Phat warm punch (split from transparent compressor thread)

[bmanic]

I find it rather interesting how some of you need to be so defensive and belittle others opinions and need for clarification. Why the hostility Shy? Man.. you could at least try to be polite to others, no?

However, I do agree with Shy that because of the subjectivity of the terms it might be irrelevant but we can't be certain about this until somebody tries to establish some kind of consensus over some general things? Surely it must be possible. It's been done for defining colors already a long time (warm vs cold colors). Surely it is possible to do the same for particular traits of sound? Only by communicating and trying to share our understanding of these subjective terms can we slowly as a community come to a general "broad" consensus. Why on earth would that be a bad thing?

The most important thing to keep in mind (in my opinion at least) is to NEVER treat any word/description as "magic" or "better" than another word. This is where I see the most harm done. Everything has it's place and can be used/abused to get the desired end result. The only thing in the end that counts IS the end result, NOT how it was achieved. Hence analogue isn't automatically a "superior sound" to digital, warm isn't always more desirable than cold, punchy not always better than tame/smooth etc.

For instance, to me, punchy is very self evident. It comes from the word punch, obviously. It is an impact. Thus something that is punchy has more impact than it's surrounding audio data meaning the transient/attack phase of a sound is pronounced compared to the steady state/sustain portion of the sound. With a generic compressor this can be easily achieved by setting a long, slow attack and a fast release. This will let the initial transient through and then "clamp down" on the rest of the sound, which is usually the sustain or decay part, thus separating the transient further from it's "body", creating more "punch".

The opposite of punchy, to me, would be smooth or perhaps the word "tame". This would mean that the transient/attack phase of a sounds impact is diminished in relation to the surrounding audio and the sounds own sustain/steady state.

Warm / cold, these to me are simply frequency response related. Both can be achieved through filtering and/or harmonic distortion, though I do not know exactly how or why some harmonic distortion can sound brighter than another type (dominating even harmonics versus dominating odd harmonics). Warm, to me, simply means a darker frequency response, or at least one that has less energy in the areas the human ear is sensitive (see fletcher-munson curve). Cold would be a signal which has dominating upper harmonics/higher frequencies in relation to the fundamental.

Perhaps easier to put warm/cold is like this: A warm signal can be listened to at relatively high volumes without the ears starting to hurt/fatigue whereas a cold signal contains much more energy at the ears sensitive areas making it sound "louder" than the warm signal at the same volume and thus hurts the ears earlier.

I find this kind of discussion of terminology fascinating and highly worth pursuing as it will help further the understanding of others and how we all perceive audio in different ways. Having a broad sense of what and how others perceive sound is a vital trait in the studio environment. It makes working and collaborating with people a lot easier and more fun.

Cheers!
bManic

[Shy]

I have nothing at all against such discussion, but I have a lot against this site having a definitive "glossary" of such terms (that's where the hostility came from. I really have nothing against anyone in this thread, though) and I've explained why.

[herodotus]

For instance, to me, punchy is very self evident. It comes from the word punch, obviously. It is an impact. Thus something that is punchy has more impact than it's surrounding audio data meaning the transient/attack phase of a sound is pronounced compared to the steady state/sustain portion of the sound. With a generic compressor this can be easily achieved by setting a long, slow attack and a fast release. This will let the initial transient through and then "clamp down" on the rest of the sound, which is usually the sustain or decay part, thus separating the transient further from it's "body", creating more "punch".

This provides a great example of how subjective this term is, because to me the opposite is true.

'Punchy' is a word that I would never use, mind, but if I did use it, it would be to describe the sound of a drum kit with a fast attack and a slow release, so as to 'suck the room into the drum sound' as I have heard it described somewhere. Drums sound 'stronger' to me this way, hence they have more 'punch'.

The compressor settings you described above result in a sound that I would call 'clicky'. Or rather I would use that term if I were prone to using such subjective words to describe compressor settings.


