Vapor Trails - I. The VT crackle-reduction project- "concept and idea"
Vapor Trails - I. The VT crackle-reduction project- "concept and idea"
|
|
|
Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/19/02 12:00 am Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT (07/11/02): Important... The following steps outlined in this post are no longer the recommended procedures. The current recommended procedures are near the end of this thread now. These remain as a means of tracking the progress achieved through experimentation with various techniques, applications, and settings. Everyone please bear with the length of this post. I know this is a topic that has practically been beaten to death, but admittedly it is for a good reason. Some people legitimately have a problem with the way Vapor Trails sounds, and this is directed at those individuals. This is not meant to be an instigation to arouse a heated debate on whether the CD sounds good or not. I happen to know for a fact that the copy that I purchased sounded horrible, and I can provide audible and visual proof of this. I know that sound quality is always subjective due to differences in audio playback devices, listening environment, and the fact that not every individual hears things in quite the same way. I personally feel that it is a disgrace to have such a superb musical compilation marred with the static and distortion that is prominent throughout the entire CD (more so on certain tracks, but nevertheless existent on the entire disc). On whose behalf this "fault" lies is beyond me, and we may never actually find out, but I have finally (after nearly a month of seemingly endless editing) found a method to rid the CD almost completely of that which is severely affecting the quality. Please, I urge everyone who wishes Vapor Trails to be a much more enjoyable listening experience to attempt the steps below. If need be, I will upload one or two remastered tracks from the CD for anyone to download and judge for themselves. 1. = Extract the digital audio from the CD using any CD "ripping" software. I use Exact Audio Copy for all digital audio extraction, and I consider it to be the best, as it is much more accurate and reliable than any other program I have tried. If you take the time to properly configure and customize it to your specific system and CD-ROM drive(s), it will extract digital audio perfectly. You can download the latest version =here= (1.2MB). 2. = Load the extracted .wav files into Cool Edit Pro. For this task, I used version 2.0, but the older 1.2 version may work just as well. If you do not have the full version at your disposal, you can download the demo =here= (19.34MB). The demo does have full functionality, and will allow you to perform all of the necessary tasks for this project. 3. = Convert the .wav files to 32-bit resolution for more precise editing by selecting 'Edit' > 'Convert Sample Type...' (or alternatively, you can press the 'F11' hotkey). Once the dialog window appears, select '32' under the 'Resolution' section, and select 'OK'. Repeat this step for each .wav file. Note: This will double the size of each .wav file, so make sure you have approximately 1.32GB of disk space available for the entire Vapor Trails CD. 4. = For each .wav file, select 'Effects' > 'Noise Reduction' > 'Click/Pop Eliminator...' to begin the task of cleansing the audio of noise and static. This will look for any abnormalities in the waves (such as "clipped" audio), and attempt to remove the presence of static and distortion. Once the dialog window appears, ensure that these settings are configured as follows: Sensitivity = 15 Discrimination = 20 Second Level Verification = Enabled Smooth Light Crackle = Enabled Detect Big Pops = 30 Multiple Passes = 32 FFT Size = Auto Pop Oversamples = 8 Run Size = 25 Note: These are my personal settings, and while they are not yet "perfect", I have found them to have the greatest reduction to the distortion with the least amount of alteration to the surrounding music samples. I have found the bass and drums to have a considerably increased amount of power and tightness to them, the vocals and most of the guitars are much clearer, and all of the highs are virtually untouched. Altering these settings slightly will sometimes have a dramatic effect on the sound quality though. The settings that will cause some of the greatest noticeable differences are the 'Sensitivity' and 'Discrimination' fields. Going too low with these values will sometimes cause legitimate distortion in some of the heavier guitar passages to be eliminated, so be careful. Experimenting with these values may yield better results with certain tracks, so don't hesitate to do so. Once these values have been adjusted, select the 'Auto Find All Levels' button. When the levels have been detected, select 'OK' to apply. Note: If you want rather startling visual and audible proof of all the static and distortion that was present in the original file (especially aimed towards those who claim it does not exist), copy the entire contents of the original file (before 'Noise Reduction' was applied), then Mix Paste ( 'Edit' > 'Mix Paste...') the contents to the corrected audio file. When the Mix Paste dialog window appears, make sure to leave the 'Volume' values set to '100' and check (enable) both 'Invert' boxes. Also, leave 'Overlap (Mix)' selected, then click 'OK' to apply. The purpose of this is to cancel out the actual music of the files by inverting the contents of one, thus leaving only the static, clicks and distortion that was removed. It's rather disgusting, but don't take my word for it. Hear (and see) it for yourself... on every track. 