Meanings, Messages and Signals
Comprehending the Differences Between 
Analog and Digital Recording Media
by Franklin Ellsworth Clarke

ONE of the most conspicuous conquests of the world market this century took place during the 1980's. Corporate promotions managed the complete turnover of a market already saturated with numerous successful recording media. Several major electronics megaliths thus stimulated an unnecessary techno-revolution while demonstrating a deadly proficiency in social manipulation. The CD mindwar swept the working class world in an aggressive plague of conspicuous consumption. In the opinion of some notables digital recording is a completely unnecessary and over-rated technology.

It is not enough to mention the consciousness-damaging effects of the CD "revolution" on human sensibilities. Digital technology, and its glaring failure to deliver promised objectives, provokes clarified scientific comment

DISSENT

With the appearance of the CD systems came a concurrent tide of resistance among afficionadi of the existing recording media. Conspicuous differences between analog and digital recording media were wholly qualitative in content, a sizable population expressing the commentary of dissent. This was an affront which corporate controllers would not tolerate.

Remarkable cohesive unities appeared among widely separated and independent audio industry commentators. Based on sensations and "feelings", media experts the world over complained of the "harsh edge", "sharp attack", and "cold atmosphere" which characterized CD sound. The "soft warmth" of both phonographic and magnetic recordings, became part of an established lexicon among CD critics.

Audio engineers recalled this very same commentary when transistor technology was socially deployed. While germanium transistors produced truly wonderful results in radio or television reception, they failed in audio applications. There were those who deplored the "cold hard sound" of transistor stereo amplifiers, preferring the "warm soft sound" produced by vacuum tubes. Certain companies continued manufacturing vacuum tube stereo amplifiers, classics in the collector's art today.

Musicians of the late 1960's recall when transistorized guitar amplifiers were first introduced, discovering for themselves the very same "hard, edgy, cold, and unresponsive" sound. Those who enjoyed the use of distortion and natural feed-back effects were shocked to discover that transistorized amplifiers would not function in either capacity. Further changes were recognized when the germanium of early transistors were replaced by silicon. The large germanium transistors produced radio tones which were "clear and deep" when compared with the "thin and shallow" tone of silicon transistors.

Quantitative studies of the phenomenon produced intriguing results. Audio engineers found that vacuum tubes best amplified all the even harmonics, while transistors best amplified all the odd harmonics of input signals. It was assumed that the "warm" or "cold" sensibility was the result of these overtone differences.

Believing that the transistor trend would dominate, many engineers continued designing transistor stereo amplifiers. These were abysmal failures in the market. Vacuum tube stereo amplifiers maintained their status as preferred components among stereo enthusiasts, while older and yet-thriving companies dominated the stereo scene.

The "warm-soft" awareness persists today, evidenced in the extensive market sales of trendy tube-driven amplifiers for both stereo systems and musical instruments. The market on trendy vinyl disc systems continues to evidence a new analog renaissance. Casual visits to local art districts reveal the growing preference. Nouveau analog showrooms grant no standing room on certain days. Recording Industries, dispassionately watching this social phenomenon, are supplying new vinyl pressings in anticipation of the new movement back to analog.

ETHNIC AESTHETICS

Provoking a stale and caustic response by SONY and other foreign flags, reasons why the Industry attempted dissuasion of all such "feelings oriented" arguments or assessments were all too obvious. Heavily invested in digital, the Industry theme had nothing to do with aesthetics.

SONY soon sponsored and propelled its own propaganda, a vicious and derisive inference which focused on the "fallibility of human discernment" and the "infallibility" of digital performance. Inventing and pronouncing its own conclusions on Western aesthetics, this tide of counter-commentary reviled the human sensorium as exercised in the West. What the Industry effectively demanded was a conversion of Western aesthetics to Eastern ones, a conversion which is innate in the very nature of CD sound.

SONY called on consumers to "improve and modernize their audio discernment". Demanding that consumers accept the digital sound as "audio perfection", the industrial response was typically unyielding and dictatorial. Critics of digital were accused of failed discipline, inadequate qualification, and antiquated sensibilities.

Industry engineers stopped listening to the complaints of consumers now. They persisted in their own kind of silence, satisfied that the technology had its own "proven success". The consumer field studies further evidenced the correctness of their pride. Control of the market alone would now stifle all complaints. But despite the authoritative stance, SONY had no power by which to dissuade the Western population which clearly "felt the difference" between analog and digital media-SONY failed to realize and calculate that purely ethno-racial sensibilities will continue to dominate market preferences; an obstacle which they had failed to calculate in their extensive market surveys. Technology is thus innately biased, an ethno-racial suffusion which tints every new production.

