In this clip from the D: Dive Into Media conference, Neil Young begins by saying ”My goal is to try to rescue the art form that I’ve been practicing for the past 50 years.” He goes on to talk about preserving the album format, how piracy is the new radio, and what Beats headphones bring to the back end of the donkey (more bottom end).
Neil wants to bring more attention to the front end: offering music in high-resolution formats, and making it available conveniently. That’s what we’re all about, and we will focus on this in the next installment of Hi-Fi 2.0. Let’s save the 95%!
The story of the Sennheiser HD 800 began with a dream: of developing headphones that go way beyond conventional equipment to become music phones, or even perfect sound phones. The dream of creating a hi-fi device that sounds as brilliant, clear, and undistorted as if you were sitting right next to the source. The dream of creating an acoustic experience more incredible than anything ever heard through dynamic headphones: in spheres that no other category is capable of reaching–right there where perfection begins.
Did they succeed in bringing this dream to life? They did for Bob Lefsetz:
And the organ on the Black Crowes’ “Thorn In My Pride” is a revelation, you can literally see it. Truly. Music video gives you the illusion you’re closer to the music, but on the HD 800s you don’t even have to close your eyes, you can literally see the instrument, the blond wood, the placement of the fingers.
The harpejji is a tapping instrument with a keyboard-inspired playing surface capable of producing chord intervals that are impossible to play on a guitar or piano. All chords and scales of a particular type have the same geometric shape, so you can easily shift up, down, left, or right to play them with a different root.
The harpejji comes from Marcodi Musical Products of Baltimore, MD, and is hand-crafted in the USA. Blending the worlds of guitar, bass, keyboards, and percussive tapping, the harpejji brings benefits to all the musicians on your list.
Keyboardists will realize these and many more benefits with the harpejji:
The Real Thing – The timeless and organic sound of real strings
More Control – The expressive nuance of direct string contact (sliding, bending, muting, vibrato, etc.)
EZ IvoriesTM – This marking system identifies all notes via a piano’s black and white color code
EZ OctavesTM – Double your interval reach on a piano
Add it to your Rig – No need to stop playing the keys. Add the harpejji as a new tier to your normal keyboard setup.
Bassists will enjoy:
The choice to cover a one-note bass line, or play full songs by yourself
Percussive Tapping – The percussive strengths of a tapping instrument
Fuller range of notes – A range deeper than a 5-string bass and wider than a 10-string bass
Guitarists will find that the harpejji is unlike anything they have ever heard:
Unique Tone – A tone and sound that blends well yet is distinct from all other instruments
The power of 10-finger compositions – Utilize all 10 digits for new and creative musical compositions
New Chords – New chord intervals that are impossible to play on guitar (or piano)
Two Parts from one Musician – The ability to cover guitar and bass parts at the same time
(hover and poke the thingamgoops in the eye for a demo)The music and audio geek in your life is sure to be thankful after unwrapping a Thingamagoop 2. The T2 marries the original analog Thingamagoop with a digital synthesizer you control with light. You can output the sound through its own speaker, a Marshall stack, or use the CV output to control your vintage synth. Poke one in the eye for a demo!
You can buy them built for $160 or save some money and get a kit for $100. If you really want to light up the holidays, spend a little more and get the RGB edition for $225 — the same sounds with a see-through faceplate and blinking LEDs. Here’s the scoop on the Thingamagoop:
- Analog VCO controlled by photocell.
- Digital mode with sample and hold, Arpeggios, noise, and bit crush effects.
- Open source, Arduino code so you can program your own sounds!
- Analog mode with all the sounds of the original Thingamagoop.
- Tough, stomp box type body with silk screened graphics in 3 different styles.
- CV out. Control your vintage or modular synth with light!
Ask some people what they want for Christmas, and you’ll hear “peace and quiet”. Ask us and we say: “peace and music!” With the Sennheiser HD 380 Pro headphones, you can have it all: peace, quiet, and music.
These sound isolating headphones use passive noise reduction to give you a peaceful, high-quality listening experience. They can reduce noise by up to 32 db without compromising sound quality.
