quoted 4 lines From: Lee Azzarello <roswell@antioch-college.edu>
> From: Lee Azzarello <roswell@antioch-college.edu>
> Subject: Re: (idm) Re: lets talk equip.
>
> >ajwells@ix.netcom.com wrote this on 3/8/00 1:32 PMquoted 11 lines removes the artist from the reality that sound emanates from THINGS
> >removes the artist from the reality that sound emanates from THINGS
> >vibrating, not numbers approximating waves... that physical quality of
> >sound is often lost or changed in a computer environment...
>
> I don't understand. I mean, speaking of electronic music, there is
> nothing that vibrates, or even moves inside analog _or_ digital
> equipment.
> I understand the necessity of
> physical vibrations with non-electronic music (being a classical pianist
> myself), I still haven't found a sampled piano that sounds anything like
> the Steinway Grand in the hall I practice in.
Actually...these two comments triggered some thoughts about psychoacoustics
I've had. Bear with me. Every time you hear a sound, your brain instantly
attempts to extract a variety of information from it: where is it, what is
it, is it moving...the brain assumes that there will be some acoustical cues
to help it along, and can recognize when the acoustical properties of a
sound aren't "valid". Such sounds (like a perfect, repeating sine wave, for
example) sound artificial. Real-world sounds tend to be messier and more
complex. Check this article
http://unisci.com/stories/20001/0306006.htm
for an example of the kind of information people can extract from sounds,
beyond location.
Now I'm not suggested that every artist sculpt their sounds until they sound
like something produced by a real object. ep7 has a bunch of sounds that
have been folded in on themselves so many times that they've got some really
engaging acoustical properties, but they don't by any stretch of the
imagination sound real. I just wish more producers thought about acoustics,
instead of just sampling and filtering mindlessly (like jungle producers
looking for a natural sound, and then time-stretching their drum samples all
to hell.)
Final thought for the day: people should play more games with their
speakers.
Lukas
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