The Flower Kings - new album Look At You Now

[progmatist]

You can do that in a DAW like Reaper

Also with the free app Audacity. Albeit with some quality loss. Audacity's wav encoding leaves much to be desired.

[Plasmatopia]

Also with the free app Audacity. Albeit with some quality loss. Audacity's wav encoding leaves much to be desired.

There used to be a third party package of codecs you could download that enhanced Audacity's encoding options, if I am recalling correctly.

[Czyszy]

What? .wav is lossless and uncompressed. Are you exporting the sound as 24 bit and in the same sampling rate as the source?

[progmatist]

^^ Most other DAW platforms do a much better job of encoding wav files. The command line utility ffmpeg does a much better job encoding wav files. Down in the basement, and equally as bad as Audacity is Cakewalk/Sonar.

[Plasmatopia]

^^ Most other DAW platforms do a much better job of encoding wav files. The command line utility ffmpeg does a much better job encoding wav files. Down in the basement, and equally as bad as Audacity is Cakewalk/Sonar.

Well....that's a weird blanket statement. Sonar has multiple user-selectable codecs for encoding built in.

[Czyszy]

There is no encoding. .wav is uncompressed.

[yesstiles]

Now let me contradict myself just a little bit - lol and maybe this is what people mean when they say they wish the albums were more concise.

In hindsight I think it would have been better to release "Garden of Dreams" as a standalone album with only that epic 60 minute song on it. Then release the the remaining songs as another stand alone album the next year. Most fans consider Stardust We Are and Unfold the Future as the top albums. Flower Power isn't usually mentioned -why not? Is that because of the somewhat weaker disc 2 that dilutes the power of GoD?

But imagine if the discography had gone this way:
Stardust We Are (1997)
Garden of Dreams (1998)
Flower Power (1999)
Space Revolver (2000)

If that was how it was released I'm sure most fans would have this Garden of Dreams album in their top 1 or 2 and it would probably be in conversations on best prog rock albums of all time!

So I guess I want all the songs but quibble sometimes with how they are released and sometimes with track sequencing.

Totally agree

[Plasmatopia]

There is no encoding. .wav is uncompressed.

I'm talking about mixing down from, say 24/96 to 16/44.1 and the various dithering schemes they offer.

[aith01]

There is no encoding. .wav is uncompressed.

There is encoding with WAV (such as linear PCM).

I think you’re conflating encoding with compression.

[progmatist]

Well....that's a weird blanket statement. Sonar has multiple user-selectable codecs for encoding built in.

A W64 file encoded by Sonar is readable only by Sonar. Completely incompatible with any other hardware or software. By default Sonar uses W64 when the file size exceeds 2GB. There have been times when exporting the audio track for a video, which exceeded 2GB, I had to use some other format like AIFF or RAW PCM. Even then some video editors had a problem with the AIFF exported by Sonar. There have been times I had to export as Flac from Sonar, then use the Flac command line utility to re-encode it as W64. Then finally to the video editor.

Oh and BTW: when exporting a 5.1 surround video mix from Sonar, the timing was all other the place. Impossible to pin down when trying to sync it with the video clips. Exporting 5.1 from other DAW platforms like Cubase suffer no such timing issues.

[Czyszy]

I'm talking about mixing down from, say 24/96 to 16/44.1 and the various dithering schemes they offer.

That's resampling I think.

[Firth]

That's resampling I think.

Depends on whether the discussion is about conversion of a multichannel (>2) source is being referenced. Technically, I would refer to 2 channel resampling as downsampling, which if done properly, is a decimation with a long FIR.

[Plasmatopia]

A W64 file encoded by Sonar is readable only by Sonar. Completely incompatible with any other hardware or software. By default Sonar uses W64 when the file size exceeds 2GB. There have been times when exporting the audio track for a video, which exceeded 2GB, I had to use some other format like AIFF or RAW PCM. Even then some video editors had a problem with the AIFF exported by Sonar. There have been times I had to export as Flac from Sonar, then use the Flac command line utility to re-encode it as W64. Then finally to the video editor.