5. = Next, the amplitude needs to be adjusted (decreased) to compensate for the very slight increase in size of the reconstructed waves. The average decrease in amplitude will be approximately -.4dB (assuming a normalization value of 0dB or 100%). Normalization is the process of finding the maximum amplitude (a certain percentage of 0dB) of an audio file before the onset of digital clipping (>0dB). Cool Edit Pro's 'Normalize' function is quite adequate for this task, though SonicFoundry's SoundForge application (another very fine audio editing suite) has a normalizer with extra options to normalize to the average RMS value as well as the peak value of the file, with various other options such as applying dynamic compression (audio peaks that will result in clipping are limited below 0dB using non-zero attack and release times to minimize distortion, which is useful for getting loud and clear audio during mastering). Select 'Effects' > 'Amplitude' > 'Normalize...'. Once the dialog window appears, there is a choice to make, and it is one of personal taste. The 'Normalize to' value will determine the final volume of the file. If you are content with the original volume of Vapor Trails, then leave this value set to the default of '100%'. This will keep the file as close to the original volume as possible... and I guarantee, at extremely high volumes, this CD will be much safer to your speakers than the original. However, some older CD players have trouble reproducing bits representing amplification greater than 96% of 0dB (-.355dB). I personally use '96%', even though the closer to 0dB the music is, the greater the signal/noise ratio (less background noise and hiss). Also, leave 'Normalize L/R Equally' selected to preserve the original stereo balancing. Once you have determined how loud you want the files to be, select 'OK' to apply. Repeat this step for each .wav file, but make sure you use the same value for each file to maintain steady output throughout the entire CD. 6. = Once the amplitude has been adjusted, the .wav files must be converted back to 16-bit resolution by selecting 'Edit' > 'Convert Sample Type...'. Once the dialog window appears, change the 'Resolution' value back to '16', and make sure that 'Enable Dithering' is selected. 'Dither Depth' should be changed to '0.54'. 'p.d.f.' should be left as 'Triangular' with 'No Noise Shaping'. Select 'OK' to apply the changes. 7. = Finally, save the .wav files by either overwriting the original files, or by saving to a different location altogether. After you hear the differences between them, you will probably wish to overwrite. At this point, you can use any CD authoring software (Nero Burning ROM, Easy CD Creator, etc.) to recreate the CD from the new .wav files, or create MP3s. If you wish to encode to MP3, I highly suggest using the LAME MP3 encoder. There is also a very helpful and configurable front end for the LAME binary called RazorLame, which is available for download on my personal webspace =here= (654KB). This is the latest version which includes version 3.92 of the LAME binary, and is already configured with my personal custom settings for what I have found to be the best quality/size ratio ( --lowpass 19.7 -V3 --vbr-mtrh -q0 -b96 -Z -X0 --scale 0.99). I eventually settled on these options after much trial and error and comparison testing over the past 3 years. I hope you will find it useful. Thank you for anyone who was willing to take the time to read through this. Thank you even more to those who are/were willing to try this for themselves. I feel that the amount of time and effort that it took for me to achieve what I consider to be a considerable improvement in sound quality (as far as what I was given to work with) without sacrificing any elements of the existing dynamic range, tonal quality, or volume, would be wasted if I did not share it with other fellow Rush fans who I firmly believe would appreciate this more than anyone else. Respond Vibrate Feedback Resonate Mike Edited by: Xanadar Nuitari at: 7/11/02 11:28:58 am -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TheLetter3 New Arrival Posted: 6/18/02 11:13 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- someone give this guy an award, this is incredible. I just can't wait until I have some time to sit down and do all of this. THANK YOU!!