I think that I have found one of the reasons for 'harsh sound' in old stuff

[johndyson10]

I have listened to some downloads of older music releases (I mean 70's through 90's, and found a consistent kind of compression that I don't remember from the past. I had a eureka moment, and decided to give that 'Eureka' a try -- then I found the REAL 'Eureka' (that is, I think that I found it...) There is a significant amount of stuff being distributed left with DolbyA encoding.
I have written a DolbyA decoder (I typically just call it an expander, because I am sure that it is not 100% compatible anyway), and also have avoided any associated patents. I have produced a series of results for review, and copies of the 'expander' for free use/redistribution. Unfortunately, for most people, the expander will run only on Linux X86 or X86-64 with recent chips (P4 or newer, with versions for newer ATOMs and/or i3,4,5 3000 series or newer.) I intend to produce a Win64 version very soon (I already can produce binaries, but not tested well), and intend to release source code.

Take a listen, and give me your feedback. Included on this site are the Linux decoders.

https://spaces.hightail.com/space/bOPBXTkeeT

The site above is a download/storage repo. For IP reasons, I intend to remove the examples in a week or so. This is the only way that I can demo, and don't intend to make this a commercial venture. I have another package (much more complex) which might become a source of income.

John

 

[johndyson10]

Just as an update -- my 'decoder' has morphed into a professional level decoder, and I have been getting assistance from a recording pro. There REALLY IS a syndrome where pre-recorded material that is distributed in digital form -- SOME OF IT -- is DolbyA encoded. If you have harsh sounding material (I have a Queen greatest hits (Hollywoord Records) CD sitting in front of me right now -- guaranteed DolbyA encoded after testing.) Mostly, it is material that was produced before 1990. The songs come alive and the depth is restored when doing a decode. The site with a complete decoder is listed below, It will run on recent PCs, and there is a file called 'DecoderA.pdf' that talks about things. The decoder filename is da-<date>.zip. This really does do DolbyA decodes, and doesn't generally like non-encoded materai very well. (Sometimes it can function on compressed material, but it isn' t 'right' if not truly encoded.)

spaces.hightail.com/space/tjUm4ywtDR

 

[TLS Guy]

I have never heard such rubbish.

You are just spouting abject nonsense.

If material had been released in Dolby A encode without decoding, it would be absolutely unlistenable. It would sound horrendous and you would have to switch it off instantly. Of course the Dolby A tapes were decoded before being released.

If there were decoding errors, and that is possible, you certainly will not put it right by decoding it twice!

 

[johndyson10]

Respectfully -- you are incorrect about DolbyA being unlistenable -- it isn't good, but is listenable. The sound of DolbyA on compressed material is about the same (IS the same) as the touted excess HF emphasis talked about so much. ON UNCOMPRESSED material, DolbyA does have more boost. Study what DolbyA does, and you'll have to agree. I have some DolbyA with tones -- and it is 'listenable.' In fact, RAY DOLBY had a requirement that DolbyA be listenable... I just found that fact about R Dolby's design criteria a few days ago while reading an audio book.

PS: I am currently listening to REAL TIME DolbyA decoded music -- it is beautiful. Properly decoded "Bread" will make any feeling person cry. It is AMAZING.

 

[TLS Guy]

Well, I have a pretty large number of recordings that were originally recorded on Dolby A mastered tapes. I do not have one that could be remotely considered to have not been Dolby A decoded..

May be that is true in the pop, rock world, that I never listen to. I do know that engineering standards are in the basement compared to classical engineering standards. So I suppose what you have discovered might have some validity.

Can you put up on YouTube what you consider an issued recording made with Dolby A but not decoded and then the same recording decoded by you?

I do own Dolby A pro encode decoders. I am skeptical of your claims. An undecoded A recording screams at me, but the music from the pop world generally does.

