Can you ever "warm" something up with digital?

[Ploki]

No, there isn't. Perhaps there can be but it's by no means a given and it is just plain stupid to suggest otherwise. I'd also suggest that 2-5kHz is nowhere near our ears' most sensitive range, especially as we age. I can barely hear anything at 5kHz these days and there has never been a time when I've cared what's going on up there.

Equal loudness contours are based on that, it's where speech intelligibility is and it certainly is the most developed and we have the lowest threshold for hearing in that frequency range.

Generally, hearing doesn't decline in the high mids first - you get gradually more and more high frequency roll-off.
A lot of musicians have damaged hearing, because it's the most sensitive it's also prone to damage a lot. I suspect you might have hearing damage, from all the loud shit in your life.

However as you get much much older (70+), your hearing will also decline in the speech ranges.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802451/


Also it's not all that high. The fundamentals of upper piano octave are in 2-4k.

[El°HYM]

What a waste of Time @ sir 'angry' bones.

[El°HYM]

An easy way to find out your most sensible hearing - area would be to record some baby crying and loop that for a little while. You might pretty quick get super annoyed by this and just want to shut it off; this is for evolutionary reasons of mankind. With that said, now think about those Frequencies (May it be 1-5 or 2-4kHz) being printed into your static Audio - file, and also exponentially building up with every added non - linear Device you are putting on Top of that. My only point is, just be Aware of this and then Work with that.

[legendCNCD]

You can also overload the tune with those "warming" plugins, just a heads up
What I mean is while they have their uses, used sparingly and not driving them hot on every channel is the key IMHO.

I don't think Skinny Puppy would agree and neither do I. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Sure, really depends on what one wants, but for a newbie info I think its ok to say you can overdo it too easily..

[rod_zero]

Amen to that!

There is also Aliasing folding back into the most sensitive Area our Ears can hear (2-5kHz) plus IMD

No, there isn't. Perhaps there can be but it's by no means a given and it is just plain stupid to suggest otherwise. I'd also suggest that 2-5kHz is nowhere near our ears' most sensitive range, especially as we age. I can barely hear anything at 5kHz these days and there has never been a time when I've cared what's going on up there.

(think about Tape here).

When I think about tape, I think "where are the hi-hats? I'm sure I heard them on the vinyl".

in the end you will always notice a Difference when comparing to an Analog - device.

Utter nonsense. I could play you 100 clips of mixed analogue and digital and you'd never, ever be able to tell which was which.

.... there are indeed Ways to get something like a 'Hifi' sound in the Digital - domain.

Hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahaha! That's the funniest piece of bullshit I've heard in a long time. The best, easiest, fastest way to get hi-fi sound is via digital. It's the perfect medium for it.

You need to warm it during the creation of the sound, not on a master effect.
Sugarcoating digital sounding synth doesn't help, it needs to be part of the sound design or the engine.

More bullshit. You clearly have no f**king idea what you're talking about.

You can also overload the tune with those "warming" plugins, just a heads up
What I mean is while they have their uses, used sparingly and not driving them hot on every channel is the key IMHO.

I don't think Skinny Puppy would agree and neither do I. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Sadly I just found out Mobile Fidelity now uses a digital step even in their one-step masters. I just cancelled some pre-orders I had from them. I honestly can't believe them of all people would do that.

And I can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to be buying vinyl in the 21st Century, but there you go...

If someone can consistently distinguish between two sound sources in a blind A/B test, they are discerning a physical phenomenon, which can be measured.

The thing with it, though, is what we think of those differences. For a hundred years, engineers strove to eliminate all of those kinds of things, culminating in a pristine digital sound. Then, all of a sudden, everyone decided that they preferred their music to sound like shit, presumably through some nostalgic attachment to music made before the age of pristine digital.

They fall into all this arguments about analog, vinyl, tape etc because they come form a place of romanticism and a low understanding of the actual physical characteristics of sound and the different mediums.

For those who grew up in the Vinyl-cassete-CD transition it is obvious digital was the far superior medium to present Higher fidelity of the original recording, they also ignore than in the analog era engineers struggled to keep noise level and even saturation low, since there was just a lot of it.

The thing I really miss is actually the high dynamic range recordings, the much more conservative loudness (because vinyl couldn't go higher) but that is something that can actually be replicated. But it is funny how they concentrate on the medium vinyl, tape, analog gear and not on the actual recording techniques and mixing conventions of the era.

[Erisian]

They fall into all this arguments about analog, vinyl, tape etc because they come form a place of romanticism and a low understanding of the actual physical characteristics of sound and the different mediums.