Music is music, so they thought There were those emotionless foreign "classical" artists whose performances were eminently suited to the digital technology; impossible to discern whether live or recorded. But discerning Western listeners persisted in sensing the vacuousness by which compact discs have yet been characterized.

WITHDRAWAL

For a short time, sizable consumer populations suddenly began preferring analog. Vinyl "throw-away" houses began experiencing voluminous sales, often selling out their stock in a few hours after opening the doors. As CD houses began reporting this market drain, industry manipulators began withdrawing vinyl from the streets. But even while vinyl discs were being taken away, magnetic tape was selling as never before. Here was an amazing persistence in which social preferences defied the manipulative machinations of foreign business. The Industry observed these aesthetically propelled trends with concern. Could they fight an aesthetic which was purely ethno-racial in nature?

Consumers have grown to expect and demand much, much more from Media Industries. It is wonderfully ironic to observe how western working class demands compel the industry to supply.

INERTIAL SOUND

Most consumers very obviously knew that "something was missing" from digital recordings. It was the very same "something" which analog apparently retained. But what is the analog "soft warmth"? What is the digital "hard cold"? How can sound, "mere pressure waves in air", be distinguished in these terms?

When Helmholte studied the nature of sound, it was not from the stance of the "sensing percipient". When Helmholtz studied sound, he did so from the poise of the quantitative observer. Separated from the feelings which sounds evoked in him, Helmholtz directed all of his attention on the inertial dynamics of sound. Along with those who endorsed the quantitative redefinition of natural study, Helmholtz ignored and eradicated his inner feelings from the scientific record. Helmholtz filtered and discarded those qualitative components which form the greater part of acoustic phenomena, pursuing the science of acoustics with his typical quantitative elegance.

He measured sound pressures, wavelengths, amplitudes, harmonics, and heat equivalences. He graphed sounds, comparing wave traces and overtones from diverse sound sources. With this data base, Helmholtz undertook the mathematical description of every acoustic phenomenon. This mathematical conversion proceeded without incident until the analysis of different instrument "voices" was attempted.

TIMBRE

Timbre. A difference in voice which cannot be explained by tone alone. Baffled at first, Helmholtz came to believe that different instrumental "voices" could adequately be explained in terms of overtones and harmonics alone. In his inertial model, orchestral instruments were each viewed as transducers of complex overtones. Instrumental voices, or "timbre", supposedly differed only because they produced specific overtone clusters.

Helmholtz declared that the theoretical proof of his theory would be secured only when instrumental voicings could be "synthesized". The synthesis of any instrumental timbre required the appropriate blending of fundamental overtones. An appropri­ate overtone blend could theoretically then "sound just like" a human voice, a trumpet, a violin, a piano—any instrument Elegant. Elegant and false.

SYNTHESIS

Pipe organs. The original synthesizers. Tool of the poor composer, the pipe organ was the means by which so many lost symphonies were arranged and finalized. Those who designed the great pipe organs of Europe knew that the Helmholtz theory of "timbre" was completely inadequate. The design of "organ stops", different orchestral voicings, required far more than the mere blending of overtones produced by combined variations of pipe ranks. Woodwinds and brass voicings, played through organ stops, still sounded like pipes. These designers could not "synthesize" other instruments at all. Pipe organ sounds persisted in a curious signature by which they were always recognized.

Laurens Hammond, inventor of the Hammond organ, produced his experimental "Novachord" in 1930. The Novachord was a keyboard capable of synthesizing and mixing complex waveforms. Attack, decay, tremolo, and echo were each carefully generated by vacuum circuits and carefully controlled through forward controls. The very first commercial synthesizer, the Novachord, produced unearthly electronic voicings. Musicians found greater satisfaction playing these new timbre combinations than arranging the synthesis of traditional orchestra instruments. In point of fact, the Novachord could NOT adequately synthesize orchestral instruments. As with the pipe organ, the sound of the Novachord was always recognized.

During the early 1970's, solid-state electronic synthesizers were produced to revitalize the guitar-worn music population. Equipped with a great variety of complex waveform generators, designers claimed that their instruments could accurately synthesize every orchestral voice. Despite new attack and decay controls, all of these synthesizers produced sounds common to the old pipe organs.

Claiming that their failure was the result of inaccurate harmonic synthesis, manufacturers now theorized that a "more graphically detailed blend" of overtones could "replace an orchestra". Hoping to quickly achieve this theoretical goal to meet the rising expectations, engineers produced new kinds of waveform generator. The resultant tide of FM stereo synthesizers produced impressive sounds, but could never reproduce true orchestral voices. As with pipe organs, so with synthesizers. In fact, each keyboard could be named on hearing. Each synthesizer retains its peculiar signature.

