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Subject: Why is digital less warm than....


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Original Message                 Date: 28-Feb-02  @  09:02 PM   -   Why is digital less warm than....

Mindspawn

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Hey folks, just some food for thought...

We all hear things like, digital isn't as warm as analog, and while I'm not here to argue that specifically, did you ever think about why that is? Outside of some of the basic physical properties, you'd think the two mediums wouldn't be that divergent.... and in some sense, maybe they're not. Now I'm gonna try a little heresy...

Maybe the reason mixes from analog sounds warmer, more musical, whatever, is: our techniques for recording, mixing, etc., are mostly built and modeled on analog experience. We've learned techniques for, say mic placement, that were establised in the analog realm... maybe we should be evaluating new ways of doing things....?

I mean think about one of the most basic differences between the two mediums, the level meter... Many of us that came from the analog world were sorely surprised to find out we couldn't push the LEDs "past the red" on a digital board... Now once I learned how to use digital LEDs, mt life, and my mixes, sounded better...

I'm not really trying to lay out new "rules" of digital recording/mixing, but just bouncing the idea off you all. If you have any experience with what I'm on about here, by all means share it. If you got a "warm sound" from all digital equipment, what was your methodology? Why do you think it worked that way? If you captured a digital take of a vocalist that just simply shimmers, did you do it the "traditional" (i.e., basically as it's always been done on analog equipment) way, or did you find a technique that is exclusive to digital?

Anyhoos, just some thoughts....

Peace All



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Message 121/157                 Date: 07-Apr-02  @  01:25 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

k

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and it doesn't end there because now inside 'digital' there is now of course the whole new debacle of the 'higher bitrates & frequencies V lower rates' debate.

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!



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Message 122/157                 Date: 07-Apr-02  @  02:05 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

milan

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by using lower bitrates you can achieve that 'vintage digital' sound people will be talking about in decades to come, or something  )



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Message 123/157                 Date: 07-Apr-02  @  02:34 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

Pongoid

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You can also achieve higher efficiency in speaker movement with the lower bitrate. That's part of the reason that SP1200's always sounded so fucking loud, even though through the meter it looked fairly similar. Amigas too. 12-bit is dope. I'm still lookin forward to getting a collection of older E-mu pieces together. (EIII, Emax, maybe sp-1200). Some day.


Ape



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Message 124/157                 Date: 07-Apr-02  @  04:30 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

realtrance

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Say a little more, please, about 12-bit and higher efficiency? I'm having a hard time trying to figure that one out on my own.

rt



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Message 125/157                 Date: 08-Apr-02  @  09:40 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

knowa

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wow rt...great post. wise guy (two words)...

you know that they didn't rehearse for Kind of Blue, right? Miles didn't want them thinking about what they were gonna play beforehand. how different this combo of mastery and spontaneity is from "mess around and edit midi" (which is what I do to some extent).

and I second: please more about "higher efficiency in speaker movement" unless pissing/taking. it's not like fewer "bits" are coming out the speakers... pulaski has an Emax and it sounds damn speaker-efficient.



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Message 126/157                 Date: 09-Apr-02  @  09:20 AM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

Pongoid

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With the lowered bit rate you have less little pulses of electricity telling a speaker to stop at this point or that point in a wave. Try to think of it like this:

You have a center line. You have twelve equidistant points above, and twelve equidistant points below. At any given time, your speaker is told to move to one of these 25 points.

Now imagine the same line with sixteen points a side. Now your speaker has to be that much more accurate in it's movement, requiring more electrical energy thus converted to kinetic energy to move and stop it accurately on any one of those 33 points.

Simple physics. The more accurately you want something to move, the more energy must be exerted in one form or another to maintain this accuracy, be it electrical,calculative, or otherwise.


Ape



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Message 127/157                 Date: 09-Apr-02  @  01:38 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

k

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i dunno about that but sure as hell the emax etc canes 16 bit samplers for thumping drums with real kik & smakdown presence... the best! no mistake - one you've got one you'll never look back.

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!



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Message 128/157                 Date: 09-Apr-02  @  09:00 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

xoxos

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totally makes sense. it's like too many cooks.



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Message 129/157                 Date: 09-Apr-02  @  09:02 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

xoxos

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need d/as with adaptive bitrates...



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Message 130/157                 Date: 09-Apr-02  @  10:01 PM   -   RE: Why is digital less warm than....

j-type

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except 12 bits gives 4096 possible levels and 16 bit gives 65536.

Don't follow the cone placement accuracy/efficiency/loudness argument - no physics that I know of, at least. Probably more to do with the fact that distortion = greater perceived loudness. 12 bit signals are suffer from quantisation distortion far more than 16 bit signals (compare 4096 levels with 65536) and so sound louder.



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