Earlier today EMI and their Virgin Records label in Europe announced that they plan to bring 14 classic albums by Genesis to 5.1 Super Audio CD discs next year. The Genesis Remastered Series SACDs will be released as double disc packages with each album …
More from the “not quite dead yet” department. And from EMI no less, the same label which produced The Beatles DVD-A.
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Posted by petercook
Earlier today, Sony released the long-awaited PlayStation 3 gaming console. In addition to providing gaming fans with 1080p level video and a Blu-Ray Disc drive, the console also offers playback of both Single Layer and Hybrid Super Audio CDs in Mono, Stereo and Multichannel Audio …
Cute? Bizarre? I’m not sure how to take this!
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Posted by petercook
So here-—in no particular order—are a bunch of cool, affordable (and not-so-affordable) things just about anybody in audio could use.
A cool little list from Mix Magazine editor. Follow the link.
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Posted by petercook
This week’s patent applications include headphones that pick up signals sent through your body, and a landmine detector that uses very loud sound
“The new system uses the listener’s body as a capacitor that carries a tiny electrostatic charge. A music or video player sends a fluctuating signal to a conductive cloth pad – such as a wrist band – and this slightly charges the wearer’s body. A pair of conductive ear pads in the headphones pick-up the signal and rapidly convert it back into sound.”
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The classical music recording business, already buffeted by diminished sales, iPods and the closing of Tower Records, experienced more turmoil last week when Sony BMG Music Entertainment ended the tenure of the president of its classical music division and other key executives.
The president of Sony BMG Masterworks, Gilbert Hetherwick, was toppled from his position after less than two years in the job.
Yikes. NYT credits Musical America for breaking the story. I hope my friends – producers and engineers for the label – are ok.
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What the heck is an EDL you say? A simple way to put it is that an EDL (edit decision list) is a way to transfer information about a project you’ve edited to another editing system. It contains the basic “blueprint” of the edit such as clip in/out points, transitions, etc. There’s a great post over on The editblog that shows you what information is included in an EDL and how to read it. Because new formats are gaining popularity, you may never have to deal with a .edl file. But chances are if you do any post production with the outside world you will. Either way, this is good basic information to know.
Certainly applicable to the audio world as well.
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Posted by petercook
[...] the DVD-Audio version that comes with this special edition [of The Beatles' Love] is awesome in the Acura 5.1 stereo system. It really, really shows off the capability of DVD-Audio when the disc is mixed correctly. The isolation of the instruments and voices you will hear coming from the back speakers will blow you away.
By no means a technical review but it’s great to see some enthusiasm for the DVD-A format.
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… The CD is excellent, but the DVD is the one to get. The dual-layer (about which more later) disc not only contains 81 minutes of surround music in DTS and Dolby Digital formats, but the same content in DVD-Audio format, the super-quality lossless hi-res system that supports 24-bit, 96kHz sampling surround audio (as is used in this case). The disc sounds utterly awesome. It is also set to surpass the sales of all previous DVD-Audio and SACD releases put together.
[snip]
There is one little authoring curiosity for DVD-Audio listeners: the length of the programme means that it is split across the two layers. This happens between tracks 21 and 22. Here we have one track (Back in the USSR) fading to black before the next (While My Guitar…) begins. But unfortunately the layer change actually occurs a few seconds early, before the last track on the layer has actually finished. Then there’s a pause of a couple of seconds (if you’re lucky) before it returns, completes the fade, and starts the next track. Oops. If you are unlucky (in the case of some Pioneer player owners for example) the pause if five or six seconds and you lose the end of the fade altogether. Oops again.
The title of this posting echoes what I wrote on Tuesday. I’m hoping to finally have time to listen to this baby in surround tomorrow. We listened (perversely!?) in mono on our Tivoli Tuesday night. It was a fun ride. I find some of the things they did irritating and others are ok. You just have to accept that it’s the soundtrack to a show and forget about the so-called “mash-up” angle. Certainly it’s a blast to hear this stuff cleaned up. I thought I heard some mistakes though. Guitar solo moments which should have been muted. Ride cymbal way too loud on one track. But I need to listen more carefully.
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Posted by petercook
And the first thing Love the album does, at least in its DVD surround-sound format, is to blow you away with sheer sonic wizardry. Set to a noisy dawn chorus, complete with fluttering wings, the three-part vocal harmonies of ‘Because’ arrive with the clarity of an ice blue sky. The chugging introduction to ‘Get Back’ hurtles out of the mix like a train. The pumping fairground organs of ‘Mr Kite’ reek of steam and sawdust. Hearing many of the familiar tracks is like viewing an old masterpiece after cleaning: the light is brighter, the shadows deeper. Here, the trebles tingle while the bass end booms.
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Posted by petercook
The Beatles “new” release Love came out today on this side of the pond. You can read about the tepid mash-up issue in many places. What I’m still waiting to read is a review of the surround-sound mix.
This morning on my way to work I bought a copy of the 2 disc version which includes a CD and a DVD ($16.99 at Best Buy on Dundas near Yonge . . . $2 more at HMV and Sams). The DVD contains a regular DVD-V zone and as such can be played on any DVD player. You select PCM stereo, Dolby AC3 or (hurray!) DTS.
There’s also a DVD-A zone so if you put the disc into a DVD-A capable unit you can play back 5 channels of 24 bit 96 kHz audio. Sweet!
I haven’t listened to the disc yet. Hopefully that will happen in the next couple of days. I need to set up a playback system again in one of the studios. But I wanted to vote with my wallet. I hope the 2 disc version is a big success. This is how it should have been done all along and I’m hoping that having The Beatles buy in will draw more people to this format.
CD, Dolby Surround, DTS and DVD-A. Just shy of 79 minutes of music. All for less than $20 Canuck bucks, taxes in.
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