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Post by mrholmes on Jun 18, 2019 7:38:59 GMT -6
RGOs a simple one: There is always some kind of clipping, no matter how hard or soft I feed the input???
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Post by svart on Jun 18, 2019 7:43:23 GMT -6
Are you asking if there is clipping present in all physical audio devices?
Nope.
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Post by adamjbrass on Jun 18, 2019 7:52:18 GMT -6
If there was, I would quit audio all together
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 18, 2019 7:57:24 GMT -6
I suggest you change the title of the thread mrholmes. It reads like a critique of RGO and isn't a question about your actual topic.
I think you may be hearing the combined effect of digital recording. Sometimes my tracks sound fine, and sometimes nothing I do can remove the harshness. There may be solutions, but I haven't found them yet. It's possible higher end gear might help, but probably not.
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Post by mrholmes on Jun 18, 2019 8:54:04 GMT -6
Are you asking if there is clipping present in all physical audio devices? Nope. Question answered...thanks.
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Post by mrholmes on Jun 18, 2019 8:56:56 GMT -6
I suggest you change the title of the thread mrholmes. It reads like a critique of RGO and isn't a question about your actual topic. I think you may be hearing the combined effect of digital recording. Sometimes my tracks sound fine, and sometimes nothing I do can remove the harshness. There may be solutions, but I haven't found them yet. It's possible higher end gear might help, but probably not. It's a question about physics using real gear. I think RGO is the right place for such a question???
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Post by svart on Jun 18, 2019 9:02:20 GMT -6
I suggest you change the title of the thread mrholmes. It reads like a critique of RGO and isn't a question about your actual topic. I think you may be hearing the combined effect of digital recording. Sometimes my tracks sound fine, and sometimes nothing I do can remove the harshness. There may be solutions, but I haven't found them yet. It's possible higher end gear might help, but probably not. It's a question about physics using real gear. I think RGO is the right place for such a question??? I think the confusion was that you said "Real Gear" and the name of the forum is "Real Gear Online" which made it seem like you were asking a question about the forum rather than physical audio devices.
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Post by indiehouse on Jun 18, 2019 9:23:47 GMT -6
Typically referred to as Hardware, rather than Real Gear.
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Post by M57 on Jun 18, 2019 9:39:05 GMT -6
I think Mr. Holmes is speaking metaphorically. My hardware purchases have a direct correlation to my participation on RGO, and if I'm not careful, the balance of my bank account risks clipping ..no matter what the input.
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Post by mrholmes on Jun 18, 2019 9:52:59 GMT -6
Admin changed the title...THX...
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Post by drbill on Jun 18, 2019 9:58:53 GMT -6
I'm still not sure I even understand the question....
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2019 10:34:27 GMT -6
Question: Does all analogue gear clip, all the time.
Answer: No. But it very likely will be adding different kinds of distortion and noise.
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Post by kcatthedog on Jun 18, 2019 10:49:22 GMT -6
I think we are really giving him the gears on this hardware question: isn’t his mother tongue German ?
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Post by mrholmes on Jun 18, 2019 11:13:25 GMT -6
Question: Does all analogue gear clip, all the time. Answer: No. But it very likely will be adding different kinds of distortion and noise. To make the question more clear. I was wonderng to read a few weeks ago that all the hardware starts to "compress "clip" and ads all kinds of artifacts including distortions etc as soon you put it in the chain. I was wondering about the term "clip" is not clipping something bad? I was taught to avoid it by the exception for artistic reasons... Sad, I cant remeber where I read it, but it was a big name mixer who said it. Sorry for the fuzz I am not a native speaker but I try my best.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 18, 2019 11:24:19 GMT -6
No problem mrholmes, we get that English is not your first language, and we're glad to offer any suggestions or insights. I was just trying to help you along.
On some level, 99% of hardware affects the tone of the original sound to some extent. The choices we make are determined by just how much you like the particular tone of a piece of gear. Tone could be called distortion from a scientific point of view, but real distortion and clipping are certainly avoidable. So I'd say no, all hardware does not clip, but all hardware does affect tone somewhat.
That said, you can choose to get a clean sound or a gritty sound just by choosing one preamp over the other.
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Post by drbill on Jun 18, 2019 11:31:12 GMT -6
Any time you run a digital track thru analog gear and it comes back "different" from the original digital signal, you are "distorting" the original signal to some degree. Most of the time we enjoy that. It sounds more "right". Is all distortion bad? No, not IMO.
Clipping is generally more obvious than saturating. Clipping is often ugly. Not always though.
For instance, clipping on a snare drum can be helpful, and you might actually dig the sound more than it's non-clipped version. Clipping on a lead vocal or on a string line? Not so desirable most (all) of the time.
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Post by christopher on Jun 18, 2019 13:20:28 GMT -6
My theory or whatever you want to call it:
Close mics give best detail and signal to noise. But it also picks up all these weird little micro-sounds that aren’t normally heard, like mouth noise and fret noise for example. The signal will be highly dynamic.
We hear things at a distance. distant micing is much less dynamic, as the micro sounds aren’t powerful enough to make it that long of distance. The low frequencies had a chance to blossom out and reflect off the room and add together to create one sound. Each reflection point will not be an exact reflection, but depends on material of the surface.
So it’s not a surprise that we have to make close mics sound natural by using: compression, EQ, parallel processing, reverb, delay, etc.
What you will discover with certain types of hardware, is they mimic the process of moving the microphone back a few feet. I figure it’s because the sound is turned back into electrons, and the electrons when run through certain parts like transformers exhibit a similar type of effect that distance in air does. That might cause weaker dynamic events get softer. This is a type of distortion but it can sound cleaner and more real since the ugly annoying micro-stuff might be gone.
