Is Neil Young just a grumpy old musician?

[essenmein]

I'm just going to roundly disagree with Mr Young there.

Yes MP3 can be atrocious or actually pretty decent depending on how the compression is set up.

Use to be a little bit of a HiFi nut, so we did some experiments. A friend of mine had a really nice recording on CD that we used as reference, then we ripped it, and compressed it in various compression rates and did A-B blind comparison.
128k was pretty terrible
196k was noticeably better, on some poorer speakers 196k was almost indistinguishable from the original (due to lack of fidelity in the mid/highs), but on good speakers still sounded bad when you heard the A-B.
256k better again
320k was still perceptibly different if you knew what to listen for (weird HF scrambling)
320k VBR you'd really have to listen hard (make it up?) to tell the difference. We decided that 320k VBR was "acceptable".

What makes or breaks a recording though is the final studio down mix, and what its targeted for, most "pop" (aka garbage) is (or at least used to be) down mixed to sound good on crappy stereos, usually a bit of boost in the lows and some in the highs, and fairly compressed (ie dynamic range, not data) to overcome the short comings of the average radio. Put such a recording on a good system and it just sounds bad, quite tiring to listen to, wallowy bass and over done highs with no dynamics.

 

[essenmein]

I like a wide rang of music, incl electronic music, what funny with good hi fi systems is you can hear the poor sampling in the samples they used to make the music. And some of the electronic music sound good on a poor quality stereo (some tracks that I really enjoyed) but were practically embarrassing once on a clear system. Here you could really tell which electronic music artists understood what they were doing creating the music, some of the recordings are fantastic, a well recorded analog synth is awesome.

 

[gmax137]

Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with his point of view on sound quality, I nearly choked when Neil Young said (paraphrasing): "I'm 75 years old, you should listen to what I'm saying..."

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

NEIL YOUNG

Year: 1995

Inducted by: EDDIE VEDDER (PEARL JAM)

Category: PERFORMERS

https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/neil-young
Neil Young, Broken Arrow Ranch, Half Moon Bay, California 1971

https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/photographs/mDrAPY/Neil-Young-Broken-Arrow-Ranch-Half-Moon-Bay-California--1971

I’m always heading to Half Moon Bay! I love it.

It was Neil that inspired me to play with my three harmonicas. I can really WAIL! Seriously I mean it!

 

[Stephen Tashi]

Remember the phone service commercial that advertised "You can hear a pin drop"?

I hear it when playing the video on my computer, but I don't think the experiment would work on any modern cell phone I've listened to.

 

[Dr Transport]

I’m always heading to Half Moon Bay!

Every time I used to travel to the Bay area for work, a bunch of us would go up to Half moon Bay to the Moss bay Distillery and sit for an evening. I never did see the ghost.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

I hope to never see a ghost

Historical Landmark, Home to "The Blue Lady" Ghost
A designated California Point of Historical Interest, the restaurant's history includes a popular speakeasy and famous ghost.

During Prohibition, the San Mateo Coast was an ideal spot for rum running, bootleggers and “speakeasies,” establishments which sold illegal booze to thirsty clients.

One of the most successful speakeasies of the era was Frank’s Place on the cliffs at Moss Beach. Built by Frank Torres in 1927, Frank’s became a popular nightspot for silent film stars and politicians from the City. Mystery writer Dashiell Hammett frequented the place and used it as a setting for one of his detective stories.

The restaurant, located on the cliff, above a secluded beach was a perfect location to benefit from the clandestine activities of Canadian rum-runners. Under cover of darkness and fog, illegal whiskey was landed on the beach, dragged up a steep cliff and loaded into waiting vehicles for transport to San Francisco. Some of the booze always found its way into the garage beneath Frank’s Place. Frank Torres used his excellent political and social connections to operate a highly successful, if illegal, business. Unlike many of the other speakeasies along the coast, Frank’s Place was never raided.

