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> So, guitars are on some axis more expressive than Pd, and less expensive; while analog synths are, in my view, less expressive than Pd, and more expensive. Y

by louthy 11y ago

> So, guitars are on some axis more expressive than Pd, and less expensive; while analog synths are, in my view, less expressive than Pd, and more expensive. Your arguments are quite aggressive in my humble opinion. Clearly those of us who are arguing from the point-of-view of experience are all entirely incorrect, and we should dump our synths because we can't possibly be expressive with them? We all find our own preferred route to music composition - nobody is right or wrong, music is such an emotional pursuit that once you find something that works for you, do it. I also play the guitar (and I own three of them), but I much prefer the direct nature of being able to generate new sounds on my synths and interact with them live. And although there are many very impressive software based music applications, they all work from the premise of approximating infinite sound-waves. There will always be artificats, no matter the resolution. Then there's the 'real world' effects on sound in analogue machines: heat, resistance, interference, impurities... these give the lauded analogue machines their 'character', and that is what the human ear likes. There are myriad attempts at digital emulation of that character; some are very close, some close enough that you couldn't tell in a blind test, a lot are miles apart, especially when it comes to synth emulation (rather than outboard effects and mixing desks). I use a DSP from Universal Audio [1] that emulates a lot of outboard effects units and class channel-strips, and mostly they're very good, some are exact. I think most people using analogue hardware knows that digital is improving at a very fast rate. However the improvements are primarily from trying to attempt to emulate classic analogue gear. > Your digital keyboard will probably sound a lot better than your upright piano if you get a good set of samples for it and reasonable speakers and headphones. How can any emulation sound better than the real thing? Surely the real thing sounds as close to itself as it can be? [1] http://www.uaudio.com/store.html http://www.uaudio.com/store.html

kragen 11y ago
I'm sorry that my arguments were aggressive. I didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings. And, on the contrary, I've learned a lot that I didn't know from reading this thread — not that you'd know it from reading my participation in it! > all work from the premise of approximating infinite sound-waves. There will always be artifacts, no matter the resolution. I think this argument is kind of a red herring, and it leads to people dismissing analog enthusiasts as ignorant. With 24/192, the sampling artifacts are well below the level of Brownian noise from individual oxygen molecules bouncing off your eardrums at all frequencies up to three octaves above your hearing range (and nearly an octave above dogs' hearing range). Whatever artifacts you're hearing are coming from the analog part of your digital equipment, not from the digital approximation. You can do the math and verify this yourself. The much more interesting part of the discussion for me has been about the other aspects of the subjective experience that people have brought up: of modules that you "can't get a bad sound out of", of the wabi-sabi beauty of slight unpredictability, of the continuity and low latency of analog-synth responsiveness, and of the destructiveness of the misguided application of Macintosh user interface guidelines in realms where they really, really don't work. I wrote: > Your digital keyboard will probably sound a lot better than your upright piano if you get a good set of samples for it and reasonable speakers and headphones. And you quite reasonably asked: > How can any emulation sound better than the real thing? Surely the real thing sounds as close to itself as it can be? Well, yeah, if you load your digital keyboard with upright-piano samples, it won't sound any better than the upright piano. But upright pianos sound kind of terrible, especially down in the bottom octave and a half where they're almost missing the fundamental. Instead, you can load in a sample set from a Steinway concert grand. Maybe, with some digital waveguide synthesis, you can even simulate the change in tonality as the piano warms up. (My own poor attempts at digital waveguide synthesis of piano sound always come out sounding like, at best, a twelve-string guitar. But in DSP I'm just a dabbler, and there are people who dedicate their lives to this stuff.)

by louthy 11y ago

kragen 11y ago

I'm sorry that my arguments were aggressive. I didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings. And, on the contrary, I've learned a lot that I didn't know from reading this thread — not that you'd know it from reading my participation in it! > all work from the premise of approximating infinite sound-waves. There will always be artifacts, no matter the resolution. I think this argument is kind of a red herring, and it leads to people dismissing analog enthusiasts as ignorant. With 24/192, the sampling artifacts are well below the level of Brownian noise from individual oxygen molecules bouncing off your eardrums at all frequencies up to three octaves above your hearing range (and nearly an octave above dogs' hearing range). Whatever artifacts you're hearing are coming from the analog part of your digital equipment, not from the digital approximation. You can do the math and verify this yourself. The much more interesting part of the discussion for me has been about the other aspects of the subjective experience that people have brought up: of modules that you "can't get a bad sound out of", of the wabi-sabi beauty of slight unpredictability, of the continuity and low latency of analog-synth responsiveness, and of the destructiveness of the misguided application of Macintosh user interface guidelines in realms where they really, really don't work. I wrote: > Your digital keyboard will probably sound a lot better than your upright piano if you get a good set of samples for it and reasonable speakers and headphones. And you quite reasonably asked: > How can any emulation sound better than the real thing? Surely the real thing sounds as close to itself as it can be? Well, yeah, if you load your digital keyboard with upright-piano samples, it won't sound any better than the upright piano. But upright pianos sound kind of terrible, especially down in the bottom octave and a half where they're almost missing the fundamental. Instead, you can load in a sample set from a Steinway concert grand. Maybe, with some digital waveguide synthesis, you can even simulate the change in tonality as the piano warms up. (My own poor attempts at digital waveguide synthesis of piano sound always come out sounding like, at best, a twelve-string guitar. But in DSP I'm just a dabbler, and there are people who dedicate their lives to this stuff.)