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Indeed. The problem isn't the limits of 16-bit. The problem is the loudness war.

Listener preference for LP over CD-or-better digital—is not based on LP being a better medium; it is not, by any objective and any fidelity-based subjective measure. I suppose others on this thread have commented on nostalgia or faux-nostalgia—think "millennial" or "hipster"—but there is a better reason that some prefer LPs. That reason is that LPs in many cases are not created with the same signal as the corresponding CD. The LP signal is _better_! It is a documented and audible fact that many LPs use a signal that has been subjected to less dynamic range compression and less peak limiting, both of which are used extremely heavily to horrible effect on most recordings of the last 25-30 years. Look up "loudness wars." I have personally seen histograms of the same tracks taken from LP and CD by a colleague and the differences are striking. The track was "300 m.p.h. Torrential Outpour Blues" from Icky Thump by the White Stripes. And here https://www.soundonsound.com/t... is an interview with the recording folks involved, including this quote from the second sidebar:

"Jack wanted the CD to sound loud and aggressive, so it was cut as hot and exciting as possible, whereas the vinyl was cut in a more traditional way. The vinyl version has more size and dynamics and air, all the things about vinyl that we love. Was the CD version brickwalled to compete in the loudness wars? Let’s hope not!”"

Loudness war is over "In essence, the idea is that if all music is played back at the same perceived volume, there's no longer an incentive for mix or mastering engineers to compete in these 'loudness wars'." From: http://www.soundonsound.com/te...

In the audio recording and processing industries it is very common to introduce synthetic higher frequencies. It is a longstanding result that such addition can improve vocal clarity. It is also commonly sed as a guitar effect. A good description of some of the processing techniques is found here: https://www.soundonsound.com/s...

Yep. Here's an article describing the different formats. Green Book is probably the one he's thinking of.

Allow me to state for one last time the obvious.

Ethernet is a digital protocol. In other words, what's being transmitted is a stream of 0s and 1. Discreet. There's no such thing as a lot of 0 that's almost a little bit of 1. Such a stream has one quite beneficial property: It's trivially easy to check whether it was transmitted correctly. Ethernet does that. Yes, that means that if you have a (really, REALLY) crappy cable that you'll get retransmissions. Which matters little considering the amount of data required to keep an audio stream steady and the speed of Ethernet retransmissions. What does matter, of course, is that the receiving end has a big enough buffer to cover for the retransmissions. But if that buffer wasn't big enough, it would not take an audiophile to notice the difference because, well, the audio would pretty much stop.

As for how USB cable quality matters, I did take a look around. But I doubt those were the results you got, so you might want to point us to some research that actually DOES find a difference in the sound quality properties of USB cables.

The hum that helps to fight crime (ENF) Electrical Network Frequency analysis

"For the last seven years, at the Metropolitan Police forensic lab in south London, audio specialists have been continuously recording the sound of mains electricity.

It is an all pervasive hum that we normally cannot hear. But boost it a little, and a metallic and not very pleasant buzz fills the air. ...

"The power is sent out over the national grid to factories, shops and of course our homes. Normally this frequency, known as the mains frequency, is about 50Hz," explains Dr Alan Cooper, a senior digital forensic practitioner at the Met Police.

Any digital recording made anywhere near an electrical power source, be it plug socket, light or pylon, will pick up this noise and it will be embedded throughout the audio.

This buzz is an annoyance for sound engineers trying to make the highest quality recordings. But for forensic experts, it has turned out to be an invaluable tool in the fight against crime.

While the frequency of the electricity supplied by the national grid is about 50Hz, if you look at it over time, you can see minute fluctuations. ...

Comparing the unique pattern of the frequencies on an audio recording with a database that has been logging these changes for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year provides a digital watermark: a date and time stamp on the recording.

Philip Harrison, from JP French Associates, another forensic audio laboratory that has been logging the hum for several years, says: "Even if [the hum] is picked up at a very low level that you cannot hear, we can extract this information."

It is a technique known as Electric Network Frequency (ENF) analysis, and it is helping forensic scientists to separate genuine, unedited recordings from those that have been tampered with."

- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scie...
- http://cryptogon.com/?p=32789

#

Met lab claims 'biggest breakthrough since Watergate'
Power lines act as police informers

- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

#

Noisy, muffled, incoherent recordings are an audio engineerâ(TM)s worst nightmare, but all too often they contain vital evidence in criminal trials. Itâ(TM)s the job of the forensic audio specialist to extract that evidence.