SAMPLERS

Utterly frustrated with the consumer critique which followed FM stereo synthesizers, designers began work on "sampling" key­boards. In this method, pre-recorded orchestra instruments are reproduced on command. "Samplers" used pre-recorded voicings to produce note-by-note instrument reproductions. The early Sampling systems employed tape (Mellotron, 1966) and optical soundtracks (Orchestron, 1972) to achieve this feat.

While providing a wondrous orchestral filling of ordinary guitar songs, the eerie and disembodied sounds of the Mellotron were easily recognized. These tape-replay keyboards could not provide more than a background "wash" of symphonic sounds. In several instances, the sounds of Mellotrons were compounded with a chamber ensemble to produce magnificent rock studio recordings. But neither synthesizer nor sampler can "fool the ear".

Pipe organs, synthesizers, and samplers. The Helmholtz con­cept of overtone synthesis had again failed. How thoroughly intriguing that we are consistently brought back to the very instruments which we seek to synthesize! The strange tautology is telling us something about quantitative analysis and its fundamental error. In fact, the Helmholtz overtone synthesis theory is wrong. We cannot synthesize timbres at all. There clearly is more to sound than the acoustic waveforms, a difference which quantitative analysis can neither measure or explain.

ANALOG

Tinfoil, wax, bakelite, metal, film, vinyl. Sound vibrations were directly applied to storage media with needles and light beams from 1877 until 1985. The applications were changed from longitudinal (vibrations into media) to transverse (vibrations across media) in attempts to improve overall sound qualities. No recording reproduced the original sources with "live performance" impact. Recordings, whether cylinders or discs, always maintained their "music box" sound.

Technicians sought the improvement of recording techniques in hopes of modifying that "music box" sound. Reproducing the "live feel" was their goal. Being direct copies of source sounds, reproductions were seen as real sound ANALOGUES, the method known as ANALOG. Analog recording employed the continuous path storage of vibrations actually produced by sound sources.

STEREOGRAPHICS

Technicians studied media formats with a view toward raising the excellence of the recording arts. It was quickly recognized that sounds were actually "reprocessed" whenever recorded and played back. Single microphone groups, all connected in series, did not record sounds exactly as the human ear hears. Also, single loudspeaker playbacks did not produce room sounds the way performers do.

Distinctions between "monaural" and "stereo" playbacks were perceived as the new frontier. Human aural capacity provided the model for technical design. Separate left and right channels would reach a new degree of media refinement, possibly bringing the art up to that "live performance feel". But stereo recordings, however improved through the decades to come, continued sounding "like recordings".

The very last improvement in this vein was a dismal failure. Multiplying stereo channels, and surrounding listeners with multiple loudspeakers, one always knew the difference between "Quadrophonic" reproductions and live performance. There was never a contest in this discernment What was wrong with the technology? .

NOISE

Because all analog recording media and playback transducers engage in direct physical contact, a medium-characteristic "noise" persists in playbacks. Technical analysts of the time therefore focused all of their engineering attentions on eradicating all the inherent "noises" of analog. Technicians actually believed that, when these noises were removed, the reproduction of recorded sound would become "life-like". Eliminate the noise, it was thought, and the "live performance feel" would spontaneously appear.

Engineers therefore developed new noise-eradicating filtration systems. But even DOLBY noise reduction and DBX compression circuits failed to breach the "record" barrier toward life-like musical reproduction. An ancillary development came with the complete revision and modification of loudspeaker technology. Planar speaker technology, whether electrostatic or magnetic, was hailed as the only means for achieving "true graphic reproduction of sound". But, even when playbacks were "spread out" across large theatrical spaces through enormous planar loudspeakers, listeners sensed a mysterious and defined "absence". Like all the other costly improvements, the noise-reduced electrostatic loudspeakers could instantly be discerned from a "live performance feel".

Hoping to close the obvious gap between recordings and human experience, undaunted audio engineers continued searching for that missing "audio component". Their hope was that, when once the "missing" audio component could be isolated, the live feel would be restored to recorded material. Failure upon failure.

DIGITAL

Technicians imagined that the inability to reproduce the "live feel" was found in the very MODE of recording itself. "Analog", they now claimed, was the "real" problem. The introduction of digital recording process was an outgrowth of post-War computer technology. It was again believed that digitally recorded sounds would reproduce the "live performance feel".

Sound vibrations, in the digital mode, are not directly recorded. Digital recording technique "chops" incoming sounds several thousand times per second. This rapid "chop" rate is technically referred to as the "sampling rate". Faster "chopping" means more accurate harmonic duplication. During each of these separate millisecond "chops", incoming sound is not directly recorded as vibrations. It is converted into a continuous number code.

