KVR Audio

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:12 pm

couldn't be arsed to wade thru 10 pages of this. Let me guess, 5 pages of chicken vs. egg and an emerging turf war between at least 3 parties for 2 pages. Then somebody says something about virus/303/crunk/tarnce. War changes into egg vs. chicken.

Right. time for me to jump in.

wait a minute. no. bye.

greendoor · Post by **greendoor** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:16 pm

But which is warmer - the chicken or the egg?

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:22 pm

greendoor wrote:But which is warmer - the chicken or the egg?

An egg has a better surface vs. volume ratio. That's better for keeping the temperature.

Urs

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:45 pm

Urs wrote:
greendoor wrote:But which is warmer - the chicken or the egg?
An egg has a better surface vs. volume ratio. That's better for keeping the temperature.

Yes, but have you already met http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/ ??

That's flexibility for ya.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:47 pm

Sascha Franck wrote:I agree on the cumulative effect, even did some tests myself a while ago.
Yet, my ears are too old to enjoy all of this.

I do however notice that there's no guitar amp simulation getting close to the real deal at all yet - so there might be something about analog behaviour (I won't call it "warmth" though).

How's the one with logic 7 latest version? We have it at the university but I constantly forget to check it out! The mp3 demos I heard were pretty amazing but sound demos are only ever about 10% of the story. How it responds to playing is the other 90%!

- bManic

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:46 pm

bmanic wrote: How's the one with logic 7 latest version? We have it at the university but I constantly forget to check it out! The mp3 demos I heard were pretty amazing but sound demos are only ever about 10% of the story. How it responds to playing is the other 90%!

I only tried it once on a friends machine and wasn't all that much pleased. Nothing I'd pay for, especially when there's free stuff like Cortex, which really isn't bad. Still, just like you said, playing feel isn't there on almost all of them. My VAmp does a way better job regarding that aspect.
But then, even if I love all that digital stuff, these things are probably something I won't be using any day soon for anything serious. When I'm moving (which might happen around end of the year), the first thing I'm gonna be building is a dead box speaker enclosure (along with a small recording cabin).

Actually, I think as a package NIs guitar rig is the best yet, but that's more up to the fact that it's coming with its own Hi-Z input device, probably the most important thing.

greendoor · Post by **greendoor** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:13 am

The acoustics of small boxes sound bad, therefore most attempts at speaker enclosures sound bad. I think the best approach is simply use a small amp. Really small. Like 1 or 2 watts. Battery power is good - solves your AC hum problems too. This is no secret - the little Pignose amp in the 70's was used by rock legends for BIG guitar tone. Brian May used a homebrew amp made from a junked car radio for many classic Queen parts. I find most guitar amps are made to sound stinking loud next to a drummer. They are usually useless in a small studio. Think about this: you can record a breathy, whispered vocal line and peak your meters no problem. You simply don't need 120dB of sound to record a huge guitar tone. You can record at conversational levels and never upset the neighbours, if you want to. But there is a shortage of quality small amps for this purpose.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:19 am

I'm thinking about the small THD amp. Unfortunately it's not exactly cheap.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:30 am

There was a very positive review in the latest Sound on Sound issue about some passive box making it possible to fully load a big amp but get it playing at moderate levels. I suggest using one of these for recording. The review clearly stated that it was a far superior solution to POD's, Vamp's etc. Unfortunately this piece of gear (that I can't remeber the name of right now) was rather expensive.

Cheers!
bManic

Mr Smith · Post by **Mr Smith** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:37 am

err... the whole thing is a bit of a contradicion, analog warmth with a digital effect? The "analog" fuss is just an old thing from the days when the (old) audioguys became worried: hmm... a $10 plugin claims to do what my $1000 gear does? impossible - it's not "analog" and you know the story. Personally i don't give a damn if plugin X sounds like the "analog" hardware Y. the science behind it is not important, a useful sound is what counts. I love bitcrushers on synths, complete opposite to analog warth, more digital coldness!

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:39 am

I've tried Rocktron's Juice Extractor and Rockman's Powerbrake - didn't like them much.
As said, best results I've been getting so far have been through some dead box. Of course, a good sounding small amp will help immensely.

Democritus · Post by **Democritus** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:53 am

ANALOG WAAAAAAAAARMTHHHHHHHH!!!!!... ANAAAALOOOOOG WAAAAAAAAAAAAAARMMMMRHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!... AHHHHHHHRGHHHHHHHHAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHAAA!!!!! ANAAAAAAAAALOOOOOOOOGGGGGGG WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRMMMMMMMTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ANAAAAALOOOOOOGGGG WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARMMMMMMMTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jmh · Post by **jmh** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:09 am

Interesting test, I've played my Sintefex-mastered new worktune to a number of people. Most people don't hear a difference (96 kHz worktune, both a raw rendering and a Sintefex-processed edit)... to me, with bmanic's monitoring, the difference was really something. On my headphones, I can still easily hear what good the process have done.

I guess it goes to show that people often expect to hear something drastically different, whereas the difference is more subtle - and you kind of have to "know" what to listen...

Coming later on: same tune rendered from my host, rendered from Ableton Live, rendered from Live with summing done on a RME card, and then a couple of summing mixes with different mixers (funky old Studer, track-at-a-time mix with an Amek preamp)... and I'm quite sure most people won't hear a difference either, as it's not drastic. And frankly, I don't care, as it's more important for me to be able to hear the differences and be able to decide which one sounds "the best" to me

Regards,

JMH

blümchen · Post by **blümchen** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:22 am

A simple question:

There are 10 pages now here.
Did you actually find out, what the analog warmth myth is?

.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:25 am

Yes. I posted it, straight from Wholly Scripture. It's... erm, somewhere back there. *waves a paw vaguely* Yeah. There.