cause its NIN I thought I post it here:
http://theslip.nin.com/ (http://theslip.nin.com/)
its supposed to be super good as well... only listening to the first post.
Oh they also have a flac version!
Two more points:
- It's 100% free
- It includes torrents for 24/96 WAVs
Thanks for posting this. I probably wouldn't have known otherwise. Strange how he just leaked a new song a day or two ago and now the whole album. Eh, I am not one to complain as free is free.
Thank you!
SG
Thank you! I heard about Ghosts I-IV from HA too (though I found it in the news on many portals later). I'm downloading the 24/96 version right now. I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to ABX it from the 16/44 flac, but I'm still curious and I don't have any music of this resolution yet
Thanks for the heads up!
As truly bizarre as it seems, I really would like to pay for this album. I thought Ghosts I-IV was easily worth $10 for the 36 tracks it included, and I'd be more than happy to pay $5 or so for this one. According to the site, we won't be able to buy physical copies until some time in July.
It's good to see he's still enthusiastic about licensing his work under a Creative Commons license.
Awesome! Thanks for the link!
Torrenting the flacs now. W00t!
Finally, license-free 24-bit 96 kHz files for us downsample and try to ABX!
Yes, the 24/96 version indeed has frequency components to just below nyquist. 24bit are pure awesome, considering the albums RG value is -9.39dB
BTW, Ghosts I-IV is freely available on archive.org in a variety of formats. I just discovered my University has a 100Mbit connection to archive.org... How useful!!
http://www.archive.org/details/nineinchnails_ghosts_I_IV (http://www.archive.org/details/nineinchnails_ghosts_I_IV)
Just downloaded the FLAC version version today, Trent Reznor is really kind to let fans download it for free and also having a HD 96khz option aswell.
Am downloading the the 24Bit 96 Khz version ATM, am just wondering what setting would be suitable for this resolution on Nero AAC. I was thinking that q 1.0 might be fine, i know and have abx 96khz samples that chokes at q 0.55 in the past.
EDIT: Removed some reapeated text, the site is acting odd on me today
Woot! Excellent on the NIN!
BTW, Ghosts I-IV is freely available on archive.org in a variety of formats. I just discovered my University has a 100Mbit connection to archive.org... How useful!!
http://www.archive.org/details/nineinchnails_ghosts_I_IV (http://www.archive.org/details/nineinchnails_ghosts_I_IV)
And it is free legally?
Yah, it was released under a Creative Commons license.
As truly bizarre as it seems, I really would like to pay for this album. I thought Ghosts I-IV was easily worth $10 for the 36 tracks it included, and I'd be more than happy to pay $5 or so for this one.
Same here.
EDIT: Removed some reapeated text, the site is acting odd on me today
Ditto.
Woot! Excellent on the NIN!
BTW, Ghosts I-IV is freely available on archive.org in a variety of formats. I just discovered my University has a 100Mbit connection to archive.org... How useful!!
http://www.archive.org/details/nineinchnails_ghosts_I_IV (http://www.archive.org/details/nineinchnails_ghosts_I_IV)
And it is free legally?
Yah, it was released under a Creative Commons license.
Yes, Ghosts I-IV is licensed under a Creative Commons Noncommercial-Attribution-Share Alike license. Free to distribute for noncommercial use.
EDIT: ...and legal mumbo jumbo for that license is here (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode) if anyone's curious.
IIRC the Ghost stuff was also under the CC license. So, yes. It's perfectly legal.
Yah, it was released under a Creative Commons license.
Excellent.
The item you have requested had an error:
We're experiencing system slowness - please try again in a little while. Thanks for your patience!
which prevents us from displaying this page.
CC? Can someone create a torrent of a losslessly compressed 24bit version of this album then?
PS: I can't download this at all. I'm stuck at the "download token" page, it simply won't show me any download links. Hell, why can't they just create public torrents at the Pirate Bay?!?
thanks for the heads up, read it here first
can i flac the 24/96 up by dragging it into EAC like 44.1 WAVs?
PS: I can't download this at all. I'm stuck at the "download token" page, it simply won't show me any download links. Hell, why can't they just create public torrents at the Pirate Bay?!?
I'm not sure if you're at this page or not, but after submitting a token, you'll come to a page that lists the various formats. The links are actually the desaturated red-colored descriptions. There's kind of a minor usability issue there where the links aren't underlined and don't have any kind of hover action, so it's hard to tell that they're links unless you're keeping a sharp eye on your cursor.
They didn't submit this stuff to TBP because they're now running their own tracker (tracker.nin.com, I think), and I suppose that's for tracking purposes.
wonder why there is a 16/44 flac but no 24/96 flac. hope they're not using flake/winamp to encode.
Ironically, the RG Album Gain is -9.39db, even for the 24/96 release. That said, 1,000,000 sounds much more dynamic than its -10.81db track RG would suggest.
Hell, why can't they just create public torrents at the Pirate Bay?!?
Sooner or later this will happen assuming it's still not the case. The Ghosts I-IV FLACs are definitely there to find.
PS: I can't download this at all. I'm stuck at the "download token" page, it simply won't show me any download links. Hell, why can't they just create public torrents at the Pirate Bay?!?
I'm not sure if you're at this page or not, but after submitting a token, you'll come to a page that lists the various formats.
Nope, I don't get that far. Submitting the token does nothing, it will only reload the "download token" page. Same problem with IE7, FF3 and Opera 9.50.
They didn't submit this stuff to TBP because they're now running their own tracker (tracker.nin.com, I think), and I suppose that's for tracking purposes.
Yeah, I found a link to a torrent on that NIN tracker via Google! Although it has some kind of user hash, it works nevertheless. So much for tracking the download amount of individual users. (Or whatever the purpose of this ultra-secure registration process and one-hour-lasting download links is about)
wonder why there is a 16/44 flac but no 24/96 flac. hope they're not using flake/winamp to encode.
How come?
Uhm... this is the 24bit version, second track:
Left Right
Min Sample Value: -32397 -32397
Max Sample Value: 32396 32396
Peak Amplitude: -.1 dB -.1 dB
Possibly Clipped: 0 0
DC Offset: .024 -.01
Minimum RMS Power: -75.81 dB -80.01 dB
Maximum RMS Power: -4.1 dB -3.67 dB
Average RMS Power: -10.04 dB -10.05 dB
Total RMS Power: -9.45 dB -9.37 dB
Actual Bit Depth: 16 Bits 16 Bits
Using RMS Window of 50 ms
...padded with 0s...
FLAC -5 gives an average bitrate of 1822kbps. Is that consistent with 16/96 (padded)?
FLAC -5 gives an average bitrate of 1822kbps. Is that consistent with 16/96 (padded)?
I just tried on track 5:
-rw-r--r-- 48096110 2008-05-05 23:48 05-2496-16.flac
-rw-r--r-- 109307656 2008-05-05 23:48 05-2496-16.wav
-rw-r--r-- 48400191 2008-05-05 21:06 05-2496.flac
-rw-r--r-- 163974520 2008-05-05 21:06 05-2496.wav
the "-16" version is just truncated to 16 bits (no dithering) and compresses roughly to the same size. Within the sections I checked via hexdump you can see that every third byte is a zero byte. So, it looks like its mostly only 16 effective bits -- at least for track 5.
Other than that the spectrum shows some sounds above 24 kHz which are likely to be aliasing -- maybe due to bad resampling within one of the tools he used (ie sampler).
I'd say the 24/96 version is a waste of bandwidth assuming this applies to all tracks.
I like the album, though. Gonna keep the 44kHz 16bit FLAC versions...
Cheers,
SG
I'd say the 24/96 version is a waste of bandwidth assuming this applies to all tracks.