- http://www.soundonsound.com/so...

#

(discussion forum) Electrical network frequency analysis, Mains frequency variations detectable in digital audio recordings?

- http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/f...

#

Met Police use electrical 'hum' to solve crimes

The Metropolitan Police is using the "hum" of background noise produced by mains electricity to help solve crimes, it has been disclosed.

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

#

Related Research
- http://www.ece.umd.edu/~ravig/...

#

Engineers Use Electrical Hum To Fight Crime

- http://science.slashdot.org/st...

#

Howâ(TM)s the 60Hz coming from your wall?

- http://hackaday.com/2012/07/24...

#

Detecting Edited Audio

- https://www.schneier.com/blog/...

#

Dating Recordings by Power Line Fluctuations

-

Your MP3 argument doesn't stand. It's been proven that a well-encoded 128kbps MP3 is indistinguishable to the human ear from lossless content.

That is only true for the simplest of sounds. Low bitrate MP3 is notoriously bad at reproducing cymbals. Here's a detailed article on the effects of data compression: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr12/articles/lost-in-translation.htm

An example that specifically cites DAT (and others) http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov03/articles/backingtracks.htm/

technically, yes you are "right" that when asked in an interview with a tech magazine, Albini answered as you say...

however, parent is right...Albini is biased by his own expertise...

And his studio went bankrupt... AFTER In Utero...usually people can live for the rest of their lives on residuals from a work that successful...

So the theory that he's pimping 'analog' because of an investment in analog equipment and resistance (or financial inability) to change actually has quite a bit of merit.

Sure, his opinion is noteworthy...but as we note it, we can also disregard it without disregarding his artistic work...

The whole reason he is even asked about this stuff is his connection to Nirvana...and he only worked on one national release album after In Utero...that has to tell you something

Archived @:
http://slexy.org/view/s21UWKzafS
http://hpaste.org/79175
https://paste.debian.net/plain/216145
======
The hum that helps to fight crime (ENF) Electrical Network Frequency analysis

"For the last seven years, at the Metropolitan Police forensic lab in south London, audio specialists have been continuously recording the sound of mains electricity.

It is an all pervasive hum that we normally cannot hear. But boost it a little, and a metallic and not very pleasant buzz fills the air. ...

"The power is sent out over the national grid to factories, shops and of course our homes. Normally this frequency, known as the mains frequency, is about 50Hz," explains Dr Alan Cooper, a senior digital forensic practitioner at the Met Police.

Any digital recording made anywhere near an electrical power source, be it plug socket, light or pylon, will pick up this noise and it will be embedded throughout the audio.

This buzz is an annoyance for sound engineers trying to make the highest quality recordings. But for forensic experts, it has turned out to be an invaluable tool in the fight against crime.

While the frequency of the electricity supplied by the national grid is about 50Hz, if you look at it over time, you can see minute fluctuations. ...

Comparing the unique pattern of the frequencies on an audio recording with a database that has been logging these changes for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year provides a digital watermark: a date and time stamp on the recording.

Philip Harrison, from JP French Associates, another forensic audio laboratory that has been logging the hum for several years, says: "Even if [the hum] is picked up at a very low level that you cannot hear, we can extract this information."

It is a technique known as Electric Network Frequency (ENF) analysis, and it is helping forensic scientists to separate genuine, unedited recordings from those that have been tampered with."

- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671
- http://cryptogon.com/?p=32789

#

Met lab claims 'biggest breakthrough since Watergate'
Power lines act as police informers

- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/01/enf_met_police/

#

Noisy, muffled, incoherent recordings are an audio engineerâ(TM)s worst nightmare, but all too often they contain vital evidence in criminal trials. Itâ(TM)s the job of the forensic audio specialist to extract that evidence.

- http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan10/articles/forensics.htm

#

(discussion forum) Electrical network frequency analysis, Mains frequency variations detectable in digital audio recordings?

- http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=81346

#

Met Police use electrical 'hum' to solve crimes

The Metropolitan Police is using the "hum" of background noise produced by mains electricity to help solve crimes, it has been disclosed.

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9739037/Met-Police-use-electrical-hum-to-solve-crimes.html

#

Related Research
- http://www.ece.umd.edu/~ravig/Research.html

#

Engineers Use Electrical Hum To Fight Crime

- http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/12/12/1331243/engine

Archived @:
http://slexy.org/view/s21UWKzafS
http://hpaste.org/79175
https://paste.debian.net/plain/216145
==
The hum that helps to fight crime (ENF) Electrical Network Frequency analysis

"For the last seven years, at the Metropolitan Police forensic lab in south London, audio specialists have been continuously recording the sound of mains electricity.

