July 2002 - Kraftwerk - mailman.xmission.com

Kraftwerk in Holland
by Electram 18 Jul '02

18 Jul '02

Well, the europeans fans have one more option to see Kraftwerk this year (Holland, 23 september). If any member buy the ticket, please send the scan to us (and the poster are welcome too, of course). See more informations about the new show at: http://kraftwerk.technopop.com.br/news.php Marcelo Duarte Dante de Conti http://kraftwerk.technopop.com.br Brasil

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Re: (hd)cds vs. vinyl ... or digital vs. analog
by John Shilcock 18 Jul '02

18 Jul '02

>>> If I could, I'd plug the speaker wires directly into my brain to avoid >>> having the sound pass through imperfect speakers and air molecules. >>> Let's make the music electronic all the way from instrument to audience! >>> :) >Actually, that could never be done. Humans can't make any sense from >the meaning of a stream of 1's and 0's without some kind of analogue >conversion. I say again (see my previous email) I think that it could eventually be done... i.e "hearing" music without going through speakers and air! How that conversion takes place (analogue / digital) I have no idea. Look up cochlea implants ... then think of the future... :o))) BTW this "bionic" type technology is also being performed with "eyes".. so one will be able to "see" without having any "light" ;o))) (I believe that Stevie Wonder is currently acting as guinea pig for this technology) Keep Werking John www.keepwerking.co.uk

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Re: [Kraftwerk] hdcd
by John Shilcock 18 Jul '02

18 Jul '02

>>Dude, vocals and instruments depend on air for sound! :-) Actually that's not exactly true... we call "sound" the things we "hear" yes?.. well, how do we hear?.. You'd say we use our ears to pick up the waves in the air that then gets translated into "sound" by our brains... well the ear can be by-passed!! There is currently a device (a cochlea implant) which helps deaf people to hear... this is tested by passing an electrical current through some wires.. the patient "hears" a noise... Therefore in years to come it would be possible to have music "heard" direct from a keyboard or other electronic instruments. Well.. that's my opinion anyway! Keep Werking John www.keepwerking.co.uk

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Re: [Kraftwerk] KW in Belgium too????
by Dirk Matten 18 Jul '02

18 Jul '02

This link does not work. Can you please check again the url? Best regards Dirk Matten -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht (HTML) wurde als Anlage beigefügt.----- Von: kraftwerk(a)mailman.xmission.com Gesendet: 18.07.02 11:37:38 An: "Dirk Matten" <elektropolis(a)web.de> Betreff: Re: [Kraftwerk] KW in Belgium too???? ______________________________________________________________________________ FreeMail in der Premiumversion! Mit mehr Speicher, mehr Leistung, mehr Erlebnis und mehr Pramie. Jetzt unter http://club.web.de/?mc=021105

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KW in Belgium too????
by Lemmens Geert 18 Jul '02

18 Jul '02

For the people who speak Dutch, check out: http://www.goformusic.be/nl/agenda/concertnew.asp?id=387 According to this website (which is a rather trustable source) KW will be playing in Belgium (Ghent) on 23/09/2002. There are no details given by the show itself and tickets are 30 euro a piece. wow, so i finally will see them and i don't have to go to paris for it! g PS: this is starting to look like a tour... http://www.dertaschenrechner.tk --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes

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Re: [Kraftwerk] hdcd
by muziknut2＠juno.com 17 Jul '02

17 Jul '02

>>> I think you misread me. I think CDs sound way better than vinyl. They also have the advantage of being more durable. <<< I agree with you too, Soleil. CDs give you much more control over the tracks. And I think that HDCD-encoded CDs do indeed bring the analog "warmth" that some say is missing from the CD format. Also, 20+-bit mastered CDs (they're dithered down to a CD-compatible 16 bits in the final stage) sound MUCH better than plain-ol' 16-bit CDs. Now if KW could provide for us! Peace.

