We bring you the true 24/96 rip of:
Candlemass-Nightfall
Artist : Candlemass
Album : Nightfall
Label : Axis Records
Genre : Metal
Store date : 1987
Source : Vinyl
Encoder : FLAC
Bitrate : 3109kbps
Playtime : 46:11
Size : 1.03 GB
Tracklist :
01 Gothic Stone 00:46
02 The Well of Souls 07:27
03 Codex Gigas 02:17
04 At the Gallows End 05:46
05 Samarithan 05:28
06 Marche Funebre 02:18
07 Dark are the Veils of Death 07:07
08 Mourners Lament 06:08
09 Bewitched 06:38
10 Black Candles 02:16
Notes :
Dear so-called audiophile FLAC scene, you seem to have your own "TRVE case" on
your hands.
Nukenets have been solely focusing on figuring new ways to nuke releases for all
kinds of cosmetical "issues" showing that some people have problems understanding
the ruleset. Yes, the rules are in English, and yes, they do not cover
everything. But if you do not understand proper English, you can get back to
nuking your own countries' releases, no need to mess up other people's business
(see more of this at the bottom of this .nfo).
And the nuking practice shows that nukers nowadays lack the technical background
to nuke stuff that is actually fucked up, namely, lots of vinyl rips. We will try
to shed some light on the technicalities in this .nfo, but do not be afraid to
read up on the topic and educate yourselves if needed.
So about the vinyl rips that are fake/falsified.
First, let us look at the parts of the ruleset that concerns vinyl rip quality
(v2.0, applies from 2012-05-15 00:00:00 CET):
| 3.2 Encoding quality must be: |
| 96.000 Hz / 24 bit LPCM (2.0) for VINYL sources. |
and
| 1.4 The following are reasons for a bad quality rip: |
| .1 One or more tracks from the release are incomplete or contain skips. |
| .2 The tracks are distorted and constantly clipping (eg. vinyl rips). |
| .3 The tracks contain a constant hiss which was avoidable (eg. vinyl |
| rips). |
| .4 Low sound, mono rips (from stereo sources) and other factors easily |
| heard by the human ear. |
Just to clarify (as the ruleset is far from perfect):
1.4.4 "Low sound" means low recording levels, check 00_pic1.jpg for an example.
The volume you hear on a vinyl rip normally will be lower than that of a "modern"
CD. CD rips from before the "loudness war" will have about the same volume as the
vinyl rips of the same mastering.
We checked rips from various groups (usually some of their more recent rips) and
found many who use equipment that is not able to record properly, at 96 kHz.
However, when they use 24 bit and 96 kHz as their project template, they will end
up with rips that seem legit.
BUT:
the rips either do not contain anything over 24 khZ (per channel), as seen in
00_pic2.jpg or they will cause massive noise/distortion above 24 kHz, as seen in
00_pic3.jpg
Compare these with a proper rip, check 00_pic4.jpg. Hope this is clear so far.
Now let us show you more in-depth examples, namely from this proper rip against
Candlemass-Nightfall-LP-FLAC-1987-SCORN:
If you record this vinyl with either 16 bit/48 kHz or 24 bit/48 kHz (which is the
maximum on some cheap or built-in dac boxes) and you use 24/96 as the project
template (the way these cheaters do their so-called HQ vinyl rips), the software
used will create noise/distortion (not audible but clearly wrong) on frequencies
above 24 khZ, as seen in 01_samarithan_windowsmax_1648_template_2496.jpg, which
is my test rip with these settings.
Now compare that to SCORN's rip of the same track, see
02_scorn_samarithan_flac.jpg. They are, not surprisingly, very similar.
And finally for a TRUE 24/96 recording with equipment that is capable of such
ripping, see 03_true2496_samarithan_flac.jpg.
Proper groups using proper equipment to rip can test and confirm this.
There is a good explanation of what you see here on MusicScope's manufacturer's
website, on this link:
https://www.xivero.com/de/high-resolution-or-not-high-resolution-that-is-the-question/
If you do not want to read the whole article, you will also find an image,
that shows "a good HD-Audio recording (24Bit / 96kHz) with a natural spectrum and
spectrogram.", here:
https://www.xivero.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Good-HD-2.png
This upsampling is not just SCORN's problem, there are other rips out there, too.
Luckily there are also groups doing things the way they should.
Our aim is not to fuck with these groups, so we will not mention releasenames.
First take a look for a few random audio files from proper groups and see how the
curve on frequency and db slowly fades towards higher frequencies. That is how a
REAL 24/96 vinyl rip should look like.
