What makes analog so analog?

[Rabid]

What makes and analog sound analog?

No CPU level to watch and worry about.

Yeah, when your sound source is entirely monophonic you never have to worry too much about how many keys you can hold down at once...

I've owned quite a few polyphonic analogs over the years, the most interresting of which was the Rhodes Chroma, developed by Arp. It had two computer processors, one designated to scanning the keyboard, and was the first to offer computer control of multi-tembrel sequencing. To me it was the best of both worlds, true analog sound path and digital control. 30 years later we end up full circle and get the Alesis Andromeda.

Robert

[whyterabbyt]

Rabid quoth Anyone interested in digital music artifacts should pick up a packet that demonstrates visual Moray effects. It makes for a nice visual representation of what can happen to digital music. I have a set which is pictures and grids on clear plastic that can be overlaid.

(I presume you mean Moire effect, yeah?) Umm, right. And what exactly would that be, in digital audio, just out of interest? Bearing in mind the Moire effect is an illusion, of course.

And it is not just music. Anyone that does a company spreadsheet runs into the problem of digital inaccuracy.

Really? Are you talking about company finance spreedsheets? At what point does a double-precision floating point calculation actually introduce perceptible errors into currency values with only two significant digits after the decimal point?

[Robert Randolph]

Really? Are you talking about company finance spreedsheets? At what point does a double-precision floating point calculation actually introduce perceptible errors into currency values with only two significant digits after the decimal point?

When you convert to and from many many times. Which does happen.

[HanafiH]

Rabid quoth Anyone interested in digital music artifacts should pick up a packet that demonstrates visual Moray effects. It makes for a nice visual representation of what can happen to digital music. I have a set which is pictures and grids on clear plastic that can be overlaid.

(I presume you mean Moire effect, yeah?) Umm, right. And what exactly would that be, in digital audio, just out of interest? Bearing in mind the Moire effect is an illusion, of course.

And it is not just music. Anyone that does a company spreadsheet runs into the problem of digital inaccuracy.

Really? Are you talking about company finance spreedsheets? At what point does a double-precision floating point calculation actually introduce perceptible errors into currency values with only two significant digits after the decimal point?

Two points: most commercial applications designed to handle money use a fixed point currency representaion, SQL Server being a good example.

And while I hate to be snitty about it, quoth not Rabid, but wrote. Quoth, from the Old English cwethan specifically and particularly means the utterance of spoken words before a community gathered. Whilst I have every sympathy for people, such as your selves I suppose, who cannot write without moving their lips, I think perhaps the majority can. Also, quoth is a transitive verb in the first and third alone; it's not something one does TO anything, least of all the words uttered, it's simply something one does. The correct usage is 'Quoth Rabbit: these words..' and not 'Rabbit quoth these words'.

Hope this all helps you both.

[whyterabbyt]

Robert Randolph quoth
When you convert to and from many many times. Which does happen.

If a spreadsheet calculation is being done which calculates based on repeated conversion processes to and from currency-decimal numberic values, then I'd suggest someone needs to rewrite their spreadsheet.

I'd also like to get a rough number of times you think it takes. 'many, many' is a bit vague. 2^32 times? 2^48? 2^64?

[Meffy]

Apologies to all in advance, but the lure of the limerick is not easily resisted. ;-) A separate apology for the abysmal rhyme.

I, too, hope that you help them both,
But to "speak" one need not use a mouth.
. . Though we type (not by choice),
. . Still we each have a "voice."
We have not "heard" the last of the quoth.

Meffy

[foosnark]

Gol, go listen to some sound samples of a poly-evolver, or any of the stuff at http://www.analoguesolutions.com and you'll see what we're talking about. It's undeniable, there is just something creamier about them.

While I will admit the Poly-Evolver sounds nice (I'm unimpressed by the Analoge Solutions stuff) a casual listen in no way convinces me you can't do the same thing in hardware.

Of course, I don't know what "creamier" means where it comes to sound, either.



The question is: IS IT FEASABLE TO MAKE AN ANALOG / DIGITAL HYBRID SYNTH?

I threw an analog/digital hybrid synth in the trash last time I moved: the Korg DW-6000. I thought it sounded like ass, therefore I let it lie around in the ex-roommates' garage of doom with rats crapping all over it.

Of course Vintage Synth Explorer says of it: "Awesome fat basses, lovely warm sounding, pulsing strings, and hard, nasal leads. Some wonderful swirling effects can be found."

At the time it came out, digital was a selling point, and it clearly says "digital synthesizer" on the front panel. Now of course, analog is in and (some) people rave about its analog filter.

Not that the DW-6000 is exactly the pinnacle of hybrid synthesis, but yes, it has been done, many times

[Robert Randolph]

Robert Randolph quoth
When you convert to and from many many times. Which does happen.

If a spreadsheet calculation is being done which calculates based on repeated conversion processes to and from currency-decimal numberic values, then I'd suggest someone needs to rewrite their spreadsheet.

