Hello.

I'd like to ask people's help creating the sample suite that will be used in the next listening test (and maybe others).

Most musical styles are welcome.

The ideal samples would be 20 seconds in lenght (I'm trying to reach a common lenght for all samples, that'll be useful later when discussing bitrate deviations on VBR codecs). The prefered encoder for the samples is Flac.

You can attach samples to this thread.

Thanks a lot for any help.

Best regards;

Roberto.

A 20 second sample from Also sprach Zarathustra (no, not from the introduction).

Richard Strauss, Composer
Andre Previn and the Wiener Philharmoniker
Telarc CD-80167

You can attach files to this thread, apparently.

ff123

Hehe, I was too sleepish to remember about saying that.

Thanks for the help, ff123.

Are there any rules about the samples or could it be any sample that we like? Also, can I attach wma lossless files?

Well. The general rule is that no over 30second samples.
I don't know if it accepts wma file type (and I don't bother testing ), but you can always zip the content.

Yay! I waited for your call for samples. Here are my two contributions:

mybloodrusts
Artist: Always Outnumbered
Title: My Blood Rusts
Album: Always Outnumbered / Ransom Split
Date: 2002
Genre: Emocore/Punkrock
Length: 20 seconds
TrackGain (Track): -9.49
TrackGain (Sample): -8.26
MD5: 14c8ab11494602a81e9ee80665884466
Comment: Recording/Production is quite shitty and still very loud, so clipping might be a problem.
mybloodrusts.sample20sec.flac

understandinginacarcrash
Artist: Thursday
Title: Understanding In A Car Crash
Album: Full Collapse
Date: 2001
Genre: Emocore/Punkrock
Length: 20 seconds
TrackGain (Track): -9.09
TrackGain (Sample): -8.45
MD5: 9f9064afd5eaa8ad85fc6a0a6c0bc0b1
Comment: Pretty nice production, bus as always way too loud; Clipping should not be a problem though.
understandinginacarcrash.sample20sec.flac

Both were ripped using EAC and edited (without any further processing) using Cool Edit Pro 2.1 and Case's excellent flac filter; Tagged and Replaygained with foobar2000.

They are not real problem samples, but easily identifyable at <128kbps with every codec I tested them with.

dev0

I also have a nice sample (vorbis killer sample! Encode it with RC3 and with post-1.0-CVS at -q 0 and compare). Also AAC+ is not very good, mp3pro and RealGecko are best. Also I have cutted off the most it is still too long (1:08), because it´s very low volume (very high dynamic range in the track, other part is very load) flac could compress it down to 3,24MB. If I cut it more some important parts (where the encoders have problems) are missing. Can I upload it anyway?

Name: In the Hall of the of the Mountain King
Componist: Edvard Grieg
Artist: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Neeme Järvi
Genre: Classic
Date (of recording): 1986
Comment: You can hear some noise (from the people of the orchestra) in the recording at the parts with very low volume.

I started preparing samples in anticipation, but most of them are in the 26-30 second range. I tried to make a cross section of music I listen to on a regular basis. About the time I got to the 30th song, I realized I had a problem and needed help. It's 12 steps later and I think I'm doing much better, but it's like choosing from among your children! I didn't want to abuse HA with my huge fat list of samples, so these are hosted on my personal site. There's a longer list and some descriptions here.

A couple notes:
Illinois.flac (band organ) causes unusually high bitrates in mpc --standard but not vorbis or lame. I think it might be ABXable also, but I haven't had a chance to examine it carefully yet.
BucephalusBouncingBall.flac is a killer sample for lame --alt-preset insane (easy ABX 10/10) and vorbis gt3b1 up to at least -q6.
ArabesqueNo1.flac is a remaster in Dolby Surround. Also produces higher bitrates in mpc --standard than in lame --alt-preset standard or vorbis -q5.5 (I don't know if either of those are unusual, but not too many songs I've tried do that).

Isao Tomita - Snowflakes are Dancing
05 - Arabesque No. 1

Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E
07 - A Certain Shade of Green

John Linnell - State Songs
01 - Illinois

Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy [ep]
04 - Bucephalus Bouncing Ball
05 - To Cure a Weaking Child (Contour Regard)

Lamb - Fear of Fours
05 - All in Your Hands
07 - Bonfire

Ben Harper - Welcome to the Cruel World
02 - Whipping Boy

Led Zeppelin - II
02 - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

They Might Be Giants - Factory Showroom
06 - New York City

They Might Be Giants - Live in New York [promo]
07 - Why Does the Sun Shine?

