Kaas Chante Piaf Royal Albert Hall November 5th 2012

My wife and I went to last night's performance with eager anticipation and we were bitterly disappointed; not with Miss Kaas but with the sound reproduction. Patricia Kaas is one of the world's greatest jazz, blues, popular music and chanson performers. The vibrancy, colour and dynamic range of her voice allows her to perform with equal aplomb with either James Taylor or Placido Domingo.

Miss Kaas can comfortably walk in the shoes of Juliette Greco, Marlene Dietrich and of course Piaf herself. Her voice is sultry, throaty and silky at the same time. None of the sex appeal, in the best sense of the words, of her voice came through. We might as well have been listening  to Soeur Sourire - the "The Singing Nun" from Belgium.

Why should the sheer feminine power of a Diva be caged by "emotionally castrated fingers" on a computer  controlled mixing deck? Let the voice and the music flow freely. The artists and the audience deserve nothing less. Kaas is the queen of music not an MP3 starlet.

The performance started with a video clip which included a musical backdrop by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Every note was reproduced with equal volume. The music had no life, spirit or dynamism; it was barely recognisable as an orchestra let alone the RPO. This warm up left me cold. I did not know whether to laugh or cry; let alone clap. The bemused audience was in a similar state. This, for me, was musical desecration.

"24bit/96 KHz Hi Res" sound fidelity had gone out of the window.

The first song should have been met with spontaneous and generous applause but it fell flat. Her impish and fragile portrayal of a youthful Piaf had been trodden on by the jack boots of sound compression. The backing musicians fared no better and it sounded as if they were playing, toy instruments at maximum volume. There is no doubt that Miss Kaas employs excellent musicians but you could not tell whether they were good, bad or indifferent.

Miss Kaas was having difficulty raising any enthusiasm. It was well into the set before the audience warmed up with a powerful rendition of Padam  Padam. Paris Paris; the musical backing sounded more like Islington on a wet Sunday afternoon.

The same dire sound reproduction repeated itself throughout the performance. How can the backing musicians create a French atmosphere when the accordionist is humiliated?  It is a good job she did not actually sing L'Accordioniste. A poor busker produces better sound.

The importance of hearing the full dynamic range of such a great singer and her backing musicians cannot be emphasised too strongly. Some of the bemused audience were starting to leave early. It was time for a pint and an early train home.

Miss Kaas was managing to generate some enthusiasm towards the end of the set with La Vie En Rose but when she finally finished a substantial number of the audience left before the encore. Her mere presence demands an ovation and the early leavers missed the best and most glamorous piece of the performance with Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. But, Miss Kaas must have rued what happened here on one of the world's most prestigious musical stages.

There was only one good musical note and that was when a clip of the real Piaf was played. Someone had forgotten to push the compress button and at last  there was some musical dynamism.


When, I compare this performance with a live Juliette Greco set at the Albert Hall, in the 90's, the contrast is vivid and extreme. Miss Greco's earthy voice was reproduced magnificently. Her backing musicians were portrayed with all of the dynamism that the music and playing deserved. We were in a smokey Parisian club for a little while. The performance brought the house down and the audience refused to let her leave the stage.

Miss Kaas deserved the same sound reproduction treatment and there is no doubting that she could have lifted the roof too; but if only.

Modern sound engineering is in such a dire state that it is now killing music and in this case it almost destroyed Miss Kaas's performance. Only her charisma rescued the set and a slightly lesser artist would have fallen flat her face. Unfortunately the younger generation of audiences have grown up to accept nothing better from live or recorded performances.

My wife left the performance feeling cheated and rather homesick for her native France and its wonderful music and performers. And as for Guy Fawkes night: there were no fireworks in the Albert Hall.



PS
If you play this video clip through a PC with a good sound card you will get some of the feel of what the performance should have sounded like. I hope the CD is better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjaaPY9zrJ8

How and Why of Converting your LPs to Digital Music Files

As I have mentioned before I have taken many years to replace my LPs with a CD version. I have only just finished. At one time I considered just converting my remaining LPs to WAV files but after some experiments I decided not too. This is not because the technical result is no good. The whole process is too time consuming for me.

Some years ago I decided to archive some cassette tapes which could not be replaced so this justified the time needed to convert the analogue sources to digital files. The software which I used was Audacity Version 1. The results were very good.

Audacity have now released Version 2 and I tried the software on an EP and an LP which are not easily replaceable. The EP was a 45 rpm record of Johnny Halliday from the 1950's. One side was unplayable as it was too scratched. The other side was full of snap, crackle and pop and clicks despite cleaning it but  at least it was playable.

