Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Pixilation.... We have lost something.


White Crane Feather

Recommended Posts

I can no longer use digital music if I want to use meditation music or sounds. I have to use an old tape player, and even old tapes.

It seems my consciousness is able to pick up on the pixilation of digital sound. It sounds horrible.

Has anyone else experiences this? Have we lost something inside of music by digitizing it?

Edited by White Crane Feather
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I tried listening to music both ways when I didn't know which it is. Lossless is fine; lossy is easy to pick out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, "pixilation?" Did you make that up or does it have anything to do with pixies or with being drunk? (Maybe that's pickelation?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, "pixilation?" Did you make that up or does it have anything to do with pixies or with being drunk? (Maybe that's pickelation?)

It has to do with the tiny bits that make up digital sound. I only hear it during meditative states.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Once when I was a teenager I smoked some weed and I had a wierd trip where I turned into a computer and was fragmented into millions of pieces... this probably is out of place to the topic, but it did make me think of it.

At the time I really hated it but it did leave an impression and I think about it from time to time.

I dont meditate to music so I can't contribute to this... I would only assume that digitization does do something to natural music that changes our experience.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also when I meditate I do get tiny bits that are fragmented but this has nothing to do with music... it may have something to do with how im on some sort of data device practically all day long though.... and also that these bits are being transmitted through the air all around us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems my consciousness is able to pick up on the pixilation of digital sound. It sounds horrible.

You'll have to describe that in a different way, because there isn't any 'pixelization' in recording of digital audio. It's just reading an analog wave form (sound wave), translating it into a digital binary system onto the computer, and then recreating the sound wave by translating that binary data back into sound waves to play the audio. Sample rates (amount of points a sample is taken in a sound wave) need to be high to recreate the sound faithfully, but recording standards are high in today's digital recording.

You'll also have to describe how it sounds horrible, because there are ways that digital audio can sound off if not recorded well.

My guess is that you are used to your tapes for some time, and you find changing the ritual to digital audio displeasing for some reason, and have rationalized it by thinking that your consciousness finds fault in digital recording. If not, again, you'll have to describe how you feel that your consciousness finds distaste in A/D audio.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have discussions with my son from time to time about CDs/digital vs. vinyl and the sound thereof. We are both huge music fans (about 4-5000+ CDs between us) and personally having grown up with LPs, no one was happier that I when digital came out. I know there are arguments about it not sounding as warm or as rich, but one thing I hated with vinyl was the pops, the clicks, the scratches that were so annoying and they became ingrained in the music you listened to; you knew when they were coming, as if the artist had put them on you album. And some LPs were so poorly recorded they were terrible (the one that sticks in my mind was Deep Purple, The Book of Taliesyn; there were dozens in every cut-out bin because the sound quality was horrible). The clarity of CDs was such a breath of fresh air. And with new master recordings of classic albums you get to hear music you grew up with with a new appreciation.

As for being able to pick out pixelation on digital recordings, never experienced it.

Edited by Sundew
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may be more of a clue, White Crane, as to how you connect with music. I find it interesting because some of us once we start 'projecting' and esp psychic / intuitive empaths, tend to process information /media more deeply by interfacing our awareness /energy with it. It's comparable to saying we look for the data/energy sig behind the words, or behind the music as to what the intent is. There is obviously something about digital music that may be blocking this process for you or something that interferes with how you are reading it on a deeper level.

Edited by bLu3 de 3n3rgy
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have discussions with my son from time to time about CDs/digital vs. vinyl and the sound thereof. We are both huge music fans (about 4-5000+ CDs between us) and personally having grown up with LPs, no one was happier that I when digital came out. I know there are arguments about it not sounding as warm or as rich, but one thing I hated with vinyl was the pops, the clicks, the scratches that were so annoying and they became ingrained in the music you listened to; you knew when they were coming, as if the artist had put them on you album. And some LPs were so poorly recorded they were terrible (the one that sticks in my mind was Deep Purple, The Book of Taliesyn; there were dozens in every cut-out bin because the sound quality was horrible). The clarity of CDs was such a breath of fresh air. And with new master recordings of classic albums you get to hear music you grew up with with a new appreciation.

As for being able to pick out pixelation on digital recordings, never experienced it.

