Analogue sounds warmer

[3phase]

you use live on 48 k? ok... i see that you guys dont worry about sound quality.. because ableton live sounds so much better on 96 k...

it´s the one applikation on the market that benefits the most on 96k... ok..reason benefits a lot aswell...


this applies on projekts that use warping and ableton internal plug ins a lot...


with logic and waves plug ins there is only a little gain in a higher samplerate.. but ableton live with internal plugs.. its like removen the toilet paper from your ns 10 !!!

you fanboy guys are really funny in a way.. explaining why analog gear is just a belive system but dont even know theire own daw...


the gains with ableton live are so big that on projekts that use warping you can record in 44/48 and switch up to 88/96 for mixdown later... the result will still be much better than on 44/48.. of cause recording straight in 88/96 avoids unnecessary samplerate conversions an is even better so.

Than you give that 96/88 file an analog mastering and like mr Henke you really can say that Ableton live is sounding fine...

OK, so this is interesting.

I can't run at 88/96 cos of the fact I have maxed out my system already on a few projects I am working on, however, I could change over to 88/96 before rendering and you reckon that will give me a much better sounding mix?

I shall try this tonight. I have several tracks in each project that have used the stretch pro algo and quite a few that use the delay plug and a few others (do the ableton internal fx not all run at 96K anyway though?). . .

i dont know how higher rates effekt the stretch pro.. they defently work great on beat warp.. and plugs like the compressor sound way better
there was/is a bug in the sidechain eq´s ableton never has confirmed..so its probably not fixed yet..so offline renderings might be critical in certain cases because you dont get when something goes wrong..

Some people say that certain plugs work in a better quality during rendering.. hope that is not really the case because i dont like to use offline renderings with ableton live anymore.. And it would be clearly against the "what you hear is what you get" philosophy any daw should follow..

[tw1nstates]

interesting that link to SOS.

Just to be clear, i wasn't saying that analogue is all bad (I have got some pretty trick analogue gear) just that there is so much disinformation around.

And, I would disagree with the poster that said earlier in this thread that everything has been said on this topic already. I have found some interesting new stuff to go and try out (sample rates) plus even the header for the SOS article was pretty interesting cos it talks about sidebanding being a big part of the analogue tape sound (plus it getting more prevalent as the 0s wore on due to greater use of multitracking). And that thus far isn't something that has been modeled.

I remember a while back someone was posting that the majority of digital eq's are essentially the same bar the curves and gan structure (some don't boost 1db where they claim to - they might boost 0.75 or 1.1 or whatever).

Anyway I think all of this information is useful as it helps to understand the medium you are working with and all this analogue sounds better bullshit that comes from marketing hype and a few ill informed producers can sometimes be counter productive. .

Yes of course or primary goal should be to make music (I use this forum when not doing so though) but I think it's good to increase our knowledge of what we are doing and understand how what we use works as best we can. .

[tw1nstates]

I would always use offline render - this is why:

I notice when i have a heavily loaded session there is low level distortion - I think due to transient information and / or sequencing information being messed up. It's like a mini version of the stutter / brr noises you get when your system is overloading. Its round when my system is at it's limit but not quite - i..e if I put elephant on the master and engage it ill get little brrrs and what knot - if not the stereo information, clarity of the mix and transiten info can get a bit messed up.

This might be because I use 2 x uad cards in my rig as well. Don't know

So, for that reason alone - that it's not just immediately noticeable stuff Id go with the laboriously slow offline render for the highest audio quality. Especially if I can convert over to 96K!

What about bounced stuff, if you freeze a track, then flatten, should that be done at 96khz? I.e. change up to 96 khz, freeze, flatten then change down again. Does that matter? I guess if you have fx on the track then it does, I am guessing that this process (change sample rate) should be done prior to freezing. . .

[3phase]

interesting that link to SOS.

Just to be clear, i wasn't saying that analogue is all bad (I have got some pretty trick analogue gear) just that there is so much disinformation around.

And, I would disagree with the poster that said earlier in this thread that everything has been said on this topic already. I have found some interesting new stuff to go and try out (sample rates) plus even the header for the SOS article was pretty interesting cos it talks about sidebanding being a big part of the analogue tape sound (plus it getting more prevalent as the 0s wore on due to greater use of multitracking). And that thus far isn't something that has been modeled.

I remember a while back someone was posting that the majority of digital eq's are essentially the same bar the curves and gan structure (some don't boost 1db where they claim to - they might boost 0.75 or 1.1 or whatever).

