Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
any here has issues with the sony reissue of the '38 carnegie hall
sorry for the length of this post, but i was reading other posters'
comments about phonographic disc reproduction of music, and how some of them insisted that noise and distortion could be salient features while others contested this assertion. i won't enter that controversy but i have to ask readers out there if they are familiar with the sony columbia 1999 CD reissue of Benny Goodman and his Allstars 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert? this Phil Schapp-produced 2-CD set purportedly offered the complete "real-time" concert recording for the first time ever, but also quite regrettably left in ALL the noise, with no attempts made at any kind of crackle reduction, in the theory that any professional noise reduction techniques [as of 1999] were simply not up to the task of tamping back the surface noise without also tamping back the music. i am not an audio professional so i can't vouch for the truthiness of that philosophy, but i can say as a music lover that the loud and persistent "bacon-frying" crackling noise seriously obscured my perception of the inner voices of the music, in a similar manner as how automobile windwshield glare keeps me from seeing the road ahead unless i wear polarized sunglasses. so after one tiring and unsatisfactory listen, i determined that i would try to get rid of this horrible crackling noise and then listen anew to the program. so to test Phil Schaap's assertion that no noise reduction system could do a better job than one's own hearing mechanism, i tried feeding the CD audio through a CEDAR DC-1 Declicker, to see if that could quiet the crackling, and quickly found that the CEDAR unit made mincemeat out of the brasses, especially the trombones, turning brass into cardboard. so i quit the CEDAR and put the music on the hard drive and went to work on it using Virtos Noise Wizard NR tools, just the declicker set to 2-3ms @ 15% processing depth, made a noise-inversion then filtered that @24 db/oct below 3k [thereby sparing most of the music from posibly being adversely affected by processing], then invert-paste-mixed that back in to the original soundfile, and found 90% or so of the crackling was gone, with no audible change to the timbres and metallic sheen of the brasses and the shiny metallic edge to gene krupa's drumkit. to deal with the remaining crackles, i reversed the soundfile and repeated the operation. the result was totally clean of crackle, which for ther first time truly exposed just how deteriorated the original transcription discs were, with much scuffing and rumble and groove roar and a stentorian hiss everpresent on the portions which were obviously from 2nd generation disc dubs. but it was still sufficient for me to hear for the first time, subtle details of gene krupa's marvelous drumming, including his subtle wire brush work on the cymbals and snare drum, details that i simply could not readily hear above the rushing crackle. incidentally, this record should be in the dictionary as the definitive description of swing jazz. it truly rocks. gosh, what that Carnegie Hall concert audience must've heard that january 1938 night. i'd really be thankful to hear from anybody else with this particular CD album who also had issues with hearing the music under the crackling. |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
any here has issues with the sony reissue of the '38 carnegie hall
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:58:05 -0700, abbeynormal wrote
(in article ): sorry for the length of this post, but i was reading other posters' comments about phonographic disc reproduction of music, and how some of them insisted that noise and distortion could be salient features while others contested this assertion. i won't enter that controversy but i have to ask readers out there if they are familiar with the sony columbia 1999 CD reissue of Benny Goodman and his Allstars 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert? this Phil Schapp-produced 2-CD set purportedly offered the complete "real-time" concert recording for the first time ever, but also quite regrettably left in ALL the noise, with no attempts made at any kind of crackle reduction, in the theory that any professional noise reduction techniques [as of 1999] were simply not up to the task of tamping back the surface noise without also tamping back the music. i am not an audio professional so i can't vouch for the truthiness of that philosophy, but i can say as a music lover that the loud and persistent "bacon-frying" crackling noise seriously obscured my perception of the inner voices of the music, in a similar manner as how automobile windwshield glare keeps me from seeing the road ahead unless i wear polarized sunglasses. so after one tiring and unsatisfactory listen, i determined that i would try to get rid of this horrible crackling noise and then listen anew to the program. so to test Phil Schaap's assertion that no noise reduction system could do a better job than one's own hearing mechanism, i tried feeding the CD audio through a CEDAR DC-1 Declicker, to see if that could quiet the crackling, and quickly found that the CEDAR unit made mincemeat out