A Warm Place (Sister Soleil Vocal Version)

[neorev]

I remember this vocal version of A Warm Place was up on remix.nin.com, but I found Sister Soleil's Bandcamp page and it looks she put it up for download. You can download in the format of your choice and it's free! First time I had this version in lossless. So psyched!

Track 2 - Illum Tangendo (Produced by Trent Reznor)
https://sistersoleil1.bandcamp.com/album/haunted-ep

[FRDU]

Nice find, I've always loved that version! Cool little story to go with it aswell

[chuenthez]

This was mentioned on the ninwiki page already
http://www.nin.wiki/A_Warm_Place

Problem is, when you check the spectrum, it is not really lossless, the flac seems to be an upscale of a low-quality mp3.



The mp3 version on remix.nin.com has better "quality", but to be fair, I couldn't tell, maybe it is just a rip at 160kbits/s of the lossless version:

[neorev]

Sucks she skimped out and only posted a low quality copy to her Bandcamp. Defeats the whole purpose of Bandcamp's format choices. You'd think working with Trent she'd have a better copy to upload. Shame.

[chuenthez]

Sucks she skimped out and only posted a low quality copy to her Bandcamp. Defeats the whole purpose of Bandcamp's format choices. You'd think working with Trent she'd have a better copy to upload. Shame.

I've edited my post: maybe remix.nin.com version is just the result of ripping at 160kbits/s the """lossless""" version

[seasonsinthesky]

This happens more often than one might think. Bandcamp's artist page allows you to upload ANY format, MP3 included, then the platform itself transcodes to the other download formats that people can choose. So if you upload your album in MP3s, anyone who downloads the FLAC of that album from Bandcamp will just get the same fidelity as the MP3s in a big, padded FLAC container. It sucks.

[talkingnothing]

This happens more often than one might think. Bandcamp's artist page allows you to upload ANY format, MP3 included, then the platform itself transcodes to the other download formats that people can choose. So if you upload your album in MP3s, anyone who downloads the FLAC of that album from Bandcamp will just get the same fidelity as the MP3s in a big, padded FLAC container. It sucks.

shit, so when i download flac from bandcamp and convert to mp3 for in the car or whatever, i am doing more damage than if i just download in mp3 to begin with, assuming they were originally uploaded as mp3. is there an easy way (for a relative novice) to see whether a flac file is an upsample of an mp3?

[neorev]

Wish Bandcamp would analyze the file and stop mp3s from being uploaded.

But at least Bandcamp has 24 bit as well, if the artist chooses to upload it in 24 bit.

[seasonsinthesky]

shit, so when i download flac from bandcamp and convert to mp3 for in the car or whatever, i am doing more damage than if i just download in mp3 to begin with, assuming they were originally uploaded as mp3. is there an easy way (for a relative novice) to see whether a flac file is an upsample of an mp3?

Only if the artist uploaded lossy to begin with. If they uploaded lossless as the source, Bandcamp's MP3 conversion will be fine.

I believe there's a foobar2000 plugin called CD Detect (or something) that will analyze files for the warning signs of lossy compression. The results are only valid if you try them on lossless files; i.e. if you run MP3s through CD Detect, it should fail every time. This is probably the easiest method unless there's some other software I'm unaware of.

I don't use fb2k because they are too witless to write it for OSX. Someone who uses it should probably verify what I said.

The analysis window posted upthread is Spek. It only shows you one (the most obvious) method of determining lossy origin source, though. One assumes the fb2k plugin would check for the others (masking, etc.).

[eversonpoe]

bandcamp has only ever allowed me to upload WAV or AIFF files, so...are you guys sure? i've been using it for like six years. i mean, you could conceivably transcode the files from MP3 to WAV and then upload them, so you're uploading "fake" WAVs, but i don't think they actually allow the upload of MP3s.

[neorev]

bandcamp has only ever allowed me to upload WAV or AIFF files, so...are you guys sure? i've been using it for like six years. i mean, you could conceivably transcode the files from MP3 to WAV and then upload them, so you're uploading "fake" WAVs, but i don't think they actually allow the upload of MP3s.

@chuenthez

CONFIRMED
Bandcamp blocks you from uploading MP3s. You would have to convert the MP3 to WAV, FLAC, or AIF or else you get an error message if you try to upload an MP3 file.

[talkingnothing]

@chuenthez

CONFIRMED
Bandcamp blocks you from uploading MP3s. You would have to convert the MP3 to WAV, FLAC, or AIF or else you get an error message if you try to upload an MP3 file.

in other words, an artist/label would have to either be clueless about lossy/lossless formats, not give a fuck about lossy/lossless formats, or intentionally careless about the quality of files going out to fans to do that. i don't imagine there are that many artists who would convert mp3 to wav, flac, or aif and then upload for bandcamp sale.

[seasonsinthesky]

Sweet. So either Stella Soleil used an MP3 of AWP or whoever uploaded it converted it from MP3 first. Gross either way.

