[sdiy] Digital VS Analog waves and perceived bass content?

[Tom Wiltshire]

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that it's nothing to do with digital versus analog.
Why? Because how could it be?

Overall frequency response of the rest of the system is a *FAR* more likely explanation than the original method used to produce the waveforms. Perhaps fashion has something to do with it if there's a pattern - the early-digital era was a time when "crisp" treble was all the rage - these days we'd say "brittle", and people favour systems heavy on the bass end rather than the treble.

Another interesting case is the Synclavier, which everyone thought sounded great, and people even used to record analogue synths into it because it made them sound "better". It turns out the thing had a distinct roll-off on the top-end which smoothed the sound out a fair bit and which accounts for the user preference. Nothing to do with the "superior" digital sampling, which was the chosen explanation at the time.

http://home.earthlink.net/~yaking/html/wsnHACK.html

T.


On 3 Oct 2010, at 16:46, mike ruberto wrote:

> Has anybody done a paper on this topic that I can look up? Is there
> any hard data available concerning the harmonic content of digitally
> produced waves verses analog waves?
> 
> Another of my arbitrary and hokey experiments came up with these
> results. Yes, probably flawed and totally subjective but there must be
> something to it.
> 
> Casio CZ-1 - Perceived bass level is decent but not very strong.
> Kawai K3  - Perceived bass level is weak with most waveforms (VCF
> open). Decent with a few waveforms.
> Blacet Miniwave - Perceived bass level is weak with all waveforms.
> Crumar DS-2 - Perceived bass level is weak with all waveforms (VCF open).
> 
> Chroma Polaris - Perceived bass level is consistently strong (VCF open).
> Korg 700 - Perceived bass level is consistently strong (VCF open).
> Modular synth VCO - Perceived bass level is consistently strong.
> Concertmate MG-1 - Perceived bass level is consistently strong (VCF open).
> 
> I guess there is the possibility of cumulative high pass rolloff due
> to coupling capacitors throughout the systems. However with the
> modular stuff and the Miniwave the audio path was mostly DC coupled.
> 
> While it appears to me that digitally produced waves are lacking in
> bass I am open to other possibilities and looking for real data to
> confirm or disprove the notion. I do not have the time or equipment to
> perform any serious experiments in this regard.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Mike
> _______________________________________________
> Synth-diy mailing list
> Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy