define "warm"

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
radib
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Post by radib » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:09 pm

"harmonics", what a waste. its not about melody, but dense of/and specific frequencies.
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"after all it wouldn´t have been possible without the impossible."

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:27 pm

Contra wrote:
leisuremuffin wrote:
Contra wrote: problem is digital is still odd numbered harmonics.

pz

Huh?



.lm.
do the research.
or gimme til later on ill give a direct quote.
On point Contra!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_s ... 28music%29

Even harmonics are octaves above the fundamental frequency, they're the same note but played in higher octaves. The fundamental frequency being the main frequency or think of it as the note in question. Odd harmonics are going to add frequencies (notes) different than the fundamental.

Strike a guitar string at the 12th fret, you're dividing the string physically in half, forcing the 2nd harmonic to be played, as opposed to the 7th fret harmonic which is the 5th harmonic (if i remember right.)

The 3rd harmonic is a perfect 5th above the fundamental, so that helps enforce the fundamental by playing off it (think modes). A perfect 5th goes GREAT with the fundamental, like a power chord. Anyway, other odd numbered harmonics are going to add notes atonal to the fundamental, while the even harmonics are going to repeat the fundamental, just octaves higher.

Contra
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Post by Contra » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:49 pm

radib wrote:"harmonics", what a waste. its not about melody, but dense of/and specific frequencies.
exactly that.

Quoted from pg 81 of Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook:

"NOTE: The human ear tends to find odd-order harmonics (i.e. 3rd, 5th, 7th etc.) more objectionable than even order harmonics ( i.e. 2nd, 4th, 6th). "

now i need to find the source to show that analog is a source with even ordered harmonics (naturally earpleasing, which is why people like it more.) and digital odd ordered harmonics.

digital media is soon little by little reaching the point of being able to acheive recording as even ordered harmonics.

ok to make sense of this babble,
you say you like warm sounds which are generally and obviously originated from analog sources. well your ears dont translate it that way or your brain, they like it because of the whole even ordered harmonics thing, now your mouth just chose to be artistic rather than scientific and say "damn that shit's "warm" i like it, ima call it warm instead of (in robot voice) even ordered harmonics."

the human brain wont evenn fathom that shit, just the simple yo thats warm and sounds good, unless you learn about harmonics and harmonic distortion then it makes more sense as to the "why" you like warm and not "just becuz"

pz

leisuremuffin
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Post by leisuremuffin » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:14 pm

i'm not saying "huh?" to the idea of harmonic distortion, or harmonics in general. I'm familiar with that. i'm saying "huh?" to the idea that digital introduces odd harmonics. as far as i understand, digital recording is tabula rasa until you pass the nyquist freq. or make it clip. I've been wrong before though... once or twice.


.lm.
TimeableFloat ???S?e?n?d?I?n?f?o

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:23 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:i'm not saying "huh?" to the idea of harmonic distortion, or even harmonics in general. I'm familiar with that. i'm saying "huh?" to the idea that digital introduces odd harmonics. as far as i understand, digital recording is tabula rasa until you pass the nyquist freq. or make it clip. I've been wrong before though... once or twice.


.lm.
Digital is going to produce more harmonics in general, even and odd. It's been 15 years since I studied the details in school, but some DSP calculations are more prone to even or odd harmonics, I forget anymore.

Anytime there's a sharp edge in a waveform, like the corners on a square wave, there's high frequency components invovled, high frequencies are needed to 'draw' sharp details in waveforms.

Those high frequencies are going to be harmonics of the fundamental, both the fundamental and these higher frequencies are periodic, right? So it goes without saying that their frequencies are going to be related to each other, multiples of each other, or harmonics.

The digitising/quantising in digital calculations creates those sharp edges resulting in harmonic distortion.

Contra
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Post by Contra » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:30 pm

tone deft here at bank of america we say greetings and salutations!!!

good job chap and you too mister leisure muffin and your nyquist theorem and your fuckin anti aliasing!!!!

lol

man we're acting like geeks, lets tone it down a bit before we get ink all over our pocket protectors.

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:35 pm

Image
GEEKS RULE!!

Contra
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Post by Contra » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:18 pm

Tone Deft wrote:Image
GEEKS RULE!!

lol.

dancerchris
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Post by dancerchris » Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:56 pm

Generally it is believed that it is Solid State that produces odd ordered harmonic distortion. The argument about solid state vs. tube ensued. Tube amplification produced even order harmanics. What most of the crowd often didn't realize was that SS is significantly lower in harmonic distortion than an equivalent tube and so it is in actuallity close to being devoid of harmonics (including the undesirable odd ones). That's when the audio intelligentsia started calling it cold, for it's very lack of the even order harmonics (aka distortion). To be fair SS is cleaner and more true to the original signal. Digital shares similarities to SS in that it is very clean (when done to today's standards). Many people have made a fortune on introducing (digitally) even order harmonic distortion. But it is still not as good as real tube distortion. Back to topic "warmth" is "pleasing" distortion of the signal.

