albums ruined by Sonic Solutions' NoNOISE

I can be pretty crafty sometimes. Don't worry, though, as I am sure it will get Gorted. I DID say I like some of Mew's work, though . . . his Machine Head SACD sounds awesome, actually. Every other release I've heard--CD or vinyl--sounds like mud.

 

Then your thread is pointless.

 

You can argue that the careful use of anything is valid.

For me, the purpose of mastering is to get the maximum fidelity of what is on the tape on to the playback medium. For vinyl mastering, this was a compromise of loudness and dynamics against trackability and the space available.

For CD, you can argue that the removal of hiss and noise are valid, along with the use of compression and limiting. Their use, however, is not for the preservation of fidelity, but to change the recording in order to please the perceived market - with the belief that the changes are an improvement that most people will prefer.

To my ears, and many others here, all these changes are very destructive.

I personally prefer flat transfer mastering, or at the very most a little touch of EQ. If I could not get hold of "flat transfer" first pressing CD's, I would only listen to vinyl along with its hiss, roar, and pops and clicks.[/QUOTE]


I was really talking about audio restoration.

However, regarding transfers ,then I like the flat variety

I have loads of Targets.(by accident)

But I don't want a CD xfered from a master copy designed for vinyl ...

Some tapes might need restoration ,but gently please

BTW I have the EMI extended re-releases of Truth & Sunshine Superman

mastered by Peter Mew with no indication of noise reduction on the liner.

Truth is great, but obviously originally done quickly (4days)

SS has 2 great tracks.

But they only cost £5.

Roger

 

It doesnt seem to be.

 

No, it doesn't. I use it too, but sparingly and responsibly. The over-use of any software by zealous engineers who do not make good judgement calls is going to result in a bad CD. But to blame that bad CD on Sonic Solutions is like getting burned food and blaming the stove.

 

Starting a thread called "Albums ruined by NoNoise" and citing albums as examples you haven't heard seems pretty pointless and misleading at least.

Anyway I'm out, maybe in the future we can discuss the soundquality of an album we both haven't listened to...BTW, I'm fine with the soundquality of "Os Mutantes".

 

This may come as a surprise to some, but I consider myself a bit of a fan of after-the-fact digital NR methods and I think I'm quite good at removing or reducing tape hiss without leaving any apparent artifacts. But, with that being said, I still completely agree that the end result is always lower fidelity. Personally, I could never justify the use of No-Noise (or a similar process) during the mastering of a CD to be released commercially, especially if the source is even remotely hi-fi. :thumbsdn:

 

I own the other two. I just happened to notice that the Os Mutantes album used NN, before I was going to buy it. I perhaps shouldnt have mentioned it in my post but there you go.

 

Hi,

Very bad uses of No-Noise:

The World Of Nat King Cole
The current remaster of "Greatest Hits" by the Little River Band
The current remaster of "Sports" by Huey Lewis & The News (the original issue CD is fine)
Capitol Entertainer Of The Century Frank Sinatra CD issues (The Larry Walsh original CD masterings are much better but still no definitive CD issues yet without added Stereo reverb and widening)

In my masterings No-Noise is only used when essential and only lightly then. I am a conservative about mastering.

 

Wow, I'm impressed that all these DNR users besides me have made themselves known in this thread! I thought I'd been waging a one man battle for some balance on the DNR debate. I disagree with your comment though that the end result is always lower fidelity. I have been successful in removing noise from recordings without lowering the fidelity, but this is very much source material dependent.

Derek

 

Just wondering: is there evidence that SS NoNoise was employed at Capitol as early 1987 or did they accomplish NR through some other means?

 

Sonic Solutions introduced NoNOISE in 1986, but I don't know if Capitol used it that early.

 

I have very little knowledge about No Noise and CEDAR even though I have a large rock music collection. Where can I learn more about it technically?

How does it work?
What is is suppose to do if done correctly?
What does it do if done incorrectly?
What does CEDAR stand for?
What should one listen for to detect it (I assume an absence of tape hiss)?

 

Actually, more often than not, that is NOT a good way to detect the presence of NR. All it means is that the master tape used was not hissy.

