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What uncontroversial audible differences cannot be measured?


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1 hour ago, semente said:

Classical as a genre goes from single instrument to orchestral and can even include sacred and opera.

Classical usually means any style predating jazz, including modern compositions. It can then be further divided into sub-genres like baroque, romantic, and others. One can also differentiate classical music based on the ensemble: symphonic, chamber, choral, organ, etc, occasionally with some overlap.

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6 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Unamplified vocals regardless of genre are as natural as it gets.  Once an amplifier is used for an instrument it may be considered un-natural.  Everything gets engineered so if you refer to "natural" as unmodified, it is very rare to listen to a non-engineered recording

 

Yes. Vocals on highly manipulated, or older pop, rock recordings are an excellent marker - you can have all the instruments and added effects as "unnatural" as can be, but when the lead singer opens their mouth there is the "real" thing, in all its glory. When the voice is deliberately fiddled with, by an effects unit, it's as obvious as when the guitarist kicks in a foot pedal, to distort his clean guitar sound.

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40 minutes ago, wgscott said:

Maybe this is the unmeasurable quantity we were looking for 32 pages ago!

Hardly. Timbre is merely a ratio of harmonics. Add attack and decay profiles, and you have a pretty good model of most instruments. Remember those old sound cards with the simple FM synthesisers? They obviously didn't sound great, but their impression of, say, a piano still had a distinct piano quality.

 

Now I'm not saying that every nuance of every instrument is easily modelled. However, the methods one might use to do so are largely known.

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3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Yes. Vocals on highly manipulated, or older pop, rock recordings are an excellent marker - you can have all the instruments and added effects as "unnatural" as can be, but when the lead singer opens their mouth there is the "real" thing, in all its glory. When the voice is deliberately fiddled with, by an effects unit, it's as obvious as when the guitarist kicks in a foot pedal, to distort his clean guitar sound.

And then there's that recording of The Kingsmen performing Louie, Louie. Even the FBI couldn't figure that one out.

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37 minutes ago, mansr said:

And then there's that recording of The Kingsmen performing Louie, Louie. Even the FBI couldn't figure that one out.

 

Actually, you're making a very good point there ... I just had a quick listen on YouTube, and this track would be very good test music. The vocals are fine, but they're buried beneath the very echoey drums - poor playback will blur the two together; competent playback will allow one to hear the low key vocals, clearly, in one "space", and the boisterous drums in another.

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1 hour ago, mansr said:

Hardly. Timbre is merely a ratio of harmonics. Add attack and decay profiles, and you have a pretty good model of most instruments. Remember those old sound cards with the simple FM synthesisers? They obviously didn't sound great, but their impression of, say, a piano still had a distinct piano quality.

 

Now I'm not saying that every nuance of every instrument is easily modelled. However, the methods one might use to do so are largely known.

 

Pros use modelers like the Axe and can't even tell the difference between a modeled amp and the real thing. Tube or solid state. They may have different standards than audiophiles, but if they're using it for their recordings that's what we're hearing. 

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9 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

My statement is based on what Robert Greenberg taught me :)  My knowledge is limited and I don't claim to be an expert.  The term is bandied about so much it's not even worth the effort.

 

The French call it musique savante  (learned) and in the UK I've seen it called serious music.

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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14 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Yes. Vocals on highly manipulated, or older pop, rock recordings are an excellent marker - you can have all the instruments and added effects as "unnatural" as can be, but when the lead singer opens their mouth there is the "real" thing, in all its glory. When the voice is deliberately fiddled with, by an effects unit, it's as obvious as when the guitarist kicks in a foot pedal, to distort his clean guitar sound.

Unfortunately all pop and rock and many jazz vocals are close-mic'ed, there's nothing natural about them.

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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13 hours ago, fas42 said:

Actually, you're making a very good point there ... I just had a quick listen on YouTube, and this track would be very good test music. The vocals are fine, but they're buried beneath the very echoey drums - poor playback will blur the two together; competent playback will allow one to hear the low key vocals, clearly, in one "space", and the boisterous drums in another.

It's a mono recording.

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1 minute ago, mansr said:

It's a mono recording.

 

Yup.  Though aside from all the foregoing, in the single centered image in the mono recording of "God Only Knows" from "Pet Sounds," I locate some sounds as vertically distinct (e.g., the famous empty Coke can "percussion" seems to be at the top of that centered image).  Whether this has to do with my speakers, the room, pinnae shape, mic pickup, mixing, or is all in my head I don't know, but it is quite consistent.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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7 hours ago, semente said:

 

The French call it musique savante  (learned) and in the UK I've seen it called serious music.