Anyway I think all of this information is useful as it helps to understand the medium you are working with and all this analogue sounds better bullshit that comes from marketing hype and a few ill informed producers can sometimes be counter productive. .

Yes of course or primary goal should be to make music (I use this forum when not doing so though) but I think it's good to increase our knowledge of what we are doing and understand how what we use works as best we can. .

things like that are rather impossible to model because digital is really bad regarding time modulations..at least at the samplerates we are on today...

Abeltons warping engine is time modulation.. you see what happens to teh sound even with smallest derivations..

what is sounding nice with a tapemachine is sounding horrible on a digital system .. digital has to be as stiff timing wise as possible to sound good.. and permanent samplerate conversion dont really helps the sound as ableton users can experiance every day..emulating wow and flutter is nothing else than a permanent samplerate conversion..

Actually that stiff timing well can be part of the game... within analoge systems there are time modulations.. very minimal.. much smaller than the distance between 2 samples..

Thats actually why analog circuits are much closer to the natural mixing of sounds in the media air...

soundwaves are not transmitted like laserbeams that cut thru the air... they are actually waves.. they have to do theire snakedance with the molecules and interact with the other waves that are within the media.. a complex subtile cross modulation..even tempratur effekts the speed of transmission and therfore the sound...

does that sound rather analoge or rather digital?

[3dot...]

it's all about resolution...the better the resolution...better representation of the sound...
better timestretch... because more samples are used per time unit
..tough crowd here...always..

not too long ago people were recording albums in 12bit (volume) resolution...
samplers had pcm encoded in 22Khz...
sounded nice enough at the time... (I'm guessing...)

the redbook draft was released by Sony in 1980...
while the laws of physics haven't changed since then...computing power has

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Book_% ... tandard%29

it's obvious that the representation of wavelengths/pressures in today's standards is flawed and arcane..compared to our analog universe version of it

some people will argue that you don't need more quality than an mp3...or other lossy formats..
I for one disagree..
it's my opinion that the 16bit 44Khz resolution recordings.. is already a lossy format..
it caught on because it's mostly undetectable by the 'naked' ear..
and because we tend to prefer comfort over quality.. (small format vs. recording resolution)
this is also the reason why mp3 killed the cd industry..(the 'size' of it)
this is also what made the homestudio butcher the recording industry...
the comfort of home vs. the quality of a perfect signal chain and a huge microphone/preamp collection..

so you can stay with your mouse and cds..
while we go on to more natural human interfaces ...
and more natural recording of reality...

I'm daydreaming about an digital format that will record/playback all the things that affect sound..
(like variable temperture to variable play speeds....infrasonics as well as ultrasonics ..
etc.. and a better spacial representation than stereo...)
in short.. better representation of moving air molecules...

all these things are quite possible .. but like TD said.. less marketable..
and the market is usually what's holding us back..
it paces us...

I'm only daydreaming TD... no reason to get upset..
I'm too broke for analog..

[davepermen]

no, for storage and playback the 44.1khz / 48khz IS enough. when played back on a high quality system, it will create all the sounds that your ear can interpret. all of them. that's like saying you need fullhd 1920x1080 on a smartphone with 3" screensize. you don't see the pixels anyways, your eye blurs the high frequency signals. your ears do, too.

it's only when in any form reprocessed, that you can't ever have enough signal detail (there are limits like 2x the signal detail allows for 2x stretching, and similar.. and there's more involved for non factor2 stretches, see my picture above).

depends of course, too, how good or bad the actual resolution converters do their job. if you resize an image, f.e., you can chose block filtering, bilinear, trilinear, and many more options exist. all with different ways of "filling the voids". and there are those that 'intelligently upscale' by creating additional data based on some heuristics. i think there's a time stretch algo that does exactly that, too. it allows you to stretch some milliseconds to minutes.

[3dot...]

^^^ I understand your analogy (hehe)...and points
but ..it's not what I meant.. I know 44/48 is sufficient to store the audible freqs..
it will record the 'effects' of infra/ultra on the audible freqs in a tone,,,
so..I'm not disagreeing..or arguing

what I'm saying is that there are more "receptors "in the human body apart from the ears...
and the "picture" being taken of the waves in a current time are flawed..
although sufficient for our 3" screen(our ears)...

