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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 18, 2024 17:53:26 GMT -6
This whole thing with UAD is confusing. I just grabbed a Culture Vulture and Harrison Eq on the last hour or so before the annual sale ended and did a Paypal pay in 4. Just to see if I would prefer swapping out my HG-2 MS instance for the CV and the Overloud Gem 84 with the Harrison. And the results were a lot better with the CV and Harrison. But the CV uses so much DSP that I can't just put it all over and replace every HG-2 instance. For the price of another Octo, I could probably build a new computer with twice the single core processing of what I have now. That would open up a lot of possibilities. UAD really should come up with new satellites that cost half of what they do but with loads more processing power. Since they can convert stuff to native, they don't have to be sharc-based necessarily. UAD could come out with something like Waves Soundgrid and then make it possible to run plugins made by whoever else. Soundgrid is massively overpriced now considering how much better the processors have gotten. There's an opening for UAD here.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 18, 2024 17:46:23 GMT -6
Mid-side can muck things up easily if you're not careful. Usually I'll only use it with Vertigo VSM stuff with the lows being saturated in the mid and the highs on the side. Not sure if Fusion's stereo imaging section counts, but I find that pretty essential. Can't say I'm really big on mid-side compression or eq on top of these two techniques. Maybe that will change if I work with a hardware eq like Hyperion one of these days.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 15, 2024 15:53:26 GMT -6
Steven Slate was touting the VSX as performing identically with something from Audeze. Maybe it was the frequency graphs. Their sound reminds me of the Audeze stuff I've heard. I have a DT990 somewhere. Grado HF2. A lot of the portable stuff like an Amperior, Beats EP, K550, and Yamaha Pro 400. I definitely notice the nasty treble spike in the 550 a lot more these days. Also have these Logitech headphones from 2013 that have a blue cord and are supposed to be pretty neutral. I had been wanting to get a DT770 and T1 from Beyer but never had the cash. Oh, I also got one of the newer Sony headphones on a demo for about $400 after they initially retailed for something like $1000. Zr1r or something like that. 99.9% of the time I'm listening to the K701. If I go outside with the Sansa clip Jam then it's the EP. The Sony headphones sound better but need more power than the Clip Jam provides and the cord is like 6 feet long. Some of the cheaper Samson headphones from 2013 were pretty decent for the price. So many headphone sources would be better with a 0 impedance. At least Lynx got that right on the Aurora N. Maybe I can actually get to Axpona this year. So much of that stuff is "well, I like it and if I had an extra 50k laying around that I didn't need, I'd probably buy a couple of these setups". But why spend 15k on an electrostat setup that I like maybe 5% better than what I have? So much of this stuff is about not messing things up.
That's why Nwavguy got attacked so much. If people realized the benefits of things that met minimum performance measurements and didn't introduce coloration, the companies wouldn't be able to sell anything. I've not bought any full-sized headphones, amps, or sources since reading Nwavguy. The Aurora N was a coincidence as I got it so I could use 3-4 pieces of hardware eventually, not because anyone said the headphone section was great to listen to. Coloration can be really difficult with modern masters because adding to them really overdoes stuff. Stuff mixed and mastered when the engineers were in charge just performs so much better across more headphones and gear.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 15, 2024 7:16:52 GMT -6
Cool story, I'll have to watch the documentary. Lot of OCD in the various audiophile communities. Speakers was never a big thing for me once I got the first pair of headphones that I liked. At Axpona it sounded like they were cranking the highest frequencies to compensate for the expected hearing loss that their target market would have. Guys like Fritz basically. You really have to set limits for yourself, know when to stop gambling. There is a lot of subjectivity, but also objective measurements. I bought a few things trying to balance out the high frequency boost in my RS-1 headphones. At the time, I knew nothing about frequencies, impedance, distortions, etc. The marketing was misleading in making you think that the headphone was the be all end all. Then with all the options for sources and amps, barely any of them had any objective data. Luckily I stumbled onto the NWavguy site 11 years ago. So much about digital audio is about avoiding problems whether it's listening or engineering. What I found was that I preferred more neutral stuff. The K701, Sansa clip, O2, Odac clone. But I didn't like stuff that was completely flat like the Mr. Speakers headphones. Not a fan of the planar magnetic stuff or most of the electrostats. Nowadays I'm much happier with the Aurora N's headphone section than much of anything else I've tried. I've never been completely blown away by some 10-15k headphone setup. So much of this stuff is just designed to prey on these OCD audiophiles who fear they're not getting the best stuff. The irony is that a lot of audiophiles that post on places like head-fi use poorly produced music to evaluate the quality of things. "Come hear my $50,000 setup, it does a phenomenal job of highlighting aliasing, quantization errors, and clipped peaks from really cranking that L2". You have to buy so much of this stuff blind since no stores carry it. But I guess Europe is much different than the US in that regard. Posters from various countries in Europe often have a chance to try out hardware for engineering or expensive headphones and their assorted components. Getting a chance to try stuff for even half an hour makes a big difference. Sometimes 2 minutes is all I needed. When we had a store that sold some of this stuff, the manager was almost a dead ringer for the principal in Brainscan. He could not begin to explain to me why a $3000 cd player was better. Just relied on subjective terms like "it will blow your mind". Only one Grado headphone amp to try all the expensive headphones on. The clientele seemed to be people who just wanted an expensive stereo system as sort of a trophy. The other store with this sorta stuff was owned by a guy who looked like Captain Spaulding. They may still be in business. He'd let me home demo stuff but was very dismissive about headphones as any sort of audiophile thing. The big money seemed to be in setting up expensive speaker systems in people's homes and doing custom acoustic treatment. Something like that. Probably a dying business as the younger people often can't even afford the houses in the first place. I attended an audiophile speaker demonstration years ago (at SXSW actually) where they were playing the most compressed, faceless modern metal to demonstrate their sound. I had to make a special request to get them to play “Kind of Blue” just so I could hear any sort of detail and dynamics in the sound. (They sounded good, just not the prices they were charging good.) AudioScience has people complaining that a DAC only has 18 bits of true resolution at 40k or something like that. Madness. Yeah, a lot of these people sit there and fuss over stats when they don't even have any objective measurements. The importance of measurements is just to establish that the device was competently made. There was someone from around here building headphone amps for people, and they caught on fire or something and then she disappeared. Nwavguy exposed