It is an all pervasive hum that we normally cannot hear. But boost it a little, and a metallic and not very pleasant buzz fills the air. ...

"The power is sent out over the national grid to factories, shops and of course our homes. Normally this frequency, known as the mains frequency, is about 50Hz," explains Dr Alan Cooper, a senior digital forensic practitioner at the Met Police.

Any digital recording made anywhere near an electrical power source, be it plug socket, light or pylon, will pick up this noise and it will be embedded throughout the audio.

This buzz is an annoyance for sound engineers trying to make the highest quality recordings. But for forensic experts, it has turned out to be an invaluable tool in the fight against crime.

While the frequency of the electricity supplied by the national grid is about 50Hz, if you look at it over time, you can see minute fluctuations. ...

Comparing the unique pattern of the frequencies on an audio recording with a database that has been logging these changes for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year provides a digital watermark: a date and time stamp on the recording.

Philip Harrison, from JP French Associates, another forensic audio laboratory that has been logging the hum for several years, says: "Even if [the hum] is picked up at a very low level that you cannot hear, we can extract this information."

It is a technique known as Electric Network Frequency (ENF) analysis, and it is helping forensic scientists to separate genuine, unedited recordings from those that have been tampered with."

- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20629671
- http://cryptogon.com/?p=32789

#

Met lab claims 'biggest breakthrough since Watergate'
Power lines act as police informers

- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/01/enf_met_police/

#

Noisy, muffled, incoherent recordings are an audio engineerâ(TM)s worst nightmare, but all too often they contain vital evidence in criminal trials. Itâ(TM)s the job of the forensic audio specialist to extract that evidence.

- http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan10/articles/forensics.htm

#

(discussion forum) Electrical network frequency analysis, Mains frequency variations detectable in digital audio recordings?

- http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=81346

#

Met Police use electrical 'hum' to solve crimes

The Metropolitan Police is using the "hum" of background noise produced by mains electricity to help solve crimes, it has been disclosed.

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9739037/Met-Police-use-electrical-hum-to-solve-crimes.html

#

Related Research
- http://www.ece.umd.edu/~ravig/Research.html

#

Engineers Use Electrical Hum To Fight Crime

- http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/12/12/1331243/engineers-

I previously posted this one. It's in a big ugly case, but you get the idea, right? It would be better on an adjustable stand, stand up for some jobs, laid down for drawing or whatever, in the above case, an audio panel. Looks pretty slick to me. The keyboard could be placed on a slide out tray beneath the desk.

Sorry, Here's a better one, ready to go

As the original poster mentioned an interest in music production, Sound on Sound is the definitive music production magazine in the UK, and it offers a digital subscription for overseas readers.

If you want a feel for the content, a lot of their older articles are available online, try this one on the making of Bohemian Rhapsody

As the original poster mentioned an interest in music production, Sound on Sound is the definitive music production magazine in the UK, and it offers a digital subscription for overseas readers.

If you want a feel for the content, a lot of their older articles are available online, try this one on the making of Bohemian Rhapsody

If you thought Computer Music was good, try Sound On Sound http://www.soundonsound.com/ The website also has all the articles and content from all the issues since 1985. The latest few months are always only available to subscribers (you get a username and pass for the site when subscribing) and afterwards they;re open to all. They also have amazing forums on the site.

Since you say this is for personal interest, I shall link you to what I use for sliders/knobs.

This is rather useful. 30 knobs, 9 sliders, many buttons and doubles as a fully weighted piano. Whole thing is powered over usb bus and I picked mine up on special for $450. usb midi compliant so no drivers required, works nicely with whatever midi subsystem your os uses.

Trouble these days would be finding one, production stopped some years ago.

Programming wise midi support is probably the best way to go with this, large support for varying hardware much of which has knobs and sliders.

Not only games...Autocad, ProEngineer, Photoshop, Cubase, Altium, AvrStudio, AlteraQuartus...etc..

There are alternatives to some of these. "BRL-CAD is a powerful constructive solid geometry solid modeling system". Architosh: "the leading Internet magazine dedicated to Mac CAD and 3D professionals and students worldwide." Pro/ENGINEER runs on Solaris and Red Hat Linux. There's a version of Photoshop for OSX and Photoshop CS 2 runs in CrossOver. For those who do not need all that Photoshop has they can use GIMP, Cinepaint, or Krita. Cubase runs on OSX. For Linux there's the AGNULA Project and other alternatives.