I'd also like to get a rough number of times you think it takes. 'many, many' is a bit vague. 2^32 times? 2^48? 2^64?

When it is passed on to another source... to another.. to another.

It can easily happen 1000's of times in an hour in some places of business. Most notedly banking.

[valley]

Two points: most commercial applications designed to handle money use a fixed point currency representaion, SQL Server being a good example.

And banker's rounding, which whilst mathematically less biased than the more commonly used form of round to nearest, can be quite problematic given a non-evenly dispersed set of values.

[whyterabbyt]

HanafiH quoth

And while I hate to be snitty

And you forgetting to throw in that same old picture of Terry Thomas to prove how witty you are as well...

about it, quoth not Rabid, but wrote.

Who really cares?

Quoth, from the Old English cwethan specifically and particularly means the utterance of spoken words before a community gathered.

Not 'before a gathered community'?

Whilst I have every sympathy for people, such as your selves I suppose, who cannot write without moving their lips, I think perhaps the majority can.

That doesnt seem like a particularly well-structured sentence, y'know. There's doesnt seem to be anything in there which delivers adequately on the context, which ostensibly starts "Whilst I have every sympathy for people who canot write without moving their lips...".
"Whilst I hate people with black shoes on, many people wear brown shoes."
Naaah, its not quite logically there is it? I even wonder if its grammatically unsound as a result. Would you like to have another attempt at it?

I myself have no small amount of sympathy for those, such as yourself, who have nothing whatsoever of value to contribute to forums such as these, and seek merely to draw attention to themselves with the occasional facile post, and one or two irrelevant factoids a year, but it is, at its core, quite sad and pathetic that you do so.

Also, quoth is a transitive verb in the first and third alone; it's not something one does TO anything, least of all the words uttered, it's simply something one does. The correct usage is 'Quoth Rabbit: these words..' and not 'Rabbit quoth these words'.

Thank you for your kind assistance, and congratulations on your ability to consult a dictionary. However, since the English language is, as you should know, in a constant state of flux and revision, I've sort of taken it upon myself to make my own small contribution to its evolution. But thank you for playing.

Hope this all helps you both.

Certainly. It remind me how tedious and self-important you are when you're not posting the same pointless pictures over and over again. My thanks.

[McLilith]

Hi whyterabbyt & HanafiH,

Don't you fellows think we're getting just a bit off topic here? I mean, aren't we supposed to be figuing out how a butterfly can flap its wings, and then you wake up in Australia with no asshole--or something like that?


take care,
McLilith

[valley]

Don't you fellows think we're getting just a bit off topic here? I mean, aren't we supposed to be figuing out how a butterfly can flap its wings, and then you wake up in Australia with no asshole--or something like that?

That sounds like LSD to me.

[McLilith]

That sounds like LSD to me.

I don't know if it's LSD or simply bad science fiction, but at least it seems more interesting than Old English grammar lessons.


later,
McLilith

[Rabid]

Rabid quoth Anyone interested in digital music artifacts should pick up a packet that demonstrates visual Moray effects. It makes for a nice visual representation of what can happen to digital music. I have a set which is pictures and grids on clear plastic that can be overlaid.

(I presume you mean Moire effect, yeah?) Umm, right. And what exactly would that be, in digital audio, just out of interest? Bearing in mind the Moire effect is an illusion, of course.

Thanks for the correction. Now I will try to explain my statement on a level you can understand. The Moire effect is relevant when you consider that digital music is forced into a two dimensional grid with resolution of bit rate and bit size. Morie effect can be demonstrated by overlaying two screens (each a two dimensional grid) and moving one of those screens around. The same works with pictures made up of pixels. We have all seen what happens to someone on TV when they wear a pin strip suit. You might consider this an illusion, but when that picture is captured then the pin stripe suit is no longer a picture of a pin stripe suit. The same thing happens to digital music, to some extent.

And it is not just music. Anyone that does a company spreadsheet runs into the problem of digital inaccuracy.

Really? Are you talking about company finance spreedsheets? At what point does a double-precision floating point calculation actually introduce perceptible errors into currency values with only two significant digits after the decimal point?

I presume you mean spreadsheets, not spreedsheets. The company I work for has a 20 million dollar annual budget, has 200 cost centers, serves 14,000 clients and performs 350,000 services each year. Inject service codes, program codes, locations, guarantors, cost, reimbursement rates, etc… You have quite a lot going on inside Excel. We have one auditor that insists the spreadsheets be printed in dollar and cents format, and then he cannot understand why pennies are off. Some people may not think it amounts to much, but one sly programmer managed to skim millions from a large banking system by diverting those fractions of cents into a bank account before he was caught.

I guess audio is not different. Some people cannot hear digital artifacts and so to them, it does not exist. Some people can hear it, and it does exist. The two people can either argue about whether or not the artifacts exist, or they can listen to the music.

Robert

[Robert Randolph]

or they can listen to the music.

That's the dumbest thing said in this entire thread. This isnt about music, it's about...


what the f**k is this all about again?