Digitally Remastered 8 bit released

[DamienD]

I've only very quickly skimmed through this thread... wow, talk about spiralling out of control.

Originally Posted by prowler

I have moved this thread from the News forum to Amiga scene, because, IMO, the tone of the conversation here is not typical of EAB, nor therefore suitable to be broadcast across the whole of the Abime network.

Good move prowler and totally agree

Come on guys... try to play nice.

[Amiga1992]

The fact is this thread has nothing to do with "news" or the Amiga scene, it seems more like "I am trying something out and look at it".

Audio hardware discusion? Retrogaming general.? Actually kinda looks more like OT and should perish there.

[prowler]

The opening post mentions the possibility of hardware development for the Amiga and other platforms. It might turn out to be vapourware, but that hasn't consigned other threads to the OT forums.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

First, I took a mod, and extracted the digital data for left and right channels. This was saved in 16 bit format, using Sonique (can use other packages, just what I had to hand).

So the Amiga 8 bit is now 16 bit, but the sample rate is still whatever was used to make it with. Two huge great wav files.

Then, these were loaded into Audacity, which in itself converts those into 32 bit samples with a sample rate of 44.1 KHz.

After that, digital effects using Audacity were added, but the main point is, a CPU was used to "redraw" the samples from an 8 bit workspace into a 32 bit workspace at a much higher sample rate. I use the word "redraw", you could also use the word "calculate".

A little bit like zooming in on a fractal program.

So you still have 8 bit data but now in 32 bit and you still have re-sampled native Amiga to 44.1kHz. Audio improvement is marginal at this stage.

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

The final part of the mix is the delay. One side is mixed to the other, either in perfect sync, or with a little delay.

So you trying to add some reverb to improve perceived audio. Ok but instead simple delay you may try to add more complex reverb.

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

Then you compress and expand it so that it has IMPACT. A real musical technician would just say "compress it to fuck", but I am not a musician, or a studio engineer, I just hung out with quite a few of them.

Finally the combined sound is output to both audio outputs. Effectively, it's just repeated mono, but it still started as 4 separate sounds so the mind doesn't notice, it hears multiple sounds across multiple channels, so does not recognize it as such. A delay takes out the inherant clicks, but will upset musical purists who are used to the snap, crackle and pop of Amiga tunes.

Quieter bits sound louder, louder bits sound quieter.

It sounds like heavy dynamic compression.

You can try to use Crystality filter from ffdshow - it is somehow unstable and tricky to use but it may extrapolate/replicate spectrum over Amiga samplerate limitations.

[Thorham]

The original mods sound better on my A1200 using DeliTracker's 14bit headphone mixer at 28khz (and 39 Euro Sennheisers with a simple 150 Euro Pioneer stereo amp). Sound is, of course, wonderfully subjective

For a real improvement, try this Jesus on Ees remake: https://soundcloud.com/spoonwizard/jesus-on-es-remake

[Phantasm]

My ears aren't really good enough to be able to appreciate any improvements (or not) but from my perspective I prefer to listen to them in the original stereo as that's how they sounded to me back when i first heard them.

[paul1981]

Amigas have 4 channels each with independent programmable non-conformant sampling rates - it can't be 100% accurately recorded or emulated by ANY computer system or digital recorder...it can only be approximated.

A healthy starting point in this project would have been to individually save the instruments and upscale them seperately, but that would obviously entail rewriting the song.

To be honest, my extent would be to put the Amiga audio filter on, record at 192 KHz 24 bit or above straight out of the Amiga phono jacks, then apply compression and eq to taste. Job done! I don't have 192 KHz capability, only 96 KHz 24-bit but that would be okay too.

Could add some echo I suppose if it needed it, but it would have to be decided amount and type for each song. Perhaps some stereo reduction too, perhaps not in some parts of the song though, or perhaps in most parts of the song and then full stereo in particular places (could have fun with echo here and things).

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by paul1981

To be honest, my extent would be to put the Amiga audio filter on

Horrible

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by Thorham

The original mods sound better on my A1200

I did say, they wont sound very good on a real Amiga. They are fairly accurate simulations of what a real Amiga would sound like with extra hardware on the stereo output, fitted internally or externally.