 

[johndyson10]

I am not arguing -- I have already done so on Hydrogen/Hoffman/etc, and the result has been positive (with significant correspondence offline.) I have had a few demos on a hightail site for a long time, and I guess I can put a few up again. Right now I am listening to BEAUTIFUL (believe it or not) properly managed/remastered (by me) ABBA. I started with mistakenly left DolbyA encoded material sold as a 'collection.' I'll look around for a few good examples -- getting ready for a Drs appt in a few hours, but by the end of the day today -- I'll put a few songs up on the site. (Imagine ABBA without intermodulation between the voices in the chorus -- much of that intermod sound on ABBA comes from compression/expansion and DolbyA. The other part of the ugly sound is the Aphex Exciter -- first version, which I also have some SW that removes that nonsense.)

Note that they don't sound all that different from the material that I also have (under NDA) with the DolbyA tones.
My decoder has been acked by experts as being pretty accurate (I mean -- REALLY GOOD),and if my decoder chokes -- it isn't encoded, and if it sounds 'good', then it probably is. DolbyA has some eccentric attack/decay curves -- not that it makes impossible sound, just that it likes to fit hand in glove with encoder/decoder.

I can dynamically watch the gains of each band, and it is pretty easy to tell (while listening and watching the gains) if something is not DolbyA encoded (and vice versa.) I haven't been 100% because some stuff really IS messed up out there, but DolbyA decoders are pretty good at finding non-encoded material. If something is just treble boosted -- the DolbyA result will tend to have a gating sound and sound dead even with the treble boosted source.

Also -- DolbyA does NOT boost the treble as much on compressed material. By the time you reach about -15dB, the boost is gone. So above -15dB, the HF gain boost is pretty close to 1 or 2 dB, dropping to zero dB on up. (I have the PRECISE curves, which my decoder does match.) Because I am not a math expert (just a 40yr EE, DSP expert and I wrote big parts of the original FreeBSD kernel as a SW person), I had to do 14th order equations to match the curves. I know that some math person out there can do better with a shorter equation.

John

 

[johndyson10]

Well, I have a pretty large number of recordings that were originally recorded on Dolby A mastered tapes. I do not have one that could be remotely considered to have not been Dolby A decoded..

May be that is true in the pop, rock world, that I never listen to. I do know that engineering standards are in the basement compared to classical engineering standards. So I suppose what you have discovered might have some validity.

Can you put up on YouTube what you consider an issued recording made with Dolby A but not decoded and then the same recording decoded by you?

I do own Dolby A pro encode decoders. I am skeptical of your claims. An undecoded A recording screams at me, but the music from the pop world generally does.

I am adding this in after the fact -- hope you haven't read this yet -- but I understand now your skepticism. The left-on DolbyA encoding isn't from the original mixdown, but how the record companys treat the material. The stuff had probably been digitized years ago without decoding, and it is a pain in the butt to convert back to analog to do a DolbyA decode. My decoder fixes that problem -- it is TRULY better than a real DolbyA for decode only (and it sounds closer to a DolbyA than a Satin.)

Okay -- you kind of irritated me with your skepticism: I put up a purposefully degraded version of waterloo from ABBA onto a working repository. It is encoded mp3 very tightly, but you can still hear the HF emphasis and of course -- ABBA is compressed anyway, even on a master. This is the version from an ABBA gold master -- I also have the albums on DolbyA. (Bread, Nat King Cole, and so many artists that it is amazing with DolbyA encoding -- it means having access to MFSL quality material all of the time -- IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT!!!) .
* I also have a decoded and finalized copy of waterloo that I just did. It was a slightly different source, but came from the same master -- the one that I fully produced required A LOT of work. It is going away in a day or two.

Classical would tend to be a little more boosted sounding -- but I have some stuff under NDA that is traceably DolbyA and it isn't all that bad (it is singing in a church) and a few other things -- that stuff has tones.

Since ABBA is already compressed -- it tends to decrease the DolbyA gain/EQ boosts, listen to the file wda.mp3 on the repository. This is from an old non-US cheaply made ABBA CD -- they just stupidly played out the master .

