Thank you Daniel Weiss of Weiss Engineering for the DNA-1, an audio mastering device designed to remove noise, crackles, clicks, and recover lost ambiance. This is just the perfect thing to help me restore dozens of my old cassettes of Amiga Music, as well as my mothers large collection of Yugoslavian 45's and 78's from her youth.

Click for a larger pic of the DNA-1

Background noise is worst on old records (which also click and crackle), and pretty bad on most old tapes (tape hiss). It also creeps in when you're recording with mic's (air conditioners, wind against the building). Even vintage analog gear hums a bit and sometimes has a higher noise floor than you'd like. The purpose of this device is to improve the signal to noise ratio while minimizing artifacts. As you mix more sources together, the noise is additive. If you can minimize it at the beginning of a chain, all the better. Even temperature in a room actually causes D/A conversion errors in the converters. Taken to the ultimate level, vacuum energy could be called the background hiss of the universe. You really can't escape noise (at least in our Universe).

The trick of an expensive box like this is that it is good at removing noise without making the original sound wonky. Lots of noise algorithms exist, but this is among the best. This is a challenging problem to solve, as noise is often broad-spectrum and random -- how can a device know what the signal is? How can it differentiate the rush of a cymbal or the tail of a reverb from background noise? Tricky problem. It's not perfect, but the DNA-1 does a good job.

Technically, one of its tricks is a linear-phase convolution engine. I imagine what it does is akin to removing blur from a photograph.

Here are three examples of the noise removal algorithm at work:

Original
Soft noise removal
Medium noise removal

You can hear that the 'original' and 'medium noise removal' samples sound quite different, and see the noise difference in spectral envelopes (guess which is which):

Here are some more examples of the three algorithms working: Denoiser, Decrackler/declicker, K-Stereo Ambiance Recovery:

Aretha Franklin Pre
Aretha Franklin Post

Booker T Declick Example 1
Booker T Declick Example 2
Booker T Declick Example 3
Booker T Full DNA1 Example Pre
Booker T Full DNA1 Example Post

Piano Denoise Pre
Piano Denoise Post

String Denoise Pre
String Denoise Post

Symphonic Denoise Pre
Symphonic Denoise Post

Guitar Solo Declick and Denoise 1
Guitar Solo Declick and Denoise 2
Guitar Solo Declick and Denoise 3

The device is all digital. That is, it takes AES/EBU in and out. You should clock it to a master clock like the Apogee Big Ben. Weiss licensed the noise removal from PureNotes. Also licensed is the K-Stereo ambiance algorithm from the famous and loved Bob Katz. K-Stereo is a bit mysterious, and patent pending. People aren't clear on how it works, only that it does work. Weiss developed the Decrackle/Declick themselves, and are releasing an upgraded algorithm soon. To top it off, the device has POW-R dither, which allows the 24-bit 96khz signal to be truncated to 20, 18, 16 bits (like a CD), with minimal artifacts. It is not noise shaping in the classical sense, and there are various types of algorithms provided. Here's an example of noise distribution from a low level sine wave. If there was no noise, you'd just see the spike. Each -3 db is 1/2 the energy. Anything less than 95 is, for me, pretty great.

The device, in their own words:

Denoiser to reduce all types of wide band and non-stationary noises like tape hiss or air conditioning hum using a novel adaptive approach to noise reduction (no spectral noise footprint required).

Decrackler / Declicker with three independent subsystems to detect and remove a broad range of impulsive noises, for example scratches and clicks from vinyl recordings.

K-Stereo Processor to recover lost or amplify hidden ambiance, space, and imaging; or to generate stereo from mono signals without adding artificial reverberation.

Output Control to regulate stereo balance and stereo width, as well as the overall signal level.

POW-R, the acclaimed technique for transparent and smooth word-length reduction to 24bit, 20bit or 16bit.

All those standard features like 128 snapshots, POW-R dithering, MIDI Control, 24/96 operation, extensive metering etc.

Weiss Engineering will show the DNA1 96kHz/24-bit audio restoration and enhancement processor at the 119th AES Convention. The Gambit Series processor comprises a noise removal section followed by an ambience recovering and gain control section that offers real-time simultaneous denoiser, decrackler and declicker, in addition to the K-Stereo Ambience Processor.