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Re: [Kraftwerk] Kraftwerk picture
by Enrique Correa 17 Jul '02

17 Jul '02

Marcelo Duarte & Dante de Conti asked: > Does any member of the list have a scan of that image > showing Kraftwerk dressed like employees of gas station? I remember seeing that picture on a magazine a couple of years ago (full page too!)... IIRC it was on the "Spin". What I do remember is that the article was about Kraftwerk's influence was / is more important than The Beatles. I see if I can find that magazine somewhere at home. I'll scan the pic for you guys if I find it. E

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Re: [Kraftwerk] KW concert warm up music.
by muziknut2＠juno.com 17 Jul '02

17 Jul '02

>>> Some classical stuff: Franz Schubert? Nahh. Personally, I'd go with Charlemagne Palestine, but that'd probably scare everyone! Peace.

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(no subject)
by ian tyson 17 Jul '02

17 Jul '02

My 5 favourite albums (no particulat order): Trans Europa express - KW Beaivi Ahcazan - Nils Aslak Valkeapaa Pictures At an Exhibition (piano version) -Modest Mussorgsky Stimmung - Karlhienz Stockhausen Alan Vega Martin Rev (Mute re-issue)- Suicide ian t _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com

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Re: (hd)cds vs. vinyl ... or digital vs. analog equipment ( again ;-)
by jtalbert 17 Jul '02

