[Rwp] EQ, frequencies, spectrum analizers?

Sun Jan 31 19:05:52 EST 2016

Indeed.
With the computing power we have now, and the disk drives, it's easy to 
get a pretty high track count at 24/96 or even 192 before saturating 
anything.
I remember that early mastering system now it was called the 3m system.
Back in 78 and it went up to 50k.
Lots of good speaker cabs go well up to 32k
And good analog amps aren't slammed  down to 20k absolute
that 20 to 20 k
is an engineer's working approximation.
My old ears can't hear fundamental tones way up in bat land any more,
but it makes a diffrence in harmonics and broad band content.
I can certainly hear the aliassing and the chop off
that happens with too low sampling rates, llike you were talking about 
the distortion of old radio shows
with analog gear even A M transmiters,
that topped off at a fairly low frequency response, it was a nice slope off,
but if you do the same thing in digital,
it's an abrupt
cut off, to honor the nyquist rules, so even with anti-aliassing filters 
you get some distortion
trying to capture higher band width audio with a too low bit rate 
sampling system.

On 1/31/2016 4:20 PM, Snowman wrote:
> Hart to say, I suppose that, If you drive all your tracks to some high 
> sample rate, you'll probably run out of processing power more quickly, 
> with fewer tracks.
> But, there is logic behind why higher sample rates help.  The 
> difference between 44.1 and 48 has to be so small that those who can 
> hear it are capable of magic.  But, to double the sampel rate should 
> make a significant difference.
> If you think about it, at 44.1, a 10k tone actually has about 4 
> samples in the entire cycle, which makes it very rough.  that means 
> you will definitely have a bunch of 20k signal as well, which wasn't 
> in the original recording, but is just the harmonic of that distorted 
> 10k signal that only had 4 samples.
> You can't make a nice sine wave with 4 samples, or  even 8, that is 
> nice and smooth, and does not have harmonics.  Such signals are rough, 
> and approximate.  At 44.1, even a5k signal will be distorted, because 
> it will only be made up of about 8 samples, which is still pretty 
> rough, and that 5k tone will put unwanted information at 10k , 15k, 
> and 20k.  AudioPhyles will hear that.
>
> In the early days of digital audio, when disk drives were much 
> smaller, lots of good old analog stuff, especially such as old time 
> radio, got digitized with horrible settings.  And, I suppose, some of 
> the original recordings are lost now, and the only version we have is 
> a garbly 32KBit file that sounds like crap.  So yeah, I'm all for not 
> perpetuating that.
> Higher is better, even though I can't hear it, I know people do.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Belle" <cb1963 at sbcglobal.net>
> To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at bluegrasspals.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2016 9:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [Rwp] EQ, frequencies, spectrum analizers?
>
>
>> Well, this is a very contraversial topic.
>> Some reductionist strictly logical type producers and thinkers say 
>> high res audio is pointless, but for me, I think I can tell a 
>> difference as well.
>> It's more subtle the higher you go, but the only way I can describe 
>> it is that the sound is just more there.
>> The old argument is that the more samples you have, the closer to a 
>> true analog signal you have.
>> they are still ramping up cameras in the video world, more 
>> megapixels, higher data rates, so why shouldn't this be true for audio?
>> High quality analog tape machines don't just slam down the top end, 
>> the nyquist filters like digital recording does, but it fades off 
>> gradually.
>> so 48k would give you a lot more room to do a smooth slope of.
>> Going even higher does the same thing, but even more subtley.
>> the first I forget what that early digital system was invented in the 
>> late 70s but it went up to 50 k.
>> It was only 16 bit, but back then they thought it was worth having 
>> some high end headroom.
>> It's mainly a political thing, the reason we have 44.1 as standard,
>> 48 k ws considered pro audio and they wanted to make a difference, so 
>> it wouldn't be so easy to copy,
>> well, I have lots of high res audio 96k and 192, and I think it 
>> sounds great.
>> So do my 44.1 and 48 k collections,
>> but I have some re done albums in both formats, and some I can't tell 
>> much difference, and some are much nicer.
>> Now is that down to mastering, or because it's more data, we can 
>> argue that till the cows come home,
>> but there is a growing movement toward high res audio, and I think 
>> that is not a bad thing.
>> I can really tell the niceness in very dynamic audio and stuff with 
>> lots of harmonics, like folks and guitar stuff, not hard rock 
>> electric, but the acoustic and delicate stuff,
>> there's a live nashville recording I have of some iconic players and 
>> it just sounds fabulous.
>> One thing for sure with high band width audio, you reduce the 
>> possibility of rounding errors way out to where they're pretty much a 
>> non issue.
>> So why not, our processors and memory can handle it now, why not go 
>> first class when you can?
>> They will be arguing this stuff forever,
>> I keep it real simple,
>> the wider the road, the faster you can drive without having a wreck,
>> and recording at higher sampling rates lowers your latency as well,
>> provided your pc and recording hardware can handle it.
>>
>> On 1/30/2016 10:39 AM, Patrick Perdue wrote:
>>> Ah, for the days of being able to hear 15k. I think I now top out 
>>> somewhere around 10 or 11. The good news is this means I don't hear 
>>> CRTs anymore, now that there are virtually no CRTs to generate 
>>> noise. Oh well.
>>> I have interesting CRT-related stories I could tell.
>>>
>>> It's interesting though, because, although I've lost a significant 
>>> part of the high end, I can still tell a difference between 44.1 hz 
>>> and 48000 hz. I guess it's all in the harmonics. It's not just the 
>>> extreme highs.
>>>
>>> On 1/30/2016 11:34 AM, Chris Smart wrote:
>>>> then you might need to acoustically treat your room, invest in better
>>>> monitors etc. But I definitely hear what you're saying. I'm almost 40
>>>> and anything above 15K is more difficult to hear for me now.
>>>>
>>>> As for sub-sonic, you can often feel the cones of your drivers moving
>>>> even if you can't hear that stuff.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> At 03:16 AM 1/30/2016, you wrote:
>>>>> thing is, while that works in most situations, what if the problem
>>>>> frequency is beyond the range of your hearing, either because it's
>>>>> sub-sonic or just too high to hear, particularly if you're recording
>>>>> at high sample rates or if you're just getting on in years.
>>>>>
>>>>> Plus spectrum analysers can provide a quick fix if you're using less
>>>>> than ideal equipment or working in a less than ideal listening
>>>>> environment.
>>>>>
>>>>> For example, if you're in a bad acoustic environment, frequencies may
>>>>> sound problematic that actually aren't because of standing waves,
>>>>>
>>>>> Justin
>>>>>
>>>>> On 30/01/2016 05:13, Chris Belle wrote:
>>>>>> I just use what ever material I want to fix.
>>>>>> Something that is muddy or has a problem frequency.
>>>>>> If you make a narrow q,
>>>>>> For instance  something like
>>>>>> re-eq,
>>>>>> then you set the q down low to something like 0.5 and then exagerate
>>>>>> the frequency
>>>>>> by tturning up the gain to a high value.
>>>>>> Then   you sweep the frequency up and down.
>>>>>> Any place you hit which has an abundance of a frequency will really
>>>>>> sonically stick out.
>>>>>> So then you can find your center point and pull it down to taste.
>>>>>> Nothing like using your ears.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/29/2016 6:46 AM, Juan Bello wrote:
>>>>>>> hi list.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I finally got everything going again with this computer, including
>>>>>>> nice recording equipment so am all set and probably overly excited!
>>>>>>> But today the question is about mixing, and EQ. There is a very
>>>>>>> interesting article on Sonic scoop that talks about subtractive EQ.
>>>>>>> that is, you take out some evidently probelmatic EQ bands to 
>>>>>>> improve
>>>>>>> the sounds of individual instruments. They suggest using a spectrum
>>>>>>> analizar but also a plug in that is able to isolate that 
>>>>>>> problematic
>>>>>>> band so you can compare and ocntrast differences. Apparently 
>>>>>>> boosting
>>>>>>> certain bands helps exaggerate or better identify the problema, and
>>>>>>> they also suggest starting with an EQ sweep, a term I am 
>>>>>>> probably no
>>>>>>> too familiar with. So, now that i got that all of the way, what are
>>>>>>> recommended ways to do this from an accesible standpoint?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> also, is there a frequency, square or shine wave generator i can 
>>>>>>> use
>>>>>>> to do the classic hearing test with the monitors i have?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thankful for all the list has done. I didn't find anything related
>>>>>>> when searching the archives, so this is why I am asking all of this
>>>>>>> pretty basic stuff.
>>>>>>
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