David Byrne on CD vs LP sound

[Putter]

Byrne graduated from Lansdowne High School in southwest Baltimore County, Maryland. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island, during the 1970–71 term and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore during the 1971–72 term before dropping out according to Wikipedia.

In other words he's just a guy with a high school diploma and some art school education and therefore no science training AFACIT. Therefore, his opinion has just as much vaidity as my opinion that he should never have left the Talking Heads, just an opinion with no actual proof.

 

[Beave]

But his chapter about digital audio isn't just opinions.

An opinion would be something like "I prefer working with analog tape for my recordings."

That's not what is going on. He tries to give facts, not just opinions, to explain how digital audio works, but gets the facts all wrong.

 

[MRC01]

But his chapter about digital audio isn't just opinions.
An opinion would be something like "I prefer working with analog tape for my recordings."
That's not what is going on. He tries to give facts, not just opinions, to explain how digital audio works, but gets the facts all wrong.

Yep. He could say he likes analog tape artifacts like soft compression or the increasing harmonic distortion as it approaches saturation. That would at least be honest. He wouldn't be the first - these are well known and preferred by many (myself not included).

PS: that said, several Talking Heads recordings were excellent for their time, sound engineering well above typical for pop music (admittedly, a low bar). Byrne was a perfectionist who hired skilled engineers, even if he didn't understand how they pulled off the great sonics.

 

[DWPress]

I know a lot of musicians who record and produce music on pretty much every level of fame - you'd be surprised how few of them have any sort of clue what happens, in a technical sense, after it leaves their instrument, pedalboard, MIDI etc. They always appreciate hearing my system for sure but not really interested in the nuances or sciency bits. Hopefully the engineer just nods his head and knows what they're doing.

 

[Snarfie]

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

That’s why I favour fully digital recordings like Hiromi - Temptation on Telarc, which was captured 100% in the digital domain (recorded on the Sonoma DSD workstation with EMM Labs converters at the time).

No analog tape in the chain, so no printthrough, no magnetic domain drift, and no gradual loss of transients. What you hear now will sound identical decades from now. The dynamics and attacks are preserved indefinitley. Digital at it best

 

[DSJR]

Motorhead - Leicester De Montford Hall - 1982. Life long tinnitus since.

Led Zeppelin, Earls Court 1975 (Saturday gig). Tinnitus started, abated once I changed jobs to a quieter area outside of London, came back to bite in my late forties (permanent hearing loss came on quite quickly in my early sixties) and it's worse than ever currently as I have a 'cold' which always fecks my ears up further. Otovent helped my left ear but not my right one currently so music listening is out of it until it clears as the 'aids make it worse...

I wondered too if Mr Byrne could still hear anything at his age...


As an aside, I remember reading a comment in around 1990 by Robert Fripp that back then, he felt that 'digital' was effective but Dolby SR was better to his ears. Many years later when the King Crimson back catalogue was being properly remastered, he had no qualms about later digital at all, although I think one early album went through a valve stage in the mastering process as both he and mastering engineer (Simon Heyworth, Super Audio Mastering) felt that doing this served the music better - I think I remember this correctly from RFs diary (on the KC and related site) of the time.

 

[Ropeburn]

Anyone who claims "infinite resolution" of vinyl has no idea about the graininess of the universe, let alone the whopping size of PVC molecules. Anything more than 12-14 bit equivalent just isn't physically possible.

Instead of celebrating vinyl recording as one of the great micromechanical achievements of mankind it is, and simply enjoying it, they're assigning quasi-magical properties.

 

[Anton S]

Has anyone ever actually heard an LP without surface noise or an analog tape without some hiss? I haven't. I grew up with those formats but never encountered such an animal. Even the half-track Dolby tapes running at 15 ips that I've heard always had some.

 

[Blake Klondike]

As a sidenote: I stopped going to rock concerts after getting near-deaf for a day... Before I need hearing protection going there, I can buy the CD or Blu-Ray later and listen at a sane level. It's all gotten insane IMHO.

not to mention that they cost absurd amounts of money. i think i have gone to my last non-acoustic concert, unless roger waters takes the wall on the road again.

 

[Blake Klondike]

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 ...

i think david byrne is a legitimate heavy-- genuinely smart person who makes good records. i got a lot from that book in little fits and starts: like considering how music behaves in the space it was intended for vs. otherwise. and there was some interesting business stuff in there, as well. i liked the conversational tone of it, and the way he included information he has picked up all over the world.

 

[Blake Klondike]

I really enjoyed the rest of it - but I have to admit, after reading the chapter on digital audio, I couldn't help but wonder if he was that wrong on some of the other subjects too (and that I just wasn't well-educated enough on those subjects to know that he was wrong on them).

i can say as a music teacher and songwriter with a university education, his theory stuff was pretty much on the money. and it was interesting reading him talking about it in a conversational tone, rather than in textbook-ese.

 

[Blake Klondike]

he's a musician, not an engineer. he's susceptible to the same misinformation as everyone else

Neil Young is perhaps the most famous example

i forget if i said this in my OP or not, but he did throw in the "vinyl sounds better" caveat, though he was likely just citing personal preference. that being said, he also includes that he listens to 99% of his music on mp3 (the book was written pre-streaming)

 

[DVinylfan]

If it was worth listening to one person comparing apples to oranges that person would be David Byrne. Scientists are rightly judged by the quality of their results. For artists, the rules are somewhat different.

 

[Blake Klondike]

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?

If it was worth listening to one person comparing apples to oranges that person would be David Byrne. Scientists are rightly judged by the quality of their results. For artists, the rules are somewhat different.
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i agree with this-- i think it's interesting to hear what he has to say about all this stuff because i like the way his mind works. i like that he just wrote about what interested him, too. the chapter on choreography was great.