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Author Topic: IC's kill music  (Read 132475 times)

Johnny B

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #285 on: July 11, 2005, 12:29:00 AM »

vernier wrote on Mon, 11 July 2005 04:04

 "How many IC's does it take to kill the music?"



Maybe it only takes a few, and that's the problem.

I'll bet in some cases it only takes one IC...Once again...it's a problem.

You'd think that by now that the Art and the Science of Sound would have come together in such a fashion that there would be no problems, they'd all be solved, but I fear many problems, many new problems are in everyone's future. I hope I'm wrong.






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vernier

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #286 on: July 11, 2005, 12:45:03 AM »

Science solved sound problems long ago. Good mic, good pre, good deck ..throw in a Pultec and old tube limiter, you're set. Problem solved!
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Brian Roth

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #287 on: July 11, 2005, 03:42:31 AM »

andy_simpson wrote on Sun, 10 July 2005 14:19



Anyway, as I said, the true test would be to pass through the circuit recursively, 50+ times and see what happens at the end. This will be very enlightening, no doubt.
My guess is that aside from the noise issues, good sounding gear will pass the sound many times without large changes, and bad sounding gear will make it unrecognisable in very few passes.




An excellent idea that I did perhaps 30 years ago with "then available" gear.  I need to repeat those tests again when I get some time.

So, how many stages as a minimum to "trap the crap"?  What amplifiers?  

I would also believe that a nulling test would be instructive.

Audio is perhaps the only "engineering" profession where repeatable and verified measurements are shunned.  Hmmm...maybe I should design Space Shuttles because I "have this belief" that solid engineering principals are unimportant...just what my feelings are <g>.  "I think a Space Shuttle will work better because it's painted in my favorite shade of blue".

Bri

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Brian Roth Technical Services
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Brian Roth

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #288 on: July 11, 2005, 03:44:29 AM »

BTW, for the null amp test, I need to find the right circuit.  My first attempt would be using an LM318, but I'm certain there are better ideas.

Bri

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Brian Roth Technical Services
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Andy Simpson

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #289 on: July 11, 2005, 04:00:49 AM »

maxdimario wrote on Sun, 10 July 2005 22:28

There's no use in trying to quantify with specifications what the trained musical ear hears immediately.

If there isn't enough popular knowledge to explain the obvious, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Distortion or deformation of the waveform is the principal concern to be dealt with.

What makes an audio signal sound musically alive is not fully understood by the vast majority of people who are involved with audio.

Bill Whitlock said something interesting in a paper he wrote, regarding the difference between phase DISTORTION and phase SHIFT.

Phase shift does not create too many problems, but phase distortion does.

It alters the waveform in a way that the nature of the sound is lost.

Digital distortion is the worst kind of distortion, and I suspect that there is a lot of phase distortion (not shift) in digital encoding and decoding, much more than analog.

The human brain, which interprets sound, is used to phase shift, but phase distortions happens primarily in man-made electronics circuits. It is an artificial distortion which cannot be interpreted naturally by the ear.


Yes, yes, yes. I meant phase distortion. Eg. 10k is 5ms late, relative to 1k. Relative phase.

So who is measuring the correctly time-aligned delivery of the waveform?

It is possible to have a ruler flat frequency response, an amazing fast slew-rate and very low THD but massive amounts of phase distortion, which is not measured or listed.

This we know from 414 and ssl (protools converters?).

MY ears hear it. MY brain detects it. It can be measured, it just isn't.

Andy
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Andy Simpson

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #290 on: July 11, 2005, 04:12:36 AM »

Brian Roth wrote on Mon, 11 July 2005 08:42

andy_simpson wrote on Sun, 10 July 2005 14:19



Anyway, as I said, the true test would be to pass through the circuit recursively, 50+ times and see what happens at the end. This will be very enlightening, no doubt.
My guess is that aside from the noise issues, good sounding gear will pass the sound many times without large changes, and bad sounding gear will make it unrecognisable in very few passes.




An excellent idea that I did perhaps 30 years ago with "then available" gear.  I need to repeat those tests again when I get some time.


Bri




Cool. What was the gear and result?
It must have been hard getting tape to do 50 generations without the self noise obliterating the music completely, or did you do it with channel strips (or some such module) repeated in series perhaps?

Yes, it'd be great if you could repeat the tests and post some examples of a 50th generation sound from various devices.....

Andy
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Brian Roth

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #291 on: July 11, 2005, 05:23:02 AM »

The test chain was ten opamps in a sequence, set as inverters running 20 dB gain with a 20 dB "pad" between each.

Looks like it's time to do that test gaian!

Bri
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Brian Roth Technical Services
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Johnny B

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #292 on: July 11, 2005, 08:32:50 AM »


Converters that modify the signal to the degree that it results in "Time Smear," which people can hear, should be part of a standard test suite.

And there should be a way to look at the "big picture" to make sure that many channels  with "Time Smear" and "Phased-Out" problems do not produce those nasty "Negative Cumulative Impacts" when they are all added together.