I'm in a rush now so I won't go through the rest of your list but I bet there are alternatives for them as well.

Falcon

Its because he already was. Zappa was one of the original pro-tools users, before his death

I don't think that's correct. According to this article with Dweezil talking about updating the famed "Utility Muffin Research Kitchen",:

The studio had accumulated not just an extensive vault of tapes, but a considerable collection of analogue hardware too. "Frank had several machines — I don't know if we have some of the earlier machines he recorded on. We have the Studer 24-track and we have three of the two-track machines. They all have different head stacks, and we even have a five-track head stack that was made by Paul Buff when Frank had a studio in Cucamonga — the Studio Z in the early '60s. We're curious to see if there's a way to get a machine to work with that head stack. It was before multitrack — Paul invented this thing and made it work, but I have never seen it in use. We found it in a box!"

I'm not saying Frank never used Pro-Tools, but it sounds like analog hardware was his primary focus.

Incidentally, it's a misconception among non-musicians that Pro Tools is the best/standard. There are several Pro Audio level DAWs out there that are just as powerful. My personal favorite is Cakewalk's SONAR, but that's just me.

http://www.zimbio.com/Headphones/articles/54/ear+headphones+ear+canal+headphones+safe
It's all about background noise. If you get some earbuds with the cups that fit snugly in your ear then you get less background noise and can play music quieter.
Similarly, using old style headphones in a noisy place is fine if they are closed cup. Open cup you'll get the background noise.
Studios tend to go for the open cup because they are easier to use for long periods of time.
Open vs closed http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/mar94/headphones.html

Walk into a bookstore, look at some magazines about audio and sound engineering, and contact the publisher to see if they're interested in reviewing your software. I can recall one prominent magazine called Sound on Sound, but you should be able to find more.

There's nothing in the Linux world that even comes close to Ableton Live or Propellerheads Reason.

Bundled utilities for uploading MIDI files to home keyboards, digital pianos, or for editing synth patches over MIDI ? Forget it. Hell, good luck with trying to find the software for OSX while you're at it. Go to Sound On Sound Magazine and search on 'Linux'. 9 results, none later than 2005. Real penetration into the pro audio world, guys !

Seriously, just pay the MS or Apple tax, buy licensed software that 'just works' and use it to be creative.

"... has support for all the devices I wish to use..."

You obviously don't use pro audio apps then. Vista doesn't support DirectSound API or WDM properly (one is *completely gone*, in fact, with a big 'too bad, so sad from MS; see this link or this one).

The APIs that are still there from pre-Vista are all in emulation, not 'native' so pro audio interfaces in general perform like crap. I've seen the gorey details on more than one musician friend's laptop. Even after disabling all non-essential services on my friend's new dual-core laptop that is easily 3x as fast as my home XP studio PC, it can't even handle a few in-RAM tracks in Sony ACID without skips and dropouts.

Part of the responsibility also lands in the lap of manufacturers, but a musician really shouldn't have to throw out their $300+ audio interface because MS couldn't be bothered to properly maintain established, official APIs in a new OS release.

It's not a problem. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/qa1004-7.htm.

You are obviously trying to apply the experience and skills of one area (one you have) to another (which you don't.) Recording is not analogous to database design. "Digitally normalise". To the fourth digitally normal form, right? M'kay.

Normalisation is a fairly standard thing to do with a digital audio file. See here about two-thirds of the way down the page. 'Normalise' is a standard plugin in most audio software. I can't decide whether you're trolling or not, but if you're not you should at least Google before ridiculing someone.

By the way, digital normalisation is a kind of post-production compression where the peaks at each part of the signal are set to just below digital maximum. It's one of the most extreme forms of loudness maximisation.

I use XP for music stuff (linux for everything else)... I'll probably get an Intel DP35DP motherboard (pretty popular with DAW builders) and Core 2 quad Q6600 (best bang for buck). There's good advice to be had over at the SoundonSound forums (the PC Music board) and there's even a Linux section: http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/postlist.php?Board=LinMus . The other way to go is to look at what the pro DAW builders are using - www.adkproaudio.com are pretty well respected and seem to be on top of the issues.

Good luck!

See this is another Myth that gets a lot of play from people that don't know better.

