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Post by saltyjames on Jan 20, 2020 15:29:08 GMT -6
Lost complete interest. Sayonara....... Hmm... Maybe because this thread was low on: Tone, Mojo, and Saturation. Conversely.. let's say this post had a purple background. It could go on for years.
Excellent posts, JEppstein!
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Post by drbill on Jan 20, 2020 20:33:34 GMT -6
It would seem the goal of saturation is to make the quiet sound louder than it is. That is not my goal with saturation. I can of course easily turn things up louder. I can do that ITB easier than I can OTB. Why go OTB if I only need to turn things up?
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Post by donr on Jan 21, 2020 11:31:20 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.
Ha, no. She called record players "Victrolas." She just knew tone when she heard it. I think we all do.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 21, 2020 14:40:02 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. Yeah, and a hyped presence peak in a cheap Chinese condenser is "more detailed".
RIGHT! (Yes, I'm being facetious.)
It's just a sign that
(A.) many people need some real ear training, and
(B.) many people need to learn to ignore hype generated by companies that are trying to sell them something for what it ain't.
It's the kind of thing that leads even a company like Neumann to replace something that is near perfect, like a KM84, with something that isn't but is voiced in what somebody thinks is a more "popular" way, like a 184.
Examples abound.
And anybody who has background in the solid state audio electronics of the mid to late '60s can identify the pernicious effects of harmonics generated by IM from a hundred miles away.
It's the exact same hype that was used to sell thousands of poorly designed solid state Scott, Fisher (and similar) amps in the late '60s (and essentially sank the companies in the process.)
Generating spurious harmonics does not increase detail. Spurious harmonics obscure detail.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 21, 2020 14:42:25 GMT -6
It would seem the goal of saturation is to make the quiet sound louder than it is. That is not my goal with saturation. I can of course easily turn things up louder. I can do that ITB easier than I can OTB. Why go OTB if I only need to turn things up? The human ear tends to interpret distortion as volume. It's a well established psychoacoustic artifact.
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Post by matt@IAA on Jan 21, 2020 15:16:00 GMT -6
Every amplifier ever made generates spurious harmonics. Odd-order harmonics are not intermodulation distortion. Some amplifiers have predominant even order, some have predominant odd-order. Has to do with symmetry in the amplifier block and NFB.
Most people prefer some level of distortion, but what kind and how much you prefer is as particular as how you like to salt your dinner.
YMMV, IMHO, my unsolicited $.02.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 21, 2020 15:35:43 GMT -6
Every amplifier ever made generates spurious harmonics. Odd-order harmonics are not intermodulation distortion. Some amplifiers have predominant even order, some have predominant odd-order. Has to do with symmetry in the amplifier block and NFB. Most people prefer some level of distortion, but what kind and how much you prefer is as particular as how you like to salt your dinner. YMMV, IMHO, my unsolicited $.02. Odd order harmonics are not, per se, IM, but IM generates LOTS of odd-order harmonics, expecially in the higher frequencies. If you'd been around in the days of the early SS amps you'd know this, IM due to crossover distortion was a major problem back then.
As to "most people", well, these days "most people" listen to MP3s over earbuds.
We're audio engineers. We're not supposed to be "most people".
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Post by drbill on Jan 21, 2020 18:46:21 GMT -6
That is not my goal with saturation. I can of course easily turn things up louder. I can do that ITB easier than I can OTB. Why go OTB if I only need to turn things up? The human ear tends to interpret distortion as volume. It's a well established psychoacoustic artifact. Perhaps. But if it's interpreted as "volume" (which I contest), it's a very frequency focused volume - which makes it for all intents and purposes an EQ more than an amplitude boost. That concept I wholeheartedly endorse. I'll use saturation as an EQ all the time.
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Post by Mister Chase on Jan 21, 2020 19:26:50 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..... My Hardy M-2 is pretty beastly and powerful sounding but very clean. *shrugs*
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 21, 2020 21:19:55 GMT -6
The human ear tends to interpret distortion as volume. It's a well established psychoacoustic artifact. Perhaps. But if it's interpreted as "volume" (which I contest), it's a very frequency focused volume - which makes it for all intents and purposes an EQ more than an amplitude boost. That concept I wholeheartedly endorse. I'll use saturation as an EQ all the time. Well, if you're equating "volume" with "level" it's not really right. It's more like "volume" as "perceived loudness", which really has less to do with actual level than most people would think.
It's a psychoacoustic phenomenon, not a physical one.
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Post by chessparov on Jan 22, 2020 3:01:15 GMT -6
Didn't the Spurious Harmonics start out, by opening for the Drive-By Truckers? Chris
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Post by chessparov on Jan 22, 2020 3:16:29 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.
