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Post by EmRR on Jan 18, 2020 16:00:41 GMT -6
These words seem to have lost all meaning, not that they had much of any in the first place.
They are inherently vague, which is not the same as magical or mystical. I'm pretty sick of them, they tell me just about nothing.
Says the guy with a studio that's full of ancient tube and transistor gear apparently operating within those mystical meanings......yet I never use those words.
The couple of real original well functioning U47's I've used didn't have any of 'that', they were just very good microphones, maybe better than most in the room, but not always.
Everyone has a different POV on these words, like Rashomon, it depends on where you are coming from. I can't describe the 'x' I hear to you, should you ask, your 'x' is different. They seem really dishonest from a sales POV.
I don't expect it to get more nuanced, as users of audio equipment become more creative based, and less technical. A fear is the definitions will constrict to a new more trend-specific interpretation, with equipment formerly in those camps eventually excluded as tastes change.
Do those descriptors actually help anyone else? Or do they just hook beginners who want to buy a piece of the holy grail?
I might use 'tone' for the way a room sounds. 'Mojo' for it's paint and lighting scheme. 'Saturation' for the point at which volume overwhelms that room, or that reverb does to a sound. Not for a thing that audio equipment imparts on captured sound on the way in.
More an irritant than a rant..... : )
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Post by drbill on Jan 18, 2020 16:07:10 GMT -6
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 18, 2020 16:22:27 GMT -6
Different tools hype different harmonics this can shape a sound.
Today I have so many tools I can pick from.
For example a mid range 60s tone I can get from Slates London Plug In. The new True Iron plug ins does sound a lot like my 1073 - another tone giver. Slates VTM reminds me a lot to what my Telefunken M15 A did.
Different compressors shape different sounds / tones, I often don't see them as leveling tools. Today I had a vocal session with someone truly gifted, she wanted her voice in one song more raspy. The Blues Stripe 1176 did the trick - she smiled and was happy.
To me there is no tool that comes in a plain cover. They all change something, harmonics or the phase, sometimes they work sometimes they sound like BS.
Many small layers of saturation/harmonics -from tracking to mastering- make the song sound big and open. That's why all of my tracks see a hardware 1073 before mixing starts.
I start with the same tone, layer of harmonics. That's the reason why I think that the layout of drbills tone amp is smart. I would buy one but the Neve trick just works well in my studio.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 18, 2020 16:26:06 GMT -6
As George Carlin said, " it's all bullshit, and it's bad for ya"
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Post by indiehouse on Jan 18, 2020 19:40:19 GMT -6
All hype to me. Whenever I hear hype words (holy grail, game changer, etc), my eyes glaze over and I generally put zero stock in that dude’s credibility. Maybe not so much saturation, as that’s kind of quantifiable. But there are some dudes who post descriptions with lots of hype.
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Post by matt@IAA on Jan 18, 2020 19:50:11 GMT -6
EmRR one problem is if you try to go any more precise sometimes people’s eyes glaze over. If you want to talk about frequency response, THD, harmonic balance, FFTs and IMD you can quantify most things. Then get into nonlinearity and hysteresis and you cover more. But most folks don’t have the gear to test this or the background to really dig into it. And...so much of this is subjective anyway. You like predominantly odd or even order harmonics? One isn’t better or worse. One might be mojo to you.
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Post by Vincent R. on Jan 18, 2020 19:52:34 GMT -6
Let’s not forget warmth and presence which are terms that are often confused for each other,
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Post by EmRR on Jan 18, 2020 19:57:30 GMT -6
Yeah, and these words fall into the same trap the more precise terms do: none of them tell you what it sounds like really (impressions being subjective), or whether you will like it for any particular use.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 18, 2020 20:00:56 GMT -6
Let’s not forget warmth and presence which are terms that are often confused for each other, I'll venture in here: Warmth being one of two things (or both) most often: thicker low mids from low frequency distortion, or a lack of higher order harmonics in the treble. Presence is a labeled EQ setting in some cases, upper mids in the sensitive ear/vocal range. |
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Post by M57 on Jan 18, 2020 20:02:53 GMT -6
Here's the way I define and therefore find value in these words.
