Dido destroyed

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Dido destroyed

2003-10-10 10:46:12

Continued from
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=13379

I've listened to Life for Rent properly now - all the way through on my stereo at home, and parts of through another CD player and DVD player, and ripped onto my PC.

Some of the tracks are really lovely. Some are mediocre. Overall, I like the album.

Listening carefully, there are clicks in the ripped files. Nothing "bad" though - if you're happy with typical downloaded mp3s, then you'll be more than happy with this.

Very annoyingly, some of the clicks are still present on my stereo. I'm not sure whether they're in the recording, or due to the copy protection. Having said that, I can't hear them when listening through my DVD player, or through another CD player, but I'll go back and compare very carefully before drawing the obvious conclusion.

All the clicks are fixable in Cool Edit Pro, with the manual "fix single click now" button. So I might listen carefully to the album, de click it, and burn myself a clean copy. Or I might just record the digital output of my DVD player to CD-R, if it really is correcting them itself.

Isn't this situation ridiculous? The only way to listen to this copy protected disc properly is to copy it!!!

I find it quite annoying that BMG chooses to damage my listening pleasure, when I paid for the disc! And for what? A technology that doesn't stop you copying it! It doesn’t really matter that it might just stop some people copying it - with p2p, one hacked copy is enough to go around the world - and there is more than one person able to rip this, I'm sure! I won't be the one to put it on p2p, but I'm sure plenty will.

As for the mastering: her brother, Rolo, has a lot to do with her records, and their sound and production. I’m sure he adds a huge amount of positive creative input to the process, but he's no audiophile! Most tracks are compressed so they sound like they're being played on the radio (straight off the CD!). Also, the fidelity of some of the recordings is dubious (from what you can hear past the compression). Of course there's the obligatory hard limiting, which makes the louder parts sound busy and closed in.

If they ship it to Bob Katz, for a non copy protected, not compressed DVD-A version, I'll buy it. Sucker that I am. See, they've got us by the balls.

If I can confirm that the problems I hear on my stereo are not present on other stereos, I'll contact the BMG copy protection helpline/website.

Cheers,
David.

Dido destroyed

Reply #1 – 2003-10-10 11:17:39

Album is slightly clicky in my Denon DN2600... Only listened to it for about 2 minutes tho'. Will report back more when it re-arrives at my house

Dido destroyed

Reply #2 – 2003-10-10 11:20:03

That's insanity on the part of the label, if all the problems are indeed associated with the copy-protection.

-1- They've (quite possibly) impacted the fidelity of the recording even when played on regular CD players.

-2- They've forced you into the position of (if only figuratively) offering to buy a second copy of the CD just to get one that's acceptable.

-3- Since the only way to get a decent version of the album is to copy it, they're inadvertantly encouraging the copying, and even the distribution, of their "copy-protected" CD. If one person who gets a clean rip (and de-pops it as necessary) posts it (losslessly) on some file sharing service, then others who bought the CD wouldn't have to go through all the same trouble to get a good version. I'm not advising file-sharing, but I'm just amazed that one of the very record labels whining about supposedly losing so much money each year to people copying CDs is almost requiring people who may have never wanted to, to do just that.

So the most viable solution may be to rip it, fix it and upload it in order for paying customers to hear the album undamaged. Now, I wonder how BMG would respond if the results of their actions were explained to them. I just hope they wouldn't make you pay for exchanging your copy for an "undamaged" one, if they'll even offer one.

As for removing pops, how frequent are they on the Dido CD? I have a CD that was released last fall, and it has pretty bad popping during the opening sequence (about 30 in 15 seconds or so), but it played that way even on regular CD players (three that I tried it on). I have no idea if it's just a mastering error or some form of protection (it ripped at full speed, though). I tried to "de-pop" it using EAC, but it didn't have an audible effect. Maybe it's time I spring for a copy of Cool Edit Pro.

Dido destroyed

Reply #3 – 2003-10-10 11:44:45

Howdy,
I find the best place to buy your CD's is from www.cd-wow.com
All their cd's are sourced from Hong-Kong and are proper normal CD's and don't contain ANY copy protections.

They are also VERY cheap at 8.99 Pound including international shipping.

I can confirm that their version of the DIDO cd dosen't contain a copy protection.
I can also confim that the CD dosen't contain a copy protection in Australia

Cheers,
Burgerings

Dido destroyed

Reply #4 – 2003-10-10 12:25:42

Thanks burgerings, I'll give that a try.

Dido destroyed

Reply #5 – 2003-10-10 13:12:13

Hmmm... wondering if I should buy it now... no copy protection at the moment but as with Norah Jones they totally removed the original version and replaced them with CP'ed versions. I think I might go get the album then and forgo DJ Tiesto - Nyana... unless someone tells me other wise

Burger Rings DO NOT taste like burgers... ^5 for all the Aussies on this board.

Regards

AgentMil

Dido destroyed

Reply #6 – 2003-10-10 13:42:03

If you get clicks when you play the cd on a standalone cd player then I suggest that you return the cd immediately as faulty.

Dido destroyed

Reply #7 – 2003-10-10 13:47:17

@2Bdecided, I'd do markusk's suggestion and take the CD back and then order from www.cd-wow.com....I order from them all the time when CD's are released with copy control here (in Australia)

@AgentMil, I'll give you that...Haven't had that one before....
...I was trying to think up a username one day and it just poped into my head..Wasen't taken on ebay, AOL, yahoo or hotmail!

Dido destroyed

Reply #8 – 2003-10-10 14:00:59

@2bdecided:

I have this CD but haven't yet listened to it properly since I bought a few last weekend and have been giving them alot of play. Can you give specific track and time intervals so I can check my copy too. I am in the UK too btw.

I have bought many many CDs this year and I can think of only one album that doesn't contain any clicking due to bad mastering, clipping and/or over compression (Richard Hawley's Low Edges, it's possible I may of missed some though). If you want to hear a really bad example of this check out The Darkness's Permission To Land.

Edit:

Dido - Life For Rent (01) White Flag click in left channel @ 43 seconds ...

Edit2:

Dido - Life For Rent (02) Stoned crackling all the way through, i'm wonder if this is designed to sound vinyl!

Dido destroyed

Reply #9 – 2003-10-10 14:02:20

Quote

I find the best place to buy your CD's is from www.cd-wow.com
All their cd's are sourced from Hong-Kong and are proper normal CD's and don't contain ANY copy protections.

I get most of my CDs from cd-wow, and have had a few (eg Neptunes.. Clones, The Darkness - Permission to Land) with copy protection.

I still haven't managed to get a clean rip of The Darkness, after trying three different PCs with both EAC & cdex .

Dido destroyed

Reply #10 – 2003-10-10 14:20:05

>>>'Very annoyingly, some of the clicks are still present on my stereo. I'm not sure whether they're in the recording, or due to the copy protection'<<<

same thing here, at least on certain tracks. i think it's intentional or just shitty mixing. i'm in canada and this CD is not copy-protected here. according to amazon.co.uk, this title is copy-protected in england and throughout most of europe

if you want to buy a non-protected original copy, order it from hmv.com and then return the cd you bought to the record store, tell them you can't play it on your equipment.

when i went to buy the new enigma album, which was released on the same day dido's new album came out, i found it was copy-protected. and you know what? i didn't buy it. i'm not gonna start voiding the warrenties on my equipment just because of the recording industry's vigile antics. and now EMI won't get my business. i'd rather let someone else buy it, rip it, and then i'll just download it. i also noticed that 2 of the Enigma CDs at the store were obviously re-wrapped, which could mean only one thing: people bought it, had trouble playing it, returned it to the store. what a fucking headache, for consumers as well as record stores.

>>>'As for the mastering: her brother, Rolo, has a lot to do with her records, and their sound and production. I’m sure he adds a huge amount of positive creative input to the process, but he's no audiophile! Most tracks are compressed so they sound like they're being played on the radio (straight off the CD!). Also, the fidelity of some of the recordings is dubious (from what you can hear past the compression). Of course there's the obligatory hard limiting, which makes the louder parts sound busy and closed in.'<<<

i agree. in track 4, mary's in india, the vocals get quite distorted, especially towards the end of the track. track one, probably my most favourite track, also distorts often. what a shame people do such a thing to dido's voice. idiots.

Dido destroyed

Reply #11 – 2003-10-10 14:29:23

Quote

@2bdecided:

I have this CD but haven't yet listened to it properly since I bought a few last weekend and have been giving them alot of play. Can you give specific track and time intervals so I can check my copy too. I am in the UK too btw.

I have bought many many CDs this year and I can think of only one album that doesn't contain any clicking due to bad mastering, clipping and/or over compression (Richard Hawley's Low Edges, it's possible I may of missed some though). If you want to hear a really bad example of this check out The Darkness's Permission To Land.

I can't see me buying that one! But you're right - the general quality of CDs (copy protection or no) is going down and down and down. Most pop CDs just don't stand critical listening.

Quote

Edit:

Dido - Life For Rent (01) White Flag click in left channel @ 43 seconds ...

Yes. But I'm listening to the ripped versions on my PC - the CD's at home. If it doesn't drive my wife mad, I'm going to have a careful listen tonight. But she'll probably say "oh just play the thing all the way though, will you?".

Quote

Edit2:

Dido - Life For Rent (02) Stoned crackling all the way through, i'm wonder if this is designed to sound vinyl!

