Durio Dual Mono

[walterwhite]

I've been ripping my CD collection to disk since the last post, since I'm pretty sure my CD player is going the way of the dodo, and I've noticed something rather interesting (to some) about the process.

When ripping using EAC you can spend a lot of time mindlessly watching green progress bars as the program gobbles up the tracks, and I noticed that some CD's were ripping at 3-4x while others at 6-7x and still more at anything up to 15x. This has nothing to do with error correction but rather seems to be an indication of the amount of data being converted. I can now predict how quick a CD will be converted based on whether I think it's a 'good' quality recording or not.

This would seem to indicate that a lot of red book CD's are compressed, and the question arises: why? Is it more expensive to put larger amounts of data on a disk? Do the bits cost something? It's got to be penny pinching by the manufacturers based on time taken to write a CD.It seems to me that 16/44.1 is actually quite meaningless if the original is compressed anyway.

[Fretless]

You can also see by the final FLAC file size how much actual data there is. And that is often also connected to the style of music; acoustic guitar music (for example) will take up relatively little space. Big orchestral recordings or complex prog-rock needs more room. Probably to do with the complexity of the waveforms.

I also notice a big difference in ripping speeds with EAC and some discs go very slowly. One major culprit was the infamous 'copyright protection' coding that was used about 10 years ago. Which made many discs virtually unrippable (EAC had a fix for this). Those discs look to the system as if they are really badly pressed.

[walterwhite]

You can also see by the final FLAC file size how much actual data there is. And that is often also connected to the style of music; acoustic guitar music (for example) will take up relatively little space. Big orchestral recordings or complex prog-rock needs more room. Probably to do with the complexity of the waveforms.

I also notice a big difference in ripping speeds with EAC and some discs go very slowly. One major culprit was the infamous 'copyright protection' coding that was used about 10 years ago. Which made many discs virtually unrippable (EAC had a fix for this). Those discs look to the system as if they are really badly pressed.

Point taken, but it also happens that a lot of budget label classical orchestral recordings that I have were copying at 7x, whereas premium recordings on the big labels are going at 3x, so obviously there's a reason why budget label CD's are cheaper. They're also audibly worse.

[_D_S_J_R_]

Many budget label Decca recordings from the 50's and early 60's that my old pal mastered were transferred 'flat' and with absolutely no eq or compression added. One or two awkward tapes with too-close edits and one partly erased tape had to have some special treatment..

Thing is and from a distance, so many 'production' master tapes had eq and compression done to them when they were compiled to an album (third generation after the multi-track master and mixdown master) and these are most often the masters used to make the digital dub. Sometimes, the artists have earlier generation and better masters which can be obtained and in the case of Karajan, who got mixdown-happy in his later years, some of the multi-tracks of his performances with the Berlin Phil. were completely re-mixed for CD and sound much better for it...

[walterwhite]

Interesting about Karajin. I was listening to some of his stuff (Deutsch Grammaphon I think) earlier this week, and it does sound rather good.

[_D_S_J_R_]

He used to like getting behind the mixing desk and 'enhancing' things a little. After his death, a few of his recordings were re-mixed, bringing up the venue atmosphere and balancing more from the audience perspective, rather than the conductor's, if you see what I mean. As an aside, ELP are the latest band to have their work re-mixed. Cool that the multi-tracks still exist for this to be done...

[walterwhite]

Interestingly enough, the only time I ever made a serious attempt to record myself playing the guitar (about fifteen years ago now) I had to use a bog standard Soundblaster sound card, a mic designed for use with a video camera and some free software. Recording at home in my living room the sound was very dry so I remember guiltilly adding a bit of reverb, and it made all the difference. I was skint at the time and made a sort of cross between a busniess card and a CD that I could hand out to advertise guitar lessons. I gave about sixty odd copies away, and ended up selling another six hundred or so locally which I was rather chuffed with. I even had someone ask me to sign their copy

I lost the master recordings, so I only have lossless wavs now, but I often wish I could go back and tinker with the sound.

[terrybooth]

Recording at home in my living room the sound was very dry so I remember guiltilly adding a bit of reverb, and it made all the difference.

On Preston Reed's latest album, there's a track called 'Delayed Train' which is a reworking of an earlier track 'Train' but with delay added (and of course there's the famous Sun records reverb effect based on playing a track back and recording it again in a stairwell.) So you were applying a basic music production technique. And you discovered it by yourself!

[Fretless]

Hi Walter - how is the Durio doing? You've had it for a while now and I'm curious to hear what your findings are.

[walterwhite]

I love it, listening to it now.

The CD's are all ripped and backed-up. The next step is to sell my CD player. If I were a CD player manufacturer I'd be very, very worried.