Diva vs Analogue - a real world test

[IncarnateX]

You can't make a blind (from birth on) person "see" the color red with words. Either a person sees colors or they don't. But the color red is there regardless whether or not person x sees it.

Not all types of blindness are inherited and/or incurable. Don't judge me ahead. If you have to be born with the ability to recognize warm sounds, then there is no hope left for me. Give it a shot at least.

Red is just a term such as warm or cold or soft or sharp. We might as well call the underlying physical phenomenon (certain wavelengths of light) vrkhfeiuzrekgufwifth instead of red. It is just a word, but it stands for something a healthy human eye and brain perceive in the same way, no matter who it is.
I think one might also be able to define such physical properties for warm or cold or soft or sharp sounds as well, properties the vast majority of people perceive the same way. But it is probably more complex than mere wavelengths of light. But even with colors there are wavelengths where it becomes difficult to say whether they are still red or already purple or orange or whatever.

Red refers in this case to a concrete and constant phenomenon, while the term "warm" is a metaphor and should not be taken literally (unless you want to discuss whether sound has temperature again), so that analogy has it's limits. Warm doesn't mean warm but something else, and what is the case in question.

[PAK]

Example of warm and non-warm sounds where people could say: "Hey that is what I mean with warm" would still be the better way to illustrate it.

Hmm, Ok. I guess this is a fairly typical example of what someone would usually call warm, or at least somewhat warm, which uses an A6 Andromeda.
http://www.jefflaity.com/music/MP3/PWM_pad.mp3

Whilst we're at it, how about throwing in a liquidy filter? Here's the plain old boring Juno 60 and externally modulated filter. It's a good example of a place where current emulations are likely to struggle..
http://greatsynthesizers.com/wp/wp-cont ... lector.mp3

[fluffy_little_something]

You can't make a blind (from birth on) person "see" the color red with words. Either a person sees colors or they don't. But the color red is there regardless whether or not person x sees it.

Not all types of blindness are inherited and/or incurable. Don't judge me ahead. If you have to be born with the ability to recognize warm sounds, then there is no hope left for me. Give it a shot at least.

Red is just a term such as warm or cold or soft or sharp. We might as well call the underlying physical phenomenon (certain wavelengths of light) vrkhfeiuzrekgufwifth instead of red. It is just a word, but it stands for something a healthy human eye and brain perceive in the same way, no matter who it is.
I think one might also be able to define such physical properties for warm or cold or soft or sharp sounds as well, properties the vast majority of people perceive the same way. But it is probably more complex than mere wavelengths of light. But even with colors there are wavelengths where it becomes difficult to say whether they are still red or already purple or orange or whatever.

Red refers in this case to a concrete and constant phenomenon, while the term "warm" is a metaphor and should not be taken literally (unless you want to discuss whether sound has temperature again), so that analogy has it's limits. Warm doesn't mean warm but something else, and what is the case in question.

I guess one could narrow "warm" down by asking lots of people to evaluate lots of different sounds in terms of their warmth on a scale from 0 to 10. One could analyze and compare the winners with the losers, searching for physical properties the sounds of each group have in common.

[IncarnateX]

Example of warm and non-warm sounds where people could say: "Hey that is what I mean with warm" would still be the better way to illustrate it.

Hmm, Ok. I guess this is a fairly typical example of what someone would usually call warm, or at least somewhat warm, which uses an A6 Andromeda.
http://www.jefflaity.com/music/MP3/PWM_pad.mp3

Whilst we're at it, how about throwing in a liquidy filter? Here's the plain old boring Juno 60 and externally modulated filter. It's a good example of a place where current emulations are likely to struggle..
http://greatsynthesizers.com/wp/wp-cont ... lector.mp3

Thank you for providing examples.. Difference did not become obvious to me here. I like both clips and would not be able to describe their character in terms of warm and not-warm. There are too many other concepts assicated with them. First clip sounded very "soft" , "uplifting" and even "sweet", the latter also "soft" but a Little "darker". But the music in clip 2 was a distractor because I liked it. Both sounded really good but in my ears also far from the "tape saturated or distorted" sound others associate with "warm".

[fmr]

And the usual suspect strikes again, with the usual sophismas.

Does that mean the word "SOPHISMA" exists, after all?

[IncarnateX]

searching for physical properties the sounds of each group have in common.

Then you would take the AD road. It is not what physical proporties they share that matters at first but the shared perceptions (if any) . Rather look for common traits in examples or discriptions.

[whyterabbyt]

And the usual suspect strikes again, with the usual sophismas.

Means that the word "SOPHISMA" exists, after all?

Dont you understand how quotations work, then?

[2ZrgE]

You can't make a blind (from birth on) person "see" the color red with words. Either a person sees colors or they don't. But the color red is there regardless whether or not person x sees it.

Not all types of blindness are inherited and/or incurable. Don't judge me ahead. If you have to be born with the ability to recognize warm sounds, then there is no hope left for me. Give it a shot at least.