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jazzbasser The Analog Kid Posted: 6/19/02 3:03 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar, how do you manage to get around without all those brains spilling out of your ears??? For the record, my copy of VT sounds OK. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ShannTai2112 The Overnight Girl ezSupporter Posted: 6/19/02 7:37 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ummm...what did he just say??? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ziegler2112 Johnny On The Monorail ezSupporter Posted: 6/19/02 11:35 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar is one serious Rush fan! I'm sure those who have the necessary software will greatly appreciates his efforts to alleviate the clipping problems associated with Vapor Trails. I wonder if Atlantic Records will ever find the motivation to do the same? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TheLetter3 New Arrival Posted: 6/19/02 12:21 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Woah! I just got done redoing How It Is, and I am amazed at how good it sounds now. I inverted the music to leave the popping and distortion and can't believe how much there really is. For those of you who can't hear it (I couldn't) a lot of it comes in between 1:31 and 1:55. It took me about an hour to figure out what I was doing and download the software but now that I've made the changes (albeit only to How It Is) I have to say to anyone who is unsure if this fix is worth it: it is!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/19/02 2:34 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you all for your votes of confidence. It really makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I was sincerely hoping that some of you would be willing to try this out for yourselves. I cannot stress it enough... it is worth it, in my opinion. I would not care about putting this much effort into something like this if it were any other release from any other musician (except probably Dream Theater, Joe Satriani or Steve Vai). Luckily, every release of theirs to date has been nothing short of excellent in terms of sound quality. Vapor Trails is by far my favorite album from Rush in many years, and that has led to this obsession of mine. I quite simply cannot get enough of this CD... even after approximately 300 listenings. (Whew!) Yes... I'm crazy, I suppose. As promised, I finally got around to cleaning enough space from my personal webspace to be able to upload this: ="Secret Touch" (Remastered)= (2.89MB) To avoid any possible legal issues involved with posting this, I cut the file short by fading out at approximately 2:01. It is not the complete song, but I feel it is more than sufficient to show just how much of an improvement in overall sound quality was achieved. "Ceiling Unlimited" and "Secret Touch" showed the most improvement, with "Earthshine" and "Out of the Cradle" coming closely behind. They are not what I would consider to be perfect, basically due to the fact that what I was given to work with was quite a challenge, as there was much damage done to those particular tracks. However, it is the best that I have been able to achieve so far after (quite seriously) one month of daily remastering and testing each new CD on my way to work, and all-night listening sessions while at work. The rest of the CD just ended up sounding superb, in my opinion. All editing is performed in the digital domain with no analog conversions. Any minute noise that is introduced during processing is eliminated during the dithering process while converting back to 16-bit resolution. Since there is so much clipping prominent throughout the CD, most of the extremely loud passages (Neil's tom fills and snare hits, some of Geddy's vocals and much of his bass, and quite a bit of Alex's multi-layered guitars), there are many areas where the sine waves "plateau" (clip), leaving either static (white noise or "crackling"), or simply no response whatsoever from the speakers (even if only for milliseconds). Whenever that happens, whatever detail that was supposed to be there is only masked by the presence of distortion. The end result is simple... remove the distortion, unmask the hidden detail in the music. Another extremely beneficial result of doing this is the ability to play the CD at much higher volume levels! Can't complain about that. Ironically, I believe that is the reason why most people (including myself) claimed the CD sounded better when it was "cranked up"... the distortion produced from overdriving the speakers at extremely high levels made the distortion already present on the CD less noticeable, yet at lower listening levels, the distortion was much more evident (to me, at least). I finally realized after 3 weeks of trial and error that Cool Edit Pro's built-in Clip Restoration feature was overkill... it was rebuilding the clipped waves too much (based on what the algorithm had to work with), making most of the bass drum hits unruly and out of control, and it was creating severe spikes in various other parts of