Sorry if this is kind of a little off topic, but this stuff really interests me. I'm taking a studio recording class right now, and the teacher explained that one of the big differences between analog and digital audio is that digital is such a boxed in sound due to a lack of ambient noise, while analog recording picks up a lot more ambient noise (even down to the air in the room in some cases). This is why analog creates a 'richer, warmer' sound. The sound has room to breath, so to speak.

Funnily enough also, one of the first noticeable signs of a low quality digital recording (which is usually caused by the recording getting sent frequencies it can't understand/translate if I remember correctly, will be pops and hisses, though different sounding than records.

I have to say the biggest wow factor for me when first listening to a CD (besides being amazed that there was a laser reading a spinning disc in there) was that I could simply press one button, and all of a sudden I was at the next song. Press another button once (well, twice) and I was back to the last song. 3 times, and 3 songs ahead. No more trial and error of trying to find anything on a tape, not to mention the tragic tangling and unraveling of the cassette tape.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use to have a huge CD library bought during trips overseas (classical music CDs are rare here because there is so little demand -- I picked up my taste for it in college in the States). I spend weeks one time copying it all to external hard drives and now have it all instantly available on my computer. It's almost always on except when I sleep or meditate.

The sound is not quite as stirring as a live performance, but it beats anything else for both convenience and quality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry if this is kind of a little off topic, but this stuff really interests me. I'm taking a studio recording class right now, and the teacher explained that one of the big differences between analog and digital audio is that digital is such a boxed in sound due to a lack of ambient noise, while analog recording picks up a lot more ambient noise (even down to the air in the room in some cases). This is why analog creates a 'richer, warmer' sound. The sound has room to breath, so to speak.

Funny, I would not consider that a richer warmer sound, but a messier dirty sound.

I reckon I was about the last person in Oz to go to CD, my mates harassed me for years before I finally could not get vinyl any longer. I used to make the same "warm" argument, but innies make a huge difference there I reckon, and I believe a digital sound with it's crisp clear sound is just as fat as analogue, but much clearer. It took me a bit to admit it, especially as I hung onto vinyl for so long, but after the conversion, I have to agree with Sundew, digital music is the best thing since sliced bread.

MP3's are the best thing to ever happen to music as well. I used to have to copy every tape I bought onto blank ones so if my car got broken into I would not lose all my music, I would just have to copy it again. I used to lug a huge bag of spare tapes around that would warp in the sun if some bloody passenger went through them and did not put them away.

Now I hop into a car, my phone connects wirelessly and automatically, and I can tell it what playlist, or even what track I want without taking my eyes of the road. Or to shuffle songs etc. And the sound is killer.

I'm lovin the new tech.

I hope we get to this stage pretty soon myself.

Edited by psyche101
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

You'll have to describe that in a different way, because there isn't any 'pixelization' in recording of digital audio. It's just reading an analog wave form (sound wave), translating it into a digital binary system onto the computer, and then recreating the sound wave by translating that binary data back into sound waves to play the audio. Sample rates (amount of points a sample is taken in a sound wave) need to be high to recreate the sound faithfully, but recording standards are high in today's digital recording.

You'll also have to describe how it sounds horrible, because there are ways that digital audio can sound off if not recorded well.

My guess is that you are used to your tapes for some time, and you find changing the ritual to digital audio displeasing for some reason, and have rationalized it by thinking that your consciousness finds fault in digital recording. If not, again, you'll have to describe how you feel that your consciousness finds distaste in A/D audio.

No it sounds different. It's not about rationalizing something. At certain stage the sound completely breaks down. It's fragmented in a way that only digitized music can do. I wish I had a way to record it, but its my hearing of it that's the problem. I don't know how sound is translated etc etc... I don't mind music from my iPhone or digital sources normally... It's just in this certain stage I can hear the fragments... If that means anything. This dosnt happen with real or analog sound.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may be more of a clue, White Crane, as to how you connect with music. I find it interesting because some of us once we start 'projecting' and esp psychic / intuitive empaths, tend to process information /media more deeply by interfacing our awareness /energy with it. It's comparable to saying we look for the data/energy sig behind the words, or behind the music as to what the intent is. There is obviously something about digital music that may be blocking this process for you or something that interferes with how you are reading it on a deeper level.