17 Jul '02

Even as somewhat of a "lurker," I enjoy getting involved in discussion pertaining to analog vs. digital. I tend to prefer analog, but there is always room for both. > > I think you misread me. I think CDs sound way better than vinyl. > > well ... that's what u may think or hear , but cds actually ONLY sound "clearer" > than vinyl , which is indeed A_BIG_DIFF'RENCE_!!! ;-) I fully agree with Oh Jay on this. CDs sound "clearer" because there is no surface noise. However, I personally find that vinyl sounds more "musical." > > Vinyl advocates always seem to be going on about equipment > > that only exists in some dream world. Actually, I have a very modest turntable at this time (under $300) and when I was finally able to get hold of The Mix on vinyl and compare it to the CD, to my ears, there was an astounding improvement. The CD version of The Mix is quite cold and almost lifeless in comparison. The sound of the vinyl had a much more natural stereo field with greater instrument separation and presence. I would honestly say the differences seemed more than trivial. And again, that is on a standard turntable with a total system cost probably under $2000. > >Seems like the vinyl gave up more high end "timbre" than a boxy sounding > CD. > >0's and 1's reproduced (stuffed) in CD's seem not to replace the .1, .2, > .3, .8, .9's heard in the analog world. > > You got it all right buddy :) Indeed! Probably one of the most detrimental processes that occurs in digital audio production is the final preparation for a 16 bit, 44.1 k CD master. That process usually involves a step called dithering which takes higher resolution audio (24 bit or greater) and reduces it to 16 bits - so in essence, not all the data makes it onto the final product. If you've ever heard a 24 bit mix before and after dithering, the differences are quite clear. The first thing to suffer is stereo separation and what might be called "air" Down-sampling is another process that can be detrimental to digital audio (going from 48k, 96k or 192k to 44k). And depending on the quality of the conversion process, the result can be skewed and distorted transients. > >Now almost every piece of music is recorded in digital right from the start > >so CD (or some of its new incarnations) is the media of choice. > > This isn't true. Lots of musicians use analog mastering, and in fact I've > heard that some people have abandoned digital > equipment completely, *recently*. I can certainly vouch for this fact. Many artists that I personally know not only choose to utilize analog mastering for sonic reasons, but are considering moving back to using more analog equipment in their studio setups. But its really a matter of the personal taste of the artist. > > I heard the difference on a high end system. > > Seems like the vinyl gave up more high end "timbre" than a boxy sounding CD. > > 0's and 1's reproduced (stuffed) in CD's seem not to replace the .1, .2, .3, .8, > > 9's heard in the analog world. > > Perhaps. Trouble is, all those little peaks get filed off as you play the > record. :) One important thing to point out here (whether one prefers digital OR vinyl), is that both vinyl and CDs are mastered completely differently on different types of equipment. And without a doubt, the mastering process applied will have an effect on the resulting perceived sound quality for better or for worse for either of them. > > Moving on to the Rega turntable, which is less than 1/3 of the cost, the > > first thing you notice is more AIR, and more rock'n'roll!. > > Recordings sound much more "real", and the sounds float around in the room > > very "matter-of-factly". Gone is the "controlled" sound > > and hello to the "live" feeling. > > See, you're moving into the whacky, poorly defined subjective terminology > that audiophiles always seem to use to justify their religion. Jumping into to this here, as I mentioned above, I don't have an expensive turntable and I can still hear the sound stage differences between vinyl and CDs quite clearly. > What is "AIR"? What is "real"? I say that CDs sound more real because > there is little air involved - at least with electronic instruments no > acoustic pickups are needed, cutting that troublesome and distorting air > out of the picture all the way until your speakers. The "air" that I believe the previous gentleman and other "audiophiles are referring to is "natural sounding crispness and openness in the sound stage," i.e., space around the instruments (whether that space is artificial or not). When digital audio is processed for CD, that sound stage suffers a great deal. Even synthetic reverb and ambience, which is used to create an artificial sound stage, will be affected. > I also like it when music is mastered direct to CD because it eliminates > the annoyances that come with live performances - environmental noise, > crowd noise, and mistakes. Mastering direct to disk is not what would eliminate any of these types of noises and flaws. Environmental noise has to be controlled before it ever hits the mixing board stage for any recording. Likewise, crowd noise will leak into ANY recording, direct to disk or not, if not controlled by the engineer. And of course, mistakes in the performance have nothing to do with the recording medium! :-) > I find this hard to believe, and I lack access to the equipment to test > it. What we need is to hook a good spectrum analyser up to a vinyl system > and a digital system and see which one more accurately reproduces the > sound from the studio. Without the original studio final mixes, there would be no way of making this type of comparison accurately. Especially when one takes into account that each medium will have been mastered slightly differently. > Very true! But analog recording systems are also unable to exactly > reproduce analog sound because every step of the process introduces > a distortion of some kind. I really think that digital instruments > fed directly to digital recording devices are the more promising > technology, and can offer better approximations. Actually, bad Digital to Analog convertors can really ruin any quality of a digital signal. Because... > Digital clocks are highly accurate - to better accuracy than humans can > detect. I can't imagine the source of the problem you're referring to, > since everything in a digital system should be driven by a crystal > oscillator, and all lags in the system should be constant. On the contrary, NOT all digital clocks have the same level of accuracy. Any flaw in the clock introduces jitter which in the end can ruin a digital signal's clarity, separation, presence, frequency response and other properties. There's a reason why Apogee DAC's are priced so much higher than consumer convertors (especially those found in less expensive CD players and cheap computer sound cards. The digital to analog convertor (and analog to digital convertor when recording) is one of the most important links in the digital signal chain (right up there with bit resolution and sampling frequency) > There is also at least one source of timing problems in a vinyl system: > The motor. No electric motor keeps its speed perfectly. A feedback system > is used to verify its speed and make adjustments as needed. Can't you hear > that happening? Again, the kind of timing "clock" referred to in digital audio has a completely different purpose. A bad digital clock can adversly affect the quality of the signal. Its not be easily noticeable on its own, but when comparing with a convertor that has a *high* quality clock, the difference in remarkable. > > This isn't true. Lots of musicians use analog mastering, and in fact I've > > heard that some people have abandoned digital > > equipment completely, *recently*. > > Luddites! :) Again, my argument has always been, digital and analog can peacefully co-exist. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks. I use both. > Um, those songs don't exactly push any system to its limits. In fact, I'd > say that they contain mainly sounds that a cheap analog system is capable > of reproducing reasonably well. Actually there are harmonics in those older albums (done using analog synthesizers) that can't really be accurately produced well on a cheap system (or digitally for that matter if we're talking about 44/16). > > Damn right Oh Jay! But, this is not true for good equipment. A good vinyl > > player usually sounds clearer than a CD does, > > Heh. "Good". Expensive. Whereas a typical CD player sounds better than a > typical vinyl system. If I had money to spend on a stereo system, the > first think I'd buy would be good *speakers*; they're what really makes a > difference. Actually, all the components in the chain are important. Expensive speakers with less than quality speaker cable will almost negate the added expense. Cheap DACs in a cheap CD player will do even more damage. And of course, an amp that is too weak to properly drive the speakers would be of little benefit. So clearly, it's that quest for great sound that turns ordinary people into audiophiles. Bless 'em all! :-P > Actually, good earphones are even better; less air between the > wire and the ear. Whoa! Headphones! That's another debate altogether! :-D Kindest regards, John http://www.efofex.net/

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