one amp that damaged a K701 and it wasn't cheap either. It's a lot like these plugins where people are finding problems. If you're going to spend hundreds or thousands on a device, it shouldn't have defective craftsmanship. Maybe a lot of these people work jobs that pay good money and can spare the cash. The expensive setup gives them something to play with and makes them feel like they have a reason to work a job they maybe hate. Others may just be throwing this stuff on credit cards. The whole point Nwavguy proved was that you could make competent and accurate devices for cheap. For me, listening is different than engineering. The creative choices have already been made by the people who created the album or song. It makes sense to go neutral and try to best reproduce the material. Engineering is more subjective and creative, you just want to avoid objectively bad problems. But it's trendy for clients to ask for things that create these problems. I was just reading an interview with Emily Lazar and I walked away with the impression that the end products she masters would be so much better if she were free to provide the type of mastering she thought was best. But yeah, a lot of audiophiles don't even realize that so much music just defeats the purpose of their spending on audiophile gear. The whole reason I even noticed the problems with albums made with a DAW was because I stepped into audiophile gear. All of a sudden modern stuff could not stand up to the scrutiny. This is around 2007. But then I'd put on some old cd like Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire and be blown away with how much better it got on this alleged audiophile equipment.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 13, 2024 19:42:27 GMT -6
Cool story, I'll have to watch the documentary. Lot of OCD in the various audiophile communities. Speakers was never a big thing for me once I got the first pair of headphones that I liked. At Axpona it sounded like they were cranking the highest frequencies to compensate for the expected hearing loss that their target market would have. Guys like Fritz basically. You really have to set limits for yourself, know when to stop gambling. There is a lot of subjectivity, but also objective measurements. I bought a few things trying to balance out the high frequency boost in my RS-1 headphones. At the time, I knew nothing about frequencies, impedance, distortions, etc. The marketing was misleading in making you think that the headphone was the be all end all. Then with all the options for sources and amps, barely any of them had any objective data.
Luckily I stumbled onto the NWavguy site 11 years ago. So much about digital audio is about avoiding problems whether it's listening or engineering. What I found was that I preferred more neutral stuff. The K701, Sansa clip, O2, Odac clone. But I didn't like stuff that was completely flat like the Mr. Speakers headphones. Not a fan of the planar magnetic stuff or most of the electrostats. Nowadays I'm much happier with the Aurora N's headphone section than much of anything else I've tried. I've never been completely blown away by some 10-15k headphone setup. So much of this stuff is just designed to prey on these OCD audiophiles who fear they're not getting the best stuff.
The irony is that a lot of audiophiles that post on places like head-fi use poorly produced music to evaluate the quality of things. "Come hear my $50,000 setup, it does a phenomenal job of highlighting aliasing, quantization errors, and clipped peaks from really cranking that L2". You have to buy so much of this stuff blind since no stores carry it. But I guess Europe is much different than the US in that regard. Posters from various countries in Europe often have a chance to try out hardware for engineering or expensive headphones and their assorted components. Getting a chance to try stuff for even half an hour makes a big difference. Sometimes 2 minutes is all I needed.
When we had a store that sold some of this stuff, the manager was almost a dead ringer for the principal in Brainscan. He could not begin to explain to me why a $3000 cd player was better. Just relied on subjective terms like "it will blow your mind". Only one Grado headphone amp to try all the expensive headphones on. The clientele seemed to be people who just wanted an expensive stereo system as sort of a trophy. The other store with this sorta stuff was owned by a guy who looked like Captain Spaulding. They may still be in business. He'd let me home demo stuff but was very dismissive about headphones as any sort of audiophile thing. The big money seemed to be in setting up expensive speaker systems in people's homes and doing custom acoustic treatment. Something like that. Probably a dying business as the younger people often can't even afford the houses in the first place.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 13, 2024 0:28:24 GMT -6
So, I've been playing with some eq combinations on my sub-mixes just to see what the results would be like if I one day end up with Prometheus and Hyperion and I started with the UAD Pultec 1A and Softube Trident A-Range. After playing around a while, I decided to boost 8k for instrument busses and 10k for vocal busses. Then use the Trident to filter out the highest and lowest frequencies and add any other eq if I want. Those results were pretty good. Then today I try some of the other UAD eqs I don't own to see if there's any reason for me to do this 2 for $99 sale. None of the ones I could still demo really did the trick. Next up I go back to look at other eqs I've liked and tried the EQ84 again to take the place of the 1A. Boost the input one notch. This boost coupled with the 10k boost was really transformative as Greg Wells said above. Sometimes I engage the HPF too. Glad I stumbled onto this trick but wish I would have tried this last year when reading this thread. Placing the Trident before or after is a matter of taste. Usually I'm placing it after. I'll have to see if the UAD version is any better. The 1A is much cleaner than the 84 and this thread popped up in the Google generative AI btw.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 12, 2024 21:55:41 GMT -6
Ultimately, it's another bad trend contributing to the lower fidelity of modern music. I don't think it's a coincidence that music sales have decreased the more the industry has gotten away from the "we have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible" message that was on the back of seemingly every cd. The music-being-virtually-free thing doesn't help either. It got to that point for a lot of people as early as 1999. The mentality just kept spreading the more people got hooked into technology. Decreasing the emphasis on fidelity was the first step towards music losing the respect it once had. CDs were initially revered for the quality and convenience over vinyl and tapes. They weren't exactly cheap to get into for a while. You had the MFSL and DCC discs out there stressing the importance of using original master tapes, even though they often didn't sound that different when the regular cds were made from the same original master. The industry is responsible for a lot of its own problems as everyone knows. Making stuff sound all loud and full of new distortions due to misuse of digital tech created an inferior product. I remember the flack that albums like Vapor Trails got for horrible sound. For a while it seemed like the industry was hell bent on setting records for worst fidelity. And the albums that came out around this time will never be as revered as these things that came from eras where quality was focused on a lot more. When stuff already sounds pretty bad, mp3s burned to cds don't seem like much of a downgrade. The Pro-L2 manual says something about obnoxiously loud mixes not really needing dither. Has anyone ever qualified that?
