Certainly true that compressed (as in dynamic range) audio is far more tiring to listen to. Puts me off buying new music to a large extent.
I tend to buy stuff from indies which outside EDM is rarely buggered like this.
A lot of this argument IMO hinges on when you grew up/got into music. I'm quite happy to accept (as an old git) that high resolution digital audio beats an album on vinyl hands down in terms of true fidelity. However, to *my* ears, because I grew up with vinyl, I find that sound more appealing and enjoyable. I have albums on everything from cassette, vinyl, CDs, MP3s to FLAC. Even some 24bit high res files. Yes, there's some incredible detail in there with modern formats. However, for whatever reason, I just don't enjoy listening to it as much. In many cases it's because they're mastered too hot and have stupid waveforms with almost no dynamic range, although the high res formats are better in that respect.
I find vinyl just more enjoyable and relaxing to listen to. Plus of course there's the well worn stuff about the cover, reading the lyric sheet without a magnifying glass etc.
As far as crackles/pops/wear and tear goes, I've got records that are nearly 40 years old but still more enjoyable to my ears/brain. It beats me how people's records get so beaten up, are they tracking too heavy? Pouring grit down the sleeve? Maybe 5% of mine from 30+ years ago have anything more than a little surface noise when the stylus hits the lead in groove. After that, no pops or crackles.
Not sure where all this revisionism is coming from. The Loudness Wars and the move to very hot mixes was driven purely by the demands of the record companies wanting their tracks to stand out on commercial radio stations, who were already doing the same thing themselves anyway. Anything that can make your song stand out (and loudness works) was deemed a Good Thing.
My old Technics SL-B2 (http://www.vinylengine.com/library/technics/sl-b2.shtml) was belt drive and has the strobe and adjustment. Quite a few manufacturers had the same on belt drive. Not seen it on an idler driver deck though.
Accountants and clerks did amazing programming using Lotus 1-2-3.
I wrote a custom billing system for a bank. It had a master shell spreadsheet which then read in 300 odd data files from a mainframe listing transactions, one by one. Each customer file was parsed, the data processed into billing records which were written to another area of the sheet. Once all that was done, the bill templates were read in, again one by one, the addresses looked up, billing records turned into a charge schedule and the statements printed out. Took 30 hours to run the master macro on an IBM AT. We were the only people allowed to buy an AT, XTs were too slow. 286 - raw power.
Been programming since the late 70's in one form or another. Probably 98% of the stuff I have worked on is C, C#, VB or Java. The only reason it's not 100% is because to begin with it was all stuff like Dbase III, FoxPro, Access, DataEase and some assembler. I've not been asked to tackle anything other than the C/Java/VB variants since about 1990. Where exactly are all these other (non web related) languages used?
In the 80's a UK bank experimented with signature recognition by listening to the pen on the paper. The dynamics and pressure etc were much harder to fake than the actual signature so it made sense but ultimately didn't go anywhere.
Note, as mentioned in the link you provided, some people do partially or even fully recover. It's too soon to assume this is the way it will always be. Meanwhile, hopefully others can come up with good ideas for a way forward communication wise.
Yeah, thanks for the snark. I've been over a few times and traveled there a lot, either driving around the east coat or staying in cities. Either way, I found magazines pretty scarce compared to what I was used to.
It's an add thing, I found the lack of magazines in the US really weird when I was over there and that was 15+ years ago. They only seemed to be in bookshops. Over in the UK, they're everywhere and hundreds of different ones. Newsagents, super markets, petrol stations, music shops, pretty much everywhere except book shops.
I started getting C&VG from the first issue. Back then they were mainly a magazine full of BASIC listings for the Atari 800, BBC, Apple, TRS80, MZ80K, ZX81 etc. They also had ongoing tutorials on adventure game writing and the like. More bizarrely, they also had a play by mail space game, which I never played (had to pay as I remember) which featured every issue. You posted your next moves and got a computer print out of the results a few weeks later. You thought waiting for cassettes to load was slow gameplay? Pah!