Continuous digital sampling produces huge number codes in chains. This requires enormous code-memory. DAT tape stores the codes as a continuous series of magnetic impulses. In CD storage, codes are burned into thin aluminum foil by a fine laser beam as perforations. When the CD is spun, a laser "reads" the tiny holes. Their interrupted codes become sounds when an on-board "tone generator" produces a wavering tone signal. The more accurately the source was "chopped" and encoded, the more accurately the on-board generator will produce its wavering tone. This wavering signal is perceived by the listener as a reproduction of the original sound source.

Because there are no frictive contacts anywhere along the digital recording path, there is no "noise". Digital Industry promoted this "noiseless" feature. Noise was presented as a contaminant, for the germ-phobics to dread and hate. But here there was no noise. Clean. Sterile. Pure. Accurate, clean, noiseless, graphic, detailed, sharp, crisp... it was apparent that "audio perfection" had been achieved. Perfection. The summit.

ULTRA-HISS

When digital-eager consumers complained that early CD playbacks sounded "brittle", engineers raised the sampling rate and established different "CD grades". It was again believed that both higher sampling rates and higher "graphic detail" would "satisfy the ear".

Despite this adjustment, numerous highly qualified analysts reported that CD playbacks continued to sound "cold and harsh". Some stated that their ears actually "hurt" after hearing digital recordings. In addition, a strange "ultra-hiss" became the newly discerned noise of digital ware.

This strange manifestation was thought to be caused by the spaces between digital holes. The on-board tone generator voided the time-fraction where code was missing coded chain. No signal was produced. This made each coded tone come as a sharp peak. The peaks were distinctly perceived by the ear as a shrill hiss, appearing at the sampling rate (some 15,000 times a second). In addition, the coded sequence produced ''interrupted" peaks. An abnormality. In the real world, sound is continuous. Real sound is not a series of tight peaks with sharp interruptions. The CD format was not yet perfect!

The strange "ultra-hiss" was a white noise, the results of interrupted spiked pitch peaks. The overall abrasive "sonic envelope" produced the "hurt" which many felt in their ears. Designers dutifully modified the tone generators, artificially producing smooth harmonic continuity between pitch peaks interruptions. This second "system adjustment" was announced by the Industry as necessary in the "new and experimental development" of commercial digital.

The adjustment managed to soften the CD sound somewhat But the sound was still "different" to many listeners who tenacious clung to their analog technology after making the comparison. Analog still "had something" which digital clearly "lacked". Listeners could discern several "missing" features for which no official lexicon expressed, or was permitted expression.

LITTLE STATUES

A defined and persistent "cold hardness" continued to pervade the overall tone of musical performances from CD's, a problem for which no mere electronic solution existed. Engineers pointed out that digital sounds were now graphically detailed, crystal clear, harmonically accurate, soft on the ears, and noise-free. They emphatically stated that there could be NO criticism. Digital sound was "perfect". SONY staff writers proliferated their banter in the public media forum, implying that anti-digital commentary was pseudo-scientific, tantamount to acknowledging stupidity. The sounds, the signals, they declared were "perfect". But CD reproductions were nothing like the promised "live performance" feel which the hype originally promised.

Little children knew the difference between the machine and the performer long, long ago. Little children and romantics. The music box, with its innumerable coded stipples, is a digital reproduction device. So obviously the spirit of machines, it is incapable of expressions. Once coded, the device rings out its hauntingly disembodied melodies, never betraying the emotions of the designer. Its brass cylinder slowly turns out the twinkling chimes... without a soul.

Made to best suit the musical expressions of the times, CD media best prevailed as the perfect storage medium. Emotionless expressions lacking detail or finesse are best recorded in digital format..where emotional content is not important. Oh yes, the sounds, the signals, were perfect. Perfect but inert. Perfect but vacant. Perfect, like statues are perfect. But alive, capable of transacting emotional volume? Certainly not

GLASS WINDOWS

The historical development of recording sciences haying been summarized here, we have seen that the technical goal of reproducing the live performance feel has never been realized. Can it indeed be reached? If not, we need to know why. All recording systems are overtone "synthesizers", heirs of the erroneous Helmholtz overtone synthesis theory. Recording systems are subject to every failure which the Helmholtz theory compels. In the acousticians' lexicon of ideas there was no reason why a recording should not sound exactly like a live instrument.

Like the grand pipe organ makers of the century before, recording industries believed that an improved recording science could actually reproduce the very presence of live musicians. Locked in a curious tautology which consistently brought them face-to-face with live performance, acousticians could not read the simple message in the maze. Struggling with their "missing component" paradigm for decades, they somehow failed to recognize the significance of what they were seeking. The essential missing component was not an audio feature at all, it was similacrum of life. Generating life... in the medium.

