well, as much as i would like to say i'm enjoying the extended mixes.

all is not well with them.

most are just barely different from the album versions, and some aren't really longer...

in fact the one song i was hoping to be longer - unlearn this hatred - only had a minute longer to it, and it was short to begin with...

anyways, i'm sure there will be many reviews of them elsewhere...

what i noticed is that the digital files, both the mp3, and the HD FLAC 96k/24bit are both brickwalled in sound..

if you don't know what that is : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness\_war

and here

as a further note, the album, and the singles are also brickwalled in sound also..

==================================================================

so i've decided to remaster the vinyl tracks.... granted they still have some of the same issues with the sound.

but we can fix it with software, and hopefully reduce some of the distortion in the tracks...

i will be posting some samples, and comparisons shortly.

here is one of restless from the extended mixes.

================================================================= * NOTE : I WILL NOT BE DISTRIBUTING THESE. please do not ask, this information is if you feel like playing around with files, or making your own.

as a final notice, since the versions are so clipped, and loud, there probably isn't a lot to recover, but using some careful applications of restoration software will make them improved.

later -1

Does anyone know how to convert flac to apple lossless?

johndemetry wrote: Does anyone know how to convert flac to apple lossless?

I use a free app from the App Store… “Music Convertor” by shedworx. Rubbish for MP3, but creates Apple Lossless files perfectly.

here is a comparison of 4 of the versions of restless

the album the extended mix (cd) the 12 inch extended mix the album extended versions

this is done just to see what the sections are like, not the sound quality.

we'll get to that ...

later -1

here is the original restless extended digital file (96khz/24bit) untouched:

here is my vinyl remaster:

here's a closeup of the beginning for both:

the digital file:

the remaster:

later -1

negative1 wrote:

here's a closeup of the beginning for both:

the digital file:

the remaster:

later -1

Did you record the vinyl at that level or normalize it to near max?

Kutastha wrote:

negative1 wrote:

here's a closeup of the beginning for both:

the digital file:

the remaster:

later -1

Did you record the vinyl at that level or normalize it to near max?

levels were adjusted for recording near the maximum.

no normalization was used, only click and crackle removal, noise reduction, and some clipped peak restoration.

later -1

negative1 wrote:

Kutastha wrote:

Did you record the vinyl at that level or normalize it to near max?

levels were adjusted for recording near the maximum.

no normalization was used, only click and crackle removal, noise reduction, and some clipped peak restoration.

later -1

Just curious, why record to the maximum, then do clipped peak restoration? I record at a lower level, then normalize to -1.0 dB so there is no clipping.

I record, do a high pass limit, then click removal, then clean up between tracks and then normalize to -1.0 dB.

The store MP3s didn't sound brick-walled to me at all, so I ran them through a DR meter and they came out at DR7 mostly, which whilst not great, isn't brick walled by any means. Here's the output for the curious

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR		Peak		RMS		Filename---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR7		over		-8.02 dB 	01 Restless.mp3 DR7		over		-8.44 dB 	02 Singularity.mp3 DR7		over		-9.56 dB 	03 Plastic.mp3 DR7		over		-8.31 dB 	04 Tutti Frutti.mp3 DR8		over		-9.31 dB 	05 People On The High Line.mp3 DR7		over		-8.32 dB 	06 Stray Dog.mp3 DR6		over		-7.25 dB 	07 Academic.mp3 DR7		over		-8.20 dB 	08 Nothing But A Fool.mp3 DR7		-0.07 dB	-8.67 dB 	09 Unlearn This Hatred.mp3 DR6		over		-8.08 dB 	10 The Game.mp3 DR6		over		-8.65 dB 	11 Superheated.mp3----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

johndemetry wrote: Does anyone know how to convert flac to apple lossless?

If you're on a Mac, grab XLD - very useful transcoder.

On Windows, from memory, dbPowerAmp and/or its batch convertor are the dogs unmentionables.

