What makes analog so analog?

[Lunch Money]

It was a bit condescending; however, it can still be argued that one digital sample is more instantaneous than sympathetic feedback (which is the term more commonly used to describe this phenomenon).

I say this as a guitarist-- most times, sympathetic feedback is anything BUT instantaneous. You have to find the sweet spot, and you have to wait for the swell. <shrug>

That's another argument, though-- here, we're trying to figure out why programmers are still a little bit short of making a digital synth sound analog.

I wonder how many users are excluding other factors... are the digital synths and analog synths being compared going along identical signal paths (not including the internal path through capacitors and so forth inside the synth, I mean)? Ie. is the digital synth going to the same amplifier as the analog? To the same speakers? I think the speakers have a bigger effect on things than people imagine. Even with a guitar amp, swap out different speakers and you get an entirely different sound.

Greg

[McLilith]

Hi dr.wackler,

My use of the phrase "expert testimony" and the word "cute" was meant in a friendly, light-hearted, joking manner. I didn't mean to annoy you.

As for the instantaneous or non-instantaneous nature of feedback, I give up. I guess we'll just disagree about this, for now.


take care,
McLilith

[tony tony chopper]

Well, that might be the proper description of your personal medical condition, but it doesn't really describe the acoustic energy you are able to detect

well I don't know if I can detect that, but I can feel pressure in my sinus, so I can predict weather like old people

I feel like it's gonna rain

[tony tony chopper]

I would describe it as feeling more like a sensation of "pressure" than "normal sound". One day, while suffering from a severe headache, I was able to detect a 200 kHz sine wave. Once again, I couldn't sense the pitch, only the presence of the signal, and it felt like a dull sensation of "pressure." I only know that it was 200 kHz, because it was being generated by a friend with a signal generator that maxed out at 200 kHz, and he was playing it at the highest frequency setting.

if this is true and you claim that it's where the analogness is, then it would mean that a digital recording of an analog synth on a CD would lose that, so would not sound analog anymore (making analog synths much less interesting then)

I think the speakers have a bigger effect on things than people imagine.

I think too. While people care about dithering & other BS like that, things can sound so extremely different on various speakers/headphones that, I think, equalizing/mastering is what people should spend the most time on.

[Joxer the Mighty]

Joxer, has anyone ever called you a pessamist?

No, I'm a very optimistic person. Really!

I didn't mean to sound so pessimistic, I just meant that the 'analog sound' may never be replicated exactly via digital means. This is not to say that we can't come darn close. I use softsynths everyday, so I'm all for innovation and raising the bar.

[Robert Randolph]

if this is true and you claim that it's where the analogness is, then it would mean that a digital recording of an analog synth on a CD would lose that, so would not sound analog anymore (making analog synths much less interesting then)

wow, I agree with gol. scary.

[meister eder]

My use of the phrase "expert testimony" and the word "cute" was meant in a friendly, light-hearted, joking manner. I didn't mean to annoy you.

Nevermind.

As for the instantaneous or non-instantaneous nature of feedback, I give up. I guess we'll just disagree about this, for now.

I just wonder if you've seen my edit to my post which might have been a little late (sorry to quote myself again):

In case you want me to explain it further, here's just one little hint: The point where your argument fails is where you write about the feedback path. You presume that the feedback is already defined when the signal enters the feedback path. But that's wrong and you will agree with your understanding of causality. The feedback itself actually happens at the very end of the feedback path. And that's why it is instantanuous.

This also as an answer to Lunch Money, who describes that as the sweet spot that you have to find.
I'm not trying to be picky here just for the sake of the argument, but because this fact is just such an essential aspect of analog and makes perfectly clear that analog will never be able to be copied by digital, and thus also why analog sounds like analog.

[Lunch Money]

The simplicity of that logic is undeniable.

We've all heard and loved analog synths on CD, which is a 16-bit/44.1k DIGITAL medium. And they still sound great.

So in theory, at some point in time, SOMEBODY will be able to assemble a collection of zeroes and ones to make it sound indistinguishable from Analog.

The problem isn't in the fact that digital is... well... digital. The problem is that the complexity of the algorithms necessary to emulate the extremely minor discrepancies from one capacitor to the next are daunting. But once some public libraries are made, it'll be old hat and people will wonder how the debate was such a heated one in the first place.

In the meantime, play a VA synth through a guitar amp and tell me it sounds clinical and digital.

Greg

[Robert Randolph]

In the meantime, play a VA synth through a guitar amp and tell me it sounds clinical and digital.

Funny enough right now I own 2 VA's and a bunch of analogs... and I praise my VA's for being awesome... I could never understand why someone would disagree

But I never record them direct. I only play them through guitar amps.... and bass sounds through bass amps (gfaw!)