Compare that to active noise-cancelling headphones (like Bose), that can cancel out constant noise (like an airplane engine) up to 26 db, but not people talking or babies crying. Other issues with noise cancelling headphones: the noise cancelling signal does not affect all frequencies equally, reduces sound quality, and can introduce an audible hiss.
As a bonus, you can wear the HD 380s unplugged to protect your ears while practicing the drums or engaged in other high-volume activities. Hover over the headphones and click the targets for more info.
A professional steel drum can cost several thousand dollars. And most of the smaller models sound like toys. Now you can get a small-scale model from Panyard, a professional steel-drum maker. And it sounds great.
Although packaged and marketed mainly to schools and kids, it comes with a stand that is adjustable for adults, and a truly “big boy” sound. Unless you want a stand sporting colorful “feet”, stick with the steel gray model.
All drums have 8 notes tuned to the G Major scale. The package also includes mallets, an instruction book, and a play-along CD. Hover over the drum and tap the D-A-C notes for video demonstrations.
Part 3 in a series: After decades of continual improvements in audio recording and playback technologies, the average 21st Century listener will hear most music at lower fidelity than before the millennium. How did this happen, and can anything be done about it?
In Part 1, we reviewed some of the reasons for the general decline in audio quality. Part 2 explored the differences between analog and digital audio. Now it’s time to take a closer look at the various digital formats, do some math, and find out what high fidelity means in the 21st century.
The resolution of a digital audio file is based on three factors: the sample rate, bit depth, and bit-rate.
Sampling Rate (sample rate, or sampling frequency) – the number of times audio is measured (or sampled) per second. The standard sampling rate for a CD is 44.1 kHz, which means that the audio is sampled 44,100 times per second.
An analog signal (light bue) measured over time at a fixed sampling rate (red).
The sampling rate determines the frequency response — the range of sounds from low to high that a file is capable of reproducing.
Imagine a felt hammer striking a piano string. A string that is thinner, shorter, or under more tension will vibrate more rapidly, producing a higher frequency or pitch.
The lowest note on a piano (A0) has a frequency of 27.5 Hz, and the A above middle-C (A4) has a frequency of 440 Hz, or 440 cycles per second. The highest note on a piano is C8, at 4186.01 Hz, and the normal range for human hearing is from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
According to the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, a sampling rate needs to be twice the frequency of the signal being sampled in order to accurately capture the sound. So the 44.1 kHz sampling rate used for CDs should be sufficient to capture audio frequencies up to 22,050 Hz, beyond the range of human hearing.
However, some maintain that inaudible frequencies above 22,000 Hz can “color” the sound and affect the lower-range frequencies we do hear. And the digital recording process can produce distortion through the aliasing of these higher frequencies that requires filtering to correct.
There is no theoretical frequency limit for an analog signal, but the physics of audio reproduction place a practical limit on what can be achieved. Testing on some analog systems has shown evidence of frequencies up to about 50,000 Hz.
Most professional digital recordings are made at a sampling rate of 96 kHz, so they can capture the high-end audio frequencies that might be found in an analog recording but would be missing from a CD. And if you absolutely must go higher, you can use a sampling rate of 192 kHz. At this rate, you are slicing each second of audio into 192,000 pieces, and capturing frequencies up to 96,000 Hz (ouch!).
Bit-Depth -the number of bits used to record each slice of audio. Think of this as the number of levels available to capture each slice. Every bit doubles the number of levels: the resolution for 16-bit audio is calculated as 216, giving you 65,536 possible levels. 24-bit audio is calculated as 224, providing over 16 million levels.
Most professionally-recorded digital audio is 24-bit. Recording at a higher resolution allows for a greater dynamic range (the difference between the softest and the loudest sounds in a recording) and a better signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio (i.e., more signal, less noise).
Sound levels are commonly measured in decibels (dB), and the normal range of human hearing is from 0 dB (threshhold) to 120 dB (hearing damage). The dynamic range for 16-bit digital audio is 96 dB, and the range for 24-bit audio is around 144 dB. The best most analog formats can offer is a dynamic range of around 60 dB, and there will almost always be more noise present.
By the time all of these calculations end up as air moving from your speakers, compression may have obliterated some of the differences in dynamic range between the formats. A lot depends on the type of music you listen to — look for an update on the “Loudness War” in an upcoming article.
