5 ms·

One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason. Yes, everyt

by dcwca 10y ago

One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason. Yes, everything this machine can do can be done in a laptop. Sure there are small differences related to audio signal paths and headroom and distortion, but for the most part those can be simulated or ignored. The big reason working with hardware like this produces unique results is more about the layout and workflow than the tech inside the machine. The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make choices. Forces your hand, literally. The sound is in the physical design. Another example is the MPC sampler, which has a workflow that can be heard in hip hop music. Of course software samplers can do everything the MPC can do, and more, but you can hear the signature sound of someone working on an MPC.

riprowan 10y ago
> The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make choices. Forces your hand, literally. You raise an excellent point here. A full-blown DAW is practically without limits: hundreds of tracks, unlimited effects on every track, any signal chain is possible. But making art is about working within constraints. Most of the best art derives from the constraints as much - or more - as the capabilities of the devices or instruments used. However there is a technical reason why these devices do sound different, and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A sense of "depth of field" may be imparted. Technically speaking this is all "distortion" of the original signal.
- dcwca 10y ago
  > However there is a technical reason why these devices do sound different, and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A sense of "depth of field" may be imparted. Digital advocates are quick to point out that all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box. We have convolution reverbs and tube amp models and emulation that can be scientifically proven to match the analog gear. By point is, you _can_ do all that, but will you? You have a world of possibilities, and so the likelihood when working with a digital / software workflow is that you'll stick to the relative strengths of that setup. Another thing to note about the hardware console interface is the nature of a classic design. Consoles like the Neve or SSL are familiar to engineers, they are instruments with a hand feel. A recording or mixing engineer can go into a studio and get similar results from similar gear. The listeners ear can pick up a je ne cest pas familiarity from it, what you call "good sound" in another comment, without quote knowing what they're hearing. The same way the Telecaster just "sounds good". It's not better, it's just familiar. Digital workstations are all different and don't achieve the same familiar sound.
  - riprowan 10y ago
    > all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box Nope. How you gonna model the interaction between a microphone and the preamp load it's driving, and the compressor that's driving, and the EQ it's driving, and the nonlinear summing bus that's feeding, when all of these are interacting in a live signal chain, and all entering various forms of nonlinear behavior based on the age of components, their tolerances which vary from box to box, heat, etc? It might be theoretically possible, but past a certain point, to model these devices requires modeling physics at the materials level. In point of fact most digital "simulations" of these sorts of devices are not simulations at all, but approximations that impart similar EQ, dynamics, and harmonic distortion. I'm a dev by trade, been doing audio for decades too. I used to believe this was all modellable too. I think there's a tendency for people who are strong in digital signal processing but naive to what these devices are really doing to the signal to be overconfident in our ability to simulate them in realtime. You can definitely achieve a reasonable facsimile! But if you want the sound of this console then you're going to have to make one or buy one.
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      This is all true, but there's a point beyond which it stops being musically/artistically relevant. I've probably been doing this stuff as long as you have, and I'm not actually sure where that point is any more. I actually hate the sound of most of the Beatles albums. I think they sound crap by modern standards - tinny, rattly, clogged-up, mid-heavy mixes with no deep bass. Put them up against a modern trance single mixed ITB and the latter sounds huge, dynamic, cinematic, and infinitely more polished. Which is better? It depends... The Pink Floyd albums hit a sweet spot by being musically ground breaking while also being the first examples of hifi multitrack recording in its modern form. Now I tend to think ITB is fine for electronica and dance, because sometimes you want polish and a slightly unreal shine. But for rock, country and maybe even hiphop the older hardware is going to give you more character, bite, and depth. Ultimately they're just colours you can use. If you have talent, it doesn't matter if you mix ITB or not. If you don't, it doesn't matter either.
      - 10y ago
- al2o3cr 10y ago
  Technically speaking this is all "distortion" of the original signal. Not really - if it was "distortion" you could MEASURE it with an oscilloscope. There's another, less polite, word for most of those comparisons.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    If you want to measure it, an oscilloscope is the wrong tool. You can see it - very clearly - using a lab-quality audio signal analyser from a company like Audio Precision. https://www.ap.com/ https://www.ap.com/ And a popular way to model it is with a DSP technique called a Volterra series. You may want to consider that impolite words are also used about people who consider themselves very knowledgeable about domains where they show no evidence of understanding the fundamentals.
quakeguy 10y ago
Hmm, that "forcing your hand" to do something is a point i maybe have underestimated. I'll adjust my judgement, thank you for your answer!
SwellJoe 10y ago
I don't believe it's any of those things. Though, certainly the ergonomics of a traditional studio, and the equipment therein, works best for engineers who learned in those environments and using those tools. Those engineers happen to be the most experienced engineers working, so they are probably, on average, better than most younger engineers with much less experience. However, the reason some of the classic records sound amazing today is because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, in a time when hundreds of thousands of dollars was a lot of money. This is reflected in the rooms where they recorded. The quality of the studio itself is every bit as important, maybe even more important, than the equipment within it. When recording live musicians, a bad room literally cannot be overcome with good equipment. And, thus, simulating a great room with equipment is harder than simulating a great console, or a great EQ, or a great compressor. Digitally removing the room "badness" and putting in "goodness" isn't something that people have even really tried. Records made at Abbey Road studios sounded great because the room sounded great, the microphones sounded great, the board sounded great, the EQs and compressors sounded great, and, the musicians sounded great playing through their great sounding instruments. They had everything working in their favor, and that moment of everything coming together nicely was captured by excellent engineers. So...the reason most records don't sound as good as Dark Side of the Moon is not merely that there aren't a lot of consoles comparable to this one. You could probably find something that would be a sufficient substitute (and maybe even a laptop with a very good AD/DA could substitute for much of the equipment in a studio). But, any mediocre piece in the chain, starting with the musicians and the room they're playing in, will make a mediocre recording. Pink Floyd, a very talented bunch of musicians and songwriters, had a massive budget, a truly inspired bunch of songs, and a lucky bunch of connections in the industry to get them the best people and the best gear all in the best studio in the world, and the result is a classic that sounds better (by some definition of "better") than 95+% of big budget records even made today. There have been similarly high quality recordings made, but it's rare...and I don't think a specific set of equipment can do it (after all, lots of other records were recorded in the very same studio and didn't sound that amazing). A lot of stuff has to come together for it to work out that way.
- 1_2__3 10y ago
  Not to be glib, but why not both? Are you a recording engineer and capable of speaking to the points he makes, or is your entire counter-argument "I don't believe that"?
bogomipz 10y ago
>"One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason." Isn't the EQ, preamps and compression I get a product of the design of that unit? How is that not a technical reason? Why are there Neve plugins based on the classic 1073 EQs and Preamps if there is nothing technical about why a Neve sounds like a Neve? If this was the case I could I just artificially constrain my workflow and get the same recording as I would from a Neve.
- dcwca 10y ago
  How are you going to artificially constrain your workflow in a way that resembles a massive mixing desk in the room? I made concessions about the technical details you're asking about in my post, you chose not to quote that part.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    I actually don't see any technical concession you made, in fact after the above quote you went on to say: >"The big reason working with hardware like this produces unique results is more about the layout and workflow than the tech inside the machine." That seems like a clear statement that you believe the technical details have very little to do with the sound.

