Cogs in the Machine Remix/Remaster

Jeez pop, sorry bout your pup man, that really sucks, they are without a doubt family members...

Ok, so a quick listen to both(i will download them later and listen closer), the new version clearly hits harder, i'm totally interested to know what you got going on to achieve this, the recording and mix job was already top notch man.

Jamie, sorry about your loss, I lost my oldest cat last Sunday and another one 4 weeks ago. I know how it feels. Hole in my soul, indeed. Still enjoy your music and love the Hammond track you did for me. Keep your head up.

We should have a "studio pet pic" thread like they do at the purple site....about the only consistently smile worthy thing that goes on over there these days. I'll find an appropriate shot of Big Willy and his cat brothers--all passed now. Our remaining pup has never been comfortable in the studio. I'm thinking I should move it upstairs....see if it's him not wanting to be around the music, or simply not wanting to traverse the stairs!

A lot of the difference is polarity rotation/symmetry at track level. It started life, actually as the experiment--'what if I recall that mix, only drop the polarity "optimized" files into the recalled project?' Answer? It requires a remix. Sometimes DSP sounded better....sometimes tracks sounded "louder" thus needed to be attenuated some....sometimes DSP got bypassed because now the track just sounded right to start with....

I really would like to know how Izotope is doing this. Like maybe it's a side effect of the process rather than the absolute symmetry....but, I noticed when you take the original mix and rotate it to symmetry, it gets MORE dynamic by the TT meter ....this one, Izotope says it needs none. Otherwise, rotating the tracks at the source (and potentially not screwing that up during the mix?) ended with the same symmetry.

Not really. You can find endless stuff about people talking about the effect of absolute polarity on CD vs vinyl. Most not engineers and claiming the CDs are "fixed" by inverting the polarity. My more in depth analysis of vinyl and digital masters say it's never the SAME....but, it's also rarely 180deg different.

I would also point out that modern crushed masters are nearly always symetrical--mostly due to simply brickwalling away most of the peaks and certainly an a symetrical one isn't a particularly useful one anyway....BUT....I think the more solid point in my experiments with this is that the objective "quality" that people have been looking to brickwalls for--is achievable without the lousy side effects of removing you know--the actual musical dynamics. Or resorting back to such an awfully lossy format (vinyl) in order to simply have things like symmetrical polarity to get an even cut. If it turns out that, and the gain staging (and maybe some side low frequency filtering to keep the needle in the groove) is what people are loving about vinyl--we should be giving them that in digital.

...which understand is where these experiments started. Analysis of differences in vinyl and digital masters from the mid 70s to now.

What you will also find is "documentation" on the web saying that absolute polarity makes ZERO difference in playback quality. Maybe even signed by a familiar nemesis to good sound. He who shall not be named, as it will no doubt summon him to spout his AES show bullshit. But, one of the things that gets pointed out is how there's no standard for polarity handling in audio gear. Now--they're usually talking about plaback stuff--amps, speaker crossovers, EQs and such....but, I started thinking--if there's no standard for ANALOG audio gear, what would you use for testing digital algos? Symmetry. So it would work "equally" whether it's asymterical in one direction or the other--but, it may simply work "as designed" on symmetrical polarity signals.

Maybe BobO will chime in....pretty sure he's cut his share of vinyl....and also pretty sure he's always maintained it mattered a LOT. A lot of the modern vinyl masters can be achieved, INCLUDING dynamic enhancement, by rotating the phase. It might be 45deg....it might be 15....it might be 90....but, if you analyze the vinyl's "difference from Izotope perfect" and analyze the digital--you can tell how much to rotate the digital to end up with the same signal as the vinyl. My GUESS is that the more symmetrical the peaks, the better the cut into the lacquer. So--it may simply be a side effect of mastering it for vinyl that IS absolutely able to be achieved in digital.

