20 Jul
2011
20 Jul
'11
5:39 a.m.
On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 08:45:38AM +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 02:03:01AM +0300, Moshe Werner
wrote:
There's another reason, and, as someone who used to be in the business of selling
snake oil professionally, I can speak to that a bit.
Look at who is buying. "Pro" audio now is so affordable that people who are
decidedly NOT pro's are buying it. They don't have formal audio engineering
training or even in some cases a remote familiarity with the basic science or even the
scientific method. They don't understand what they are buying, or what they are
talking about when they brag or argue about what they bought or why. Advertisers can (and
do) get away with making up all kinds of wild lies, and if they don't, in some cases
the buyers will do it for them.
Yet there is one endless discussion between
friends and colleges of mine
that I usually do not participate in due to the lack of knowledge.
The topic is algorithms of software (DAW) mixers. Some people say that they
can hear a sound difference between several kinds of software mixers (e.g.
Cubase, Protools etc.).
I must say that I never made any serious A\B testing but I didn't notice
that there is any difference. Although I do work with Pro-tools and Cubase
(in other studios), most of the time I'm actually using Ardour (and I'm
loving it).
I assume you refer to the basic _mixing_ algorithm, i.e. summing signals,
and not to e.g. effect plugins. For the latter there is usually a zillion
ways to do things, and of course they will sound different. As to the
former, the basic mixing, this is just a lot of nonsense.
Sad facts are that:
- The pro audio world is today infested with the same type of pseudo-
science that hit the hifi market 25 or more years ago and that makes
some people pay $3000 for a piece of cable and two connectors, or makes
them spend money on machines to replace old and tired electrons by fresh
young ones which sound better.
- The same wave of nonsense now hits also the software world.
The reasons are simple: basic problems have been solved, to create a
'competitive edge' you have to add snake oil. My questions would be:
1. Is it only me that can't here a difference
between different DAWs mixing
algorithms?
Unless some of those algorithms are completely wrong (which would require
quite a high level if ignorance from the designer), nobody will hear any
difference. Those that claim they can should prove it in a blind test.
I know of no such test that ever demonstrated this.
2. To the developers out there, what is your
opinion? Is there a
better/worse algorithm, or is the whole thing another "pay 600$ for this
software - it has great algorithms!!!" hype?
There isn't much 'algorithm' to speak of, it's just adding. And single
precision floating point provides all the precision you need. There *are*
some issues if you ar mixing thousands of signals - then some ways of doing
it are better than others. But this doesn't occur in normal audio engineering
practice.
3. If there is a difference what's the
explanation?
See previous point. Explaining this would lead us very far.
4. Analog emulation plugins. How does one
"emulate" analog waveforms in a
digital world? That sounds like a paradox to me.
One doesn't emulate 'analog waveforms'. What's done is to reproduce
digitally the defects of some analog equipment (particular types of
distortion in a compressor for example), or the 'look and feel' of
them. There also recently a wave of 'exact digital copies' of e.g.
Neve equalisers. There's no reason why any of these should be better
than one that is not an 'exact digital copy'.
HTH,
--
FA
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