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 12, 2024 21:44:50 GMT -6
I'm surprised anyone would argue against dithering, but I've had discussions outside this site with some who feel that way. There are people out there that are vehemently against it for whatever reason. It reminds me of the same mentality of people who argue against seatbelts, helmets, safety goggles, coats, N95s, safety harnesses when climbing towers similar to the ones in the movie Fall, and well pretty much every other safety precaution. Yes, you can go on Youtube and find people who free climb things over 1000 feet tall. And there is a documentary about tower climbers and they talk about the pervasive anti-safety mentality amongst guys who climb those things for a living and get paid peanuts. Instead of demanding something above minimum wage and safer working conditions, their solution is just to free climb everything and try to fit more cell towers in their schedule. The responsible firms would go out of business as they got undercut by the guys willing to take peanuts and forego all the safety protocols. Maybe that's part of the anti-dither mentality? Save a minute or two here and there? It's beyond perplexing to me as to why someone would consider inserting a simple dither plugin to be this big problem. Ultimately, it's another bad trend contributing to the lower fidelity of modern music. I don't think it's a coincidence that music sales have decreased the more the industry has gotten away from the "we have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible" message that was on the back of seemingly every cd. Frankly, I think you're seeing things that are not there. I don't see a single person here arguing against dithering. I personally have never seen a person argue against dithering. What you're seeing is most people saying you must dither in every instance. I've pointed out that doesn't really happen at 24-bit, and doesn't need to happen at 24-bit. But certainly doesn't hurt and as general practice you might as well if convenient. But if it's inconvenient or doesn't get done, don't lose sleep because it makes no practical difference. That's hardly arguing against seat belts and safety goggles. It's more like saying you don't need a seatbelt on if you're just sitting in your car, or to wear safety goggles while eating dinner. As my post said, I was namely referring to people I've talked to outside of this site. People with really high-end, expensive stuff who have told me they just didn't see a point to it. What are you referring to when you say "it makes no practical difference"? The consensus opinion I saw here last year was that you'd apply dither before a hardware insert and when bouncing. From what I remember of Bob's older posts was that he recommended dithering after plugins that changed the bits if the plugin didn't dither itself. Guessing that applies to something like a limiter that doesn't dither on its own.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 12, 2024 16:51:08 GMT -6
I'm surprised anyone would argue against dithering, but I've had discussions outside this site with some who feel that way. There are people out there that are vehemently against it for whatever reason. It reminds me of the same mentality of people who argue against seatbelts, helmets, safety goggles, coats, N95s, safety harnesses when climbing towers similar to the ones in the movie Fall, and well pretty much every other safety precaution. Yes, you can go on Youtube and find people who free climb things over 1000 feet tall. And there is a documentary about tower climbers and they talk about the pervasive anti-safety mentality amongst guys who climb those things for a living and get paid peanuts. Instead of demanding something above minimum wage and safer working conditions, their solution is just to free climb everything and try to fit more cell towers in their schedule. The responsible firms would go out of business as they got undercut by the guys willing to take peanuts and forego all the safety protocols. Maybe that's part of the anti-dither mentality? Save a minute or two here and there? It's beyond perplexing to me as to why someone would consider inserting a simple dither plugin to be this big problem.
Ultimately, it's another bad trend contributing to the lower fidelity of modern music. I don't think it's a coincidence that music sales have decreased the more the industry has gotten away from the "we have attempted to preserve, as closely as possible" message that was on the back of seemingly every cd.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 9, 2024 19:51:39 GMT -6
If anyone here hasn't read all Bob's pioneering work about this across the forums over the years, I highly recommend you do. Wish it had been one of the first things I ever read so I wasn't always working against the distortion from not dithering. Bitter will tell you where you are at with bits if you are ever in doubt. In PT when the session is 32-bit floating point, it comes up as 32-bit. When I accidentally forget to activate a dither plugin, I'll compare the bounce or committed track to the dithered one and the dithered one is always better. One could probably make a case that dither usage is more important than adding an extra high-end piece of hardware to your chain.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 9, 2024 16:54:37 GMT -6
Download this if you haven't. I believe it was a discussion on this forum that mentioned it: www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/bitter/That's foolproof. You just insert it and it tells you how many bits you're at. If you're over the amount you want to output to a converter or a bounced file, just insert a dither plugin.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 8, 2024 9:21:57 GMT -6
I really want to check out the Wesaudio stuff. I just got a pair of NG76s and a Rhea. They sound excellent in limited testing on a previous mix, and plugin control is a beautiful thing. I'm already looking at a Titan so I can have single-cable control over Ethernet for any of their 500 series boxes, and of course, to fill the thing up! I like the sound of that. Perhaps in the next month or two I may be in a position to start a Titan. Have you been able to compare them to some other compressors? What's your take on the Zenpro Clipalator files if you've heard them?