If you were talking about the GP's last two sentences, then no it is not a myth.

In terms of Audio, Vista's fidelity is several times XP and OS X just based on how audio is processed at what bit rate, how multi sounds are mixed in the OS so there is no downsampling, etc.

Oh, well then I expect everyone who's using a $10k+ Pro Tools HD rig (on Mac or PC) to switch over to a DAW that supports Vista's new features because their mixes will sound several times better then? You would NOT be able to tell a several time improvement in fidelity in ANYTHING audio-wise anyway, unless it was a stupid comparison like something recorded in 24-bit vs. 4-bit. Heck, most people can't tell the improvement between a 192kbps and 320kbps MP3. Or even 128 to 192.

Go look up Sonar/Cakewalk, they produce some very popular sound software, and they also swear by Vista's new audio features bringing audio quality to new professional level beyond what XP had or what OS X can produce. (Not just mix or edit, but actually play in realtime with realtime multi-channel output.)

As for why you should move to Vista, there are tons of articles that go into more depth than I could provide here. But since Audio seems to be important to you, Vista is the best consumer level OS for Audio/Video, as it implements the most robust Audio stack with realtime sync features that have only been seen in BeOS to date.

For recording musicians, XP and OS X already do what you claim through ASIO, CoreAudio and also Digidesign's DAE. All play in realtime, low latency with multi-channel input and output.

I would like to see those Cakewalk and Steinberg quotes. Audio quality will be the same whether its done on OS X, Vista, XP or even Linux. It has NOTHING to do with the OS and all to do with the DAW, plugins, hardware (compressors, EQ, converters, mixing desk etc.) you are using. However, the quality of your workflow (latency issues, performance issues etc.)...well that's a totally different matter and nothing to do with outright audio quality.

And I would like to call BS on audio drivers for Vista. Most of the audio interfaces out there only have a 32-bit driver for their hardware, which is basically an XP driver, which means that you cannot yet run 64-bit Windows with them. And the only software at the moment that supports 64-bit memory addressing (which is completely unrelated to 64-bit internal processing within a DAW) is Cakewalk Sonar on Windows (and it's claimed Logic Pro 8 will also support 64-bit when Leopard comes out). AFAIK, no drivers yet support WaveRT and WASAPI yet.

Also, unless you run a Pro Tools HD rig, at the moment for the best low latency performance on Windows you still have to use ASIO (which is not a Vista native API, it's also used in previous versions of Windows) which basically bypasses all of Vista's new audio features - WASAPI and WaveRT. Native Instruments have stated that they won't support WaveRT (you can google that one) and the advantages of WASAPI/WaveRT/etc. over ASIO and OS X's CoreAudio (if there are any) are still unclear at this point. Since ASIO originated from Steinberg, it's also unlikely that Cubase/Nuendo will be supporting anything else. CoreAudio is now stable, proven low-latency performer and well-supported. Most crucially, however, Digidesign are always going to use their own drivers for Pro Tools, bypassing the OS.

I'd advise anyone who's interested in running a DAW on Vista to check out the July 2007 issue of Sound On Sound as they have a "Vista for Musicians" feature with a roundtable of music hardware and software developers. Here's a forum thread relating to it: Sound On Sound thread

A few points came out

Producers aren't creative and hardworking; they just front the money.

I don't think you understand the role of a producer in the music biz. It's not comparable to producer in the TV or movie world. They don't front money, they get paid (big bucks, sometimes even royalty points on top). And they are creative and hardworking, sometimes reshaping the material directly (songwriting/arrangement, basically), sometimes indirectly by means of people management - getting the most out of the band, whether that means buttering them up or getting them angry... etc. Some producers get very hands on and overlap considerably with the engineers, too.

• Arif Mardin
• Steve Albini

See also, Quincy Jones, George Martin, etc.

I'd find more but since this thread is old I doubt anyone will see this message anyway.

Producers aren't creative and hardworking; they just front the money.

I don't think you understand the role of a producer in the music biz. It's not comparable to producer in the TV or movie world. They don't front money, they get paid (big bucks, sometimes even royalty points on top). And they are creative and hardworking, sometimes reshaping the material directly (songwriting/arrangement, basically), sometimes indirectly by means of people management - getting the most out of the band, whether that means buttering them up or getting them angry... etc. Some producers get very hands on and overlap considerably with the engineers, too.

• Arif Mardin
• Steve Albini

See also, Quincy Jones, George Martin, etc.