Tone refers to colorization with respect to frequency. Remember of the tone control on an old fashion car stereo? The polar frequency response curves of a given microphone is a representation of its 'tonal' signature.
Saturation is a combination of how distortion softens sound and the way compression makes sound more dense.
When I see the word mojo, I think of how the combination of all the above defines the sound of a given piece of gear. Mojo is the opposite of transparent.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 18, 2020 20:09:48 GMT -6
Tone refers to colorization with respect to frequency. Remember of the tone control on an old fashion car stereo? The frequency polar response curves of a given microphone is a representation of it's 'tonal' signature. In my mind 'tone' originated with electric guitarists, involving an instrument with no significant natural acoustic signature, it's presentation always being artificial. Yet one can have tone, and another not. Sometimes the touch of the player, sometimes the instrument with any player and amp, sometimes just the amp. In all cases a unique identifier, essentially saying 'that has personality'. Transcribe the word to other audio equipment, and the analogy seems to be that a bunch of stuff has the same undefined personality. Don't hold me to that thought....work in progress...... |
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Post by donr on Jan 18, 2020 20:57:41 GMT -6
My maternal grandmother was born in the late 19th century, and her exposure to recorded music spanned from Edison to transistors. She was a big fan of live music and went to clubs and concerts in NYC from the 1920's through the 40's until her husband died.
She used to say when she liked the sound of a radio or record player, that it "had a nice tone."
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Post by svart on Jan 20, 2020 9:27:53 GMT -6
"Clarity", "extended range", "detail", etc, too.
Usually just distortion mistaken as audio magic.
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Post by saltyjames on Jan 20, 2020 9:33:15 GMT -6
Let’s not forget warmth and presence which are terms that are often confused for each other, Yeah.. those are totally disparate terms to me.
I get being frustrated by the nonstop and commercial use of these terms everywhere, but these three terms are IMO the cornerstone of the modern music makers tracking and mixing goals.
I think:
Tone: Has sound characteristic(s) that allows the fundamental through clearly comprising as much of teh bass end as possible without sounding shelved / high passed. Think a tambourine mic'd from 6 ft. with just the right amount of low end. Or a high lead guitar on the B string @ the 15th fret that still has some girth/throat to it.
If everything you track lacks tone the whole thing will sound shite.
Mojo: Is the personal characteristic of the musician coming thru. I imagine Ringo playing anything sounds like Ringo. Tambourine, Piano (which he did) etc. If every song element lacks mojo, it will sound canned.
Saturation: Is more a real physics term. This is an amp that is is being pushed with measurable (slight) distortion.
If every element in a song lacks saturation it will sound anemic, weak.
I believe proper tone, mojo, and slight saturation is the goal of most audio engineers when tracking most modern things. EDM guys want it, rockers want it, R&B guys want it. Chicks dig it.
I mean everyone loves the Mario theme. And to me it has at least two of the three (if not also some saturation). Good tone and mojo. Even though, it has the mojo of early video game's moronic simplicity and melody, it is a characteristic of the potpouri, agglomerated, etc of that era of video games. It is both endearing, delightful and fulfilling. Even for what it is. (Imagine that same Mario part played, not with a synth wave, but with an electric guitar patch. It would be horrid).
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Post by saltyjames on Jan 20, 2020 9:37:05 GMT -6
My maternal grandmother was born in the late 19th century, and her exposure to recorded music spanned from Edison to transistors. She was a big fan of live music and went to clubs and concerts in NYC from the 1920's through the 40's until her husband died. She used to say when she liked the sound of a radio or record player, that it "had a nice tone." So your grandmother was a gear pimp?
Very cool. Did she leave you some cool gear.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 20, 2020 13:37:06 GMT -6
Let’s not forget warmth and presence which are terms that are often confused for each other, I'll venture in here: Warmth being one of two things (or both) most often: thicker low mids from low frequency distortion, or a lack of higher order harmonics in the treble. Presence is a labeled EQ setting in some cases, upper mids in the sensitive ear/vocal range. It should be noted that "presence" means somewhat different things in different contexts.
