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  1. I've long argued there is an objective and subjective side to audio/video production. Subjective can mean a million different things. Take for example my past disagreements with Olli66 on sound--he prefers a much louder crowd sound whereas I prefer a cleaner crisp sound. Some might like a thicker bass sound, whereas others love a sharp hyper-compressed pop sound. That's subjective, and a matter of taste. Our previous discussion about the cell phone streams would fall under this. I would argue that the quality is too low to be worth it (generally speaking), but that is a matter of taste. I can accept other people have different tastes.

    There's the objective part. This would be stuff like a hum in a record--that's a byproduct of poor recording conditions. A *big* one is time alignment. If recordings are time aligned incorrectly, then the recording will be mud, no matter how awesome it is. Objectively, a recording rig is either right or wrong, regardless of your gut feeling. If the time alignment is off, the mix is off.

    Now, I haven't seen your exact system, but I'll say that measuring and aligning each track individually is a easy way to have incorrect time alignment. It depends on the records on how *bad* it is, but I'd imagine that multiple different minidisc recorders, and some of them not even digital transfers (thus creating another ADC step, introducing another clock in the mix), is going to be pretty difficult to time align. So within ~30 seconds, things will be off. The cut & splice method (as I call it) does not account for varying time clocks.

    I would strongly urge you to reconsider your workflow. You are creating material. If you like a certain sound, a certain feeling, that's great. That's 100% subjective. But special care needs to be taken to make sure the foundation (ie time alignment) is done correctly. And it's pretty much impossible to do that correctly with the splice & align method.

    Regarding your point about form vs content--I'd argue they're one and the same. Would you want to read a book that has the ink completely smeared and difficult to read? No, you'd want the delivery mechanism to be adequate to carry the message. Same with audio.

    Give my video a watch. I have the spreadsheet if you'd like to try it out.
  2. Originally posted by hoserama: [...]
    Regarding your point about form vs content--I'd argue they're one and the same. Would you want to read a book that has the ink completely smeared and difficult to read? No, you'd want the delivery mechanism to be adequate to carry the message. Same with audio [...]
    The point about form and content here is that you only assume that the matrix was done badly and that it therefore cannot sound good. That is putting form first and, in your case, disregarding the content altogether. It’s not, as you say, that the ink is “smeared,” it is rather a false deduction from something that you’ve read somewhere on the back.
    But reading a book is categorical different than listening to music. To stay with the analogy, the brain is capable of making a coherent listening experience even when it hears not every detail perfectly clear. Back in the days of vinyl and tape, there was always noise and crackles. And even further back with am-radio and 78’s – people were still able to enjoy music. A lot of “smeared ink” so to say.
    Have you listened to the sample from the show page (Elevation) and let your feeling decide? Yes there is “smear” – but you forget that people are still capable to enjoy what they hear. This may have to do with taste, but also with some sort of talent to listen to “smeared” audio – a talent that may have been developed in the early 80-ies, or even earlier…but not necessarily and exclusively to the "older" generation. In fact listning to audience recordings requires a certain talent in order to enjoy them. A talent, btw, that can be trained.

    Let’s also discuss your claim to objectivism. What I have done is created a 4-star bootleg (that’s 4 out of 5 according to u2start’s rating system) out of two (probably) 3-stars and one 2-star recording. A bootleg that, within the u2start catalogue, is able to compete with the 4-star audience recording.
    And, I keep saying this again and again, my bootleg aims to re-create a feeling.
    A huge part of this feeling is the crowd singing. And particularly in the Amsterdam ArenA that night, you could always hear an echo accompanying the sound, and hence singing. And mind you, because of the old sound system the front side already had a delay relative to the back side of at least 0.3 seconds.
    Therefore, your claim to objectivism – in this case a rather basic true or false principle – can not be applied because there is and was delay all over the place. Even better: delay
    was and is part of the concert; both objectively and subjectively!

    NB: “subjectively” in principle refers to the philosophical notion of “subject” – that is us, thinking entities with a brain that will process all kinds of sensory input (e.g., sound) into judgements of various kinds. Some judgements may indeed called “objective” in the sense of a universal validity (much, much debate btw if this is truly so), but most judgements are subjective only. But this on a side note – I never intended to make this a discussion about semantics. As far as I am concerned this is only a discussion about taste.

    This is simply ridiculous!… You can not “urge” me, period. It doesn’t apply.
    You are making a fool out of yourself hoserama. Who do you think you are?
    The matrix police? Don’t make me laugh… (sorry!)
    And what is worse, your motives for lecturing me are becoming more and more suspect.
    (What are you afraid of? People already are liking this matrix…and what’s the problem?
    Do you want to tell them that they are not allowed????
    - do want that people only listen to perfection? That is a very, very dangerous idea...)

    Go start your own topic/thread hoserama. Then I will decide for myself if I'll make use your advice.
    But I am afraid your way of talking to me has become to smeared for me...
  3. this is such a fun discussion!
    ridicilous from all sides I must say
    so, now I wanted to know what this recording is about and I listened to the sample and it is a pure sound mess once everything kicks in, phew, yes, some people even enjoy music when one speaker is not working and they don't even notice it but well that does not speak for someone's perception but hoserama there is nothing you can do about it
  4. Originally posted by olli66:[...] some people even enjoy music when one speaker is not working and they don't even notice it but well that does not speak for someone's perception but hoserama there is nothing you can do about it
    You're motives to return here again and again in order to "mock" my work and the people who are enjoying it are suspect too Olli...

    It's starting to feel like bashing.
  6. Please people, we're all for a friendly and open discussion with valid arguments but we should keep it friendly. I think this topic is not the place to have these discussions, so if hosarama wants to shares his work on best practices for creating this stuff feel free to create a topic. And olli, if you just come in a topic to bash people, that doesn't work either.

    So unless this topic continues ontopic I have to close this one.
  7. Thank you for making me smile...
  8. Thank you... was there to and hoping for a lossless version!
  9. Thank you!!!!! This was my first U2 concert!
  10. Lets open a bootleg bashing topic! Every one can all say he/she wants about the bootlegs here and the members who recorded them.

    This is cynical............

    Lets be glad with all the activities here! We are all U2 fans.

    If you like it or not, give your opinion and case closed.

    Hoserama/Olli66, I have some recordings from both of you and most are very good, so maybe you would like to open your own topic here like BigGirl has done.

    I would be very interested.
  12. Originally posted by ferrari:Lets open a bootleg bashing topic! Every one can all say he/she wants about the bootlegs here and the members who recorded them.

    This is cynical............

    Lets be glad with all the activities here! We are all U2 fans.

    If you like it or not, give your opinion and case closed.

    Hoserama/Olli66, I have some recordings from both of you and most are very good, so maybe you would like to open your own topic here like BigGirl has done.

    I would be very interested.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.