Friday, March 18, 2011

Vol. I No. 4

Because only identical things vibrate identically, a given audio reproduction system is accurate only to the degree that its record configuration is identical to its playback configuration.

In Edison's original phonograph, a cone with a needle fixed at its apex served as a microphone during recording and as speaker during playback. I propose to market a technology that will similarly incorporate identical configurations for both modalities.

It is also possible in some respects to enhance the accuracy of traditional, pre-existing reproduction technologies such as vinyl and magnetic tape.

Recording in studios utilizes microphones which normally consist of a single element whereas most loudspeakers consist of two or more elements of different sizes with electronics to divide the signal between them called a 'crossover network.' By using speakers with a single size of element such as BOSE 901's and some Audience-brand models, you enhance the degree to which your playback configuration will resonate identically to the way the recording configuration resonated in the studio.

It could be effective likewise to route your playback signal through a studio mixing board, again, to enhance the similarity to the record configuration. If that is not convenient I recommend an all-analog graphic equalizer as a rough substitute.

Since studio recording in the analog era was done on magnetic tape and only later transferred to vinyl, accuracy may be enhanced by transferring your vinyl recordings to tape for final playback.

Because vinyl record 'cutting' systems, which engrave the master disc that is used to stamp the final copies, operate with a linear-tracking system instead of a pivoting tonearm, turntables of the linear-tracking type will also to some degree enhance the identity of your system with the system by which a given recording was produced.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Vol. I No. 5

"It is what it is" is a current expression that is in vogue, which implies that nothing can be other than what it is in fact composed of. I mention this to introduce my suggestion that the interested reader should examine the grooves of vinyl recordings known to be all-analog and others known to have been digitally processed by placing them under a microscope or stereoscope.

The digitally-processed record will be very greatly lacking in detail because "it is what it is" and cannot be more than that. The fact that digital audio "is what it is" allows hundreds or thousands of songs - if it is proper to call them that - to be stored in memories the size of postage stamps.

That is to say, it is the very limited, minimal nature of the digital representation that allows it to be stored in such minute dimensions. Again, its limited, minimal nature is why it can be transmitted and downloaded in only a few seconds for an entire composition. Under a stereoscope with good illumination and the proper magnification this limited, minimal nature of the digitalized representation will show up clearly alongside the infinite detail and unbroken continuity of the all-analog recording.

Would the reader like to know my thoughts on the ability to distinguish by ear alone between all-analog and digitalized reproduction? This in itself is a subject I may devote several numbers to.

In the first place I believe it is much easier to distinguish all-analog from digitalized audio in live performances than in recorded playback.

There are numerous live performance venues on Waikiki Beach, and at one of these I felt certain that a guitar duo performing there was using digital processing. I approached the foot of the stage during a break and saw a little digital tone-processing box, which the band confirmed was digital. I said to them that "that digital box is taking all the tone right out of your instruments." I remember thinking their sound had a very limited, minimal, sterile quality.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Vol. I No. 6

I very clearly remember the first time I heard the self-titled first LP by Violent Femmes, a band from Milwaukee, in 1983.

This album has the most terrifying, horrific, Gothic and tragic quality that one can possibly imagine. Clearly inspired by punk rock, and yet much or most of the instrumentation is non-electrified. The three members of the band were all around 20 years old or less as far as I know.

I believe the advent of Violent Femmes and their first record was a manifestation of the collective consciousness concerning the imminent termination of sales of all-analog recordings precisely at that time.

I was in the Salisbury dormitory of Burton-Judson Hall at the University of Chicago when I heard this record being played very loudly in a neighboring room. I was astonished at the high drama of the performance: the anger, the great animosity, the rabid tone of condemnation and resentment. I thought "What sort of music is this?!"

Many years later I purchased a cassette of Violent Femmes' first record which I only years after that learned was in fact a digitally processed re-issue of the original. I listened to it several times, trying to experience the great power of the record as I had known it before but was unable to do so.

I do not understand what is the mechanism - the how and why - of collective consciousness that would cause this band to emerge precisely at the time of the demise of analog audio - the end of music as we knew it, or, if you will, the day the music died.