I think it must be a sound effect.

How about track three - the initial intake of breath - that has three clicks in it.

I will have a careful listen on my 2 CD and 1 DVD players tonight. I'll post back on Monday.

I might have to keep the copy crippled disc for experimentation! though I think, to send the right message, I need to return it, demand my money back, and then buy it somewhere else. what-do-you-mean - I'm an awkward sod?

Cheers,
David.

P.S. still like the album - more so actually.

Dido destroyed

Reply #12 – 2003-10-10 14:32:48

Quote

I still haven't managed to get a clean rip of The Darkness, after trying three different PCs with both EAC & cdex .

I've been struggling with Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief" for a few days (although I've heard reports of other people ripping it without problems, none of my drives were able to do it, regardless of the software/configuration I used). I ended up resorting to recording the whole album through the digital out of my DVD player and using EAC to make a cue sheet for the resulting .wav file.

I'm definitely going to stay away from those things in the future (normally wouldn't have bought it the first time around, but my girlfriend wanted it). I probably wasted 6-8 hours in total on copying my own "CD" so I can play it from my computer Maybe I should bill EMI for time and expenses...

Dido destroyed

Reply #13 – 2003-10-10 14:35:27

Quote

Quote
I find the best place to buy your CD's is from www.cd-wow.com
All their cd's are sourced from Hong-Kong and are proper normal CD's and don't contain ANY copy protections.

I get most of my CDs from cd-wow, and have had a few (eg Neptunes.. Clones, The Darkness - Permission to Land) with copy protection.

I too have had a copy protected disc from CD WOW: Turin Brakes - Ether Song

Dido destroyed

Reply #14 – 2003-10-10 14:36:11

Quote

i agree. in track 4, mary's in india, the vocals get quite distorted, especially towards the end of the track. track one, probably my most favourite track, also distorts often. what a shame people do such a thing to dido's voice. idiots.

Totally. It is her brother though, and she obviously loves him, and thinks he does a great job. It'll sell millions too, so nothing will change.

There's a very counter productive thing happening here: if it wasn't copy protected, and if it ripped OK, then you'd know the clicks were "supposed" to be there. But because (over here at least) it is copy protected, then you're listening out for clicks, and every one you hear, you think "bloody Macrovision!", and are inclined to take the disc back as faulty.

So the copy protection makes you even more aware of what a shoddily produced and mastered album it is.

There's one thing: you can at least remove the clicks. You can do nothing about the over-compression and hard limiting.

Cheers,
David.

Dido destroyed

Reply #15 – 2003-10-10 15:09:59

Quote

So the copy protection makes you even more aware of what a shoddily produced and mastered album it is.

Agree, EMI copy protection (CDS200) make me more aware of clicking.

From my experiance, CDS200 copy protection produces more clicks than CD with no copy protection even when playback on standalone CD player. I tested it on many CD players, some are pretty good on concealing these clicks but for most of the C.P. CD I can hear the clicks.

So, Don't buy Copy Protected CD!!!

Dido destroyed

Reply #16 – 2003-10-10 15:28:37

I just went to the local woolworths and brought the new darkness single (i'm tight ). I put it in the car cd player for the journey home and was horrified by how poor it sounded, lots of distortion and compression going on, and on top of that there was some background hiss to compliment it! £3.99 it cost and its not even worth a penny in my book... It sounds clearer on the TV!

It sounded even worse on my main HiFi system (my car system is pretty neet, i've got it set up loverly with a 21 stage equalizer for a flat response... so any bad mastering etc i can tell straight away!). The hifi didnt like the distortion at all!

The quality of mastering/recording has gone downhill so much recently i don't think ill be buying many cds anymore. I think ill be downloading them and seeing how the quality is first, then i'll buy it if its satifactory. I'm fed up of wasting my money to be disapointed like that.

Dido destroyed

Reply #17 – 2003-10-10 15:52:03

Very very good thread.

Im vaguely quoting something I have read here before when I say "In my experience, these Copy Protected CD's that are cropping up are not so much COPY protected as READ Protected. Some wont play in my car or many of my CD Players - so I am FORCED to copy them and play that!"

Dido destroyed

Reply #18 – 2003-10-10 19:26:36

Here is a very funny story from The Register about CD copy protection:

SunnComm to sue 'Shift key' student for $10m
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33322.html

Quote

SunnComm has threatened Princeton PhD student Alex Halderman with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for exposing a key weakness in the company's latest CD copy protection technology, MediaMax CD3.

The company said today it will take legal action against Halderman for revealing how MediaMax CD3 can be bypassed by holding down a Windows PC's Shift key when a protected disc is inserted.

They called that "Copy Protection Technology"!!!