every track. Digital recording is quite unforgiving as opposed to analog. In order to attain the highest possible signal to noise ratio, the closer you get to -0.1 or 0dB, the better the sound quality. Sometimes, clipping is overlooked whenever the majority of the music sounds good enough to justify the small amount. But this... this was outrageous. Sorry, but I simply refuse to believe that the only way properly enjoy VT is through the use of expensive multi-hundred watt entertainment systems. A good CD shouldn't sound bad in any player. For those who consider Vapor Trails to sound excellent already, just give this a whirl. You'll honestly feel like hell has indeed frozen over. Edited by: Xanadar Nuitari at: 6/24/02 5:41:40 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ShannTai2112 The Overnight Girl ezSupporter Posted: 6/19/02 2:50 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar... I was just being silly. I thought you simplified the directions enough, even for ME. My pc (and I've said this plenty of times before) is a piece of trash...but if I can get to someone else's that isn't, I'll definitely "give it a whirl". Thanks for taking the time to post that, by the way! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/19/02 5:07 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No, no... I didn't intend to direct that towards anyone in particular ShannTai. I'm just very passionate about everything "Rush", and this album is no different. I don't think I have ever been this diligent and persistent with anything else in the past. I think if my wife hears so much as a cymbal crash from this CD anymore, she's going to want a divorce. I look at it this way... take "Secret Touch" for example: Song Duration: 6 minutes 34 seconds ( 394 seconds) Percent Clipped*: Left= 1.257% Right= 1.163% Average (both channels)= 1.21% That equates to approximately 4.76 seconds in which there is static hiding music that was intended to be heard. I want to hear it... not noise. Like I've said before, I'm very emotionally attached to this album, and I'm sure there are others who are equally (if not more) passionate about this awesome release than I. I'm just trying to help anyone who's willing to accept it. I'm not a "brainiac" either, so some of you give me too much credit as far as that's concerned (even though I'm flattered)... persistence and refusing to give up pays off, that's all. Later! *According to Cool Edit Pro 2.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SoundChaser72 Rush Fan Posted: 6/19/02 5:46 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am so glad my copy is OK, cause what you suggest is beyond my means--I don't have the necessary equipment to fix a disc. But I know that the many here who do and also have defective discs will appreciate the time and effort. A+ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nicholas Dowdy New Arrival Posted: 6/19/02 8:17 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey, You sound like me! I happen to remaster bad sounding albums my self occasionally on my home recording set up. I happen to have remastered The Presto and The Roll the bones albums. I'm quite satisfied with these productions. I'm thinking about uploading them on the internet in high quality Mp3 format. Any one interested in hearing Presto in HIGH QUALITY sound? I tell you, It really reveals the quality of the album it self. There's a lot of detail missing in the original master. Available Light lacks the emotion it should on the original master. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jazzbasser The Analog Kid Posted: 6/20/02 3:01 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar - come on, you can tell me - do you have to have buckets strapped to your ears??? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/20/02 8:58 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What'd you say?? I can't hear you for some reason. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jazzbasser The Analog Kid Posted: 6/20/02 9:47 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fanfrom80 New Arrival Posted: 6/21/02 2:47 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just wanted to let you know that I am working with cooledit pro on the VT tracks, and it really is making a fantastic difference. It is very possible there is only one master/mix though, which is corrupted. I guess I hold out some hope out of disbelief that Lee Lifeson and Peart would lay down anything this distorted. They'd hear it in a second. (When something like this (clipping so much) doesn't make sense, the answer is almost always "money". Atlantic may have gambled that it wouldn't matter to the average listener. I'm not an average listener, having hung out with audiophiles for 20-some years. Given what I've (with your help) been able to clean up with cooledit, I would hope Atlantic can do an even better job. I'm very grateful you spent so much effort, as it allowed me to get right to it. If I may, I'd like to share with you my recipe in cooledit with