The denoiser, developed in cooperation with the Pure Notes Company (UK), reduces all types of wideband and non-stationary noises, such as tape hiss or air conditioning hum, using a novel adaptive approach to noise reduction that does not require a spectral noise footprint. Three automatic modes, a manual mode and a semi-auto mode may be engaged depending on the level of fine-tuning necessary for the task.

COOL!

So I watched the movie 'The Bounty' tonight, which was pretty good, even though Mel Gibson (playing Fletcher Christian) was in it. I did a bit of research on Pitcairn, the island the mutineers colonized, as well as Norfolk Island which Captain James Cook discovered. Lots of great history here. Pitcairn looks like an amazing place -- so far away from shipping lanes that imports only come 3 times a year. The generator runs for 3 hours in the morning and 5 hours in the evening. I shall visit this most isolated place, perhaps build a small house there -- it appears reasonably easy to live there.

Apparently, they have a honey experiment going on, so I bought some honey online:

I hope the honey tastes of the defiance of the mutineers in the face of their colonial antagonist Lieutenant William Bligh:

William Bligh

Yaarrrr. :)

A week or so Cynthia Webster sent me my Zeroscillator - an Analogue Oscillator that is capable of all sorts of voltage controlled frequency modulation! Yay! Up until recently, FM of this calibre was the domain of purely digital processes. It takes a circuit of exceptional stability to let you do this sort of stuff in analog.

Here's a pic of it hanging out in my kitchen:

I re-did my studio (pics soon), and worked on a few nice lines with this module. It sounds pretty great (sounds soon).

Meanwhile, here's a nice artistic pic of the board (way more complex than you'd think):

Whew, what a break I took from blogging! I tell you, that was a little unexpected, but the sun is shining and there was lots of biking to be done.

Quickly, what's new:

- My house is a bit cleaner due to improved habits
- I've lost a tad of weight due to biking around a lot
- Went mucking in Platsville where I grew up (Grades 2-8: School pic 1, 2 3)
- Saw Robert Rich in Concert in Toronto (same church where Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Session was recorded).
- Checked out the local Butterfly Conservatory

There's this chap, Ken Stone, who makes synthesizer circuits that you can build Some people don't like soldering these kits, so Michael Ford decided to create a company called Metalbox to provide pre-made modules in Frac Rack format.

Michael Ford's modules are good value, and within driving distance to pick them up (Flint MI), making them even better value, so I ordered up a bunch of them.

Now, you may know that I'm ape about banana jacks (that's what Modcan and Serge use) vs. the mini-plugs (headphone sized) or 1/4" jacks that other synthesizers (and most audio equipment) use.

So it was very nice that Michael Ford offered, at NO EXTRA COST! to swap mini's for banana jacks. He only charged me a small bench fee and parts for certain modules he had to modify to properly work in the banana universe.

Here's a pic of one of his modules that he's converting for me, the Cynare Drum Simulator, and an MP3.

Cynare demo by Sam Ecoff

Here's a pic of his sequential switch, and some MP3's.

Ten oscillator linear FM
Switching audio sources

Here's a pic (somewhat blurry) of some modules he's converted to bananas so far:

Alternating Chimes
Random Drums

I can't wait till all the modules are converted! I'll post some fun tunes and pics of these things!

I really love green on black text heavy displays on CRT's. Cyan and white text is okay as well (occasionally yellow too), so long as the background is black.

Ahh, the 3270, I hardly knew yea.

When I was in high school, I worked at a software company and did a lot of work on a Toshiba T3100 'laptop', which weighed about 40 pounds. Back then, the only way computer geeks could get in shape for the beach was to bench press their laptops.

My dear T3100 Amber Screen -- productivity has not been the same since

Most of the screens I use these days are LCD, but two of them (a Lacie 22", and my Mom's Emac) have CRT's, and I *really* like the look of CRT's handling of text. It's just smooth. Only problem is CRT's tend to decay a lot over the years, while LCD's just get dim and sometimes the cathode start pulsing along with its power supply at 30 or 60 Hz. These new ultra bright LCD's are okay, but they give your eyes a lot of stress if you use them in darkish rooms. I like darkish rooms for coding, and find I need to adjust their brightness -- but when I do, their color accuracy goes out the door. Also, the 'blacks' are still not 'black' with LCD's. CRT's rule for black blacks.

