Rock and Digital Audio

[Arnold Layne]

Since I am going on 14 months as a novice audiophile I have been looking for someone who agrees with this statement: Distorted Rock Guitars (or overdriven Hammond Organs) do not translate through Digital Media.

Am I nuts (I know i am not) but doesn't anybody remember what Rock sounded like back in the day. I hear a ripping sound, like punctured cardboard in speakers when I listen to anything overdriven. I love the sound of a Les Paul Guitar thru a Marshall amplifier or Keith Emersons Hammond growling like its ready to rip your face off...but I have yet to hear it reproduced on a digital format. TELL ME I AM RIGHT OR DIE....just kidding. I am only looking for your opinions.

 

[Francious70]

This is mainly because you may be used to hearing music reproduced thru a tube amplifier.

It could also be because music today is "over-produced" in the way that it is pushed to the max (clipping) by the sound engineer before even going on CD.

Paul

 

[Shadow_Ferret]

I think this sort of goes with the discussion I had with Rob on CDs vs. vinyl.

Digital clips music by it's very nature. It's on or off. 1s or 0s. I believe you lose things like decay and in your case, full-out distortion.

An example would be Black Sabbath. Geezer Butler, the bassist, played his bass completely distorted. He had engineers complain that you can't record like that, but he did it anyway. Now it might be faulty memory on my part, (I can't check this out right now, my stereo receiver is in the shop), but I think his bass sounded a lot fuller and buzzier with distortion on vinyl than it does on the CD. It growled. The CD sounds "cleaner" and thinner. Less full.

My theory is that this is because of the 1s and 0s. Some of the peaks that are part of distortion are clipped off in digital recordings.

This makes sense if you think that music is analog anyway. Vibrating strings and such are by nature analog.

 

[MDS]

Digital clips music by it's very nature. It's on or off. 1s or 0s. I believe you lose things like decay and in your case, full-out distortion.

My theory is that this is because of the 1s and 0s. Some of the peaks that are part of distortion are clipped off in digital recordings.

This makes sense if you think that music is analog anyway. Vibrating strings and such are by nature analog.

No offense, but each of those beliefs are pure audiophile nonsense spouted by people who don't understand anything about digital audio. Digital audio is not 'on' and 'off' and there is no reason that all digital audio is inherently clipped.

ALL sound is analog. Our ears are analog. Even sounds recorded 'digitally' start out analog - they are captured by a microphone, which is analog, but immediately converted to digital by an a-d converter and saved digitally. As opposed to saving to an analog medium such as tape first and then sampling from the tape which would be the case for older recordings that were originally recorded onto an analog medium.

Digital audio simply samples the analog waveform thousands of times per second and represents the amplitude of the signal at each point in time with a number. Those numbers are groups of 1's and 0's (how many is the 'bit depth' - 16 bits for CD), but we do not hear 1's and 0's. The 1's and 0's are read off the disc and converted back to analog by a d-a converter (dac). Even the cheapest adc's and dacs do a fine job of accurately reproducing the original analog waveform.

When Geezer Butler plays his guitar into distortion and the signal is recorded to an analog medium, the tape will saturate; ie it is pushed slightly beyond its limits but does not break. This is known as 'soft clipping' and as Francious70 points out, it is a characteristic of tape and tube type amps. Some people prefer that type of sound over 'hard clipping' that occurs with digital, but that does not mean that digital is inherently bad. It means that the recording engineer is an idiot and set the record levels too high and/or post-processed the audio with excessive compression or limiting such that a large majority of the waveform is clipped. So blame the recording engineer, not digital audio itself.

With digital audio, clipping is defined as N consecutive samples at maximum level (0dB). N varies - conservative software uses N=4. For CD, 4/44,100 seconds of clipping = .9ms and is entirely inaudible. Now much of today's music is way over-compressed and there may be thousands of clipped samples. A few periods of clipping will be inaudible, but those recordings with thousands of clipped peaks can and will sound harsh. Again, blame the recording/mastering engineer, not digital audio itself.

Digital audio mastered by a competent engineer with very few clipped peaks and sane average power levels sounds phenomenal.

 

[shokhead]

I think thats the answer to most audio questions,a competent engineer.

