Qustion to the minds of the bar

[Tony Hardie-Bick]

Tony

Digital audio is very subtle.

Unfortunately, very few digital audio systems implement a "pure" solution, even 
though it is not computationally intensive to do so.

To keep it simple, if you add two streams together and make them louder, then 
the unfortunate subtle distortions which occur at many parts of the audio chain 
can become different.

The ear hears it all, and the confusing thing is that, even in digital domain, 
some distortions actually are interesting and musically useful.

The use of 32-bit floating point can make these issues even more complex and 
difficult to analyse. 64-bit FP should take these issues below the threshold of 
hearing, but ya never know.

If it were simple, all SSL desks would be digital by now.

Tony (HB)

Tony Scharf wrote:
> Ok, so I am having a bit of a disagreement with someone on a message
> board.  I posted that I thought Maschine had a certain sound to the
> way the drums were mixed together that I wasnt quite used to yet, and
> I got into the discussion that using the same drum samples in the same
> pattern in different programs sounded different to me.   The only
> processing involved is audio mixing - no EQ or FX applied, just the
> raw adding of the signals sounded different.
> 
> Now, this guy, who walks around acting like he is king of the nut
> house insists that there is only one way to add audio signals
> together, and he slopped to gether a bunch of screen shots showing
> white noise cancelling out when being summed against itself inverted
> on each of 4 programs.  I think the guy is full of it, simply because
> its obvious that his 'results' shots are all the exact same screen
> shot just with a different caption underneath.  That, and I cant
> believe a guy who also claims to be an 'in demand producer' would have
> the time to take out of his busy schedule just to derail a thread
> about the Yamaha RS7000.
> 
> Anyway, my question is  basically, am I full of it or is he?  Is the
> different sound I am hearing a product of my imagination, or are there
> possibly different ways the different audio programs (FL Studio,
> Maschine, Live, and Battery were discussed) that could result in each
> having its own 'sound' with only the summing engines coming in to
> play?  In my mind, it seems that audio mixing is a bit more complex
> than just 1+1=2 math, but then again maybe it is?  This guy thinks so,
> and posted as much.
> 
> Any help?
> 
> Tony
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