Red is just a term such as warm or cold or soft or sharp. We might as well call the underlying physical phenomenon (certain wavelengths of light) vrkhfeiuzrekgufwifth instead of red. It is just a word, but it stands for something a healthy human eye and brain perceive in the same way, no matter who it is.
I think one might also be able to define such physical properties for warm or cold or soft or sharp sounds as well, properties the vast majority of people perceive the same way. But it is probably more complex than mere wavelengths of light. But even with colors there are wavelengths where it becomes difficult to say whether they are still red or already purple or orange or whatever.

Red refers in this case to a concrete and constant phenomenon, while the term "warm" is a metaphor and should not be taken literally (unless you want to discuss whether sound has temperature again), so that analogy has it's limits. Warm doesn't mean warm but something else, and what is the case in question.

I guess one could narrow "warm" down by asking lots of people to evaluate lots of different sounds in terms of their warmth on a scale from 0 to 10. One could analyze and compare the winners with the losers, searching for physical properties the sounds of each group have in common.

You know what would be funny? If you present exactly the same sounds, but with different experimental settings (for example one in a red painted room, then the same sound in a blue one). Then compare the results.

[fmr]

Example of warm and non-warm sounds where people could say: "Hey that is what I mean with warm" would still be the better way to illustrate it.

Hmm, Ok. I guess this is a fairly typical example of what someone would usually call warm, or at least somewhat warm, which uses an A6 Andromeda.
http://www.jefflaity.com/music/MP3/PWM_pad.mp3

Whilst we're at it, how about throwing in a liquidy filter? Here's the plain old boring Juno 60 and externally modulated filter. It's a good example of a place where current emulations are likely to struggle..
http://greatsynthesizers.com/wp/wp-cont ... lector.mp3

Thank you for providing examples.. Difference did not become obvious to me here. I like both clips and would be able to describe their character in terms of warm and not-warm. There are too many other concepts assicated with them. First clip sounded very "soft" , "uplifting" and even "sweet", the latter also "soft" but a Little "darker". But the music in clip 2 was a distractor because I liked it. Both sounded really good but in my ears also far from the "tape saturated or distorted" sound others associate with "warm".

Stravinsly once said that music in itself doesn't mean anything. Paraphrasing that, I would say that sound, in itself, cannot be described or categorized the way people are trying to in this thread. Yes, you can enumerate it's physical characteristics, like being short or long, with a strong or weak attack, with a rich or less rich spectrum, with emphasis on higher partials or on lower partials, rich in inharmonic partials or rich in harmonic partials, etc. This language will be meaningless for the vast majority of people. That's why we use metaphors.

But metaphors involve a risk. They have meaning only if the people who they are addressed to shares the same cultural and civilization backgrounds and references. Otherwise they may be meaningless or even worse, may assume meanings that are different or even opposite of the original meaning attributed by the author.

Let's give an example using poetry. In romantic poetry, the woman is many times compared to a rose. But what about if someone who reads that don't like roses, or is not particularly fond of roses? OTOH, he/she likes lilies, so, in his/her opinion, lilies are a much better image/metaphor. But the author don't even know lilies.

That's the problem of metaphors, and what we are discussing here. A word that doesn't have a perfectly defined meaning when applied to sound may assume different meanings to different persons, and people may form different images in their brains when they see a sound classified as "warm".

[trimph1]

You can't make a blind (from birth on) person "see" the color red with words. Either a person sees colors or they don't. But the color red is there regardless whether or not person x sees it.

Not all types of blindness are inherited and/or incurable. Don't judge me ahead. If you have to be born with the ability to recognize warm sounds, then there is no hope left for me. Give it a shot at least.

Red is just a term such as warm or cold or soft or sharp. We might as well call the underlying physical phenomenon (certain wavelengths of light) vrkhfeiuzrekgufwifth instead of red. It is just a word, but it stands for something a healthy human eye and brain perceive in the same way, no matter who it is.
I think one might also be able to define such physical properties for warm or cold or soft or sharp sounds as well, properties the vast majority of people perceive the same way. But it is probably more complex than mere wavelengths of light. But even with colors there are wavelengths where it becomes difficult to say whether they are still red or already purple or orange or whatever.

Red refers in this case to a concrete and constant phenomenon, while the term "warm" is a metaphor and should not be taken literally (unless you want to discuss whether sound has temperature again), so that analogy has it's limits. Warm doesn't mean warm but something else, and what is the case in question.

I guess one could narrow "warm" down by asking lots of people to evaluate lots of different sounds in terms of their warmth on a scale from 0 to 10. One could analyze and compare the winners with the losers, searching for physical properties the sounds of each group have in common.

You know what would be funny? If you present exactly the same sounds, but with different experimental settings (for example one in a red painted room, then the same sound in a blue one). Then compare the results.

My wife is an interior designer...guess who thinks that might be an interesting experiment?

[Lotuzia]

Stravinsly once said that music in itself doesn't mean anything. Paraphrasing that, I would say that sound, in itself, cannot be described or categorized the way people are trying to in this thread. Yes, you can enumerate it's physical characteristics, like being short or long, with a strong or weak attack, with a rich spectra or not, with emphasis on higher partials or on lower partials, rich in enharmonic partials or rich in harmonic partials, etc. This language will be meaningless for the vast majority of people. That's why we use metaphors.