So true

[tony tony chopper]

can someone post some audio examples of something that's so analog-sounding, to at least agree on what's analog, and try to dissect it?

But I never record them direct. I only play them through guitar amps.... and bass sounds through bass amps (gfaw!)

so it's only about distortion?

[Lunch Money]

This also as an answer to Lunch Money, who describes that as the sweet spot that you have to find.
I'm not trying to be picky here just for the sake of the argument, but because this fact is just such an essential aspect of analog and makes perfectly clear that analog will never be able to be copied by digital, and thus also why analog sounds like analog.

I guess I just fail to see your point. OK... I'll give you that if the moment of feedback is the instant in which the amplifier's waveform hits the string, then I suppose you can't really emulate that with a virtual amp's waveform interacting with a virtual (or digitally encoded)guitar's waveform.

But I don't think that's a defining argument in why analog synths sound different. As far as I know, most synths don't take advantage of sympathetic feedback, as it takes a vibrating piece (the guitar's string... where is it on the synth?) interacting with a sympathetic waveform.

Pretty irrelevant to the analog synth debate.

For what it's worth, I use crappy PC speakers and my guitar, at 8ms latency (hardly instantaneous!) and still have oodles of fun with sympathetic feedback. I don't think the delays in the chain of being are the defining moment. Further, there are more delays introduced by analog technology than digital, but just not at that precise moment when the amp's sound hits the guitar's string.

In short: I understand what you're saying, but you over-estimate its importance.

[Robert Randolph]

so it's only about distortion?

Huh? Who said that?

I dont even play my guitars with "distortion" most of the time except for very special FX (that is why it's called effects... for effect.. anyways).

The assumption that a guitar amp is all about amp distortion... the high-end rolloff most likely plays a large part... the wonderful feel of your pant legs shacking when you smash a low note, playing cool feedback stuff with vocoders, plugging right in to your guitar's fx setup, the creaminess that comes from hearing your favorite synth sound through the same amp many of your favorite guitar/bass recordings were ran through in your child/teen/adult hood?

I think the main reason analog synths sound "so good" is because people are used to the sound. IN 20 years, it will all come full circle again with a generation who grew up listening to digital synthesizers.... and analog will sound different and entirely unnacceptable.

[meister eder]

[...]
But I don't think that's a defining argument in why analog synths sound different. As far as I know, most synths don't take advantage of sympathetic feedback, as it takes a vibrating piece (the guitar's string... where is it on the synth?) interacting with a sympathetic waveform.

Pretty irrelevant to the analog synth debate.
[...]
In short: I understand what you're saying, but you over-estimate its importance.

Not at all. As I said before, this is not only of importance if you actually create a feedback, but essential to the understanding of what the nature of analog soundcreation is. Like I said in the beginning, it may seem a bit esoteric for some, but its more like an attempt to explain it on an abstract level - which on the other hand is from where you have to explain phenomenons that most people only can describe as "I have the feeling that...". To go deeper into this we would have to discuss quantum mechanics here I guess. But that's exactly where it happens.

[Lunch Money]

Yeah, I wasn't thinking distortion, either...

[McLilith]

if this is true and you claim that it's where the analogness is, then it would mean that a digital recording of an analog synth on a CD would lose that, so would not sound analog anymore (making analog synths much less interesting then)

It is true. I can sense things well above 20 kHz, but they are often vague sensations. There is usually no perception of pitch, very poor perception of location, etc. The ability also varies from day to day.

I'm not saying that this accounts for a major portion of what makes analog gear sound "analog" to the average person, but I mentioned it as an example of definite effects that signals above 20 kHz can have on a person, when many people think that the humans are absolutely and totally insensitive to those frequencies. It's just not that simple.

Speaking from my own experience, analog synths *do* tend to lose some of their nice qualities once they are digitized--at least with any digital system I've listened to. If I record an analog synth at 96 kHz, it sounds smoother and more "analog like" to me than 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz does. (I'm also using the same speakers and amp for both computer and synth.) I haven't had the chance to work with 192 kHz sample rates, so I can't tell you if they would sound even smoother to me than 96 kHz.

I believe that higher sample rates can certainly help achieve the "analog sound", but I also deeply believe that there are lots of other factors involved as well. It's kind of like baking a cake. You can make substitutions for some of the ingredients. You might even leave some ingredients out entirely, but if you make poor substitutions, make too many substitutions, or leave too many things out, it's no longer considered a cake by most people.

I submit that high sample rates are but one of the many ingredients that help make a good analog cake.


take care,
McLilith (Who's off to get a snack, after that analogy.)