you, in case you'd like to try it. I have used your settings as well as experimenting for the past 3 or 4 hours. Have you tried this? Inside the click/pop eliminator, use the 25 samples setting, the 32 (no auto) fft setting, but apply 3 or 4 iterations of autoset all levels, applying each one then autosetting/applying again. Also use the 14 for sensitivity and 10 for discrimination. I have seen the thresholds drop each time and each pass has been sequentially better than the last one. I have gone straight to Ceiling Unlimited and Secret Touch as they do have some of the worst flaws. After doing the fourth pass the very first few seconds of Ceiling Unlimited seem to be clean; at least clean enough to satisfy me. I read in the CE help that applying three passes is advised "if you have time". Then I apply your prescribed gain adjustment. The downside to this is the long time it takes as it is repairing thousands of clicks. This may be too aggressive, but my ears are not hearing a huge affect on the music, just the reduction of clicks. I used cdparanoia in linux to do the ripping. Have not experimented with any other tools of this nature, and the feedback as to errors is good. "Hear how it is and how it ought to be" ;- ) VT is still a great effort by RUSH. A ton of work, which I really dig. later, -Norm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TheLetter3 New Arrival Posted: 6/21/02 3:13 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- heh, mabye we could get them to add Vapor Trails to the 'The Rush Remasters' series. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/21/02 7:27 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Great job, Norm! I've since applied your improvements to the original master .wav files (still saved in 32-bit resolution for this very reason), and they do indeed sound much better in terms of the absence of static, but I have found only one drawback personally... the music sounds slightly "muddy" (at least to me), possibly due to the 'Click/Pop Eliminator' rounding off the waves too much on the 2nd and 3rd passes through, making some of the passages less "crisp" as they originally were. I was seriously trying to improve on the sound quality by not over-processing the audio (applying little effects as possible), and not apply any equalization to affect the tonal characteristics of the music. However, since the introduction of the multiple passes with the 'Click/Pop Eliminator' as you (very cleverly) suggested, I have found that an additional step applied before the gain adjustment (the 'Amplify...' step) brings back some of the clarity lost due to multiple processes with click/pop removal. Applying 'Filter' > 'Graphic Equalizer...' and using the 'premaster EQ' preset brings back a significant amount of power and "punch" in the drums, and the cymbals, guitars, and vocals become much clearer. You're absolutely right about the change in settings though! Thank you very much for taking the time to explore different possibilities. They do indeed sound much better than what I had achieved so far. I'm glad that I was able to help speed up the process for you as well. Let me know what else you come up with, and I'll do my best to keep you posted on new findings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fanfrom80 New Arrival Posted: 6/21/02 9:27 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, I just listened to some of the edited files on some decent paradigm speakers and was wondering about the sound. Until now, I'd been using the headphones since the crackling really showed up in them, but they are not a set that gives good clarity to begin with. I'll try the equalization you suggested next. :-) Will have to wait a couple of days though. Ideally, if I understood the structure of the clipping and music better, it would be great to set the pop/click removal to be most aggressive on the louder sections of the song. This CoolEdit s/w allows for this but I'm not sure how to set the values myself, so I just use the autoset levels for now. It would take some experimenting and time and I suppose I would decrease by one each value. I'm sure all the processing will adversely affect the quality of the music. I'm astounded by how little though. So I agree that it will require some boosting in the eq section of the s/w. Thanks for the encouragement and keep on rushing! later, -Norm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fanfrom80 New Arrival Posted: 6/21/02 9:55 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, applying three passes to Ghostrider will really wash out Gedward's voice in the first 30 seconds. Makes it sound like a tape head that is dirty and mis-aligned. So it looks like some real finesse is required. No wonder there is a career called 'sound engineer'. -Norm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/22/02 4:02 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... and, those particular settings are wreaking utter havoc on Alex's heavily-(intentionally-)distorted guitar intro on "Earthshine", even on the first pass. I tried to bump the Sensitivity and Discrimination values both up to '15', but even that is too aggressive for that one song. