S.H. for Cedar Award!!

[John B]

Cedar Audio is accepting nominations for CEDAR Awards 2002. Previous winners have been Jon Astley (twice no less!) for his sonic reduction efforts on George Harrison and Led Zep.

I would like to have members of this forum join me in nominating Steve Hoffman for the "Most tasteful use of Cedar in remastering classic recordings" category. Being the great remastering visionary Steve is, his approach to Cedar noise reduction has not changed since before Cedar was invented.

Outstanding!

[Beagle]

Now really, would Steve want to win an award that Jon Astley won? ;)

[mcow1]

I'll second it. no no-noise is good no -noise:D

[compact kid]

Originally posted by John B
Cedar Audio is accepting nominations for CEDAR Awards 2002. Previous winners have been Jon Astley (twice no less!) for his sonic reduction efforts on George Harrison and Led Zep.

I would like to have members of this forum join me in nominating Steve Hoffman for the "Most tasteful use of Cedar in remastering classic recordings" category. Being the great remastering visionary Steve is, his approach to Cedar noise reduction has not changed since before Cedar was invented.

Outstanding!
John, when did Jon Astley work on Led Zeppelin? Just asking so I can avoid it.;)

Sonny

[Grant]

Originally posted by Beagle
Now really, would Steve want to win an award that Jon Astley won? ;)

That's the idea, Beeg! It's like giving the finger to Cedar's NR!:D

[lukpac]

Originally posted by compact kid
John, when did Jon Astley work on Led Zeppelin? Just asking so I can avoid it.;)

The BBC set.

[John B]

Originally posted by compact kid

John, when did Jon Astley work on Led Zeppelin? Just asking so I can avoid it.;)

Sonny

The Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions - I had not known that till I checked their site:

http://www.cedar-audio.com/endorsements/awardwinners.html

You'll find a few other discs to avoid - Elvis too!

[John B]

Originally posted by Beagle
Now really, would Steve want to win an award that Jon Astley won? ;)

I should have posted a warning "Danger - warped sense of humour at work"

[compact kid]

Thanks, John.

I just took a peek at the site. I don't think I'll be going back. I had pictured Astley older than he looks, though. Witchcraft?

Sonny

[John B]

Originally posted by compact kid
Thanks, John.

I just took a peek at the site. I don't think I'll be going back. I had pictured Astley older than he looks, though. Witchcraft?

Sonny

Do you mean old enough that hearing damage has set in? If so you are cruel yet astute!

[Beagle]

Originally posted by Grant


That's the idea, Beeg! It's like giving the finger to Cedar's NR!:D OK I just woke up from hibernation and got it. I couldn't see the sarcasm for the trees.

:o

[Grant]

Originally posted by Beagle
OK I just woke up from hibernation and got it. I couldn't see the sarcasm for the trees.

:o
You have to have a twisted sense of humor!:D I grew up with one, had to! My parents were too serious-minded. My father has no comprehension of parody or satire. They just don't register with him.

[Evan]

Originally posted by John B


The Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions - I had not known that till I checked their site:

http://www.cedar-audio.com/endorsements/awardwinners.html

You'll find a few other discs to avoid - Elvis too!

I always new something was wrong with the BBC set! And look! They also used it on Kurasawa's "The Seven Samurai"! I guess I never noticed because I am so busy reading the subtitles when I watch it. And the Cedar folks can’t spell very well either. They think its “Samuri”.

[Kevin Sypolt]

From the Ceder web site:

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A restoration algorithm uses assumptions about the behaviour of these elements to restore the good signal from the corrupted signal, and the quality of the restoration depends upon the quality of the assumptions. If you can glean more information about a recording, you can devise a better restoration algorithm.

For example, if the uncorrupted signal is a violin solo, you may wish to include in your algorithm the sonic characteristics of a violin. Such assumptions should then enable the algorithm to differentiate between the effect of the degradation process and the good signal. These differences can then be used to regenerate the good signal from the corrupt. But problems will arise when your assumptions fail: i.e. when the assumptions represent an incomplete picture of the true degradation process, or do not accurately represent the good signal being restored. The assumptions therefore limit the number of recordings to which your algorithm can be applied. You should not expect your solo violin algorithm to work for a full orchestra or a solo pan-pipe.

A musical signal is random in nature, as are most degrading processes. Information theory tells us that the mixing of two random signals represents a loss of information, and that a perfect restoration is then impossible. A restoration algorithm therefore has to generate the 'most likely' good signal given the information available. Curiously, such an algorithm represents an additional loss of information about the degrading action - it has removed most of it. This has important implications for further reprocessing should a better algorithm become available: it is almost always better to work from the original recording rather than from an earlier processed version. A good example of this is found when removing the crackle found on 78rpm records: while the recorded signal may only have a bandwidth of 12kHz, the crackle will exhibit the full bandwidth of the reproduction equipment, so low pass filtering (which may offer a subjective improvement in signal quality) removes a lot of information that would be of good use to a more advanced restoration algorithm.

The final test for any algorithm is the human ear. The questions to ask are:

does the algorithm affect the perceived signal quality?
upon what range of material will it work successfully?
have the disturbances been removed/reduced?
have any processing artefacts been introduced?
is there an acceptable trade-off between the above points?
does it sound like crap?

If the ear rejects the results as unsuitable for the intended application, then it will be necessary to redesign the algorithm.

Why Digital?
The public has now accepted digital sound, and the debates regarding the pros and cons of analogue vs. digital have waned. However, there are other considerations to be taken into account when designing a sonic processor.

While a digital sound signal can be made into a near-perfect reproduction of a band-limited analogue signal, there are sonic processes that are native to each domain, and each can only approximate the other. For simple ideas, an analogue implementation is often the most cost-effective solution. However, most audio concepts requiring higher mathematics are impractical in the analogue domain. Digital Signal Processing technology has been developed to implement these higher mathematical applications.

The advent of computers and hard disks enabled a restoration algorithm to take as much time as it needed to fulfil its purpose. Unfortunately, this was a mixed blessing because Real-Time applications have the advantage of allowing direct feed-back between the engineer's ear and the algorithm's user-controlled parameters. How quickly a track can be restored also has important commercial considerations.

Which process?
The order in which restoration processes are carried out makes a great deal of difference to the quality of the result. The correct sequence is declick, decrackle, debuzz, and then dehiss.

This is because large clicks make it difficult for the de-crackle process to identify and remove the tiny clicks and crackles that constitute surface noise, buzz, and other such problems. Furthermore, if clicks are presented to any dehiss process they confuse it and create unmusical side-effects. Conversely, dehissing first will make it almost impossible to identify and remove clicks and scratches at a later time.

Decrackling should be the second process because small crackles will also cause problems for the dehisser. Similarly, you should perform de-buzzing (when necessary) at an appropriate point in the total restoration process. This will generally be after de-clicking and often after de-crackling. Consequently, dehissing should always be the final process in the restoration chain.

========

What a crock! They forgot about the final step: the de-life process where the last remaining hint of life is "sucked" out of the "product" before preparing it for the round file. I think that step is called de-stroy. Ack!

:mad:

[Michael]

Cedar sucked the life out of that great "Blues Series" The Blind Willie Johnson" 2 CD set comes to mind.:mad: