OPEN SOURCE AUDIO PROJECT NEEDS PROGRAMMERS
CryojenX
Posts: 32
Basic Summary
The AmpliFile Audio Standard is the answer to both the concerns of the industry, and those of audiophiles alike. AmpliFile technology allows for non-destructive, configurable, real-time application of mastering settings on playback for modern standard radio broadcast, while allowing individual listeners to activate or deactivate various mastering defaults to listen to music on their own terms.
What is the AmplFile Project?
AmpliFile is a proposal for a set of open source technologies conceived by Crystal J Walters, and currently referred to as the AmpliFile Audio Standard. The goal of this standard is to help rejuvenate interest in the semi-high end audiophile market by creating a “one-size fits all” audio standard format that meets both the commercial needs of record labels and radio stations alike, and at the same time allowing for an amount of flexibility not yet seen in the music industry by allowing the listener a certain degree of control over how they may enjoy their music.
A Bit of Background
Before I go into detail on the AmpilFile Audio Standard, it is important to understand how the industry works handles the mastering process. Nowadays, when you purchase a cd or download an audio file through iTunes (or various other outlets), the sound you hear contains a marked difference from what the musicians and mixing engineers may have originally heard and enjoyed in-studio after the mixing process.
Aside from being encoded at a lower sample rate, professionally published recordings go through a process, called mastering, which is used by record companies to make a recording “radio ready” (forgetting for a moment that radio is increasingly becoming irrelevant in the changing music landscape), and theoretically able to compete with other songs for your attention. The mastering process involves several different technologies being applied to a recording, including equalization (or EQ), compression, and limiting, among others.
The Conundrum
The difficulty arises then when one considers the the change in the way mastering has been done over the last few decades. Nowadays, most recordings are put through a process some refer to as “brick wall” limiting, where not only is a sound file’s dynamic range (the range between the softest and loudest sounds) decreased, making the recording sound louder (despite having the same peak level), but also the audio is put through heavy “clipping“, where peaks of sound waves are literally chopped off, further increasing the perceived loudness.
The obvious advantage to this process is that on the radio, whatever sounds louder is supposedly more likely to attract your attention, and theoretically increase sales. The disadvantage to this process is that it can suck a lot of the life out of a recording. Imagine “Stairway To Heaven”, or “Bohemian Rhapsody” without any differences in volume between the “soft” and “loud” sections.
Chances are that you don’t have to, since that’s likely all you’ve been hearing for some time. Such recordings originally made use of changes in dynamics for dramatic effect. However, when going through these modern processes, this part of the artistic presentation however, is largely destroyed. The situation is made even worse when you consider that radio stations also apply their own limiting/compression to the music as they broadcast it, rendering such practices to control the sound seeming, well… kind of silly!
Another disadvantage to the process, the aforementioned “clipping” can create distortion, and make the recording sound more like noise, and less like music, causing ear fatigue in the process. Also, a possible result of overzealous clipping can be wear and damage to your speakers over time.
Probably the best illustrator of the end result of these processes and how they affect the music you hear can be found in the album “Death Magnetic” by Metallica. This process was taken to such a heavy extreme in the post-production phase that even life-long fans who had purchased the album were instead returning it to stores, and instead downloading and bootlegging the Guitar Hero III version of the album, which had been provided to the games developer before it hit the mastering phase.
The Solution
The proposed AmpliFile Audio Standard is the answer to both the concerns of the industry, and those of audiophiles alike (excluding vinyl fanatics of course).
Here’s how the idea works. the AmpliFile format allows for non-destructive, configurable, real-time mastering applied at the moment of audio playback via a special audio codec. Where current mastering technology takes the original studio recordings, lowers the sampling rate and bit-depth to cd standard, then applies EQ, compression, limiting, noise-reduction, (etc.) to the file and the album you get is irreparably altered from the original source recording that the artist heard in the studio.
With the AmpliFile Audio Standard, mastering engineers do their work, but instead their alterations are saved in a default settings file (possibly XML based). The original lossless sound file (possibly in FLAC format) is then added, with the XML mastering settings file, to a compressed archive (such as a .zip or .tar format), and the extension is changed to “.AFI”.
Upon playback, the original file (at its original encoding rate and bit-depth) is run through DSP software which, in default mode, applies EQ, compression, limiting, (etc.) settings contained in the XML file, individually to the recording in realtime-on playback. This allows a record company to continue giving radio stations a version of the recording which meets their perceived needs of loudness, for a “radio-friendly” sound.
However, the flip-side of this process is that the individual listener at home also gets to decide how they want the music they purchased to sound, by checking (or unchecking) individual default settings boxes, which allow the listener to enjoy his or her music however the heck they want!
Isn’t it about time?
Issuing A Call
Here’s the deal. I’m no programmer, and I’m no audiologist. I need the help of the open source development community to make this idea happen. If you believe that you have skills that would be useful in facilitating the development of either the client, or post-production implementation of AmpliFile technologies, please contact me. (<!-- e --><a href="mailto:crystalw@amplifile.org">crystalw@amplifile.org</a><!-- e -->)
I want to change the way you listen to music for the better. Please help me to help you!