I would also point out that transformers seem to have a positive effect on absolute polarity. I've always noticed that units with transformer IO I don't particularly like the sound of "flat"--but, they always "take EQ" better than chips or tubes. Maybe it's related to their floating the ground in the process....but, in this track, the stuff I did here through the Burls didn't universally improve with rotation to "perfect symmetry".

Low frequencies is where it's easiest to hear. The bass and kick now very consistently push the woofer in the same direction. And while the first mix, I'm quite sure I had them doing that as best I could with typical 180 reversal....I think it's pretty obvious it's pumping it more efficiently on the new one.

not on my rig, exactly opposite... hmmm

yeah, the drums sound punchier, more defined, and separate themselves from the vocal track nicely, more front to back depth and definition, it's a better mix imo

can you explain exactly/or an example of how/what you did to achieve this phase rotation? i'm still confused even with all that you've so graciously explained.

I listened to the 128kbps stream. The Bass & Drums sound better in the remix. Did you say that you remastered this with Izotope Plugins?

There's something cool happening with the older version that just sounds better to me for the song. The rhythm guitar stabs have a funky tail going to them and the mix just seems to fit the song better. There's a trippy movement to the parts that fits the groove and style of the song and that's what stands out to me the most. Also the newer mix seems louder more flattened and less organic which just seems like the wrong aesthetic for this music.

With the exception of the conscious choice to add a vocal leveler after hearing the rest of the result....the overwhelming majority of the difference is the polarity rotation and the effect it had on the DSP....thus indirectly on changing DSP settings.

I opened each WAV that constitutes the project in RX4, had it analyze and suggest the rotation to achieve symmetry. I adjusted the track's gain so that it had the same "true peak" level as it had prior to rotation. Usually plus or minus say .3db.....but, since I wanted them to drop in.....so, then I recalled the mix, and imported all the Trackname_RX4 files onto their appropriate tracks. I believe I readjusted the timeline for the drum mics with the assumption that the rotation had changed their relationships to some degree. At this point, I realized that the overall balances were fairly shot, so without resetting anything, I simply adjusted the DSP on channels by bypassing, hearing what the now rotated track sounded like...and in a few cases, reverting BACK. There were some that I felt like the original track was perfect and the rotation caused a need for DSP, so obviously (to me)--screw it, revert back.

The "new bit of hardware", not used in the remix as much as the master....was an evaluation unit of several that Avenson sent me for review. The Mid-Side was the one I used. But, again--all it did was allow me to use my analog EQ at master time in mid/side mode rather than the standard mid/side digital EQ I used OR--as I tested seperately, converting to mid side, sending that to the EQ, and converting back digitally. The difference is utter nuance, I'm quite sure could go either way. Brad's box is designed to give the ability to analog gear working in the analog domain. The only thing it "added" to this mix is the use of it's side/difference HPF. Which, I could've just done with another plug in on the the decode side, which is where his unit places it--otherwise post EQ.

This is my ongoing push to understand the "why" in why certain functions simply work better in analog. You asked for not a lot of typing....but, in short, I believe that the summing of digital--be it "more perfect" or "less perfect" causes more phase cancellation/interplay than electrically summing signals...and that DSP code is written for symmetrical polarity so that it works equally "well" will both directions of asymmetry, but will only work to it's ideal design when given symmetrical polarity.

I posted recently, while finishing this, looking for a cheap/inexpensive 360 rotation plug in so that I could simply say "try it yourself". Buying a restoration suite, if you don't do audio restoration work is absurd. The freebie didn't work (meaning it malfunctioned--not didn't have the same effect) on my system...so, that was dashed. You'll have to trust me....or don't....or if you have access to RX-you can batch process to symmetry--but, I've not figured out a way to use their batch processing to ensure it doesn't change the peak levels. I had to manually assess that. Unless you want to batch everything to have exactly the SAME peak levels--which honestly may simply have very different side effects, but would allow a batch normalization step.

The easiest Cliff's Note band aid, if you want to just "buy" better sound, is to simply sum analog.

Thanks so much for explaining that.

Impossible to argue with the result, thats for sure.

thanks again

cheers

Wiz