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 8, 2024 8:07:11 GMT -6
The whole idea of optional dither is as stupid as the idea of optional tape bias would be! Almost any digital signal processing kicks the bit depth up to infinity. The distortion will always be more audible than the dither. There simply nothing to gain by not dithering. While dither can appear to have no benefit, not dithering can come back and bite you down the line. Bob, I've really appreciated all your research into dithering. It definitely does make a lot of difference. So much so that when people talk about the sound of hardware devices, I ask them if they've applied dither. The sound differences became more apparent to me the more devices were in a chain too. People who don't dither are having to base their whole style and workflow on reacting to the distortion caused by that practice as most everyone here must know already. Just something I wanted to point out for anyone reading who has never tried dither. I'm surprised UAD has never bothered with a dither plugin. The industry doesn't treat it with any importance. The best discussion on it has taken place on this board from what I remember. Digital and plugins are definitely hindered from reaching their full potential due to things like not dithering. It'd be great if Cedar came out with one. The dither in Adaptive Limiter 2 is quite good. Something where I notice the switch between 24 and 16 less than with others. Even converting something like the 24-bit file of Perhaps by Guns N Roses was iffy. Tried it with RX and the Maat in PT. I liked the 16-bit file a lot less. I'm always using the flat dither. Well, maybe that new guy's plugin will beat everything else on the market.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 8, 2024 0:36:45 GMT -6
What source can I read this in? I've read about the IMF in books like Confessions of an economic hitman. Read all sorts of CIA books. I know people can pretty much write anything because of the weak libel laws. I've actually watched hours of deposition videos of public figures who have been sued and you just see these guys crumple when the lawyers confront them with their lack of due diligence. Or they start pretending that their memory is worse than the worst Alzheimer's patient. The most hilarious is when they pretend that they don't know what an opinion is vs a statement of fact. Years ago I read some Bilderberg Group book, the Mark Dice Illuminati Facts and Fiction, something on Operation Gladio. Lots more. Since then so much has come out about factual info and disinfo. I've never really read about the WEF though and try to qualify whatever big pieces of info that I stumble upon. Here's Ace Frehley talking about AI recently: blabbermouth.net/news/ace-frehley-explains-why-he-hasnt-used-artificial-intelligence-during-songwriting-process My opinion of the WEF is based on “watch what they do, not what they say.” 1,040 private jet flights in 1 week to a meeting of people that supposedly prioritize the environment as our most dangerous & immediate threat. So, 80% of the world’s population has never flown a single time but we’re supposed to get lectured by these rich folks that do more damage in one week than most will in their lifetime(while they also fly in hookers for $2,500 a pop but I digress..,). Once proven to be a hypocrite, I have a hard time taking direction on what the ideal future looks like from them. www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/57867/hundreds-of-ultra-short-private-jet-flights-to-davos-world-economic-forum/Thanks for the Ace Frehley article. I can’t imagine how wild it has been for someone that broke into the business in the seventies to navigate what it has become now 🤯 A lot of these people probably have some sort personality disorder from the more antisocial types. So many of the powerful only care about themselves. Just a few of them could donate to a pet rescue or a kid's hospital and make a world of difference. We're talking about people where 100k is something like .2% of their net worth. Instead they go on Youtube or TV and ask their poor fans to donate. I'm always puzzled when someone famous who has famous friends starts a gofundme for a 50k medical procedure or something when their five best buddies have all made tens of millions of dollars. My IG feed is full of one pet rescue after another that struggle to raise $1500. One powerful person makes that in an hour or less. Even if they don't want to donate, they can cut 30 second videos or something. Reminds me of when I saw this Hamilton performance at the library when the musical was out. I believe it was Mrs. Hamilton who said that the poor pay what they can but the rich always stiff her. I'm not sure who writes the WEF forecasts, but it's just a forecast. It's recommending that employers, governments, and regular people all work together to tackle the issues that will arise from disruptive technologies. Seems innocuous enough. I always try to look at the message itself as opposed to relying a lot on who is giving it. Though a good leader will always try to have the moral high ground before asking stuff of others. A lot of psychopaths and sociopaths love to weasel their way into positions of power by lying. This diagnosed sociopath named Kanika divulges all her methods on Youtube. She is very insidious. But either way, I have no doubt that the powerful are gonna tell all of us to sacrifice while they hoard wealth and pollute the planet. Our society is becoming increasingly transactional and I'm always watching for that type of behavior whether it's someone like a politician or someone I've known forever. The interesting angle about technology is that eventually these people lose the monopoly on power. Nobody being in charge could seem a bit unsettling. Matt Griffin was just talking about something that would lead to the creation of artificial humans. There was that Singularity University doc made some years about where they were starting to print DNA with a laser printer I think it was. You have to wonder what sort of horrific things some sick psycho would do with tech like that. An AI would never try to replicate psychopathic behavior I'm hoping. Ace has always been into tech along with looking out for himself. Every book I've ever read about Kiss seems to paint them as four narcissists who never trusted each other. Ace and Peter were different because of the reckless and self-destructive stuff they'd get themselves into, especially the car accidents. The Into the Void book by Wendy Moore talks about Ace and his 90s tech. Apparently he had a whole computer setup very early on in the history of DAWs. Must've been 1996 or thereabouts. He'd bring it to the hotels during the tours.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 7, 2024 23:34:26 GMT -6