Oh and BTW: when exporting a 5.1 surround video mix from Sonar, the timing was all other the place. Impossible to pin down when trying to sync it with the video clips. Exporting 5.1 from other DAW platforms like Cubase suffer no such timing issues.

I haven't used Sonar for quite some time. I definitely never did any surround mixing with it. But I can see why you'd consider that problematic!

[Plasmatopia]

Depends on whether the discussion is about conversion of a multichannel (>2) source is being referenced. Technically, I would refer to 2 channel resampling as downsampling, which if done properly, is a decimation with a long FIR.

I was thinking of mixing multiple tracks to a stereo mix at CD quality....whatever that process is called.

[Firth]

I was thinking of mixing multiple tracks to a stereo mix at CD quality....whatever that process is called.

Well all of these tracks should be maintained at the highest possible resolution (but depth and sampling rate) until the final Dow sampling to 16/44.1, however if making a stereo releases for ITunes or Apple Music, they want the highest resolution up to 24/192. Apple has a convertor to 16/48 that optimally accounts for the dynamic range to prevent saturation. Note that Apple Music now supported streaming at lossless (16/48) and HD Lossless (24/96).

[SRS]

Second song released:

The Flower Kings - The Dream (Official Video)




and this appears to be an edited version of the song as this was listed as being 4:37 on the album and this is only 3:29

[Plasmatopia]

Second song released:

The Flower Kings - The Dream (Official Video)




and this appears to be an edited version of the song as this was listed as being 4:37 on the album and this is only 3:29

There are also more lyrics (in the YouTube description) than are sung in the video.

[Czyszy]

Whoa! This really feels like old Flower Kings. :')

[Splicer]

"The Dream" sounds like an end song. Last song on the album or of a particular section?

[Dan Roth]

"The Dream" sounds like an end song. Last song on the album or of a particular section?

According to the announced tracklist, "The Dream" is the second song in.

[Splicer]

According to the announced tracklist, "The Dream" is the second song in.

So the two singles release are the first & second songs. I'm assuming edits because the first one sounds like it probably shouldn't fade and just go into the second song.

[Czyszy]

There is encoding with WAV (such as linear PCM).

Linear PCM is precisely the term I was looking for. Thank you.

[Firth]

Linear PCM is precisely the term I was looking for. Thank you.

Just using PCM has become understood by most in audio as linear PCM. Never heard anybody refer to non-linear PCM for audio. DSD is a form of PCM which is non linear, but you are not likely read that anywhere because people don’t understand the original definition of PCM.

[progmatist]

^^ Add to that Apple's AIFF and Microsoft's WAV encode PCM differently. The key difference being AIFF uses "big endian," while WAV uses "little endian." I won't bore anyone explaining what big versus little endian actually means.

The fundamental difference in DSD is it's only a single bit wide. Making up for that by using an ultra-high sampling rate, measured in the megahertz. Standard PCM by contrast is 8, 16, 24, 32, or 64 bits wide. And a sampling rate measured in the kilohertz. The maximum consumer level sampling rate is 192KHz, although it can go up to 356KHz.

[Soc Prof]

^^ Add to that Apple's AIFF and Microsoft's WAV encode PCM differently. The key difference being AIFF uses "big endian," while WAV uses "little endian." I won't bore anyone explaining what big versus little endian actually means.

The fundamental difference in DSD is it's only a single bit wide. Making up for that by using an ultra-high sampling rate, measured in the megahertz. Standard PCM by contrast is 8, 16, 24, 32, or 64 bits wide. And a sampling rate measured in the kilohertz. The maximum consumer level sampling rate is 192KHz, although it can go up to 356KHz.

HDtracks has a section of recordings from the 2xHD label. Most of them go to 352.8khz. PS Audio also sells 352.8khz downloads. But these are the exceptions. 192khz is the maximum sampling rate you'll find from major label releases from what I've seen.