Sound Tasting At Abbey Road Studios with John Dibb

Continuing on our mission as sound evangelists, last week we invited a group of journalists to a Sound Tasting at Abbey Road Studios. The aim was to give them an insight into how a speaker engineer (in this case, B&W Senior Development Engineer Dr John Dibb), goes about listening to music and in doing so let them see what they might be missing. It proved an enlightening morning and I asked John to do a guest blog on the event.

Take it away John..

"For a long time it has seemed to me that fewer and fewer people actually take time to appreciate music. Over the years I must have demonstrated good sound to scores of friends and acquaintances, and in most cases they have gone out and bought decent equipment and now enjoy just sitting and listening. It may be a lack of quality in recordings and playback media, or a combination of these with changing lifestyles, but it seems such a pity that so many may be missing out on so much.

I was pleased, therefore, when colleagues invited me to take part in a press event that might help to reverse this trend.

Gourmet evenings and wine tastings are very popular - so why not a Sound Tasting session at the famous Abbey Road Studios, aimed at educating journalists, and hopefully, through them, the general public, in understanding the lost art of listening.

Following a tour of the studios, a general introduction outlining our concerns and what we see as the way forward, one of Abbey Road’s recording engineers demonstrated the creativity and engineering which goes into a typical multitrack recording.

My part in the event was to try to impress on them the value of simple rules which they could follow to get the most out of playback equipment, particularly placing speakers and the listener away from walls and especially corners. I then tried to impress on them how important it is to be relaxed and to remove as many distractions as possible, including the normally primary sense of vision - i.e. close your eyes. This was followed by some of the core criterion that you need to understand in order to appreciate really good sound.

I was pleased that most of the group appeared to reap benefits from this and continued to listen with closed eyes to their own recordings. Much like appreciating the finer characteristics of a good wine, appreciating quality in recordings often needs some guidance. We achieved this by selecting some of the more important attributes, such as stereo image, dynamics, ambiance, timing and demonstrated that with suitable musical excerpts. I’ve attached the document and tracks we used here in case anyone might be interested.

I think the basic aim of the event was achieved. And on a personal level I felt the same satisfaction I felt as a teenage speaker designer, and still do as a professional, when someone really gets how important sound is and how getting the illusion closer to reality is such a magical thing."

If you're interested you can download some more detailed instructions on how to optimise your auditory experience here. Read more

WOMAD 2008: Peter Gabriel's Itinerant Music Festival Looks To The Future

Over the weekend I attended WOMAD, the long-running music, arts and dance festival. The festival has been running for an astonishing 26 years, and Peter Gabriel has been involved since its 1982 inception. The festival's UK date now takes place in Charlton Park, Wiltshire, a stone's throw from the base of Realworld Records, but WOMAD has also expanded internationally to host events in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, America and many European countries.

It is difficult to imagine a succesful festival that maintains such a specific musical brief. While festivals have grown in both size and number, and often compete on the popularity of headline acts, WOMAD has succeeded in rivalling their attendance without resorting to panic tactics. Instead the festival provides a platform for new acts from around the world who may not have experienced widespread exposure. One such act is Dengue Fever (pictured right), by far the highlight of the festival for me....


Dengue Fever hail from Cambodia and Los Angeles. Their sound is a true cross-polination of the Cambodian pop of the 60's and (to my ears) the glam-rock sound of musicians like David Bowie. Rather than try to describe them I suggest that you check them out here. Stay tuned for more Dengue Fever related news soon... Read more

Neil Young: Everybody Knows This Should Be Lossless

Neil Young has spoken out in favour of lossless sound. Addressing the Brainstorm Tech Conference, Young criticized digital music services which have offered music in lossy formats: "We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements. The ears are the windows to the soul."...

Young also revealed that he will release material that he has spent a significant amount of time archiving, on Blu-Ray discs later this year. He expressed a wish that more musicians should have access to high quality formats such as Blu-Ray for their recordings.

Norweigian act The TrondheimSolistene Ensemble, who have been together since 1988, produced the first official Blu-Ray audio release earlier this year, entitled Divertimenti. The BD is compatible with the formats 2.0 LPCM, 5.1 LPCM, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, 5.1 Dolby True HD, 5.1 Dolby Digital. The 69 minute album was produced on the 2L label.