What's in the WEF's interest? Usually the only places I hear about the WEF are conspiracy-based sources who won't stand behind their claims whenever they are hauled into court. Whenever they talk about someone like Kurzweil, they start making things up, lie about what's in his books, etc. There's probably legit criticism out there, I just have to go looking for it. Either way, their forecast articles don't seem insidious or anything: www.weforum.org/press/2020/10/recession-and-automation-changes-our-future-of-work-but-there-are-jobs-coming-report-says-52c5162fce/I should see if there's a newer forecast. Dealing with Covid the way societies have been is not sustainable. This article seems to assume governments would still be taking mitigation measures going forward. Now with our current wave, every person who told me "covid is over" or whatever other piece of propaganda they repeated has dropped that idea. The denial may be ending. If no one can neutralize it soon, AI and robotics will have to take on a larger role out of necessity. Brauer did some videos for Puremix that I've seen some of. He was talking about the effect of Covid being that he doesn't do a lot of attended sessions anymore. It was quite interesting hearing him explain how that changed his whole method of working. Creativity is one of the skills the above article says will still be valued. Analytical thinking. Things that require the most intelligence and raw creative skill. A lot of audio work with music requires that. Post is probably a whole other ballgame. I guess it goes back to what the consumer wants. If we look at Metallica, they figured out that they didn't need to make these ultra-complicated songs and that something simpler would make more money. Then so many other similar bands followed suit. Maintaining power…wealth and control…that is what is in their interest and they will hide behind anything they can scare people with because fear is one heck of a motivator and manipulative tool. What source can I read this in? I've read about the IMF in books like Confessions of an economic hitman. Read all sorts of CIA books. I know people can pretty much write anything because of the weak libel laws. I've actually watched hours of deposition videos of public figures who have been sued and you just see these guys crumple when the lawyers confront them with their lack of due diligence. Or they start pretending that their memory is worse than the worst Alzheimer's patient. The most hilarious is when they pretend that they don't know what an opinion is vs a statement of fact. Years ago I read some Bilderberg Group book, the Mark Dice Illuminati Facts and Fiction, something on Operation Gladio. Lots more. Since then so much has come out about factual info and disinfo. I've never really read about the WEF though and try to qualify whatever big pieces of info that I stumble upon. Here's Ace Frehley talking about AI recently: blabbermouth.net/news/ace-frehley-explains-why-he-hasnt-used-artificial-intelligence-during-songwriting-process
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 7, 2024 22:27:29 GMT -6
The WEF is forcasting the future that is in their best interest and again...no thanks. What's in the WEF's interest? Usually the only places I hear about the WEF are conspiracy-based sources who won't stand behind their claims whenever they are hauled into court. Whenever they talk about someone like Kurzweil, they start making things up, lie about what's in his books, etc. There's probably legit criticism out there, I just have to go looking for it. Either way, their forecast articles don't seem insidious or anything: www.weforum.org/press/2020/10/recession-and-automation-changes-our-future-of-work-but-there-are-jobs-coming-report-says-52c5162fce/I should see if there's a newer forecast. Dealing with Covid the way societies have been is not sustainable. This article seems to assume governments would still be taking mitigation measures going forward. Now with our current wave, every person who told me "covid is over" or whatever other piece of propaganda they repeated has dropped that idea. The denial may be ending. If no one can neutralize it soon, AI and robotics will have to take on a larger role out of necessity. Brauer did some videos for Puremix that I've seen some of. He was talking about the effect of Covid being that he doesn't do a lot of attended sessions anymore. It was quite interesting hearing him explain how that changed his whole method of working. Creativity is one of the skills the above article says will still be valued. Analytical thinking. Things that require the most intelligence and raw creative skill. A lot of audio work with music requires that. Post is probably a whole other ballgame. I guess it goes back to what the consumer wants. If we look at Metallica, they figured out that they didn't need to make these ultra-complicated songs and that something simpler would make more money. Then so many other similar bands followed suit.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 7, 2024 22:07:07 GMT -6
My prior opinions posted here haven't changed. This is one of the best reverb plugins ever made in my view. Atlantis and Inspirata are the big ones for me. I use stuff like Capitol Chambers, SP2016, and Seventh Heaven Pro to supplement. Maybe I'll try to find new ways of using the SP2016 given Dan's recent comments on it.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 7, 2024 20:44:19 GMT -6
There's already at least one great dither discussion on this forum. The consensus was to dither before a hardware insert and when bouncing, right? Someone here posted about the Stillwell Bitter plugin to see how many bits you were sending out. In PT it said 32-bits. Once I put Maat Linpro in, it read 24-bit and I didn't need to insert a dither plugin in front of each hardware insert to maintain 24-bits. Sometimes I get weird feedback if I use the Maat too much, then I switch to Good dither. The Maat maintains the clarity a lot better than any other dither that I've tried. There's a guy developing a new plugin that posts on GS. I subscribe to the thread and I don't recall there being any updates in a while though.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 7, 2024 20:35:30 GMT -6
I just noticed that Matt Griffin/311 Institute now makes weekly Future News videos on Youtube. There's just too much to get into. Tech is exponential. It moves faster and the number of emerging technologies keeps growing. It's just a ton of info to keep track of and organize. Then take that and try to deduce possible timelines for maturation of various technologies. Inevitably things move too fast for us to follow and AI runs it all. Governments won't be able to just halt development. You do that and it opens the door for someone else to gain an edge. Once resource scarcity is a thing of the past, countries won't need to try and exploit each other. But until then, everyone has to participate in the AI arms race.
