Anyone interested in musical acoustics?

[Resha Caner]

Working musician here. I havent examined this scientifically tho.

That might be a good thing ... as least from an artistic perspective.

Subjectivity used to kill me in my work. Some people like the diesel sound. It's the neighbors who complain. So it's not really the level (we're not talking jet engines here). It's more the sound quality people object to.

 

[ChetSinger]

Do any musicians here own NI Reaktor or a Nord Modular G2? If so, I've made some software instruments in those environments that simulate acoustic instruments by executing simplified models of their physics. Wind instruments, bowed strings, organs, various things.

 

[selfinflikted]

I don't have either of those, but I have gotten good results with my synth programming trying to model acoustic instruments.

 

[Resha Caner]

I don't have either of those, but I have gotten good results with my synth programming trying to model acoustic instruments.

I come from a musically talented family, so I enjoy both playing and listening. However, I'm the least skilled of the group and my ear doesn't pick out the nuances like the rest of my family.

When things like that happen, I analyze. The point is, the musicians I know insist a synthesizer will never be as good as the actual instrument. Granted they have improved to the point where most people won't notice the difference, but I suspect the experts will always notice a difference. In thinking over what I've heard muscians say, I believe physics would support them. A speaker will never have the same geometric and material properties as the actual instrument, and, therefore, will always produce a different sound wave.

 

[durangodawood]

I come from a musically talented family, so I enjoy both playing and listening. However, I'm the least skilled of the group and my ear doesn't pick out the nuances like the rest of my family.

When things like that happen, I analyze. The point is, the musicians I know insist a synthesizer will never be as good as the actual instrument. Granted they have improved to the point where most people won't notice the difference, but I suspect the experts will always notice a difference. In thinking over what I've heard muscians say, I believe physics would support them. A speaker will never have the same geometric and material properties as the actual instrument, and, therefore, will always produce a different sound wave.

A snare drum is a great example of this.

I can get 100 different tones out of the same drum.

 

[Resha Caner]

A snare drum is a great example of this.

I can get 100 different tones out of the same drum.

When I go to the symphony, I will pick out different sections to watch how they're using their instruments, and I try to see if I can audibly detect the changes as they adjust. Of all the sections, the percussion section is probably the one I least understand.

So what different types of tones are you going for?

 

[Embedded]

Your attitude doesn't sound American. Where are you from? (Just generally - Europe, Asia, etc. I realize you may not want to give too much away on the Internet)

Born in the UK, lived many places (UK, Middle East, Americas.) Mostly I have lived in the USA and most of that has been on the coasts. I consider myself USAian culturally (my accent is North American.) But I have always felt somewhat of an "outsider" wherever I lived, hence the nick 'Embedded'.

I have found that there is a huge spectrum of attitudes that one may consider 'American' or 'not American' (un-American?) Most of the attitudes we are told are 'American' are actually pretty universal. If there was any particular attitude that was fairly consistent among most all of the people I have met it is the idea that any attitude or worldview is uniquely American. In simpler terms: Americans (USAians in particular) seem to be naive, even clueless, about the rest of the world... and some are even proud of this attitude.

I prefer public transit myself, but that's largely not an option where I live. Years ago I was part of a petition to improve public transit in my area, but it didn't work out. Americans love their cars and love their independence. Plus, unless you're on the coasts the populations and distances don't pay off for public transit ... yet.

It isn't so much of a sole option where I live but I know what you mean. Yet I live less than 10 miles from where I work. Whenever I can I will drive to the nearest mass transit place that has parking (about ten miles) and take it from there. There are many communities where even this is difficult to impractical. It is as if they were designed that way.

Strangely enough the one and only time I visited Chicago (not a sea coast city) it was the only place I had flown in to that actually had a mass-transit (subway) station right at Chicago O'hare airport. NYC, Boston, DC, LA, SFO, Oakland, Newark... not one of them had such a connection. Now most of them do.

I almost bought a Mini-Cooper. Again, though, location, location, location. The service in my area isn't that good.

Well it is made by BMW and they are pretty ubiquitous though perhaps not so much in the midwest.

Well, maybe. Electric has it's down side as well. My experience is with heavy equipment, not the auto industry, but the studies I've seen don't bode well for electric because of power density and response issues (though you make it sound as if BMW is progressing well on those issues). So, it only sells to green people who don't mind the negatives. Don't forget that internal combustion is looking for alternatives as well. If a good renewable fuel can be found, and with the trend in reduced emissions, it could remain competitive well into the future.

As you say, power density, the batteries are the single biggest problem facing the electric car. But they are working on the problem. I don't know if BMW itself is doing it but many manufacturers are.

Right now IC is still the least expensive to mass produce. One of the most expensive parts of an IC based car is the transmission (manual or automatic) and it is a testament to the industrial engineers that they have managed to make them relatively cheaply, and also incredibly rugged and efficient. All electric cars have no need for a transmission.

Though part of the picture is reducing emissions it is not the only part. After all most of our energy comes from burning fossil fuels of some sort. If we don't burn it in a car we burn it in a power plant. Main difference is a fixed power plant can have all sorts of efficiency and fine adjustment of emissions handled at a central location. Then there are 'externalities' that aren't often mentioned such as we no longer need fleets of trucks distributing fuel to gas stations all over the place. Power lines are MUCH more efficient once in place.

 

[selfinflikted]

I come from a musically talented family, so I enjoy both playing and listening. However, I'm the least skilled of the group and my ear doesn't pick out the nuances like the rest of my family.