Another sweet picture of that Toshiba. Note how its keyboard is actually nicer than laptop keyboards today. Of course, you can plug in another keyboard, but that's really just acknowledging that laptop keyboards aren't great. The Toshiba's keyboard was awesome.

Why, just today I noticed how awesome the text looked when I went to M A T R I X S Y N T H, which uses the green text / black background. I feel that a green/black background lets my brain go into a more abstract, 'deep flow' that leads to greater productivity and higher quality work. I don't really like most GUI screens. I'm certainlly not a fan of scrolling, although any 'page' oriented interface better support extremely rapid refreshes so it can get you data faster than scrolling. I always liked a tabbed interface that lets you navigate sections rapidly -- with the tabs always on the screen.

GUI screens require our brain to process many things that keep you from the task at hand:

1. the relative position of windows
2. keeping track of mouse position -- i.e. where you left it, or where it is
3. focus selection level -- e.g. window, page, field
4. relative page position -- e.g. do I need to 'scroll up' to see the pages nav buttons?
5. what's on top shading cues

I really like the IBM 3270 concept: No scrolling, page oriented, form oriented. Sure, it's dated, but a lot of its ideas are extremely poignent today and should be re-thought and implemented in new interfaces of tomorrow. Speaking of 'interfaces of tomorrow', you should all check out Squeak Smalltalk, which is still dumb in many areas, but offers crazy potential for making ultra productive interfaces. Dump Java, go to Squeak. It's interface is called 'Morphic', and is pretty great. They just need better fonts.

Computers used to be mysterious and cool. Now they are mainly just buggy.

I think we should create 'COM2' - a new type of computer system for cool people. It will use a characterset like APL, be entirely parallel by nature, use some sort of next-gen Smalltalk*censored*Erlang*censored*APL. It will have a 'flow' based GUI that organizes itself around what you are doing, vs. you organizing yourself around its chaotic space. etc... It'll be great. We need that type of system to power the starship computers of the future. If you want to work on the manifesto with me (hehe), call me, we'll do lunch. Manifesto writing is always a great way to spend an afternoon in a cafe.

Every now and then I check for 'submissions' (articles you folks submit). Most of the time submissions are just spam. It amazes me that people wrote robots that seek out geeklog driven sites just to submit online poker spam and links -- Surely we have excess population and need to THIN THE HERDS. Do folks really think that the 288 unique visits/day of paulsop.com are interested in poker links?

The recent controversial, yet startlingly truthful secret UN funded "Human Effectiveness Study", suggests everyone fits in one of these pie chart segments:

Clearly, all the readers of this site are in the 2% (+/- 1%) grouping of critical, effective leaders of our collective Tomorrowland. But where does that put the poker spammers? I'll leave it to you as an exercise.

I know of (casually) two people who have effectively stopped working to play poker almost 24/7. It's like Magic Card Addiction of the 90's all over again. It's amazing watching them slowly decay into madness. But I suppose it is necessary, for someone has to pay for the people who write robots to post PokerSpam on my web site.

Ahh, the circle of life.

So I'm considering a car with manual transmission. My idea is that a manual will:

1. Save on gas
2. Save a touch on the car
3. Make me pay more attention to the road
4. Improve handling and finesse
5. Help me understand what driving shoes are for
6. Make me more manly (hehe)

So yesterday (Saturday) I took a 2 hour lesson to learn how to drive stick. Overall, it went well. I think I only stalled the car 6 or 7 times.

It took a bit of effort to find someone who offered lessons in a standard. It apparently costs something like 12 to 16,000 bucks a year for commercial insurance. Also, I'm sure that the clutches on these cars need regular replacing. Several years ago, my brother even tried to teach me, but that lesson only lasted 4 to 6 minutes before he feared for his clutch.

So, in looking for someone, I tried:

Mary's Driving School - 571 8124 - NOPE
Ogi's Driving School - 722 1988 - NADA
Assurance Driving School - 579 1122 - SADLY, NO
Ace College Driving School - 885 2791 -- ZERO
Driver Training - 568 8210 - Said: "Try Dominion"

Dominion - 576 4494 - SCORE!