The big question to ask here is what are the consequences of AI for those of us engaged in audio? Loss of work, obviously. The audio world has been one of the first to lose work due to tech in the 21st century starting with Napster. I've heard automated consoles required less people in studios where previously several people had to turn knobs in real time. The DAW allowed for less personnel too, I've also read. AI seems to just be the latest development that can improve efficiency but also cut labor costs. Establishing a timeline of when AI will develop to a point where human engineers and performers are no longer needed is a good thing to focus on. But ultimately it depends on what the public is willing to pay for.
Going back to 1999, I was very surprised that people were willing to just download mp3s left and right. They didn't care that they were ripping off bands or listening to things with damaged fidelity. Streaming isn't much of an improvement. We could argue that streaming is worse because now anyone with something like $9.99 can access decades worth of music that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and a herculean effort to acquire. Previously, consumers had to just buy what was available. If their vinyl or tape wore out or if they scratched up their cds, they had to obtain new copies. A lot of the time those were not convenient to obtain. So, they just bought something that was easily obtainable instead.
Finding new music that you want to listen to can be a task in itself. I have to wade through dozens and dozens of new releases to find one thing I may want to listen to. It feels like work. Then a ton more stuff comes out before I'm tired of what I just found. Previously record labels were gatekeepers of quality and radio and MTV were gatekeepers of public exposure. If the year is 1998, I know there's a good chance I'll like something on Nuclear Blast or Century Media. In 2005, I counted on Frontiers and MTM. Now we still have Frontiers and a couple labels, but the quality is a lot less consistent and the albums less distinct. There's also all sorts of releases from less established entities. Not a lot of it is breaking new ground, at least from things I follow. If anything, the quality of the writing and engineering keeps declining. The consumer doesn't need to chase new music. Therefore, the people who would hire us are not getting paid or are paid a lot less. Audio forums are full of posts concerning reduced budgets. A lot of new artists do stuff themselves out of necessity.
Legacy artists largely don't bother recording new material. The public is willing to pay exorbitant prices to see live shows that often involve backing tracks and occasionally even lip synching. The demand seems much higher for events than recordings. Much of this demand is fueled by social media and people wanting to post pictures of themselves at these events. Advertisers keep using music from the past. I'm not sure what their attitudes are concerning use of AI to create music for their marketing plans. I could see them designing an AI song that some algorithm has told them checks all the boxes. Why pay for "Don't Stop Believin" if you can generate a song for free that yields superior results? Record companies can make new AI music, but there has to be an audience for it. We all know that if it gets to the point where labels are generating their own music that consumers being able to do it won't be far behind.
Didn't some big music names just sell the rights to their writing methods to some label or other corporation for AI usage? I know this goes on in the worlds of banking and law. GPT4 already beats 90% of people at the bar exam. People I know have been approached to be the source of algorithms that could be used to analyze data. More and more paralegal type work is being automated. Perhaps everyone in every industry should have contingency plans lined up, but that isn't even realistic. We've had a problem with lack of new industries for years, if not decades. We still have a problem with bottlenecks where the 30 and 40 year old can't advance because 70 and 80 year olds still hold top positions.
The legal questions about copyright and AI are important. It's going to get into a lot of tricky nuances. Debates about who really owns what writing methods. Debates about how unique they really are. Lady Gaga never got sued by Madonna or the writers of "Don't Turn Around" as far as I'm aware. If that's considered acceptable, then AI creations that are highly derivative are also going to have to be considered legal.
Are we trying to reach some type of consensus opinion of what course of action to take at the moment? A very worthwhile discussion, but extremely complex. Governments are very reactive as Bill has indicated above. They will have to do something with the massive automation of jobs that's around the corner. I believe it was the WEF that forecasted that something like 50% of jobs would be automated by next year.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 7, 2024 5:24:05 GMT -6
Hypothetically speaking, would you guys trade your audio career for infinite or near infinite resources, the ability to have any medical issue solved, the ability to become augmented, a cyborg, or something better, full immersion VR, and to experience things that would be more stimulating than anything we can imagine? I think most wars are over resources. They're done with a scarcity mindset. Crime is done to obtain resources or a thrill. Both crime and war will be a thing of the past at some point. We already have some basic gene editing today. Eventually that will evolve into something better than Gattaca and we can weed out antisocial disorders. Movies like that are just an exercise in thought because they only accelerate one aspect of technology and leave everything else locked into the time period it was made in. Even something like Star Wars feels like its world has limitations of 20th Century America. They've got cybernetics and light speed but people still age and drink blue milk? They don't even have cell phones..hah
Let's say AI does cause demand for audio services to drop and rates to plummet. Do we need a contingency for that? Audio won't be the only field where automation happens. Everyone can't go become a plumber, there will have to be a UBI amount that is a livable income. I think the more complex engineering and song-writing will take a lot longer to replicate than these formulaic modern pop songs. But we've already lost so much of that complex stuff because musicians either can't find band members or don't have the resources to make it. We could see a renaissance of Master of Puppets quality work at some point if there are people out there with a desire to create still. So much of our modern DAW music sounds fake and robotic as it is. AI may kill the demand for that and create demand for more complex things. That MOP kind of quality writing and engineering does not exist in modern music really. If I recall, Kurzweil forecasted that by 2070 or 2080 that currency would have no value anymore.