of the brasses, especially the trombones, turning brass into cardboard. so i quit the CEDAR and put the music on the hard drive and went to work on it using Virtos Noise Wizard NR tools, just the declicker set to 2-3ms @ 15% processing depth, made a noise-inversion then filtered that @24 db/oct below 3k [thereby sparing most of the music from posibly being adversely affected by processing], then invert-paste-mixed that back in to the original soundfile, and found 90% or so of the crackling was gone, with no audible change to the timbres and metallic sheen of the brasses and the shiny metallic edge to gene krupa's drumkit. to deal with the remaining crackles, i reversed the soundfile and repeated the operation. the result was totally clean of crackle, which for ther first time truly exposed just how deteriorated the original transcription discs were, with much scuffing and rumble and groove roar and a stentorian hiss everpresent on the portions which were obviously from 2nd generation disc dubs. but it was still sufficient for me to hear for the first time, subtle details of gene krupa's marvelous drumming, including his subtle wire brush work on the cymbals and snare drum, details that i simply could not readily hear above the rushing crackle. incidentally, this record should be in the dictionary as the definitive description of swing jazz. it truly rocks. gosh, what that Carnegie Hall concert audience must've heard that january 1938 night. i'd really be thankful to hear from anybody else with this particular CD album who also had issues with hearing the music under the crackling. For what it's worth, my take on this is basically two-fold. First, of all, not all 30's-40's transcriptions are noisy like the Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert. I have a few Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony transcriptions from the late 30's and early 40's that were transferred to LP by RCA Victor through the years and they are dead quiet. In fact, some of them are so good that you would swear that they were recorded live to (mono) tape in the early 1950's. The fact that the Goodman concert hasn't held up as well, is more of a testimony to the fragility of these transcription recordings and they way that these particular ones were stored and handled than to the process itself. Secondly, modern noise-reduction methods, such as digital auto-correlation to remove hiss without affecting the program material, works quite well, BUT (there's always a "but") like any other signal processing, the more you apply it the less transparent it is and the more artifacts you are going to hear. Some CD and SACD transfers of older analog recordings from the 50's and 60's, for instance, use digital auto-correlation methods to remove tape hiss. Since the hiss is constant, and probably more than 55 dB down, the auto-correlation can applied very judiciously and can't be heard. But if the noise were louder, like 35 to 45 dB down, this same digital auto-correlation methodology probably cannot be applied as it would be very audible and those artifacts are likely just as annoying (or perhaps more-so) than the noise we're trying to suppress. IOW, it was a judgement call on the part of the part of Sony to leave it be and not try to doctor it up. Another possibility is that the actual transcription is much worse than the final CD and that what you are hearing is the product of all the signal processing that they DARE to apply to it! I can't speak to that. Here's what you might try if you are so inclined. It's a lot of work, but it might yield a better result IF YOU ARE SO INCLINED TO TAKE THE TIME. Download a freeware program for your particular computer operating system called "Audacity". It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Now open Audacity and import the Goodman file into it (you say that you have already ripped it to your hard drive). You will see a timeline appear with the entire CD waveform displayed on it. You can expand the waveform by "zooming-in" on it and you can really get close. Scroll through the performance and every time you see a spike that looks like a crackle or a scratch (you can place the program's cursor to just before the suspected spike and hit play and listen to it to be sure that it is actually noise, and then, using Audacity's editing tools, simply remove it. Be sure to cut in really close on each side of the anomaly to avoid taking any music with it. This will be tedious and time consuming, but I've done this with a less than pristine copy of the world premiere recording of Holst' "The Planets" With the composer himself, conducting in the early 1930's on 78's. The results amazed me as I hadn't expected it work as well as it did. It's still not perfect, but it's certainly much better than it was before I started the process. Audacity has a number of "Effects" filters that you might try as well. One removes noise and the other removes clicks. You might try using the manual method to remove the worst of the pops and clicks and then run it through the hiss and click filter on a second pass - just don't expect miracles from these. There are plenty of Audacity tutorials on line to step you through the program. |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