No acoustician could ever read the message which their own senses informed because they were trained to ignore their senses! Ignoring their senses, they continued perfecting systems and technologies which continually eradicated sense and consciousness. Alienating science. Alienating technology.

Despite the dramatic magnifications in recorded fidelity, reductions in noise, complete revisions of recording modes however graphic or noise free, no media-stored overtones could either synthesize or reproduce the "live performance" sensation. It is the thing which most people call "presence". Yes, musical or speech recordings are indeed missing a component. A QUALITATIVE component.

Like glass windows through which we "see and do not touch", we FEEL the inherent separation between musical recordings and ourselves. The feeling does not pass away however "educated" in the quantitative explanations we become. The separation, the isolation between ourselves and recorded sound persists in domains which surpass the mere acoustic signals. How is it that recording technology, however advanced, isolates percipients from all of the live sensations projected by live performers?

SENSORTUM

Because quantitative analysis so effectively filters out all human experiential components, it is therefore incapable of supplying human percipients with real information concerning their own experience. It is impossible for statistically assessed data tables, sourced in inertial measuring tools, to make dictations to experience. Experience is the superior. Measurement the inferior. The elegant acoustic physics which Helmholtz pioneered empirically failed to perform its own ideal. Therefore, to answer these questions pertaining to media, we must pass outside of the limiting quantitative confines into Qualitative world examinations.

Human experience is the final criterion and aim of all reproduction media. The media and Media Industries exist to serve human experience. The media and Media Industry do not make dictations to fundamental consciousness which exceeds human agency.

In the ancient-view, the world was flooded with fluidic and freely mobile sensations. Sensations were known and mapped as world-permeating currents which all living things intercepted and experienced in varied degrees. Specific places flowed with specific sensations, honored as sacred zones. Ancient maps show these winds and currents, tracings which correspond to no water courses, however anciently examined.

All sensations were understood to be externally sourced currents, inherent in nature and continuous in extent. Experience was seen as an internal reception of external continuity. Emotion and sensation were world-inherent, not applied or projected. Sensation proceeded from the world into human experience without change. In the ancient view, what we feel is what permeates the world. There is no change in the interception, save one of intensity or completeness. Human experience was anciently seen as a small fraction of world-permeations which angelic beings of greater purity knew. Each sentient being experienced some part of the magnificent whole.

By this view, emotion and sensation are world-inherent They are received into and sampled by the human sensorium, becoming EXPERIENCE. Human beings, as recipients, are not autonomic generators of sensation. Sensation is not limited to this body as the behavioralists claimed.

Recipients are passive receivers of external supply. Thought, vision, consciousness, sensation, all were viewed as the external continuity, the whole living world of sensation. This may be proven with appropriate instrumentation in angular geographic examinations. It will then be found that sensation and consciousness vary completely with natural locale. The supposed "homogeneous conscious space" is overthrown by experiment.

Beyond this fact, human modes of experiencing the world surpass the mere examination of inertial pressures and forces. Human sensibilities inform science of realities and domains with which surpass the registrations of existing measuring devices. It has been difficult to develop inertial measuring devices which reveal any real interactivity with experience. EXPERIENCE surpasses measurement. Consciousness surpasses quantitative science. This is the very manifesto of Qualitative Science.

EMOTION

Quantitative science never considered the possibility that sounds contained "para-acoustic components" which stimulated human discernment with deeper than acoustic contents. These para-acoustic components are very evidently filtered away during the very act of recording, however advanced the recording mode. Human sensibility discerns the difference.

Exposed to the performance of virtuosi, the human sensorium responds to MORE than acoustic energies. The difference is one which is... felt. And CD recordings do not grant this sensation. We hear the high-definition soundwaves, but feel nothing. There is a very defined and curious lack of emotional response when hearing CD playbacks. It is an emotionless state which is disconcerting. There is a very insidious aspect to this media pervasion. Furthermore, one does experience strong emotional involvement with analog recordings...especially with the older bakelite cylinders and discs. The sensations received during these old analog playbacks are deep, permeating, and long-lasting. One experiences recurring emotional "flashes" long after hearing cylinders and old bakelite discs. In this capacity, these media behave more nearly like live performances.

LIVING SOUNDS

What is that "live component" which all recordings filter, and which CD recordings effectively eliminate? How can we know what it is we are looking for? We must begin again at the beginning. Find the item which was originally eliminated from the scientific study of sound. What was it? Feelings? Sensations? Is sound therefore much more than a mere succession of pressure waves in air?