 

[Shadow_Ferret]

Anonymous. Wow. Kind of hard not to take offense.

But you just sort of confirmed what I was trying to say when you said,

ALL sound is analog. Our ears are analog. Even sounds recorded 'digitally' start out analog - they are captured by a microphone, which is analog, but immediately converted to digital by an a-d converter and saved digitally. As opposed to saving to an analog medium such as tape first and then sampling from the tape which would be the case for older recordings that were originally recorded onto an analog medium.

Digital "samples" music. That's how I've always understood it. That sounds to me like it would be "missing" something in the "sampling." Maybe it doesn't. Maybe the sampling rate is so minute you'll never notice the difference, but as I stated, I notice a subtle difference between my CDs and my vinyl.

I think there is a "warmth" to vinyl that is absent in CDs. Just as there seems to be a warmth in tube amps compared to transistor amps.

It could be my own desire to hear it, or it could actually exist, I don't know. All I know is I prefer the sound of vinyl and tape over CDs.

As far as the 1s and 0s, I admit I might be confusing digital with computers and binary code.

 

[Engine Joe]

Digital "samples" music. That's how I've always understood it.

[SNIP}

I think there is a "warmth" to vinyl that is absent in CDs. Just as there seems to be a warmth in tube amps compared to transistor amps.

Important distinction - "sampling" music is not "clipping" music, which is what you said in your prior post. Clipping is digital distortion (as noted in Anonymous's post).

The warmth argument for vinyl or analog tape is one that I think can be had; I think it's not for tube amps, because now we're talking about intentionally adding distortion to the sound - not necessarily bad distortion (indeed, in your opinion it's good), but it is coloration. So be it! Nothing wrong there.

 

[MDS]

I truly didn't mean to be offensive. I was just saying that the statements that some people make, not implying you in particular, about digital being inherently evil is just too broad of a generalization.

I have no problem with somebody preferring the warmth of vinyl or tube amps, but the reasons often given are technically inaccurate. I listened to LPs all through the 70s and 80s but am not in the camp that prefers them to modern digital delivery mediums such as CD.

 

[Shadow_Ferret]

No offense taken. I readily admit my preference for vinyl and analog is probably one of mere taste with a large lump of nostalgia thrown in. Although I see my preference justified when so many high-end components still use tubes.

As far as clipping, yes, I misused that term. I admitted such. I understand it refers to what happens to an amp when it is overdriven. I also admit I was confusing technologies, confusing digital with binary. I was merely trying to convey that digital, for lack of a better term, "sterilizes" the music moreso than does tape or vinyl. Again, that could simply be my perception colored by desire, memory, and wistfulness.

But perception is reality, as they say.

 

[annunaki]

Anonymous is right on with his comments. Digital can sound very good or better than analogue. IF, the recording engineer leaves the compression off, and allows the levels to be set low enough to capture all the dynamic range. This type of recording is all but dead (except for some Classical and Jazz) as most seem to think louder is better. Especially record labels and mastering houses.

 

[Engine Joe]

Anonymous is right on with his comments. Digital can sound very good or better than analogue. IF, the recording engineer leaves the compression off, and allows the levels to be set low enough to capture all the dynamic range. This type of recording is all but dead (except for some Classical and Jazz) as most seem to think louder is better. Especially record labels and mastering houses.

It's the sonic equivalent of what happens with the cityscape photos on this page:

http://www.starwarslegacy.com/site/pages/Editorials.html

People have come to like the high compressed sound, but all the truely good juice gets squeezed out in the process, so your left with excitiement without the substance.

 

[Arnold Layne]

I appreciate the responses and some of the very interesting information...ok...here i go...BUT... I hear what I hear. It's like the big pink elephant sitting in the middle of the room except I'm the only one who can see it...I'm like that Hailey Joel Osmont dude but Instead of seeing dead people, I hear (whispering...) very poor reproduction of "good" distortion from digitial media. Bruce Willis is right here with me, man! I am the only one in the whole world who hears this...the greatest Guitaristists' in the world are being short changed....it doesn't work...I won't believe it works until I hear it for myself. Digital has been around for a while now, it's not gonna happen because it can't do it.

Peace,