JADE WARRIOR - The scandal of the year...

Eroc thanks for the info

Great it's now on order along with If 3

Phil

 

A pile of rock will fall out of your ears when you compare the Line CD to the upcoming REP issue, believe me...

- Eroc

 

I am SO there!

But back to fixing the LINE release of Last Autumn's Dream, I'm not sure if I properly fixed the timing problems between channels. I don't have an auto-fix tool, so I am zooming in and manually moving things around. I spent about an hour on this this morning before work, I wish I had had more time.

Now pardon my ignorance, but I don't know much about azimuth problems on tape machines. I was worried that the timings would vary, or at least vary too much in real time and be impossible to fix without specialized software. I was hoping the wave of the entire album just needed one adjustment of a channel and I would be done (I'm adjusting in increments of one sample, obviously, not having the tool). But it looks like the channel timing differences vary between tracks with silences. But they don't seem to vary in real time. Is that the case?

I can report that it sounds a LOT better, although that is mostly because of the phase fix I'm guessing.

I ran out of time, but I noticed a DC offset problem as track 6 leads into 7. I do have a tool to fix that. (I hope).

And thanks for bringing this to everybody's attention btw!

 

One important thing you should know:

What you call "timing problems" is not always an azimuth failure. Slight time differences between both channels are absolutely neccessary, because they cause the STEREO effect...

All audial information detected by our ears and brain as listening directions are just simple time delays, so they have to be there. To find a tape-related azimuth failure in a stereo-base you need to look for a plain dry mono-signal in the whole stereo-picture (e.g. the lead vocals which mostly are mixed into the middle of the stereo-base). In this case "mono signal in a stereo-base" means, that this particular signal has precisely the same level on both channels, so that our ears and brain can detect it standing right in the center of the acoustic stage.

Then analyze this signal. The easiest way to do so is to look for a very high frequency in this signal. When it's a vocal just chase for a sharp "s" like e.g. in the word "sun". A sharp cymbal will also be fine. Then loop this part and switch your equipment from stereo to mono. If the "s" looses brightness in mono you can bet there's an azimuth failure.

Refer to the graphics below: The upper curve shows the left channel, the lower shows the right one. The steps you can see is the sampling rate of 44.1 kHz for CD. Each little step (called sample) is 1/44.000 part of a second. Picture 01 shows a rather heavy azimuth failure, resulting in a visible time-shift between the samples of both channels. Picture 02 shows exactly the same spot, but after correction. As you can see, the little steps of each channel now are exactly in the same position.

Picture 03 shows an instrument for correcting azimuths. In the field right below you can read "2.95 samples". That means 2.95 samples have to be shifted to repair the time-delay between both channels.

This heavy azimuth failure occured in the song "Look-Ka-Py-Py" from The Meters' album "The Josie Years". I got the original American CD as source for remastering the album for Repertoire some years ago. American technicians generally give a damn on tape-head's adjustement, at least due to my own experience. So we Germans invented a great digital tool to correct azimuth garbage, as you now can see (and hear)...

- Eroc

 

Thanks, yes I was zooming in and looking at the mono-signals to line things up properly. I think I have everything correct, but it was difficult to find a good "mono" point at times given the nature of this music! I found the songs to be off between 1 and 3 or 4 samples. But like I said, I wasn't sure if that amout varied during a particular song. I don't think so. This would of been a lot easier to do with a song with a regular drum beat all the way through.

-Dave

 

Yes, of course it depends on the material and on the mix. If you have some steady beat or better a steady hihat figure it's much easier tell the exact time-difference, just by comparing a number of those beats.

I succeeded in experimenting by cutting out single samples at the start of the "too early" channel and so got the azimuth fixed properly. But the above mentioned tool is much faster and more precise.

The normal case is that an azimuth failure is stable throughout a whole song or even album, due to a misadjusted playback-head of the tape-machine. But it is possible that it also can vary during a song. I call this "swimming azimuth" which is caused by severe problems with the tape-guide mechanism. Then you got periodic changes of the time-difference. That can only be solved with the digital tool I mentioned. It "chases" the time differences and corrects them either with "auto slow" or "auto fast".