Those who have spent any time at all listening to artists have also recognized a continual radiance of moods and images which proceed directly through recordings. Familiarity with records has exposed the listener to a veritable tide of such mysterious para-acoustic signals. The miserable failure of CD's to reproduce that "live feel" reveals a basic inability in acoustic physics to comprehend the real source of what it is to be "alive".

Digital recordings are interpretations of sounds, not true recordings of sound. Coded streams are interruptive streams. Assigning numerical values to a tonal stream has no means for encoding the emotive signal. Failure to recognize basic energy transactions which occur during live performance produces a wide gap between the performer and the resultant recording.

The gap is one which is non-acoustic in origin. This being true, the mere improvement of audio technique will never bring us closer to the feeling of "live performance". The signals which we seek are not acoustic at all. They are a distinct domain of energies which manage to encode themselves along with the recorded vibrations. Somehow, material media can absorb these strange emotive signals. A fortuitous accident of tremendous import.

AURIC PROJECTTVTTY

While not giving listeners the promised "live performance feel", there do remain certain residual sensations which mysteriously do manage to "leak through" certain kinds of recordings. How may this be comprehended? Consider the manner in which recording sessions are arranged.

Performers project whole and meaningful expressions into their surrounding space. Phonographic recording systems were specifically designed to capture only the acoustic components of otherwise broad expressive projections. Recording systems truly filter away more than audio engineers have ever imagined. Despite this filtration process, the obvious ability of records and tapes in transmitting certain degrees and species of emotive and visual components must be comprehended.

The emotional projections from a performer represent an energy which has never been addressed by acousticians. The human sensorium is sensitive to radiances which have never been addressed by the quantitative researcher. These emotive radiances are powerful. Notes alone, when graced by the heart of a violinist do not make tears flow. Some para-acoustic component entwines the heart-felt notes and reaches our innermost being with their' emotive message.

PARA-ACOUSTIC STORAGE

Emotive and eidetic components can actually be stored in material media. The process is mysterious, inspiring lofty new technologies which have already been developed in their primitive form. Both visceral impressions and eidetic visions are recorded in media by this strange and wonderful process. Once recorded, emotions themselves are frequently, and powerfully, projected from record media. Such signals project as discharges from the recordings with strength dependent on the medium alone.

Such phenomena evidence interactions which are truly auric in nature. The sunny warmth of a recorded smile exceeds the mere physiological modifications accompanying the elicitation of a smile. Emotive distinctions may not be quantitatively analyzed as a complex shift in "overtones", the result of modified vocal musculatures. There are more varieties of recording-projected sensations which exceed the acoustic signals, being recorded during "silent moments".

The predominant mood or transient emotive attitude of performers may be discerned by careful listening to recordings. These signals are found despite the sounds. They are among the sounds which have been recorded, but they do not rely upon the sounds at all. The evidence of "silent" emotive storage on recording media has been studied with repeated affirmations. Artistic emotional states have been recorded in absence of song or speech. In such instances, one senses the emotional expressions of recording artists by some strange "silent" projectivity.

It is possible to "track" a performer's mood in between vocal expressions; the mood being a residuum, a continuum between long silent intervals. There are more than emotive species among these para-acoustic signals. In some rare manner, the "room space" and "mood" of a place can be recorded on magnetic tape. The recording medium manages the capture of eidetic discharges directly from performers. Playbacks represent an eidetic memory system by which percipients may recall completely forgotten thoughts and prevailing moods of a time long past.

These emotive energies project with strength during silent intervals, showing that they are indeed distinct from the acoustic signals. These incidentals have been noticed by sensitive inspections of older recordings, analog media demonstrating surpassing ability in recording such signals. In what manner are "silent smiles" and "foreign landscapes" recorded on magnetic tape? Or emotions? How are they recorded on magnetic tape? Where are they stored in the medium? Do they permeate the medium in ways which have nothing at all to do with particulate matter? Do they surpass quantum artifacts? Are the fantasies which recorded music inspires mere mental associations, or are they tunnel-like glimpses of ancient scenes?

The responsively, storage, and retrieval of such para-acoustic components by recording systems has never been properly or thoroughly addressed by audio engineers; nor indeed can it be. The components of which we speak have no precedent in the recording arts. Nevertheless, these purely emotional expressions do "record". And they record best on certain media, most poorly on others.

Recording media never reproduce the emotive projectivity of performers with equivalent amplitude. It is obvious that recording systems vary in their emotive-responsive ability. It is also obvious that recording media display varying ability in storing emotive energies. Emotive energies of performance are therefore largely wasted on most recording media.