I like the album, though. Gonna keep the 44kHz 16bit FLAC versions...
Also if you compare waveforms of track 9 the 96/24 version appears to be more compressed has more clipping. I think I'll stick to the flac version too.
Teemu
That explains why the 24/96 .wav versions get such massive compression in FLAC (0.200-0.500 ratios) - there's little additional data in them to begin with.
so there is a little bit extra frequency to the 24/96? is there any quality difference otherwise?
The only track that has finished download therefore I copied on my pendrive is 999,999.
I had a deep look at it in hex, and it seems that every 3rd byte is 0x00, therefore it's padded to 24 bit. There goes my 24/96 test material
The only track that has finished download therefore I copied on my pendrive is 999,999.
I had a deep look at it in hex, and it seems that every 3rd byte is 0x00, therefore it's padded to 24 bit. There goes my 24/96 test material
Does this mean the 24-bit output is undithered? I wonder if we got the raw undithered output in 24-bit, which would be sorta nice. if it's being reencoded to lossy.
Does this mean the 24-bit output is undithered? I wonder if we got the raw undithered output in 24-bit, which would be sorta nice. if it's being reencoded to lossy.
What I can see that it's essentially a 16-bit signal converted back to 24-bit. I don't know how they converted it to 16 bits, it was probably dithered, but then it's dithered 16-bit data with additional 8 bits of nothing
But I would have liked to try TAK compression on true 24-bit music
When I get home in the morning I'll have a look at the other, partially downloaded tracks...
wonder why there is a 16/44 flac but no 24/96 flac. hope they're not using flake/winamp to encode.
How come?
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....mp;#entry487119 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=54361&st=0&p=487119&hl=flake&#entry487119)
There are other boards and/or areas on this forum to discuss musical likes/dislikes.
I also thought this was interesting
high-quality MP3s (87 mb)
will play in any MP3 player. encoded with LAME at V0, fully tagged.
I only downloaded the FLAC files, so I assume that's LAME V0. Better than Xing 128 kbs ;-)
I only downloaded the FLAC files, so I assume that's LAME V0. Better than Xing 128 kbs ;-)
I am not quite sure what you are trying to say there but yeah, that is better than Xing 128kbps encodes. It seems like Trent keep learning with every release. Ghosts I-IV were encoded with FLAC, Apple Lossless, and Lame mp3 at 320kbps. My guess is he did some searching around and found out that -V 0 would probably be better given that -V 0 is overkill for most people yet it takes up less space than 320kbps CBR encodes.
We will see what he does with the next Nine Inch Nails release in terms of formats/bitrates that he offers it in. The funny thing is that I was in another set of forums and people were complaining about the -V 0 quality of Lame mp3. Well, they were actually complaining about the mp3 format in general and all praised the 24/96 WAV release. I asked for blind ABX tests and they all told me those tests didn't work. So yeah, I now no longer visit those forums.
wonder why there is a 16/44 flac but no 24/96 flac. hope they're not using flake/winamp to encode.
Checked the properties and it says they used a program called Sound Grinder 3.2.4 to encode the flac files.
http://www.monkey-tools.com/soundgrinder/sgformats.html (http://www.monkey-tools.com/soundgrinder/sgformats.html)
States that it uses FLAC 1.2.1
I never would have seen this today if someone hadn't posted it here. Thanks.
Anyone notice how there are a couple different versions of the WAV torrent? The last two tracks are swapped on some. I'll figure out which is which later. I'm probably going to grab the FLAC for some of my friends.
It's interesting that they didn't use Sound Grinder last time with Ghosts I-IV. They used Max 0.7.1.
you can find the official torrent via nin.com
They were both official torrents from the nin site. (They used the nin tracker).
The first one I got off demonoid that was posted last morning.
The second one I got through the email message later in the day.
I think they realized the problem and started giving out the new torrent. The old one still works on the tracker though. Also, something else I noticed is that the second image in the WAVs is a PSD while the rest are JPEGs.
Also, something else I noticed is that the second image in the WAVs is a PSD while the rest are JPEGs.
Yes, "Nine Inch Nails - The Slip - Wave 96-24 High Res\The Slip art\02-1000000.jpg" is 4.14MB, and is actually a PSD file, in the files I downloaded.
Does this mean that these highrez files are more likely 16/96 or 16/48?
Maybe someone should warn Trent Reznor about this 24/96 issue?
Does this mean that these highrez files are more likely 16/96 or 16/48?
With the exception of 07 Lights in the Sky.wav and 08 Corona Radiata.wav they're technically 16/96 files. These ones look true 24-bit ones though, and FLAC and TAK compresses them worse than the rest (they're over 2mbps). It seems that these lossless codecs can handle the rest quite well (though I thought that padded lower-resolution files are a very special case), e.g. TAK -p2m compressed the album to 561,537kiB from 1,491,127kiB.
Well, they were actually complaining about the mp3 format in general and all praised the 24/96 WAV release. I asked for blind ABX tests and they all told me those tests didn't work. So yeah, I now no longer visit those forums.
You should tell them that the 24bit WAVEs are 99% identical to the 16bit files first...
Also, something else I noticed is that the second image in the WAVs is a PSD while the rest are JPEGs.
Yes, "Nine Inch Nails - The Slip - Wave 96-24 High Res\The Slip art\02-1000000.jpg" is 4.14MB, and is actually a PSD file, in the files I downloaded.
...created with Photoshop CS3 Mac.
With the exception of 07 Lights in the Sky.wav and 08 Corona Radiata.wav they're technically 16/96 files. These ones look true 24-bit ones though, and FLAC and TAK compresses them worse than the rest (they're over 2mbps).
Thanks for pointing that out. I had already canceled and deleted the partial 24bit download. Now I'll fetch those two tracks anyway.
Does this mean that these highrez files are more likely 16/96 or 16/48?
With the exception of 07 Lights in the Sky.wav and 08 Corona Radiata.wav they're technically 16/96 files. These ones look true 24-bit ones though, and FLAC and TAK compresses them worse than the rest (they're over 2mbps). It seems that these lossless codecs can handle the rest quite well (though I thought that padded lower-resolution files are a very special case), e.g. TAK -p2m compressed the album to 561,537kiB from 1,491,127kiB.
Thanks for the updates Alvaro.
I would not be as keen to get these if they were all 16/48 sources, but if all but two are 16/96 and the other two are 24/96, it's well worth it in my book; particularly since it's free.
I wonder if the Ghosts I-IV 24/96 versions released on Blu-ray as part of the deluxe package are true 24/96 files?
This is not the first case of tracks released as "24-bit" being actually 16-bit padded up to 24-bit. A CD+DVD pack of some Depeche Mode album had "24-bit LPCM" tracks on the DVD with exactly same symptoms.
I would not be as keen to get these if they were all 16/48 sources, but if all but two are 16/96 and the other two are 24/96, it's well worth it in my book; particularly since it's free.
I wonder if the Ghosts I-IV 24/96 versions released on Blu-ray as part of the deluxe package are true 24/96 files?
To tell the truth, I don't know it they were lower sample rate before. By default I wouldn't think but I can't say it for sure after we all have seen that many of them were converted to 16 bits and back. What if they have also been resampled? I can't tell it for sure. I hope some more qualified person can
BTW I like the music better than Ghosts I-IV. I'll keep it. Still thinking about this "24/96" version. Compressed with TAK it may not be THAT much waste of space
once you are sure/have proof that the 24bit recording was made from 16bit recordings, you can tip off the admin of theninhotline.net whom operates the most popular nin site, he'll post the info on the front page and everyone will read it including trent. but i'd be careful that there is no mistake made and there is some tangible proof of the claim to show theninhotline admin.