For me though, it was key. I first learned programming by typing in the Atari 800 listings (which never worked first time) by checking the typos then working out 'ah, that must be what changes the colour of the border' etc. Between the monthly listings and a BASIC primer, I was away. Later on I moved onto 6502 assembler and later C once I had an Atari ST. Somehow that chain of events resulted in me writing systems generating millions in revenue for banks. Thanks C&VG!
I did stop getting the magazine after a few years but decided to submit a game I had in mind. I pulled out all the stops, wanting it to be the best Atari game they'd published. It had (ignore if you're not an Atari 8bit type) multiple DLIs, redefined character sets, sprites, assembler subroutines and all sorts of twiddly things. I then went and bought an issue to get the address to send my masterpiece to. Arse, they'd stopped doing listings several issues earlier.:-(
Just be glad you weren't into Laserdisc. Star Wars boxed set? $250. Aliens? $100 (or same in GBP if you were in the UK).
Over here you can pick up a BR player for about GBP40 and most disks for new movies are about GBP12 versus GBP10 for the DVD so it's not a huge jump. My Sony BR player with a few bells and whistles was GBP25 in a sale (HMV messed up:-) ) but the one it replaced was only GBP40. There's plenty of BR movies for GBP5 if you shop around.
Well yes, if it's just someone singing to a backing track, I'd agree but most major bands are going to have a big chunk of their 'live' sound coming from somewhere other than the instruments in their hands. As I said, these days it's more likely to be Ableton Live as that gives you a lot of flexibility in a live situation (hence the name) as well as being a good DAW in its own right.
Slashdot Mirror
Certainly true that compressed (as in dynamic range) audio is far more tiring to listen to. Puts me off buying new music to a large extent. I tend to buy stuff from indies which outside EDM is rarely buggered like this.
Have a virtual mod point. That is very interesting and quite surprising. Still working through the comments.
A lot of this argument IMO hinges on when you grew up/got into music. I'm quite happy to accept (as an old git) that high resolution digital audio beats an album on vinyl hands down in terms of true fidelity. However, to *my* ears, because I grew up with vinyl, I find that sound more appealing and enjoyable. I have albums on everything from cassette, vinyl, CDs, MP3s to FLAC. Even some 24bit high res files. Yes, there's some incredible detail in there with modern formats. However, for whatever reason, I just don't enjoy listening to it as much. In many cases it's because they're mastered too hot and have stupid waveforms with almost no dynamic range, although the high res formats are better in that respect. I find vinyl just more enjoyable and relaxing to listen to. Plus of course there's the well worn stuff about the cover, reading the lyric sheet without a magnifying glass etc. As far as crackles/pops/wear and tear goes, I've got records that are nearly 40 years old but still more enjoyable to my ears/brain. It beats me how people's records get so beaten up, are they tracking too heavy? Pouring grit down the sleeve? Maybe 5% of mine from 30+ years ago have anything more than a little surface noise when the stylus hits the lead in groove. After that, no pops or crackles.
Not sure where all this revisionism is coming from. The Loudness Wars and the move to very hot mixes was driven purely by the demands of the record companies wanting their tracks to stand out on commercial radio stations, who were already doing the same thing themselves anyway. Anything that can make your song stand out (and loudness works) was deemed a Good Thing.
My old Technics SL-B2 (http://www.vinylengine.com/library/technics/sl-b2.shtml) was belt drive and has the strobe and adjustment. Quite a few manufacturers had the same on belt drive. Not seen it on an idler driver deck though.
What could possibly go wrong...
That's a good point. There's a few 80 column word processing solutions but I don't recall seeing anything for spreadsheets.
You could also get Visicalc on the Atari 400/800.
You could also get 123 for various Unix flavours. I used it on DEC Ultrix.
I wrote a custom billing system for a bank. It had a master shell spreadsheet which then read in 300 odd data files from a mainframe listing transactions, one by one. Each customer file was parsed, the data processed into billing records which were written to another area of the sheet. Once all that was done, the bill templates were read in, again one by one, the addresses looked up, billing records turned into a charge schedule and the statements printed out. Took 30 hours to run the master macro on an IBM AT. We were the only people allowed to buy an AT, XTs were too slow. 286 - raw power.