ARTICULATE SOUND

There is an unsuspected environment which suffuses utterances and instrumental sounds. Sounds are pulsating volumetric continuities, having incredible information encoded in the spaces through which they spread. When properly examined in volumetric extent, it is found that sound spreads in a vegetative manner. Sound cannot be simply "sampled" from a point-site. While this quantitative treatment succeeds in retrieving mere pressure-wave information, it fails to accurately discern the patternate qualities which flood space whenever utterance is made.

Sounds are not pulsating discontinuities. Point-inspections are inadequate means for assessing this fact. Sound is volumetric, containing sensate-extending dialogues which search out and seek recipients. The qualitative portion evinced in utterance actually curves into recipients, growing with both time and attention. Acoustic pressure waves are inertial ponderances, the mere by-products of the articulate movement of utterance through space.

There is only one author, to my knowledge, who has ever adequately engaged this examination. Projected sounds have impossibly complex details which exist ACROSS wavefronts. This complex patter-nation of space permeates the volume through which utterances are made.

Margaret Watts-Hughes (Eidophone Voice Figures) made astonishing dust impressions of these patterns by speaking and singing into a large area tympanum, In these, words became images. There is a far deeper nature to utterance than mere acoustic wavefronts of inertial pressure. There is in fact an articulate component, an articulate signal, which projects during vocalization into the environment This articulate component is broad, volumetric in extent It is inertia-free. It permeates into and diffracts around diverse materials. It is the emulsifying agent which precedes and produces the acoustic pressure waves Upon which quantitative science is so intently focused.

When this primary articulate component, true sound, is received, we feel ''warm...and soft". The proper absorption of articulate projections among human communicants produces the warmth and softness of positive human contact. Here then is the component to which sensitive listeners were attentive. While listening to Edison cylinders, bakelite discs, vinyl discs, magnetic tapes and CD's; the human sensorium discerns differences in the articulate content stored in each medium.

It was therefore not impossible for human listeners to feel the "warmth and softness" of high articulate density projections from Edison's cylinders, old discs, vinyl, and magnetic tape recordings. All nnalog recordings rivaled the "improved acoustic detail" of CD's, cold and vacant by comparison. Incapable of storing the articulate content of sound, CD's remained the "cold, hard, impersonal" recordings which consumers sensitively observed.

RADIONIC EVALUATIONS

Numerous Radionists have discussed the storage of vital and emotional states in material substrates. Such objects of study were detailed by Dr. Abrams as "capacitor storage", and by Dr. Drown as "voice-print analysis". The means for qualitatively analyzing articulate radiance was therefore available to science early in the century.

Radionists have tremendous advantage when actively comparing or contrasting qualitative world-phenomena. The experiential portion of human nature is fundamentally auric in nature. Only Radionic Instrumentalities can extend and externalize the human aura, the human sensorium being the ONLY means for assessing experiential energies. Radionic Instrumentation successfully externalizes qualitative energies in physically disposed demarcations, the so-called rates. Having nothing to do with vibration, the radionic "rate" is a sensitive point to which human auric anatomy clings.

Careful attention reveals that these "stick points" contain sensation currents, some emotional and others visual. Experiential signals include visceral (emotive impressions) and eidetic (visual-impressions) components. Currents contain varied proportions of each such species.

Qualitative sensitivities alone can discern and divide between-analog and digital media content by comparing the auric patterns which they project in playback. While ordinary "naked ear" examinations of recordings gives mild para-acoustic signal intensities, the radionically entuned points greatly magnified these articulations. Entuned radionic examinations of several media produced truly intriguing and revealing results.

Sampling sound by direct contact, it is possible to obtain radionic examinations of recorded sounds. Therefore sound, from ordinary loudspeakers, was allowed to play upon a sheet of aluminum foil. This vibrant "receiver" was connected to a small radionic tuner, employing variable capacitors. The physiological connection to this radionic source used a single wire which was connected to the instrument's output terminal, a hand-held aluminum rod. Articulate emanations from various media were allowed to play through the aluminum sheet, while "sensitive points" were sought by adjusting the variable capacitor.

In the light of Radionic Science, it is not at all difficult to define the meaning of terms such as "soft" or "warm", "hard" or "cold". These terms represent the more superficial qualitative sensations within which move more prolific and articulate eidetic currents. Different recording media were studied through radionic means. The experiments can be reproduced to satisfaction.

First, it was found that any Analog medium flooded over with rates. The instrument could not be varied very much before STRONG discharge points were located. Numerous easily entuned analog rates discharged strong eidetic images on contact Visionary discharges were found to be excessive during vinyl and magnetic media playback.

It was not therefore surprising to find that digital recordings gave exceedingly WEAK and indistinct radionic discharges. The dis­charges were there, discerned only through sharp radionic tuning. Even when entuned, these points gave no emotional or visual emanations whatsoever.