I wonder if the Ghosts I-IV 24/96 versions released on Blu-ray as part of the deluxe package are true 24/96 files?
A good question. I have the Blu-ray, but no Blu-ray drive (currently) and no time to really go through and check into it. If anyone in the L.A. area has the capacity and the interest to look into this, I'd be willing to donate the Blu-ray for a bit.
I should hope that they
are true 24-bit files as opposed to padded 16-bit files, of course. I paid $75 for the package, and while I'm not disappointed in what I got for that price, padding 16-bit files and advertising them as 24-bit is unacceptable even if there are no audible differences. There's no potential excuse for that given that Pro Tools HD fully supports up to 24-bit/192kHz throughout the pipeline, and it's more than likely that Reznor's recording and mixing at 24/96 or beyond. Surely Tom Baker received real 24/96 bounces when he mastered it, one would think.
For a free release, is naturally makes no difference, and there's certainly nothing to complain about. I'd be happy with 16/22.05
This is not the first case of tracks released as "24-bit" being actually 16-bit padded up to 24-bit. A CD+DVD pack of some Depeche Mode album had "24-bit LPCM" tracks on the DVD with exactly same symptoms.
That's probably because the master tapes were 1630s.
Surprisingly the 96/24 version appears to be more compressed and clipped. Something must have gone terribly wrong.
Here is an example - Amplitude statistics and waveform screenshots from Adobe Audition:
44.1 kHz 16-bit, Track: 10 Demon Seed, passage: 3 min 50 s - 4 min 00 s
Left Right
Min Sample Value: -32766 -32766
Max Sample Value: 32765 32765
Peak Amplitude: 0 dB 0 dB
Possibly Clipped: 0 0
DC Offset: -.037 .013
Minimum RMS Power: -8.42 dB -5.46 dB
Maximum RMS Power: -5.15 dB -2.08 dB
Average RMS Power: -6.41 dB -4.15 dB
Total RMS Power: -6.38 dB -4.06 dB
Actual Bit Depth: 16 Bits 16 Bits
Using RMS Window of 10000 ms
(http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff132/alexb2k/HA/bb39e1a5.png)
96 kHz 24-bit, Track: 09 The Four of Us are Dying, passage: 3 min 50 s - 4 min 00 s
Left Right
Min Sample Value: -32768 -32768
Max Sample Value: 32768 32768
Peak Amplitude: .01 dB 0 dB
Possibly Clipped: 75 439
DC Offset: -.099 .038
Minimum RMS Power: -7.64 dB -4.06 dB
Maximum RMS Power: -3.39 dB -.61 dB
Average RMS Power: -4.83 dB -2.76 dB
Total RMS Power: -4.8 dB -2.7 dB
Actual Bit Depth: 24 Bits 24 Bits
Using RMS Window of 10000 ms
(http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff132/alexb2k/HA/8a03bf6c.png)
(Both songs are the same. As said before, there appears to be a naming error.)
But wait - it gets better. The 24/96 version of 1,000,000 is 14.5ppm faster than the 16/44 version. Can you say "analog bounce in one master but not the other"?
Looking at those waveforms confirms what my ears have been telling me. Trent really needs to be told about this!
Cheers, Slipstreem.
Surprisingly the 96/24 version appears to be more compressed and clipped.
At first I thought that too, but if you zoom in and compare individual peaks in each track they appear to be the same, at least to my eyes.
The waveform just looks more horrible in 96/24 because of higher sampling rate, I guess.
I agree with CoyoteSmith, we need to get our story straight first.
Here's the information that should be compared, for each track on the album, between the 24/96 wav and 16/44 flac versions:
- Whether or not the 24/96 version is truncated to 16 bits
- An estimated count of clipped samples, along with specific examples of clipping
- ReplayGain and RMS values - but only on the timebase-corrected versions of the 24/96 tracks
- The estimated timebase difference
#4 is evidence of an additional mastering stage between the two releases that might be a good idea to know about, as it may result in an ABXable difference that could throw people off when comparing the two formats. #1 if found just means that the format quality has degraded to 16/96. #2 and #4 if found is a clear-cut quality degredation relative to the FLACs.
I'll volunteer to do #4, and by extension #3.
Once this is all hammered out I say we dump all the info on the wiki and scream our guts out at TR.
Surprisingly the 96/24 version appears to be more compressed and clipped.
At first I thought that too, but if you zoom in and compare individual peaks in each track they appear to be the same, at least to my eyes.
The waveform just looks more horrible in 96/24 because of higher sampling rate, I guess.
I have found some clear evidence of clipping on specific waveforms on a 24/96 track that does not exist in the 16/44 track. However, besides that, mastering differences appear pretty slight so far, at least from a visual comparison.
... that said, that a 24/96 release was ever made is of course a good thing, and the production quality of the record overall is excellent. The real problem here is the risk that people will use the 24/96 release as a judge of quality for 24/96 as a format, and the differences that appear to exist could cause a plausible ABX success.
I have found some clear evidence of clipping on specific waveforms on a 24/96 track that does not exist in the 16/44 track.
Sure, 96 clips slightly which disappears in 44.1 downsampling, but the level appears to be the same.
Note that I don't have the 16/44.1 FLACs currently, so I'm not making any comparisons to that specific release, but...
Whether or not the 24/96 version is truncated to 16 bits
All but "Lights in the Sky" and "Corona Radiata" are padded 16-bit files. Apparent bit depth is 16 bits per sample. Some tracks seem to have no musically-related content beyond 23kHz, and spectral meters commonly show intermittent narrowband, non-musically-related spikes at around 31.5kHz at up to -65dB. This would be uncharacteristic behavior of any dither algorithm I'm familiar with. Other tracks seem to have musically-related content well beyond 30kHz at high levels (around -70dBFS). It could be noise produced by some of the synths, I suppose (many of Reznor's synths are vintage modular synths like ARPs and Moogs, and noise is an expected byproduct of that deteriorating circuitry, but this is really narrowband stuff here).
"Head Down" has a few instances of three or more clipped samples, but many instances of what looks like a sort of soft clipping, in which peaks appear to exhibit a "cut off" continuous or near-continuous downward- or upward-sloping trend. The waveform is very unusual-looking at these sections.
An estimated count of clipped samples, along with specific examples of clipping
Clipping appears to be frequent on all tracks except the two listed above. "Demon Seed" (actually "The Four of Us Are Dying"), for instance, has numerous instances of 25+ clipped samples at 0dbFS. Not exactly atypical of a Nine Inch Nails record.
EDIT: Removed unnecessary comment re: Tom Baker
This sounds like an unfortunate mistake (maybe an effect plugin in his sequencer operating at 16 bits per sample only).
And maybe he did not use that plugin on the two tracks that seem to be really 24 bits.
... that said, that a 24/96 release was ever made is of course a good thing, and the production quality of the record overall is excellent. The real problem here is the risk that people will use the 24/96 release as a judge of quality for 24/96 as a format, and the differences that appear to exist could cause a plausible ABX success.
Well Hopefully when Neil Young's "Archive" 1963-1972 comes out this fall from Rhino/Warner with 10 discs (one for each year?) only available on Blu-ray with all files at 24/192 they'll have something else to judge the quality of high resolution PCM as a format with.
If anyone contacts NIN admin they should also mention that including ReplayGain data in the tags would be a really good way to support its benefits.
once you are sure/have proof that the 24bit recording was made from 16bit recordings, you can tip off the admin of theninhotline.net whom operates the most popular nin site, he'll post the info on the front page and everyone will read it including trent. but i'd be careful that there is no mistake made and there is some tangible proof of the claim to show theninhotline admin.