Okay, I'm done uberdorking.
Live 8.4.2 / Win 8 Pro 64 bit / Core 2 Quad 2.66 GHZ / 8 Gb ram
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Shoma
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Post by Shoma » Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:16 am

8.warm -- (psychologically warm; friendly and responsive; ``a warm greeting"; "a warm personality"; "warm support'' )


So, no matter what kind of sound that is, if you like it, it is warm

Tone Deft
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Post by Tone Deft » Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:19 am

dancerchris wrote:Generally it is believed that it is Solid State that produces odd ordered harmonic distortion. The argument about solid state vs. tube ensued. Tube amplification produced even order harmanics. What most of the crowd often didn't realize was that SS is significantly lower in harmonic distortion than an equivalent tube and so it is in actuallity close to being devoid of harmonics (including the undesirable odd ones). That's when the audio intelligentsia started calling it cold, for it's very lack of the even order harmonics (aka distortion). To be fair SS is cleaner and more true to the original signal. Digital shares similarities to SS in that it is very clean (when done to today's standards). Many people have made a fortune on introducing (digitally) even order harmonic distortion. But it is still not as good as real tube distortion. Back to topic "warmth" is "pleasing" distortion of the signal.

Okay, I'm done uberdorking.
Hey Chris, me again, your asshole shadow here to disagree with you.

Vacuum tubes are 'cleaner' amplifiers because their gain curve more closely resembles a straight line, whereas a transistor's gain curve is more non-linear also meaning that they have a narrower range of usable input.


Transistor gain curve:
Image
See where the plot goes vertical?? It's not a straight line, so you don't get a constant gain across every amplitude. IOW An input of 1 is going to be amplified more than an input of 1.1.

Vacuum tube gain curve:
Image
These lines are much straighter, so you get a more true amplification.

The reason for all this are impurities inside each device. Solid state is a chunk of silicon which will always have impurities, vacuume tubes are mostly devoid of ANY substances inside them, so they have more idealistic characterisitics, there aren't any impurities to make the math get all funky.


I don't know about which gives odd or even harmonics, do you have a source on that?

Bass players do prefer solid state amps though, don't remember why.

ANY GUITAR PLAYER THAT HAS OWNED BOTH SS AND TUBE WILL TELL YOU TUBES SOUND MUCH BETTER THAN SOLID STATE

knotkranky
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Post by knotkranky » Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:09 am

Digital recording and playback does not add harmonic distortion. Except as lm pointed out,
the top end nyquist filter distortion which is basically inaudible by all accounts.

If you want pleasing warm harmonic distortion in your recordings, then record them.

btw, i've heard plenty of analog tape and tube gear mixes that sounded harsh, brittle and cold,
and I've also heard plenty of digital recordings/mixes sound warm and lush.

Also relevant are the arrangement and tone choices, key, tempo, chord voicing etc.
Not playing the top root note in your inversions will make it warmer.


.

Angstrom
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Post by Angstrom » Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:17 am

important to add that digital signal processing can add aliasing.

it doesn't have to be badly programmed, it may be intentional - but it's important to know that it is possible.

stuff like waveshaping normally has bandlimiting, but who programmed that bandlimiting? .. better hope it wasn't me ! (for instance)

Also - fm is great at producing aliasing, ring mod can do it, all sorts of samplerate modulations. modulate your filter freq by your oscillators? etc.

ethios4
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Post by ethios4 » Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:29 am

To me, a big part of 'warmth' is how the dynamics of the sounds operates...not just the quality of the distortion, but how the signal distorts as the gain is increased...subtle tonal variations as the gain fluctuates.

knotkranky
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Post by knotkranky » Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:29 am

Angstrom wrote:important to add that digital signal processing can add aliasing.

it doesn't have to be badly programmed, it may be intentional - but it's important to know that it is possible.

stuff like waveshaping normally has bandlimiting, but who programmed that bandlimiting? .. better hope it wasn't me ! (for instance)

Also - fm is great at producing aliasing, ring mod can do it, all sorts of samplerate modulations. modulate your filter freq by your oscillators? etc.
Yeah, exactly right. Thats where a lot of mixes and said programming go south unless that's what were looking for.
Yup, aliasing, jitter, severe eq, phase shifts, poor gaining etc. Tons of places to pick up nasty harmonics if not careful.
Then it's gonna hit underpowered amps, with crappy speakers, earbuds or a poorly tuned p.a.

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