Been programming since the late 70's in one form or another. Probably 98% of the stuff I have worked on is C, C#, VB or Java. The only reason it's not 100% is because to begin with it was all stuff like Dbase III, FoxPro, Access, DataEase and some assembler. I've not been asked to tackle anything other than the C/Java/VB variants since about 1990. Where exactly are all these other (non web related) languages used?
In other news, sales of Minox spy cameras rise ten fold.
In the 80's a UK bank experimented with signature recognition by listening to the pen on the paper. The dynamics and pressure etc were much harder to fake than the actual signature so it made sense but ultimately didn't go anywhere.
Note, as mentioned in the link you provided, some people do partially or even fully recover. It's too soon to assume this is the way it will always be. Meanwhile, hopefully others can come up with good ideas for a way forward communication wise.
Same here. I wash everywhere else but I don't think I've used anything other than water on my face in 30+ years.
In the UK, drinking at home might be considered tantamount to alcoholism. Binge drinking in pubs is far more socially acceptable. Work that one out!
Yeah, thanks for the snark. I've been over a few times and traveled there a lot, either driving around the east coat or staying in cities. Either way, I found magazines pretty scarce compared to what I was used to.
add thing/odd thing.
It's an add thing, I found the lack of magazines in the US really weird when I was over there and that was 15+ years ago. They only seemed to be in bookshops. Over in the UK, they're everywhere and hundreds of different ones. Newsagents, super markets, petrol stations, music shops, pretty much everywhere except book shops.
I started getting C&VG from the first issue. Back then they were mainly a magazine full of BASIC listings for the Atari 800, BBC, Apple, TRS80, MZ80K, ZX81 etc. They also had ongoing tutorials on adventure game writing and the like. More bizarrely, they also had a play by mail space game, which I never played (had to pay as I remember) which featured every issue. You posted your next moves and got a computer print out of the results a few weeks later. You thought waiting for cassettes to load was slow gameplay? Pah! For me though, it was key. I first learned programming by typing in the Atari 800 listings (which never worked first time) by checking the typos then working out 'ah, that must be what changes the colour of the border' etc. Between the monthly listings and a BASIC primer, I was away. Later on I moved onto 6502 assembler and later C once I had an Atari ST. Somehow that chain of events resulted in me writing systems generating millions in revenue for banks. Thanks C&VG! I did stop getting the magazine after a few years but decided to submit a game I had in mind. I pulled out all the stops, wanting it to be the best Atari game they'd published. It had (ignore if you're not an Atari 8bit type) multiple DLIs, redefined character sets, sprites, assembler subroutines and all sorts of twiddly things. I then went and bought an issue to get the address to send my masterpiece to. Arse, they'd stopped doing listings several issues earlier. :-(
Just wondering if Tesla sponsor this site in some way, they get a huge amount of stories here.
Just be glad you weren't into Laserdisc. Star Wars boxed set? $250. Aliens? $100 (or same in GBP if you were in the UK). Over here you can pick up a BR player for about GBP40 and most disks for new movies are about GBP12 versus GBP10 for the DVD so it's not a huge jump. My Sony BR player with a few bells and whistles was GBP25 in a sale (HMV messed up :-) ) but the one it replaced was only GBP40. There's plenty of BR movies for GBP5 if you shop around.
I suspect the key to the 55% number is the word 'attacks' i.e. not viruses, worms etc but using OS holes and other such exploits.
Well yes, if it's just someone singing to a backing track, I'd agree but most major bands are going to have a big chunk of their 'live' sound coming from somewhere other than the instruments in their hands. As I said, these days it's more likely to be Ableton Live as that gives you a lot of flexibility in a live situation (hence the name) as well as being a good DAW in its own right.
An example that specifically cites DAT (and others) http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov03/articles/backingtracks.htm/