Hi there! I forgot I had an account here. The problem is being addressed as I type this. Thanks for the heads up
Thank you for making us aware of this issue.
The files provided to the public are the exact files provided by Brian Big Bass Gardener of Bernie Grundman Mastering Studios. As soon as the Mastering Studio has corrected this mistake we will repost the 24/96 version of the album.
I sincerely apologize for this mistake.
Oh wow! Thank you.
While you're here : Is the timebase difference (14ppm) between the two masters something that will be fixed? One would hope that the only difference between the two should be a downsampling, but that seems to imply a fundamental mastering difference between the two versions.
Now that's what I call customer service! Thankyou very much!
Cheers, Slipstreem.
Hi there! I forgot I had an account here. The problem is being addressed as I type this. Thanks for the heads up
Thank you for making us aware of this issue.
The files provided to the public are the exact files provided by Brian Big Bass Gardener of Bernie Grundman Mastering Studios. As soon as the Mastering Studio has corrected this mistake we will repost the 24/96 version of the album.
I sincerely apologize for this mistake.
I can only quess who you guys are, but welcome to the forum and thank you for the excellent news.
Please ask the mastering studio to create a considerably less compressed version and thus truly exploit the capabilities of the 24-bit format. It would also be good to keep the maximum peaks well below 0 dBfs because of the possible "intersample overload" problems that may be more severe when the sample rate is 96 kHz.
You could also consider releasing the fixed version in the FLAC format. It would be a lot smaller and make it easier to differentiate the two versions.
Oh wow! Thank you.
While you're here : Is the timebase difference (14ppm) between the two masters something that will be fixed? One would hope that the only difference between the two should be a downsampling, but that seems to imply a fundamental mastering difference between the two versions.
I noticed that each track has duration differences. In total the 24/96 version appears to be about 20 s longer.
However, I think the differences are mostly caused by the differing amounts of silence in the beginnings and ends of the tracks. For example, when I removed these silent parts as accurately as I could from the track 9/10 (which I tested earlier) I got almost exactly the same duration, 4 m 54s 95 ms.
I noticed that each track has duration differences. In total the 24/96 version appears to be about 20 s longer.
However, I think the differences are mostly caused by the differing amounts of silence in the beginnings and ends of the tracks. For example, when I removed these silent parts as accurately as I could from the track 9/10 (which I tested earlier) I got almost exactly the same duration, 4 m 54s 95 ms.
Look closer. Take
1,000,000 and remove all the starting silence - get the tracks sample-synchronized. Then take a transient in one format and find it in the other. You'll find that the two transients are about 334/22627357 =14ppm off in time.
You'll find this exact variation in at least tracks 2-5, which are the ones I've looked at so far. For those tracks the 24/96 version always runs about 0.0014% fast.
This will generally only come about if one of the two formats was subjected to an additional analog bounce (digital -> analog -> digital) that the other was not subjected to.
It's ultimately a somewhat trivial issue, but it could generate an audible difference between the two formats that could falsely be attributed to the quality of the formats themselves.
You could also consider releasing the fixed version in the FLAC format. It would be a lot smaller and make it easier to differentiate the two versions.
it would be cool if the 24bit version was in flac but idk how they would go about this, just in case anyone is listening can someone give instruction?
Thank you for making us aware of this issue.
The files provided to the public are the exact files provided by Brian Big Bass Gardener of Bernie Grundman Mastering Studios. As soon as the Mastering Studio has corrected this mistake we will repost the 24/96 version of the album.
I sincerely apologize for this mistake.
Another big thank you from here!
Please ask the mastering studio to create a considerably less compressed version and thus truly exploit the capabilities of the 24-bit format. It would also be good to keep the maximum peaks well below 0 dBfs because of the possible "intersample overload" problems that may be more severe when the sample rate is 96 kHz.
You could also consider releasing the fixed version in the FLAC format. It would be a lot smaller and make it easier to differentiate the two versions.
I second on both propositions. And feel a bit spoiled
Please ask the mastering studio to create a considerably less compressed version and thus truly exploit the capabilities of the 24-bit format.
While that would be neat, I doubt it's going to happen, for a couple reasons:
1. That would be a totally different master, so they'd have to pay the mastering studio again.
2. Anyone comparing the 16-bit and 24-bit versions would get the immediate reaction that the 24-bit version sounds worse, since it would be quieter. (You and I know it's an issue of having to turn the speakers up for better sound, but that's a pretty hard sell. Even to 24-bit connoisseurs who think they're audiophiles.)
Since the multitracks were released, a fan remaster is possible, and might be a cool project. They're only 16/44, though.
We've discussing lossless formats for the 24/96 files. During testing found a lot of issues when converting the files for burning. Ultimately we decided that uncompressed would be better because those who wanted to archive the files could use their preferred format. If anyone can recommend a method of lossless encoding that decodes and converts reliable on mac and pc please let me know.
The problem is being addressed as I type this. Thanks for the heads up
No, thank
you!
As soon as the Mastering Studio has corrected this mistake we will repost the 24/96 version of the album.
Wonderful news. Thank you Alan/Atticus/Trent/imposter
1. That would be a totally different master, so they'd have to pay the mastering studio again.
Unless it should happen to be a "pro bono" effort on the part of Gardner, which isn't exactly entirely out of the realm of possibility, I suppose.
2. Anyone comparing the 16-bit and 24-bit versions would get the immediate reaction that the 24-bit version sounds worse, since it would be quieter.
I don't see this as being a particular problem.
Since the multitracks were released, a fan remaster is possible, and might be a cool project. They're only 16/44, though.
Maybe at some point in time, higher-resolution multitracks will be released. Now that remix.nin.com is distributing new multitracks via torrents, I don't see any particular reason why it couldn't happen, though some small time investment must be made to create stems, bounce those stems down to a manageable number of tracks (for those of us with pitiful Pro Tools LE rigs) and actually package the multitrack releases.
We've discussing lossless formats for the 24/96 files. During testing found a lot of issues when converting the files for burning. Ultimately we decided that uncompressed would be better because those who wanted to archive the files could use their preferred format. If anyone can recommend a method of lossless encoding that decodes and converts reliable on mac and pc please let me know.
Should you guys decide any format for the next release, please make it clear in the filenames and/or tags that it's 'another version' of The Slip to avoid confusion. And thanks again, I'm really impressed.
We've discussing lossless formats for the 24/96 files. During testing found a lot of issues when converting the files for burning. Ultimately we decided that uncompressed would be better because those who wanted to archive the files could use their preferred format. If anyone can recommend a method of lossless encoding that decodes and converts reliable on mac and pc please let me know.
I don't think itunes supports apple lossless 24/96, so that pretty much leaves flac. there should be quite a few mac and pc tools that will handle flac 24/96, what did you try that didn't work?
We've discussing lossless formats for the 24/96 files. During testing found a lot of issues when converting the files for burning. Ultimately we decided that uncompressed would be better because those who wanted to archive the files could use their preferred format. If anyone can recommend a method of lossless encoding that decodes and converts reliable on mac and pc please let me know.
I don't think itunes supports apple lossless 24/96, so that pretty much leaves flac. there should be quite a few mac and pc tools that will handle flac 24/96, what did you try that didn't work?
Actually, iTunes does support apple lossless playback 24/96 within a computer (but not compatible with ipods). However, iTunes will not convert 24/96k files into an uncompressed files without downsampling (nor does it create 24/96 A.L.L. but I'm doing that else where).