I'd find more but since this thread is old I doubt anyone will see this message anyway.

Marillion have done some albums funded by their fans.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep03/articles/marillion.htm/
http://www.theregister.com/2004/04/28/marillion_comeback/

Go ahead and laugh at me but my Bose 901s I still use from the 70s still kick my ass.

I'll admit they didn't sound too bad when properly installed and used with the EQ to straighten out their quirky response curve. Just don't use them without the proper EQ.

Stair steps at any sampling rate can't reach analog. It just can't happen.

Dude, again, invest in some test equipment. Analog has a noise floor. Most digital has steps way below the analog recording medium noise floor. Stair step artifacts contribute a much lower noise in the mix than analog tape hiss or turntable rumble. One of the advantages of the original uncompressed CD format was much better dynamic range (killed to sound loud nowdays). Look up the CD Redbook spec. To reduce the stairstep noise, there was a pre-emphasis that could be switched on further improving noise in the high frequencies since they have much less power than the lower frequencies. In multi-track analog mastering and mixing the noise adds. In digital, in mixing and layering, no additional noise in introduced. You are not recording tape hiss on a tape.

Do your research.. What is the S/N ratio of studio tape? What is the dynamic range of a CD? Besides the convience of a digital workstation, there are technical advantages to digital mastering and production. Analog has it's real world limits.

There is some discussion on that here.
http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/2587/1.php

This information is gleaned from here;
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan98/articles/cdf ormats.htm?print=yes

"Older DAT and other digital recorders sometimes used a system of 'pre-emphasis' on recorded material, with a corresponding 'de-emphasis' on playback. Pre-emphasis boosts the high frequencies prior to A/D conversion, while de-emphasis removes the boost after D/A conversion. De-emphasis circuitry is built into all CD players to provide compatibility with any material recorded using pre-emphasis. However, the emphasis bit must be set to 'on' in the track's Q code so that the CD player will know that it should use the de-emphasis circuitry while this track plays back."

In a nutshell the stairstep distortion can be reduced by boosting the high frequencies prior to A/D conversion so the portion of the digital step noise (quanitization error) is a smaller part of the S/N ratio. De-emphasis on playback reduces the high frequencies back to original levels and reduces the noise by the same amount.

Unfortunately modern CD's are not mastered to take advantage of the quality possible.

Studio monitors are usually thought of as "the most accurate" but again, isn't that what 95% of hifi speakers try to do? The bottom line is there no such thing as perfect frequency or transients in the real world. Its just not possible. Take into consideration room shape, wall reflections, let alone the characteristics of crossovers, drivers, etc and you'll quickly figure out that "ruler flat response" doesn't exist. That overly crisp, sharp sound some monitors have alot of times is a bit of a hump in the upper ranges which is definately not perfect.

And I'll quote a Mr. Jay_WJ from an audio speaker forum:

Here is a link actually comparing 2 monitors and 2 hifi speakers. There is not as much difference as you think. Mostly one is built for near-field use, the other for farther out. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jun02/articles/mon itors.asp

We can conclude that since there's no such as perfect accuracy, it doesn't matter which gear you use as long as its designed well. Now room treatments on the other hand will definately improve things.

Is this why in 20 years I have never seen a tracker used on a commercial session? Alternatively this could be because bedroom studio techno-heads don't hire studios?

This isn't attempting to be an alternative to GarageBand or Logic. It's coming from a different ethos of music altogether. It's "family tree" consists of the likes of Octamed / Fasttracker / Buzz / Renoise, not Cubase / Logic. See my post here for a fuller explanation.

From what I've picked up reading slashdot and many music production forums, the closest OSS to what you're looking for is Rosegarden. I haven't tried it myself though - no point really, as I'm happily (yes, really) running XP (no, it doesn't bluescreen :rollseyes: )

You might be interested in this article, about a couple of Americans who run a studio entirely on Linux-based MIDI and audio software.

If you have any computer skills and really enjoy composing music then linux is at least as good a choice as windows. For starters, you chould checkout Rosegarden ("the closest native equivalent to Cubase® for Linux" according to Sound on Sound). If you prefer a lower-level solution then give ChucK a try. Or maybe you want a compromise of the two, perhaps similar to Max/MSP with a block diagrams interface? Look at Pure Data or jMax

If those don't tickle your fancy then maybe you should take a look at the list of Software Sound Synthesis & Music Composition Packages available for linux! Oh, and if you're completely new to linux then Ubuntu Studio offers a baby spoon-fed approach to creating a linux digital audio workstation (the project is still in its infancy, but it looks promising).

