David Byrne on CD vs LP sound

[bluefuzz]

What do you think of the parts of the book that aren't engineering?

It's a few years since I read Byrne's book, but I don't remember being much impressed with the rest of the content. It certainly didn't leave much of an impression.

I'm currently reading Music, Math and Mind by David Sulzer (AKA Dave Soldier of The Kropotkins, Soldier String Quartet etc.) which I would rather recommend. Sulzer/Soldier is a neuroscientist at Columbia as well as a proper experimental/avant-garde artist, not just someone who cosplays one when Brian Eno is in the room ...

 

[rcstevensonaz]

It's only true in a loose sense because of dithering and the fact that there is always a noise floor.

When was dithering incorporated into digital audio conversation, especially for 16 bit audio? Was the already commonly implemented a at the time the CD format was released — where the original CD players included dithering — or did it come into widespread adoption later?

 

[rcstevensonaz]

the Buthole Surfers drove the last coffin nail in 1988

A fun band, but they stink! My brother took me to see them playing at a bar (Howards, near Bowling Green State University) in the mid-1980s.

 

[voodooless]

When was dithering incorporated into digital audio conversation, especially for 16 bit audio? Was the already commonly implemented a at the time the CD format was released — where the original CD players included dithering — or did it come into widespread adoption later?

Dithering is not something a playback medium would typically add unless it would do some kind of processing on audio. So it should be baked into the PCM data already. In the early RedBook days, dithering was most certainly way less common. Only at the end of the 80s, it became quite common and quickly became ubiquitous. Anything after about 1990 is most probably dithered.

 

[tineared]

Big Talking Heads fan here, but I have not read Mr Burns' book
But I know better than to argue with a psycho killer

 

[antcollinet]

Dithering is not something a playback medium would typically add unless it would do some kind of processing on audio. So it should be baked into the PCM data already. In the early RedBook days, dithering was most certainly way less common. Only at the end of the 80s, it became quite common and quickly became ubiquitous. Anything after about 1990 is most probably dithered.

My guess is that before then, most digital audio would be "naturally" dithered by the noise floor of the recording studio and tape masters being higher than the quantisation noise of even un-dithered 16 bits. There are certainly some of my early CD's where I can hear the studio noise floor - and more digital transfers of earlier recordings where that is so.

 

[MRC01]

My guess is that before then, most digital audio would be "naturally" dithered by the noise floor of the recording studio and tape masters being higher than the quantisation noise of even un-dithered 16 bits. There are certainly some of my early CD's where I can hear the studio noise floor - and more digital transfers of earlier recordings where that is so.

And if the recording uses microphones, mics & preamps are analog with a noise floor typically louder than -96 dB.

 

[Snarfie]

As a big Talking Heads fan, I read his book a few years ago.

As a big Talking Heads fan who is also an electrical engineer who worked on digital audio, I was appalled to read the chapter on digital audio. How in the world does that get past editors? How in the world can somebody think to write a chapter in their book about a subject they don't understand at all?

I still love his music, but that chapter is an embarrassment.

The recording engineer of Steely Dan Roger Nichols about digital, analog an transients that already starts disapearing from analog mastertapes with in a few hour fascinating to read.

Part of the Nichols interview:

Roger Nichols: Yes, and it’s mostly because when I record something on a digital machine..um, you know, and I play it back ten years from now it will sound exatly the same. So if there is some little artifact because it’s digital, it’s a majorable (sic) artifact, and it’s going to be the same artifact ten years from now. If I record something on Analog tape and it doesn’t matter whether I’m do using Dolby SR, Dolby A or DBX or no noise reduction or whatever it is, if you record something on a piece of analog tape and play it back later the same day, the same program is not on the tape. And there’s nothing so far that anybody’d been able to do about that, you know, like those little magnetic particles are made to be able to wander around and they do so by themselves while the tape is just sitting there. I’ve made DAT copies when I’m cutting tracks, and then have an automation snap shot of the mix and then later that evening put the tape back on, play it back, compare it with the Dat, and there’s already starting to be a difference. And by the time a week or two weeks go by and it’s time to mix, a lot of the transients have started to disappear. If you use this as a tool, some people like what this does, and it sort of helps to mix all their music together, that’s fine, but, you know, you can’t say that Analog tape with Dolby SR is as good as Digital. It might be as quiet, and but it’s not going to retain the signal, you know, as long as Digital tape. So that’s my biggest worry about Analog tape.

 

[Multicore]

The recording engineer of Steely Dan Roger Nichols about digital, analog an transients that already starts disapearing from analog mastertapes with in a few hour fascinating to read.

Fascinating indeed. What in Nichols' environment was producing that rapid degradation, I wonder. Maybe something near where he kept only analog tape was working like a gentle degausser?

 

[Snarfie]

Fascinating indeed. What in Nichols' environment was producing that rapid degradation, I wonder. Maybe something near where he kept only analog tape was working like a gentle degausser?

Besides Nichols was an outstanding experienced sound engineer there are several sources conclude the same as he.

