'AAD' vs. 'DDD' CD test

[Rothchild]

Sarm West was an early adopter for digital, Trevor Horn says that 'Two Tribes' was the first digital number one (recorded on a pair of Sony digi 24 track machines), they also had a Fairlight digital sampler (which was silly money, even by today's standards).

But, judging by this somewhat disturbing picture, there was still plenty of analogue gear, the desk looks like a Neve to me but somewhere in my mind I think I remember that he was known for using SSL, anyway:



via: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar0...trevorhorn.htm

So my question is, how far down the line does conversion to digital have to happen for something to be considered AAD or DDD, Surely DDD only exists in terms of electronic music created with digital synths connected digitally to a digital recorder? Anything with performances of 'real' instruments in a room can at best be ADD (what with pianos and guitars being analogue and all).

What if you record a band through an analogue mixer with analogue effects (compression, eq etc) inserted in the signal path and record them to a digital 'tape' machine, what's that? Many folk these days operate 'hybrid' studios, where the tracking is done via a mixer to a computer but the mixing itself is done in the computer, or where the tracking is done straight to the computer but the mixing is done with a range of analogue outboard gear that signals are d/a converted, sent to for processing and the a/d converted back in to the computer. How does one draw a line?

I'm a bit puzzled about the UB40 comparison? Surely the master comes from the same place (probably originally a 24track analogue tape machine) it's been digitised to go on cd but the newer one is post 'loudness wars' and has therefore been unnecessarily touched up (aka had the nuts limited off it) in post before release.

I'm guessing it's less about signal chain and more to do with how 'far' from the master any itteration or version is and how many (and how much) 'touching up' it's had in the meantime?

[attilio7]

But, judging by this somewhat disturbing picture, there was still plenty of analogue gear,

what disturbed you most the gear or the short's

[Rare Bird]

Well The keyboard you see with the nice wood cabinet is a 'Synclavier II' which is early 1980's, however that on it's side behind him is a Sequential Circuits 'Drumtracks' they came out around 1984..So i'm guessing at mid 80's shot..

[Rothchild]

Well The keyboard you see with the nice wood cabinet is a 'Synclavier II' which is early 1980's, however that on it's side behind him is a Sequential Circuits 'Drumtracks' they came out around 1984..So i'm guessing at mid 80's shot..

Yup, the picture is 1984.

The shorts are the disturbing part, most of the gear I'd give limbs for.

Interestingly later on in the article Trevor Horn says that he can't really hear the difference between stuff made 'in the box' against stuff made through an analogue mixer, the bit that really matters to him now to gain accuracy is the room he's mixing in.

[Peter Stockwell]

I just bought a wodge of those "early" CDs, and they sound way better than I thought at the time. I've been comparing the Genesis 2007/8 remasters with the 1985/1986 CDs.

I can't see why they bothered to remaster, all you get is CDs that are 9dB or so hotter. Honestly I think the Modern vs old CD is another symptom of the Loudness Wars.

[DSJR]

Back in the day, there wasn't the headroom now offered by 24 bit for any tweaking or other editing that needed to be done, so any severe dediting would be audible. I also think that mastering engineers used to be deliberately over-cautious with the levels, since clipping peaks are horrible in the digital domain. Quite often, it's perfectly ok to "normalise" the levels without compression and this often boosts the level. So many CD players can sound weedy on low level signals and just turning up the volume control doesn't make it better. This may be different on modern players, but is something I recall from past years on the popular budget to mid priced players.

I'm not a huge Genesis fan, but Trick Of The Tail is a favourite of mine. I have an original blue-label CD as well as the remastered one from ten or more years ago. The latter to me is rather better, either because the tapes were an earlier generaltion (Charisma/Virgin had copies to make the records from according to one of the band when interviewed), or because the mixer-editor used in the fresh transfers was better. Either way, the sound is better on the later offering to me. I also heard a track from "Selling England..." yesterday on radio 2 ffs, and the extra clarity on this was startling (may have been the remixed edition for all I know).

ADD-DDD whatever, IT'S THE MASTERING that's the most important, and I wonder how much necessary tweaking is done on the analogue domain in any case, as any extra distortions are seemingly more benign to our hearing?

[RobHolt]

ADD-DDD whatever, IT'S THE MASTERING that's the most important

Yes, yes and again yes.

To emphasise this, go back to a previous period and look at how much we enjoy some of the classic recordings from the 50s.
Nearly all suffer from very obvious technical issues - tape squash, noise, limited peak headroom, and above all quite gross speed instability (flutter) which manifests as cracked piano tone, wiry strings and fizzy (aka textured/detailed in audiofile parlance )top end. This flutter, caused mainly by the tape machines of the day, is massively higher in magnitude than the jitter we seem to obsess over today in digital systems.

Yet we enjoy these performances hugely

That's because the performances are of course in many cases excellent, but also the mastering is a cut above the norm today. We can debate the reasons why, but much of the problem is likely the need to master today for portable audio used in noisy environments, be that the car or iPod user on a train.

Rob

[Rare Bird]

Dave:
I bought all the Genesis Japanese Hybird 'SACD' upto 'Wind & Wuthering', 'Selling England' sounded good but 'Trick Of' sounded unbearably bright to me, i sold that straight away. However i'm wanting to sell the lot but people won't give me enogh for em so they may aswell stay packed away in a box.. The 'Nursery Cryme reveals something in the recording i nevr heard before, it irritates me, i cannot be doing with things like this..

[Alan]

Its very very hard to listen through the gross differences in mastering loudness and compression between two issues of the same track, and focus on the tonal warmth that's often found on a recording with the 'AAD' SPARS code. There are equally fine 'ADD' and 'DDD' recordings out there, and if things were on an equal playing field we would truly be debating minutiae.

Mastering is many times more important than the recording method. For instance, some exceptionally fine classical recordings are 'DDD', but the fairly recent efforts by Ben Harper to record in an 'AAD' technique were disappointing, to say the least.

They are two extreme examples, but they show that there is no absolute truth.

Has anyone read Bob Katz' 'Honor Roll' of uncompressed masters? It's a very useful resource, though by no means exhaustive.

As his list will show (if you buy some of the recordings), great sound is often found on AAD discs, but that's not because the are AAD; it's more to do with the time they were produced, or the production values of the mastering engineer (or those he was allowed to apply).

(BTW, one 'AAD' disc I have always loved is Weezer's 'Blue album' (no title). Its got some wonderful tonal qualities for a rock album.)

[synsei]

Although the AAD CD's I mention earlier in the thread (I've found I own two more since, both being classic Rick Wakeman albums) sound excellent I am leaning towards the belief that a good recording is just that, regardless of how it has been obtained and mastered. How else could albums such as Nils Lofgren Live, along with many others, transcend the limitations of Spotify and still sound utterly amazing?