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"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality,
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Andy Simpson

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #293 on: July 11, 2005, 12:20:31 PM »

Brian Roth wrote on Mon, 11 July 2005 10:23

The test chain was ten opamps in a sequence, set as inverters running 20 dB gain with a 20 dB "pad" between each.

Looks like it's time to do that test gaian!

Bri



Cool.
So what was your conclusion at the time?!

Andy
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maxdimario

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #294 on: July 11, 2005, 12:57:28 PM »

Quote:

it takes a lot to kill music, and, if it's alive (skip james, robert johnson etc), the sonics will not stand in its way (up to a point)


Intresting enough, I was talking to someone last night who had a western electric horn with a big woofer in his mono HI-FI 40+ years ago and he was talking about realism etc. being there..

he also mentioned audiophile 78 records which were pressed on red vinyl and how much superior they were realism-wise to anything he'd heard since.

Frequency response and tonal balance do not make a huge difference in transmitting feel and realism.

Has anyone heard a 78 in good condition lately? they are noisy scratchy and bandwith limited but they make the performer sound more human than todays technology in some ways.

Rhythm is very important feel-wise.

Have you ever seen a band playing live where the rhythm section is locked and grooving? being in the same room is quite the experience.

Would the IC mixer or the discrete mixer capture that vibe better?

The answer is clear to those who have experienced both.

Blues artists recorded on SSL? it would sound like sloppy playing..and that's it..

you need to hear the attack portion of the notes and drum hits cleanly to get the feel.

A good example is one of my all-time favourite groups, that basically existed because of feel and timing: The Free

The Free were remixed on what sounds an awful lot like an opamp mixer in the early 90's or late 80's complete with added snare samples. Maybe it was Bob Clearmouintain who re-mixed.

Apart from the great job that was done mixing the tracks, the sound DOES NOT convey the spirit of the band.

It does not convey Rodgers' soulful earthy voice, nor does it convey the stinging crying guitar of Kossoff nor does it convey the physical groove that was layed down by Fraser and Kirke like the original mix, although the tapes were the same.

This re-mixed cd was the first CD I bought of the band and I must say apart ALL RIGHT NOW which is so strong as a song that it was worth a couple of listens every now and then, the rest of the album tasted bland.

When I did years later buy Fire&Water which was the original 70's album mixed on discrete, it was a revelation.

I listened to that cd hundreds of times (I actually wore it out, with scratches) and even got some of my friends interested in it so that we had a little band to play some of the numbers.

I ended up buying everything they ever did including the remasters.

The reason is that the free were a BAND -- they had a band-groove, a blues-based band, which was based on FEEL.

It wasn't the melodies as much as the general feel.

Feel comes down to phrasing, rhythm, and it has to sound real.

Kossoff used to say he didn't want any pedals because they took some of the soul away..
Obviously you have to have soul to begin with to understand.

So yes.. the mixer does make a big difference, and I wish people who sit in a room and read theory instead of listening to music would not tamper with the music making and recording process.
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danickstr

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #295 on: July 11, 2005, 07:49:30 PM »

vernier wrote on Mon, 11 July 2005 00:45

Science solved sound problems long ago. Good mic, good pre, good deck ..throw in a Pultec and old tube limiter, you're set. Problem solved!



lol   now that I think about it, is there any gear that I would want to use in a good signal chain that is chock full o'IC's? Unless it's for elec guit. or something.
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Johnny B

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #296 on: July 11, 2005, 07:54:02 PM »


Sounds like some jurors are ready to deliver a final verdict.  Smile
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"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality,
they are not certain; as far as they are certain,
they do not refer to reality."
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dayvel

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #297 on: July 11, 2005, 11:43:09 PM »

I think you could grow a damn fine garden in this thread.
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Dave Latchaw
Not an engineer - just a musician.

compasspnt

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #298 on: July 12, 2005, 12:30:54 AM »

dayvel wrote on Mon, 11 July 2005 23:43

I think you could grow a damn fine garden in this thread.


Because of the great amount of fertile space, or the pre-extant mounds of fertilizer?
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Brian Roth

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Re: IC's kill music
« Reply #299 on: July 12, 2005, 01:32:44 AM »

andy_simpson wrote on Mon, 11 July 2005 11:20

Brian Roth wrote on Mon, 11 July 2005 10:23

The test chain was ten opamps in a sequence, set as inverters running 20 dB gain with a 20 dB "pad" between each.

Looks like it's time to do that test gaian!

Bri



Cool.
So what was your conclusion at the time?!

Andy


Time frame was probably 1977 when the TDA1034 (soon thereafter known as the NE5534) was introduced.  The listening system was far from "high def" as we know it today (JBL studio monitor driven by that large Yamaha power amp which was popular at the time...model number forgotten).  I had been using LF356 opamps in custom equipment, and you could hear 10 of them in a string vs. a straight wire.  *Within the limitations of the monitoring chain*, 5534's added practically nothing compared to the wire bypass.  For grins, LM-301 really sounded bad.

Nearly 30 years have passed, all signal chains have improved, so that makes me want to repeat similar tests, especially since it never dawned on me in 1977 to do a null test.

Bri

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Brian Roth Technical Services
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