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Gwyneth Herbert 'Ten Lives'

Blue Note’s Gwyneth Herbert’s ‘Ten Lives’ is our new B&W Music Club album. Her last album was described as “a masterpiece” by Courtney Pine and we think this one is excellent too. Have a listen and let us know what you think.
She’s currently on tour in the UK and you can find all her tour dates on her site here. Read more

Introducing Martyn Ware

I have been following the blog that Martyn Ware has been writing for us over in the Lab and very much enjoying it. Martyn was a founding member of The Human League, and then Heaven 17. He now runs a number of companies, amongst them Sonic ID and Illustrious. Sonic ID is a project which Martyn has been working on with Dan Kirby, and Noel Franus, providing audio branding for products like the Sony Playstation. Illustrious is the company that Martyn uses to front his forays into Sound Art. His blog is a great diary of how the world is accepting the new sound initiatives that he is involved in, seen through the eyes of a true industry aficionado.

If you'd like to find out more about Martyn have a look at his fellows page here, and in the meantime take this opportunity to comment on his blog and discuss the issues he raises. It's a chance to converse with one of the founding fathers of 80's pop. Don't miss out!

Benjamin

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B&W Music Club Presents New Album From Brett Anderson – Wilderness

Limited Edition lossless sound quality released exclusively through B&W Music Club today!

We have partnered with Brett Anderson to release his new album in digital lossless format, three weeks before it is available anywhere else. For a limited amount of time subscribers to the B&W Music Club will receive the album in addition to the scheduled new releases from Grindhouse and Gwyneth Herbert (released July 18th). If you’re not a subscriber though, you’re still in for a treat: a free trial is available which entitles all visitors to download three lossless tracks from the album.

“I made this album with the purest of intentions: to create a beautiful suite of songs untethered by second-guessing markets and playlists and music biz bullshit. I have no record company, no publisher and a smaller audience but I have never been more confident and focused about what I am doing as an artist”

Brett Anderson, June 2008.

...Brett's first record, the era-defining ‘Suede’, became the soundtrack to a new generation, a generation disaffected by much of the music and culture around it. Their first album 'Suede' became the fastest-selling debut since Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Welcome To the Pleasuredome' and it was catapulted onto the charts after a performance on the 1993 BRIT Awards. Featuring heavily-layered production by Ed Buller, the album showed influences from indie rock band The Smiths and David Bowie and other glam rockers which were filtered and blended to create a trademark sound.

When the group split Brett reunited with ex Suede guitarist Bernard Butler to form The Tears, and their album 'Here Come The Tears' was released in 2005. Brett also collaborated with Stina Nordenstam and Jane Birkin.

In 2006, he released his debut solo album, the intensely personal 'Brett Anderson'. Wilderness is his second solo outing: it tells the story of a love affair, and has garnered high praise from both fans of his frst solo albums, and Suede fans alike. Subscribers can download it here. If you're not a subscriber you can still sign up for a trial and receive three of the tracks, plus three tracks from the magnificent Grindhouse, here. Read more

Loudness Wars

We have had some very well-informed feedback to the music that subscribers to our Music Club have so far enjoyed. One question that has been raised a number of times is the way in which the albums have been mastered. The so-called Loudness Wars have been well-documented in the press - if you haven't come across the idea have a look at this video courtesy of Charles Dye's organization Turn Me Up.

We spoke to John Dibb, our Senior Development Engineer, to get his thoughts on the issue of mastering compression.

"Acoustic compression, in short, tames the peak volume levels in a recording in order that the overall average level can be raised proportionately. Originally it was introduced in the studio in order to compensate for the limited headroom afforded by analogue tape before distortion occurs. ...!In the past ten years compression has increasingly been used during the final process of mastering a recording in order to achieve the maximum volume throughout, such that a track will always be audible even when played in noisy environments - in other words, it has become a weapon in the Loudness Wars."

But as John points out, some acoustic compression is desirable on a recording in order to achieve a satisfactory level of volume during the quieter parts of a track such that they will be audible, for example, when heard on headphones whilst walking down a noisy street.

"What is more relevant is the way the public in general are listening to music - in the street, on the tube, in the car. In all these cases the background noise is so high that the quieter sounds of (acoustically) uncompressed music would be lost. The signal-to-noise on a CD is around 90dB - on vinyl 60dB at best - in a car 25 - 35dB !! So acoustic compression is essential, despite taking some of the drama out of the music. "

This raises a crucial question for the music industry: should music be produced to sound good in all environments? Let us know your thoughts below! Read more