Phat warm punch (split from transparent compressor thread)

[Shy]

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?

Sorry, I can't repeat what has been said by myself and others several times already. Shortly: glossary of completely subjective terms is unrepresentative of everyone (to say the least), inherently narrow minded, thus flawed, will cause way more crap than good, etc. etc.

[eduardo_b]

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?

A glossary would be fine if it were not itself a point of contention, which seems almost certain to be the case. While it's true any discussion should have agreement on definitions to be functional, this doesn't seem likely when it comes to at least some audio terminology. At least not on kvr.

[shogger]

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

Thanx for agreeing with me.

Shogger

[tony tony chopper]

Shortly: glossary of completely subjective terms is unrepresentative of everyone (to say the least), inherently narrow minded, thus flawed, will cause way more crap than good, etc. etc

So what, you're against dictionaries in general? Every word has one or more definitions, and if it doesn't have any, there's no point in using it.

We wouldn't need a dictionary if people were using more accurate terms/descriptions, but that's not gonna change.

Otherwise we will keep hearing "this sounds fat, no this sounds fatter" about anything, and everyone will keep uselessly fighting about something everyone is right about, because fat is a completely subjective term.

[shogger]

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.

No one here said remotely what you made out of this "glossary". Nobody here in this thread wants to go "but didn't you read the glossary? The Virus is the phattest synth around."

Shogger

[shogger]

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?

Yeah, but only in a sense of "don't you make it a rule for everybody!"
If it's something that is there and we all agree upon then it's fine enough.
































Shogger

[Rock Hardbuns]

"Warm" means to be suffering from a slight asymmetric saturation effect, like when you overdrive the input of a tube preamp. If you crank it up even more the signal gets "hot", and audibly distorted.
It can also mean that there is a lot of mids and almost no highs, as in "a warm pad" made from a low passed super saw.

"Transparent", in EQ mean that it's reversible. If you stack two identical and transparent EQs with opposite settings, what you get out is what you put in in the first place. If you do this with a non-transparent EQ the second EQ will just mess even more with the signal. In other words, a transparent device does not screw with your signal more than it has to.
The word can also be used metaphorically, as in "it sounds transparent", which would mean "it doesn't sound like it's screwing with the signal, but who the hell knows".

"Punch" and "Snap" indicate different levels of the same effect, which is that transients rise above the mix. I.e, the attack of a percussive instrument breaks out, while the body of it's sound sits well in the mix.
Or, in more general terms, it means a good balance between preserving dynamics and bringing the levels up as far as drums and such go.

"Fat" usually means harmonically rich, up to a point. The typical example is synth unison voices which are said to make the sound fatter. But I would say that it is only valid up to a point, because once there is enough harmonic density, the cancellation effects will bring the sound closer to that of a reverb.

[shogger]

fat is a completely subjective term.

Hm, I think we can manage that. Only few people would say that I'm not fat and I'm not one of these.

Shogger

[Shy]

shogger: I mentioned what *I* said.
tony: argue all you want about subjectiveness of dictionaries in general, but I'm not talking about dictionaries/glossaries in general. Go ahead and impose your own definition of "phat" and "color" on everyone here and see what outcome you get. If you don't know that people don't even agree on what you think is a clear definition ("color"), what can I say?
If anyone feels like making a glossary of ridiculously subjective terms relating to quality of sound in order to point forum members to it, have fun, maybe I'll have fun watching shit hit the fan, until it gets worse.

[eduardo_b]

"Warm" means...

"Transparent", in EQ mean...

"Punch" and "Snap" indicate different levels of the same effect...

"Fat" usually means harmonically rich...

I see these admirable, well-intentioned efforts to describe what audio terms mean only comprehensible if the person reading them can translate the descriptions into actual audio examples. That is, without reference points in real world audio, the value of the descriptions is more or less lost.

[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.

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.