While the "presence peak" or "presence range" generally means a boost in the upper midrange region of an EQ curve it means something that is related but somewhat different in the context of guitar amp electronics because in traditional guitar amp designs based on the lineage of tweed and early '60s brownface Fenders and derived designs such as the classic Marshalls the "presence" control isn't a traditional EQ circuit at all, it's part of the negative feedback loop in the power amp stage and affects quite a bit more than simple EQ - it affects the character of harmonic distortion, power amp damping factor, power amp gain vs. frequency, and related effects that go beyond a simple plain EQ and can't really be duplicated by a conventional EQ circuit.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 20, 2020 13:43:19 GMT -6
"Clarity", "extended range", "detail", etc, too. Usually just distortion mistaken as audio magic. Really?
To me clarity and detail are the opposite of distortion. Maybe some guitarists confuse the generation of HF distortion products with "extended range" but that's just ignorance - such distortion products actually mask true extended range playback of a clean signal.
To me distorted fizz is the very opposite or extended range, detail, and above all, clarity.
EDIT: From what I hear real clarity and detail isn't much in vogue these days in most guitar based (and similar) popular music.
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Post by spindrift on Jan 20, 2020 13:44:45 GMT -6
Let's add "air" to the list too. In typical use, I hear it implemented as a +15dB shelving boost at 20Khz.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 20, 2020 13:49:05 GMT -6
Let's add "air" to the list too. In typical use, I hear it implemented as a +15dB shelving boost at 20Khz. And "creamy". To date nobody has been able to give me a definition of "creamy" that makes sense.
Actually, "air" makes a little more sense to me than most of these other "terms" - to me it means a boost in the near ultrasonic where (at least some) people can percieve a qualitative difference athough they can't directly hear the fundamentals of those high harmonics.
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Post by matt@IAA on Jan 20, 2020 13:50:09 GMT -6
Really? To me clarity and detail are the opposite of distortion. Maybe some guitarists confuse the generation of HF distortion products with "extended range" but that's just ignorance - such distortion products actually mask true extended range playback of a clean signal. To me distorted fizz is the very opposite or extended range, detail, and above all, clarity. EDIT: From what I hear real clarity and detail isn't much in vogue these days in most guitar based (and similar) popular music.
I think what svart is saying is you can elicit a user describing a piece as having detail or clarity if the distortion products are odd-order. Bright, detail, clarity often means odd order harmonics. Too much and it becomes gritty, harsh, etc. |
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 20, 2020 14:03:17 GMT -6
Really? To me clarity and detail are the opposite of distortion. Maybe some guitarists confuse the generation of HF distortion products with "extended range" but that's just ignorance - such distortion products actually mask true extended range playback of a clean signal. To me distorted fizz is the very opposite or extended range, detail, and above all, clarity. EDIT: From what I hear real clarity and detail isn't much in vogue these days in most guitar based (and similar) popular music.
I think what svart is saying is you can elicit a user describing a piece as having detail or clarity if the distortion products are odd-order. Bright, detail, clarity often means odd order harmonics. Too much and it becomes gritty, harsh, etc. Maybe it's because my early ear training was somewhat different than most people's, but I don't hear things like that. I don't hear those things as clarity or detail - I'm much more likely to hear them as products of intermodulation distortion. Could have something to do with doing a lot of work on early IM ridden solid state consumer audio gear in the early '70s. Could also have something to do with doing a lot of listening during ear teasting of high end audiophile gear mods around the same time. |
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 20, 2020 14:12:56 GMT -6
Saturation: Is more a real physics term. This is an amp that is is being pushed with measurable (slight) distortion.
If every element in a song lacks saturation it will sound anemic, weak.
I agree with much of what you said except for this. One of my all time favorite guitarists, Mike Bloomfield, very rarely played with much saturation, especially by todays's standards but he always sounded anything BUT anemic or weak.
Same thing with a lot of country pickers, at least until fairly recently.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 20, 2020 14:15:05 GMT -6
lost a finished post oh well......
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Post by drbill on Jan 20, 2020 15:10:14 GMT -6
Lost complete interest. Sayonara.......
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Post by EmRR on Jan 20, 2020 15:27:59 GMT -6
It would seem the goal of saturation is to make the quiet sound louder than it is. There are plenty of things that sound very powerful, which lack saturation...you might just have to turn the volume up more.....
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