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Topic: Alt Preset Standard and \'Simple\' Mono Music (Read 2890 times) previous topic - next topic
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Alt Preset Standard and \'Simple\' Mono Music

Hi guys,

A friend of mine recently tried LAME alt preset standard to encode some very old music (piano music from 1929).  This is what she had to say:

> With exceedingly old recordings, the --alt-preset standard parameter seems to
> simply be too much. There is no need for a 180-224 range bitrate for, say, a piano > recording from 1929. It's just one instrument, in monophonic sound, with a
> dynamic range that's practically nonexistent. Encoding such a recording at higher > bitrates seems to lead to harsh artifacts as the encoder tries to push bits onto
> music that doesn't need them.

The last sentence seemed a little odd to me.  Can encoding at a higher bitrate ever lead to artifacts that aren't present at a lower bit rate?  My heart told me no, but my brain isn't smart enough to give a detailed answer.

Does the fact that it's mono have any bearing?

> I did a compare-contrast with my own ears of an Artur Schnabel piano CD (a
> transfer of material originally recorded in 1933). I used EAC and Lame3.92. I tried > multiple CBR, ABR, and VBR settings. An average bitrate of 115 "--alt-preset 115" > gave me the best sound.

She hasn't got back to me yet on how she performed the listening test.  I'm more curious about the first question, and how well LAME (alt preset standard) can handle simple, mono recordings.

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

Chris

Alt Preset Standard and \'Simple\' Mono Music

Reply #1 –
Quote
Originally posted by cmyden
Hi guys,

A friend of mine recently tried LAME alt preset standard to encode some very old music (piano music from 1929).  This is what she had to say:

> With exceedingly old recordings, the --alt-preset standard parameter seems to 
> simply be too much. There is no need for a 180-224 range bitrate for, say, a piano > recording from 1929. It's just one instrument, in monophonic sound, with a 
> dynamic range that's practically nonexistent. Encoding such a recording at higher > bitrates seems to lead to harsh artifacts as the encoder tries to push bits onto 
> music that doesn't need them.

The last sentence seemed a little odd to me.  Can encoding at a higher bitrate ever lead to artifacts that aren't present at a lower bit rate?  My heart told me no, but my brain isn't smart enough to give a detailed answer.
[/b]

Umm.. no.  You don't "push bit's into music".  A higher bitrate simply means less approximation == less quantization noise == less errors in representing the original waveform.  That's it.

If your friend has heard a "harsh artifact" (which she can abx) in --aps that isn't in --alt-preset 115, it's got to be a bug.  I'd like to know more about it.

Quote
Does the fact that it's mono have any bearing?


It shouldn't.

Quote

> I did a compare-contrast with my own ears of an Artur Schnabel piano CD (a 
> transfer of material originally recorded in 1933). I used EAC and Lame3.92. I tried > multiple CBR, ABR, and VBR settings. An average bitrate of 115 "--alt-preset 115" > gave me the best sound.

She hasn't got back to me yet on how she performed the listening test.  I'm more curious about the first question, and how well LAME (alt preset standard) can handle simple, mono recordings. 

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

Chris


It is very highly unlikely that --alt-preset 115 would ever sound better than --alt-preset standard.  It'd have to be such a total fluke.

I'm betting that she didn't perform blind listening tests and thought she heard something that she really didn't.  This type of thing happens so often, it's not even surprising anymore.

FWIW, if --alt-preset standard encoded the file in question at such a high bitrate, it's likely that the file was very noisy... lots of high frequency background noise, etc.  --alt-preset 115kbps would cut that out with little regard, while --alt-preset standard would flex as much as possible to keep that intact.  In such a case, --alt-preset 115 would surely sound worse since the dropout of background noise can cause swishy sounds and ringing.

Tell your friend to download pcabx and try again

Oh, and --aps handles mono recordings just fine.  With extremely old recordings like this, you could probably drop the lower bitrate limit from 128 to perhaps 80 or 64 though and save some space.. depends.  I wouldn't bother with it personally though.
 

Alt Preset Standard and \'Simple\' Mono Music

Reply #2 –
Chris, I've encoded some mono recording myself, and haven't had any problems with --alt-preset standard.  There are a few things I would recommend, involving editing of the wave file and modifying standard's minimum bitrate. 

Here's a link to my conversation with Dibrom on the subject: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...s=&threadid=534.  And here's a link to the mono page on ff123's site:  http://ff123.net/mono.html.
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is.  If you don't, it's its.