Pushtec appreciation thread

[jens]

back to school with you as well then...

[moonlite]

whoooooops :D

[Lee702]

i think you hold control and you can fine tune it

[jotb]

has anybody got thus this thing working with REAPER? here it crashes REAPER instantly

[LeftoverLasagne]

has anybody got thus this thing working with REAPER? here it crashes REAPER instantly

out first bug report.

let's see what Leo has to say about that. So the BÖC Song isn't true anymore is it. let's all fear the reaper now.

with regards
Lucia

[sinkmusic]

It worked in Reaper on my machine.
But i managed to get midi learn working only in Ext (not in Live or reaper). And when turning one of the knobs of Pushtec using my controller, it was making some noise (at low level, but indeed noise/crackle).
And, if i go in No gui mode, i see a volume fader we can nont see on the GUI !
And also a "quality" setting : what is it for ? It stays on "normal mode"....

[jotb]

oh, testet in on my "testing machine" with reaper version .999 in the latest (1.26) it works...

[kilroy]

Kilroy, out of interest I compared the presets with CWBs Plugin Analyser (should also get a proper social life ), the frequency response curves are very close. Did you those settings only by listening? Wow

Good monitoring...good rooms...doing a thing enough times that you can't help but eventually get good at it.

[kilroy]

www.headroomproductions.com/Mastering/EQTest.zip

I don't know what kilroy is going for with this little test...

There's more than one way to skin a cat?

I hate 1kHz, really.. ).

Elliot Scheiner trick, if the performance smokes, and the instruments are good, mix it with a bit of definition round that 1k region.

3k...now *that* can be a nasty, nasty frequency these days.

[kilroy]

I've always had this feeling that in the end, even if most people don't really "hear" the difference, they still pick the one with some extra non-linearity processing in it, intuitively.

Well...in my experience, most normal folks usually just pick whatever slams the needle on their fun meter into the red zone, gives them goose bumps all over, or makes them go all mushy inside.


But for some of us audio engineers, yeah...nothing like a bit of that non-linear goop to get us thinking it sounds better.

[uvacom]

No, none of these files has the Pushtec on it. This has nothing to do with the pushtec. I just posted the files originally in the pushtec thread as an example of non-linearities (which something that mimics a vintage unit should have, IMHO). Now I'm just more interested if people can intuitively actually hear/feel them. It's a test to see if it's any use in mastering to run "home studio" mixes trough tube gear/transformers to "warm up" the material. I've always had this feeling that in the end, even if most people don't really "hear" the difference, they still pick the one with some extra non-linearity processing in it, intuitively. That's what this poll is about.

Cheers and please vote in that poll!
bManic

I think the low-mids maybe sound a bit smoother in B...maybe. It's very subtle, what would be really interesting would be to see if people can spot the difference in a blind test. Given the small sample size of the test group you'd want to set up about 10 different comparisons with different material, to see if people can consistently pick up the difference. (anybody can guess right if the odds are 1 in 2, but when the odds are 1 in 1024 it means a little more).

I'm glad there's actually people out there concerned with this stuff, personally I can always think of 100 more significant things I could do to a mix aside from adding really minute nonlinearities. Not to say it's not worth doing if the tools are available, of course.

[bmanic]

I've always had this feeling that in the end, even if most people don't really "hear" the difference, they still pick the one with some extra non-linearity processing in it, intuitively.

Well...in my experience, most normal folks usually just pick whatever slams the needle on their fun meter into the red zone, gives them goose bumps all over, or makes them go all mushy inside.


But for some of us audio engineers, yeah...nothing like a bit of that non-linear goop to get us thinking it sounds better.

Hehe.. yes, could be. However, I think even small changes, when applied often enough (like every track) can make quite a big change in the end (some call it glue, some sparkle, some "sounds like a record", etc.)

The thing is, I'm really interested in psychology and the what triggers our senses. The more I read about these things the more I'm convinced that the human senses like chaos, changes, randomness, movement. Anything that is static, even for short periods of time seem 'dull' and un-interesting. This is how Taste, smell, the eyes and also our hearing works. As a cook we were taught how to create dishes that create a "harmony" in the two important senses that build up our idea of taste, namely the 4 parts of the tongue (sweet, salty, sour and bitter) and more importantly the smell. What works is when this combination "moves" or "wobbles". I can't really describe it but the important part is that while the customer is chewing he gets repeatedly 'attacked' with complex stimuli. That creates a fullfilling dining experience.

Now, a couple of years ago I saw an interesting documentary about our eye sight and how it is extremely sensitive to movement, namle RANDOM movement. As soon as there is a repeat pattern in the movement it gets blocked away after a short while by the brain.

I think the same probably applies to the hearing as well. I mean, it can't be just a fluke that serious listeners (not the iPod generation teens but adult people of various ages and income groups) usually prefer vinyl and tube amplifiers etc. (or then maybe it's just a matter of psychology, that they are used to the medium of vinyl as that was their generations most common medium.. however, why isn't there then a generation that likes C-cassette over everything else?). Both vinyl and any analogue amplification systems have inherent complex non-linearities and randomnes/chaos in the signal.

Same goes with the synth buffs who still swear by analogue. There is something there, something that is not static, which appeals.. maybe.

I don't know any answers to this, I might be on a wild goose chase but this is why I like doing this kind of small tests. I will probably have a seminar about this very issue some time in the future and pick a group of 10 people or more from the street and have them come listen to a similar test and get them to pick their favourite. We'll see..

Cheers and sorry for the continuous off-topic hi-jacking!
bManic

[jmh]

As a cook we were taught how to create dishes that create a "harmony" in the two important senses that build up our idea of taste, namely the 4 parts of the tongue (sweet, salty, sour and bitter) and more importantly the smell. What works is when this combination "moves" or "wobbles". I can't really describe it but the important part is that while the customer is chewing he gets repeatedly 'attacked' with complex stimuli. That creates a fullfilling dining experience.

Highly offtopic... but you should catch up on the subject. There's not only a fifth basic taste nowadays, but the myth about tongue having different regions for different tastes is also debunked... (ran into this while searching for certain information regarding MSG and similarly functioning taste enhancers, fascinating stuff indeed)

That's it for the cooking talk.

[Convolve]

oops, wrong thread, sorry (wanted to write something to the nonlin-comparisons).

But when I am at it: thanks for Pushtec! I really like it, and I appreciate all the work you did for the DC!

[brok landers]

you know what's neat?
when you get off the graphical interface into the hosts default interface mode, this plug gets free adjustable frequencies and bandwiths ... i somehow like this plug ...allthough the filters seem to sound very standard biquad like to me, far from the real thing it is modeled of ... could be wrong though ...