5 ms·

Can't the warmth just be reproduced in a digital player anyway?

by mod 4y ago

kstrauser 4y ago
Yup. Boost the mids on your EQ and you're halfway there.
- djbusby 4y ago
  What's the other half? Magic in the amp-circuit?
  - cool_dude85 4y ago
    Thousand dollar rocks and crystals to place around your room.
    - iamacyborg 4y ago
      Crystals? I only use wooden resonators, personally. https://www.analogueseduction.net/record-clamps/SHUNMOOKprod4.html https://www.analogueseduction.net/record-clamps/SHUNMOOKprod...
masklinn 4y ago
Well yes but that's not actually what the intent was. Though I would expect it'd be more of an eq profile thing.
com2kid 4y ago
Yes, the "warmth" generated by from literally any possible analog circuit can be reproduced digitally. Physics doesn't care about people's beliefs, but sadly many people also don't care about physics.
- 323 4y ago
  In theory. In practice, if I give you a random analog box, transforming it into an accurate DSP algorithm it's an extremely difficult problem. Which is why people instead of doing that, they recreate the "idea" (reverb, delay, ...) digitally, but it's not a copy.
  - conradfr 4y ago
    Although for some reasons 2021 was a great year for distortion/saturation plugins.
    - smnc 4y ago
      Any recommendations?
      - conradfr 4y ago
        The hotly debated P42 https://www.pulsarmodular.com/product/p42-climax-line-amp/ https://www.pulsarmodular.com/product/p42-climax-line-amp/ The popular Kelvin Tone Shaper https://www.toneprojects.com/kelvin-tone-shaper.html https://www.toneprojects.com/kelvin-tone-shaper.html Maybe you want tape? London Acoustics Tapei https://www.londonacoustics.com/product/taipei-studio-tape-recorder/ https://www.londonacoustics.com/product/taipei-studio-tape-r... As for freeware, the comeback of Variety of Sound with https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/tesslase-mkii-released/ https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/tesslase-mki... or the less subtle https://kitplugins.com/pages/burier-free https://kitplugins.com/pages/burier-free This is just a part of (good) saturation plugins from 2021...
        peapicker 4y ago
        Not from 2021, but in May 2020 Fabfilter’s update to Saturn 2 is great, and the original was already a fantastic Saturation plugin I’ve used a lot.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
mrandish 4y ago
You can also bake analog sounding warmth into your hi-res digital master and it's done all the time. There are a wide variety of different digital mastering plug-ins which do remarkably sophisticated analog modeling. Ultimately, this boils down to signal which vibrates speakers. As a thought experiment, if you use some kind of theoretically perfect surface-sampling laser to capture every movement of the speaker surface at sufficient frequency and fidelity to reproduce all of the information in the original signal and speaker surface vibrations (ala Shannon->Nyquist), then a digital playback of that signal which vibrates the same speaker surface identically will sound exactly the same. Individuals can prefer different sonic characteristics encoded in an output but that's an aesthetic choice. The entire signal chain creating that output is the result of creative and technical choices. It goes from guitar string to studio acoustics to microphone to mixing board to outboard processing gear to recording medium to duplication to distribution to playback to amplifier to speakers to room acoustics to human ear. Most of those elements significantly color the sound. Yes, mistakes can be made in the downstream signal chain which diverge from the creative intent. However, those mistakes are exceptions, and not inevitable. Done correctly, there's no reason a digital step in the chain shouldn't be completely undetectable.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  > Individuals can prefer different sonic characteristics encoded in an output but that's an aesthetic choice. I find that listening to one of three different sources (earbuds, gaming headset which is EQ'd via open source software, and inexpensive-but-fancy headphones) causes me to adjust to that particular set of headphones' sound. It seems to be like the equivalent of our brain continuously auto-white-balancing our vision.
  - mrandish 4y ago
    Absolutely, personal sonic character preferences can vary per content, listening context and the play back device (plus play back signal chain like DACs, pre-amps etc). And it's not just personal taste, most human's bio-based input 'hardware' varies enough to matter, especially for those of us who are out of warranty (ie >40 yrs old). There are even interactive apps which will give you a quick hearing self-test and build an EQ profile based on your individual response curves. I use one bundled into Android and it definitely improves my listening experience.
analog31 4y ago
My son told me that some hip-hop recordings incorporate digitally generated tics and scratches to simulate vinyl.
- bl0b 4y ago
  That reminds me of a thread here from a few weeks ago about how somebody was training an ML model to add noise to video, so that the noise-free version of the video can be compressed better but then the noise can be added at playback to maintain the authentic feel of old video.
EL_Loco 4y ago
Sure you can, but then you can't call it 'analog' anymore. But you can reproduce the distort...I mean, the "warmth" with digital filters or whatever and it will pass any blind test.
lucas_membrane 4y ago
The finding some years back was that the harmonic distortion in tube circuits was even harmonics and in solid state was odd harmonics (or maybe vice versa). This could cause tube electronics to sound better than equally good (by measure of thd %) solid state electronics. This says nothing about the difference between analog and digital recording media unless you think that disc lovers shun solid state electronics or something like that. Do they? There wasn't much digital sound around when McLuhan said that "The medium is the message." I think that's the substance of this whole brouhaha. What's wrong with rejecting digital media when one deplores the inundating tide of changes in society's tempo, cultural content, aesthetics, and forms of dis-function that have been carried so far and wide by digital media? Isn't change always impugned?