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/22/02 5:22 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, as a quick tidbit of info for anyone interested... Cool Edit Pro (version 2.0, at least) has the built-in ability to extract digital audio from CD ( 'File' > 'Extract Audio from CD...'). It also has the ability to extract audio from video files such as AVI and various MPEG formats. For anyone who does not wish to configure Exact Audio Copy (which I still highly recommend), CE Pro's CD ripper produces a mirror image of the audio as well. I compared the waveforms of a single track from "Hold Your Fire" (which I'm currently working on to increase the volume) by inverting the one ripped with EAC, and mix-pasting the contents over the one ripped with CEP. The end result was a perfect flatline... complete silence (meaning, no difference whatsoever between the two files). Again, just trying to help anyone who wishes the process to be as simple and painless as possible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/22/02 10:50 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By the way, for anyone else wishing to attempt their own restoration experimenting, there is a "correct" sequence in which to process audio, in order to avoid introducing distortion, aliasing, and artifact noise: 1. Remove DC Offset 2. Sample Rate Conversion 3. Noise Reduction 4. Normalisation 5. Gain Correction 6. Stereo Rebalancing 7. Equalisation 8. Dynamics Processing 9. Reverb Processing 10. Limiting -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SMiLE303 New Arrival Posted: 6/22/02 6:01 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar you are my hero of the week! I just got done processing the VT tracks as you described and the improvement is very noticeable. I added on final step to your treatment and that was to have my CD burning program declick and maximize volume during the burning process. I owe you a big THANX but my car stereo is probably cursing your name -SMiLE303 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/22/02 7:59 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maximize Volume?!? Are you nuts or something?? There's somebody who'll need the buckets strapped to the ears... to catch all the blood! The volume's what made all this necessary in the first place, by the way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- vitalsigns1001 The Weapon Posted: 6/22/02 8:23 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On my computer VT sounds terrible, but on my home system it's beautiful. Although I do play it at a more modest level now...my neighbors got pissed because they had to rake leaves early this year! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/22/02 8:33 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hehe. Yeah, but just think about how much more beautiful it might sound on your nice home system if it sounded great on your computer. Edited by: Xanadar Nuitari at: 6/24/02 5:42:37 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari New Arrival Posted: 6/24/02 2:44 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Updated) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For anyone who is using the procedures outlined in the first post of this thread (either exclusively or as a guideline for additional repair), I sincerely urge you to read it again very carefully, and please try it one more time (if only for just one track). I have made some slight changes, most notably to the settings for the 'Click/Pop Eliminator' parameters, as well as the addition of the 'Normalize' process instead of 'Amplify'. If you thought the CD sounded great after the first remastering attempt, you should try it now. It truly has never sounded better to me, and it can now be played tremendously loud. I think for the first time I am hearing distinct finger "plucks" and slides on the bass strings, and more of the background vocals are starting to clearly stand out. The newfound power and clarity in Sweet Miracle, Nocturne, and Freeze is simply impressive now, and the "crackling" is now almost non-existent throughout the entire CD. It's almost Miller time! Mike -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fanfrom80 New Arrival Posted: 6/25/02 11:33 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Updated) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- to the dude known as Xanadar: After experimenting with the clipping restore feature of CE, I too found that the impact on sound quality was too high a price. The sound was dead, flat, no space, or something. Not sure what to call it. So I guess I learned what you did long ago and had posted. My problem was doing all my listening and editing with headphones. So if anyone is working on this repair, use good speakers for testing. As cookie monster would say: "Me so sad". On the positive though, the setting you have