But the fact that it did so, and that it sounds like a scream of terror and rage, suggests to me the very great import of this digital versus analog audio technology issue.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Vol. I No. 7

What I have always noticed with digital photographs is that objects in the photo seem to stand out unnaturally from the background. An image of a person, for example, will seem unnaturally 'de-contextualized' as if that image might have been merely inserted into the composition.

The reader, as I do, may notice that digitalized video, as on TV, has a kind of a cartoon-ish quality, in which the sharp, definitive elements of the image are emphasized at the expense of subtle elements of color tone and shading.

With all the hype surrounding digital TV and 'High Definition,' there is a tendency to give credence to the claim that this new video technology produces a better image.

Do you feel the way in which the digital image is portrayed almost painfully with a sort of minimal quality in which all the sharp lines define the images? And of course there is a conscious or semi-conscious tendency to tailor the content - the programming itself - to the characteristics of the medium. If I am reading it correctly, the most recent TV dramas and action shows are seeking to be very stylized, with characterizations that, instead of being complex or subtle, involve what appears to be a lot of angular, grim posing and posturing. I see this as the complement of a digital/hi-def medium that, rather than being superior to traditional analog TV, is ironically very much worse and which is well-adapted to a cartoon-ish minimalistic storyline of obvious, simple gestures and sharply drawn, one-dimensional thespian 'statements.'

The case is similar in regard to digital audio. Every instrument seems to clamor, in its turn, for prominence. Each of these instruments sounds out-of-context, as if it could have been recorded anywhere and inserted into the mix. The compositions we hear in this medium have no regard for rhythmic continuity. Because the medium does not reproduce it, the musicians disregard it. Music in the digital age is about posing and stylized image-making, not about the cultivation of rich emotions and spontaneous expressions.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Vol. I No. 8

I would like in this entry to give the reader a sort of guide to distinguishing all-analog recordings from recordings that have been digitally processed at some point during production.

The critical year, as best I have been able to determine, seems to be 1984. Prior to that year, one could buy vinyl and cassette offerings from major labels with a pretty good probability that one was getting a record that had never been digitalized.

It would be nice to be able to know what the specific practices were at the manufacturing facilities of the various major labels. What year was it that each manufacturer for the first time began using a digital signal processor at some point in the process of the cutting of the master stamper? Likewise in regard to the production of the master tapes: at what time did each studio or re-mixing or post-production facility incorporate digital processing gear as a matter of course in the sequence of production processes?

The reader needs to understand that the vinyl or cassette you buy at the second-hand shop may have markings to indicate it was produced in 1972 or 1981, and yet that particular copy of the recording might very well be a re-released or re-issued version produced at a much later date and therefore subjected to processing by digital equipment. Likewise in your own present collection and among recordings in analog format that you may have heard while out and about, you may not have been dealing with truly analog audio.

Conveniently, in many cases a determination can be made by means of the packaging of the record. Re-issued versions will lack the elaborate artwork on the inner sleeve or J-card which characterizes the original releases.

In the case of vinyl and cassettes currently being produced, I urge readers to petition the labels to certify their products are all-analog.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Vol. I No. 9

It is possible when one is quiet to hear the sound of your own ears. It is similar to a light brushing sound. Likewise with the eyes closed, in the dark, one can see many-colored light in the eyes. This is because hearing and vision are dynamized systems. That is to say, they have a degree of tension or energization even when they are not processing any apparent stimuli.

In the development of the history of audio technology, there has been a concern for the reduction of noise, which, in the design of audio systems, is a much more obvious problem to address than the problem of the accurate tonal reproduction of the given acoustical source.

Superior freedom from noise was one of the rationales - if not the chief rationale - for creating and promoting digital recording. It is easy to imagine how this consideration became prevalent in the minds of the engineers, while the elusive, subtle, very challenging problem of accurate tonal reproduction was largely ignored.

An audiophile can be defined as one who will go to whatever lengths are within his or her means to listen to audio reproduction whose tonal richness most nearly approaches that of a live audition of the music. If we discount noiselessness as a primary virtue of an audio system, then it is very hard to think of any way whatsoever that digital audio can be regarded as preferable to analog for the audiophile.

It is hard to conceive of how it makes any sense to obsess about the reduction of noise when the 'system noise' in one's own ears is so substantial. In fact it is that system noise, produced by the dynamization of the eardrum, which makes our hearing as sensitive as it is to those nuances of acoustical colour and timbre that are entirely absent in digital reproductions.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Vol. I No. 10

In regard to the principle I describe in No. 4, that playback accuracy depends on the identicalness of the playback configuration with the record configuration, I had an interesting experience.