[. . . ]

The Distillery also retains one of Frank’s former customers, as well. Its resident ghost, "The Blue Lady”, still haunts the premises, trying to recapture the romance and excitement of Frank’s speakeasy years. The story of The Blue Lady was documented by the TV program "Unsolved Mysteries", and has been seen by millions of people around the world. Perhaps you will see her when you visit!
###
https://mossbeachdistillery.com/history-ghost/

 

[Mondayman]

Only guy I can sing to in the presence of my family and not sound out of tune.

I found that the key to singing Neil Young is to plug one nostril.

 

[pbuk]

I found that the key to singing Neil Young is to plug one nostril.

And the key to listening is to plug both ears (sorry, couldn't resist)

 

[OCR]

Sorry, couldn't resist. . .

And the key to listening is to plug both ears. . .

.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

Rolling Stone
APRIL 6, 2020 10:46AM ET

Neil Young Drops Vintage Crazy Horse Concert

Previously unseen 1991 gig shot at Buffalo, New York’s War Memorial captures Young at the height of his “Godfather of Grunge” period

By

ANDY GREENE

Neil Young has dug into his archives and unearthed video of a complete concert he played with Crazy Horse at Buffalo’s War Memorial on February 16th, 1991 on the Smell the Horse tour. He posted it for free on his
Neil Young Archives website. (Update: Young has since taken down the show.)

“This is raw,” Young wrote. “Untouched sound…we normally would have fixed some things and we will get to it, but we are sharing this with all of you just as it is ‘in all its Ragged Glory’ as [my late producer David] Briggs would have said. We are not waiting.”

The show mixes Crazy Horse standards like “Cortez the Killer,” “Like a Hurricane” and “Welfare Mothers” with songs he’d recently released on Ragged Glory like “Love to Burn” and “****in’ Up.” The tour launched just as the Gulf War began and every show featured a special rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” in response. The setlist didn’t change much throughout the course of the tour, but this Buffalo gig is one of just two nights where he broke out the 1976 obscurity “Campaigner.”

The live album Weld was cut on this tour, but only “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Hurricane” were recorded at this Buffalo gig. The complete show has never been seen anywhere. “We can’t get into the archive vault to retrieve the master for a remix,” Young wrote, “but it’s debatable whether one is needed at this moment.”

Young was planning on touring America with Crazy Horse this year, but the Coronavirus forced him to postpone it. In the past couple of weeks, he’s posted two homemade Fireside Sessions concerts that he filmed at the Telluride, Colorado, house he shares with his wife, actress Daryl Hannah. They are packed with rarities and fan favorites like “On the Beach,” “Little Wing,” “Homefires” and “Words.”

A third edition is coming soon. “There was a brief delay, as my lovely wife was ill for several days and had to isolate herself, even during our isolation,” Young recently wrote. “It proved particularly challenging on the food front, however, she recovered, all is well and now we’re back on track.”

They initially tried to livestream the show, but their internet connection was too slow to make it work. Hannah now shoots the show on her iPad, edits it and then leaves the device on their doorstep for a friend to bring into town, where it is uploaded to the web.

As we await the new Fireside Session, check out the 1991 Crazy Horse gig. It’s Young at his Godfather of Grunge prime and a great gift for fans stuck in their homes.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/neil-young-drops-vintage-crazy-horse-concert-978877/

Love you Neil and Daryl Hannah Thanks Rollingstone!

 

[sysprog]

Before CDs, some audiophiles would play a vinly record once on a Linn turntable with a very expensive cartridge connected to a pristine diamond needle and record the playback on a high-end reel-to-reel tape deck. Then they'd put the vinyl away, and they could play the tape hundreds of times before the the chromium dioxide started to wear away.

When the CD arrived, we were all insulted. We preferred noise and hiss to this condescending doing of integrals. They called 40 kilocycles "oversampling" based on the notion that human hearing can't detect more than 20 kilocycles. But 2 samples per hearable cycle doesn't come close to the real sound.