There's really no harm in pushing your skills and knowledge as much as possible. I think we're seeing the worst of the dog eat dog race to the bottom in audio right now. The people who are really dedicated and keep going will be the ones who stay relevant the longest. And there will probably be communities with different levels of technology. So maybe if you want to live in 1995 indefinitely, you could do that and there will just be some provision for people to get access to 2040s medical care. This isn't gonna be something where everyone's jobs are automated and we're all in breadlines begging some terminator for a weekly ration.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 6, 2024 21:13:34 GMT -6
Check out these headlines from the latest articles:
AI GETS BUSY HELPING RESEARCHERS CREATE THE FIRST SYNTHETIC BLOOD PLASMA
WALMART’S SUPPLIERS WOULD RATHER NEGOTIATE WITH AI THAN A HUMAN
THIS NEW AI TOOL FROM HEYGEN DUBS YOUR VOICE IN SEVEN LANGUAGES
IN BIZZARE TWIST SCAMMERS ARE SCAMMING SCAMMERS WITH SCAM GPT’S
THE FIRST 247 AI NEWS CHANNEL FINALLY GOES LIVE
IN A FIRST A HACKER IS DEMANDING FULL CONTROL OF A MAJOR COMPANY
There was more stuff. An Ultrasound printer printing organs inside a body. Researchers at Indiana U connected a sort of artificial cortex made from brain cells to a chip packed with electrodes and it could learn. Even beating AI at solving certain math problems. It's called Brainoware. It's looking like we're getting closer to being able to augment ourselves with cybernetics and other things to vastly increase our own abilities. There's just so much going on with emerging exponential tech. It's all connected, so it's tough to look at something like AI and think about it in solely in terms of music. Just because that's assuming music itself won't be completely reinvented with things like the DAW and stereo sound becoming archaic. Very few people could begin to really give a qualified answer as to what happens with all these emerging technologies.
I included the last headline after I read the article. There will be a need to go back and use older technologies or even methods that don't rely on any tech at all in order to keep things secure from hackers. There's really not a huge point in thinking about AI in music aside from how it integrates at the moment and whether you'd rather sell your stuff and do something else while your gear and plugins have some value. The future is really beyond our control. By the time a natural human can be considered obsolete for audio work, a big percentage of current jobs will have been automated, resources won't be as scarce, and prices should have fallen a ton on most things. Eventually AI and augmented humans will be running everything, but that's obvious enough. The average person I know outside of the Internet always tries to forecast the future based on the past. Imagine trying to forecast the future in 1924 without having any real knowledge of the emerging technologies of the time. Television technology had a lot of advances throughout that decade, but the average person of 1924 probably had no idea what was around the corner. Eventually we'll see a radical redesign of human society, much as our society today is radically different from say 1850, but this will be even bigger. I'm not really worried about AI doing something horrendous. AI isn't going to have random robots shooting up buildings or anything.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 6, 2024 2:45:35 GMT -6
I've already written a lot on the topic in other discussions here. Not much else to add. In short, hundreds of emerging technologies are about to radically change the world. Mostly for the better. Modern AI is already creating singers and songs. It will rapidly get more sophisticated. With things like the trades, we've got 3d printing and all sorts of new construction tech that will radically cut costs while increasing efficiency and quality. At the same time that jobs are automated, resources and everything else related to necessities grows in abundance. The need to work will start to drop significantly along with prices. We'll have a lot more control over our time. With studios, it will start with AI doing some basic stuff before it gets to the point where it's extracting the nonlinear qualities from hardware and tape perfectly and then allowing you to use them however you wish. You'll just tell it what to do for the most part. Like if Acustica's methods were completely accurate. I could see them adopting tech like that before the average user ends up being able to do the same thing.
There are videos on Youtube about our "on demand society". That will only grow. People with bands will be able to buy digital versions of people. You want Slash in your band, only $99 for the algorithmic audio-only version. You want the full immersion VR Slash that will interact with you as if the real Slash was there, that's $999. People will go in and jam with their AI VR fantasy bands and then record using 1:1 copies of hardware and new AI devices that are a combination of several hardware pieces, like a Pensado Eq. That's if they even want to record and mix and all instead of just having the AI spit something out. AI will also be able serve as a producer, like an AI of Bob Rock and then some new producer characters created by the AI. Like I've said before, I think human-created music will become a genre of its own. But there will come a day when no one can tell them apart. Already the songs that most heavily use AI blend in very well.