This explains why CD's seem "cold, vacant, and hard" to the human sensorium. Acoustically perfect,, they evidence a strangely depleted auric content. Digital systems, having ability to separate inertial and auric components, demonstrate the fact that auric signals and inertial signals are two very opposed entities. Converting articulations into numerical codes, and then punching holes in aluminum foil to store the numbers, digital recording systems cannot store these emotive signals.

Microphones and amplifier systems also influence the accurate reception and storage of emotive signals. Acoustic clarity does not often matter when emotive signals are powerfully recorded in certain systems. The old Edison recordings poised performers directly before large horn microphones. In this manner, whole articulate patterns were actually deposited in the media cylinders. There is a remarkable "warmth and softness" to these recordings, despite their scratchy "music box" sound.

Recording systems which utilize numerous microphones receive more of the space-volumetric articulate patterns which performers constantly project This is why the old "one take...live" performance recordings were so powerfully sensate, saturated in emotional and imaginal components.

After (he Edison horn-diaphragm microphones, carbon button microphones demonstrate the most powerful articulate receptivity. Neumann studio microphones, as with all magnetic devices, offer irritating resistances to emotive articulations. Remember, the emotive articulations permeate and intermingle with undulations which modern systems are made to record. The emotive articulations themselves are not the acoustic waves, requiring a completely different kind of system and medium for their accurate storage.

Comparative radionic examination proves that, in today's yet-lingering analog market, vinyl records and magnetic, taped media best preserve emotional and eidetic signals. But better than these are the oldest recordings, recordings pressed from masters in bakelite. In order of emotive signal power, the Edison phonograph cylinders are the most powerful radiators of emotive signals. After these, the oddest bakelite disc recordings follow in emotive signal strength. Vinyl follows these, with magnetic tape last in the analog list

Now why do these recordings preserve emotive signals at all? Surely, the phenomenon is an "accidental". So what is it about the materials and systems which enabled this surreptitious inclusion? Radionic inspection of each media showed that emotive signals were fused with the "record track" in very specific spatial dispositions.

The bakeiite cylinders powerfully radiate emotive components in-line with their trackline, their graphology. Their intensities transcend any other recording medium. Older bakelite discs show that emotive signals are stored on the edges of tracklines, this presumably the result of the transverse needle impression method. Vinyl follows these in emotive radiant strength. Obvious in all of these phonograph inspections was the heavy reliance on carbon-rich matter—bakelite and vinyl—as the recording substrate.

Magnetic media showed a medium emotive presence, with one revealing curiosity. Emotive signals in magnetic media are thrown away from the magnetic track line, to the outer perimeter of tape. The opposition of emotive and magnetic signal conforms with theoretical models which I have discussed in connection with environmental VRIL dynamics. As human aura is a personalized and shared extension of environmental Vril, we must also consider the manner in which recordings move within this environment

Articulate extensions enter recording media as those media can absorb Vril. Historical evidences, taken from telegraphic and telephonic patents, show a heavy reliance on carbonaceous materials. these were empirically found to render greatest abilities in reception, transmission, exchange, and magnification of line signals. Magnetic materials, ferrous emulsions, evidence certain emotive absorptivity, but with indirect storage pattern. Magnetic media irritate Vril articulations. Magnetic domain neutral zones store Vril, which swirls and imprints around the magnetic domains. Magnetic irritants cause an auto-magnification of Vril, storing such signals in tight clusters at magnetic peripheries. Magnetic domains are surrounded with a tight ring of these auric permeations.

Auric inclusions among acoustic signal graphologies determine the radiant strength of the medium. The undulating scratches in phonograph records reveal those endless curves. These are the articulate domains, stored edgewise into the discs, bakelite stored the signals best, vinyl following.

What we observe, when examining progressively modem recording media, is a progressive expulsion of emotive signals from the storage medium. This progression reaches its acme in digital recordings, where the emotive signals have been thrown completely away from CD graphology—the ultramicroscopic perforations. Only faint emotive impressions persist in CD's. Lacking direct vibrant graphology, they do not store emotive information. This is why they "feel cold", like something which is dead.

There are those who discuss re-infusing digital recordings with their emotive signals. Using a priority means for amplifying these faint emotive traces, certain designers have successfully "warmed up" CD recordings. The process wears the listener out, producing powerful muscular tides and irritations, the result of excessive magnetic energies used in the process.

In conclusion, the act of communication is the exchange and transaction of patternate auric threads. Systems which best engage these patterns store emotive signals. Analog technique stores emotive signals best, longitudinal impressment of graphology exceeding all successive improvements. Organic matter stores emotive signals best. In these may be comprehended something of iconic mind storage, the eidetic technology of which much has been mentioned.