u/frCake

What I didn't understand from Lill's video is the part where he measures the Neve distortion/unity gain kind of thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong here:

I do believe that when preamps operate in a well within the headroom state they should sound relatively similar or similar enough, that's ok with me.

From the curves that I see, the Neve seems to be linear until it reaches a flat point, a typical hard-clipping situation, which could also be described as a protection clipper: "I will clip anything above that or else I'll die."

Then he uses that linear-to-flat line to code a 3-line digital equivalent to "solidify" his argument by overly simplifying saturation curves into inf:1 hard knees. So he does code a 3-line hard clipper, and guess what, it sounds the same. I feel like all that was a stunt to build on a shaky argument. Who would believe that a digital hard clipper sounds vastly different from an analog one?

Using his measurements, we see that the Neve is linear up to ~25 V, which would greatly surpass the ~13 V a converter can accept (again, anything above that is just hard clipping/protection). So he kind of structures his argument around this easily reproducible hard-clipping/protection situation.

My question is: are all preamps linear until they flatten out and hard clip? Because even if the amps had a pad or an output knob to lower the final output, the hard knee is still there. Aren't there more mellow S-curves/softer knees before reaching the flat line, which have different sweet spots ("character")?

If we have to assume that we don't have clippers with softer knees and everything is a hard-kneed Z clipper (maybe even talking about line amps here), we are kind of stripped of the tools we have to control dynamic range.

Compressors suck at controlling dynamic range. They sound like garbage, and when you try to contain peaks as fast as you can, they click. Whoever has touched an analog compressor knows that, unless you delay the input and make it act with lookahead, or maybe compress reverse signals. They have all this time domain thing where they can sound great on a low tempo part of the track but when the track gets faster they need to be automated, generally they are a mess.. They are OK when attacks are open and the releases are long-er, and they can bring the RMS closer to the peaks, but that's about it, and it's not always what's needed. That's why some people clip before they compress, to feed the compressor an easier signal. Generally, in my opinion, it's much more pleasant to listen to clipper/saturator artifacts than compressors working, pumping, or clicking.

Moreover, I think Jim Lill is a bit of a Nashville-tunnel-vision kind of guy. That's proven by his all-new channel, "What X Really Sounds Like," where X is a band or something. The first episode I saw was about Metallica... I mean... He starts by saying, "I know a lot about 1–2 genres and close to nothing about many genres," and it kind of shows.

He states that distorting the signal on the input is an "anomaly." Well, maybe in Nashville it is, but we have a whole '90s techno/rave scene that crunched everything (909s, 808s, 303s, chords, whatever) through cheap Mackie consoles and Portastudios, and people still sweat listening to these tracks played on huge sound systems. What about reggae/dub? Lee Perry? King Tubby? Clearly audible distortion pretty much everywhere. One minute into Scientist - The Best Dub Album In The World, you can hear a synth distorting all the way through, and that's the '80s.

Generally, I appreciate Lill's video, but I feel that this part should be stated as an assumption. Assumptions happen everywhere in scientific work; they are a tool to help us continue our work and reach a later stage by taking something for granted, but they do reduce the strength of the thesis. I feel like he structured this part very carefully, almost to the point of manipulation, so his argument wouldn't lose credibility. Maybe he was just too deep into his work and had to somehow get around that.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Hey all!

I thought I'd share this O-toro tour story with you to see what you guys think and whether I think about it correct or not.

First of all I'm playing a Blade v9 16x19. I've tested some strings lately:

Head Lynx Tour, Grapplesnake Tour M8, Alu Power and finally O-Toro tour all strung at about 21-22 kg all 1.23/1.25 depending on whether the string was available at 1.25

Now I never had any arm issues with any string other than o-toro tour, I was ok with all the other strings, kinda string doing its thing, not much of a difference.

The first time I strung the otoro the racket felt different, my previous "technique" wasn't cutting it, and I was trying to overarm things to do what I was used doing, and that's when the string tried to rip off my arm, deep pain around the elbow and more specifically tricep tendon, where the tricep meets the elbow.

I was ready to unstring it after like 3 plays but then I thought what if I really loosen everything up and try to make the racket do more work instead of my arm, and gradually the pain went away and slowly I started playing better tennis, my hits were cleaner and I started raising the power with some very good results. The arm hurts from time to time (not as bad as it used to in the beginning) but it goes away after some hours.

Am I stupid for sticking with this string even if it initially caused me pain? And also, have you guys ever changed a piece of equipment that "taught" you that what you're doing is possibly wrong (I don't even know if that's the actual case with me, but I'm just wondering).. but man what a string..

Hello everyone!

I am an owner of a Tascam 388 which has been somewhat serviced a long time ago but there are still some problems.

Now the problem I'm going to describe happens on *all* channels in regards to Left/Right balance.

Setup:
I'm sending a static noise from my soundcard to 1-2 input, connect the tascam 388 output back to the computer to the spectrum analyzer which is in dual-mono setup L/R.

Example 1: Bad fader alignment, VU Meter shows equal gain, Difference in actual output levels

Example 2: Bad fader alignment, Bad VU L/R reading, Equal actual output levels

Any ideas about this? I've opened the top panel but I don't seem to find anything regarding the line trim, I'm not even sure if it's the line trim to be honest, maybe a combination of line trim & VU calibration? Or something totally different?

Again, this happens on all channels, so all channels must have this weird fader positioning to have an equally stron L/R output.

I have the 388 manual, so if I have to open the machine, you guys could help me do it correctly or point me to the manual..

Thank you!

Hello all,

Does anyone know why this guitar has gone up near x2 value on second hand market? (was around 800$ now goes for 1k+ on reverb)

I know for a fact that it's a cool guitar, cause I own one and I want a second one.. (hate the binding and want p90 cutouts) but I mean.. it's a satin finish and all.. how can it go up so much.. I mean standard SG goes for 1.9k brand new.. why would someone give 1.3k to buy a 2016 faded special one? (with a gigbag..)

Hello,

I'm a long time Bitwig user and I'd like to ask a question. We all know that automation snapping was a PITA in previous versions, in 6.0 things re better BUT I'm mixing a track and Im having a drum machine with a Kick plugin on a slot.

When I want the kick to stop for like a moment I will automate the Mute button on the drum machine pad. Problem is that when I unmute right before the kick hits, the attack of the kick is almost always smudged, as if the unmute automation is slow or something..

It's ao hard to understand how and why the automation would "delay"?

Anyone else has this?

Hey all,

I am an owner of a Dell XPS 9370. I had it for work (developer) and after I updated my work laptop I made it my personal one.

I love this laptop, it has the i7 8550U with 16 gigs of DDR3.

Now using the CPU-Z application I can see clock speeds touching 3.6GHz momentarily but the laptop feels slow. Sometimes youtube video lag slow..

I mean probably 16gigs of ddr3 are not that much, but is also windows 11 making the laptop super slow?

I remember when I bought it I could do some rather serious work - but that was ofc 6 years ago (2020)...

Anyway, any known tips to make this thing a bit faster would be great or any other information on that matter.