KVR Audio

ceenda · Post by **ceenda** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:15 am

I know we're all tired of the summing arguments. But I've been thinking recently that the theme, skin, or colour scheme of hosts is actually the main factor affecting how I interpret the sound.

I use FL Studio, Orion, energyXT (with Shifrin's dark skin) and Tracktion. Out of all of these, Orion seems to be the brightest, cleanest sound and Tracktion slightly soft.

But, obviously, this is bollocks. And I've rendered out identical MIDI tracks with the same VSTi samplers and synths in all of them and done the random test and not been able to hear a difference.

I'm beginning to think that the colour scheme affects your perception of mood. Orion looks bright and crisp to my eyes, whereas Tracktion has very subdued pastel-y style colours. The darker colours in FLS and eXT seem to make the sound 'fuller'.

Should _all_ hosts be skinnable if it has an affect on how you percieve sound quality?

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:28 am

Clearly, although the big word in your question is if

cellular · Post by **cellular** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:03 am

I agree. Personally, i don't even consider using FL Studio because i can't stand the look of it, too dark for me.

I have a similar thing about album covers actually. When an album has a dark cover, i tend to think of the music as dark, or at least i see dark images in my head while i listen to the album. For example i think of the music on Sigur Rós' Agaetis Byrjún as dark, while i see their ( ) album as very bright.

Because of this, album covers are very important to me, and a very ugly album cover can sometimes degrade my experience of the music.

quincy · Post by **quincy** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:24 am

There's certainly logic in that one sense can afect perception of another.

I'm sure i read somewhere that there were tests where people were given various foods with weird colouring added to it but no difference in flavour, and many people wouldn't even eat the food.

Would YOU eat a plate full of blue spaghetti or a bowl of green cornflakes?! Its a weird thing that, you get used to something and then an aesthetic change can throw your senses out.

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:29 am

Some plugin developers know this all too well. This forum is absolutely littered with examples of people with untrained ears judging the sound of a peticular plugin by the look of and functionality of the interface.

I'm also still struggling to get grips with Cubase SX's slightly fisherprice-toy like interface. As an ex logic user I think it just doesn't have that "pro" (yeah, I know I should shut up already) mellowed clearly laid out and inobtrusive feel. At least I can change the color scheme in SX, but unfortunately the hordes of icons littered around still remind me of opening a box of legos...

quincy · Post by **quincy** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:36 am

Kingston wrote:Some plugin developers know this all too well. This forum is absolutely littered with examples of people with untrained ears judging the sound of a peticular plugin by the look of and functionality of the interface.

Thus all the ridiculous snobbery about synthedit plugins.

Sadly there seem to genuinely be people who believe that all synthedit plugins are inferior to hancoded ones. A if its not possible to write a piece of shit plugin by hand

mauseoleum · Post by **mauseoleum** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:38 am

sure. if it's blue, i'm blue. if it's dark, i'm black.

simple.

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 11:42 am

Speaking of which, does anybody know of a user made collection of color schemes for Cubase SX2?

androidlove · Post by **androidlove** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:33 pm

Wow, I thought I was a freak for experiencing this. The effect made me feel a little helpless. I've overcome it though.

"The first step is admitting you have a problem"

Amberience · Post by **Amberience** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:43 pm

I don't believe it is something you can overcome. We are hardwired to react in certain ways, and this is just one of them.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:45 pm

I've been wondering something along similar lines recently.

I'm curious how much a host interface influences the style of music you create, and how much of a developer's personal musical preferences embed themselves into the interface? Also how difficult is it for developers to envision uses of their software outside of their own personal tastes?

androidlove · Post by **androidlove** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:51 pm

What I meant was, when I moved from Muzys to T1, I thought the sound was "fluffy". I've gotten used to the colors now.

tkmattson · Post by **tkmattson** » Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:25 pm

I personally think that more so than a host, a plug-in's interface has a great deal to do with how their sound is perceived, which obviously, unfortately is not so to the end user (listener)....

Host interface affects your concept of sound?