Having learned that microphones can function as speakers and vice-versa, I assembled a pair of headphones replacing the original miniature speakers with microphone elements taken from ordinary inexpensive microphones sold at Radio Shack.

I was listening to Fulfullingness' First Finale, an album I recommend and which I had listened to many times before. (It is by Stevie Wonder.)

Someplace in the middle of side 2 I heard a one syllable spoken voice expression which presumably got onto a track and into the mix during the recording process and was never detected. In all my previous listenings to this record I had never heard it.

The Shack microphones, if I remember correctly, are listed as having an impedance of 200 ohms, whereas a typical speaker will usually be in the range of 4-32 ohms. This corresponds to a voice coil - the coiled wire that juxtaposes the signal to the magnet in a speaker or microphone - which is substantially longer or thinner or both. It is likely that the microphones used to record FFF also had an impedance in a much higher range than typical loudspeakers.

It seems to me that a longer coil would place the musical signal in proximity to the magnet over a longer duration than a shorter coil. In a sense, it would allow each musical instant to manifest itself more separately from the next. A thinner coil might tend to be less able to bear signal energy within itself, thus in a sense repulsing or expelling it, thereby disposing it to be acted upon by the magnet to a greater degree.

In any case I challenge the interested reader - in a friendly sense, of course - to listen carefully to side 2 (or B) of FFF to determine whether or not they can hear this out-take or 'blooper'.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Vol. I No. 11

I believe that the 901 was the first product BOSE brought to the market. This speaker has not one but two design elements that make it superior to other speakers. [Subsequent to posting this entry, I learned the Audience company makes speakers which also have these advantages.]

First, it features drivers that are all the same size, which makes a crossover network unnecessary.

Second, each speaker incorporates a large number of drivers, which provides a greater degree of identity with recordings made using a large number of microphones and a large number of separate tracks.

What I have found is that much concern must be given to allowing for the egress - what could be thought of as the venting - of the sheer volume of sound during playback. I think of 'volume' here as a word that differs from 'loudness' in that volume refers to the quantity of air movement by the undistorted musical energy while loudness can exist because of all kinds of distortions produced by an inadequate driver or drivers.

For those readers who would say that they cannot tell the difference between all-analog and digitalized versions of a given composition, I urge you to make any such comparison using one of these BOSE speaker systems. (In place of the equalizer BOSE supplies, I recommend an all-analog graphic equalizer.)

You are likely to be overwhelmed by the richness of the sound from the all-analog production, while in the case of the digitalized recording you will note the thinness of tone - the absence of musical 'volume' as compared to the apparent total 'loudness' - sharply contrasting with the all-analog playback. You should also notice the rhythmic vacuousness, the lack of fluid, muscular, rhythmic counterpoint, in the digital version.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Vol. I No. 12

I happen to be of just such an age that I remember some of the really excellent TV show theme music. I loved the theme which opened every episode of the Rockford Files. There is a 'fatness' or muscularity, a depth or dimensionality, to the song and its movement and sound - the changes occur with a fatness or rich punctuality, something you'd never get with digital. The tones of the instruments themselves have this fatness, breadth, richness: how could you expect to reproduce this with an intermittent numerical sample? Another TV show theme which I remember as being very emotion-inducing was the theme for Taxi.

A subject I have not touched upon is the thought that music of poor quality is not redeemed by existing in all-analog format. There was a lot of unexciting, imperfect, over-rehearsed, pretentious, disingenuous, and music to which many other negative adjectives could also be applied.

Not to apply critical language, but merely referring to my own preferences, Joan Jett and Pat Benatar were female rock performers whose music I did not like. I'm referring to their hits - I didn't hear their other songs. Whereas Heart was a female rock act that had three or four songs I really loved. Maybe what I heard in Jett and Benatar was you could just tell that they were doing it for the purpose of being a success. If the music doesn't sound that great, what else motivates you to play it? Compare how Heart's big hits sound - the excitement and energy is such that this music contains its own justification.

