Scrape scrape scrape

[hirez]

A couple of years ago, some splendid type was good enough to pick 'The nine symphonies' (Yer Beethoven, innit. von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsche Gramaphon - top quality gear. None of yer motorway services spinny rack two disc set of popular classics mauled by a squad of bored sessioneers) off my Amazon list.

As is traditional, I had put it there as a note to self for when I was flush, rather than expecting anyone else to fall for it.

Anyway. I hauled the wrapping off the thing and stuffed the first CD into the computer that is connected to the good quality amplifier and good quality speakers in the room where I spend most of my listening-to-things time.

God what a disappointment.

'Rock' music can cope with fighting for audio spectrum with a set of PCs generating a deal of white noise. Beethoven? Not happening. If it's all up loud enough to be able to appreciate the quiet bits, then the movements where it all kicks off properly are comfortably loud enough to be heard at the end of the road.

I could probably get away with that in NW3, although some clever bugger would come round to shove a note under the door about being in thrall to the traditionalists and would I care to play some Webern? (Ans: No. Sorry. Stockhausen, on the other hand... Which itself is a weird backreference for having listened to lots of Neubauten, Kraftwerk and dreadful electronic skronk from the Bleep Shop.) However, the residents of BS16 would rise up and call me a Cotswold ponce.

Anyway. Since it is quiet due to being cold outside I tried that first CD in the downstairs rig that has never been turned up over 30%. Oh good heavens yes. I think I might have been reading a book, but buggered if I remember a sentence.

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

per Radio 4 today (and ignorant wibblings by some bloke out of a band), just rip it to MP3 and the evil compression will hammer it flat for you.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Oh, and von Karajan is too much like Joy Division. Does a workmanlike job annd all, but there's that faint overtone of Nazi hanging around in the background.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I have the Karajan recordings of which you write. Give me the recording of Furtwängler opening the 1951 Bayreuth Festival with Beethoven's Ninth over them.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Alas not -- in practice the dynamic range on much classical is such that even once ripped you will end up with a mix of "too quiet to hear" or "too loud to tolerate" on many pieces... unless you know of a ripper which can flatten the volume range actually within a track -- in which case please let me know.

The problem is much worsened by listening on headphones too. Many of my favourite pieces have their range such that I forget I'm listening to anything until there's an unpleasant blaring sound 10 minutes later.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Mind you, for contemporary music I usually prefer the unpleasant blaring sound to begin with track one and only end when the album does.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Winamp plugins? Surely someone has done a compressor?

I've got a complicated 19" rack mount one here, but hardware is just so passé.

[steer.livejournal.com]

You are correct thanks -- such plugins exist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression

Alas, what I need is a "within track" thing so my relatively primitive mp3 player can get preprocessed ones.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

This is just what compressors do - the adjustable bits set a curve and a time response beforehand, then you just let them go at it. They shouldn't need re-adjustment during a track, no matter how the amplitude varies.

A compressor that needs re-adjustment as the amplitude of a signal changes is just a volume control.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was a hugely unclear post. What I mean is that I want something which can preprocess the mp3 track and produce a "flattened" output mp3 -- but perhaps some of those plugins on that page can do that -- years since I used winamp. I was mentally evaluating the mp3 processing tools I do have and I have one that can equalise levels between different tracks on mp3s and produce mp3s of uniform "loud".

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I imagine that Ma will have a copy, since she digs Beethoven.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

[FX: Starts Goldwave]

Yep - compressor/expander towards the top of the effects menu.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Nice -- job done!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

MP3ed it. Sounds dreadful, even to my bollixed hearing.

EAC -> Lame at alleged best quality VBR, etc. (You may imagine my surprise that Google returns several articles of bottomspeak in re. optimal encoding strategies.)

Much more experimentation required. And I am purposely not thinking about the 'fun' involved in a massive re-rip/encode session should it turn out that there's A Better Way.

(That alleged better way does not involve a Brennan, Linn Ekspensiv(tm) or a very soundproofed Netapp on the end of a long bit of fibre)

[oryctolagus.livejournal.com]

For absolute best results - go and hear some of it done. When there is no intervening kit between your ears and the orchestra it's extraordinary. I am permanently amazed at the difference in a single instrument (my singing teacher's harpsichord nearly scared me to death) - a live orchestra is pant-wettingly amazing. I have made a promise to myself to go to at least one classical concert this year.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Big 70s-style cans, preferably on the end of curly-cord? Should of course be accompanied by scandiwegian leather sofa and a room empty but for your hi-fi stereo and a glass of something with ice cubes in it ...