Oh yeah? I'm so glad you know more about me than I do!

[rod_zero]

They fall into all this arguments about analog, vinyl, tape etc because they come form a place of romanticism and a low understanding of the actual physical characteristics of sound and the different mediums.

Oh yeah? I'm so glad you know more about me than I do!

you are welcome

[El°HYM]

I can assure you that Aliasing is a fascinating 'digital' only Phenomenon.

[cthonophonic]

[PatchAdamz]

[syntonica]

For those who grew up in the Vinyl-cassete-CD transition it is obvious digital was the far superior medium to present Higher fidelity of the original recording, they also ignore than in the analog era engineers struggled to keep noise level and even saturation low, since there was just a lot of it.

The thing I really miss is actually the high dynamic range recordings, the much more conservative loudness (because vinyl couldn't go higher) but that is something that can actually be replicated. But it is funny how they concentrate on the medium vinyl, tape, analog gear and not on the actual recording techniques and mixing conventions of the era.

At the time, basically up to the early 80s, audio was recorded, mixed and mastered for the final output, whether that be a hi-fi stereo playing back vinyl, or a Philco AM radio with single speaker. The whole recording chain was designed to complement the sound, not so much be "hi fi".

I don't think "warm" was even a concept until after the 70s had passed and end-to-end digital came about and people pondered what was different.

You are correct. In order to get "warm", start by not compressing tracks within an inch if their life, record with headroom, mix with headroom etc. However, putting Rupert Neve somewhere in your recording chain will help as it will indeed do what it was originally designed to do.

I think the OP may wish to qualify their question with working "totally ITB". Modern recording equipment is basically totally clean and does not color the sound passing through,

And, now, totally ignore me as I completely lost the point I was getting to....

[foosnark]

I can assure you that Aliasing is a fascinating 'digital' only Phenomenon.

You can produce aliasing with analog circuits. Analog BBD delays can alias. Switched-capacitor filters can alias. Running audio through an analog sample & hold clocked at audio rates will alias.

It's a question of time discretization, not digitization. It just happens that digital audio runs in discrete time. The fix for that is either bandlimiting or a sufficiently high clock rate.

There are some digital oscillators in Eurorack that are implemented in an FPGA, running at megahertz sample rates, allowing for some pretty intense FM or PM without aliasing.

[Plugintester]

Warmth, depth, 3D, drive, color etc is associated with analog sound and I always add some plugins especially to electric piano sound to spice it up.
Pianoteq's Rhodes emus sound a bit lifeless and superclean, add some saturation or Acousticsamples emus sound a bit thin imo, add some amp sim or...

My fav plugin for this purpose is Audiothing Valves, I have created tons of presets.

I ve also made a video on my yt channel called "Spice up your electric piano plugins" with 20 different plugins. Maybe you will get some inspiration to test some plugin...
Most of these plugins will also work on synths,
clavinets or organs.

[El°HYM]

I can assure you that Aliasing is a fascinating 'digital' only Phenomenon.

You can produce aliasing with analog circuits. Analog BBD delays can alias. Switched-capacitor filters can alias. Running audio through an analog sample & hold clocked at audio rates will alias.

It's a question of time discretization, not digitization. It just happens that digital audio runs in discrete time. The fix for that is either bandlimiting or a sufficiently high clock rate.

There are some digital oscillators in Eurorack that are implemented in an FPGA, running at megahertz sample rates, allowing for some pretty intense FM or PM without aliasing.

I was expecting something like this and would say lets just agree that we are talking about 'digital' - aliasing here, which is the main problem to solve in the digital realm. With that said, BBD is a Chip (MN3007 for example) built into an analog circuit, yet that wasnt really the Question of the OP I believe.

[vurt]

I can assure you that Aliasing is a fascinating 'digital' only Phenomenon.

You can produce aliasing with analog circuits. Analog BBD delays can alias. Switched-capacitor filters can alias. Running audio through an analog sample & hold clocked at audio rates will alias.

It's a question of time discretization, not digitization. It just happens that digital audio runs in discrete time. The fix for that is either bandlimiting or a sufficiently high clock rate.

There are some digital oscillators in Eurorack that are implemented in an FPGA, running at megahertz sample rates, allowing for some pretty intense FM or PM without aliasing.

I was expecting something like this and would say lets just agree that we are talking about 'digital' - aliasing here, which is the main problem to solve in the digital realm. With that said, BBD is a Chip (MN3007 for example) built into an analog circuit, yet that wasnt really the Question of the OP I believe.

well, yes, if we are talking about digital aliasing, then its a purely digital thing...