OFF: music A->D conversion and cleanup

[Stephen Swann]

On Sat, Sep 16, 2000 at 03:23:57PM -0400, Paul Mather wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, Denis Regenbrecht wrote:
>
> => Really?
> => I use Cool Edit and never had any such problems. A while ago I cleaned up a
> => live-tape from the ASAM-Tour. The results I got were really impressive
> => compared to the original recording. I could reduce most of the tape-hiss
> => and other annoying stuff without suffering too much loss.
>
> "Too much loss:" aye, there's the rub.  It's all relative.  What sounds
> good to you might not sound good to me.  I have been told I am too picky
> in this regard, and that my ears are too discerning for their own good.
> I can hear diginoise from 20 paces. ;-)
>
> Given that Steve was unhappy with the Sonic Solutions "noise reduction"
> of the EMI Remasters, I just *know* he'll be fidgety with the noise
> reduction plugins for CoolEdit et al (unless he has been replaced by an
> alien impostor since last we saw him)... ;-)

You remembered that, huh?  ;-) Yeah, I'm one picky bastard sometimes.
In this case, though, I'm looking for a quick fix, not to truly
satisfy my audiophile nature.  As you already noted, I'm planning on
doing this using my soundcard (a Soundblaster Live) as my D/A
converter - by which you can tell that I'm not really serious about
this process.  ;-)

I mean (ignoring for now how bad the PC electrical environment is) if
I was going to try to do this halfways right, I'd have to at least
invest in a Turtle Beach card.  But I just want this for convenience'
sake: much as I love my vinyl, it is a pain in the ass to properly
prep a record in a place as dusty as my living room.  And it's not all
that portable, either.  ;-)

By the way, in the way of amazing coincidences, I just gave the Space
Ritual EMI remaster another listen just a couple of days ago, and did
another head to head comparison between it and the One Way release.
The EMI came out sounding a little better than I had remembered.  It's
still tough to do a proper comparison, because I don't have the
equipment with which to do real-time A/B switching between them.  But
my overall impression this time (and it was done in a kinder listening
environment than the last time I attempted this), was that the EMI
release is much more detailed throughout the whole audio range (but
especially in the highs) and also much more extended in the very deep
bass.  I'm not sure that I *like* it better - it sounds a little harsh
to ears that used to hearing the sort of murky sound of the One Way.
And frankly, I think the One Way sounds more like the vinyl, for what
that's worth.  I guess most reasonable people, which I am not, would
conclude that the EMI release probably sounds more like what it was to
actually be at the show, and that should be the end of the matter.
But I've grown used to the "rumble" of Space Ritual as originally
released, and suddenly hearing instruments cutting clearly through the
murk just sounds altogether different, and therefore somehow wrong to
me.  Maybe I'll grow to like it in time, and someday I'll wonder why
the hell I clung to the old "murky" mix.  Or maybe not.  :)

Anyway, thanks for the music software pointers!

Steve