Tom Petty - Wildflowers
12 - A Higher Place

Clutch - The Elephant Riders
10 - The Dragonfly

The Big Lebowski [Soundtrack]
03 - Elvis Costello - My Mood Swings
11 - Henri Mancini - Lujon

edit: added some notes

Here's one I like to use....

Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Album: 4 Way Street (live)
Song: Seque between "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and Neil Young's "On the Way Home," where Graham Nash introduces Neil.
MD5 string: 1c9712861265a75ee63a0d25ac31a4c2 *CSNY Suite-Judy Blue Eyes (segue).flac

- M.

Anne clark - Unstill live [1991]

2. Track Sognsvann ---->Kastagnettes, SynthiCello, Woodblocks, Glockenspiel, Voice

First 20-30 seconds

BTW: one of my favorite Albums for Encodertests. I know this Track very well use it often. Track 10 uses a heavy Electronic Infra Sonic Bass

Genre is POP

The first 20 seconds from "Spit on a Stranger" by Nickel Creek of the album "This Side." The lead singer's voice has a tendancy to distort at "takes" and "awaits" in most codecs, with the exception of MPC standard and above... It may still distort, but it's beyond my abilities to detect. =)

2 Issues:

1. If the sample contains loud passages at (or close to) full range should the volume be changed before encoding to flac and uploading (to prevent clipping)? If yes - how should it be done? (E.g. fb2k replaygain + diskwriter + (what) dither)

2. I guess many people here who want to upload something use vorbis for ~64kbps bitrates (e.g. I do for ogg previews), so samples that are specifically problematic for vorbis might be overrepresented - leading to a test biased against vorbis. The only solution I see is choosing random samples from random songs but then many will be too easy for encoders...

Since no one seems to want to respond to MY listening test , I'll offer something I have in my collection that might be exciting.

I'm at work right now though, so you'd have to wait until I return home. Near the bottom of this vtf2.pdf is a track listing for a test CD that I received when I purchased that subwoofer. Any of the first 5 songs might make for interesting results.

Chaos Works - Fire Fight - Track 1

/EDIT\
Reuploaded, no fadeouts/ins.
\EDIT/

Another one.

Warcraft 3 Soundtrack EP - Track 3.

Yes but, really, 30 seconds max. More than that, and it becomes piracy



IMO, no processing should be applied beforehand on the samples. And that includes replaygain. The samples should be identical to what you get from ripping a CD. If I allow replaygain, I theoretically must also allow maximization, doppler effects and some cool effects added with Prosoniq's Orange Vocoder - I.E, it will be like P4n05's and CT's joke tests. :B

But the use of RG is discussable, I'm not adamant about leaving it out.



Hrm.. I guess you guys didn't understand the purpose of this call for samples. I'm not asking for samples that are problematic on this or that codec, I'm asking for a piece of your favourite music, or of some music that you believe would be interesting to feature in the listening tests. We're working on 64kbps, so most samples will be problematic on most codecs anyway.



Thanks a lot for the samples that have been submitted so far.

I'll listen to what I got already (maybe add some samples of mine to the mix) and report what musical styles I think are not being well represented.

Regards;

Roberto.

Thanks for clarification.

3 Samples from me (all 20 seconds) [Artist - Album - Title (Genre)]:

1. quizas.flac: Omara Portuondo - Veinte Años - Quizas, Quizas, Quizas (Latin Jazz)

Percussion - Piano - Trumpet - (female) voice, causes 2 or more different problems with all codecs I've tested. Cut with CEP at zero crossings, no fades.

edit: more detailed description

Seems like more than 1 attatchment/post isn't possible (and I don't want to zip the flacs) so ...

2. seteacabolarumba.flac: Maraca - The Best Of Maraca's Bailables - Se Te Acabo la Rumba (Salsa)

Complex percussion - bass - piano - trumpets - (male) choir - (male) singer. Cut with CEP at zero crossings, no fades.

edit: more detailed description

I think I shouldn't post any Pink Floyd samples?

Piano.
Friderick Chopin - Polonaise in D Minor (or moll) Op. 71, No. 1

...
3. susu.flac: Lisandro Adrover - Tango. Esencia y despuès ... - SuSu (Tango)

Piano - Violins - Cello - Bass - Bandoneon - almost no drums. Lots of vibrato by violins and bandoneon, melodic instruments played very rythmically in 1st part. Cut with CEP at zero crossings, no fades.

edit: more detailed description

Queen - Queen I - Great King Rat (vinyl rip)

Sade Abu - Stronger than pride - Keep Looking

On my sample, I put 0.5 sec fade-in and 0.5 sec fade-out at the end. Otherwise it was a straight rip.