What you want to look for are artifacts, usually most audible in intro's and outro's of songs, where the music is more quiet and tape hiss is more readily apparent (and thus, NR applied with a heavier hand by the offending engineer). Once common artifact sounds like phasey, "underwatery" muddying of the signal. Another is a dulling of the leading transients of high frequencies--like cymbals that are missing their air and shimmer. These two effects are similar to what you'd hear in a badly encoded mp3 (although the badly encoded mp3 would have much more pronounced artifacts). Another is when the sense of space and reverb trails are missing from vocals and piano, causing them to lose much of their realism and sound more "in your face."

 

Not the "breath of life", that's for sure.

Don't forget that the goal of using NR in many instances may have been to simply lower the hiss level by a few dBs, so there still might be hiss on the CD. That's often more tolerable than trying to completely chisel out the hiss from the waveform.

Listen for a lack of "air" around vocals, the feeling that the "space" around instruments is being constricted, and maybe even dulled transients. The better the job then the less noticeable any artifacts will be. They might even be practically undetectable except for the sense that something just isn't quite right with the track. To my ears, even the best NR jobs take away a little of the extra something that brings life to a recording.

If some people don't want to hear any tape hiss, let them remove it themselves on their PC. But I want the option of hearing the true master tape sound! Tasteful EQ choices are fine but let's leave any further tinkering up to the individual listener.

 

I'm sometimes actually amazed at the lack of resultant artifacts on some "no-noise" jobs. Other than the fact that there is no "air" or "life" to the sound, many of those CDs have absolutely no phasiness or any of the other classic NR attributes. It makes you wonder, if they had just backed off a little bit, it would have been much better.

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/sonic-solutions?cat=biz-fin
Sonic Solutions was founded in San Francisco in 1986 by Robert Doris, James "Andy" Moorer, and Mary Sauer to use digital technology to remove hiss, clicks, and other imperfections from analog recordings. The three had worked for Star Wars director George Lucas's computer audio firm Droid Works, with the Harvard-educated Doris serving as its president. He would also head the new firm.
In mid-1987 the company's NoNoise system was unveiled, and it quickly proved a sensation in professional audio circles. The software program, which ran on a modified Apple Macintosh computer, analyzed a digital copy of an analog recording in two ways. The first compared an example of steady noise such as tape hiss or amplifier hum with the rest of a recording and then removed the audible frequencies of the offending sound throughout. The second removed clicks and other unwanted transient noises and then replaced each with sound synthesized from the digital information immediately before and afterward.
Sonic Solutions charged $103 per minute for cleaning up stereo sound, or about $6,000 for an hour-long compact disc. Processing an hour of music took as much as ten hours' time depending on the complexity of the work being done. One of the young firm's first assignments was a live recording by rock band The Doors in which some 12 minutes of lead singer Jim Morrison's vocals had been marred by static noise bursts due to a faulty microphone cable. Sonic Solutions was able to remove the noise and make the previously unusable material releasable. Other early restoration jobs included a 1930s recording of Ravel's "Bolero" conducted by the composer, and vintage albums by Louis Armstrong, Liberace, Barbra Streisand, and the Grateful Dead. Most reviewers praised the system, which was a major step up from older, less precise methods that used filters to eliminate certain frequencies or a razor blade to slice out a millisecond of sound where an unwanted click occurred. Application of NoNoise required a skilled technician, however, and over-use could remove some of the original sound or make vintage recordings lose their natural warmth.

 

Another addition to the NoNOISE list:
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Ace (U.K.)

It's a well-known fact that Blind Lemon's recordings sound very bad, but this one sounds dead as well...

 

Genesis - DE of Foxtrot!

 

Which ones are the early cd issues (what year)?

 

The only disc that really jumps out as being horrible is the Jeff Beck two-fer Truth & Beck-Ola (of the discs that I own). I was so happy to find two of my favorite Beck albums together at a great price, then I listened to the disc and I was very disappointed.

 

SD's Alive in America, contrary to its title, is one of the deadest-sounding discs I've ever heard. There are bootlegs from this tour that have much better sonics.

 

Genesis-ALL DE remasters!

 

Totally agree - see remarks in post #63...

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=2745087&postcount=63

Because of that bad experience I still haven't tried the later releases of the single albums with bonus tracks yet... are they really worth another try?