[LAU] digital voodoo: master fader should be set at 0db

[fons at kokkinizita.net]

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 12:41:18PM -0700, Ken Restivo wrote:

> I've been re-trained over the last few years by a German
> mechanical-engineer friend to think in a very reductionist,
> non-magickal, deterministic, cold-hard-reality kind of way.

Mechanical engineers, in particular those doing precision
mechanics, can be very Zen. I remember one of them, Alex.
Twenty years or so ago I was with a company making plotters,
me doing the DSP for motor control and Alex doing the mechanics.
A tolerance of 0.01 mm he'd call 'coarse'. He would take up a
screwdriver, adjust a screw by 5 degrees, then wipe it with a
white silk cloth and put it back into its place in his toolbox
which was off-limits to everyone except himself. Still makes me
feel guilty when looking at the pile of pliers and screwdrivers
in my box.

> It's all ones and zeroes. Given the same inputs, the same
> output should be obtained. Acoustics is physics. And if I
> can't measure it, it doesn't exist.

Science is not only physics. Today psychology is science as
well, a fact largely ignored not only by the unwashed masses
but even by many intellectuals who still consider Freud to be
the last word on these matters.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

O tu, che porte, correndo si ?
E guerra e morte !