Hmmm interesting. Yes it is like behind the miusic. Like what it really is. I'm not sure that I totally buy into the idea that a binary system can totally translate the full information of true found .

I hear it almost like sound in the matrix ( interestingly enough) after neo turns all chrome. It's a robotic skipping like noise but yet it comes in spurts.

I truey feel like we are missing something in music. But hey it could just be me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm interesting. Yes it is like behind the miusic. Like what it really is. I'm not sure that I totally buy into the idea that a binary system can totally translate the full information of true found .

Ignore the word binary, because all that means is that samples of an audio wave are assigned codes to translate exactly where the wave's form sits and with what characteristics at that exact sample moment, and the code assigned to translate this position and state happens to be a binary code. The point is that sampling works like dot to dot to create a picture of the sound wave, but it isn't like children's books. Imagine a wave, which is a line going up, then down, then up, like a roller coaster. This is a second long wave of audio. Now, how many dots do you think the standard audio CD recording sample rate has in that second long roller coaster wave? 1 or 2? 20? 80? Nope, it has roughly 44,100 dots in that second long wave to record the position and state of the audio wave. Think just how accurate that dot to dot drawing would be, and you start to understand how accurate digital recording is at reproducing audio waves.

Now you should know that a lot of people have studied recording of wave forms for a long time (music has always been an important part of humankind), and have this stuff down to a science:

The Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem states that perfect reconstruction of a signal is possible when the sampling frequency is greater than twice the maximum frequency of the signal being sampled, or equivalently, when the Nyquist frequency (half the sample rate) exceeds the highest frequency of the signal being sampled. If lower sampling rates are used, the original signal's information may not be completely recoverable from the sampled signal.[2] For example, if a signal has an upper band limit of 100 Hz, a sampling frequency greater than 200 Hz will avoid aliasing and would theoretically allow perfect reconstruction.

The full range of human hearing is between 20 Hz and 20 kHz.[3] The minimum sampling rate that satisfies the sampling theorem for this full bandwidth is 40 kHz. The 44.1 kHz sampling rate used for Compact Disc was chosen for this and other technical reasons.

I think it's pretty safe at this point that is something going on with you, and not with digital music in general.

I'm still not sure what you mean by missing something in music, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny, I would not consider that a richer warmer sound, but a messier dirty sound.

Well, the terms he used are those generally chosen by producers/recording artists. It's really about slightly denser sound vs thinner, compacted. Whether you think this is 'dirty' or 'clean' kind of tips over to the personal preference area.

If you were to plug in a guitar to a distortion pedal + an amp and hear the sound it makes naturally, and then take the same guitar and pedal and plug it into the M-Box (a digital I/O interface that goes to a computer) and into ProTools, you would notice an extreme difference in the sound. The lack of sustain in the notes is extremely noticeable. It's not cleaner; it's just different. All music you listen to on vinyls/CDs/etc have been mixed and mastered before it gets to your home stereo, so a lot of the analog vs digital difference has been evened out. At this point, people don't really hear much of the contrast. But at the raw recording stage, that's when the difference is noticeable.

Edited by _Only
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No it sounds different. It's not about rationalizing something. At certain stage the sound completely breaks down. It's fragmented in a way that only digitized music can do. I wish I had a way to record it, but its my hearing of it that's the problem. I don't know how sound is translated etc etc... I don't mind music from my iPhone or digital sources normally... It's just in this certain stage I can hear the fragments... If that means anything. This dosnt happen with real or analog sound.

hmm, play with it..

I've recently discovered oddities in my own perceptions that supposedly don't exist so I just played around with it till I understood it myself..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WHITE CRANE FEATHER: Are you talking about digital music from a computer or from a CD? If you have issues about the first,

then it might really have something to to with the sample rate of the sound file, as _Only pointed out.

When you digitalize music from a tape/Vinyl record/CD, there will always be some of the original information left out (AFAIK it's the stuff the human hearing range can't pick up anyway). So in a way, all digitalized copies of music are lossy to start with.

The smaller a digital copy of a piece of music is, the lesser "dots" (referring to _Only again) this copy has. It's like you try to copy the mona lisa with 20, 10, 5 or 2 crayons....the lesser you use, the worse is your result. You can still make out what the original is, but a lot of information is lost in the process.

