“Human ears are better than measurements!” / “Humans can hear things we can’t even measure!”

[ianovic69]

group think is strong amongst subjectivists

Sorry but I'm stealing that!

 

[RandomEar]

Professional musicians choose an instrument a violin,guitar,etc, because they like the sound of the instrument for recording or live playing.

Apart from the fact that this discussion is getting very off-topic, this statement is just wrong. If I select an instrument to play, it definitely matters how it sounds to me but there are many other important factors:

• First and foremost ergonomics and mechanical "feel". The instrument has to be sized correctly for my body geometry and/or offer the right adjustment range. The mechanical action has to be smooth and offer just the right resistance to go with my muscle memory.
• The next point would be design. Even though many musicians may not admit it, optics and personal taste play a huge role in instrument selection. This is especially true for certain categories like electric guitars, where the range of styles is significant and even a layman can immediately recognize certain types or brands.
• Price is always a factor, too. And often with unintended consequences: Famous musicians will pretty much never choose the cheapest instruments which could do the job, even if there were very little to no difference in actual performance to the expensive ones. It would send the wrong message to their fans and make them look unprofessional, even if the musical end result would be 100% identical (not saying that it is).

There's always more than just sound being taken into account when selecting an instrument. Even if some musicians might not readily admit it.

 

[amirm]

Why would an acoustic guitar player at a session bring along 6 different acoustic martins to use for tracking when one would do as it more in his 'head then actual need ?

Maybe he is doing it to show off. Maybe he doesn't know how to do the job with less. Fact is that you don't have any idea what the objective facts are in that answer.

I suggest moving to the topic of the thread instead of these random posts.

 

[rjp]

Okay, I'll kick the original topic bees' nest to get it going again.

The title says

Humans can hear things we can’t even measure!”​

Which is false.

But I believe that when someone without a lot of technical experience says this, what they really mean is "Humans can hear things we *don't* even measure".

Which is true.

We don't measure a lot of things, either because they are not interesting or we do not yet know how to, but this does not mean it is impossible.

Also, there is a difference between measuring and detecting. Measuring tends to be a quantitative assessment, whereas detection is more qualitative. Someone may say "there is a richness to that violin compared to the other one". Our ears can differentiate this, and so can our test equipment if it is setup for this task. But we are not likely to ascribe a "richness metric" to this quality. So in a sense we can detect it, recognize it, and classify it, but do not strictly measure it.

 

[ahofer]

playing. Playing a 50's fender telecaster should sound better then playing a modern squire tele

And yet even that stark difference in materials often doesn’t.

 

[ahofer]

It seems like no matter how many times you clarify the differences between

1) creating the original music signal in soundwaves or electrical signals with an instrument, voice, or synthesizer
2) capturing, storing, and reproducing that signal faithfully with transducers and electronics
3) listening to the reproduced signal with your human brain

.. people will go ahead and muddle them up.

Fidelity means accuracy in the second step and is a matter of measuring amplitude and frequency over time with respect to a reference. Steps one and three are intrinsically much more subjective.

It’s almost as if creating confusion is the goal. Nah, that’s crazy talk.

 

[IPunchCholla]

Why would an acoustic guitar player at a session bring along 6 different acoustic martins to use for tracking when one would do as it more in his 'head then actual need ?

Because musicians are human. Our senses are co-mingled and highly processed then further edited and changed by our cognitive systems. This is a good thing generally as it gives us crazy good mental maps of the world, but also gives us a lot of false positives. So it is really easy to attach meaning to false associations and if that meaning isn’t harmful, we can benefit from adapting to it.

In the case of six martins, if the musician believes they are unique and each will help with tracking, they very well might and therefore actually improve the music even if after no one could tell which was used on which track.

Or it could be a weird macho flex. Most people seem to respect people in the arts that are super picky about stuff. We tend to admire someone who is “so good” that they can hear the difference between 6 martins. That must mean they have a near mystical connection to them, right? Or maybe Martin promotes the myth because it’s a way to sell someone six of something they need one of. Or the more expensive bigger profit margin ones.

I spend a lot of time getting things to sound just right. But I have also false a/b’d myself a few times (adjusting sub volume until it was perfect and the sub wasn’t on, turning on and off effects on tracks that were muted. So I have actually tested various elements of my hearing and various time frames. Do I have some sense of my limits to check my fiddling against. I’d rather spend time noodling new lines than getting the last dB perfect, since I can’t really hear that blind anyway, but I think I can when I’m recording.

 

[mpw]

Because musicians are human. Our senses are co-mingled and highly processed then further edited and changed by our cognitive systems. This is a good thing generally as it gives us crazy good mental maps of the world, but also gives us a lot of false positives. So it is really easy to attach meaning to false associations and if that meaning isn’t harmful, we can benefit from adapting to it.

