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Post by jsdyson on Jan 11, 2018 15:40:24 GMT
I am hoping more for a discussion instead of 'survey', but this matter has been interesting to me since day one. I have two versions of 'name of the game' (trucated to 30 seconds, but I can supply those really interested in full versions if already have copy of ABBA Gold or whatever... Here it is -- there are two versions -- one is a 30second snippet of a version from a Polar disk. The other is a processed and somewhat roughly cleaned up version where the voice is clearer/more open sounding. My big question is if the very 'mixed' sound of ABBA is of integral importance, or would it have been 'better' to have had a clearer rendition of the voices. It seems like about 1/2 of the songs have the voices very mixed, while others have relatively clear renditions of the singer (usually A or AF.) Song files: nog-orig.mp3 (original), nog-remixcomp.mp3 (clarified, but probably inferior version) spaces.hightail.com/space/pG4t4ZFnyBNow, in my opinion, this attemp/demot of producing a 'clearer' version of the voice is inferior (from both technical and artistic reasons), even though the technical aspect can probably be made to be equivalent given a significant investment. Would the clearer version have been better from the beginning (assuming better mixing/creativity/etc), or is the somewhat 'foggy' sound of some of the ABBA songs really a part of the expected personality of the group recordings? Given the Polar (or Polydor) versions are usually considered better than the others (e.g. various US manufacturers -- which I agree with), this is a comparison of one of the best normally available versions with a hacked-up (admittedly) but clearer version in some respect. I guess the real question is -- if it would have been done more clearly to begin with, would it have been better/happier/more enjoyable? I don't know the answer to the question myself, but this has been one of the imponderable questions that I have had almost the first time that I listened to ABBA. I do really like their music, and enjoy their recordings as-is, but could they have been 'better'?If 'clearer', more voice-transparent versions could have been made available, would hit have been worth it? Please note -- I am not criticising them or claiming that I could have been better, but otherwise I have so much respect and have historically enjoyed their music so very much -- this is simply interesting to me... John Dyson |
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Post by josef on Jan 11, 2018 16:51:48 GMT
I'm not that knowledgeable about the technical aspects of music but I like to think I have a good ear and since I bought some new headphones I believe I can hear things in the music that I hadn't noticed before. I've listened to the uploads you've posted and I can definitely hear more clarity. I'm all for hearing the voices more clearly and I understand what you say about the slightly 'foggy' sound at times but it has never affected the amount of enjoyment I (still) get from the songs. I still struggle to pick out Agnetha in the chorus of The Visitors, for instance, but that might just be my old ears! I'm unable to enter into any in-depth discussion or analysis of the music unfortunately as I just don't have the vocabulary. Perhaps I need to listen more intently to the uploads. But thanks for doing this, it's very much appreciated.
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Post by foreverfan on Jan 11, 2018 17:50:33 GMT
^^^^
alas ditto for me as well, being of more advanced years..lol .
I guess it's a tough question for many of us to answer, so hope you get some.
I do still at times hear something I hadn't before, the complexity of the later years hid many things, that perhaps only new formats bring to the fore, ie from vinyl/ cassette to cd to download, brings clarity.
Alas, I'm old fashioned enough to just enjoy the music, without having to dissect/break it down.
hope you get answers
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Post by jsdyson on Jan 11, 2018 18:40:18 GMT
I am intending to be very respectful -- even though I initiated this discussion, and interested in various peoples ideas/input, I am not meaning to criticize 'ABBA' nor downplaying the enjoyment that I (we all) have gotten over the years!!!
The input so-far has been helpful to me, and in fact pretty much agrees with my sensibilities that pretty much is: "I got lots of enjoyment from ABBA, and cleaning up some technical details won't change that fact.". My sensibilities also include (which all might not agree), that a little "clean up" as long as it doesn't go too far might be a good thing.
Of all of the music sources that I am testing/experimenting with WRT cleaning up the audio, I have probably spent about 1/3 of my time on ABBA stuff. I am working with approx 5-10 different groups of music sources (Carpenters, Anne Murray, Simon & Garfunkel, Queen, Carly Simon, Suzanne Vega, Some orchestral material) plus some newer ones for reference (Taylor Swift, EVescience(sp), and other relatively more recent groups), and some generic sources (Bangles, Bananarama, Chicago ) for simple verification to make sure that the intense processing doesn't break any of the other music. All of the groups/entertainers have different amounts of recording innovation, and final processing to produce the recording to be distributed. In some cases I really enjoy the music, and in other cases the music might be tedious or borderline irritating to me -- but the goal is to at least SLIGHTLY improve the listening experience from a technical standpoint WITHOUT causing noticeable damage. I have NO interest in hurting/changing the artistic choices.
If I do have a 'criticism' per-se about some of the ABBA distributions, it is not with ABBA nor the recording engineer, but rather sometimes the production (finalizing/final processing) of the records/CDs. Even though I have presented clearer copies of some of the material -- there is NO criticism of the ABBA team, because all of the stuff that I am showing is IN THE RECORDINGS. I didn't add or take away anything (other than some emphasis, similar in concept of tone control.)
Again, my ONLY possible criticism (if I was playing a judgmental game, which I AM NOT), is in the production of the records/CDs. The great variability between records/CDs appears to come from the choice of the music distributor. I do forget where the original ABBA version that I have used came from, but I seem to remember it was a Spanish or Portuguese language distribution -- and they seemed to have the RAWest version of any distribution that I have heard. I have had that copy for 5+yrs -- and has languished in my archives from back with the storage space was expensive. Since I am lucky enough to have a relatively RAW and relatively un-processed copy of some ABBA recordings, I can sometimes make more obvious changes because I have a relatively less processed copy to begin with. Some of my other work actually uses very processed copy, and have had pretty good results with those also.