 

Yup, it's all semantics.  I personally refer to all symphonic music as classical in conversation because people know what I'm talking about.  It doesn't really matter in the end; some people get picky, but most don't care.

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10 hours ago, semente said:

Unfortunately all pop and rock and many jazz vocals are close-mic'ed, there's nothing natural about them.

 

Not talking about the mic'ing technique - rather, whether the voice is "human" or not - I have plenty of test CDs where the vocal element is difficult to get right: if not quite there in quality then the voice is obviously "not real" - get it right, and you have a living, breathing person singing in front of you.

 

There's a key difference in the experience - some who never get their systems working well enough may never hear this quite precious distinction.

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9 hours ago, mansr said:

It's a mono recording.

 

Mono's got nothing to do with it. "Space" is a perceptual aspect of how the sound elements exist as distinct entities in the perceived event. Typically, they will be layered from front to back, as if in tiers - one can switch one's focus to each element, and just follow the particular one - as far from the blurred, "wall of sound" experience as one can get.

 

It's the auditory cues in the recording that allow this - in the same way that one can "watch" a single performer out of many in a live event.

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8 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Not talking about the mic'ing technique - rather, whether the voice is "human" or not - I have plenty of test CDs where the vocal element is difficult to get right: if not quite there in quality then the voice is obviously "not real" - get it right, and you have a living, breathing person singing in front of you.

 

There's a key difference in the experience - some who never get their systems working well enough may never hear this quite precious distinction.

 

In my understanding realism starts with the mic technique.

Mess that up and no matter how good or accurate your system is the sound will always be more artificial.

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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19 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Yup.  Though aside from all the foregoing, in the single centered image in the mono recording of "God Only Knows" from "Pet Sounds," I locate some sounds as vertically distinct (e.g., the famous empty Coke can "percussion" seems to be at the top of that centered image).  Whether this has to do with my speakers, the room, pinnae shape, mic pickup, mixing, or is all in my head I don't know, but it is quite consistent.

Does it happen if you only play one speaker?

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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2 hours ago, semente said:

 

In my understanding realism starts with the mic technique.

Mess that up and no matter how good or accurate your system is the sound will always be more artificial.

 

Mic technique will change the sound but IME it doesn't remove the cues that make one aware of the  "humanness" of the origin of those sounds. Unless it's also passed through a fairly savage effects unit. You can get recordings where every single sound element is "artificial" - except for the voice. The difference in the sense of those two "types of sound" is quite striking; it's almost like there are two recordings being played back at the same time.

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1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Mic technique will change the sound but IME it doesn't remove the cues that make one aware of the  "humanness" of the origin of those sounds. Unless it's also passed through a fairly savage effects unit. You can get recordings where every single sound element is "artificial" - except for the voice. The difference in the sense of those two "types of sound" is quite striking; it's almost like there are two recordings being played back at the same time.

Can you give some examples? 

 

The vocals in most recordings are close mic'ed and this doesn't sound natural... Hyper realistic maybe but artificial. 

All those Columbidae and Barbies and Krells...

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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9 hours ago, semente said:

Can you give some examples? 

 

The vocals in most recordings are close mic'ed and this doesn't sound natural... Hyper realistic maybe but artificial. 

All those Columbidae and Barbies and Krells...

 

Columbidae and Barbies and Krells??

 

I would find it hard to give a specific example, since I can't think of a recording offhand that doesn't sound OK - probably better if you suggest some worst offenders from your POV, and I can comment.

 

Where you might find it's artificial is that the vocalist is as close to as possible, as in the plane of the speakers, while all the instruments are well behind that person. But this mimics what it would sound like acoustic live, if the vocalist were to step way in front of the instruments.

 

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9 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Columbidae and Barbies and Krells??

 

I would find it hard to give a specific example, since I can't think of a recording offhand that doesn't sound OK - probably better if you suggest some worst offenders from your POV, and I can comment.

 

Where you might find it's artificial is that the vocalist is as close to as possible, as in the plane of the speakers, while all the instruments are well behind that person. But this mimics what it would sound like acoustic live, if the vocalist were to step way in front of the instruments.

 

 

Pigeons and doves are in the order Columbiformes and family Columbidae... Patricia Barbie, Diana Krell?

I'm sure you've heard of them. ^_^

 

By artificial I meant from a sonic perspective, not a spatial one.

Studio recordings with multi-mic'ing are always spatially artificial.

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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