[LAU] About Algorithms

Paul Davis paul at linuxaudiosystems.com
Tue Jul 19 02:54:31 UTC 2011


On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 6:03 PM, Folderol <folderol at ukfsn.org> wrote:

>> Isn't all this "A+B=C" stuff (or A*x+B*y=C as one person stated)
>> actually begging the question a bit?  Are we certain that every DAW
>> implements their mixer that way?  Isn't it possible that some might
>> try to model analog mixers to some degree?
>>
>> I'm not arguing either way; I have no clue.
>
> I think you'll find that fundamentally an analogue mixer *is* A+B=C

precisely.

the "magic" in analog circuits does not come from the way it adds two
in-range voltages, which is precisely as stated above. take 0.1V, add
0.18V, get 0.28V. it really is that simple (we're ignoring temporal
effects that are similar for actual air pressure waves and thus not
relevant to a discussion of artifacts caused by recording and
playback).

the magic comes, to the extent that its actually magic (let alone
actually desirable) from the way it does more complex processing, such
as compression, limiting and EQ, and also the way that some media will
store the result when C is "out of range". even these can be
replicated to any arbitrary accuracy if you're willing to spend the
CPU cycles on it.


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