Re: 24-bit on tap at Apple?

some in the music

> industry are rethinking their reliance on 16-bit quality for music > downloads, and Apple's reportedly looking into upgrading their > entire sales stream to 24-bit >
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> As a result, online music stores could eventually offer songs > that sound truer to their original recordings, perhaps at a > premium price. > Professional music producers generally capture studio > recordings in a 24-bit, high-fidelity audio format. > Before the originals, or "masters" in industry parlance, > are pressed onto CDs or distributed to digital sellers > like Apple's iTunes, they're downgraded to 16-bit files.

If the master is the original, then what does "re-mastered" mean, as commonly used? A genuine original copy?

"Waiter, I'll have the jumbo shrimp."

Mark

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Mark-T
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Mark-T expounded in news: snipped-for-privacy@f36g2000pri.googlegr oups.com: ..

It just means that it is "re-mixed". There's a lot you can do in between the original recording tracks and the final resulting media (CD). The "master" recording normally includes multiple tracks.

Something really ancient will be 1-track (mono) and an entirely different process: more of an audio processing challenge to remove pops and clicks etc. without killing the original performance.

Warren

Reply to
Warren

Real audiophiles insist on 32-bit DACs.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

The original raw multi-track tape (or these days data file) rarely does anything but sit in a vault. A copy of that original is usually used to produce a mixed master which contains the final (usually stereo) version that will be released to the public, and that goes into the vault too while copies or it are distributed to pressing plants to physically make LPs or CDs, or presumably downloads today (sometimes with interim production copies along the way). In the old days there could be different final versions for singles and albums, or the U.S. or UK market and so on.

Re-mastering at least in theory means they started with the original raw tracks and did the mixing and EQ all over again and carefully produced a new mixed master recording with better quality than the old one. But sometimes they start with the old final mix and just are more careful in making a digital transer that will be used to make CDs. A lot of early CDs made from analog tapes were not done very well, the analog to digital transfers were poor, they benefited from more careful work later.

Unfortunately some re-mastered recordings have relied on too much noise reduction software or compression and actually sound worse than previous versions. There have also been re-mastered albums with questionable choices, where somebody decided to edit tracks (I think I'll lose that piano) or added reverb to the drums or whatever (to the outrage of fans who loved the old version).

Of course since people will buy "re-mastered" versions there is a temptation to use that label even if little or anything has been done to improve the quality, and some supposedly re-mastered releases sound just like they did the last time they were re-mastered with intense marketing before the band switched labels.

Stereo or 5.1 mix sir?

Reply to
DGDevin

It means a new master is made from the original tapes.

Kirk

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Reply to
Kirk McElhearn

Back in the days of vinyl, the "master disk" was a record made of metal (aluminum? steel?), mixed from the original tapes. From this, the record company would make molds for the actual disks that were sold.

If the tapes were saved, then you could digitize and clean up each track individually, then re-mix a new, digital master.

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Tim Wescott
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Tim Wescott

Or, in some cases (for recordings originally mixed down to analog master tapes) it means "re-digitized". Run the original 2-track album master tape through a good tape deck, and convert it to digital format (16 or 24-bit), ideally using a better mastering deck and better A-to-D converters than were used the first time around.

In most cases, these days, it means "re-mixed, and/or processed differently", as Warren said.

To my mind, this "24-bit" effort on Apple's part is missing the point.

24-bit isn't really the issue. A well-mastered 16-bit PCM recording can sound truly wonderful... as a delivery mechanism, 16-bit linear PCM seems entirely adequate to me.

The real problem is how the albums are handled prior to that. Most commercial recordings today are released in a form which is far less than "16-bit" in quality - they have been deliberately compressed during the mastering process to sound "louder". They've been quashed, pummeled, clipped, gain-ridden, smelched, and squeezed down into a tiny dynamic range. The actual quality of the sound on many commercial CDs is barely of what we would have called "cassette-quality" back in the 1970s... in fact, some of it is arguably worse than what you could get out of an 8-track player in a beat-up old Chevy :-(

16-bit PCM can deliver better than 90 dB of dynamic range, with extremely low distortion. A lot of music today is released with less than 10 dB of effective dynamic range.

