improve your sound quality

johnnydeep · Post by **johnnydeep** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:07 pm

hi. just a quik tip. ive downloaded a lot of music both 320kbps and wav over the net to use inn live and i ve been shocked at how poor the quality is at times, which is heart breaking when the tune is good. ive messed around with a demo of psp vintage warmer, tried the free w1 limiter, saturator etc, but i was suprised to find the greatest tool in my own back yard.
its the AU grapphic EQ that comes with the mac. or at least my mac g4 anyway. it has a 30 band eq and gives u heaps of control over pulling down certain freqeuncies and boosting others. im fairly fussy with sound yet ive managed to turn average mp3s into a sound that imitiates a vinyl feel(ok not exactly vinyl), but tidy none the less.
i reccomend taking an average file, and work your way thru he eq . i do it from right to left.

alas, u can polish a turd!!!

Funkstar De Luxe · Post by **Funkstar De Luxe** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:30 pm

You can't hear a difference between 320kbps MP3 (no matter what encoder was used) and .wav is lossless. You mean the original recordings were poor? You should be buying music anyway.

Also, a track that has been produced by professionals and mastered by professionals, will not get any better in sound, regardless of what "all in one" mastering plugins or EQ you use.

It takes 10s of years to learn how to master properly. It also takes 10s of thousands of pounds worth of specialised equipment.

[bad day]

This pisses me off, so I'm going to continue.

Vinyl sounds like shit. With a good cart. and good turn table (NOT some shit Technic DJ thing) you can only really pull of ~25DB of dynamic range and ~16Khz of undamaged frequency. Vinyl is way below transparency to the human ear.

CDs are completely transparent, however. You can't hear the max frequency produced by CD. You can't hear the full dynamic range. CDs are better than your hearding. They have no 'sound', no artifacts. Vinyls do.

I assume all you are doing is boosting the highs, adding a little bass and compressing it even more than it already is.

[/bad day]

ChiDJ · Post by **ChiDJ** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:46 pm

Funkstar De Luxe wrote:You can't hear a difference between 320kbps MP3 (no matter what encoder was used) and .wav is lossless. You mean the original recordings were poor? You should be buying music anyway.

Also, a track that has been produced by professionals and mastered by professionals, will not get any better in sound, regardless of what "all in one" mastering plugins or EQ you use.

It takes 10s of years to learn how to master properly. It also takes 10s of thousands of pounds worth of specialised equipment.

[bad day]

This pisses me off, so I'm going to continue.

Vinyl sounds like shit. With a good cart. and good turn table (NOT some shit Technic DJ thing) you can only really pull of ~25DB of dynamic range and ~16Khz of undamaged frequency. Vinyl is way below transparency to the human ear.

CDs are completely transparent, however. You can't hear the max frequency produced by CD. You can't hear the full dynamic range. CDs are better than your hearding. They have no 'sound', no artifacts. Vinyls do.

I assume all you are doing is boosting the highs, adding a little bass and compressing it even more than it already is.

[/bad day]

Have you considered anger management therapy?

also a hearing test might be a good idea.

timothyallan · Post by **timothyallan** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:43 am

I've found that if you don't steal your music, the sound quality is great.

It's one thing to have a bedroom guy rip it onto a PC and throw it on Soulseek, its another thing to have a studio rip it properly, maintain the levels, encode and distribute it properly. But then you have to pay for it, so it's really your choice.

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:03 am

Funkstar De Luxe wrote:You can't hear a difference between 320kbps MP3 (no matter what encoder was used) and .wav is lossless. You mean the original recordings were poor? You should be buying music anyway.

CDs are completely transparent, however. You can't hear the max frequency produced by CD. You can't hear the full dynamic range. CDs are better than your hearding. They have no 'sound', no artifacts. Vinyls do.

There is no such thing as lossless compression ESPECIALLY WITH A PERCEPTUAL ENCODER

The dynamic range of the undamaged human ear is 130dB, 16 bit CDs have a dynamic range of 96dB.

CDs DO have artifacts due to aliasing, the lack of ideal filters in the real world and a host of other factors, there are thousands of web pages explaining this.

Sorry, inaccurate technical audio advice drives me nuts. I don't want to start a flame war but feel free to reply, I'll read it.