On Linux ,something like this

ffmpeg -loglevel quiet -i your-flac-file.flac -vn -acodec alac -map_metadata 0:g 'your alac file.m4a'

I used to wrap that up in a shell script called flac2alac which converted any flac files it found in the current working directory or below

#!/bin/shset -uset -efind . -type f \( -name \*flac -o -name \*ape \) -print0 |\  xargs -0n 1 -P 16 -I '{}' \    ffmpeg -loglevel quiet -i '{}' -vn -acodec alac -map_metadata 0:g '{}.m4a'

I made a note that the metadata translation in ffmpeg wasn't great and you lost e.g. MUSICBRAINZ metadata.

I recorded the vinyl and personally, I think it sounds much better than the digital tracks. Not quite as harsh and definitely not as "loud." The digital files sound like they were recorded in a tin room. Looking at the waveforms, the digital tracks are pretty close to brickwall. Even when I try to amplify the vinyl rip to match the digital. I get a shitton of clipping.

I ran them both through a DR meter and this is what I got:

Digital mp3s: DR Peak RMS Filename

DR8 over -9.44 dB 01. Restless - Extended Mix.mp3 DR7 over -9.44 dB 02. Singularity - Extended Mix.mp3 DR8 over -9.36 dB 03. Plastic - Extended Mix.mp3 DR7 over -8.19 dB 04. Tutti Frutti - Extended Mix.mp3 DR8 over -8.83 dB 05. People On The High Line - Extended Mix.mp3 DR8 -0.01 -8.70 dB 06. Stray Dog - Extended Mix.mp3 DR6 over -8.01 dB 07. Academic - Extended Mix.mp3 DR6 over -8.36 dB 08. Nothing But A Fool - Extended Mix.mp3 DR6 over -8.80 dB 09. Unlearn This Hatred - Extended Mix.mp3 DR6 over -8.86 dB 10. The Game - Extended Mix.mp3 DR6 over -8.93 dB 11. Superheated - Extended Mix.mp3

Official DR value: DR7

Vinyl lossless: DR Peak RMS Filename

DR12 -1.01 dB -15.74 dB 01 Restlesss (Extended Mix).m4a DR12 -1.05 dB -15.82 dB 02 Singularity (Extended Mix).m4a DR11 -1.02 dB -13.76 dB 03 Plastic (Extended Mix).m4a DR11 -1.00 dB -13.91 dB 04 Tutti Frutti (Extended Mix).m4a DR11 -1.00 dB -13.11 dB 05 People on the High Line (Extended Mix).m4a DR10 -1.01 dB -12.55 dB 06 Stray Dog (Extended Mix).m4a DR11 -1.00 dB -13.81 dB 07 Academic (Extended Mix).m4a DR11 -1.00 dB -14.63 dB 08 Nothing but a Fool (Extended Mix).m4a DR10 -1.02 dB -13.76 dB 09 Unlearn this Hatred (Extended Mix).m4a DR12 -1.01 dB -15.06 dB 10 The Game (Extended Mix).m4a DR11 -1.00 dB -14.74 dB 11 Superheated (Extended Mix).m4a

Official DR value: DR11

and here's my waveform image for the first minute of Restless: Restless comparison

These labels can't resist the sweet sweet taste of the loudness war. I prefer the volume control - it's what it's there for.

i've finished my remastering of all the extended vinyl mixes now. sounding much better to me.

also, for comparison, i've downsampled the originals to 44.1k-16 bit for comparisons.

will post some results shortly.

also, have the tutti frutti mixes for comparisons to add.

later -1

here is a comparison of the following:

tutti frutti

1 album version 2 extended mix 3 12 inch mix 2

i will post the other ones for the 4 other waveforms for the mixes afterwards...

later -1

here are the rest of the remixes compares, note there aren't any samples in them...

they are more electro, house versions, and the last one is more of a dub, with lots of stutter vocals in it..

1 hallo halo remix 2 richy ahmed remix 3 tom tragos crazy days remix

later -1