We're only one year out from 2025 and that's a big year with forecasters. 1995 had some game-changing stuff happen that most people didn't see coming.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 4, 2024 22:19:38 GMT -6
I've got enough UA to where I didn't even get anything from the last sale where it would have cost me $80 for any 2. If the newer plugins had DSP releases, I'd be more tempted. What would be better is if UA released hardware with either way more powerful DSP chips or with triple or quadruple the number of Sharcs that the Octo has but for $299 max. At this point, I'd rather get some Wesaudio pieces for a Titan over time than to buy lots more plugins. UAD lost some mystique going native, though it's good for us. It just turns UAD into another plugin company in the eyes of many. If they could also somehow break new ground in emulations by using DSP hardware that can exceed the single core capabilities of modern cpu processors, then they'd be back on the cutting edge. Still lots of ground to break.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 4, 2024 16:09:11 GMT -6
I really want to check out the Wesaudio stuff. In the Zenpro clipalator, I thought their 500 series stuff was just about as good as anything else in there. Hyperion seems like it could be up there with things like the PQ and the Buzz Req. It certainly has a lot of functionality. On the compressor side, I didn't feel like Rhea or Dione were out of their depth against the Unfairchild or SPL Iron. Prometheus also sounded tremendous. Wish they had clips using more eqs considered top of the line. Right now I just use the PA PQ since it held up so well against the Massive Passive at Access Analog. It would definitely be something if the PQ plugin and Hyperion and Prometheus end up holding their own against the real expensive stuff. There's a guy on Youtube who did a comparison with the Soma hardware and PA plugin. The hardware definitely had a bit more fullness to it, but it wasn't like compressors and saturators I've heard where the plugin is maybe 40-50% there. Eqs might be much easier to accurately model if they're reasonably clean. The Curve Bender on the other hand, is a case where the hardware is very different. A guy on Youtube added other plugins to try and match the hardware and while it got closer, it was still missing a decent amount.
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Post by viciousbliss on Dec 30, 2023 2:42:52 GMT -6
I'm curious how your opinion would change when applying dither. When I've listened to the bounced files, the differences were not subtle. The Portico II and Fusion probably provide the most opportunity for drastic changes out of anything I've tried. Which silk are you using? I think for me only the red one did anything I found useful. The compressor on it...I found it good but not sure if I'd say it's one of the best. I've only ever worked with an early serial number SH, not the modern version. Supposedly it's quite different. I'd rank it above the Manley Vari-Mus on AA and in line with the Alpha or the Stamchild MKII. Eventually we'll be able to use AA's Alpha without having to pay for the whole Magic Garden. That will be interesting. Getting back to the Fusion, I usually use it without Vintage Drive on. VD is not bad, I just don't feel like I need it. The way you set the Violet eq matters a lot. For the longest time I had been doing 30hz and 20khz. Lately it's been 50hz and 20khz. We'll see if I keep it there. Space I usually set at the first dot and put Width just below +2. With the HFC I usually have the not to far off from the far left position and the x-over set a little above 14k. Transformer I usually leave on because of the energy it gives. When it comes to the HPF, it's something I experiment with occasionally. Fusion is usually the first thing I'll have in a chain. Ah that's very interesting. I didn't mess with the fusion for too long on there because as you know, it costs money haha, and I was getting some really great sounds out of the Neve stuff. I'm sure if I had spent more time with it, I would've found a nice sweet spot on the drive. Overall, my quick impression was that any knob I messed with on the MBT just sounded good and did something musical, whereas when I played around with the fusion it felt like I could make it sound cool, but it took a lot longer to dial something in. Again, just my first impression. For the MBP, I used one of their presets and just fiddled with the attack and release a bit, added BLUE silk, and it made my mix immediately pop out of the screen like HD. It was like I was swimming in the rhythm all of the sudden. Maybe there are ways to make other compressors sound like that, but I haven't heard them. The blue silk added a crazy low end that wasn't even present in the track beforehand, I found it to be very pleasing to the ears. I did try the V9 Manley Comp too, which sounded very gluey like it made everything seem very soft in a pleasing way. It didn't quite give me that musicality and character that I found in the Neves, but that could also be because I only played with it for about 10 minutes. Have you decided what converter you're going to use long term? I'm not sure why exactly, but the same file I ran through Access Analog when checking out the Fusion last year sounded much cleaner when run through my Fusion and Aurora N with the same settings. Their Fusion was also hooked up to an Aurora N. Things sounded much cleaner on my equipment. Someone tried to scam me by selling me a "mint" broken Black Box and it too sounded a little different, cleaner as well maybe. The main tubes still worked but the alt tubes didn't, meters were busted and falling inside the case, one of the tube casings was loose inside, the air button was broken, and they had taken screws off the top and not put them back in. But I returned it before Klarna could charge me since the guy didn't want to cover the repair costs and nor did he have any insurance. Then he tried to tell Ebay that I broke it. But all our messages pointed to the opposite. I even told this guy to pack it with heavy padding in a heavy duty box. Instead he shipped it in a flimsy used box with no padding with the Black Box upside down. You have to really watch for scammers selling you broken stuff on Reverb and Ebay. Luckily I have Deltronics near me and they've been able to fix stuff. I had them talking to Josh at Stam about doing repairs. That could be helpful for Stam owners. All these pieces have a learning curve. They all have different chemistry with different devices. The Portico II can maybe do the most of the multi-function devices. You could probably just use that and plugins to get a good sound. It'd be good if someone with a WesAudio chain could run some stuff through it for you. Used Portico IIs are around $3500 last I checked. You could get a Titan with a couple things for that. At Access Analog, I preferred the Culture Vulture 15 over the Black Box. It was better at keeping your balance intact. But you couldn't do a lot with it before it was too much. Their SPL Vitalizer is quite good. Silver Bullet was really nice. The saturation from the Cranesong Hedd really makes that Magic Garden chain come to life. The free Daking comp is good as well but the thing has always been in use every time I've wanted to use it this year. There's still a lot that they have which I haven't tried. When I do try things, I'll do a 15-20 second snippet of a song. The only way to feasibly use Access Analog routinely is to get one of their unlimited subscriptions. They have one for $34.99 where you can use the Porticos unlimited. Eventually those will end up being occupied as much as the Daking I bet.
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