I personally think that any attempt at making a glossary of subjective words like these would be meaningless because the words themselves are damn close to being meaningless. They are weak attempts to make easy sense of the infinite complexity of music. They give the illusion of communication without actually accomplishing it.

But I could be wrong. Spontaneous order pops up everywhere, usually unexpectedly. Something like the urban dictionary would be just the thing to see if this were so in this case. I would supply the bandwidth and hosting if someone else knows where they can find an open source script to do the job.

As I say, I am skeptical, but I am always willing to do an experiment and see what happens.

[thecontrolcentre]

Random Plugin Of The Hour just threw this little gem up ...

"Renegade combines the warm and organic analog sound with the sharpness, toughness and preciseness of digital. Renegade is based on algorithms of DSP chips and analog circuits of real hardware synthesizers. It includes special features like Supersaw oscillator, serial combination of vintage analog filters with precise and tough digital filters or the amplifier section without inner clipping with non-linear analog saturation. Renegade is intended especially for tough fat lead sounds, basses and organic analog sounds."

WTF does organic sound like? Better check the glossary

[eduardo_b]

The conundrum is that having terms in order to discuss sound and music is essential, yet these terms are open to disagreement as to precisely what they mean. But precision isn't actually needed...only a generalization to contrast with other terms (also generalizations). Given this reality, a term like transparent would mean making little or no change to a sound beyond that intended with the use of a specific tool -- compressor, EQ, whatever. Adding coloration reduces the degree of transparency, but that's not saying exactly what it sounds like. Transparency is more relative than precise, but that works when discussing sound and audio. Some descriptive terms are better than others in this regard, but a glossary won't really resolve any of this without agreed-upon audio examples -- which themselves would be open to disagreement.

[eduardo_b]

Random Plugin Of The Hour just threw this little gem up ...

"Renegade combines the warm and organic analog sound with the sharpness, toughness and preciseness of digital. Renegade is based on algorithms of DSP chips and analog circuits of real hardware synthesizers. It includes special features like Supersaw oscillator, serial combination of vintage analog filters with precise and tough digital filters or the amplifier section without inner clipping with non-linear analog saturation. Renegade is intended especially for tough fat lead sounds, basses and organic analog sounds."

WTF does organic sound like? Better check the glossary

I don't see a glossary being of any help. Some of these descriptives seem like they were chosen at random and have no obvious meaning in the context within which they are used.

[bmanic]

The conundrum is that having terms in order to discuss sound and music is essential, yet these terms are open to disagreement as to precisely what they mean. But precision isn't actually needed...only a generalization to contrast with other terms (also generalizations). Given this reality, a term like transparent would mean making little or no change to a sound beyond that intended with the use of a specific tool -- compressor, EQ, whatever. Adding coloration reduces the degree of transparency, but that's not saying exactly what it sounds like. Transparency is more relative than precise, but that works when discussing sound and audio. Some descriptive terms are better than others in this regard, but a glossary won't really resolve any of this without agreed-upon audio examples -- which themselves would be open to disagreement.

Exactly. Well put.

Actually we already have a few terms that fall into this category. Brighter and darker. Near, far (when discussing reverbs, spatiality of a sound source). Wide/narrow stereo image (it's as ambiguous as warm/cold, punchy/phat yet we use it often to describe a trait of a sound source).

Cheers!
bManic

[yellowfever]

A good way to define such glossaries is to use both the defined word and its opposite I think. For example, talking about a kick (always used to be a bass, when did that change?!) drum, the opposite of punch in this context imo would be flabby, dull, lifeless, no oomph etc, so by definition, a punchy kick drum would have lots of impact and 'thoomp'. A glossary is a good idea, but I doubt if everyone would agree to the definitions.

This is exactly the reason I asked the OP of the original thread to define how he meant 'transparent' because people can define it differently.

Good discussion on the whole.

[thecontrolcentre]

I don't see a glossary being of any help.