by dcwca 10y ago

riprowan 10y ago

> The workflow makes the sound. The lack of automation forces you to make choices. Forces your hand, literally. You raise an excellent point here. A full-blown DAW is practically without limits: hundreds of tracks, unlimited effects on every track, any signal chain is possible. But making art is about working within constraints. Most of the best art derives from the constraints as much - or more - as the capabilities of the devices or instruments used. However there is a technical reason why these devices do sound different, and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A sense of "depth of field" may be imparted. Technically speaking this is all "distortion" of the original signal.

dcwca 10y ago
> However there is a technical reason why these devices do sound different, and that is that they all impart euphonic distortion. Bass sounds "bigger." Treble sounds "clearer." Mixed tracks "glue together." Vocals "pop out." A sense of "depth of field" may be imparted. Digital advocates are quick to point out that all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box. We have convolution reverbs and tube amp models and emulation that can be scientifically proven to match the analog gear. By point is, you _can_ do all that, but will you? You have a world of possibilities, and so the likelihood when working with a digital / software workflow is that you'll stick to the relative strengths of that setup. Another thing to note about the hardware console interface is the nature of a classic design. Consoles like the Neve or SSL are familiar to engineers, they are instruments with a hand feel. A recording or mixing engineer can go into a studio and get similar results from similar gear. The listeners ear can pick up a je ne cest pas familiarity from it, what you call "good sound" in another comment, without quote knowing what they're hearing. The same way the Telecaster just "sounds good". It's not better, it's just familiar. Digital workstations are all different and don't achieve the same familiar sound.
- riprowan 10y ago
  > all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box Nope. How you gonna model the interaction between a microphone and the preamp load it's driving, and the compressor that's driving, and the EQ it's driving, and the nonlinear summing bus that's feeding, when all of these are interacting in a live signal chain, and all entering various forms of nonlinear behavior based on the age of components, their tolerances which vary from box to box, heat, etc? It might be theoretically possible, but past a certain point, to model these devices requires modeling physics at the materials level. In point of fact most digital "simulations" of these sorts of devices are not simulations at all, but approximations that impart similar EQ, dynamics, and harmonic distortion. I'm a dev by trade, been doing audio for decades too. I used to believe this was all modellable too. I think there's a tendency for people who are strong in digital signal processing but naive to what these devices are really doing to the signal to be overconfident in our ability to simulate them in realtime. You can definitely achieve a reasonable facsimile! But if you want the sound of this console then you're going to have to make one or buy one.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    This is all true, but there's a point beyond which it stops being musically/artistically relevant. I've probably been doing this stuff as long as you have, and I'm not actually sure where that point is any more. I actually hate the sound of most of the Beatles albums. I think they sound crap by modern standards - tinny, rattly, clogged-up, mid-heavy mixes with no deep bass. Put them up against a modern trance single mixed ITB and the latter sounds huge, dynamic, cinematic, and infinitely more polished. Which is better? It depends... The Pink Floyd albums hit a sweet spot by being musically ground breaking while also being the first examples of hifi multitrack recording in its modern form. Now I tend to think ITB is fine for electronica and dance, because sometimes you want polish and a slightly unreal shine. But for rock, country and maybe even hiphop the older hardware is going to give you more character, bite, and depth. Ultimately they're just colours you can use. If you have talent, it doesn't matter if you mix ITB or not. If you don't, it doesn't matter either.
    - 10y ago
al2o3cr 10y ago
Technically speaking this is all "distortion" of the original signal. Not really - if it was "distortion" you could MEASURE it with an oscilloscope. There's another, less polite, word for most of those comparisons.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  If you want to measure it, an oscilloscope is the wrong tool. You can see it - very clearly - using a lab-quality audio signal analyser from a company like Audio Precision. https://www.ap.com/ https://www.ap.com/ And a popular way to model it is with a DSP technique called a Volterra series. You may want to consider that impolite words are also used about people who consider themselves very knowledgeable about domains where they show no evidence of understanding the fundamentals.