Well the deal here is that 'stereo width' has an objective meaning based on microphone positioning. I don't think there is a single audio engineer who will deny that two cardioid microphones positioned like this:



will give a wider stereo image than the same two microphones positioned like this:



There is what some people call an 'objective correlative' between the width of the microphones' pickup patterns and the perceived 'width' of the stereo field. So if some guy says that he 'feels' that a recording done with the second microphone pattern has a wider stereo image than a recording done with the first pattern, we can say quite objectively that his feeling is deceptive or mistaken or skewed or however you want to put it.

'Phat' has no such objective correlative.

Now, admittedly very few people do old school stereo recordings using two microphones in an x/y pattern or ORTF pattern or Blumlein array or whatever. And people speak of the 'stereo width' of, say, a patch on a synth that has never even hit a microphone. And yes, when 'stereo width' is used in this sense it can be much more subjective. But the term at least has an objective meaning at the back of it all, whereas 'Phat' is a product of someone's imagination.

[tony tony chopper]

tony: argue all you want about subjectiveness of dictionaries in general, but I'm not talking about dictionaries/glossaries in general. Go ahead and impose your own definition of "phat" and "color" on everyone here and see what outcome you get.

It shouldn't be imposed by 1 person, it should be done like dictionaries are made, by gathering info on how the terms are used by people who are in the business, or better, like public encyclopedies are made. It's the majority that imposes meanings to the minority, not the other way around as you believe. (or rather the majority of people who can write, which in the past was certainly a minority, but now it applies to almost everyone)
To start with I myself shouldn't have anything to say about the definitions as english isn't my first language. But if someone uses a term, I'd like some authority to tell me what it means.

Why would music be a so much special business that its technical terms can't be defined?

& whether you like it or not, -some- terms already have a proper definition in the audio world, made by people who have more authority on english language than a bunch of people in a forum, & agreed on by people before we were born.
The only problem is that there are a lot of terms left, because proper language always lags behind urban language.

'Phat' has no such objective correlative.

You could say the same about all slang terms & even insults, yet you'd be able to explain them to a foreigner.
Maybe phat has several meanings, one more reason to define them, & seal it so that no one comes up with his own, new meaning, to make it worse. Even defining what phat does NOT mean, & defining it as positive, is a step. Fat, warm, analog is generally positive, cold & digital often pejorative.

[Shy]

Tony, we're not talking about technical terms, we're talking about mostly ridiculously subjective terms. The reason there can't possibly be a case of "a majority imposing meanings to a minority" is that the terms are so subjective that they could mean pretty much anything, and as I've observed during many years, as expected, people do interpret terms like "color" and "punchy" in countless ways, so many that even a complete mess of thousands of samples that's no longer a real "representation" can't serve as a reliable representation of a majority. I'll also remind you that since it's sound we're talking about, the "majority" you wish to represnt includes anyone who can hear.

There are degrees of how subjective things are, and "color" when it comes to sound couldn't possibly be adequately explained as it can mean pretty much anything and there couldn't possibly be an even a slightly "globally sensible" term that the majority of people would agree on.

Whether you like it or not, there are no common agreements on any subjective definition of sound and the people in the "audio world" (what?..) you refer to, are some kind of obscure group you think is some sort of authority on those completely subjective terms.

Try to define anything if you want, but plain common sense tells me it's impossible to make an authoritative glossary of those terms and that because of that, it would do way more harm than good. Anyway, anyone can do whatever they want, I said what I have to say and frankly I'm not even sure why I'm explaining things that are obvious. If it's not obvious to anyone, that's kind of scary, and I find nothing "admirable" about people's wishes to stuff everything into neat little senseless databases.

[shogger]

shogger: I mentioned what *I* said.

OK, sorry for that.

Shogger

[thecontrolcentre]

Is this glossary done yet? I want to make some phat beats, but I'm not sure if phat is the right description, so I'd like to read what others think my phat beats should sound like, in case I don't mean phat.