I don't disagree with Mr. Young for wanting back the fullness of analog sound.

 

[cjl]

Before CDs, some audiophiles would play a vinly record once on a Linn turntable with a very expensive cartridge connected to a pristine diamond needle and record the playback on a high-end reel-to-reel tape deck. Then they'd put the vinyl away, and they could play the tape hundreds of times before the the chromium dioxide started to wear away.

When the CD arrived, we were all insulted. We preferred noise and hiss to this condescending doing of integrals. They called 40 kilocycles "oversampling" based on the notion that human hearing can't detect more than 20 kilocycles. But 2 samples per hearable cycle doesn't come close to the real sound.

I don't disagree with Mr. Young for wanting back the fullness of analog sound.

See, a lot of audiophiles go based on what you're claiming here, that "2 samples per hearable cycle doesn't come close to the real sound". However, mathematics doesn't always follow intuition. You can perfectly recreate a signal as long as you have at least 2 samples per cycle of the highest desired frequency. It's not an approximation. It's a perfect reproduction. In actuality, the waveform recreated by a CD at 44.1kHz or a DVD at 48kHz will be a *better* reproduction than what a record can achieve, because the analog errors in the record will be far larger than errors introduced by the digitization process.

There's a slight argument to using 24 bit rather than 16 bit. 16 bit is adequate for audibly perfect reproduction, but you have to be a bit careful with your levels or you can end up with either clipping or audible background noise. 24 bit solves this issue. That having been said, I've seen lots of blind tests, and I've never seen evidence that anyone can detect a properly configured and high quality 16 bit/44.1kHz A-->D-->A loop inserted in their analog system of choice. Digital is audibly perfect, no matter what grumpy old audiophiles like to claim.

(It's worth noting that MP3s can absolutely audibly degrade the sound, though even then, that issue is largely solved with modern encoders at 256 or 320k bitrate)

 

[sysprog]

See, a lot of audiophiles go based on what you're claiming here, that "2 samples per hearable cycle doesn't come close to the real sound". However, mathematics doesn't always follow intuition. You can perfectly recreate a signal as long as you have at least 2 samples per cycle of the highest desired frequency. It's not an approximation. It's a perfect reproduction. In actuality, the waveform recreated by a CD at 44.1kHz or a DVD at 48kHz will be a *better* reproduction than what a record can achieve, because the analog errors in the record will be far larger than errors introduced by the digitization process.

There's a slight argument to using 24 bit rather than 16 bit. 16 bit is adequate for audibly perfect reproduction, but you have to be a bit careful with your levels or you can end up with either clipping or audible background noise. 24 bit solves this issue. That having been said, I've seen lots of blind tests, and I've never seen evidence that anyone can detect a properly configured and high quality 16 bit/44.1kHz A-->D-->A loop inserted in their analog system of choice. Digital is audibly perfect, no matter what grumpy old audiophiles like to claim.

(It's worth noting that MP3s can absolutely audibly degrade the sound, though even then, that issue is largely solved with modern encoders at 256 or 320k bitrate)

The music waveform set isn't all perfect sine waves; not every instrument is a gold flute (closest instrument to a perfect sine wave), so, no, 2 samples per cycle doesn't capture all the information, and the audiophile can reliably detect that there is a difference.

 

[cjl]

No, it's not a perfect sine wave, but every waveform can be represented as a sum of perfect sines, and capturing all of those sines up to 20kHz is sufficient to create an audibly perfect reproduction of any sound waveform. As I said above, there have been studies done about whether people can hear the difference, and the evidence counteracts your claim that audiophiles can hear a difference.

A 16 bit, 44.1kHz digitally sampled reproduction is audibly perfect, if done right. It is completely impossible to hear the difference between a signal that has been digitized in this way and the analog original.

(I would even argue that 256 and 320kbps MP3s are audibly perfect for nearly every person and nearly every audio sample. There are a few weird corner cases that keep it from being perfect though).