The 'powers' blindly don't want me to post a link -- so add https:// in front of the below and click on it. Geesh, I wrote part of the damned internet, and they treat me like this... The repo is in there:

spaces.hightail.com/space/ko2yTjF5YY

 

[TLS Guy]

I am adding this in after the fact -- hope you haven't read this yet -- but I understand now your skepticism. The left-on DolbyA encoding isn't from the original mixdown, but how the record companys treat the material. The stuff had probably been digitized years ago without decoding, and it is a pain in the butt to convert back to analog to do a DolbyA decode. My decoder fixes that problem -- it is TRULY better than a real DolbyA for decode only (and it sounds closer to a DolbyA than a Satin.)

Okay -- you kind of irritated me with your skepticism: I put up a purposefully degraded version of waterloo from ABBA onto a working repository. It is encoded mp3 very tightly, but you can still hear the HF emphasis and of course -- ABBA is compressed anyway, even on a master. This is the version from an ABBA gold master -- I also have the albums on DolbyA. (Bread, Nat King Cole, and so many artists that it is amazing with DolbyA encoding -- it means having access to MFSL quality material all of the time -- IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT!!!) .
* I also have a decoded and finalized copy of waterloo that I just did. It was a slightly different source, but came from the same master -- the one that I fully produced required A LOT of work. It is going away in a day or two.

Classical would tend to be a little more boosted sounding -- but I have some stuff under NDA that is traceably DolbyA and it isn't all that bad (it is singing in a church) and a few other things -- that stuff has tones.

Since ABBA is already compressed -- it tends to decrease the DolbyA gain/EQ boosts, listen to the file wda.mp3 on the repository. This is from an old non-US cheaply made ABBA CD -- they just stupidly played out the master .

The 'powers' blindly don't want me to post a link -- so add https:// in front of the below and click on it. Geesh, I wrote part of the damned internet, and they treat me like this... The repo is in there:

spaces.hightail.com/space/ko2yTjF5YY

I'm touring the Maritime Provinces at the moment and I'm currently in PEI. I on't be back at my Benedict MN studio until May 29 at the earliest. So I can not explore your links.

Now I have always felt that the argument that the old LP sounds better than the CD has a high likely hood of being true, as there is a lot that can go wrong. I would assume the original masters were not compressed when A encoded. The three pass bands have critical thresholds. When dubbing in code the calibration between master in dub in terms of level has to be very precise. That is why all Dolby tapes need calibration codes. So you could not possibly manipulate dynamic range in code, or you would have an unholy mess. You must decode before manipulating the dynamics and re-encode before making the compressed dub.

Now when making later CDs or transferring to any other medium from a Dolby A encoded tape, level calibration is crucial. Also EQ of the later machine and Eq calibration is crucial. I had always assumed that this was the problem area, as setting up reel to reel machines is a lost art. However I never imagined they would take a Dolby A master, not decode it and put it out on a new medium un-encoded. That would be the height of sloppiness. You are intimating that is what has occurred. If that is so then than is pushing standards to very low depths indeed.

This fits into a very interesting discussion we had about all this.

 

[johndyson10]

About not being compressed when 'A' encoded would depend on the group. For example, ABBA seems to have two or three mixes of eacfh song -- and then the best mix goes onto the original albums, and the worst seem to be on the ABBA Gold type disks. There are obviously EXACTLY the same except mix -- and also when making disk images (or whatever),with ABBA they get inventive and mess with the L+R/M+S axis. From what I can hear -- it appears to be an attempt by the final mastering engineer to get rid of the severe intermod/compression in some of the recordings. However, much of the intermod is the mix of the high pitched female voices and some evil DolbyA characteristics (for example, listen carefully to the spectrum around 9kHz when lots of HF material -- intermod city.) Since they only compress in the L+R direction, there is still some 'good sound' left in the other axis. IN some songs (and some releases),you can actually hear them move the axis around -- REALLY!!!