If I had a goal about ABBA -- it would be to help produce a distribution version of some of their recordings with more of a 2000's technical sensibility.
One note -- I mistakenly placed two full versions of 'Under Attack' on my repo-site (218.mp3, and 218-remix.mp3). I am going to have to remove them before the ENDOFDAY -- wanted to keep the clips short. However, when I first listened to these versions of 'Under Attack', I was amazed with how much of the music is 'unavailable' to one's ears in the normal commercial recordings. You just might want to grab and listen to these versions (esp the 'vanilla' 218.mp3) -- they are a musical experience. I actually like the 218-remix better. I have about 30-40 of these songs reprocessed, and it they are just so pretty. I won't be able to distribute all of them, but I hope to make my tools available (hopefully soon/almost definitely free) for others (you'all) to be able to clean-up old recordings also.
My bigger (more global) goal is to produce a set of general purpose tools that support the gentle, but important cleaning up of older recordings (without changing their character.) My scope is limited to take recording, but someday if I had the right hardware for testing, I'd do some things to help with records also (but the tick/pop issues have been pretty much solved -- the nonlinearity on the other hand probably still could use some work.)
Given a film analogy, I would NOT be colorizing the old films (for example), but rather removing the scratches, mitigating some of the grain, and rebalancing the color to be more accurate.
Sincerely, and interested in more input and more ideas!!!
John Dyson
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Post by jsdyson on Jan 12, 2018 13:20:01 GMT
Just for fun, on the repo-site, I dropped a super cleaned up copy of 'Name of the Game'. It is EXACTLY the same was what is on ABBA Gold, but has been cleaned up to the point where the leading voice is quite clear. It has a bit of a stereo image problem -- and is definitely not commercial quality even though it is very clear sounding without losing its music value (in my opinion.) This rendition appears to have exposed a bug in my 'restoration' processor -- I eliminated the pseudo-DolbyA as the cause. The reason why I am making it available is simply to show how much can be done with a little signal processing. NOTHING has been added artificially, and nothing has been completely removed.
The result of Name Of the Game (and I think, SuperTrouper) came from the various restoration processor pieces and a little bit of careful manipulation, but without the restoration processor, the final stages could not have been done.
Frankly, I found listening to these (and comparing with whatever other release) to be a lot of fun.
John
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Post by jsdyson on Jan 15, 2018 13:58:56 GMT
For fun & enjoyment -- I applied my technology to a few songs. These are going to reside online for a few days, but they are probably as clear as anyone has heard outside of a studio (or without a tape smuggled out.) These are from a Spanish or Portuguese release from many years ago, and cleaned up as well as the current software design can do. The song names are SOSClean, TakeChanceClean and a few others. These were processed for vocal quality, but sound pretty good anyway. You'll notice a LOT less 'squeezed' sound. This technology works on other material also, but less dramatic (e.g. can take some of the raspyness from Karen Carpenter's recordings -- smoothing the voice out significantly -- showing the depth.) The software is definitely planned for source release (free) soon after binary in afew weeks. If you compare even with Polar releases, the sound will be much smoother. The site also seems to provide for direct play of mp3's again, so hope it works for easy use: spaces.hightail.com/space/pG4t4ZFnyBThe copy of Dreamworld comes from a terribly distorted/destroyed copy. The processor did a fantastic job of reaching into the signal and pulling out something that sounds almost correct -- even I was amazed. The results here come from the very latest version -- intend to freeze so that I can produce a distributable & fully tested version of the processor. John |
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Post by jsdyson on Jan 22, 2018 11:30:31 GMT
Man -- I am so embarrassed. II had lost some of my hearing and it returned (illness) -- so very embarassed as to some of the examples that I had created. My processors (both of them) had a fatal flaw in part of the implementation. There was a very esoteric DSP design problem which caused lots of HF intermodulation products to be produced (hash in the sound.) This was especially bad for ABBA -- two voices with moderately high pitch mixing together. Normally, their sound is interesting, and it sounded ok with my limited hearing. A day or so ago, the hearing came back and I got about 10dB more hearing at 10kHz. Listening to my examples -- YUCK!!! I did some research, and found some problems -- most DSP engineers would not have any idea as to the problem, but there are some subtle things that have to be done when working with audio and fast gain control. Slower gain control software which has nice, easy 10-20msec time constant attack times don't have this problem. The expander software has to have 1msec or faster attack times to sound correct -- and that is where the problems become obvious. There is a complex interaction between the audio and the level detection mechanism -- and 'rectifiers', 'absolute value functions' or things like that seem to be much worse than 'square law' detectors. I didn't realize this an a 'feeling' sense because I couldn't hear the problems. So -- I studied the problem -- learning a lot, and developed some schemes which provide essentially the same effective attack/release needed for proper sound, but also mitigate the effects of the extreme hashy intermod created as a side effect of the gain control detection process. Even the simple pseudo-DolbyA processor had some problems -- even though that cool notch that Ray Dolby designed into it really helps, it doesn't do enough to fix the problem (apparently some mixing between the sampling, signal and the nonlinear detection function), which adds to the hash. My first examples -- with NO tuning, extra processing, no EQ, no matrixing or anything like that are coming off of the assembly line. The sound is VERY 'vanilla', and isn't meant to impress other than to show that the hash is pretty much under control. The ABBA songs in the following repository have been 'fixed', and I am populating the repository as the music is coming off of the processing assembly line. There are some other songs on the repo, but it is the ABBA songs which have been fixed so far. spaces.hightail.com/space/pG4t4ZFnyBPerhaps the most interesting thing now is that when I distribute the new pseudo-DolbyA, it contains some of my technology that I wasn't planning on divulging (helps to fix the intermod.) John Dyson |
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