Turns out they offer 4 hours of car training for 180 bucks. If you only need 2, it's 90 bucks. My class was yesterday (Saturday) from 12:00pm to 2:00pm. The chap who showed up to teach me was actually the owner of a Dominion franchise (I think). He said the job was too stressful and he can't keep drivers. He also says that they loose money on the Standard training, it is good PR and Marketing (only they offer it around here).

I was reminted several times by my (panicked) instructor of several points: come to a complete stop at those red octagonal objects stuck into the ground every now and then. Also to not 'cut corners' -- apparently corners are made by painted lines on the road -- my strategy has been to avoid curbs. That usually means driving in the middle of these handy lines (I call them Guide Lines). Also, the instructor felt that it was not entirely good to drive "speedlimit+10", which I happily informed him was the real speed limit. Apparently, people loose confidence if they a car with 'driver training' written on it engaging in these behaviours. So I learned these things too. hehe

So, to recap, I'd recommend Dominion if you're in Canada. I had a very good experience. The instructor my not have. He said I *didn't* need the second 2 hour portion. Hmmm....

My lease is up in a few days, so I'm searching for a replacement. Since I live in Kitchener Waterloo, I google for 'Kitchener used cars'. This shows me 'www.kwautoexchange.com'. I say 'GREAT', and click. Then the surprise:

... .. . o.O ... . . whA?

Surely I am not going to buy a car from Guatemala, or Rajshashi Bangladesh. . .

Nor Luanda Angola....

This site, to me, represents the PERFECT ANTITHESIS OF SEARCH.

It's totally mind boggling!

It's STILL boggling!

BOGGLE I SAY!

I am working on an instructional video. It involves recording and synchronizing six things:

1. Screen of computer as application is being used
2. Stereo 44.1khz 16 bit audio from mixer
3. Wide angle video shot (high definition)
4. Close up video shot
5. Narrative track (voice over)
6. Spliced in slide graphics

The workflow to make a professional product looks something like this

It turns out to be a lot more compicated than seems. It turns out:

1. Laptop too slow: My G4 Laptop glitches audio when recording the screencam and stereo audio at the same time. I want them to be recorded at the same time so they are synchronized. It doesn't glitch if I lower the framerate to 3/sec. But that's sooo slow.
2. Digital audio is tricky: The audio is mixed digitally, and arrives via AES/EBU (similar to SPDIF), and the clock sync from source to mixer has to be set up. Without it, I get clicks. This would be easy, except certain Mac audio software seems to reset the mixer to sync to its internal clock and not the external clock. I had to spend hours to find simple software that would let me record the screen and video properly
3. HD Video is new to me: I have to record the high definition video. This requires lighting, lots of monitoring. It will be interesting to mix the screencam video (1024x768 and the high definition video (1080i which is 1920x1080, sent interlaced). I hope iMovie can do that without too much dimensia or resizing. I want the computer screen to becrisp, and the video to be crisp too.
4. Need to mix in SD with HD: The close up shots are standard definition. I hope I can mix the DV with the HDTV. I know I'll have to colour match it somehow.

So, I spent most of the day just on steps 1 and 2. It was really brutal. So much software just didn't work. I tried:

1. Good screencam software is rare: Setting up VNC2SWF on Linux to record the video. That sort of worked, but it wasn't as smooth, and I figured I needed to convert it into an MPEG or something I could edit with later. I couldn't find an SWF to MPEG converter.
2. Linux tended to suck: I installed Ubuntu on a laptop, and put in an Echo Indigo IO sound card in the cardbus slot. It's a great sound card, and supposedly has Linux ALSA drivers, but heck if Ubuntu could see it. Ubuntu just defaulted to the internal (crappy) sound system. Google was not useful to find a dr iver, and I somehow didn't feel like building kernels all afternoon to try to get the card running.

So I abandoned Linux, and tried to see how much I could get running on my Apple. I was going to use a fast intel iMac to run the app, do the scr eencam, and record the audio. It certainly is fast enough. However, the screencam program uses a kernel extension and isn't yet a Unversal app. So I had to use an older G4 Laptop. This laptop is *BARELY* fast enough to run the app, screencam, and audio track. I had to change process prio rities, and tweak for 4 hours to get a 95% glitch free product. So not good enough.

Tomorrow I will try running the app from Windows, and doing all the recording/screencam on Windows. We'll see how that goes. Apple is *almost* t here. Linux totally bit the biscuit.

And I'm only at step 2 of 6!

Yikes!