Keep listening,
Crystal J. Walters
The AmpliFile Audio Standard is the answer to both the concerns of the industry, and those of audiophiles alike. AmpliFile technology allows for non-destructive, configurable, real-time application of mastering settings on playback for modern standard radio broadcast, while allowing individual listeners to activate or deactivate various mastering defaults to listen to music on their own terms.
What is the AmplFile Project?
AmpliFile is a proposal for a set of open source technologies conceived by Crystal J Walters, and currently referred to as the AmpliFile Audio Standard. The goal of this standard is to help rejuvenate interest in the semi-high end audiophile market by creating a “one-size fits all” audio standard format that meets both the commercial needs of record labels and radio stations alike, and at the same time allowing for an amount of flexibility not yet seen in the music industry by allowing the listener a certain degree of control over how they may enjoy their music.
A Bit of Background
Before I go into detail on the AmpilFile Audio Standard, it is important to understand how the industry works handles the mastering process. Nowadays, when you purchase a cd or download an audio file through iTunes (or various other outlets), the sound you hear contains a marked difference from what the musicians and mixing engineers may have originally heard and enjoyed in-studio after the mixing process.
Aside from being encoded at a lower sample rate, professionally published recordings go through a process, called mastering, which is used by record companies to make a recording “radio ready” (forgetting for a moment that radio is increasingly becoming irrelevant in the changing music landscape), and theoretically able to compete with other songs for your attention. The mastering process involves several different technologies being applied to a recording, including equalization (or EQ), compression, and limiting, among others.
The Conundrum
The difficulty arises then when one considers the the change in the way mastering has been done over the last few decades. Nowadays, most recordings are put through a process some refer to as “brick wall” limiting, where not only is a sound file’s dynamic range (the range between the softest and loudest sounds) decreased, making the recording sound louder (despite having the same peak level), but also the audio is put through heavy “clipping“, where peaks of sound waves are literally chopped off, further increasing the perceived loudness.
The obvious advantage to this process is that on the radio, whatever sounds louder is supposedly more likely to attract your attention, and theoretically increase sales. The disadvantage to this process is that it can suck a lot of the life out of a recording. Imagine “Stairway To Heaven”, or “Bohemian Rhapsody” without any differences in volume between the “soft” and “loud” sections.
Chances are that you don’t have to, since that’s likely all you’ve been hearing for some time. Such recordings originally made use of changes in dynamics for dramatic effect. However, when going through these modern processes, this part of the artistic presentation however, is largely destroyed. The situation is made even worse when you consider that radio stations also apply their own limiting/compression to the music as they broadcast it, rendering such practices to control the sound seeming, well… kind of silly!
Another disadvantage to the process, the aforementioned “clipping” can create distortion, and make the recording sound more like noise, and less like music, causing ear fatigue in the process. Also, a possible result of overzealous clipping can be wear and damage to your speakers over time.
Probably the best illustrator of the end result of these processes and how they affect the music you hear can be found in the album “Death Magnetic” by Metallica. This process was taken to such a heavy extreme in the post-production phase that even life-long fans who had purchased the album were instead returning it to stores, and instead downloading and bootlegging the Guitar Hero III version of the album, which had been provided to the games developer before it hit the mastering phase.
The Solution
The proposed AmpliFile Audio Standard is the answer to both the concerns of the industry, and those of audiophiles alike (excluding vinyl fanatics of course).
Here’s how the idea works. the AmpliFile format allows for non-destructive, configurable, real-time mastering applied at the moment of audio playback via a special audio codec. Where current mastering technology takes the original studio recordings, lowers the sampling rate and bit-depth to cd standard, then applies EQ, compression, limiting, noise-reduction, (etc.) to the file and the album you get is irreparably altered from the original source recording that the artist heard in the studio.
With the AmpliFile Audio Standard, mastering engineers do their work, but instead their alterations are saved in a default settings file (possibly XML based). The original lossless sound file (possibly in FLAC format) is then added, with the XML mastering settings file, to a compressed archive (such as a .zip or .tar format), and the extension is changed to “.AFI”.
Upon playback, the original file (at its original encoding rate and bit-depth) is run through DSP software which, in default mode, applies EQ, compression, limiting, (etc.) settings contained in the XML file, individually to the recording in realtime-on playback. This allows a record company to continue giving radio stations a version of the recording which meets their perceived needs of loudness, for a “radio-friendly” sound.
However, the flip-side of this process is that the individual listener at home also gets to decide how they want the music they purchased to sound, by checking (or unchecking) individual default settings boxes, which allow the listener to enjoy his or her music however the heck they want!
Isn’t it about time?
Issuing A Call
Here’s the deal. I’m no programmer, and I’m no audiologist. I need the help of the open source development community to make this idea happen. If you believe that you have skills that would be useful in facilitating the development of either the client, or post-production implementation of AmpliFile technologies, please contact me. (<!-- e --><a href="mailto:crystalw@amplifile.org">crystalw@amplifile.org</a><!-- e -->)
I want to change the way you listen to music for the better. Please help me to help you!
Keep listening,
Crystal J. Walters
Crystal
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