 

[sysprog]

No, it's not a perfect sine wave, but every waveform can be represented as a sum of perfect sines, and capturing all of those sines up to 20kHz is sufficient to create an audibly perfect reproduction of any sound waveform. As I said above, there have been studies done about whether people can hear the difference, and the evidence counteracts your claim that audiophiles can hear a difference.

A 16 bit, 44.1kHz digitally sampled reproduction is audibly perfect, if done right. It is completely impossible to hear the difference between a signal that has been digitized in this way and the analog original.

(I would even argue that 256 and 320kbps MP3s are audibly perfect for nearly every person and nearly every audio sample. There are a few weird corner cases that keep it from being perfect though).

I can reliably hear the difference myself. I don't want to make an 'argument from authority' claim, but when I was a kid I got to observe the making of an early ADC -- it was a set of close to a dozen rack-mounted boards -- the EE admitted that he was doing only about 40Khz, and said that if he could, he'd rather do at least 80Khz, because there can often be a wave within a wave, and that can change the feel.

 

[cjl]

No, you can't. I promise. Given an identical source, I guarantee you couldn't detect whether your audio has been digitized or not. I don't know what the engineer was saying specifically when you talked to him, and there are absolutely valid reasons for recording and mastering at higher sample rates (largely due to the ease of making the required low pass filter to avoid aliasing), but at the end of the day, 16/44.1 is enough to reproduce an audibly perfect signal, and it is perfect as a distribution and listening format.

There are some good videos going over what the reasons for sample rates and why it's unnecessary to use higher rates here:

https://xiph.org/video/vid1.shtml (basic intro to digital audio/video sampling)
https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml (More detail about why common audiophile myths about digital audio are wrong)

 

[sysprog]

No, you can't. I promise.

Despite the strong plausibility of your rationale, I allot more credence to the evidence of my sensory experience, than I will do regarding your promise.

 

[cjl]

Unfortunately, human sensory perception is really, really bad at picking out small differences, especially when you are aware of the changes. The only accurate way to test this is a proper blinded test, and every time these have been run, people don't do any better than chance at picking out which signals have been digitized or not.

 

[cjl]

Here's an interesting paper, if you're curious:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1105/0b42c641807bbcf24ba7f6e11af49f135e8f.pdf

 

[sysprog]

Unfortunately, human sensory perception is really, really bad at picking out small differences, especially when you are aware of the changes. The only accurate way to test this is a proper blinded test, and every time these have been run, people don't do any better than chance at picking out which signals have been digitized or not.

I'm not 'people'; I'm me -- play a digital recording to me twice, and it will sound exactly the same both times; play an analog version twice, and the imperfections of the playback mechanisms will make it sound different one time from the other -- wherefore: I will be able to tell which is digital and which is analog -- I disagree with your claim that there's no humanly detectable difference.

 

[cjl]

That's why the correct way to run the test is with very high end analog equipment as your source, and then to insert an A->D->A loop in for the digital tests (and obviously just bypass it for the analog tests). If digital is audibly degrading the signal in any way, you should be able to hear when the A->D->A loop is part of the signal chain.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

 

[sysprog]

That's why the correct way to run the test is with very high end analog equipment as your source, and then to insert an A->D->A loop in for the digital tests (and obviously just bypass it for the analog tests). If digital is audibly degrading the signal in any way, you should be able to hear when the A->D->A loop is part of the signal chain.

The source to sink is more variable with analog-only than with with digital -- you're not going to re-do the the ADC for another instance of digital playback -- so each analog-only occurrence will sound more unique than each digital playback will.

 

[cjl]

True, but if the goal is fidelity, that's a bad thing.

 

[Klystron]

True, but if the goal is fidelity, that's a bad thing.

Exactly the point of the artists. By analogy; by late 19th early 20th C. photography could reproduce 'near perfect' pictures of actual objects. Pundits, some art professors and professional photographers sounded the death knell of realistic painting particularly portraiture as a viable form. Instead the world witnessed an explosion of new painting schools and techniques influenced by and influencing the latest technological advances.