Not all groups music is so very abused -- I have some ABBA stuff that hasn't been as extremely abused (album DolbyA copies) which still have some definition left in them. If you listen to my decoded version on the site, and know what ABBA usually sounds like on normal CDs -- my results are beautiful and defined. (I am not clamiing ABSOLUTE perfection, just that they are better than normal ABBA releases -- lots of stuff sounds a LOT better than what I am demoing, but it isn't ABBA but it would be another group or source!!!)

* PS: the main reason for minimal intermod is my DolbyA decoder. It isn't sloppy like most such denizens of the production faciilities -- it doesn't splat as much intermod all over the place. In fact, it is close to the theoretical minimum. For the 80-3k band as a whole, it is actually better than possible using normal gain control techniques.

It doesn't appear that the pop world is ANYTHING like the classical world .

John

 

[TLS Guy]

Yes, the classical world is far removed from the pop world. The latter I truly despise.

 

[johndyson10]

Yes, the classical world is far removed from the pop world. The latter I truly despise.

I respect your opinion. The 'recording engineer' that I am working with (I am the crazy person doing the odd & and seldom-done-before DSP stuff, and the recording engineer is kind of my consumer/helper/audio-guidance/general-foot-on-the-ground person.) He looks at things differently than me also -- but we get along because both of us has our own expertise. That doesn't mean that I'm always 100% correct in my area, and vice versa. I am planning on adding credits to the decoder project because of the really useful contribution/help he has given. When I do something stupid and the sound is wrong, then he tells me. I like honesty, even if there is a transient 'hurt'.

He has been mostly out of touch recently,, so I haven't been focused on audio professional consumption but more on the techniical nitty gritty (like fixing intermod, making sure attack/decay is best it can be/etc.) Soon, he'll be back, and we are gonna start talking about some other things. Right now, I am trying to gen-up interest -- maybe improving the sound quality of some old pop stuff for us old farts. Our hearing isn't going to be lasting much longer -- maybe I can help us to enjoy one more time .

Point being -- we don't always see eye-to-eye, but we don't emphasize that part of things, we emphasize where we can work together and mutually benefit (probably eventually creating a real friend.) I'd like to see that kind of thought with you and others who 'dispise' or even 'tolerate' pop stuff -- I am kind of disgusted and taken aback by what I have observed also. I don't take it personally -- but I can look perversely positive about the matter -- it gives me a niche to contribute!!!

However, I don't think that this is a 'stain' on the serious audio production/recording engineering profession, but rather the corporate money people 'encouraging' efficient operations (overly-efficient operations. ). I am NOT in your profession -- only in the periphery off/on for the last 40+yrs -- I dabble. NO-way that I can concentrate on anything other than what I am already buried in...

John

 

[Irvrobinson]

Just as an update -- my 'decoder' has morphed into a professional level decoder, and I have been getting assistance from a recording pro. There REALLY IS a syndrome where pre-recorded material that is distributed in digital form -- SOME OF IT -- is DolbyA encoded. If you have harsh sounding material (I have a Queen greatest hits (Hollywoord Records) CD sitting in front of me right now -- guaranteed DolbyA encoded after testing.) Mostly, it is material that was produced before 1990. The songs come alive and the depth is restored when doing a decode. The site with a complete decoder is listed below, It will run on recent PCs, and there is a file called 'DecoderA.pdf' that talks about things. The decoder filename is da-<date>.zip. This really does do DolbyA decodes, and doesn't generally like non-encoded materai very well. (Sometimes it can function on compressed material, but it isn' t 'right' if not truly encoded.)

spaces.hightail.com/space/tjUm4ywtDR

This would explain why my Queen CDs sound like crap.

 

[johndyson10]

This would explain why my Queen CDs sound like crap.