The record was a gift from a friend from a second hand shop just for a laugh. The record was also slightly warped.

How to do it 

I bought a cheap USB turntable.  I installed Audacity on my PC.  The record was too damaged to let it near a good turntable. I also figured that the sound that would come off the record would not be of HIFI quality.

The turntable was easy to use. I just plugged it in and inserted the 45 rpm adaptor. I plugged in the USB cable to the record player and the PC. The drivers loaded automatically and Audacity recognised the turn table. I set up the device preferences for recording and playback in Audacity.  To do this I used the Edit Tab and then selected Preferences. I set up the playback through my USB DAC so that I could hear the record as it was being "ripped".

I set the project rate to 44,100 Hz in the bottom left corner. This is the same frequency  as used for a CD

I cued up the record and played it and Audacity recorded it. When I saw that it was finished, I used  the File tab and selected  the Export function to save the recording as a WAV file. This is 16 bit/ 44.1 KHz. These types of file can be converted later for recording onto a CD. The record player stopped automatically when the EP was finished.

It is best to archive the results as an an uncompressed WAV file as there is no sound degradation if you make a copy for a back up or for a CD. You can easily convert the WAV file to MP3 using software such as dBpoweramp. If you do convert to MP3 or AAC compressed music files then use a bit rate of at least 256 kbps for the best results.

I listened to the result through my DAC and Headphones and through the computer's speakers. The speakers were not so good at reproducing the the music or the snap crackle and pop. When I listened through the DAC there was almost perfect reproduction of the awful scratching noises, pops and hisses. The music did not sound so bad.

All this was long winded it took about 15 minutes for an EP. Because it was one side of an EP which contained only two tracks I "ripped" the whole recording. For an LP you will probably want to divide the tracks up individually and identify them for playback.  This will take a long time. As you will have to use Audacity, manually  to divide the tracks.

Just to record a single side of an LP as one track will take around twenty minutes.

How to remove the Snap, Crackle and Pop and Clicks  in Audacity

I made a copy of the music file and opened it up in Audacity. I selected  a small sample of the recording between the music tracks using the mouse (left click)  and the cursor. This short section of the recording is used by Audacity as a "profile"  for noise removal. This empty space contains all the typical noises on the recording without the music. Audacity uses this "profile" to remove the noise without the removing too much of the music.

After identifying the "Profile" I clicked on the Effect tab and selected Noise Removal from the pick list. I clicked on the Get "Profile" button and then on the OK button. Audacity responded by scanning the file. I listened to the result and there was a substantial reduction in the snap,crackle and pop. I used the File tab again to Export the file to save it as aWAV recording.

I decided to remove the clicks by re-opening the file and selecting Click Removal  from the Effects pick list. I experimented with various levels of sensitivity. When I got the optimum result, I Exported the file once more as a WAV file. When I compared the result to the original I was really impressed  as most of the noise of the damage was gone. This is fantastic and all from free software. We had none of this when I was a teenager we had to put up with all the noise or buy a new record: not cheap.

Audacity could not remove the wow noises caused by the fact that the record was warped.

Doing an LP in Audacity

I decided that this was so good that I would try it on the one LP that I could not replace. I figured that using the the USB turntable would not damage the LP which was not scratched and had no appreciable snap, crackle and noises. I repeated the procedure but I did not divide the LP up into individual tracks as I always listen to an album all the way through.

I was shocked by how good it all came out. Digital playback was as good as it could be with just the music. The slight rumble of a cheap deck did not really interfere or spoil playback. Of course the digital playback still sounded like an LP record.  I was really impressed at the results. I could improve upon this by feeding the PC with an analogue source from a better deck and a pre-amp and using the line inputs to the PC at the back of the computer.

 As a final experiment I "ripped" another LP using Audacity. This LP had a moderate amount of snap,crackle pop. Audacity removed it all. The conversion sounded very good considering that a cheap deck had been used.

If you use a good deck and pre-amplifier the results will be better.

78 rpm records

Remember that modern record players are not designed for 78 rpm records. The cartridges are too light and might not track the grooves correctly and jump out. The 78 rpm record could also damage your needle.   The built in preamp on a USB turntable will probably not be able to handle the equalisation used in days of yore and the result will sound strange. You will need a special player and preamp to digitalise 78's.

Why digitise your records in the first place?


Consider the following.

If you are a lover of LPs and look after your records carefully and clean them before use then you need not bother. The fun of pulling a record  out of the sleeve and playing it through a good quality deck is all you need. The quality of sound although different to CD is almost as good if you use good equipment. The sound is slightly different but just  as pleasing  - to me anyway.