BTW this is happening already. For example Prog-Rock band Marillion did "ask their fans to buy their next record in advance. For £16, a fan would receive a deluxe copy of the CD with an additional bonus CD, and their name printed in the sleeve notes. Tens of thousands agreed, paid up front and left Marillion in the enviable position of having a massive advance to record the album they wanted, with guaranteed sales and no A&R/promotions executives demanding a more Noel Gallagher sound on the guitar."

The album was Anoraknophobia and it sold over 100,000 copies without a martketing budget.

Quote from http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep03/articles/mar illion.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb04/articles/mir rorimage.htm

They're planning to use Ardour, Rosegarden, JAMin through JACK which uses ALSA.

Well, I dunno...while yes, you do need to be a bit of a techie too to DAW it in Linux...it can be a very useful tool. I believe Jack is the analagous software to VST you mentioned...you can use it to connect the various programs together. Also, with linux, since you can custom compile everything to precisely your hardware, you can creat a very quick machine with VERY low latency. A good all around article on this with links at the bottom is HERE

You seem to have forgotten the existence of multiband compressors. They allow you to set up multiple compression levels depending on frequency. With enough work, one could set one up that could finely control an overall frequency curve, keeping a signal within the maxiumum safe thresholds for human hearing, varying in amplitude by frequency.

See this explanation here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug02/articles/mul tiband.asp

Here's a nice article on a studio in Minnesota that moved to F/OSS. They use "Linux-based software at every stage of the music production cycle." In fact Mirror Image Studios has been credited with being a pioneer in this area. As far as I know, they're still happy with it.

Saying "your fingers can handle a lot more latency than 250 Mbps" is nonsensical- 250Mbps is a measure of bandwidth, not latency. I couldn't find any statistics on a latency difference between USB and Firewire interfaces, and any latency either has is going to be something in milliseconds that will never be apparent to humans no matter what the application. External drives that have dual Firewire/USB interfaces don't even bother to quote different latency specs for the different interfaces, it's so close to identical.

As I said, Firewire had greater bandwidth, so if you needed to move a lot of data in real time, then that was an advantage. Firewire became the standard for video instead of USB because USB 1.1 didn't have enough bandwidth to handle a DV stream, and it probably helped stop USB2 from taking over later that Firewire was designed specifically to handle a DV video stream and has great protocols for doing so. USB2 could probably do as good of a job- the latency's effectively the same as Firewire, and the bandwidth is competitive. You can find many pages online testing, measuring, and debating the merits of Firewire and USB2 for various real-time uses, like MIDI. Note, this article on MIDI latency doesn't even mention the latency of USB and Firewire, only the read/write speeds- the bandwidth, because the latency of the interfaces is irrelevant. USB2 actually wins the realtime data transfer test in their comparison because it achieves faster write speed. If you look around, there are a lot of other real-world tests online showing USB2 and Firewire to have similar bandwidth, and the latency of the interfaces isn't even an issue.

Again, your division of tasks with non-realtime using USB and realtime using Firewire is a coincidence of the two things you pointed out. Plenty of realtime applications are done through USB, and plenty of tasks that aren't time sensitive are done through Firewire. I could as easily switch your sentence around to say "Which is why non-real time tasks like tape backup drives use Firewire, while real-time webcam video uses USB." You can get webcams, printers, hard drives, and all sorts of things with either interface or both. Firewire rules video transfer for the reasons I've mentioned, and USB rules keyboards and mice because USB chips were much, much cheaper than Firewire chips a few years ago. Neither ever had anything to do with latency, and neither has anything to do with current bandwidth differences between Firewire and USB2.

I'm surprised you haven't been moderated down, laughed at or chased out of town by the fanboys...

Apple's Power Mac page speaks of four thermal zones and fans. I think that the present G5's have nine fans inside the box (source; highlighted by Google). It's a weird world of DRM that the cooling fan controls which operating system used...

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4248

Not definitly...I've seen that technology for games(see link) and I remember microsoft had suggested doing that for MP3s and some other things with DRM. I don't know if the it's been put into place yet or not.

That interview says rather slyly:

GS: Right. The press pack for the soundtrack said most of it was recorded almost entirely with acoustic instruments that you then modified electronically. Did you play all the instruments yourself, or did you--

AT: Actually there's things that you'll hear when you listen to the soundtrack which will be very revealing about all that. I'd rather not go into the recording techniques too much, if that's OK?