For classical in which distant micing is common, this might not be beneficial. For other genres that are close micing, it should be common practice IMO.
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Post by swurveman on Jun 18, 2019 14:09:47 GMT -6
Richard Dodd talks about analog distortion in this article. He's got a pretty good track record.
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Post by popmann on Jun 18, 2019 15:20:28 GMT -6
So, here's what's true: every analog circuit changes the sound by just passing it. You can design them to change it in specific ways....or try to change it the least, and often just change it in DIFFERENT ways....so, "clip"? No. They don't all clip at all levels. But, I THINK that the principle you're asking about is true--they all CHANGE the audio that masses them in some way.
For GOOD digital models of them, the same is true.
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Post by mrholmes on Jun 18, 2019 17:30:40 GMT -6
So, here's what's true: every analog circuit changes the sound by just passing it. You can design them to change it in specific ways....or try to change it the least, and often just change it in DIFFERENT ways....so, "clip"? No. They don't all clip at all levels. But, I THINK that the principle you're asking about is true--they all CHANGE the audio that masses them in some way. For GOOD digital models of them, the same is true. Maybe the term clipping was used in that interview in a specific context and I was not able to understand it right. For the rest. To my ear some plugins get the dynamic part right, pulling back things shaving off the edges of a sound like some of my favourite hardware. On the other side I miss subtle but pleasent harmonics. I can add those by using other plugins but there goes the big search. To my ear just a few plug ins in the distortion department come close to what I know from analog gear. Steven Slate says its all perception and there is no diffrence between digital and analog harmonics/distortion. Its hard to believe becasue most of the digtal "saturators" stand out too much in a mix and its hard to find the right balance. I never have this fight when using real gear... It just gives me the distortions/harmonic content which I need. Even subtle ones go a long way. But who I am. Maybe Steven Slate is right and its all perception bias and there is no big gap anymore.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 18, 2019 17:40:26 GMT -6
RGOs a simple one: There is always some kind of clipping, no matter how hard or soft I feed the input??? If there's always clipping either you've got your gain structure set up wrong or there's something wrong with your gear.
Usually one troubleshoots from chain end to beginning, but from your description I kinda suspect that the front end of your preamp might have a problem, like a blown transistor in the front end or a leaking cap biasing something wrong. It's hard to tell without putting it on a scope.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 18, 2019 17:46:10 GMT -6
Question: Does all analogue gear clip, all the time. Answer: No. But it very likely will be adding different kinds of distortion and noise. It shouldn't add anything perceptible as distortion or noise. That doesn't mean there's no distortion at all because technically any alteration of the waveform could be viewed as "distortion", but distortion shouldn't be audible as such unless you deliberately add it.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 18, 2019 17:51:54 GMT -6
Question: Does all analogue gear clip, all the time. Answer: No. But it very likely will be adding different kinds of distortion and noise. To make the question more clear. I was wonderng to read a few weeks ago that all the hardware starts to "compress "clip" and ads all kinds of artifacts including distortions etc as soon you put it in the chain. I was wondering about the term "clip" is not clipping something bad? I was taught to avoid it by the exception for artistic reasons... Sad, I cant remeber where I read it, but it was a big name mixer who said it. Sorry for the fuzz I am not a native speaker but I try my best. Even big name mixers sometimes talk out their ass. There are also cases where big name mixers gave out intentionally bad information. Also, even big name mixers sometimes can have rather peculiar ideas. And if you're reading something in an article or interview, sometimes the interviewer gets something wrong, or an editor makes gratuitous changes to make an article "more interecting".
I've been told that at one point some engineers deliberately tried to outdo each other in seeing what ridiculous garbage they could get an unsuspecting journalist to swallow as truth.
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Post by johneppstein on Jun 18, 2019 17:58:08 GMT -6
So, here's what's true: every analog circuit changes the sound by just passing it. You can design them to change it in specific ways....or try to change it the least, and often just change it in DIFFERENT ways....so, "clip"? No. They don't all clip at all levels. But, I THINK that the principle you're asking about is true--they all CHANGE the audio that masses them in some way. For GOOD digital models of them, the same is true. Maybe the term clipping was used in that interview in a specific context and I was not able to understand it right. For the rest. To my ear some plugins get the dynamic part right, pulling back things shaving off the edges of a sound like some of my favourite hardware. On the other side I miss subtle but pleasent harmonics. I can add those by using other plugins but there goes the big search. To my ear just a few plug ins in the distortion department come close to what I know from analog gear. Steven Slate says its all perception and there is no diffrence between digital and analog harmonics/distortion. Its hard to believe becasue most of the digtal "saturators" stand out too much in a mix and its hard to find the right balance. I never have this fight when using real gear... It just gives me the distortions/harmonic content which I need. Even subtle ones go a long way. But who I am. Maybe Steven Slate is right and its all perception bias and there is no big gap anymore. Steven Slate falls into the category of people who say things because they're trying to sell you something. I always take anything Steven says with a large dash of salt unless I know for a fact (corroborated elsewhere) thaty he's accurate and not hyping something.
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Post by seawell on Jun 18, 2019 18:20:43 GMT -6
I've lost count of how many times I've done extensive testing between hardware and software. All the while truly hoping that software would win so I could sell a bunch of outboard. The gap still is big to me or else I'd jump ship for convenience and financial reasons. It's funny to hear Steven Slate said there is no difference between digital and analog harmonics/distortion because I'd argue that is where it stands out almost more than anywhere else(compression being another). I hope we get there one day, it sure would be convenient but I think to pretend like we're there before we are isn't going to do any of us any good. We'll see what kind of progress software makes on those new cheese grater macs : )
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