Digitising your LPs cannot improve the sound quality of the music. However, you will be able to remove annoying clicks etc.

It really is very time consuming  and the cost in time will probably not be justified by the benefits.

If you are hell bent on obtaining "digital music files" it might be better replacing the LP with a CD.  Many people are selling their CDs after they have ripped them. Not me, I am keeping them as back up and for the album art. Some second hand CDs are now very cheap.

Spotify has 15 million recordings. Your music will probably be on there. The Beatles and Pink Floyd are an exception. You can listen to Spotify with adverts for nothing. For ten pounds a month or so you have unlimited access at 320 kbps and no adverts. It is almost as good as listening to the LP or CD.

To get the best HIFI results you must use a good deck. Cheap USB decks are convenient and they do give good results but the result is not HIFI.

If you replace your old  LP with a newer CD version, and if it is a pop record, then there is a good chance that the music will have been compressed. It will have lost its dynamic range and it will sound tiresome and boring just like some of the old pop 45rpm discs. Your old LP may very well sound better so that is a good reason for digitising it for archive purpose.

If you are short of money and replacement is not viable then digitising all your records for convenience is a sensible but time consuming option. If your records are in good condition and you have a good deck then why not have a go? If you rig up a good deck correctly the result will sound almost as good as the original LP. You will be pleasantly surprised and be able to play your records in the car or dare I say it on an MP3 player.

Some LPs may be irreplaceable so it is well worth the time to digitise them for archive purposes.

If you are frightened of damaging your top vinyl LPs then why not copy them to digital files for frequent playing. You can still enjoy the pleasure of playing the LPs on a special occasion.You records will never wear out.

Conclusion

Using Audacity is cheap and easy. You can produce a high quality result. Provided you can spare the time, why not give it a go? It is amazing. You do not need to buy a USB deck  as you can probably use the equipment you already have if you have got a pre-amplifier.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

If I Could Do It All Over Again

Over the last twenty years or so ever since I bought a CD player I have been replacing all my vinyl LPs. This is not because I have been disappointed with the performance of analogue sources but because I am one of those people who have not been able to look after my records properly. They have been played repeatedly so that they have become worn out. I have also lent them to my friends who have damaged them further.

Last week, I finally got around to replacing Caravan's If I Could Do It Again I Would Do it All Over You. I ripped the album to a WAV file for storage on a hard drive. Usually, when I rip an album, I listen to short passages of a couple of tracks to make sure everything was OK. This time, however, I could not resist playing the album all the way through. I played back using a portable DAC and good headphones.

The sound was amazing; the album sounded as fresh as I remembered it when I first bought the LP way back in 1970. Caravan were part of the Canterbury sound their first three albums were progressive rock heavily influenced by jazz. The music is full of rhythm, melody and humour.

The CD version that I bought was remastered in 2001and it has a wide dynamic range. It sounds very vibrant on my PC with the DAC and Headphones. It sounds brilliant on my main HIFI ; just as good as the vinyl LP ever was.

Hello, Hello is one of my favourite tracks. I can imagine myself wading through a stream to hear the rhythmic sounds of someone clipping away at a hedge. I urge all lovers of jazz influenced rock music to give Caravan a try and compare them to Soft Machine who also played in the same era.
 
I saw Caravan perform live when I was at college in the early seventies and they did not miss a beat. Theirs was one of the best live performances I have ever heard. Many of their contemporaries were awful live because they were too stoned or drunk or both to play. Caravan were a pleasant change. Listening to their bright sounding album again brought back such happy memories.

http://www.caravan-info.co.uk/

http://www.mp3lyrics.org/c/caravan/hello-hello/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIwaYwbjF3M&feature=related

Eight track tapes

I was round a friend's house last week and we spoke for a long time about music. Funnily enough he didn't play anything. My friend has been a music fan for years. He used to have HIFI equipment everywhere. The whole house was wired up. He  was one of those enthusiasts , however, who always loved the music more than the equipment or tweaking. He never spoilt a music session by making silly adjustments.

He has moved house recently and  has simplified things so now he only ever uses a cd player. He never ceases to amaze me, so I was not surprised when he told me that he still had a working eight track tape player and loads of tapes. He also has a collection of 78 rpm records going back years and years.

After all this conversation we started talking about LP records.We both agreed that there is not much difference in the sound reproduction between a CD and an LP provided that both sets of media are played through good quality equipment. And ,of course, that both sets of media are undamaged.