Flac conversion is similarly hairy. Playback was usually fine with flac 24/96, the problem arose when trying to convert to other formats for burning. Pro-apps usually worked fine but freeware and shareware had more difficulties. Ultimately monkey's audio, wavpack and Ogg flac all seemed to work better for that resolution. After some trolling around, it seems other who choose to store high-def audio in a lossless compression format find flac to be unreliable. If someone knows of a flac converter/codec that works universally at 24/96 for playback and reconversion (mac and pc), please let me know what it is and I'll see about making those torrents available.
If someone knows of a flac converter/codec that works universally at 24/96 for playback and reconversion (mac and pc), please let me know what it is and I'll see about making those torrents available.
For maximum compatibility, use flac 1.2.0a. More recent FLAC versions do funky stuff with 24bit which is not yet supported by all FLAC decoding software. Ask jcoalson for more details about this.
FLAC 1.2.0a has been very reliable to me, I've worked with lots of DVD-A, True-HD (Like NIN's Beside You in Time HD-DVD), DTS-HD etc.
Regardless, thank you very much for this great release and support!
Just wanted to add another "Thanks!" for being so responsive.
(And for releasing all this free in the first place!)
Almost totally off topic, but i just got floor passes to the Calgary show thanks to the fantastic presale setup. Ningeneer - pass on my thanks to the man! (Or alternately; thanks Trent! You're a gentleman and a scholar. I'll be front and center!)
In truth, it's no huge deal that the 24/96 files are only available in WAV.
If they were FLAC only, then as ningeneer points out people might have problems converting them to a playable format.
If there were both WAV and FLAC versions, then it's a whole other set of files that there could be problems with and that need tracking (and as we've seen, problems are possible in anything!) and it's another choice which might confuse people who don't know a lot about audio.
So while there are benefits to putting up a lossless compressed version, I think they've done the sensible thing by sticking to WAV.
Also I'd like to add my thanks to everyone involved in this for taking the time to discuss the technicalities and putting the effort in to improve things. It's nice to know that the technical side of things is being looked after as well as the creative and distribution aspects.
I think the 16/44.1/FLAC and 24/96/wav format choices may give the wrong impression that wav somehow provides better hires quality.
IMO, using wav is simply waste of bandwidth. FLAC would also provide file tags.
Recarding to the FLAC problems on Mac I think the currect "Max" version should be able to handle conversions to/from 24/96 FLAC without any problems. I don't have a recent Mac nearby, but could someone verify this? http://sbooth.org/Max/ (http://sbooth.org/Max/)
after reading this WAV seems to be the best choice for 96/24, why cant the latest flac support those rates well?
after reading this WAV seems to be the best choice for 96/24, why cant the latest flac support those rates well?
No one was implying that FLAC can't handle it...it was more of an issue with downsampling when converting.
JXL
cause its NIN I thought I post it here:
http://theslip.nin.com/ (http://theslip.nin.com/)
its supposed to be super good as well... only listening to the first post.
Oh they also have a flac version!
I bought my copies from the NIN website to support their marketing model. I got a two CD set and downloaded flac files to listen to until the CDs were physically released. If everyone gets everything for free all the time, then this better source of music content will fade away.
If the giveaway of Ghosts I-IV is indeed sanctioned by NIN, then go ahead and grab your free copies. Otherwise do the right thing. The only free copies I found at the time were torrents and I wanted to bypass the RIAA but still support the artists.
This free latest album url seems to be legit and I'm going to grab it for free
NIN isn't my favorite but it's still listenable and worth the effort to aquire.
... that said, that a 24/96 release was ever made is of course a good thing, and the production quality of the record overall is excellent. The real problem here is the risk that people will use the 24/96 release as a judge of quality for 24/96 as a format, and the differences that appear to exist could cause a plausible ABX success.
Well Hopefully when Neil Young's "Archive" 1963-1972 comes out this fall from Rhino/Warner with 10 discs (one for each year?) only available on Blu-ray with all files at 24/192 they'll have something else to judge the quality of high resolution PCM as a format with.
The audible utility of 96/24 delivery format is questionable at best, unless you factor in filtering concerns and downstream application of DSP. Either way, a better showcase of the format would be an all-digital release, not a transfer of ~40 year old analog tapes, where the 'resolution' is effectively limited by the tape noise.
It would also be good to keep the maximum peaks well below 0 dBfs because of the possible "intersample overload" problems that may be more severe when the sample rate is 96 kHz.
This can be (and should have been) monitored at all of the digital recording and production stages right through mastering. Intersample overs have been known about for years now, and the tools exist to prevent them.
I bought my copies from the NIN website to support their marketing model. I got a two CD set and downloaded flac files to listen to until the CDs were physically released. If everyone gets everything for free all the time, then this better source of music content will fade away.
If the giveaway of Ghosts I-IV is indeed sanctioned by NIN, then go ahead and grab your free copies. Otherwise do the right thing. The only free copies I found at the time were torrents and I wanted to bypass the RIAA but still support the artists.
This free latest album url seems to be legit and I'm going to grab it for free
NIN isn't my favorite but it's still listenable and worth the effort to aquire.
i paid for the Flac download, however it is perfectly legal to download GHOSTS since it is published under the C.C. non-commercial sharealike liscense. furthermore trent is NOT releasing these new albums under a record company, he is releasing them independently and there is no sign of reznor supporting the RIAA with the required funding to be a member.
since there are issues with the 24/96 version of the slip, i wonder if there are similar issues with the 24/96 version of ghosts? they made ghosts first and then the slip, if they followed ghosts as a guide for the slip, and the slip has issues, what does that mean for ghosts?
Flac conversion is similarly hairy. Playback was usually fine with flac 24/96, the problem arose when trying to convert to other formats for burning. Pro-apps usually worked fine but freeware and shareware had more difficulties. Ultimately monkey's audio, wavpack and Ogg flac all seemed to work better for that resolution. After some trolling around, it seems other who choose to store high-def audio in a lossless compression format find flac to be unreliable. If someone knows of a flac converter/codec that works universally at 24/96 for playback and reconversion (mac and pc), please let me know what it is and I'll see about making those torrents available.
I also think that lossless compression of 24/96 material is, in many circumstances, a losing proposition. Assuming that the source is truly 24-bit, then the compression ratio is generally much poorer than with 16-bit sources because the additional lower bits are uncompressable (if they're not all zeros, that is ). Combine that with the possibility that the user will have trouble playing or converting the files, and I can see uncompressed WAV being a logical solution.
However, there may be a better alternative. WavPack lossy used at around 1024 kbps preserves the dynamic range and audio bandwidth of the 24/96 source material while giving the approximate data size of losslessly compressed 16/44! I have been meaning to put together a white paper describing how this works exactly, but in the meantime it is easy to demonstrate by doing an invert paste operation in something like Audition and see that the difference between the original 24/96 source and the WavPack lossy encoded version is
very low in level and mostly in the inaudible band (it uses noise shaping somewhat like DSD).
I realize that there will be resistance to any “lossy” format, but the fact is that the conversion from 24/96 to 16/44 is a
far more destructive operation than what I am suggesting, but nobody ever calls that “lossy”!
WavPack is not as easy to play or convert as WAV, but it's getting pretty close. On Windows there's the DirectShow filter, the Winamp plugin and native Foobar2000 support. On Linux it's part of the gstreamer framework and so plays out-of-the-box on many Linux distros. It's not quite as straightforward on the Mac, and not having a Mac I haven't tried all these, but in addition to Max mentioned above there is Play (http://sbooth.org/Play/) and Cog (http://cogx.org/) and this program (http://tmkk.hp.infoseek.co.jp/xld/index_e.html) out of Japan.
Just an idea...