But honestly said: trying to get the LINE CD repaired is like throwing pearls into a pig's stable - it contains so many other worse things like e.g. audible gated NR and wrong fades and so on that it better be thrown away...

- Eroc

 

Thanks for the mini-tutorial, it's been very informative, at least something good came out of this botched remaster!

I'll hold off on making a frisbee out of it until the new one comes out.

Dave

 

Eroc did you master the jade Warrior S/T on rep too?.

 

Yes, I did...

- Eroc

 

I'll take it then.....

 

Which two?

 

I remember "Last Autumn's Dream" CD on Line as one with some weird sound. Always thought it add some surreal feeling to the music.

 

Normally a phase-reverse signal doesn't sound too "wrong" to the average customer. When listening in stereo on speakers it seems to deliver a much wider stereo-range, depending on the listening-position. Therefore many unexperienced engineers use phase-reverse effects on single instruments to make them sound "wider". On headphones it sound much more unpleasant. But if you switch a phaase-reverse signal to mono, it simply dissapears...


- Eroc

 

Adding some new facts concerning phase-crap in mixes, I experienced throughout the passed few months:

Meanwhile I got a lot of contemporary productions for remastering which showed severe problems with compatibility. They were all done with digital gear like Pro Tools or Nuendo or how they're all called. At least they have one thing in common - these programs never should (!) produce any phase errors, because no analog gear and no tape is involved.

But it happens more and more that these (mostly younger) producers use some special digital effects gear in their mixing chains, which spreads the stereo base. Some of these tools seem to add phase-reverse signal and some seem to change the time-axis between the stereo-channels that much, the signal gets beyond compatibility and dissapears more or less when switched to mono. These producers are not experienced enough to can judge what happens. And the programmers of those tools are not experienced enough to recognize what they offer to the (brave new) recording world.

In the old days there was a "border": you couldn't get heavy phase-reversed signals proper to vinyl. Today the CD is capable of every crap like this. So the amount of productions with sonic crap like this is growing rapidly.

Over here in Germany we have a capital radio network called WDR, covering quite an area right in the middle of our country. Meanwhile the guys there are rejecting to broadcast CDs with incompatible signals. They even write to the record-companies rsp. the bands and producers, that their CD containing incompatible (in mono dissapearing elements) won't be aired because WDR has also a lot of mono-listeners on AM. They recommend to do a new, proper mix of the concerning productions.

Makes me somehow feeling not lonesome any more...


- Eroc

 

Ouch!

This thread was an interesting read, mainly because of the story you have told about remastering that particular album. Being not from the engineer scene, I had not heard before about the problems which were discussed but finding out if there is something defective with a CD or a file can be as easy as switching to mono for me as just being a listener who does not have any other equipment available for testing than a stereo system, is quite a useful information. Thank you.

 

Mono is a listening form which becomes more underrated today. But most people forget that proper stereo only is possible in the exact listening position rsp. with headphones. When I started working in the studios in the late 60s we had to check each mix in mono carefully, because stereo wasn't a topic in a) most studios and b) on the radio. And even today lots of AM stations in Europe and the U.S. are braodcasting still in mono.

So we engineers learned to switch from mono to stereo for decades, to judge a mix. The bad thing is that today a lot of consumer equipment and even some pro gear doesn't allow listening in mono, because simply the necessary switch for that isn't there...


- Eroc

 

Interesting that there have been no complaints. Maybe the music is so bad that nobody noticed the poor sound quality...

 

Maybe you never have herad any of their albums? Jade Warrior have released some very fine things in their long history. They split up in the late 90's, but when they heard my remasterings of their old records in 2008, they were so amazed that they stormed the London office of Repertoire Records and announced, they would like to bring the band together. One year later they produced a new album called "Now", released on Repertoire in 2010. And this one really is a milestone...


- Eroc

 

No I have not, maybe I should check them out.

 

Great idea. Repertoire Records still has them in stock, also the latest one "Now"...

- Eroc

 

Really a long-time thread at SH's. And since last year Jade Warrior's actual album "Now" is available. A true gem in case of music and sound. Mastered by Andy Jackson and then fine-tuned by myself. And it all started 5 years ago when I got this unbelievable out-of-phase crap from Line-Music on my desk. Great that some stories have a happy end...


- Eroc