Me neither ...

flabby, dull, lifeless, no oomph etc

[herodotus]

Actually we already have a few terms that fall into this category. Brighter and darker. Near, far (when discussing reverbs, spatiality of a sound source). Wide/narrow stereo image (it's as ambiguous as warm/cold, punchy/phat yet we use it often to describe a trait of a sound source).

The wide/narrow stereo image could be easily defined with examples, though.

Just take a wide sound source (say, a full orchestra) and record it with two mikes in an x/y pattern at an acute angle. Gradually change the angle of the mic positioning to a less acute angle until you get as wide as the x/y pattern lets you go. Do six or eight separate recordings of the same source at each interval from narrow to less narrow to medium to wide to maximum wide, etc.

I think that would be pretty definitive.





'Phat' on the other hand, is hopeless.

[eduardo_b]

The conundrum is that having terms in order to discuss sound and music is essential, yet these terms are open to disagreement as to precisely what they mean. But precision isn't actually needed...only a generalization to contrast with other terms (also generalizations). Given this reality, a term like transparent would mean making little or no change to a sound beyond that intended with the use of a specific tool -- compressor, EQ, whatever. Adding coloration reduces the degree of transparency, but that's not saying exactly what it sounds like. Transparency is more relative than precise, but that works when discussing sound and audio. Some descriptive terms are better than others in this regard, but a glossary won't really resolve any of this without agreed-upon audio examples -- which themselves would be open to disagreement.

Exactly. Well put.

Actually we already have a few terms that fall into this category. Brighter and darker. Near, far (when discussing reverbs, spatiality of a sound source). Wide/narrow stereo image (it's as ambiguous as warm/cold, punchy/phat yet we use it often to describe a trait of a sound source).

Cheers!
bManic

How about a list of all the terms used to describe audio qualities. It would long, no one not interested in the topic would have a clue what these terms mean in this context, and everyone else could argue endlessly about which terms are valid and what they really describe. It would certainly keep Meffy busy -- locking, splitting, unlocking, banning, relocking.

[bmanic]

Actually we already have a few terms that fall into this category. Brighter and darker. Near, far (when discussing reverbs, spatiality of a sound source). Wide/narrow stereo image (it's as ambiguous as warm/cold, punchy/phat yet we use it often to describe a trait of a sound source).

The wide/narrow stereo image could be easily defined with examples, though.

Just take a wide sound source (say, a full orchestra) and record it with two mikes in an x/y pattern at an acute angle. Gradually change the angle of the mic positioning to a less acute angle until you get as wide as the x/y pattern lets you go. Do six or eight separate recordings of the same source at each interval from narrow to less narrow to medium to wide to maximum wide, etc.

This very same example applies for basically any other term as well! The point here being that you COMPARE two sources, exposing the differences. The difference becomes the "definition", in this case "wide stereo" and the other becomes the "original", to demonstrate the change. The term "wide stereo" isn't exact and thus two people will most likely process a sound source differently to achieve their view of the term.

Same could be done by anybody to show you how they perceive the word "punch" or "phat", by showing the contrast through audio examples. If this is done many times by a large number of people then at some point we will reach a blurry consensus of what the general meaning of a term would be. Not exact, still interpreted differently by all but never the less something general.

Or is my logic here completely flawed? I'm a bit tired so it might very well be the case.

Cheers!
bManic

[tony tony chopper]

Color - Some kind of EQ boosting

color is the only term that's properly defined, it means timbre/tone (& thus coloration a change in the spectrum I'd assume)

[Shy]

Or is my logic here completely flawed? I'm a bit tired so it might very well be the case.

Not flawed at all. That's exactly how people should pass around their ideas regarding qualities of sound, but hardly ever do. Still, it doesn't mean having an official "glossary" to wave in forum members' faces as an example every time some term is mentioned is a good idea.

[tony tony chopper]

Still, it doesn't mean having an official "glossary" to wave in forum members' faces as an example every time some term is mentioned is a good idea.

why not? What's the point of debating about anything if what's being said is not understood the same way by everyone?