If transcoding from such files doesn't add the kind of artifacts one would get from psychoacoustic files, your idea sounds like a fair deal to me (for high-res files, at least, as far as distribution goes). I'm gonna try it with WavPack 4.50.0 beta on my DVD-Audio rips.
It's worth noting that the same advantages also apply to lossyWAV, IIRC, with the additional advantage that it is compatible with FLAC. (albeit not Apple Lossless.) But I'm not sure if it's ready for prime time yet.
I ended up going with utorrent and that 24/96 wav wasn't too bad to snag in under an hour. Bittorrent kept erroring out so I gave up and have quit using it.
Is transcoding to lossless WavPack fairly strightforward? What's the best app? foobar2000?
I can't say I love the album but it's not bad either. The price was right
Is transcoding to lossless WavPack fairly strightforward? What's the best app? foobar2000?
It should be very simple using foobar, yes. At least I used foobar to convert the album to TAK and could also copy the tags from the FLAC version with it (the WAV files have the tags too in some kind of data chunk, but foobar can't use that).
This is another full length album entitled, "The Slip". As of today, the only way to obtain this album is downloading it from NIN's website or grabbing someone's torrent. NIN has not released information to purchase a physical copy yet but it did imply it will be available for purchase soon.
This is another full length album entitled, "The Slip". As of today, the only way to obtain this album is downloading it from NIN's website or grabbing someone's torrent. NIN has not released information to purchase a physical copy yet but it did imply it will be available for purchase soon.
It will be available on CD in about 2 months. This is what the NIN website says: "for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon."
To be clear, as I can't find news, have the NIN engineers released a real fixed 24/96 WAV download yet?
To be clear, as I can't find news, have the NIN engineers released a real fixed 24/96 WAV download yet?
ill be able to tell you in about....12 minutes. the filesizes are exactly the same so i dont know, but being wav that could just mean they didnt alter the track lengths at all, right?
To be clear, as I can't find news, have the NIN engineers released a real fixed 24/96 WAV download yet?
ill be able to tell you in about....12 minutes. the filesizes are exactly the same so i dont know, but being wav that could just mean they didnt alter the track lengths at all, right?
nope, they are the same files unfortunately:(
nope, they are the same files unfortunately:(
Blast! I have been checking NIN for some news that the files were not true 24/96 but have not seen anything. I have been watching this forum keenly for news that the files have been updated. So when there is news, someone post it,
please!
If transcoding from such files doesn't add the kind of artifacts one would get from psychoacoustic files, your idea sounds like a fair deal to me (for high-res files, at least, as far as distribution goes). I'm gonna try it with WavPack 4.50.0 beta on my DVD-Audio rips.
Thanks, skamp, I'd be interested in hearing your impressions.
And just to be clear, the dynamic noise shaping from the beta
should not be used for these files. The best noise shaping (IMO) for high sampling rate files would normally be -s1.0 and this is the default behavior for both version 4.41 and the 4.50 beta. This reduces the noise in the audible spectrum significantly.
It's worth noting that the same advantages also apply to lossyWAV, IIRC, with the additional advantage that it is compatible with FLAC. (albeit not Apple Lossless.) But I'm not sure if it's ready for prime time yet.
It would certainly be interesting to see what LossyWAV does with these, but I believe that for high sampling rate files the noise shaping that WavPack applies would be significant (much more so than with CD audio).
It's worth noting that the same advantages also apply to lossyWAV, IIRC, with the additional advantage that it is compatible with FLAC. (albeit not Apple Lossless.) But I'm not sure if it's ready for prime time yet.
It would certainly be interesting to see what LossyWAV does with these, but I believe that for high sampling rate files the noise shaping that WavPack applies would be significant (much more so than with CD audio).
lossyWAV would do quite a different job...
If there are areas of the spectrum with little or no content, it will preserve these "empty" areas (i.e. not add noise), and so drive the bitrate up.
By default, lossyWAV doesn't look above 16kHz when carrying out this analysis, so it won't "see" the empty area above 24kHz in a "48kHz resampled to 96kHz" recording, so this won't bloat the bitrate, but will have some noise added (but no more than the audible range - there's no noise shaping).
If the content is basically loud all across the spectrum lossyWAV checks (i.e. below 16kHz), it will quantise just below the quietest spectral area in this range, and so drive the bitrate down on loud recordings. You can easily be left with less than 16-bits (sometimes as few as 8!); no hope of keeping "nearly 24" in parts where 16 is judged more than enough.
Cheers,
David.
Discussion regarding the artistic merits of The Slip moved to Nine Inch Nails' The Slip: Your Thoughts (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=63220), in General Music Discussion.
Let's keep this thread for discussion on the technical aspects of the release (audio formats, distribution philosophy, etc.).
It's worth noting that the same advantages also apply to lossyWAV, IIRC, with the additional advantage that it is compatible with FLAC. (albeit not Apple Lossless.) But I'm not sure if it's ready for prime time yet.
It would certainly be interesting to see what LossyWAV does with these, but I believe that for high sampling rate files the noise shaping that WavPack applies would be significant (much more so than with CD audio).
At present lossyWAV 1.0.0 will do exactly nothing with either the FLAC or the 24bit 96kHz versions of The Slip, other than exit with an error code. This is due to a 'PAD ' chunk inserted before the 'data' chunk in the WAV file. As I had not found the 'PAD ' chunk in the WAV specification documents that I googled / wikipedia'd it has not (yet) been included in the list of chunks recognised by lossyWAV. This will, of course, be remedied and 1.0.0b released ASA®P.
since there are issues with the 24/96 version of the slip, i wonder if there are similar issues with the 24/96 version of ghosts? they made ghosts first and then the slip, if they followed ghosts as a guide for the slip, and the slip has issues, what does that mean for ghosts?
No.
Ghosts was mastered by a different engineer at a different mastering studio, using different software, etc.
At present lossyWAV 1.0.0 will do exactly nothing with either the FLAC or the 24bit 96kHz versions of The Slip, other than exit with an error code. This is due to a 'PAD ' chunk inserted before the 'data' chunk in the WAV file. As I had not found the 'PAD ' chunk in the WAV specification documents that I googled / wikipedia'd it has not (yet) been included in the list of chunks recognised by lossyWAV. This will, of course, be remedied and 1.0.0b released ASA®P.
I've fixed the unknown chunk error to an extent that I can process the two versions of the album:
24bit / 96kHz : 1822kbps FLAC > 697kbps lossyFLAC -q 5.
16bit / 44.1kHz : 797kbps FLAC > 471kbps lossyFLAC -q 5
I would expect to post lossyWAV 1.0.0b tonight.
I got the FLACs from archive.org today and wonder if there's something wrong with these files, because audio identifier can't read them:
(http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6922/ninaijv2.th.png) (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ninaijv2.png)
Does anybody else have this problem?
I got the FLACs from archive.org today and wonder if there's something wrong with these files, because audio identifier can't read them:
Do they play normally?
Is that possible that audio identifier can't handle their embedded album art? (I love this feature in these digital NIN releases: I got wonderful slide shows with their albums )
Does anybody else have this problem?
foobar seems to have no difficulty identifying track length, bit rate and so forth. I'll take a look at the nin.com FLACs in Audio Identifier later today to see if it has any difficulties.
I don't recall having any issues with AI reading FLACs with embedded album art before, so this may actually be something else (or just an AI glitch).
It's worth noting that the same advantages also apply to lossyWAV, IIRC, with the additional advantage that it is compatible with FLAC. (albeit not Apple Lossless.) But I'm not sure if it's ready for prime time yet.
It would certainly be interesting to see what LossyWAV does with these, but I believe that for high sampling rate files the noise shaping that WavPack applies would be significant (much more so than with CD audio).