[davepermen]

that goes into the range of paranormal hearings i don't believe it. you can. i've seen no prove and no disprove, so it's a personal choice what to believe in. i know the ears can't detect more, and that can be tested. i haven't seen any other part of the body reacting to higher frequency signals, nor have i noticed something.

one thing, though, that i know is important (and still noticable), is how the digital signal gets converted. an exact 22.05khz signal could be a perfect sinewave, squarewave, triangle. what does the converter create? most likely something sine-style (it's the least energy consuming thing), but what if not? that's hearable. for a 11khz signal, one still has only 4 steps to represent the period. that is not much information, and thus can be converted in quite some ways, and this happens in a quite audible range.

so again, the more, the better.

here's a pic of some dots and different ways to interpolate. they would sure not sound identical on the speakers.

[anybody human]

While I agree that plugins like Soundtoys & Waves signature series yield great results, there's still a noticeable difference to me. Depends on how nice the hardware is though. A friend recently got a bunch of Shadow Hills Audio stuff, ridiculous. As nice as Cytomics the Glue & Waves SSL are, and they're fantastic, they still don't hold a candle to Shadow Hills Dual Vandergraph stereo bus compressor. I've never heard anything like it. There's a reason people covet hardware, in a word, tranformers. I still use my soft synths but not near as much since I got a Tetra a while back. And amp sims don't even register compared to my Matchless DC30. I've sworn off software except for updates/upgrades for the timebeing. Nowadays the plugins are excellent so it's nice to have both in combination but in no way would I say analogue hardware is overrated. Quite the opposite.

[davepermen]

should digital be identical to analogue? no. but as digital in a lot of other situations has shown, it should be better. or should be possible to be better. and while this is true, some never believe it. and they bring up their analogue devices as not having a 100% replacement as a reason. guess what, there is NO analogue synth that sounds like operator. NONE. guess what, your points of "no digital synth sounds like an analogue one" is mood.

that doesn't judge per se an analogue or a digital device. if it sounds cool it sounds cool, no matter what tech. but it does judge how much people actually understand their own arguments.

for having more artifact free audio editing and manipulating, digital wins. and it still provides the option to feed trough analogue later to add "warmth".

[Angstrom]

an exact 22.05khz signal could be a perfect sinewave, squarewave, triangle. what does the converter create? most likely something sine-style

Hi Dave, that is misleading as each of those different waveshapes is that shape because of the partials, or harmonics of the fundamental. So a even if there was a triangle at 22khz I doubt there is a human alive who could recognize it as such - and converting that to a sine is totally valid. here's why:

A pure sine wave of 22khz has no harmonics above it, and this defines it as a sine.
A triangle wave contains the odd numbered harmonics (1,3,5,7,9, etc) so a triangle at 100hz has partials at 300hz, 500hz,700hz, etc.
While a 22khz triangle would have harmonics at 66khz, 110kz, 1554khz, etc ...

So you can see that if we were to be able to recognize a high pitched triangle wave as a triangle we would need to be able to discern its high pitched harmonics to do so.

It would require some exceptional hearing to tell a sine from a square from a triangle once they approach the upper limits of human hearing. Unless you can hear 66khz (the first partial)
We humans need at least 3 partials to get the clues. My own hearing only reaches 17khz so I can only recognize a triangle if its fundamental is below 5khz !

[davepermen]

hm right..

anyways, my point still stands, and still looks like it's one of the unhearable points (except when time stretched, that is)

it's a fun thing all of that

[3dot...]

hehe...yep that's why I said 'belief' / opinion...
I've said straight off that my opinion is a bit coo coo...
it's new age crap most of y'all probly resent...

something to do with the live spiritual "essence" of music vs the coldness/order in a digital recording..(with no added processing)
in an essay I've just read.. (would've sent it to y'all if it weren't all in Hebrew...)
it argued that digital reproduction of sound does not have the same connection to the 'metaphysical' world..
and therefor is like a painting of an object.. without it's lighting/shadows..
sounding correct to the human ear.. but hardly correct represintation of "nature"
he also argued that the subconscious picks up on these un-audio freqs.. through vibrations of teeth and bone and other body parts..

I didn't take this for 'fact' ...(I'm pretty fine with 44-96Khz is more than enough..)
but it got me thinking/observing...that the laws of harmony/tonality don't stop at the human hearing range... and more content is available when producing a note from an instrument... all that's not being recorded...
that's all



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanoreceptor

[davepermen]

one could make the test and generate a 22khz sine wave, and a 22khz square wave, and check if a) 3dot hears or feels anything at all, and b) if he can determine if it's a sine or a square

3dot, ready for getting asked "is something on now, or not, and if on, what is it?" over days? at random places and random intervals?

[3dot...]

I agree that I can't.. !
but that wasn't my argument to begin with