czp@houxa.UUCP (C.PODARAS) (05/07/84)
to the gentleman who posted a query on net.music, looking for CD
recommendations (sorry, lost your path):
here's a pop item. donald fagan's *nightfly* is considered within the
industry to be one of the best reference (technically) CD's available.
reason? it's one of the few currently available which was done *correctly*
definition of correctly? linear phase (time-delay-compensated) anti-aliasing
filters used in recording. digitally mixed. digitally mastered. and, most
importantly, *the origional digital master tape was used in the CD mastering
process*. in other words, this was fully digital in creation (hmm... to avoid
flames about "the whole world is digital/analog," let's change 'creation' to
"recording and production.') ok, ok, so pop stuff is mixed and uses lots
more than two microphones.....this still sounds great.
you have to make sure, however, that you get the american-market version, as
some overseas versions were made from an analog production master tape. the
correct CD was mastered by polygram in hannover, frg, and carries a laser-cut
control number on the music side of the disc, near the center, which ends
...03.
also *highly* recommended are the windham hill CDs. phenominal recordings to
begin with; ackerman's *passage* is fully digital, as are a few others now,
but even those which were analog masters are excellent. try shadowfax, and
especially the windham hill samplers for an intro to the fine music on this
label.
also, as i'm sure you've heard, the telarc CDs are excellent...
if you listen to any of these on a good CD player -- one that creates
*simultaneous* (ie, no inter-channel half-sampling-period delay,like
the sony cdp 101) channel outputs thru appropriate data buffering
and use of dual D/A's, and has some semblance of flat-group-delay-
characteristic reconstruction filters -- you will (assuming you like the
music) be *amazed* at what this medium can sound like.
chuck podaras
bell communications research
holmdel, gnu joizee
{...,ihnp4}!houxa!czp