|
|
Post by jsdyson on Jun 11, 2019 10:43:42 GMT
I have been working on my mainline project for pretty much the last few years -- dropping in from time to time. Thank you for tolerating some of my previous attempted improvements. The normally available copy of 'Dream World' is undecoded DolbyA (the reason for the shrillness), and also is kind of a worst-case hit against DolbyA -- it is a kind of fragile noise reduction system, and certain kinds of material (like Dream World) can excite 'odd' behaviors. As a 'guilty pleasure', I have been trying to do the best possible to extract the most of Dream World from the normally available recording. If someone knows where/how to get a fully decoded version elsewhere, please let me know. This version was decoded from a Japanese copy of an ABBA Gold type collection (AFAIR.) Some ABBA releases aren't actually decoded, and this mostly causes a brighter sound with more high frequency density.
This is for research and interest-in-the-group purposes -- and if someone knows how to put it on 'YouTube' or whatever, go ahead and do it -- then the monetization would be done properly, and everyone can more properly benefit. These works are owned by ABBA and their assignees -- and I want for them to benefit. (Up until now -- it has been pretty much impossible to fully decode this material. I am participating on a project that extracts as much as possible from old DolbyA encoded recordings.)
(Don't expect my result to sound as 'bright' as the normally avaiable version -- but it is probably much closer to the pre-DolbyA version. It is still too smushed.)
|
|
|
|
Post by jsdyson on Jun 11, 2019 15:06:26 GMT
Wow -- did I make a bit of a mistake :-). The song didn't sound fully decoded -- they seemed to have run multiple DolbyA encoding passes by mistake... The first example (very nicely) removed only one pass. I found that there is at least one more pass, and possibly two more that are needed!!! Doing the 2nd pass improved it further, but the third test pass was a little unstable sounding. It is a matter of tweaking calibrations. It will be EVEN NICER in a day or so. (It takes awhile to get the calibration correct without DolbyA tones.)
So, figure about 12Jun, I should be posting a more-clean yet version.
|
|
|
|
Post by jsdyson on Jun 12, 2019 21:20:12 GMT
Wow -- trying to get full quality for Dreamworld is incredibly difficult -- and I havne't been as successful as I initially thought.
I have included a very well done 'SuperTrouper' for reference - I really tried to make Dreamwold sound as good as the SuperTrouper... Spent almost a full day on this, after realizing that my previous example was so embarassing...
Dream World is apparently encoded 3 times in sequence!!! The multiple/nested 'DolbyA encoding' is the reason why Dream World is such a dense mass of sound. I ran Dream World through the processor that undoes DolbyA encoding -- three times in sequence (carefully calibratining for each step.) I still didn't get the results that I like -- but it MIGHT sound better after decoding to some people.
The DolbyA system was never meant to used to nest the encoding, and the original hardware would sound even worse than the results that I got (the hardware had limits on the kind of clean-up and processing that it could do.)
The originals for these examples are from the ABBA Gold and more ABBA Gold disks from 1992/1993, which were leaked with DolbyA encoding (giving that intense high frequency sound.) I kind-of like 'Dream World' and would like to have a nice, clean copy of it some day. I am showing the SuperTrouper example to show what I was trying to make Dreamworld sound like.
So -- My very very aggressive attempt of getting a clean copy of 'Dream World' (I guess not as good as I had hoped):
For a reference -- the best possible recovery of 'Super Trouper' from the same series of CDs. (This one actually sounds 'okay' - to me, this is acceptable):
John
I sure hope that some-day that they would truly remaster the old ABBA recordings and distribute normally (not doing extreme dynamic range compression like is done so often nowadays.)
|
|
|
|
Post by richard on Jun 12, 2019 23:07:30 GMT
Hello John
I'm not able to discuss the technical aspects of your work - I lack the knowledge - but i find it intriguing, nevertheless.
I would like to think that most fans want to know they are hearing ABBA recordings with the best possible sound - sometimes, anyway - in terms of clarity, detail, richness and...honesty? (Is that latter word a valid one to use in this context?)
But do you suspect, as I do, that many of we fans, generally, aren't too bothered, and does that disappoint you?
Richard
|
|
