The above posts were made some time ago. Subsequent to this I did a long study of the difference between recording in 16bit vs 24bit. Essentially, I found, keeping with 16bit all the way through to the CD, enhanced the natural quality of the music. My CD Trance, employed this technique. But it meant I could use almost no digital enhancement effects, as they caused too much deterioration of sound.
At last I decided I enjoyed the 24bit effect, and shifted to that from then on. Much of the difference between 16 and 24bit is in the reduction to CD format, which is 16bit. Dropping down from 24 to 16 in the final master is the subject of extensive technical research, which I won't go into, but suffice to say they have to add in a low-level frequency sound to fool the ears. Perceptually, I found the result from processing via 24bit gave a slight treble enhancement, that was not without attractiveness.
The big advantage of 24bit recording and production, was that digital sound manipulation tools no longer decreased the sound quality as it did in 16bit. Thus I could finally indulge in all the fascinating tools that are available. But it didn't stop there - digital tools had many more parameters than analogue, so they took a long time to learn how to get the best out of.
My next step was to finally explore MIDI. I have never liked MIDI generated sounds, so always remained with instruments I could actually play. But I discovered, by utilising a program (plugin to Pro Tools) called Melodyne, I could convert music played by an instrument to MIDI, as the source of the MIDI format, then apply that to a vast selection of MIDI instruments, and re-include the result in the mix. This meant I took a guitar track, and converted it to a beep timpani sound in Che, amongst other instruments like clarinet into choirs etc. But the effect was never as attractive as the original sound, so had to be relegated to supporting sounds. Prominent sounds, like voice or lead guitar were out of the question for this process. But it has finally freed me up from the range of supporting instruments I am capable of playing.
There have been other technical advances I have enjoyed, like Liquid, which have enabled me to rhythmically match instruments to very fast and non-metronomically regular tracks like the drum in Che, which was the first track of that piece upon which everything else was built.
But recently, I have had another fascinating revelation. In the above posts I described the problems with digital compression. Strangely, digital production has come a long way since those early days. Two new tools (Pro Tools plugins) I have discovered have transformed my music and my ears.
Firstly, compressors have become less important to digital music than limiters. A limiter pulls the output volume back to a prescribed point (usually -0.2db) while you increase the input level. This means the music is pushed up to a limit. The effect is that you don't use analogue replication of 'compression' to increase the power, or perceived volume of a music track. Instead, the 'peaks' are systematically cut back while the lower volume sounds are increased. This causes a fattening of the whole sound. For example, a flute sound which has a very sine wave quality from a distance, becomes like you would hear if your ear was right against the instrument. So breath and sibilant sounds are increased, while the peak tones are reduced. Now, you can argue the merits of this, and I have for some time (much like the difference between 16 and 24bit recording), but finally I realised my ears had changed to enjoying what we audiophiles call immersion listening. That is, listening from inside the music rather than from a distance. I might say more about this at a later time, because the 'at a distance' quality has much to support - like listening to old movies.
The new effect is able to use the speakers, which finally deliver the sound, as an instrument in itself. Speakers can deliver superior bass and treble to what the ears naturally hear from daytime sounds. So to use the speakers as an instrument, instead of simply delivering the music, is a change in not only production aims, but in listening itself.
I was first drawn to a new plugin called Sonnox Limiter, because it used a technique which is too complicated to explain. It has to do with how sampling rates affect limiting, and is fascinating, but far too technical to bother with here. However, the upshot was that I discovered that digital tools are not tone-neutral. Changing the tonal characteristics caused me to also purchase the Sonnox EQ, as it also had a fascinating technical feature (again, too technical for here, but terrific for me), which then allowed me to reshape the tonal characteristics of the sound before it entered the limiter.
The final result of all this on my earlier recorded music was to change how the my ears heard sounds. I am still struggling with, and enjoying immensely, this process. In my new piece, Friends Soon Have Gone, which I applied to video for YouTube and Vimeo, I was able to resurrect an old track which I never much liked the voice on, to one in which I am finally satisfied with the voice sound (still appalled at my slackness then - 30 years ago - in preparation for singing the phrasing of words).
I am now engaged in remastering many of the older pieces as a way to prepare myself to remastering the newer songs. Not sure yet what to do with these, but one I enjoyed a lot, was a Saur piece called The Spirit of the Game. This is actually a puja track, which was recorded out in our back paddock around the fire in winter, after everyone except Dom, Jeff and I were left - deep into the night. It was so friggin cold, my hands felt like stumps on the drums, and Dom said he had frost on his keyboard. Historically, it was too deteriorated a sound quality to do much with, but I always liked it. So I applied my new techniques and am seriously surprised at its final quality. It took a lot of understanding the tools, drawing diagrams for myself and boring Julie with my concepts, to finally reduce the air hiss without reducing the edge to the musical sounds. Since I posted the URL on RestlessSoma a week or so ago, it has been downloaded 85 times. Makes me wonder who is interested in this kind of puja music?
So digital has finally come into its own, as far as I am concerned. I am remastering numerous old pieces, as well as struggling with a new video featuring Che, which is a completely other story, about video production techniques I am exploring.