This last phrase describes AC/DC's Back in Black. You have to play music loud to re-create the sound these bands produce in concert. I do not recommend headphones. Use Bose 901's or Audience brand speakers.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Vol. I No. 13

Conduct the following experiment. Connect a tiny incandescent light bulb to the two leads from an ordinary cone-type speaker. If you tap the cone, you will see flashes of light from the bulb.

The record configuration for Variable Intensity Sound-On-Film recording (VISOF) is potentially as simple as that. Sound impinging on the transducer generates flashes of light that vary in accordance with the sound. These are recorded on a moving strip of film. During playback, a light source shining through the developed film strikes a photocell which sends impulses to the transducer via an amplifier.

Compared to magnetic tape recording, VISOF is more permanent and stable. The magnetic record can be erased or altered by any strong magnetic activity. But a film record is fixed by a chemical process and is not erasable. Because magnetic tape and vinyl recordings involve direct physical contact between the record/play element and the record itself, they are subject not only to noise, but also to loss of the recorded impressions due to physical wear and abrasion. The record/play elements do not touch the moving film with VISOF. The problem that is more or less significant to the audiophile of the wearing out of vinyl and tape recordings from frequency of use would be much less of an issue with VISOF. Likewise, VISOF is inherently free-er from noise than tape and vinyl.

For these reasons I am advocating the development of a VISOF technology which will provide accuracy (or 'fidelity') that is vastly superior to the existing analog technologies. I believe that with a convenient cartridge format, VISOF could be made suitable to ordinary customers.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Vol. I No. 14

There was an EP - a 45 rpm 12" record - called Uncertain Smile which I heard several times in 1986. The 'musicality' of this song contrasts greatly with the dance music of the present day. (Listener: You must get the EP version only. There is a version of the song on an LP which is no good. I would rely only on a 'vintage' copy of this record. Why should you trust that a re-issued version hasn't at any point been fed through a digital signal processor? The same goes for other recordings. But you'd do well if you learned to distinguish digitalized from all-analog vinyl by means of the microscope.)

The complaint I anticipate from recording artists who are successful with digital instruments and processing is "Crowds love our stuff. It's great for dancing. The rhythm is very compelling - even overwhelming!" In reply to successful dance music artists and producers who would make this argument, I urge you to open-mindedly audition the Uncertain Smile EP on an all-analog system. As you do so, consider the capabilities of this all-analog medium and format - capabilities involving the 'momentum' of a song and the flexion or flux of the sound.

A digital signal processor puts out its sequence of samples according to its own clock and timing. It represents a rupture of the continuity between the musician's impulses and the outputted sound. It simulates, according to its own synchronization, and very approximately and intermittently, the living continuum it receives.

A digital signal processor is like a Black Hole: all the rich detail, variety, and nuance of the exertion it receives is lost there - and replaced by a crude, quasi-mechanical sequence of approximations initiated by its own clock/timing frequency.

Vol. I No. 15

I once met a former radio disc jockey who had worked in the analog era. His voice has a very distinctive, powerful quality which I attributed to the likely hundreds or thousands of hours he had spent making his voice heard over a 20 or perhaps 50 mile radius. He actually sounded funny as compared to others in our conversational group: his voice had this sort of deep musicality that prompted my question or comment which elicited the information that he had been a radio broadcaster.

With all-analog broadcasting technology, the DJ's voice is brought to bear upon a highly energized circuit which modulates the carrier wave. To make his voice carry for 20 or 50 miles in an all-analog broadcast, the DJ essentially is leveraging a high-tension system which provides substantial resistance because of that tension. In some respects and for some parts of the throat and voice mechanism, it is a kind of an athletic workout to properly modulate that system. Hence the conspicuous tone of the voices of broadcasters from the pre-1984 era. Their voices have gotten a unique kind of development.

With a digital signal processor in the circuit anywhere between the mic and the carrier wave, there is no muscularity of the DJ's voice brought to bear upon the high tension carrier wave circuit. Instead, an analog-to-digital converter produces a sequence of numerical estimates of the strength of the signal from the mic and processes these numbers to alter the tone in some respect. Then a digital-to-analog converter, in an entirely separate and disconnected process, produces a signal referred to as analog but which is in fact no more than the sequence of estimates with idle system noise in between them.

