius. Travesty but still genius.

[Riverwind (imported)]

How true, all composers are measured to Mozart, think about what he would have written had he lived past the age of 33.

I was thinking and then searching for information on the Boston does the 4th because it seem to me that the its an Army reserve unit stationed in Boston that shoots off the guns in the 1812 overture, not the USMC.

Anybody?

River

[moi621 (imported)]

MOI,

the 1812 overture is filled with Russian Church music. The broad melody that everyone knows and loves is a Russian hymn.

Which is not to say it isn't thrilling, emotional music and that it isn't suitable for the 4th of July.

I would say Victor Herbert's American Fantasia is more appropriate. This youtube is kinda scratchy but still good. They ahve to change records because those records didn't record too long and this is, after all Victor Herbert conducting.

[quote="moi621 (imported)" time

=1350452100]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

TBymHDOblto

That concert I spoke of in the old Three Rivers Stadium paired 1812 Overture with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Copland.

Those are the most "American" composers that I know except for the popular
[/quote]
songs of Irving Berlin and the rest of Tin Pan Alley.

And some stanzas of the Marseillaises.

BTW my Russians ID'ed the theme of Survivor as a Ukrainian folk theme.

When I was searching and scanning videos there was one where the guy at the Kettle Drums broke his Drum Beater.

Moi

[Dave (imported)]

The CANNONS are courtesy of the 101st Field Artillery Regiment based in Brockton Massachusetts.

That's mostly the Massachusetts National Guard.

I downloaded the program for the 2012 program and they list the FBI (Security) and the Coast Guard (for the port and Charles River) and then the Honor is listed from the Marines, Navy (US Constitution) and Coast Guard -- the flyover and other support is credited to the National Guard.