SPARS Code

The SPARS Code had the American Society of Professional Audio Recording Services devised. The name goes back to the SPARS abbreviation for the organization. The code is a three-letter designation on an audio CD. The letters refer to the technique used for the production steps sound recording, mixing and mastering. In each case, A stands for analog and D for digital technology. Nowadays one can find such references only rarely, most often still on classical CDs.

Digital recording means that the sound source is either already own digitally (eg digital synthesizer), or that analog signals were (eg, microphones ) at some point, but not later digitized in the process chain of recording when recording. By digitally recording all the noise that would be incurred in an analog recording in the re-sampling of the medium accounts (eg tape hiss ). On the other hand, the quality of the recording is decisively determined by digitization. Therefore, one chooses for this step usually higher sampling rates and / or a higher word length per sample as eg on CD would actually be later necessary for reproduction.

The following applies:

• DDD: digital recording, digital mixing, digital mastering
• ADD: analog recording, digital mixing, digital mastering
• AAD: analog recording, analog mixing, digital mastering
• DAD: digital recording, analog mixing, digital mastering

The last letter is always a D, because the CD as a digital medium requires a digital master.

Digital remastering is the most common variant of recordings from the period before the introduction of the CD, where everything is possible, from the simple unmodified copy up to Nachverhallen and dynamic compression of signals.

Source evidence

• CD
• Sound Recording