Can't the warmth just be reproduced in a digital player anyway?

by mod 4y ago

Can't the warmth just be reproduced in a digital player anyway?

kstrauser 4y ago

Yup. Boost the mids on your EQ and you're halfway there.

djbusby 4y ago
What's the other half? Magic in the amp-circuit?
- cool_dude85 4y ago
  Thousand dollar rocks and crystals to place around your room.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    Crystals? I only use wooden resonators, personally. https://www.analogueseduction.net/record-clamps/SHUNMOOKprod4.html https://www.analogueseduction.net/record-clamps/SHUNMOOKprod...

masklinn 4y ago

Well yes but that's not actually what the intent was. Though I would expect it'd be more of an eq profile thing.

com2kid 4y ago

Yes, the "warmth" generated by from literally any possible analog circuit can be reproduced digitally. Physics doesn't care about people's beliefs, but sadly many people also don't care about physics.

323 4y ago
In theory. In practice, if I give you a random analog box, transforming it into an accurate DSP algorithm it's an extremely difficult problem. Which is why people instead of doing that, they recreate the "idea" (reverb, delay, ...) digitally, but it's not a copy.
- conradfr 4y ago
  Although for some reasons 2021 was a great year for distortion/saturation plugins.
  - smnc 4y ago
    Any recommendations?
    - conradfr 4y ago
      The hotly debated P42 https://www.pulsarmodular.com/product/p42-climax-line-amp/ https://www.pulsarmodular.com/product/p42-climax-line-amp/ The popular Kelvin Tone Shaper https://www.toneprojects.com/kelvin-tone-shaper.html https://www.toneprojects.com/kelvin-tone-shaper.html Maybe you want tape? London Acoustics Tapei https://www.londonacoustics.com/product/taipei-studio-tape-recorder/ https://www.londonacoustics.com/product/taipei-studio-tape-r... As for freeware, the comeback of Variety of Sound with https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/tesslase-mkii-released/ https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/tesslase-mki... or the less subtle https://kitplugins.com/pages/burier-free https://kitplugins.com/pages/burier-free This is just a part of (good) saturation plugins from 2021...
      - peapicker 4y ago
        Not from 2021, but in May 2020 Fabfilter’s update to Saturn 2 is great, and the original was already a fantastic Saturation plugin I’ve used a lot.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

mrandish 4y ago

You can also bake analog sounding warmth into your hi-res digital master and it's done all the time. There are a wide variety of different digital mastering plug-ins which do remarkably sophisticated analog modeling. Ultimately, this boils down to signal which vibrates speakers. As a thought experiment, if you use some kind of theoretically perfect surface-sampling laser to capture every movement of the speaker surface at sufficient frequency and fidelity to reproduce all of the information in the original signal and speaker surface vibrations (ala Shannon->Nyquist), then a digital playback of that signal which vibrates the same speaker surface identically will sound exactly the same. Individuals can prefer different sonic characteristics encoded in an output but that's an aesthetic choice. The entire signal chain creating that output is the result of creative and technical choices. It goes from guitar string to studio acoustics to microphone to mixing board to outboard processing gear to recording medium to duplication to distribution to playback to amplifier to speakers to room acoustics to human ear. Most of those elements significantly color the sound. Yes, mistakes can be made in the downstream signal chain which diverge from the creative intent. However, those mistakes are exceptions, and not inevitable. Done correctly, there's no reason a digital step in the chain shouldn't be completely undetectable.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
> Individuals can prefer different sonic characteristics encoded in an output but that's an aesthetic choice. I find that listening to one of three different sources (earbuds, gaming headset which is EQ'd via open source software, and inexpensive-but-fancy headphones) causes me to adjust to that particular set of headphones' sound. It seems to be like the equivalent of our brain continuously auto-white-balancing our vision.
- mrandish 4y ago
  Absolutely, personal sonic character preferences can vary per content, listening context and the play back device (plus play back signal chain like DACs, pre-amps etc). And it's not just personal taste, most human's bio-based input 'hardware' varies enough to matter, especially for those of us who are out of warranty (ie >40 yrs old). There are even interactive apps which will give you a quick hearing self-test and build an EQ profile based on your individual response curves. I use one bundled into Android and it definitely improves my listening experience.

analog31 4y ago

My son told me that some hip-hop recordings incorporate digitally generated tics and scratches to simulate vinyl.

bl0b 4y ago
That reminds me of a thread here from a few weeks ago about how somebody was training an ML model to add noise to video, so that the noise-free version of the video can be compressed better but then the noise can be added at playback to maintain the authentic feel of old video.

EL_Loco 4y ago

Sure you can, but then you can't call it 'analog' anymore. But you can reproduce the distort...I mean, the "warmth" with digital filters or whatever and it will pass any blind test.

lucas_membrane 4y ago

The finding some years back was that the harmonic distortion in tube circuits was even harmonics and in solid state was odd harmonics (or maybe vice versa). This could cause tube electronics to sound better than equally good (by measure of thd %) solid state electronics. This says nothing about the difference between analog and digital recording media unless you think that disc lovers shun solid state electronics or something like that. Do they? There wasn't much digital sound around when McLuhan said that "The medium is the message." I think that's the substance of this whole brouhaha. What's wrong with rejecting digital media when one deplores the inundating tide of changes in society's tempo, cultural content, aesthetics, and forms of dis-function that have been carried so far and wide by digital media? Isn't change always impugned?