recommended are producing great results. Thanks for the update. later, -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari Rush Fan Posted: 6/25/02 11:59 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Updated) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actually, I would give just about anything for a pair of even halfway decent headphones (and so would my wife at this point). I'd be able to pick up on even more crackling artifacts in a second if I had some. I envy you to a certain extent. Honestly, using speakers of poor or below-average quality is when I notice the most considerable amount of distortion on the CD (like the el-cheapo speakers on my work PC, which is where I do the majority of my editing and testing). If the music begins to sound really good on crappy speakers or headphones, odds are usually always very good that it will sound magnificent on very nice full-range speakers with a dedicated subwoofer... with a lot of "ass" behind them, of course. I still firmly believe that a good CD shouldn't sound bad on anything. Xan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fanfrom80 New Arrival Posted: 6/26/02 10:49 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Updated) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hmmm, that is interesting. I can see where the pops and clicks would be harder to detect with a pair of good speakers due to the base being one more sound to cover them over. Also on cheapo pc speakers the pops and clicks are likely quite noticeable. I have found the pop/clicks to be very noticeable in headphones, and because of this it is really easy to tell when they are gone. My concern is this: my particular headphones (panasonic RP-HT127) have always made the sound seem somewhat dead or compressed in space. (Perhaps many headphones do this) While I was editing using the clip restore section of CE, I did not notice the changes introduced had made the sound even more dead or lacking in space. So I missed this new problem and only heard it when I played the revised tracks on my speakers. However I was very happy with the lack of clipping. In the end I have discarded those files and have just finished applying the pop/click elimination settings you recommend. Now those are sounding good! As you said, you can increase the volume of play. Happy, happy, joy, joy! I wonder if Atlantic would care to comment? (Insert chicken clucking here.) -Norm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- unit1 New Arrival Posted: 6/26/02 6:22 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for remastering instructions, i can now jam to VT without worrying about the sound. It's not perfect, but it sounds a lot better. I'll look here for any tweaks to the set up. Any idea how it happened, think anyone will 'fess-up? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom New Arrival Posted: 6/27/02 11:44 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, I'm just trying understand the process completely. After you have finished re-mastering, do you burn a new cd with the re-mastered tracks or do you just listen to them off the computer? Would the whole album fit on one CD? Thanks, Tom -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xanadar Nuitari Rush Fan Posted: 6/28/02 9:06 am Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom, All of the above. .wav files are uncompressed audio, just as .bmp files are uncompressed images. Think of .mp3 files as the equivalent of .jpg files. If you were to take the .wav files that were individually extracted from the audio CD and burn them to another CD as data files instead of Red Book digital audio (.cda), you would find that they take up the same amount of space. Once the re-mastering process is complete, you can either burn the edited .wav files back to CD (for listening just about anywhere), create .mp3's from them (for easy listening from your PC), or both. Nothing is done to significantly change the size of the .wav files... so yes, they will easily fit back onto a CD. The whole reason for this process in the first place is to re-create an audio CD which sounds "better" than the original. Better, of course, being a matter of opinion. Mike -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalmartin New Arrival Posted: 6/28/02 5:31 pm Re: Vapor Trails Remastering Info (Please Read) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xan, as many folks do, I appreciate your efforts. I like the music on the Vapor Trails Cd better than I have liked any music in a long time. It was a little slow in coming, but it was right on time when it got here. I made a 'clean copy', but I guess I'm too used to the original. Due to Geddy's comments about sound, and the fact that so many people found the sound to be a problem, I tend to agree that the noise wasn't intended. At the same time though I can't help but feel that if the CD was good enough for the band to release, then I have got to go with it until I here different from them. It does have a certain raw quality to it. /martin |