Back to music files: under a certain chosen sample rate, you get artifacts in sound due to the compression of the original information, and i figure THIS is what you are talking about. a kind of a "pixelated", digital-ish background sound in your music.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is it that my live cello sounds so much better (vastly better) than any recording I've ever heard -- not that I don't like recordings of the cello?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is it that my live cello sounds so much better (vastly better) than any recording I've ever heard -- not that I don't like recordings of the cello?

Many reasons - first, up most speakers are pretty ordinary when it comes to accurately reproducing complex middle-frequency sounds that contain many harmonics, sub-harmonics, sub-sub.. etc. If you had a really, really expensive speaker that might improve it a bit (or perhaps, more affordably, get yourself some really high end audiophile headphones, like the top-end Sennheisers.,)

Then there's the microphone/s used when it was recorded - again, if they are not absolutely top notch, you end up with a 'muddy' recording.

And finally there is the ambience and stereo effects (often referred to as the 'sound stage')... a set of speakers or headphones cannot reproduce the nuances of having the instrument near you - eg things like the fact that the strings are quite long and you are hearing the soundwaves from the entire length, giving different effects to both ears. The ambient noise and echo of the environment when it was recorded will not match and may conflict with the playback environment, etc. It is an incredibly complex scenario. Even getting very simple things like creating the effect of a single vocalist in the centre of the room via your speakers, can be a nightmare...

Finally, and to those who do swear that there is a subtle difference between digital and analog - there is a flaw in the digital system, and that is the wave 'smoothing'. Even at high sampling rates, the resulting waveform from reworking the bits back to a wave is never an absolutely perfect copy of the original sound captured by the microphone. Now most hi-fi fanatics, no matter how great their love of vinyl, will agree that compared to other issues like the ones I spoke of above, the good aspects of digital (esp low noise and indestructability) are far more important and completely overwhelm any tiny difference in the playback waveform. I'd tend to agree (given a high quality recording - see below), even though I still think the experience of hearing Thelma Houston and Pressure Cooker on a direct-to-disc vinyl record played back on a high quality turntable is just astonishing...

For modern day recordings and playback on decent hi-fi equipment - no, you won't hear anything but improvement with digital. But if you have low-end playback equipment and/or are listening to low-sample-rate* MP3s, then all bets are off and the sound can indeed be detectably harsh.

* Commonly, MP3 files are sampled at 128 kbits per second or even less (eurgh). A good ear will be able to pick the difference between that and the original uncompressed music. 192 kbits is regarded by many hifi-buffs (including me) as a minimum for good quality, and if you really want the closest quality to the original, then 256kb/sec...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very interesting stuff. I have no knowledge what so ever about sound.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry if this is kind of a little off topic, but this stuff really interests me. I'm taking a studio recording class right now, and the teacher explained that one of the big differences between analog and digital audio is that digital is such a boxed in sound due to a lack of ambient noise, while analog recording picks up a lot more ambient noise (even down to the air in the room in some cases). This is why analog creates a 'richer, warmer' sound. The sound has room to breath, so to speak.

Funnily enough also, one of the first noticeable signs of a low quality digital recording (which is usually caused by the recording getting sent frequencies it can't understand/translate if I remember correctly, will be pops and hisses, though different sounding than records.

I have to say the biggest wow factor for me when first listening to a CD (besides being amazed that there was a laser reading a spinning disc in there) was that I could simply press one button, and all of a sudden I was at the next song. Press another button once (well, twice) and I was back to the last song. 3 times, and 3 songs ahead. No more trial and error of trying to find anything on a tape, not to mention the tragic tangling and unraveling of the cassette tape.

Haha, ah yes the cassette, I'm old enough to have had a nice collection of good old 8-track tapes! Wow I feel old! From there I went to cassette, but even with Dolby noise reduction in the players you still got that awful hiss. Even had a few Quadraphonic LP's and a reel to reel deck. You think it's hard finding a song on a cassette, try an eight hour reel of tape!

But digital is the way to go as far as I'm concerned, and having everything on a hard drive or directly on a computer gives you instant access.

Ironically the computer speakers I had with a MAC desktop a few years ago produced better sound than all that expensive stereo equipment I had as a teen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.