Wealthy patrons eschewed 'inert, lifeless' professional photograph portraits in favour of life sized paintings by prominent artists. True, a skilled painter could overcome or overlook flaws in the subject exacerbated by well lit photos; but even after techniques were developed to manipulate and correct photographs at whim, portrait painting and related drawing fields such as caricature persist as popular and serious art forms.

Even as some painters project a photo onto canvas as basis for a painting, owners and aficionados of paintings derive pleasure and sense attributes conveyed by the painter's hand lacking in machine reproductions. Engineers can insist that careful measurements indicate mechanical/electronic facsimiles faithfully reproduce, even improve upon, the original wave forms without convincing the audience who sense the benefits of the artist's contributions to the aesthetic experience.

 

[cjl]

That's not a particularly good analogy though. The flaws introduced by an analog system aren't an artist's new way to interpret the piece. They're just flaws.

Yes, artistic interpretation is important, but that interpretation happens when the artist performs the work, not when you reproduce it at home. To use your analogy a bit, if I want to see the Mona Lisa, but I can't go to france, I want the highest quality, highest fidelity image of the work as possible. Introducing flaws into the reproduction process is only making it worse, not adding any additional benefits. Your argument is a good one for why we don't want all musical performances to be based on MIDI files performed perfectly from the score, but it's not a good one for why the reproduction shouldn't be as high fidelity and as perfect as possible.

 

[Klystron]

Odd contradictions about musical performances and excellent reproductions emerge during live performances of popular recorded music. One of the beauties of live jazz is the perceived ability of the musicians to jam, to improvise and introduce modifications to the score depending on mood and conditions -- venue size and acoustics, time of performance, mix of instruments and players, etc.

In reality jazz performances are often quite structured and predetermined, yet the audience expects and accepts improvisation. Audiences at live rock concerts according to several musicians are not as forgiving. When Carlos Santana and his eponymous band played warm up at rock concerts before becoming famous, they were free to improvise on stage, to experiment with mods that might fit the styles of the more famous bands to follow, and to appeal to the current audience.

Once recorded, published and popular; Santana found they had to adhere to the audience's expectations for each song; essentially reproduce the exact cadence, timing and words popularized in the successful recordings. Many other musicians mention this effect including Young. Do you wants exact reproductions at a live concert or are the artists free to improvise?

 

[vela]

What does that have to do with being able to record and accurately reproduce the original sound?

 

[vela]

Despite the strong plausibility of your rationale, I allot more credence to the evidence of my sensory experience, than I will do regarding your promise.

This claim reminds me of the Feynman's quote: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."

 

[gmax137]

This claim reminds me of the Feynman's quote: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."

Yes, but in discussions like the one going on here, it is best if everyone adheres to this principle .

 

[cjl]

Do you wants exact reproductions at a live concert or are the artists free to improvise?

At a live concert, of course I don't expect an exact reproduction. If I buy a recording of that concert though, I do expect an exact reproduction, and digital is better at achieving that.

 

[Klystron]

At a live concert, of course I don't expect an exact reproduction. If I buy a recording of that concert though, I do expect an exact reproduction, and digital is better at achieving that.

I try to avoid online "arguments" as a waste of time. This discussion has some small merit if it illuminates incorrect comparison criteria. I do not care if so-called "analogue" reproduction is superior or inferior to digital, as the latter is what we presently have and that most of us can afford to listen. Neill Young does.

The issue for artists is NOT that the untrained human ear cannot distinguish between digital and analogue recordings as technology has improved, but that by definition sampling techniques do not capture all the information present in a musical performance.

The absurdity lies in that most live performances are already sampled and digitized in real-time using nearly identical equipment as present in recording studios. An already nebulous argument rendered moot.

As for noise-free music recording techniques, music IS noise. Certain distortion pleases people. Among the first artists to transition from live to recorded content, the most successful such as Frank Sinatra and Buddy Holly took control of the sampling to select what their trained ears regarded as the best sound.