Dido destroyed

Reply #19 – 2003-10-10 20:19:02

This shift key trick is just a last resort when all else fail ! Usually, the CD copies just fine.

BTW, holding Shift when inserting a CD is a Windows shortcut to disable autorun. It is not a trick aimed at circumventing the protection, it is one of the standard procedures for playing a CD in Windows !

There is no proof yet that protected CDs have more clicks than unprotected ones. (unless you select random CDs, count the clicks in all of them, and the probability of getting more clicks in protected ones by chance is inferior to 5 %)
Someone should get the same CD in a protected version and an unprotected one. If there are no clicks in the unprotected pressing, then the clicks are caused by the protection. If the clicks are also in the unprotected version, we can't conclude anything, since the foreign factory can very well have used a pretected pressing as a master.

Dido destroyed

Reply #20 – 2003-10-10 20:22:08

Quote

Here is a very funny story from The Register about CD copy protection:

SunnComm to sue 'Shift key' student for $10m
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33322.html

Ha! Any decent lawyer can prove the EULA to be invalid (it covers a CD and the media in question is not a CD) and the "copy-protection" technology to be flawed (bypassed easily by a user who doesn't even know they're bypassing it). Then, this SunnComm can be counter-sued for the kid's legal fees (if in a jurisdiction where this isn't done automatically anyway).

The more these fraudulent copy-protection companies cry wolf, the less the world will take them seriously. Every time one more case hits the news, and then nothing comes of it, the less people will care when any other such stories hit the news. Combine this with more and more "average non-audio-enthusiast" folks buying portable MP3 devices and needing to rip CDs to put music on them, and you'll have the entire world against copy-protection.

As I've said all along, the recording industry needs to focus on stopping illegal file sharing, but not by stopping the copying of the CD, which for one person's use is perfectly legal (otherwise MP3 players would be outlawed devices by default). The only way they can be sure to stop anyone from copying a CD is to stop selling CDs. Otherwise, to solve the problem they need a good dose of [span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%']logical thinking[/span].

Dido destroyed

Reply #21 – 2003-10-10 20:23:15

I bought Life for rent from CD Wow and got a copy protected one. Not a problem for me both my DVD drive and CD writer work correctly (Hitachi and Liteon respectively). And so do my new CD Decks. However, I did hear some clicks on Life for Rent when I listened carefully in headphones just now. I tried another protected "CD" to compare and it didn't have clicks. Either they were more aggressive with the errors they add or the clicks were recorded in the studio accidentely.

Don't blame Rollo for the compression - the disc was mastered by Miles Showell at Metropolis. Rollo probably deserves a lot of credit for the music. Not to mention being a member of the excellent Faithless.

I do agree that the record labels are complete idiots for trying all these ineffective, annoying systems. At the moment I'm OK but I really worry how long these "CDs" will last since they've abused the error correction system to "Protect" them.

Dido destroyed

Reply #22 – 2003-10-10 20:37:40

With reference to over-used compression: I found that I did not really like the shouting bits on Linkin Park Albums then I realized it was because the shouting actually sounded quieter than the singing - completely destroying the emphasis shouting was supposed to give.

Dido destroyed

Reply #23 – 2003-10-10 20:53:43

Quote

Either they were more aggressive with the errors they add or the clicks were recorded in the studio accidentely.

The amount of errors can change from a protection version to another (maybe it is even parametrable in a given version), but as Tigre tests showed, there are some neighborous data that becomes erroneous because of the destroyed information (unreliable CRC on last track). Thus the main factor is probably the manufacturing quality : more clicks on poor quality pressings (even if the pressing quality fits the specifications).
The pressing quality should decrease as and when the stamper go on stamping CDs, until it gets replaced by a new one made from the glass master.

Edit : anyay it's meaningless to compare clicks on different albums. The music can mask them or not.

Dido destroyed

Reply #24 – 2003-10-10 21:22:37

I'm now at home. I don't think the audible clicks have anything to do with the copy protection.

There are a couple of extra clicks on the rip I made on my work PC - they are either due to copy protection, or a fast burst-mode rip.

But all the other clicks I've found are audible whatever I play the disc on. I think most of them are just part of her closely miked vocal. The one at 43 seconds into track 1 is a glitch, but it's there in equal measure on my CD player, my DVD player, and my rip on my home PC.

On my home PC rip (fast as possible burst mode) there are no extra clicks.

However, the CD is going back because my Philips stand-slone audio CD recorder (which is the only CD player in my den) doesn't play it at all. The display just says "Wrong disc - insert audio disc", and that's that!

So 2 out of 2 PCs will copy it (one perfectly!), but 1 out of 3 CD players won't play it at all!

Cheers,
David.

P.S. yes - faithless were great!

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