Bit rate – the number of bits processed per unit of playback time. For an uncompressed digital audio file, this can be calculated as:
Sample Rate x Bit-Depth x Number of Channels = Bit Rate
Let’s do the math for a CD: 44,100 x 16 x 2 = 1,411,200 bits per second (or 1411 kbps, or 1.4 Mbps). Compressed audio, such as an MP3 file, is a different story. The sampling rate for an MP3 file can vary, and there is no equivalent bit-depth, so the bit rate is an indicator of how much compression was applied to the original signal. A higher bit rate results in a larger file size and greater fidelity to the original sound. Since a CD has about 11 times the bit rate of an MP3 file, does that mean it sounds eleven times better?
How high is up?
Let’s think about this for a minute. Higher sample rates and greater bit-depth will result in more information being captured for each sound. Higher resolution means better sound, but there are limits. Our ears impose limits: the highest frequencies we can hear drop with age, and some ears are better-trained and more discerning than others.
The recording method and storage media impose another set of limits. And the playback system comprises a long chain of limiting factors: the playback unit, audio circuitry, DAC, amplifier, wiring, speakers, and more. The rooms we listen in, and where we sit in those rooms can have a dramatic impact 0n the quality and accuracy of the music we hear.
T Bone Burnett prefers analog, but maintains that if we have to listen to digital audio, we should do so at a minimum resolution of 96 kHz/24-bit. There is a fair amount of controversy over sampling at higher rates, with some engineers and audiophiles claiming that 192 kHz audio is a gimmick, overkill, or “just stupid”. From one detractor:
Sampling audio signals at 192KHz is about 3 times faster than the optimal rate. It compromises the accuracy which ends up as audio distortions. There is an inescapable tradeoff between faster sampling on one hand and a loss of accuracy, increased data size and much additional processing requirement on the other hand.
The optimal sample rate should be largely based on the required signal bandwidth. Audio industry salesman have been promoting faster than optimal rates. The promotion of such ideas is based on the fallacy that faster rates yield more accuracy and/or more detail. Whether motivated by profit or ignorance, the promoters, leading the industry in the wrong direction, are stating the opposite of what is true.
While looking at the above chart, remember that we are comparing apples (uncompressed audio files such as those on a CD) and oranges (compressed files). While a CD track may contain 11 times the information in a 128 kbps MP3 file, it’s not really a fair comparison. The compression algorithm is designed to throw away the unimportant and mostly inaudible parts of the music, it doesn’t just randomly remove 90% of the data.
What is HD Audio, and how do I get it?
So the CD might not sound 11 times better, but it definitely sounds better — MP3 files are a step backwards from CD-quality audio. There are a few competing definitions and formats, but for our purposes, High-Definition (HD) audio will be defined as audio formats that exceed the sampling rate and bit-depth (44.1/16) of the Red Book CD Standard.
There is a high-definition audio specification from Intel for PC audio up to 192 kHz/32-bit for two channels, and 96 kHz/32-bit for as many as eight channels. But this spec supports sample rates as low as 6 kHz, as well as 8 and 16-bit audio, so it falls outside of our definition. Oh, and then there’s HD Radio, which has nothing to do with high-definition audio. HD originally stood for “Hybrid Digital”, and now is just part of the HD Radio trademark and stands for nothing.
We will take a deeper dive into the competing formats for HD Audio in our next installment, and look at the various ways and means to get high-fidelity in the 21st century. Onward!
Part 2 in a series: After decades of continual improvements in audio recording and playback technologies, the average 21st Century listener will hear most music at lower fidelity than before the millennium. How did this happen, and can anything be done about it?
In Part 1, we reviewed some of the reasons for the general decline in audio quality. Here we will explore the differences between analog and digital audio and sort out the winners and losers. Let’s start with the basics: what is the difference between analog and digital audio?
The analog world is built from atoms, and the digital world is composed of bits. This distinction plays out when music is recorded, stored, distributed, and played back.
Recording
All sound waves are analog: an instrument or voice produces a disturbance that moves atoms through a medium. Here on Earth, that medium is usually air.
In an analog recording, these waves are typically picked up by a microphone that converts them into an electrical signal. Variations in the voltage of the signal are then converted into a continuous physical representation of the sound on lacquer or magnetic tape.