 

[hmmm27]

The actual hearing range (of a youngster) is supposedly met (at least to the standards of marketing departments) by assuming that 44.1kHz covers the pure frequencies (assuming of course cooperative slew behaviour from the DAC's).

But, some of the differences between analog and digital recording is that on digital ultrasonics get cut during the recording process, which means their normal aliasing into the audio range is missing.

A couple of tangentially topical anecdotes :

Yours truly was a bit of a hero for a normally decent chamber choir that couldn't seem to "lock" harmonically during a concert warm-up. Turned off the A/C with its attendant otherwise-innocuous HF noise, and bingo, business as usual.

The last iteration of the analog Oberheim OB series synthesizers was generally agreed upon (mostly by purists, mind) as having something-ineffable missing in the sound. Not ineffable at all: they had added some lowcut filters, presumably because of the advent of digital, andor to keep the more affordable iteration from possibly blowing woofers out, for more affordable bands that didn't have pro engineers/equipment already plugged in.

 

[cjl]

but that by definition sampling techniques do not capture all the information present in a musical performance.

Yes, but no recording technique captures all information present. There's no such thing as a recording technique with infinite bandwidth and dynamic range, so you will always lose something. However, with digital, we can carefully control and exactly understand what we lose, and we can therefore select our technique so that we only lose the inaudible part. With analog, the distortion, noise, and lost information is much harder to quantify, which is a large part of why it's worse. You will always lose some information, so why not select your recording methodology so you can know and control exactly what is being lost?

In addition, amusingly, if you look at the actual capability of analog recording techniques, they come up measurably worse than digital in basically every way. A really good brand new vinyl record can achieve about 70dB of dynamic range, in perfect conditions. This is about the equivalent of what you can achieve with 12 bit digital audio. Studio reel-to-reel tape can approach 80dB (though it would typically be lower), or a bit over 13 bits. CDs have 16 bits though, so they handily outperform analog for dynamic range, and digital recording and mastering is usually done in 32 bit float (though in practice, the actual dynamic range can basically never exceed 20 bits or so, but there are good reasons why 32 bit is more convenient for recording and mixing before downconverting to 16 or 24 bit in the final result).

In frequency response, on the high end, vinyl does have a bit of an advantage over a normal CD. In perfect conditions, vinyl can theoretically reproduce up to 100kHz or so, and it's pretty easily demonstrable that it can do 45kHz, since the CD4 quadraphonic record format relied on a 45kHz bandwidth in order to work. However, this relies on nonstandard stylus heads - most record players will not be able to achieve this. In addition, it would rely on everything throughout the mastering and recording process also handling those frequencies, and most studio analog tape is not really able to do this without running at pretty high speeds, but then you sacrifice low end to do it. You pretty much can't get tape to both record well down to 20Hz and also to get usable high frequencies above 18-20kHz or so (I have found a few claims of being able to do 25-30,000Hz on tape though, so you could maybe achieve that in perfect conditions?).

Most records are also cut on machines that have an 18kHz low pass applied to the signal as well, so even if they had preserved high frequency content, that gets removed at the record manufacturing stage (because high frequency requires more power to cut which burns out cutting heads, and it's largely just noise anyways in most cases). Even if you do happen to get a record that was cut with high frequency content, and the entire mastering chain was able to capture and preserve that content, and the playback system is able to reproduce that content, there still isn't any evidence that it's audible in any way.

And, of course, if you really care about high frequencies that much, high sample rate digital is much better at capturing them than records anyways.

Also, on the low end, CDs are vastly superior to vinyl - vinyl typically sums bass to mono below 100Hz, and a lot of cartridges have noticeable deviations from a flat response as you approach 20Hz. Vinyl also struggles with phase misalignments in the bass. CDs on the other hand will happily and perfectly reproduce stereo bass all the way down to 20Hz and below, and this difference can be clearly audible.