Check these:
04_audiofile.jpg, 05_dl.jpg, 06_loket.jpg, 07_mwnd.jpg, 08_wetback.jpg and
09_yard.jpg
Now have a look at the following examples:
10_fathead.jpg & 11_fathead2.jpg, 12_frb.jpgm 13_k4.jpg, 14_scorn2.jpg (different
rip than this Candlemass) and 15_thevoid.jpg
Hope you can see the differences between the properly ripped tracks and the
upsampled ones! We do not really understand why people bother to pre their rips
as FLAC wihout the proper equipment... If you cant don't it right, don't do it at
all!
So please, nukenets, try to clear up those vinyl rips that are packed as 24/96
when in fact they are recorded at 16/44.1, 16/48 or 24/48 at best.
For rippers, check your DAC's settings in Control Panel/Sound. A proper equipment
will have settings for 24 bit & 96 kHz (see 16_true2496_audio_settings.jpg).
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And for your consideration, here is an example on how the ruleset is twisted/
misinterpreted, not for the first time:
DutchNet one day nukes Grant_Miller-Greatest_Hits_and_Remixes-2CD-FLAC-2015-MTC
(pred 2016-01-17) with the following reason:
tracknumbers.on.cd2.dont.add.up.to.vorbis.tracks_i.e.track.201.shows.track.15_rule.6.2
Let's see what the actual rules says (v2.0):
| 6.2 All FLAC files MUST have the following Vorbis comment field names and |
| corresponding field contents: TRACKNUMBER, ARTIST, TITLE, ALBUM, GENRE, |
| and DATE (format: YYYY).
So they decide (as the ruleset does not say anything about how exactly rippers
should count TRACKNUMBER), that a multi CD must have tracknumbers restart at 1 on
each CD. Why? No fucking idea, probably because many rips use that format (CD-Tag
default), however, there are other tools that consider the whole rip as a whole,
and do not restart numbering. Is any of these better than the other? No...
Why do not then they nuke the other way round, so all multi CD releases that
restart at each album? They could, just the same. And what about vinyl rips? Take
a 7" with 1 track on each side, a1 and b1. There are two tracks on this release,
track number 1 (a1) and track number 2 (b1). How should that be tagged?
Tracknumbers 1-1 or 1-2? And if a 7" is tagged without specifying the sides
(01 & 02), then that is fine, too.
So the ruleset does not require the filename numbering to match the tracknumber,
which is correct, as it does not matter and defining it is simply not worth it,
as it would just complicate the ruleset. But since it is not specified, nukers
SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED to nuke on this fake rule/loophole.
Unfortunately FLAC rulesets have been plagued by the incompetent authors leaving
many things not specified or unclear, which often results in good releases
getting nuked. This is unfortunately one reason why many mp3 groups decided not
to do FLAc. If the FLAC scene wants to prosper, these misunderstandings should be
fixed. It would be great to have a democratic FLAC council open for all groups as
a start...
Here are just some of the weird/unjust nukes we have seen so far:
* even if ruleset allows for typos in non-English releases, a proper of a German
rip from NBFLAC claiming typos as the proper reason gets accepted;
* DVDA is not a valid source tag, there are a handful releases using that against
DVD (even if DVDA is the correct term);
* lots of non-original releases NOT using TYPE tags, even if ruleset requires
this per rule 4.10;
* improper proofs of the old days not showing cover and/or tracklist, only the
source media (interestingly, certain groups never got nuked over this).
* the ruleset allows rippers to hide certain things on their proof picture (rule
9.2): "If the medium/cover/booklet contain anything that may expose your
identity, then that part of image can be blurred or blackened." Nowadays with
limited edition vinyls (say a 100 copies or less of different colours) it can
be dangerous to actually show the source itself. Some rippers have correctly
left record sleeves on the vinyls, thus hiding which limited edition they have.
In these cases, the centre label still clearly shows that the ripper had access
to the source. Yet, such releases got nuked.
* nuking SKA as genre as invalid, even if ruleset does not say anything about
genre capitalization.
* not nuking 3-way splits that use VA even if the ruleset is clear about this per
rule 4.2.1.
* .sfv as .nfo in the release
* invalid.vorbis.album.tag_CD.is.not.part.of.the.actual.album.title (mwnd pointed
out this in their Amorphis READNFOs);
* missing language tags where necessary
* filenames longer than 128 characters
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Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Our group affiliation does not matter. This is just a wake-up call by some
#concernedsceners
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PROPER of: Candlemass-Nightfall-LP-FLAC-1987-SCORN
PROPER reason: upsampled/not recorded at 24/96
Moreover (if this is not enough...) track 1 is badly cut, SCORN rip has vocals on
track 1 which is the intro, when the vocals are actually part of track 2.