Commercial editing packages such as Adobe Audition offer many forms of noise reduction which will target your pops and hisses etc. Of course the filters cannot be perfect and you get a reduction in sound quality.

 

hate to say this:
the old vinyl stuff sounds like shit, the same as it sounded back then.

audio is a small spectrum. and the transport and store methods are well understood. the main losses occur at record /playback.


good:
i am listening to more a variety than ever before
bad:
a lot of content is lost when the technology changes.

 

I don't know, man. There sometimes is virtue in the *way* music is played. For instance, a Peavey and a Marshall stack are functionally equivalent, as are a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Stratocaster. But those things have their own sound, regardless of how accurately or inaccurately they amplify the motion of steel strings. I don't think anyone who knows what they are talking about would suggest a Les Paul played through a Marshall stack sounds, or should sound, exactly like a Fender through a Peavey. And rather than try and make a Fender-Peavey combo sound like a Les Paul-Marshall combo, one should just get the combo they like, and play to its strengths.

I mean, if you insist on total accuracy of the performance, at what point do you begin to acknowledge the inherent characteristics of the equipment are at least a part of the performance? If you take tubes out of the picture, in favor of no distortion, say, you are removing what makes some things sound good. Are hum-bucking pickups ever going to entirely replace single-coils? Should they ever? Is it fair to say that some of the sound quality in a Stradivarius violin might be due to technical flaws in the way the wood amplifies and transmits vibrations, treating some better than others?

If you insist on technical perfection for recording and playback, do you then insist that the performance must be free of any distortion or interference? Would Jimi Hendrix sound as good if his sound tech had eliminated all feedback and distortion? And it's not just Jimi Hendrix, damn near everyone who uses an electric guitar uses distortion for effect at times, if not all the time.

Is technical perfection in recording and playback technology a worthy goal for all music, or would it be better to find and appreciate those imperfections which enhance the character and flavors of the listening experience, even if the result is a less-than-perfect technical reproduction of a given performance?

 

Reality is that transducers are no where near perfect. That begins with the microphone used in the first stage of a recording.

However, when the media deteriorates to the point where you can't stand to listen, one must draw the line. I'm not talking about a little distortion, or tape hiss (present on many vinyl recording). I'm referring to enough noise relative to the signal to detract from the music.

My biggest gripe has to do with companies that don't care how the final product comes out. Whether it is vinyl, tape, or CD, I've purchased recordings that are technically just $hit. There is no excuse for that.

 

I agree, shit in, shit out.

To draw a parallel, I used to record all my music (using Sonar 4 Producer ) in 96/24 Far superior to standard CD, but I actually went back to 48/16 The music I write was getting nothing from it.

Now there are guys using Protools HD rigs at 192.. the technology exists to capture every little peice or nuance of music in digital. The methods to play it back at what it was recorded with hasn't caught up yet.

I don't have a lot of experience with SACD or DVD Audio, and my gut tells me its a trasnistional phase anyway. But I think soon, records will truely be obsolete, and the only people that will still defend them are the old school guys that refuse to accept it's been surpassed.

CD IMO hasn't quite done it yet.

 

D-D-D = CD = better -- elsewhise Analog. I still buy most shit I can on vinyl and dump a CD though ...

 

Vinyl IS a pain in the butt, but I don't think that digital media will totally replace vinyl until it can produce the same experience. To some people, the experience is worth all the extra trouble.

By the way, vinyl does not always mean pop, hiss, hum, etc. I have some vinyl that is 30 years old, and still sounds wonderful. It takes a lot of work to keep it that way though.

To give you an example, a few months ago, a younger neighbor came in the house and I had an LP of Beethoven's 9th playing. He walked in, and and stopped and listened for a second and said that it sounded really good. He asked me who recorded the CD. When I told him it was a DDG LP, his eyes bugged out and he said that he didn't think LP's could sound so good. There were no discernible pops or crackles or hiss. It was just pure analog music. I bought that album in 1975, over 30 years ago.