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Topic: Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album (Read 11588 times) previous topic - next topic
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Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

I was hearing high pitched ringing in my copy of the first track of Muse's 2006 album Black Holes and Revelations, Take a Bow.

I had friends listen to the track, and they didn't hear anything. I thought surely I couldn't be crazy!

I grabbed the iTunes Music Store copy of the song because I couldn't believe that a big band would release a disc with such a noticeable flaw in the first track.

Sure enough, the iTunes Music Store copy shared the same ringing. ARRG!


So at the suggestion of a friend, I popped the track into Sound Forge's Spectrum Analyzer. Screen shot:





As you can see, there is a straight line at ~15600Hz.

According to a buddy of mine, "16khz is a standard test tone for calibrating tape machines. I wonder if some of it bled through the audio and they just didn't care".

What's going on here???

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #1 –
These screenshots below taken from my CD don't show as harsh a cut-off as yours. Although, there is definitely a strong 15.6kHz tone in the track. I think I can hear this tone (just) during the intro but not in the rest of the song, it doesn't bother me. I can't hear any obvious ringing. You don't state if your "copy" is an original CD, I have the UK CD release. The iTunes track will be lossy, so ofcourse there will be some form of loss of high frequencies.

screenshot1
screenshot2
daefeatures.co.uk

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #2 –
I only once noticed such a high pitched tone in one of my albums I bought. Namely, "Dissociatives" (by The Dissociatives). It's the start of the last track "Sleep Well Tonight".

I successfully removed it after ripping via Cool Edit and then converted it to MP3 for my portable.
Unfortunately it wasn't the only "fault". (loudness race)

What I've done:
- select a rather quiet part where the disturbing tone is dominant
- copy selected part to new file
- apply a narrow band pass filter on the new sound file to isolate the tone
- make a noise-print of it via the noise reduction tool
- remove the "noise" on the original (according to the noise-print) by 100%

That did it for me.

Sebastian

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #3 –
Yup, looks like tape bleed of a test tone.  However it's hard for me to accept that as fact because even an amature wouldn't make that mistake.

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Funkstar De Luxe on
Yup, looks like tape bleed of a test tone.  However it's hard for me to accept that as fact because even an amature wouldn't make that mistake.


How old are the musicians and/or studio techs who worked on the CD?  Maybe they're no longer able to hear well up into that range due to age, hearing damage or both?

-brendan

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #5 –
Quote from: SebastianG on
I successfully removed it after ripping via Cool Edit and then converted it to MP3 for my portable.
Unfortunately it wasn't the only "fault". (loudness race)

What I've done:
- select a rather quiet part where the disturbing tone is dominant
- copy selected part to new file
- apply a narrow band pass filter on the new sound file to isolate the tone
- make a noise-print of it via the noise reduction tool
- remove the "noise" on the original (according to the noise-print) by 100%

That did it for me.

Sebastian



Thanks!! I followed those steps in Audition and it worked like a charm. Probably a better method than just cutting out that frequency range altogether. I still wish the original disc didn't have this defect.

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #6 –
Quote from: bhoar on
Quote from: Funkstar De Luxe on

Yup, looks like tape bleed of a test tone.  However it's hard for me to accept that as fact because even an amature wouldn't make that mistake.


How old are the musicians and/or studio techs who worked on the CD?  Maybe they're no longer able to hear well up into that range due to age, hearing damage or both?

-brendan


Found it:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&a...zy5ibka9hakz~T0
(or first result for Muse on allmusic.com, in case link doesnt work)

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #7 –
I can confirm it's present in the US pressing of the album too:

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #8 –
It's not a test tone

It's the line whistle from a TV. 15.625kHz in the UK (PAL), 15.734kHz in the USA (NTSC).

All CRTs generate this sound. It's easily heard by younger people, and easily picked up via microphones. There are plenty of reasons to have a TV in the recording studio somewhere. It's quite common to see a peak at ~15.6kHz on recordings, though less common for it to be so loud that it's audible!

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
David.

Muse - Take A Bow, ringing in track 1 of new album

Reply #9 –
I think it's intentional. It fits with the pseudolectronic style of the song.
err... i'm not using windows any more ;)