At present lossyWAV 1.0.0 will do exactly nothing with either the FLAC or the 24bit 96kHz versions of The Slip, other than exit with an error code. This is due to a 'PAD ' chunk inserted before the 'data' chunk in the WAV file. As I had not found the 'PAD ' chunk in the WAV specification documents that I googled / wikipedia'd it has not (yet) been included in the list of chunks recognised by lossyWAV. This will, of course, be remedied and 1.0.0b released ASA®P.
A chunk doesn't have to be defined for it to exist (legally) within a wave file. The only requirement is that the data chunk follows the fmt chunk, but there can be other (undocumented) chunks in-between. Instead of skipping certain known chunks, you should just use a "seekTo(string chunkID)" function to find the data chunk after parsing fmt. It's easy to do; each chunk, even if undocumented, starts with a chunk size. also, don't forget to word-align the size field (chunkSize += chunkSize % 2).
I know, lots (most?) wave readers do the same thing you do, but it is still incorrect.
Gents-
Thanks for the heads up regarding this matter. The corrected files are now posted on our site and if you re-download them they will be the correct ones.
What happened? We mastered this on Friday (5/2) and released it Sunday night. The files went right from mastering to the server without the proper scrutiny (aside from a cursory listen for errors). The last two songs were different because they were redone due to an audible error we did find.
Bottom line: some sort of mastering shenanigans took place.
In addition, there are now 24/96 FLAC files as well as wave files.
BTW, the record was recorded at 24/96 using a Lavry AD122-96MKIII, Antelope's Isochrone OCX clock and mixed in analog through the SSL AWS 900+. We mixed back into Pro Tools through the Lavry as well as a separate rig running at 24/192 using Apogee A/D. The mixes we chose varied song to song based on what sounded best to us.
Trent Reznor
Great news! Thank you Trent.
It's actually rather interesting to hear that you guys are using the Isochrone. Since its release some time ago, I haven't actually seen anyone using it in the wild, which is surprising to me given how damn nifty that box is.
BTW, the record was recorded at 24/96 using a Lavry AD122-96MKIII, Antelope's Isochrone OCX clock and mixed in analog through the SSL AWS 900+. We mixed back into Pro Tools through the Lavry as well as a separate rig running at 24/192 using Apogee A/D. The mixes we chose varied song to song based on what sounded best to us.
Trent Reznor
Thanks buddy! I wish more rock stars were computer nerds at heart. See you at Pemberton!
Magnificent! What can I say? Thank you (again), I'm downloading the new flac files right now (while listening the older version, it'll take some time)...
You guys gave us great support I regret that I couldn't visit your concert last summer here in Hungary (I couldn't get a day off )...
thats great news. Thanks for taking the time to tell us personally! awesome stuff:)
Gents-
...
Trent Reznor
Just to re-iterate what was said above, thanks for taking the time to do this. Will be adding this to my archive shortly!
All together now:
thank you.BTW, the record was recorded at 24/96 using a Lavry AD122-96MKIII, Antelope's Isochrone OCX clock and mixed in analog through the SSL AWS 900+. We mixed back into Pro Tools through the Lavry as well as a separate rig running at 24/192 using Apogee A/D. The mixes we chose varied song to song based on what sounded best to us.
Soooo I don't think anybody will be accusing you of not being an audiophile!
The parallel A/D conversions (to both the Lavry and the Apogee) is interesting, though. Was the 24/192 rig the source of the 24/96 files, and not the source of the 16/44 files? If so, and if the Isochrone was perhaps not used for the Apogee mastering, then that explains the 14ppm speed difference.
Thanks, Trent, I'm impressed.
Awesome! Thanks so much Mr. Reznor! Always enjoyed checking you out live, cheers.
I have just re-downloaded both the new 24bits FLAC & WAV files, decompressed the FLAC files with foobar2000, & checked if the CRC of the decoded new FLAC files matched with the CRC of the new WAV files ... it didn't ... is it normal ? I don't have the old WAV files anymore to compare with the two new ones.
Here is my 2 MD5 checksums, if anyone is willing to compare it with the old (bad) WAV files.
Decoded FLAC (24Bits):
8b60e0ac97c9ff5ce58f1e3529b2d2dc *01 999,999.wav
Raw WAV (24Bits):
4753a0e50b01e445b9bbe441988fb86e *01 999,999.wav
Thanks Trent. As a guy a couple posts up from me said, I wish more bands that I liked were good with tech enough to give us cool stuff like this.
I have re-re-downloaded the old (bad) 24bits from an unofficial link in order to compare checksums:
Old Bad Raw WAV (24Bits):
a3a467df4e14f37c0e5b0ebe68968bbd *01 999,999.wav
Conclusion:
the good news is that the 2 new releases are really new ...
the bad news is that the new FLAC files are obviously not compressed from the WAV ...
Does that affect quality ? I don't know I am not skilled enough ... but I just wanted to point it to the expert out there.
You get different checksums because of differences in the WAV container. The audio is the same, as evident by the checksums of only the audio content:
MD5 Filename
C481AAC34492D32C0A1E6D1FDE3E5402 C:\Nine Inch Nails - The Slip - Wave 96-24 High Res\01 999,999.wav
C481AAC34492D32C0A1E6D1FDE3E5402 C:\Nine_Inch_Nails_-_The_Slip_24-96k_Flac\01 999,999.flac
I have checked the audio data only by myself using metaflac.exe & I get the same exact checksum now
You were right, thks a lot verbajim
You get different checksums because of differences in the WAV container. The audio is the same, as evident by the checksums of only the audio content:
MD5 Filename
C481AAC34492D32C0A1E6D1FDE3E5402 C:\Nine Inch Nails - The Slip - Wave 96-24 High Res\01 999,999.wav
C481AAC34492D32C0A1E6D1FDE3E5402 C:\Nine_Inch_Nails_-_The_Slip_24-96k_Flac\01 999,999.flac
This is what I was waiting to hear! //dives head first to NIN//
You get different checksums because of differences in the WAV container. The audio is the same, as evident by the checksums of only the audio content:
Presumably,
--keep-foreign-metadata was not used?
02-1000000.jpg is still actually a PSD.
Too bad that you need another email address to get the official torrents again, but I've gotten past that already. This is where people start complaining about "HA server being laggy" again
Too bad that you need another email address to get the official torrents again, but I've gotten past that already. This is where people start complaining about "HA server being laggy" again
another? ive used the same email address to download them 3 times......
Awesome news! Thanks Trent and co. Best do some downloading this evening and see you guys again when you come to the UK!
another? ive used the same email address to download them 3 times......
Quoting the download page:
We're sorry, this download token is expired. Please register with a different email if you wish to download another copy of the album.
You can probably download the album again and again using the torrent files that you grabbed when visiting the download page, but not open the download page later without re-registering. Not a real problem to me, just nitpicking.
another? ive used the same email address to download them 3 times......
Quoting the download page:We're sorry, this download token is expired. Please register with a different email if you wish to download another copy of the album.
You can probably download the album again and again using the torrent files that you grabbed when visiting the download page, but not open the download page later without re-registering. Not a real problem to me, just nitpicking.
oh, thats odd. no, i used the same adress every time. first was on the day of release, then again a few days ago to see if the 'new' album had the fixed 24/96 tracks (it didnt it just had jpeg album art) and then again yesterday once the fixed tracks were up
You can't reuse a token you got before if you used it already but you can just enter the same email address as before and get a new token. At least that's how it worked for me.
Nevermind, seems I did something wrong, registered successfully using the same address now, thanks for the quick replies.
Gents-
Thanks for the heads up regarding this matter. The corrected files are now posted on our site and if you re-download them they will be the correct ones.