I'm having a bad day too

. Time for a drink, a doobie and Live!

musick · Post by **musick** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:13 am

DeadlyButNotSoCleverKungFu wrote: There is no such thing as lossless compression ...

FLAC? ZIP?

melocoton · Post by **melocoton** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:19 am

DeadlyKungFu wrote:The dynamic range of the undamaged human ear is 130dB,

Haha, that's fine and dandy but what about the noise floor of the room you're listening in? You're probably looking at more like 70db. At any rate, a 16 bit CD still has a much wider dynamic range than vinyl.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:04 pm

I don't understand how people can spend so much time and effort creating a high-fidelity track, to then put it on a lo-fi record that becomes even more lo-fi with time.

Kinda seems backwards to me. Then again, people still ride horses even though the motorcar was invented over a century ago!

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:05 pm

oops... double post...

timothyallan · Post by **timothyallan** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 1:13 pm

True! It's probably more bragging rights and 'cool' factor than anything. I'd be happy as a pig in shit if my stuff got on to vinyl

blakbeltjonez · Post by **blakbeltjonez** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 4:38 pm

melocoton wrote:
DeadlyKungFu wrote:The dynamic range of the undamaged human ear is 130dB,
Haha, that's fine and dandy but what about the noise floor of the room you're listening in? You're probably looking at more like 70db. At any rate, a 16 bit CD still has a much wider dynamic range than vinyl.

the practical use of that dynamic range is no more than 20-30 dB unless it's classical or opera music. most popular music released in the past 5-10 years often has a variance of less than 10 dB thanks to the heavy use of multiband limiting and clipping either during mixdown or mastering. that may contradict the so-called superior specifications of the CD, but in reality you want your playback to be as consistent as possible, over a variety of different volumes, from a shitty computer speaker to your sister's Hello Kitty boombox to the biggest PA systems.

blakbeltjonez · Post by **blakbeltjonez** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 4:44 pm

hambone1 wrote:I don't understand how people can spend so much time and effort creating a high-fidelity track, to then put it on a lo-fi record that becomes even more lo-fi with time.

Kinda seems backwards to me. Then again, people still ride horses even though the motorcar was invented over a century ago!

if music was merely about highest fidelity and the best specs and what looks best on paper, the digital vs. analog argument would have been over a long time ago. some of the most sought-after studio gear that is still in use 30 or 40 years after being manufactured wouldn't match the specs of the cheapest Soundblaster card, and there's a considerable amount of plug-ins today that attempt to recreate the sound of that equipment.

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 4:50 pm

melocoton wrote:
DeadlyKungFu wrote:The dynamic range of the undamaged human ear is 130dB,
Haha, that's fine and dandy but what about the noise floor of the room you're listening in? You're probably looking at more like 70db. At any rate, a 16 bit CD still has a much wider dynamic range than vinyl.

Not at all. All these things are known quantities, when you use terms like 'probably looking at more like 70dB' it's clear you're just guessing and throwing that out there. Sorry to be a prick but it kills me when people throw shit like this out there when it's obvious they don't know what they're talking about. You have the freaking web in front of you, look it up before you post.

In the end, quality of sound is a completely subjective term that's solved by throwing endless amounts of money at the problem. There's no real point in arguing what sounds good but it's even more pointless to just toss out numbers off the top of your head.

djastroboy · Post by **djastroboy** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 8:43 pm

musick wrote:
DeadlyButNotSoCleverKungFu wrote: There is no such thing as lossless compression ...
FLAC? ZIP?

Moody · Post by **Moody** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:07 pm

Wow, nobody mentioned anything in here about the ritual and feel of music. So, you have the best ears in the world and can hear the dude’s belt buckle touch the mic stand accidentally in the booth. Woohoo... What about peeling the plastic off the new vinyl record you just picked up that happens to be a mint Big Brother and the Holding Co. That has been out of print for 30 years or something. That has nostalgia and ritual my friends. It is one of the things that makes us human. What about hearing some dude play a dingy 30 year old Gibson or Fender and watching him shift his notes around because a string broke.

What does any of this have to do with the original post about a technique the original poster mention to clean up some MP3 track? Blah Blah Blah....