One of them :
The IASA (International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives) has a section in “Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers” that describes print-through: the unintentional transfer of magnetization between layers of a wound reel, creating pre-echo or post-echo. It notes that this effect appears immediately after recording and increases over time

Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers

 

[MRC01]

Besides Nichols was an outstanding experienced sound engineer there are several sources conclude the same as he.

One of them :
The IASA (International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives) has a section in “Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers” that describes print-through: the unintentional transfer of magnetization between layers of a wound reel, creating pre-echo or post-echo. It notes that this effect appears immediately after recording and increases over time

Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers

Print-through was clearly audible on several high quality LP pressings I had back in the day. The common symptom was a very quiet part of music that has a sudden crescendo. During the quiet part you could hear the crescendo quietly about 2 seconds before it hit, like a pre-echo. Because it was always about 2 seconds, which is close to 1 revolution on an LP, I never knew whether this pre-echo came from the magnetic tape on the reel, or whether large excursions (high amplitudes) in a record groove impinged slightly on the adjacent grooves.

 

[Multicore]

Besides Nichols was an outstanding experienced sound engineer there are several sources conclude the same as he.

One of them :
The IASA (International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives) has a section in “Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers” that describes print-through: the unintentional transfer of magnetization between layers of a wound reel, creating pre-echo or post-echo. It notes that this effect appears immediately after recording and increases over time

Handling and Storage of Audio and Video Carriers

Yes, of course, print through. We've discussed being able to hear tape print through on some digital releases here.

 

[Snarfie]

Yes, of course, print through. We've discussed being able to hear tape print through on some digital releases here.

Guess loss in transients is one of these side effects.

 

[DVDdoug]

Actually, my friend at a studio where he recently recorded did confirm to me Young is very deaf. Even though he kept insisting on certain recording idiosyncrasies. Such as sending the signal to an open reel recording head, picking the sound from the playing head and then digitize that to 96/24…. Those few cm on tape made it an “analog” recording.

Due to the NAB equalization, tape DOES have some special saturation characteristics when overdriven that are different from "regular" saturation-distortion. But that can be simulated digitally without tape hiss (or other analog limitations). And he probably wasn't saturating the tape as an "effect"... I'd guess it was operating at normal levels.

I read something once about a guitar player who insisted on recording the output from his amp with a mic (that's actually a common practice). The recording engineer recorded both direct and with the mic but he didn't use the mic track in the mix. I assume he was using an amp/cabinet simulator plug-in and the guitar player never knew. Of course the guitar in the final mix is going to sound different from what he was hearing anyway.

Neil Young did make some good music. A lot of audio engineers and producers make good recordings without "deep technical knowledge" and often with some "miseducation" . Most audio engineers don't have traditional engineering degrees... and there are many actual engineers & scientists who are "audiophools". Audio is a special field of study.

 

[Multicore]

Guess loss in transients is one of these side effects.

Something like that, I suppose. I mean, for some signal to show up here from over there I'd imagine that over there has to lose some amount of something. Loss of what exactly, I hesitate to guess.

 

[HalSF]

No, it is fundamental misunderstanding of how digital audio works that is the batsignal.


Care to explain how the style of his beard has anything to do with the validity of the video content. Of perhaps you can explain how the video content doesn't help to explain how digital audio really works, for the benefit of those spouting audiophile mythology - or perhaps more importantly for the benefit of those listening to them?

My post was motivated by the feeling is that the old and tedious debates about analog magic vs. digital sterility have been exhausted, and that sane acceptance of digital sound quality has decisively prevailed. The David Byrne quotation that kicked off this thread had to be unearthed from way back in 2012. Neil Young has also propounded a lot of similar bunk (while successfully making great-sounding recordings for his entire career). Likewise the suite of Monty Montgomery videos is also somewhat ancient, from the period when these debates were still raging. Reviving all of that in 2025 and saying "hey, what gives?" is kicking a dead horse IMO.

It's doubtless unfair that I feel predisposed to make fun of ol' Monty and his neckbeard, or maybe it's more accurate to say I'm making fun of the habit of posting his explanatory myth-busting "well-akshually " videos arguing that 16/44 sound is excellent and entirely sufficient and that 24/192 playback is unnecessary or even counterproductive. It happens less often these days, but I used to see those videos thrown down by the dozen with a "checkmate, losers!" flourish that rankled me. Of course, Monty was right! But I still like to mock him, partly because I'm a degenerate punk.

 

[antcollinet]

And if the recording uses microphones, mics & preamps are analog with a noise floor typically louder than -96 dB.

Exactly what I meant, mics being part of the studio. There was very little music that was purely electronic synth back then.

 

[whereisbrian]

This is just David Byrne's opinion; it's not a proven or proven fact.
It's a bit like him discussing how to cook sausages or the weather: we don't know his level of expertise on these subjects.

 

[Grimoire]

This is just David Byrne's opinion; it's not a proven or proven fact.
It's a bit like him discussing how to cook sausages or the weather: we don't know his level of expertise on these subjects.

I think we know exactly his level of expertise on digital versus analogue audio.

 

[MRC01]

Guess loss in transients is one of these side effects.

Make sense, since high frequencies are typically lost first, and they are essential for clean, sharp transients.