The idea behind having all the samples be the same length is that Roberto will be trying to get the VBR codecs to average to 64 kbit/s for the entire test suite. So, for example, it's not really fair to have one 60 second sample in there which is lower than 64 trying to compensate for three 20 second samples which are higher than 64.

Here's some choices of musical styles I thought of off the top of my head. Really, there are too many to list.

male vocals
female vocals
rock
pop
jazz
classical, orchestral
hip-hop
IDM
metal
instrumental (piano, guitar)
choral

ff123

Budka Suflera - Sen o dolinie
Blues.

Probably this will be last sample I post here (at least today).

I personally won't add one. People will think I'm biasing something. :B

I have some ideas on samples that I'm thinking to add, but nothing Floyd related, unfortunately.

Wow phong, your long list of interesting samples may encourage me to send in a lot of my Beatles samples.



ff123

Despite my earlier rant, I want to help out. Here's something you Must ALL know.
It's simple, and may sound "ok" at low bitrate. Also I double dare you not to think of Clint Eastwood!

Well, some comments on some samples I've already screened:



Damn, I was freaked one of the wires in my headphone cable was broken (that already happened twice) when I started listening to this one.

Will probably be featured, representing "heavy stuff"



OMG! That song is a riot! So out of the ordinary comparing to listening test samples.

Definitely in



Sorry, dude, edited music won't do. :/

Keep sending these samples in, ppl.

Regards;

Roberto.

"Libertango" by Astor Piazzolla on the Adios Nonino CD
Accordian accompanied by piano, violin, bass and guitar

Milan, 35866-2

ff123

That has some really bad flutter in the flute. I prefer to listen to the guitar part, personally.

ff123

From L'Adoration de la Terre (Le Sacre Du Printemps, The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky

Lorin Maazel conducting the Cleveland Orchestra
Telarc CD-80054

ff123

Only One Sample from me (20 Seconds) [Artist - Album - Title (Genre)]:

1. Salt And Light.flac: Salvador - Into Motion - Salt And Light (Latin Rock)

The Cymbals on this clip are very difficult for most encoders.

These are some of the samples that I was/am considering for my mp2 test. Picked to be representative, and not too easy to encode.

The first one is Big Yellow Taxi by the Counting Crows. The only CD single I've bought this year!

The second one is Chased Out by Clare Martin (Linn records). Jazz. Well recorded.

(how do I upload multiple files to one message?)

The third one is the start of Forgiven not Forgotten, by the Corrs.

Deceptively simple sound - surprisingly difficult to encode.

Unfortunately you can't. It could be possible to change this, but it would add quite a bit more complexity to the current system..

The last propper one isn't music - it's speech.

Taken from a BBC Radio 4 Comedy, released on CD, Just a Minute.

Finally...

Take awe32_20sec, convert it to 4-bits, and back to 16-bits, and you get this...

(Probably not suitable for this test because it's been altered, but the stereo and HF content are impressive).

Cheers,
David.

I have two samples from my cd - collection.

Sample 1

first of all sorry about hijacking this sample upload thread but it seems that there is no discussion thread on the 64kbps test open now:

i am sure there is a reason but why dont you use the same (or most of the) samples as ff123 in his 64 test?
i think it would be interesting to compare the two, especially the differences between old aac and wma8 and newer versions (ok, i know that it isnt really possible to compare the two tests, but...)

Sample 2

meer.flac: Martin Buntrock - Meer - Meer (Relaxation Music)

Sound/noise of sea (in German: "Meer") / water. Causes problems similar to applause.

edited: clarification

Not a problem, reuploading now...

tropicalgarden.flac: John May/Edwin Schimscheimer - Moods. Magic Marimbas - In the tropical garden (New Age/Meditation)

Marimbas - guitar - flute - synth. Gives codecs a fair chance

Some electronic stuff:

Covenant: Go Film (Soft Version)
Upland: Block
Add n To (x): Little Black Rocks in the Sun

Artist: Coldcut
Album: Let Us Play
Track: 3
Title: More Beats + Pieces
Date: 1997

Hard electric interferences.

Isn't that piece old enough to be in the public domain now? Then copying should be free...

cool, free music

however, here is my sample, have fun

[edit] what is that? After it was done uploading it says "You cannot upload this type of file" why can't it do the checking before it starts uploading or at least say what file types are allowed...

Yann Tiersen - La Rupture, from the album Le phare.
Traditional French music (from Brittany).

Some of the '80s (Warning: |A|A|D| CD ):
Artist: OMD
Album: Organisation
Track: 01
Title: Enola Gay
Year: 1980