But metaphors involve a risk. They have meaning only if the people who they are addressed to shares the same cultural and civilization backgrounds and references. Otherwise they may be meaningless or even worse, may assume meanings that are different or even opposite of the original meaning attributed by the author.

Let's give an example using poetry. In romantic poetry, the woman is many times compared to a rose. But what about if someone who reads that don't like roses, or is not particularly fond of roses? OTOH, he/she likes lilies, so, in his/her opinion, lilies are a much better image/metaphor. But the author don't even know lilies.

That's the problem of metaphors, and what we are discussing here. A word that doesn't have a perfectly defined meaning when applied to sound may assume different meanings to different persons, and people may form different images in their brains when they see a sound classified as "warm".

Is that the reason for Guns and roses ?

[zerocrossing]

I always thought warm was fairly well understood to mean attenuated high frequencies and more lows, accompanied by a bit of saturation...like the effect of a slightly lofi tape process...

That is the commonly accepted definition... well it is at least from every musician and engineer I've ever worked with.

I think the problem more lies in the dilution of a term by incorrect use. It literally drives me crazy. (see what I did there? )

When I found out they actually added the inverse definition to literally because so many people use it incorrectly, I figuratively sh!t my pants. I did curse the decline of civilization, but that's for a HPC thread.

[zerocrossing]

Example of warm and non-warm sounds where people could say: "Hey that is what I mean with warm" would still be the better way to illustrate it.

Hmm, Ok. I guess this is a fairly typical example of what someone would usually call warm, or at least somewhat warm, which uses an A6 Andromeda.
http://www.jefflaity.com/music/MP3/PWM_pad.mp3

Whilst we're at it, how about throwing in a liquidy filter? Here's the plain old boring Juno 60 and externally modulated filter. It's a good example of a place where current emulations are likely to struggle..
http://greatsynthesizers.com/wp/wp-cont ... lector.mp3

I'd more more or less agree with describing those examples as "warm."

Today I was messing about with my Nord Drum 2 and it's FM engine. I'd call it "cold" sounding, yet not as cold as a DX FM engine. So of course, there are degrees of things, but I don't think anyone would call most digital FM "warm" sounding even when it lacks a lot of high frequency content.

With guitar players it's very common to put a humbucking pickup near the bridge and single coils near the neck. Why? Most will describe, "because humbuckers are a bit warmer." They also have a hotter output where the excursion of the string is smaller and harmonic content is higher, so it helps balance the overall tone.

Here's something I thought of that may have helped the birth of the term "warm." Tube amps are effected by the load they drive. While a speaker may have a load value of 8 ohms, that's not a constant value. In the relationship between the tube output stage and the load, you get a kind of active filter which will mute higher frequencies to a degree depending on the signal. Tubes actually do get warmer as they have voltage applied to them, in a way that transistors do not, at least to the same degree. A transistor amp, while being cooler running, also will sound more accurate because the load does not have any effect on it. It will naturally sound a bit brighter. My guess is this is where the term started.

[Urs]

I've been thinking about it for a bit.

Maybe there's a more literal sense to "warm" and "cold" in music / sound than meets they eye. In physics, something that's warmer is described as having more energy than something that's cold. For instance, the more movement of matter, the more bouncy the atoms, the warmer something is. In short, really cold water takes up the forum of ice (static) while really hot water becomes steam (rather turbulent).

I always think of "warm" sounds as those that incurr a lot of movement, such as nicely beating oscillators, better yet in such a way that the beating isn't static. On the other hand, cold sounds are static, "frozen", without much movement.

In consequence, sounds that have an emphasize on low frequencies, such that the wavelength exceeds the human ability to separate individual events (less than 1kHz IIRC), may be perceived as more animated and thus less static than anything that emphasizes on high frequencies where individual cycles can not be perceived as separate events. I'm leaning myself far out of the window here, maybe someone more knowledgeable in neuroscience and psychology can chime in.

Further on, if we take something that moves and/or develops as something that's animated, and if we in the literal sense call it "having a soul", we can call it "alive". In analogy, something that doesn't move is static, not alive and thus dead and soulless.

So there you have it. It all makes sense. Warm sounds move - and they move you. Cold sounds are static and they suck the life out of music

(in my defense I had a drink or two and I just violated my vows not to post drunk)

[glokraw]

Energy is not static, but dynamic. Sound is also dynamic,,
Labels such as warm or cold are like labels on your drinks,
a smooth bourbon, a dry wine, a stout beer.

An honest test hoping to gain useful audio definitions
would first require everyone involved take a hearing test,
and weed out those with some agreed upon level of hearing loss.

Someone whose ears were blasted out by decades of flailing tube amp
madness, is likely to define warm, quite differently than a concert pianist,
while being unlikely to actually hear it, in a scientific sense.
Bring on the red paint...

And we all know Hive sounds so cool because of the blue skin