Things are made somewhat worse by lossy digital encoding (e.g. MP3 or AAC or whatever) at too low a bit-rate.

I do think that the effort to release digitally-delivered music tracks in a form which sounds better is a good one... but it isn't really about "24-bit" vs "16-bit". It's about treating the music with respect... letting it "live", with real dynamics and subtlety, rather than giving in to the constant pressure to "make it sound louder on the air" by squashing it into a thin paste.

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Reply to
Dave Platt

You mean real Audiophools :-) However at least better DAC's still work well with 16 bit files, even if NONE can deliver better than true 24 bit resolution in our universe, and I know of no normal home that can really use more than true 16 bit (96dB) DNR, or anybody that normally listens to music in a sound proof isolation booth on a regular basis. And lets not even consider how many actual recordings even *remotely* approach 16 bit DNR to begin with!

Trevor.

Reply to
Trevor

Nope, the term is widely used regardless of what the original source material was. It simply means some process (anything at all) has been performed between the source material and what is on the final product.

That's what they'd like you to believe of course, and *sometimes* it might even actually be true.

Or not.

Or not, depending on your preference for heavy compression.

Right.

Trevor.

Reply to
Trevor

Remastering of digital source files can still take place. The original need not ever have been on tape.

Trevor.

Reply to
Trevor

ge

I

NR,

h

I've spent half my life in a sound proof isolation booth.

Don't knock it 'till you've tried it . . .

Huh? What?

Reply to
marcman

}I've spent half my life in a sound proof isolation booth. }Don't knock it 'till you've tried it . . .

I'm not knocking it, just staing that despite yourself, it is extremely rare for normal listening.

}Huh? What?

Ignoring fades, most modern pop recordings have about 20-30dB real DNR, and NO recording ever made on tape comes remotely close to needing 16 bits, even those that used Dolby SR, (and direct to disc recodings were even worse) Only modern classical digital recordings approach true 16 bit DNR, but who really wants to listen in a sound proof booth so they can hear the pages turning anyway? Not too many I'm willing to bet!

Trevor.

Reply to
Trevor

A straightjacket & ducktape is cheaper. ;-)

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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-- first hit on
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Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

I was using "tapes" as a metaphor. In most cases, though, when we see remasters it is from tape, not from digital.

Kirk

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Reply to
Kirk McElhearn

Yes, but that's not the "master" in "re-master;" it's the master tape, the final mix-down.

Kirk

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Reply to
Kirk McElhearn

I read somewhere that HD video is only perceived as better if the audio is also of higher quality. Perhaps "the market" is wising up to the fact that the audio out of their IPOD is crap compared to their TV. If apple up the quality of the silly white earphones then great. As others have said there are better ways of doing great audio but we can assume that this is marketing led.

Colin

Reply to
colin_toogood

It means that simple EFX like equalization and dynamics processing were done or redone prior to preparing the distributed form of the recording.

Doing something as simple as increasing the level of the entire track by 1 dB can be called remastering. Just changing the order of the tracks on the distributed media is remastering.

No. Re-mixing would require access to the origional tracks which is called something else besides remastering - usually "re-mixing".

Mastering is not mixing and remastering is not remixing.

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Please read section VI.

Reply to
Arny Krueger

Not only that, but FLAC already beats any bit level lame MP3s ever had.

Reply to
Copacetic

If it still exists.

Not at all. That would be called "re-mixing".

No, always.

No, not necessarily more careful, just different.

No, what happened is that a goodly number of CDs released in the early-mid

1980s were made from what are known as "cutting masters". This means that the recordings intentionally had the inverse of the losses in LP disc cutting and playback incorperated into them. This usually results in a shrill-sounding, thin-sounding recording. These were mistakes, but management said: "Ship it!". Most of these were redone in the 1990s.
Reply to
Arny Krueger

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