What happened? We mastered this on Friday (5/2) and released it Sunday night. The files went right from mastering to the server without the proper scrutiny (aside from a cursory listen for errors). The last two songs were different because they were redone due to an audible error we did find.
Bottom line: some sort of mastering shenanigans took place.
In addition, there are now 24/96 FLAC files as well as wave files.
Trent Reznor
Amazing. Thank you so much Mr. Reznor! NIN has been my favorite band/music project for a long time now, and it's great to see how much you care about your fans and it's great to be a fan of an artist who is even more of an audiophile than I am! And even more one who cares so much about his fans. Thank you again!
-Stephen
PS The album is great! I love Ghosts too!
PPS Any chance of getting 5.1 releases of this and/or future albums, as well as (fingers crossed for The Fragile) past albums (besides With Teeth and TDS)? I know there are at least a few of us who'd LOVE them, and would be happy to pay for 'em. But I also understand we're in the minority, and that legal issues with your former label could make that difficult to do.
PS The album is great! I love Ghosts too!
PPS Any chance of getting 5.1 releases of this and/or future albums, as well as (fingers crossed for The Fragile) past albums (besides With Teeth and TDS)? I know there are at least a few of us who'd LOVE them, and would be happy to pay for 'em. But I also understand we're in the minority, and that legal issues with your former label could make that difficult to do.
its great to have these 24/96 in flac though, there would be too many hoops for me to do it by myself worrying about a bad or incorrect encode. when flac is taken from the masters you also dont have to worry about CD rip issues, i have to wonder whether all the coil, squarepusher, autechre and vibert flacs i've bought were sourced from CDs incorrectly ripped. its very nice to have this kind of assurance though!
Moderation: TOS #9 violation removed. Consider yourself lucky you didn't get a suspension or worse.
To reiterate Synthetic Soul's direction:
Discussion regarding the artistic merits of The Slip moved to Nine Inch Nails' The Slip: Your Thoughts (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=63220), in General Music Discussion.
Let's keep this thread for discussion on the technical aspects of the release (audio formats, distribution philosophy, etc.).
Many thanks for the free download, it's much appreciated! Below are lossless FLAC and lossyFLAC bitrates for both versions (using lossyWAV beta 1.0.1b, -q 10):
+----------------------+----------------------+
| 24 bit / 96khz | 16 bit / 44.1khz |
+-------------------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| File | lossless | lossyFLAC | lossless | lossyFLAC |
+-------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+-----------+
| 01 - Nine Inch Nails - 999,999 | 2539kbps | 1049kbps | 541kbps | 498kbps |
| 02 - Nine Inch Nails - 1,000,000 | 3462kbps | 919kbps | 1058kbps | 605kbps |
| 03 - Nine Inch Nails - Letting You | 3338kbps | 844kbps | 1075kbps | 628kbps |
| 04 - Nine Inch Nails - Discipline | 3290kbps | 858kbps | 1044kbps | 627kbps |
| 05 - Nine Inch Nails - Echoplex | 2858kbps | 878kbps | 805kbps | 644kbps |
| 06 - Nine Inch Nails - Head Down | 2902kbps | 842kbps | 824kbps | 619kbps |
| 07 - Nine Inch Nails - Lights in the Sky | 2363kbps | 1154kbps | 411kbps | 412kbps |
| 08 - Nine Inch Nails - Corona Radiata | 2467kbps | 1028kbps | 485kbps | 493kbps |
| 09 - Nine Inch Nails - The Four of Us are Dying | 2813kbps | 997kbps | 713kbps | 634kbps |
| 10 - Nine Inch Nails - Demon Seed | 3457kbps | 1096kbps | 1024kbps | 656kbps |
+-------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+-----------+
| Average | 2947kbps | 963kbps | 797kbps | 586kbps |
+-------------------------------------------------+----------+-----------+----------+-----------+
I got the FLACs from archive.org today and wonder if there's something wrong with these files, because audio identifier can't read them:
Do they play normally?
Yes, they do. And foobar can read all the data.
Is that possible that audio identifier can't handle their embedded album art? (I love this feature in these digital NIN releases: I got wonderful slide shows with their albums )
That's a possibility. I didn't even know that there is album art embedded.
Does anybody else have this problem?
foobar seems to have no difficulty identifying track length, bit rate and so forth. I'll take a look at the nin.com FLACs in Audio Identifier later today to see if it has any difficulties.
I don't recall having any issues with AI reading FLACs with embedded album art before, so this may actually be something else (or just an AI glitch).
Thanx!
PPS Any chance of getting 5.1 releases of this and/or future albums, as well as (fingers crossed for The Fragile) past albums (besides With Teeth and TDS)?
There are 5.1 mixes created by a guy named "Demo" for
Year Zero,
Ghosts I-IV and
The Slip. Search echoing the sound (http://www.echoingthesound.org/phpbbx/) for those.
There are 5.1 mixes created by a guy named "Demo" for Year Zero, Ghosts I-IV and The Slip. Search echoing the sound (http://www.echoingthesound.org/phpbbx/) for those.
Interesting. I'll have to check those out.
There are 5.1 mixes created by a guy named "Demo" for Year Zero, Ghosts I-IV and The Slip. Search echoing the sound (http://www.echoingthesound.org/phpbbx/) for those.
Interesting. I'll have to check those out.
Do check them out. They are not simply upmixes, but are rather constructed from the multi-tracks released at http://remix.nin.com (http://remix.nin.com). They aren't "official" NIN surround remixes such as are available for The Downward Spiral or With Teeth, but they are pretty good.
Of course, you can always download the multitracks (free!) and make your own surround mix. Be sure to share it if you do!
Downloaded the updated 24/96 tracks and did Foobar2000 ABX on track 4, Discipline between 24/96 and 16/44 FLACs. Using a Gateway NX570 laptop w/24bit/96kHz capable Sigma audio chip and Sennheiser HD580 headphones, matched levels w/ReplayGain. Need to double check settings to make sure Vista wasn't resampling, etc.
I scored an (un)impressive 5/10 (!?) - thought I heard things but the facts prove otherwise.
foo_abx 1.3.3 report
foobar2000 v0.9.5.2
2008/05/18 13:17:11
File A: C:\Users\Nine Inch Nails - The Slip - Flac\04 Discipline.flac
File B: C:\Users\Nine_Inch_Nails_-_The_Slip_24-96k_Flac\04 Discipline.flac
13:17:11 : Test started.
13:18:14 : 00/01 100.0%
13:20:16 : 01/02 75.0%
13:21:03 : 01/03 87.5%
13:22:19 : 01/04 93.8%
13:23:32 : 02/05 81.3%
13:24:29 : 03/06 65.6%
13:24:52 : 04/07 50.0%
13:25:33 : 05/08 36.3%
13:26:24 : 05/09 50.0%
13:27:37 : 05/10 62.3%
13:32:15 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 5/10 (62.3%)
Just for fun I downloaded this album in 24/96 WAVS and converted to WavPack lossy at 1024 kbps (normal mode, -x4). I ran a spectrum analysis of two 5-second clips comparing the original source and the quantization noise added by the lossy encoding.
The first was at a very loud section (centered around 4:00 in track 10):
Did anyone else notice that in the new 24/96 FLAC files the song "The Four of Us are Dying" is actually tagged "The Four of Us are Dyng"?
I love the album, but misnamed and mistagged files are no brainers
You're bitching about a single typo in a tag of a free album?
Well there's nothing else to bitch about!
Trent released some more free stuff:
http://dl.nin.com/lightsinthesky/signup (http://dl.nin.com/lightsinthesky/signup)
-> sampler with bands who will be touring with NIN this year