In the case of six martins, if the musician believes they are unique and each will help with tracking, they very well might and therefore actually improve the music even if after no one could tell which was used on which track.

Or it could be a weird macho flex. Most people seem to respect people in the arts that are super picky about stuff. We tend to admire someone who is “so good” that they can hear the difference between 6 martins. That must mean they have a near mystical connection to them, right? Or maybe Martin promotes the myth because it’s a way to sell someone six of something they need one of. Or the more expensive bigger profit margin ones.

I spend a lot of time getting things to sound just right. But I have also false a/b’d myself a few times (adjusting sub volume until it was perfect and the sub wasn’t on, turning on and off effects on tracks that were muted. So I have actually tested various elements of my hearing and various time frames. Do I have some sense of my limits to check my fiddling against. I’d rather spend time noodling new lines than getting the last dB perfect, since I can’t really hear that blind anyway, but I think I can when I’m recording.

Good post ! I was referring to Nashville session players. It could be 3 Martins and 2 Guilds or 3 strats and 3 Les Pauls's. The top sessions players try to get the best sound and playing on a track to help the musician getting the best results on their songs. For us mortals 1 high-end Martin would be good enough !

 

[mpw]

It seems like no matter how many times you clarify the differences between

1) creating the original music signal in soundwaves or electrical signals with an instrument or synthesizer
2) capturing, storing, and reproducing that signal faithfully with transducers and electronics
3) listening to the reproduced signal with your human brain

.. people will go ahead and muddle them up.

Fidelity means accuracy in the second step and is a matter of measuring amplitude and frequency over time with respect to a reference. Steps one and three are intrinsically much more subjective.

It’s almost as if creating confusion is the goal. Nah, that’s crazy talk.

It sounds like measuring amplitude and frequency is more important in Amateur Radio then high-end Audio.

 

[Cbdb2]

Which is why I said on page 1: "Live music, in person - always the gold standard though."

Only if theres no PA. Which is rarer than most people think. Like zero vocal oriented music (80 percent of live music) except opera.

 

[mpw]

Only if theres no PA. Which is rarer than most people think. Like zero vocal oriented music (80 percent of live music) except opera.

Classical live music no PA's

 

[Cbdb2]

Classical live music no PA's

Yea thats about it if your in a good seat in a good hall, although sometimes even they use a PA.
So what if I dont listen to classical, whats the gold standard for the other 90% of music listeners?

 

[danadam]

Only if theres no PA. Which is rarer than most people think. Like zero vocal oriented music (80 percent of live music) except opera.

Sound reinforcement system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A subtle type of sound reinforcement called acoustic enhancement is used in some concert halls where classical music such as symphonies and opera is performed.

 

[mpw]

Yea thats about it if your in a good seat in a good hall, although sometimes even they use a PA.
So what if I dont listen to classical, whats the gold standard for the other 90% of music listeners?

Smaller venues, jazz clubs, classical concerts halls. Most well established bands play at large venues where one hears the music via PA's unless one wants to pay about 1k for seats close to the stage ! Here in Raleigh,NC we have a great concert hall for the NC symphony, no PA's just pure musical sound.

 

[xanalog]

Live music, in person - always the gold standard though.

It may be the gold standard... but are we getting to the territory where we are wrongly comparing apples ('live') to oranges ('recorded' version)?
Besides the apples-to-oranges comparison, can there ever be an accurate A/B between live and recorded music, in real-time?

 

[Cbdb2]

Smaller venues, jazz clubs, classical concerts halls.

I was talking abut music with a vocalist. The venue would have to be tiny to have no PA for the singer. And the venue and your seat can turn all of those places into gold sub-standard.

 

[Cbdb2]

It may be the gold standard... but are we getting to the territory where we are wrongly comparing apples ('live') to oranges ('recorded' version)?
Besides the apples-to-oranges comparison, can there ever be an accurate A/B between live and recorded music, in real-time?

You would have to add audiance noise, the extra often terrible reverb, adjust the mix for seat location etc. How many cell phone videos of live unamplified music sound good? There sound is more accurate than most people think. I believe thats because at live gigs the brain filters out the noise and room when your concentrating on the music.

 

[mpw]

I was talking abut music with a vocalist. The venue would have to be tiny to have no PA for the singer. And the venue and your seat can turn all of those places into gold sub-standard.

What about seeing a jazz vocalist at some Greenwich Village jazz clubs ?

 

[ahofer]

It sounds like measuring amplitude and frequency is more important in Amateur Radio then high-end Audio.

I don’t think you even understand what you meant by that.

 

[mpw]

I don’t think you even understand what you meant by that.

Really do you know anything about Amateur radio ? amplitude and frequency is used all those place in Amateur Radio where it actually can be measured and is important in getting the best signal for ones' rig and antenna. Ahofer, you are such a cult follower with no real thoughts of yourself. Respond with an argument at least, say something towards a discussion.