I'll put a Queen song up from my Hollywood records greatest hits CD for 1-2days to show how nice it can sound.

I have 'Bicycle' and 'Another One Bites the Dust' directly from the Hollywood record CD, DolbyA compatible decoded only -- NO SWEETENING -- this is just raw -- purely raw. It is a bit dead -- but that is easy to fix -- all of the frequencies are there, just need a little tweaking. My decoder has less hash and edginess of other kinds of DolbyA decoders -- so there is no fake edginess in it. However, all of the pure music is in there.

Disappearing in a day or so.

https://spaces.hightail.com/space/ko2yTjF5YY

 

[johndyson10]

BTW -- I added a version of Bicycle that uses my compressor/limiter. It is fallen into disrepair recently, but is going to get some more quality addtions. It still has really good intermod characteristics. If you notice the attack/decay and gain characteristics -- when you listen -- you are hearing about 6-7dB of compression and probably cannot detect it very well (hard for me.) It is a 'stealth' compressor. Almost totally dynamic and can chase the dynamics very quickly -- or if the signal is too far away, then it says -- lets avoid pumping. It isn't 'logic' based, but rather 'dynamics' based, so it is very highly adaptive. Attack time: instant. Decay time: anywhere from 10msec to 5seconds or longer. The detection technique: RMS with dynamic averaging interval. decay technique: all of -- LINEAR (like a FET compressor),dB( like a DBX compressor) and gain riding. It is totally adaptive as to which one is currently most in control. Give it a listen -- it adapts to anything (almost) even classical. It can be tuned to be a little faster or slower -- but setting it to be the wrong speed is kind of silly, but it can be biased towards faster or slower. It is on the same site as above: Bicycle-complim.mp3.

BTW -- how can it be RMS and instant attack? Interesting question -- but really it is. .

 

[Irvrobinson]

I just listened to the Queen examples, albeit on my "Outpost" system (Audioengine 5+ and SVS SB1000) rather than my primary system, but IMO you make a compelling case. I'm impressed.

 

[johndyson10]

I just listened to the Queen examples, albeit on my "Outpost" system (Audioengine 5+ and SVS SB1000) rather than my primary system, but IMO you make a compelling case. I'm impressed.

Thanks -- I'm certainly not perfect. I have misjudged some items as being DolbyA encoded but they weren't and vice versa. The sound SOMETIMES is very similar to a simple HF boost -- especially on already compressed material. The pre-existing compression can mask the sound of DolbyA, and even fool the decoder. Doesn't happen often, but it HAS happened to me.

I recently had an acid test where I really thought that a 'Heart' recording was DolbyA -- it sounded like it, and the recording engineer himself said that it wasn't DolbyA encoded.... Well -- I eventually did agree with him, but I was afraid during my test. I found that at low levels the attempt to decode caused a rough sound (that is one the symptoms of not being encoded.) However, IF I really thought that it was encoded (even though the engineer said no), my integrity would have required that I say something unfortunate (that I would have to make a statement that I admit that I am wrong.) It all worked out fine though .

In my collection of mostly pre 1990's music (probably several hundred ripped albums), about 2/3s are DolbyA encoded per my evalulation so far.

LPs are VERY SELDOM DolbyA encoded -- there is no reason to make the mistake. But digital stuff seems to slip through fairly often.

One funny anecdote (and I can demo it if you want), I grabbed a copy of 'Shake it off' by Taylor Swift, DolbyA decoded it, and expanded it with my fancy 24 axis expander (yes -- it does 24 different kinds of expansions per sample.) I could hear EXACTLY what created the sound in the song . It was almost as clear as day. I don't know if they used the DolbyA for effect, or happened to use a semi-compatible compressor, but it was kind of interesting to me. (I noticed 'shake it off' because one of my favorite shows is 'supernatural', and the Hillywood group did a wonderful spoof/parody video -- if not a supernatural fan -- you'd have to watch the side-by-side so that you could understand the context.) Those young gals who did that video are amazing!!!

