# Overloading/clipping in older recordings



## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

I'll point to a direct example:






[Conductor : Leopold Stokowski; London Symphony Orchestra; Stereo recording in 1964
Label : Decca]

Notice how, as the passage gets louder (and more dynamic), the recorded sonics degrade into overload and clipping.

The above Decca Stokowski recording is from one of the heavyweight studios of the era (other were: RCA, Columbia). One would think that Decca -- with their $$, experience and skillset -- would not have tolerated such poor sonics?!!
I have also noticed the same overload/clipping on other major recording labels (e.g., RCA Living Stereo) from the same era. In fact, I've noticed this on quite a few pre-(roughly)mid-1970s recordings. On the other hand, many all-analog recordings (and concomitant engineering) -- even as far back as the late 1940s -- seem to have been engineered/recorded better and don't run into (or use) clipping. (Though none really have the punch, tightness and bass slam of digital recording)

Why did these studios giants tolerate such distortion? Was it (perhaps) deliberate so that playback equipment of the era (consumer phono cartridges, radio transmission equipment, etc) could "better" playback them? A "modern" analogy is the compression of audio in the FM signal to improve transmission and signal range.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

This sounds like clipping in the digital upload to YT, and it's quite a common phenomenon that I've come across many times before. The engineers on the original recording certainly fiddled with the sound levels to feature or highlight certain instruments, but the original recording couldn't possibly have sounded this distorted with clipping... It's the sound levels of the upload that are way too high, and some listeners are going to unfairly blame Stokowski or the record company for this, when it wasn't their fault. With practice one learns to tell the difference between the quality of the recording and the quality of the upload -- and the fault here is not the recording. 

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of such bad uploads by those unable to adjust the sound levels properly. But if you have other examples of extreme clipping, please post them and perhaps listeners can help sort out what the problem is: whether it's from the original source or the upload. This particular upload is distorted from beginning to end and one glaring sign of a bad upload. It's completely unlistenable, and the studios did not tolerate such distortion, though there can sometimes be problems of distortion if the stylus is not aligned properly in playing the record, the album is a bad vinyl pressing, or it's a bad CD transfer.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Hold on a moment. This sounds like clipping in the digital upload to YT, ....


No! It's present on both my Cala and Decca versions (releases) of that same recording.
There are lotsa YT music uploads that sound dynamic, punchy and unlimited. 
YT wouldn't dare mess with clipping, compressing and dynamic-range limiting. It sounds like a*s... and that means Google/YT would turn away "customers" -- all those $10s of billions in lost ads revenue 
YouTube does do lossy re-coding (like "mp3") if the file wasn't compressed enough for the initial upload. But that lossy codec degrades sonics in _different _ways.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Okay, you may be onto something. Here's information that may shed light on how Decca "processed" some of their analogue lps for transfer to CDs of over 2000 albums. To me the processing has an extremely artificial processed sound. The Stokowski is a _ADRM_ processed analogue recording as noted by the ADRM on the upper left of the CD:

"Since 1979, Decca's LP's have been mastered in London but pressed by Philips in Holland, a fact that greatly reduced its control over how its recordings sound. Decca nonetheless continues to run its own recording sessions where Decca-made consoles, digital recorders and editing machines show that the company still retains its "invented here" technical tradition. _One aspect of that tradition is Decca's ADRM, or Analogue Digital Remastering program, which will be used to process at least two thousand of the "best" of its old stereo recordings for Compact Discs, a number that still won't encompass many outstanding recordings from the 1950's and early 1960's._ Hearing these tapes means scrambling for a shrinking number of black discs from France, Japan, or England, or exploring the flourishing market for original FFSS stereo discs whose prices continue to increase as collectors learn how good they sound. As one of the pioneers of early stereo sound recording, Decca FFSS LP's are well worth the effort to acquire, even if their performances are often less striking than their sound."

Philips was later absorbed by Decca and is no longer in existence.

The Stokowski sounds highly processed and the distortion or clipping could be the result of that. But I also would still not rule out the possibility of a bad transfer to CD or very old CD quality, or a bad upload. The gain sounds very high to me on the YT upload.

http://www.arsc-audio.org/journals/v18/v18n1-3p4-19.pdf

Good luck and don't let these record companies drive you crazy.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Thanks for posting that, Larkenfield


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

There's a lot of software that can be used to lower the overloaded volume and fix clipping issues. A shame that some labels don't seem to bother with this. Strictly speaking, a straight transfer from a vinyl source should not have clipping issues as the needle would literally jump off the record if the recording were that loud.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

chill782002 said:


> Strictly speaking, a straight transfer from a vinyl source should not have clipping issues as the needle would literally jump off the record if the recording were that loud.


Not sure why you're mentioning "vinyl source"? The Stokowski 1964 recording was made on tape. And any vinyl or digital consumer media thereafter was made from some generation of that original master tape.
As far as tracking a vinyl record goes, a good turntable/cartridge with properly adjusted stylus force should be able to handle (track) just about anything. 
For example, the 1812 canons in the Telarc 1979 Lp. My very modest turntable (Dual w/Ortofon cart.)-- from the early 1980s -- could track all the canon fires!

BTW: YouTube does not compress dynamic range:





Lossy re-coding (MP3, or whatever codecs YT is using at the moment) compromises sound quality in _other_ ways but _not_ clipping, limiting, or "compressing".


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Okay, yes, the original Stokowski tapes were used for the pressing of the music to _vinyl_ and not all pressings are of the same quality, and some listeners have turntables with arms that aren't properly regulated (tracking force), the stylus may not be properly aligned, or it could be damaged and in need of replacement -- all of which could cause distortion in the playback if it were an LP.

However, how those original tapes were processed by Decca for the CD releases is another matter, and that may be where the problem is. It's hard to imagine the original tapes sounding this bad or artificial. And I would also consider the fact that these ADRM releases during the 80's are almost 30 years of age. Do CDs have the same longevity of vinyl or tapes? I don't think so, and I have CDs ruined because of "bronzing." So a number of factors can come into play, including that some will uploading music with the 'gain' too high.

CDs are still dependent on how the sound of the original tapes are transferred. But the Telarc Tchaikovsky sounds fine, with nothing to compare to the obvious distortion or clipping of the awful Stokowski ADRM processed by Decca... I don't care for Decca any more. They still tamper too much with the sound. An example? The original Claudio Arrau Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas that were originally released in the rich, deep and warm sound that Philips was known for. Those Sonatas were rereleased on Decca and that warmth of sound is gone, being much more surface, brighter in the treble register. How Decca managed to degrade that beautiful sound quality, I have no idea, but they did. If anyone wants them, try to get them on the Philips label.

In any event, the 1812 has no clipping or distortion that I can hear through an excellent headphone tube amp and a $1000 pair of headphones. I do not feel it's a good idea to draw too many conclusions about the sound quality from a YT upload, and sometimes the encoding doesn't help either. I would want to hear the original tape, vinyl release or the CD release, because I cannot imagine that any company would release CD with such obvious clipping, though some of the pop releases of the day border on that, so they supposedly sound "better" on an iPod.


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