Originally Posted by Thorham

For a real improvement, try this Jesus on Ees remake: https://soundcloud.com/spoonwizard/jesus-on-es-remake

t's not going to get people bouncing up and down on a dancefloor., but to be fair i's a very nice cover version that somebody clearly spent an awful lot of time getting right. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I'll have a go at downloading Akira's Flac and see if I can spot what is so different between their lossless and my lossless. This is not easy with a high end system, and I'm using a scraptop currently, so please bear with me.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

I'll have a go at downloading Akira's Flac and see if I can spot what is so different between their lossless and my lossless. This is not easy with a high end system, and I'm using a scraptop currently, so please bear with me.

You don't have to download anything. LOOK at the waveforms I posted. That's all that is needed.

I guess I'll paste them again here:

[indigolemon]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

It's not going to get people bouncing up and down on a dancefloor., but to be fair i's a very nice cover version that somebody clearly spent an awful lot of time getting right. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

It's actually a complete rework by the same guy who composed the original. So not so much imitation as reboot?

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by paul1981

Amigas have 4 channels each with independent programmable non-conformant sampling rates - it can't be 100% accurately recorded or emulated by ANY computer system or digital recorder...it can only be approximated.

Absolutely not - Paula sample rate is fixed and it equal to CCK so you can perfectly record or emulate Paula - if you sample in digital domain with CCK then you can resample CCK sampled signal to one of more common values - quality loss is marginal even in case for 24 bit samples but Amiga use at best 14 bit in digital domain and less (due limitation of Paula DAC design) in analog domain.
You can imagine FPGA/ASIC recreated Paula with such circuitry implemented - this should be trivial when compared to Paula itself (Paula has lot of mysteries not yet covered/explained).

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by Akira

You don't have to download anything

Too late, I've found out what your issue is - your levels suck. Your version is so quiet, you have to listen at 80% volume to hear anything.

My version, 30% volume is plenty. That's why you think mine is distorting - it will unless you turn your levels down.

Essentially yours is the first step of mine - extraction of a mod to a stereo 44.1Khz 16 bit waveform. No extraction of the locked frequencies. I guess you didn't know that most demo songs are oversampled compared to straight 8SVX samples.

No compression or digtal delay added afterwards. Not what a real engineer would do, unless they hated the musician they were working with.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

Too late, I've found out what your issue is - your levels suck. Your version is so quiet, you have to listen at 80% volume to hear anything.

My version, 30% volume is plenty. That's why you think mine is distorting - it will unless you turn your levels down.

Essentially yours is the first step of mine - extraction of a mod to a stereo 44.1Khz 16 bit waveform. No extraction of the locked frequencies. I guess you didn't know that most demo songs are oversampled compared to straight 8SVX samples.

That's why yours is just the same as the original, and no better. No compression added.

I give up, you clearly do not understand what clipping is. If you look at that image and think everything is ok, there's nothing to do here.
Enjoy destroying audio, but I see no purpose in talking about how to make things sound worse.

[demolition]

Just forget it Akira - you won't break through to him. :-)

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by Akira

I give up, you clearly do not understand what clipping is. If you look at that image and think everything is ok, there's nothing to do here.
Enjoy destroying audio, but I see no purpose in talking about how to make things sound worse.

Tell you what - I advised you to examine the wave form of a Prodigy track, which you clearly have never done.

So, I'm going to put one up, then people can appreciate you really are talking out of your backside. OK? You asked for it.

Or are you saying that clipped audio automatically = crap audio, and therefore, the Prodigy produce crap music?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

I did say, they wont sound very good on a real Amiga.

I meant that the original mods sound better on my Amiga than your remasters on my peecee.

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

They are fairly accurate simulations of what a real Amiga would sound like with extra hardware on the stereo output, fitted internally or externally.

What's the point if it doesn't sound good? A1200s can produce fairly good quality and this just lowers the quality.

Edit:

Just decoded one of your FLACs to WAV, and it sounds the same on my Amiga as on my peecee.

[demolition]

It doesn't make sense to talk about different lossless formats (lossless is lossless, i.e. they all sound the same per definition), 24 bit, 96/192kHz etc. when the audio is clipped like that. Nobody is going to be able to tell the difference. The Paula audio quality is so bad to begin with that 16 bit 44kHz is plenty to sample it properly, so no amount of extra oversampling will change anything in that regard. And sampling it will surely not cause a pitch change unless you mess up the sampling rates, e.g. record at 48kHz and play back at 44.1kHz.

Clipped audio is not necessarily crap as I wrote before. Hendrix was one of the pioneers of using a distorted guitar and most people like that sound. It's all subjective.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by demolition

The Paula audio quality is so bad to begin with

My A1200 sounds pretty good when playing back WAV files, so I don't know where you got that from

[Daedalus]

Wow...