Here goes... "Creamy"-That which is properly Saturated Fat, sometimes as a serial occurrence. Chris
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Post by Guitar on Jan 22, 2020 7:22:27 GMT -6
Maybe not everyone has the right vocabulary to describe sound and tonality. But I think that there should be some effort to develop a language for these things. Same as tasting "notes" in a beer or wine, describing flavors in food, etc. There has to be some sort of aesthetic language that at least means something to someone so we can try to communicate about these nebulous things we perceive.
Sure, a lot of people get it wrong, but I think they just need to try harder, or be pointed in the right direction.
There is a line that gets crossed though, for example when an audiophile talks about "Pace, Rhythm and Timing" (PRAT) as a description of sound quality. Bogus is still bogus.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2020 9:32:43 GMT -6
I take issue with words like "flavor" getting thrown around. WTF do your ears have to do with tasting things? Makes no sense.
It's all just become part of the vocabulary, so it is what it is. I am often able to convey an idea to laymen (in terms of recording science) musicians using terms like that, which can help get us on the same page. It can get pretty cringey though. Overuse, shameless marketing, etc... I kinda feel bad for the younger crowd because they're being indoctrinated into putting way too much weight on terms like that by gearslutz culture and the like.
The definitions of these things are so subjective, so it can certainly devolve into hyperbole pretty quickly, but they have their use here and there.
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Post by Omicron9 on Jan 22, 2020 10:01:56 GMT -6
Agreed with so much on this thread; glad I'm not the only one. "Warm" as a descriptive just makes me phlegm. When I see that word, I instantly think dull, muddy, clouded, and such. It's the last thing I want, but "warm" is very popular to some. Or worse yet, "vintage warmth" used in ad copy. Again dull, muddy, dark, clouded.... pass.
Warm regards,
-09
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Post by Omicron9 on Jan 22, 2020 10:04:00 GMT -6
So your grandmother was a gear pimp?
Very cool. Did she leave you some cool gear.
Ha, no. She called record players "Victrolas." She just knew tone when she heard it. I think we all do. My grandma referred to CD players as Victrolas. I'm smiling just remembering that.
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Post by Omicron9 on Jan 22, 2020 10:05:03 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. ^^^ This.
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Post by johneppstein on Jan 22, 2020 12:58:30 GMT -6
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.
Here goes... "Creamy"-That which is properly Saturated Fat, sometimes as a serial occurrence. Chris I usually avoid the occurrance of cereal.
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Post by chessparov on Jan 22, 2020 13:39:34 GMT -6
That's killer! Chris
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2020 15:35:32 GMT -6
Was just watching a Mix With the Masters video where every other word coming out of the [pretty famous, but will remain nameless] producer's mouth was "warm", "punchy", "crunchy", "saturated", Et al.
If I were one of the musicians I'd be rolling my eyes the whole time.
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Post by Guitar on Jan 22, 2020 15:59:33 GMT -6
Yeah but most of us know what most of those words mean.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2020 16:20:38 GMT -6
Yeah but most of us know what most of those words mean. We do, and of course I say "warm" and "punchy", etc. now and then. It just sounds silly hearing them used with such abandon (I suppose in this case to cater to a GS audience) is making me realize why some would find it off-putting...
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Post by matt@IAA on Jan 22, 2020 16:21:25 GMT -6
Was just watching a Mix With the Masters video where every other word coming out of the [pretty famous, but will remain nameless] producer's mouth was "warm", "punchy", "crunchy", "saturated", Et al. If I were one of the musicians I'd be rolling my eyes the whole time. Ok.. so how do you describe sound?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2020 16:22:52 GMT -6
Was just watching a Mix With the Masters video where every other word coming out of the [pretty famous, but will remain nameless] producer's mouth was "warm", "punchy", "crunchy", "saturated", Et al. If I were one of the musicians I'd be rolling my eyes the whole time. Ok.. so how do you describe sound? see edited post above. Not trying to come off like these words don't sometimes slip out of my mouth.
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Post by EmRR on Jan 22, 2020 18:18:11 GMT -6
Yeah but most of us know what most of those words mean. But I have all the stuff that supposedly does that, and I don't know what they mean, really. Not to anyone else. I don't know that anything I have does any of that for anyone else. I mean, I usually drive the original preamps the Coil CA-70 is based on. Or 1930's to 1960's Collins, Gates, Altec, RCA, Langevin, the RCA Studio B vari-mu/line amp, plate reverbs, NBC/RCA custom vari-mu's, etc.
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