any here has issues with the sony reissue of the '38 carnegie hall
On Sep 16, 12:42=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:58:05 -0700, abbeynormal wrote (in article ): i was reading other posters' comments about phonographic disc reproduction of music, and how some of them insisted that noise and distortion could be salient features while others contested this assertion. =A0i won't enter that controvers= y but i have to ask readers out there if they are familiar with the sony columbia 1999 CD reissue of Benny Goodman and his Allstars 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert? =A0this Phil Schapp-produced 2-CD set purportedly offered the complete "real-time" concert recording for the first time ever, but also quite regrettably left in ALL the noise, with no attempts made at any kind of crackle reduction, in the theory that any professional noise reduction techniques [as of 1999] were simply not up to the task of tamping back the surface noise without also tamping back the music. For what it's worth, my take on this is basically two-fold. First, of all= , not all 30's-40's transcriptions are noisy like the Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert. =A0I have a few Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony transcript= ions from the late 30's and early 40's that were transferred to LP by RCA Vict= or through the years and they are dead quiet. In fact, some of them are so g= ood that you would swear that they were recorded live to (mono) tape in the e= arly 1950's. The fact that the Goodman concert hasn't held up as well, is more= of a testimony to the fragility of these transcription recordings and they w= ay =A0 that these particular ones were stored and handled than to the process itself. Secondly, modern noise-reduction methods, such as digital auto-correlatio= n to remove hiss without affecting the program material, works quite well, BUT (there's always a "but") like any other signal processing, the more you a= pply it the less transparent it is and the more artifacts you are going to hea= r. |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
any here has issues with the sony reissue of the '38 carnegie hall
On Sep 16, 12:42=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
On Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:58:05 -0700, abbeynormal wrote (in article ): i was reading other posters' comments about phonographic disc reproduction of music, and how some of them insisted that noise and distortion could be salient features while others contested this assertion. =A0i won't enter that controvers= y but i have to ask readers out there if they are familiar with the sony columbia 1999 CD reissue of Benny Goodman and his Allstars 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert? =A0this Phil Schapp-produced 2-CD set purportedly offered the complete "real-time" concert recording for the first time ever, but also quite regrettably left in ALL the noise, with no attempts made at any kind of crackle reduction, in the theory that any professional noise reduction techniques [as of 1999] were simply not up to the task of tamping back the surface noise without also tamping back the music. For what it's worth, my take on this is basically two-fold. First, of all= , not all 30's-40's transcriptions are noisy like the Goodman Carnegie Hall Concert. =A0I have a few Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony transcript= ions from the late 30's and early 40's that were transferred to LP by RCA Vict= or through the years and they are dead quiet. In fact, some of them are so g= ood that you would swear that they were recorded live to (mono) tape in the e= arly 1950's. The fact that the Goodman concert hasn't held up as well, is more= of a testimony to the fragility of these transcription recordings and they w= ay =A0 that these particular ones were stored and handled than to the process itself. Secondly, modern noise-reduction methods, such as digital auto-correlatio= n to remove hiss without affecting the program material, works quite well, BUT (there's always a "but") like any other signal processing, the more you a= pply it the less transparent it is and the more artifacts you are going to hea= r. |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
|
|||
|
|||
any here has issues with the sony reissue of the '38 carnegiehall
On 17/09/2010 1:58 AM, abbeynormal wrote:
i have to ask readers out there if they are familiar with the sony columbia 1999 CD reissue of Benny Goodman and his Allstars 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert? this Phil Schapp-produced 2-CD set All these are based on Benny Goodman's own copy, which he basically trashed over many years just playing them. Hence the surface noise etc. Curiously enough there is another, probably virgin, set in the Library of Congress, but Sony never seem to have twigged, even though it's mentioned in the standard biographies. |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Saw Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer at Carnegie Hall last night | Pro Audio | |||
Music Hall mmf 2.1 turntable with issues | Marketplace | |||
Is Carnegie Hall a racket? | Pro Audio | |||
FS: Music Hall mmf 2.1 turntable with "issues" | Marketplace | |||
Visit to Carnegie Hall | High End Audio |