Comments on: Autechre “Move Of Ten”

By: Stewart Walker

Stewart Walker — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:13:10 +0000

when you talk about white noise, the first thing I think about is dither, which could definitely be used to counteract aliasing in MP3s, as it’s been used to mask similar aliasing in 16-bit recordings. 24-bit audio probably negates the need for dither.

By: Todd Gack

Todd Gack — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:43:05 +0000

How big are the 24bit wav files? I bet they’re huge, eh? Also, do you know if they can be compressed with FLAC?

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:16:54 +0000

Fascinating. I had no idea that WAVs can be adjusted to pre-empt the effects of MP3 compression. Thanks for the explanation.

By: chaircrusher

chaircrusher — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:06:20 +0000

@mark: To some extent you’re right, they’re ‘artifacts of compression.’ But one shouldn’t over-simplify. Any difference between the encoded and un-encoded audio is by definition an artifact.

But the way MP3 encoding works is to eliminate sounds that will be masked by other, louder sounds at similar frequencies. This is a psycho-acoustic phenomenon called ‘masking.’ So my experiment — summing the inverted WAV file with the MP3 file — should theoretically make audible what is different between the WAV & MP3

As I pointed out, they might have remastered the uncompressed WAV files to try and minimize the undesirable effects of MP3 compression, in which case the two versions of the same audio file will differ in ways not explained simply by MP3 artifacts.

I suspect that is is the case, because the ‘difference’ audio is louder than I would have expected from the residual MP3 artifacts.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:45:30 +0000

Interesting experiment. I’m puzzled though…Why wouldn’t the resulting ‘noise’ be the compression artifacts of the mp3?

By: chaircrusher

chaircrusher — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:23:59 +0000

Not sure about your question, but obviously the answer is ‘both! because we can!’

By: d.w.

d.w. — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:44:34 +0000

I bought the 16-bit WAVs, then converted them to ALAC (basically iFLAC) as I figured that my usual listening environments weren’t going to reveal anything with the 24-bit files. Like the album quite a bit — they’re on a roll.

By: chang

chang — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:05:57 +0000

Geekery aside – which is cool – I find it’s the first album of theirs in a while that I have repeatedly been going back to again and again (sure it’s only been out for a week). It’s pretty damn cool and very minimal at the same time. I’m amazed by what I keep hearing come out of it.

If i were ever to meet them I want to ask the “Delay vs. Reverb and why?”