Talk:SPARS code

Corrected "Lack of detail" Section
The "Lack of detail" section made some good points, but also made some unsourced claims that were so out of context that they were essentially false.

In explaining why the first "D" in DDD isn't really totally digital in most cases, because digital multitrack is mixed through an analog console to a digital 2-track mixdown recorder, it said,

"This is because many engineers still like to mix on analog consoles while taking advantage of the editing possibilities of the digital recording medium."

Although that might be true of some titles today in 2009, when some people record to the Pro Tools DAW, mix through an analog console such as an SSL, then record that back to Pro Tools or some crap standalone digital recorder like DSD, it is a moot point because I haven't seen the SPARS code on the back of any CD in over ten years.

When talking about the SPARS code, we are talking about the CDs in our CD collections, disks from the 80s and very early 90s. Almost 100% of those 80s and 90s CDs that claim to be DDD and contain mixed multitrack music (pop, rock, R&B, country, you know, the styles of music that account for about 99% of the music industry?) are not correct/honest about the first "D" of DDD, but it has nothing to do with engineer preferences!

It is because in almost every recording environment in the world, there was no way to mix a digital recording in the digital domain!

Almost every 80s and 90s CD of mixed multitrack music came from big name artists that could afford the $500+/day premium of using digital recorders, and those were studios that, almost entirely, had one of two setups: 1) a Mitsubishi 32-track connected through an analog mixing console to a Mitsubishi 2-track, or 2) a Sony 24-track or 48-track (usually 24-track) connected through an analog mixing console to a Sony 2-track.

All the internet blabbing about 3M recorders is off base, very few studios had them, and almost not a single one was using 3M digital as the standard format in the last 25 years. The short version of the story about 3M is that they invented the digital multitrack and left the business forthwith.

Why did studios avoid digital mixing consoles for true digital mixes?

For the same reason they avoided unicorns, they didn't exist!!!

The claims on the AMS Neve site about making a digital mixing console in 1980 are totally false, not a single one existed before 1985, and for that year and the next five years, there were just a small handful of them in existence, most of which were unuseful and unreliable.

I can count the number of 1980s true DDD disks I have heard on two fingers:

1) Sky, the Mozart Album,  Neville Marriner,  Academy of St. Martin-in-the-fields, from late 1987, and 2) Tom Doerr, Andromeda, from 1989.

The latter was one step up from the first, it was also composed, produced, and performed entirely in the digital domain, something that was possible only because it was a recording of instrumental electronic music, not vocals and acoustic instruments, and the electronic instruments, multitrack recorder, mixer, signal processing, and 2-track mixdown recorder were all one machine, the WaveFrame Audioframe 1000.

I don't like to add unsourced materials as others do, so I just deleted what was false.

Odd Photo Choice Really Demonstrates the Problem with the SPARS Code
The example photo with the caption "AAD is the SPARS code (highlighted in red) on Madonna's 1990 album, The Immaculate Collection" is a funny choice, because it outlines all the problems with the SPARS code! Much of the content of that greatest hits package came from the Like A Virgin album, which was one of the first really big digital albums, it was DDD by the standards of the day, recorded on the Sony PCM-3324 and mixed to Sony digital 2-track.

The SPARS code had thus rebranded this DDD music as AAD! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.100.174 (talk) 07:00, 6 September 2009 (UTC)


 * To be precise, The Immaculate Collection wasn't just a straight digital copy of the two-track mixed-down masters used on the older CDs. All of the songs were instead newly remixed from multitrack masters by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda. The label very likely provided those guys with analog tapes to work from.
 * A digital recording transferred to analog tape surely isn't digital enough to warrant a leading "D" (it's going to inherit the limitations of tape, which is what the SPARS code is trying to alert consumers to). The second "D" would also be inappropriate since Pettibone and Hotoda likely used analog mixing and effects.
 * I'm not sure the photo is really a bad example of what a SPARS code is, though, which is really all it's trying to be. —mjb (talk) 22:51, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The "Examples" list is preposterous
As it doesn't list a single significant recording from the early digital era, in particular from the classical recordings of the mid-to-late 80s.98.210.160.235 (talk)
 * See WP:BOLD. —mjb (talk) 22:35, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Query about "DH" on certain recent CDs ?
I have seen a "DH" label on new CDs instead of the old AAD/ADD... I wonder what it means. Unfortunately I can't upload a picture of what I mean, but if some people have an idea of what this means, maybe that should be added to the list... --194.206.254.8 (talk) 11:54, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Usage for analog releases
It appears that my edit has been listed as anonymous from IP 82.69.9.115 - my apologies. I will fix as soon as I can. Evidently a bad idea to edit on my phone... Richard E (talk) 23:58, 15 July 2018 (UTC) Fixed and also added a note in the following section mentioning analog use by RykoDisc (cassettes labeled "AAA"). Richard E (talk) 12:47, 16 July 2018 (UTC)