When things like that happen, I analyze. The point is, the musicians I know insist a synthesizer will never be as good as the actual instrument. Granted they have improved to the point where most people won't notice the difference, but I suspect the experts will always notice a difference. In thinking over what I've heard muscians say, I believe physics would support them. A speaker will never have the same geometric and material properties as the actual instrument, and, therefore, will always produce a different sound wave.

Of course, but perhaps you misunderstand the point of synthesis. Of course a synthesizer will not ever sound "as good as" whatever acoustic instrument you're trying to model. But that's not the point of synthesis at all - at least, not to me.

For instance: Let's say I have a piano. I've written countless songs, but if I played them all on that piano, they would all sound exactly like the same piano, just with different notes being played. With a synth, I can model a piano in one patch and it will sound a specific way. I can turn around and try to model the same piano patch in another program, and it will never sound exactly the same as the first patch (unless of course, all parameters are adjusted to the "T" - which will basically never happen).

If I want to produce a song that has a convincing acoustic piano patch, I have one of two choices: 1) Use an actual acoustic piano, or 2) Use a ROMpler (sampler). Luckily, I have a very nice Kurzweil K2000. It's an older board, but has some of the best samples that were available at that time (about 20 years ago). If I recorded a song on my Kurz, you'd never know it wasn't an actual acoustic piano. Conversely, if I played a piano song on my Korg MS2000 (which is a virtual analog synth), you would immediately know that it isn't a real piano being played.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

It's the most science-minded hobby I have, the study of the acoustics of musical instruments.

It's an esoteric hobby, but maybe not in this place. Does anyone else here share this?

I like the responses in this thread. I'm an acoustics nerd, my background is geophysics which is all about wave propagation so there's a lot of similarities to acoustic physics.

I use Reaper for recording. I'm no professional and based on reviews of expensive DAWs like Pro-Tools I couldn't see significant differences between Reaper ($60) and something like Pro-Tools ($700).

If you're really interested in this stuff and want to do some nitty-gritty, you can actually load wav files into Matlab and build your own delay, reverb and other FX.

The fact that all music is sine waves is really quite incredible to me. In Matlab you can build different tones by layering sine waves and effectively make your own synth tones from scratch.

 

[selfinflikted]

The fact that all music is sine waves is really quite incredible to me. In Matlab you can build different tones by layering sine waves and effectively make your own synth tones from scratch.

Indeed! It's why I love synthesis as well! But I prefer subtractive synthesis to additive synthesis (which is what you've described). It's all about the filters, baby!

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

Indeed! It's why I love synthesis as well! But I prefer subtractive synthesis to additive synthesis (which is what you've described). It's all about the filters, baby!

Do you have a Soundcloud page or anything to hear your stuff?

 

[selfinflikted]

Do you have a Soundcloud page or anything to hear your stuff?

No, but I am willing to email a public link to my dropbox or the files(s) itself. If you're interested, shoot me a PM.

 

[Resha Caner]

With a synth, I can model a piano in one patch and it will sound a specific way. I can turn around and try to model the same piano patch in another program, and it will never sound exactly the same as the first patch

That's cool.

 

[selfinflikted]

That's cool.

Yea. It's a huge part of the appeal for me. One can generate sounds that have basically never been heard before.

 

[Resha Caner]

Most of the attitudes we are told are 'American' are actually pretty universal.

True. And yet I managed to peg you as not an American ... or at least not a Midwesterner. My wife's family (father's side) is from Germany. I once asked one of her cousins how quickly he could identify an American. He said almost immediately - that our clothing gives us away. He said shoes were the easiest way to tell, so I started studying German shoes and soon could pick them out quite easily.

Or, I recall at college how I learned to distinguish Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc. just from visual cues - something I couldn't do at first given my vanilla cultural experiences to that point. If it doesn't become a matter of discrimination, I think it one of the pleasing wonders of the human race.

One of the most expensive parts of an IC based car is the transmission (manual or automatic) and it is a testament to the industrial engineers that they have managed to make them relatively cheaply, and also incredibly rugged and efficient. All electric cars have no need for a transmission.

Did I mention I was an engineer ... and that I work on drivetrains? Again, it depends whether electric vehicles require a transmission or not. My employer has spent considerable years trying to develop a CVT technology for large machines. Generators for large machines don't size linearly. As such, in some cases it's still easier to put in a small (say 2-speed) box to keep sizes down.

I hold a few patents on transmissions for large machines with a lot of ratios (we're at 12 forward and counting). With that many ratios to choose from, one of our controls experts thinks he can mimic a CVT closely enough to almost match its advantages. It allows tuning the IC engine for a narrow speed range that gains all kinds of advantages.

Main difference is a fixed power plant can have all sorts of efficiency and fine adjustment of emissions handled at a central location.

True. That one will be hard to ever overcome ... but I know people are trying.

- - -

[edit] I guess one life-lesson I've learned that I'm drawing on here is "never say never". There's an old movie about the Scouts called "Follow Me Boys". At the beginning of the movie, the main character sees an electric car on the street and says something like, "Huh, I haven't seen one of those in a long time. I didn't realize they still existed."

The point is, electric cars were tried very early on, but the technology wasn't mature. I do think they'll have a large role in the future, but don't count the IC out. It may wane for awhile, but then the blemishes of electric will start to show and people will give IC another chance. Round and round we go.