John

 

[johndyson10]

NEW version of the DolbyA compatible decoder. Free to use, works on relatively recent Intel/AMD based PCs.
To install, just make sure that the dlls and the exe files are in your path. then, look at the DecoderA.pdf for info.
Feel free to write to me if you wish.

filename: da-win-23may2018B.zip
location: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/tjUm4ywtDR

If you have troubles -- just write on the forum or private messaging. I happily accept constructive criticism -- sometimes I have to get past my ego, but that usually isn't a problem .

If you have ideas for improvement -- let me know -- I am happy to make helpful changes IF I CAN. I do not do GUI programming, and Java is out of the question -- stuck right now with X86 style binaries. I think that the code is close to working on an ARM for someday in the future.

 

[Irvrobinson]

You might consider approaching John Atkinson of Stereophile or Gene (the owner of Audioholics) to write a technical article about what you've discovered. Or better yet, perhaps an AES paper.

 

[johndyson10]

Your idea of a formal paper or presentation might be a good one. Even though I might seem to be a little 'aggressive' -- I am actually moderately timid when pushing the envelope. I am really trying to get enough of a consensus that I'll feel more comfortable about sticking my neck out (not that anything bad would really happen if I did.)
I guess it is getting to the point if I am really off in left field, I am already made a fool of myself, right? .

I could imagine two directions for doing some kind of paper: firstly -- a discussion on the implementation of the decoder and the truly HEROIC means that I implemented to minimize the theoretically unnecessary distortion products. A discussion about that would very much help make dynamic (fast changing) gain control technology more cookbook and might even have some unique ideas in the design/implementation. (The pure technical area is where I am most comfortable.)

The other 'communication' would be about the DolbyA leakage matter. You know -- I just realized something else -- I know NOTHING right now about DolbySR other than some theory (thinking about starting an SR decoder effort -- really, really complex to meet the standards that have been achieved with the DolbyA compatible decoder) -- but what I was trying to say before interupting myself is that this 40th anniversary ABBA disk is hyper compressed (I mean, INSANELY IMO), and I am wondering if it is SR? My recording engineer friend has SR units (which, of course, we will use for testing if the effort starts), and maybe I can get him to check my ABBA disk to see if it sounds like SR? I mean, the ABBA disk is ugly bad -- not just DolbyA and kind of over compressed. I mean evil compression... I wonder, and will report.

I need to organize my thoughts about what you suggested -- and I thank you for the sentiments. I agree with you though that this needs to be formally and more openly talked about.

The biggest problem might be some political backlash, and it is VERY important that no blame be suggested -- and I really consider a DolbyA encoded copy as being a blessing. I can pretty much decode anything DolbyA right now!!! I also want other people (more people) to have the advantage.

If I can get some name recognition, I might be able to again get some work where I can stay at home (I used to do it all of the time, but that was back in the day when I had major name recognition during the Internet boom -- now I am totally anonymous again.) Now, people aren't asking to pay me so that my name can be on the roster for the company anymore -- I am just an average joe nowadays . Actually, I feel like being an 'average joe' is an advantage -- I didn' t like it when I would purchase gas in Indianapolis (where I incedentally live) and my name be recognized on the credit card by the cashier who was also a computer nerd. Maybe I can be pseudo-famous again? I hope not . It feels weird. Well -- I digress.

Yep -- I think you had a good idea that morphed into two. I'll definitely consider it -- or perhaps (like you might have implied) get a sponsor to take-on the cause (and probably get the majority of poltical credit for the idea), and I mostly be support. That kind of thing might actually be more comfortable for me. I will talk seriously to my recording pro associate on the matter, and maybe we can become more proactive. I don't think he knows about the waves that I have been trying to make -- he is mostly focused on using the DolbyA decoder and strongly suggesting that the community really needs a superior SR decoder also... Oh well.. I'll sleep on it .

THANKS!!!
John