For digital recordings, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) samples the signal at a specified frequency, and converts the results into bits ( a series of ones and zeroes). The bits are recorded onto a digital storage medium, usually a computer disk. Most professional studios record digital audio at 96 kHz, or 96,000 samples per second. When transferred to a CD, the rate is reduced to 44,100 samples per second.
Storage
Analog recordings are most often captured on tape. They are then transferred to another physical medium such as vinyl for distribution and storage. (They can of course be transferred to a CD, at which point they are no longer analog.) Digital recordings are usually captured on a computer disk, and stored on a CD, DVD, or in a computer file.
Distribution
There’s no way around it: tapes and vinyl records have to be shipped and then carried into your home. Digital recordings can be distributed in a similar manner by CD or DVD, but can also be transferred as files around the globe at the speed of light.
Playback
Analog recordings can be played back on tape or vinyl. In a reversal of the recording process, a tonearm moves a needle along the grooves of a record, and sends the signal through analog cables to an amplifier. The amp powers speakers that disturb the air to reproduce the sound waves. It’s atoms all the way through.
Digital recordings require an extra step for playback. A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) takes the bits from the file and turns them back into an analog electrical signal. This conversion can take place at the source (e.g., CD or MP3 player), within the amplifier, or in an outboard device that sits between them. After conversion, the signal is amplified and sent through the speakers.
In practice, the analog and digital realms are almost always intermixed. Vocals may be sent through a digital signal processor (DSP) before they are recorded on an analog tape deck. Digital recordings might be mixed on an analog console and then converted back to digital for mastering.
Prior to the introduction of digital recording equipment, all recordings were “pure” analog. When compact discs (CDs) first became available, they were often labeled with a three-letter SPARS code using A (analog) and D (digital) to indicate the type of equipment used for recording, mixing, and mastering.
So theoretically, a DDD disc would be “all digital”. This system has been largely abandoned because of the confusion caused by overlapping technologies at various stages of the recording process. It’s worth noting that there was at least one quadruple D disc. The 25th Anniversary Edition of Switched on Bach* from Wendy Carlos was labeled DDDD, since the sounds were produced by a digital instrument and then digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered.
Do CDs sound better or worse than the LPs they replaced?
Yes. As should be obvious by now, there are a lot of variables going into the signal that ends up as sound waves emanating from your speakers. How well was the original recording engineered? How carefully was it mixed, mastered, and pressed? After that, there are even more obstacles to high-fidelity: how good is your your turntable or CD player? What about your amplifier and speakers?
The LP was introduced in 1948, so the art of analog recording had matured considerably by the time the CD was introduced in 1982. The digital arts were in their infancy, and CDs created a huge spike in demand for catalog titles that resulted in thousands of discs being quickly, and sometimes carelessly, mastered.
Some early CD releases sound just awful compared to their analog predecessors — I know, I bought them (many for the third time: LP, cassette, CD). There were a few cases where CDs sounded harsh because the master tapes had already been equalized for vinyl, and others where the wrong (i.e., inferior) master tape was used.1 Over time, digital techniques and equipment matured and sound quality improved dramatically.
With well-produced source material, you can get excellent sound out of either a digital or analog system. The digital system will probably be less expensive, and digital formats are more portable, less prone to degradation, and easier to distribute. The advantages of analog are harder to quantify, and advocates usually end up making emotional appeals instead of technical arguments.
Broadcasting from his basement, BadEditPro concedes that a CD “smokes” the LP in just about every specification that can be measured, but prefers LPs because of their “warmth, crispness, and depth, and reality...you feel like you are listening to the artist and not a representation of what the artist recorded in a recording studio.” The typical arguments are nicely summed up by the writers below:
When I get a chance to hear vinyl after long bouts with zeros and ones analog always surprises me. It just sounds better–nicer–and more, well, musical. You folks who love music and have never experienced vinyl, you literally don’t know what you’re missing. No one’s saying analog’s perfect, there are distortions, scratches, noise, and dirt that dig-o-philes never deal with. It’s just that digital seems to miss the natural warmth that analog seems to capture so well. Maybe we’re “designed” for analog and digital is just too unnatural to fully enjoy.