[chuenthez]

that would be interesting to know the whole process to make that song happen, but we could imagine she started with a mp3 source of a warm place, then made the changes. And that the mp3 file in remix.nin.com is just a rip of the lossless song. Well, like what @seasonsinthesky said.

Anyway I like it and keep the two version on my computer.

[wizfan]

Of all the places on the internet where people analyze, compare and complain about pieces of audio to death, ETS is definitely the warmest. <3 <3 <3

[Jon]

I believe there's a foobar2000 plugin called CD Detect (or something) that will analyze files for the warning signs of lossy compression. The results are only valid if you try them on lossless files; i.e. if you run MP3s through CD Detect, it should fail every time. This is probably the easiest method unless there's some other software I'm unaware of..

It's more than likely a front-end for auCDtect.

I've used Trader's Little Helper since the .shn days when I used to trade Grateful Dead shows (yep). It's one of those "swiss army knife" utilities, that allows you to do a lot of things:

- Encoding of wav files to ape, flac, shn and mp3 format
- Re-encoding of flac files
- Decoding of ape, flac, mkw, shn, mp2 and mp3 files to wav format
- Direct conversion of ape, flac, mkw and shn files to flac or mp3 format
- Test of audio files encoded in ape, flac, shn and mkw format
- Verification of cfp, ffp, md5, sfv and st5 checksum files
- Creation of cfp, ffp, md5, sfv and st5 checksum files
- Display of audio file properties (ape, flac, shn, mkw and wav files)
- Fixing of sector boundary errors that come with ape, flac, shn, mkw, wav and mp3 files
- Removal of extra RIFF chunks in audio files
- Rewriting of WAVE headers to canonical format
- Creation of skt files for non-seekable shn files
- Test of wav files for mp3 source
- Creation of torrent files
- Display of the information encoded in torrent files
- Hashing of torrent files against local filesets or files
- Drag & Drop functionality for all supported file types
- Integration into Windows Explorer
- Check for update function

[wizfan]

What do you guys think about the latest version of Lossless Audio Checker? It received a complete overhaul last year, I think.

[Jon]

auCDtect: CD records authenticity detector, version 0.8.2
Copyright (c) 2004 Oleg Berngardt. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2004 Alexander Djourik. All rights reserved.


Detect mode (0..40 with 0 = most accurate): 0




------------------------------------------------------------
[Sister Soleil - Illum Tangendo (Produced by Trent Reznor).wav]
Detected average hi-boundary frequency: 1.658754e+004 Hz
Detected average lo-boundary frequency: 1.346753e+004 Hz
Detected average hi-cut frequency: 1.656628e+004 Hz
Detected average lo-cut frequency: 1.345051e+004 Hz
Maximum probablis boundary frequency: 1.388600e+004 Hz
Coefficient of nonlinearity of a phase: 2.525104e-002
First order smothness: 9.303675e-001
Second order smothness: 5.889749e-001
------------------------------------------------------------
This track looks like MPEG with probability 95%.

[seasonsinthesky]

Thanks for the Lossless Audio Checker link, @wizfan – I'll try it out tonight. Anything with a link to an AES paper front and center on the website is probably gonna be a good time.

Trader's Little Helper

I remember this guy from the days of DirectConnect hubs when I was big into Tool bootlegs. I didn't realize it verified anything that wasn't related to a checksum.

Did you try it on the remaster FLACs to see if it fixed the tiny drops at the beginnings and endings?

[Jon]

Did you try it on the remaster FLACs to see if it fixed the tiny drops at the beginnings and endings?

You can create that illusion, but the only way to truly fix it would be from the "original" files, as you're cutting up/sequencing the album.

When you fix sector boundary errors/issues it shifts all of the audio forward or back depending on how you chose to fix the error. The only time this is not true is when you pad just the last track.

What I'm saying is, you could fix one problem but create many more. The ideal way to do it would be how they fixed "The Frail", which was padded for the transition into "The Wretched" before we even had our hands on it.

[SaintNoir]

Oh my. I forgot about this version of the song. Thank you!

[neorev]

Idea...
What if someone took the WAV file of this vocal version from Bandcamp and used the new remastered Definitive Edition version to isolate the vocals from the Bandcamp track. Then mix the vocals with the remastered version of A Warm Place to create a higher quality version with vocals. Just an ideal. Might not be perfect, but could possibly sound better.

[chuenthez]

What do you guys think about the latest version of Lossless Audio Checker? It received a complete overhaul last year, I think.

Lossless Audio Checker 2.0.5
Copyright (c) 2012-2016 Julien Lacroix & Yann Prime
http://losslessaudiochecker.com
==================================================
File: Sister Soleil - Illum Tangendo (Produced by Trent Reznor).wav
Result: Upsampled

That's laconic

[wizfan]

You can create that illusion

You can chooooooose to believe.

[Jon]

That's laconic

I haven't messed around with LAC in several years, certainly since before the revamp. Is there no "verbose" option?

[chuenthez]

I haven't messed around with LAC in several years, certainly since before the revamp. Is there no "verbose" option?

With the MAC version, doesn't seem like there is.