quakeguy 10y ago

Hmm, that "forcing your hand" to do something is a point i maybe have underestimated. I'll adjust my judgement, thank you for your answer!

SwellJoe 10y ago

I don't believe it's any of those things. Though, certainly the ergonomics of a traditional studio, and the equipment therein, works best for engineers who learned in those environments and using those tools. Those engineers happen to be the most experienced engineers working, so they are probably, on average, better than most younger engineers with much less experience. However, the reason some of the classic records sound amazing today is because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, in a time when hundreds of thousands of dollars was a lot of money. This is reflected in the rooms where they recorded. The quality of the studio itself is every bit as important, maybe even more important, than the equipment within it. When recording live musicians, a bad room literally cannot be overcome with good equipment. And, thus, simulating a great room with equipment is harder than simulating a great console, or a great EQ, or a great compressor. Digitally removing the room "badness" and putting in "goodness" isn't something that people have even really tried. Records made at Abbey Road studios sounded great because the room sounded great, the microphones sounded great, the board sounded great, the EQs and compressors sounded great, and, the musicians sounded great playing through their great sounding instruments. They had everything working in their favor, and that moment of everything coming together nicely was captured by excellent engineers. So...the reason most records don't sound as good as Dark Side of the Moon is not merely that there aren't a lot of consoles comparable to this one. You could probably find something that would be a sufficient substitute (and maybe even a laptop with a very good AD/DA could substitute for much of the equipment in a studio). But, any mediocre piece in the chain, starting with the musicians and the room they're playing in, will make a mediocre recording. Pink Floyd, a very talented bunch of musicians and songwriters, had a massive budget, a truly inspired bunch of songs, and a lucky bunch of connections in the industry to get them the best people and the best gear all in the best studio in the world, and the result is a classic that sounds better (by some definition of "better") than 95+% of big budget records even made today. There have been similarly high quality recordings made, but it's rare...and I don't think a specific set of equipment can do it (after all, lots of other records were recorded in the very same studio and didn't sound that amazing). A lot of stuff has to come together for it to work out that way.

1_2__3 10y ago
Not to be glib, but why not both? Are you a recording engineer and capable of speaking to the points he makes, or is your entire counter-argument "I don't believe that"?

bogomipz 10y ago

>"One thing people fail to understand about consoles like this, or the Neve, is that they do produce a unique sound, but not for any technical reason." Isn't the EQ, preamps and compression I get a product of the design of that unit? How is that not a technical reason? Why are there Neve plugins based on the classic 1073 EQs and Preamps if there is nothing technical about why a Neve sounds like a Neve? If this was the case I could I just artificially constrain my workflow and get the same recording as I would from a Neve.

dcwca 10y ago
How are you going to artificially constrain your workflow in a way that resembles a massive mixing desk in the room? I made concessions about the technical details you're asking about in my post, you chose not to quote that part.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  I actually don't see any technical concession you made, in fact after the above quote you went on to say: >"The big reason working with hardware like this produces unique results is more about the layout and workflow than the tech inside the machine." That seems like a clear statement that you believe the technical details have very little to do with the sound.