The DJ's voice has no connection to the carrier wave.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Vol. I No. 16

I have mentioned that it is easier to distinguish analog from digitalized sound with live music. In the case of recorded music I am often able to do so if I am very familiar with the song from hearing it in the pre-digital era.

Yesterday I was listening to a digitalized version of a Moody Blues song which I heard many times on FM radio in the 70's. At one point in the song I uttered the thought of "Let's hear how this acoustic guitar comes in." It is a good moment in the song when the acoustic guitar crashes in with the loud, mechanical sound of the pick striking the strings.

And it was vastly disappointing!! Instead of the loud, complex, rich, textural crashing of the chord as it is struck, I hear a muted semblance of the same which seems to be in the background or mid-ground.

Afterward, in my thoughts as I uttered them, it was that word 'textural' that seemed to me to aptly describe what it is that digital audio lacks generally. Musical tones, musical moments seem to lack the quality of texture which they will possess, will embody, in all-analog - that is to say, never-digitalized - versions.

Another bit of apt phraseology, which may seem vague, but which I believe is accurate, is that in a digitalized version you will hear sound that compares to the analog version of the same production. But in the all-analog version you will feel the sound. The digital version plays thinly on the eardrum. The all-analog version moves the eardrum richly - in fact you feel it move the entire inner ear in a comprehensive way.

Other phraseology I approve is to say that it is not a soul that computerized music lacks; rather what it lacks is body.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Vol. I No. 17

I don't think I was very impressed with math-based chemistry and physics classes in high school. Chemistry formulas involving 'ideal gases'? Acceleration problems in physics neglecting wind resistance? My own sense is that there is no phenomenon in the real world that will ever occur in accordance with a math function.

I object to the way that the concepts of the infinite and the infinitesimal are neglected in astronomy, physics, and astrophysics. It seems too convenient that physicists conceive of a universe that periodically contracts into nothing and then explodes for billions of years before contracting to nothing again. The entire universe, from time to time smaller than the palm of my hand! This reminds me of the ease with which anyone trying to be objective about someone else will be inclined to think poorly of them rather than well of them. How convenient that by finding fault with someone else you are elevated by comparison.

I believe the universe has always existed and that it will exist forever. I also believe that its extent is infinite. Also, in the realm of the small, I believe there is no limit to the infinitesimal dimensions within any given microscopic space that can be specified. (One implication of this is that there is no such thing as a 'point' in the mathematical sense.)

I was intrigued to learn in my reading on Sound or Acoustics about the phenomenon of 'transmission by resonance.' If you have two identical tuning forks at a distance of several feet, the fork at a distance will vibrate when you strike the fork near at hand. Forks of different frequencies at the same distance will not vibrate noticeably.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Vol. I No. 18

All readers are familiar with the 'static cling' that clothing sometimes has when you remove it from the dryer. You hear sharp, snapping sounds when you pull the clothes apart. On one occasion I noticed that if you do this in the dark you see sparks of light, and this inspired some contemplation.

I surmised that when the clothing is clinging it is excluding air or atmosphere at those locations, and that when you force those clothes apart, you create a momentary vacuum in the atmospheric air which is manifested as a spark of light. That is to say, I theorized that vacuum of a certain intensity is equivalent to light. More simply, light is vacuum.

This notion is corroborated by the snapping sound that also occurs when atmospheric air rushes in to destroy the momentary vacuum: air from every direction collides violently with itself, producing the sharp sound.

I was at that time trying to learn how an electric generator works. What exactly is going on when the magnets of the rotor move past the copper coils to which the two leads are attached? Connected to a light bulb, a generator will produce light.

It struck me that the magnets and coils of a generator producing light are similar to the orbiting of the planets around the sun. If the sun is in fact an intense vacuum, this would explain why the planets are held in their orbits.

There is a problem with the standard physics concerning the functioning of a motor-generator. (A motor and a generator are identical, but simply configured to operate inversely.) If I spin the rotor, electric energy in a certain amount is produced. If electricity is applied to the coils, the rotor will spin. Why then is it considered impossible to cause the rotor to spin perpetually by integrating its own electric output?

The solar system is the eminent example of a perpetual motion machine. It only remains for the ingenuity of mankind to configure a working imitation. I personally suspect that a motor-generator would run perpetually if its leads were connected and it was brought to spin at its resonant frequency.