Hey, it’s one thing to subjectively prefer vinyl’s “warmth” and “richer sound” (what others might call “muddy bass” and “rolled-off highs”) to CDs. But that subjective judgment shouldn’t be equated with better “audio quality,” which implies a more rigorous technical standard of measurement.
Everything else being equal – and admittedly, that isn’t always the case – I know of no technical criterion where vinyl is in any way superior to CD (with the possible exception of upper frequency range, but only in some special cases). This of course doesn’t suggest that all CDs sound better than all LPs, or vice versa, or that CDs are perfect – only that CDs offer a (far) greater potential for accurate sound reproduction.
It’s hard to call this fight, and the results of most listening tests seem to be inconclusive. Of course, when there is a conclusion, the losing side will claim that the test was biased, or flawed. Digital may be a winner on paper, but analog has won many a heart. And there is something appealing about natural sound waves creating analogous grooves that are used to recreate the same waves in another space and time. It’s, well…groovy.
Here’s a theory. We know that sound doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In fact, since we read MMT we know that it can’t exist because there is no medium for its transmission. Do you remember the first time you used a digital voice circuit and there was a pause in the conversation? It sounded funny, right? Like, um, dead. Maybe it’s the imperfections in analog audio reproduction: the wow, the flutter — the hiss, crackle and pop that make it sound more “real” and “warm” and “life-like” to us.
But just because analog is our friend, we don’t need to make digital our enemy. One thing’s for sure: digital is here to stay. In part 3, we’ll take a closer look at the various digital formats, do some math, and find out what high fidelity means in the 21st century.
In the meantime, check out what it takes to cut and press a vinyl record below, and get the full story here.
This guest post is by Chris Taylor (@miccontrolchris) of MicControl, a music blogging community that bridges the gap between musicians and music bloggers.
The holiday season is officially over and one gadget that seemed to be on top of the world’s holiday list was the iPad. Rightfully so; after the operating system update in November this device got even cooler. So you got your new iPad and you’re ready to download some apps to assist your music career but once you’re in the app store it can be slightly overwhelming. That’s where I come in. Here are the best apps to help advance your career as a musician.
StudioTrack is an incredible multi-track recording app that makes use of the built-in microphone and works with headphones. This is a step up from FourTrack, which we’ve featured before, now allowing you to record on eight different tracks while adding multiple effects to each track. With the WiFi sync you can download the finished product to your computer or upload it to the recording software on your computer to keep working. The price tag is definitely more than the average app but having a studio with you wherever you are is damn near priceless.
The Korg iElectribe has been praised as one of the best apps for electro-musicians since its release. It harnesses the same power as the Korg Electribe-R hardware for a whole lot less money. The “virtual analog beatbox” has too many features to name so I’d suggest you watch the video above to see it in action.
More recently released is the Korg iMS-20 which has a lot of notable features including the ability to route patch cables using the the iPad’s touch screen. Both apps compare incredibly well to the original, non-virtual hardware they’re based after.
iElectribe Price: $9.99
iMS-20 Price: $15.99 until January 31, 2011 (originally $32.99)
The miniSynth for the iPhone was been nominated twice for the “Best App Ever Awards” and the iPad app is no different except it provides a lot more room to make some killer songs with the 9.7″ screen. MiniSynth PRO boasts “an innovative, completely brand-new engine, a redesigned filter and a no-nonsense interface, miniSynth PRO invites those rich, shimmeringly clear analog tones to your fingertips.” miniSynth PRO even has the power to be played live and if you don’t believe me just ask SnazzyJay:
As a musician on-the-go there should be two things you carry with you everywhere you go: your guitar and your iPad. Using the iRig adapter you can hook your guitar up to your iPad and immediately have access to a handful of stompbox effects, a lead amp with full controls, a speaker cabinet, and two microphones. Upgrade to the full version for 11 stompboxes, 5 amps and cabinets and a bunch of effects.
SyncSing HD brings to musicians a mobile (and syncable) songbook and notation book. Add lyrics, chords, audio or video files and then sync your songbook with the web for the rest of your band to view. Does everyone in the band have their own iPad? Designate one as the master device and that person can turn the pages on all of the iPads simultaneously. This is a great app for writing down your music but is also useful for sharing with the rest of the group.