For a more honest look at how he actually composes ("play all the instruments yourself", haha :) ), then try this interview from Sound on Sound magazine.

It's funny, but the /. stance on sampling and electronic music seems curiously luddite for people so enamoured with the idea of collaborative software development, "commons"-style re-use of ideas, creative product and 'intellectual property'. I often see statements like "sampling is just stealing someone else's tune because you're too lame to write your own", which is an extremely naive and prejudiced opinion - albeit an understandable one, if the only sample-based music you've been exposed to is P Diddly.

Honestly - read the interview, which covers both the practical and "ethical" aspects of sampling, and check out Tobin's music, and see if you don't feel a little different. Here's a taster:

Sometimes I'll have an idea for a melody and that gets really tricky; for example, I'll find three or four saxes that have the right notes, so I'll try and piece them all together."

Amon has a pragmatic and highly effective way of dealing with the discrepancies between the tone and production of the samples. "It's amazing what you can do with filters; I look at it as being a bit like watercolours, when you've got various different blotches and then you use a wash to bring it all together. I also use a lot of effects in my stuff for that reason -- it's not particularly because I love delays and reverbs or whatever. Processing is the answer. I'll take a lot of samples to make a melody, then process it with one type of filter or modulation effect, re-record it, cut it up, and by then it will sound like one sample -- but sometimes if it doesn't, it can be really interesting anyway."

Filters and EQ also play a big part in isolating specific sounds or instruments within a sample. "You can take out an entire frequency that holds an instrument, so that you can no longer hear it, or you can hear it in such a background way that it becomes an interesting subliminal part. Unfortunately that means it can sometimes sound really harsh, because the EQ has to be so extreme. Some people have even said it's a characteristic of my sound. I love that -- here's something I f**ked up, and someone relishes that!

In 1993, Todd Rungren released "No World Order," which was billed as the first interactive music CD. (Link: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may04/articles/tod drundgren.htm) Using the CD-I format, it provided an interface that allowed users to modify the tracks in a variety of way (changing tempos, removing vocals, etc.). But you were limited to the information on the CD and you could not save the results of your changes. This is not to take away from Reznor. What he has has done is both cool and groundbreaking. But it is interesting to think about the changes in technology that have allowed him to take this step.

rendering the GBA one of the most cool digital gadgets for musicians that travel a lot...

...unless you own a powerbook or some other laptop...

...or any of the Yamaha QY products.

The are lots of articles on the web about recording with open source software. Also check out Dave Phillips's site and his articles in Linux Journal.

I have a fairly cheap LCD TV / Monitor, and I can see a small lag when I don't send the audio through the TV: I think the TV's audio subsystem includes a small delay to compensate for the video lag. But it's very short and not serious, only becomes obvious when the input signal is poor. I recall a report - I think it was in Sound On Sound (paper magazine) about how lag had been seen in recording studios with plasma screens. They use dedicated audio mixers and monitors, so when synchonizing audio to video the lag became noticeable, and they had to look for alternatives for frame-accurate sync. 1 frame at 25fps = 40ms - a real issue in some cases. I concur with the need to check the specs, I'm now seeing LCD monitors where "quick response" is in the marketing, e.g. Samsung LTN-325W.

OK, I admit that I'm not a fan of the the current "mix" and "sampled" genre of music, but to me, it seems like there's not a whole lot of artistic innovation in mixing together stuff that's already been created.

I don't think you understand what people use samplers for on a day to day basis. My favourite sampler has less than a second of sampling time, and is limited to six unbalanced analogue channels of 12-bit mono.

With less than a second of shitty, crunchy audio, I obviously can't sample pop choruses with it, so what do I use it for? Individual drum hits, mainly, sampled from old funk drum solos or whatever. It's like a drum machine where I can choose the sounds, providing I don't mind them playing back with an evil crunchy patina.

I can understand the law wanting to stop people sampling recognisable choruses, basslines etc. That's fair enough, and there's no creativity being trampled on there IMO. But what about people like me who want to sample an unrecognisable distorted version of a half second kick drum hit for an original arrangement?

Have a listen to some of the original drum arrangements here that have been built out of literally two seconds of James Brown and a reonant filterbank and you'll get the idea. A good example on that page is Equinox - Acid Rain (Breakage Mix), at about 1:30 through the mp3.