Have you ever had an idea for the perfect melody or the hook that will complete your near-perfect song but by the time you can actually record it you’ve forgotten it? Avoid the heartbreak and download QuickVoice Recorder. With one touch you’ll be recording your brilliant ideas into an easily organizable folder.
Evernote turns your iPad into the ultimate notebook. Create notes with text, audio, and photos in order to keep track of ideas, brainstorm new songs or just to remember some of the great memories from your most recent tour. Your notes can include geo-location so you know exactly where you were when you had that brilliant idea or what city your favorite venues were in. Best of all, Evernote syncs with your Mac or PC as well as most smart phones so you don’t need to transfer files or email notes to yourself.
It seems like no one carries cash on them anymore, so aren’t you shooting yourself in the foot by not accepting credit at your merch booth after a show? Problem solved. Square gives you the app and card reader for free and you’re accepting credit cards before you know it. Swipe the card, have your customer sign the touch screen and give them a receipt via email or SMS. It’s that easy! So remind me again why you aren’t accepting credit cards at your merch booth?
When it comes to merch, one aspect that most artists will overlook is inventory. Not only is it important to keep track of how many items you’ve sold and when it’s time to reorder but it’s also important to keep track of what type of merch (and how much) you sold in each city on your last tour in order to plan for your next tour. The only thing worse than not having enough t-shirts to get you through the end of your tour is having hundreds leftover.
There’s no better time to collect fan information then after a show. Grab their contact info so you can keep them up to date on your latest releases, shows, etc. The ReverbNation app links to your RN account and automatically updates your existing mailing list (In addition to a lot of other cool features).
Mailing List is for those of you without a ReverbNation account or those of you looking for a more visually appealing way to collect information. Mailing List displays a slideshow of pictures followed by a prompt to enter contact information.
Yelp is the popular location-based food finder that’s now available on the iPad and it serves two very important purposes for musicians. First of all, you can use it to find places to play music in your area (or the area you’re currently in on tour) and you can use it to help you plan your next tour. Secondly, once you are on tour you can use it to find the nearest pizza place or alcohol-serving establishment depending on your mood.
JamBase is another useful app for artists that are planning a tour. Find out other artists that will be playing in a city when you plan on going so you can target your fans. If your fan base is mainly made up of Lady Gaga fans, it might not be a good idea to schedule a show the same night that she’s performing in that city. However, playing at a bar near the venue she’s playing at around the time her show will be ending might be a wise move.
Social media is an absolute must for just about every musician. With HootSuite you can manage your Twitter account, update your Facebook profile and fan page, check-in via FourSquare, and even schedule tweets (you can send a pre-show tweet without worrying about it before you go on).
While Hootsuite covers your most basic Facebook needs, some artists like to take the extra step to connect with fans. Friendly Plus offers some of the extra features such as Facebook chat to talk one-on-one with fans and Facebook Locations to check in to local hot spots when you’re in a particular city.
This may not be a must-have app quite yet but down the line when Apple releases the second generation iPad with camera included UStream will be one of the best apps to keep up with fans. UStream has already started to gain significant traction with artists trying to communicate with fans and being able to host UStream sessions while on-the-go is only going to make it better
Moog goes mobile on iTunes this Monday, October 18, 2010. Whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on how you feel about this phrase: “…digitally modelled to approximate the warmth and character of our famous analog hardware.” Hmmmm. From the Filtatron Page: The Filtatron is much more than your average sound app. It’s a [...]
T Bone Burnett addresses the “Great Challenge of our Time” — greater than terrorism, possibly greater than climate change. From a conversation with Greg Kot at the Future of Music Coalition 2010 Policy Summit at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
. Handcrafted in Germany, they come with their own story.
The music and audio geek in your life is sure to be thankful after unwrapping a Thingamagoop 2. The T2 marries the original analog Thingamagoop with a digital synthesizer you control with light. You can output the sound through its own speaker, a Marshall stack, or use the CV output to control your vintage synth. Poke one in the eye for a demo!
- $149.99
- $184.60
* from Wendy Carlos was labeled DDDD, since the sounds were produced by a digital instrument and then digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered.
, 
