Running previously recorded tracks through "better" preamps?

[SonicAlbert]

From the Rane reference dictionary:

timbre (pronounced "tambur") 1. The quality of a sound that distinguishes it from other sounds of the same pitch and volume. [AHD] 2. Music. The distinctive tone of an instrument or a singing voice.

tone 1. Music. a. A sound of distinct pitch, quality, and duration; a note. b. The interval of a major second in the diatonic scale; a whole step. c. A recitational melody in a Gregorian chant. 2.a. The quality or character of sound. b. The characteristic quality or timbre of a particular instrument or voice. [AHD]

The two definitions do overlap. "Tone" and "timbre" can be used interchangeably, but the word "tone" also has the meaning of "pitch".

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

To say so is to imply that the tone coloration of any piece of equipment can be negated by applying an eq curve to compensate for it.

In theory, with an infinity adjustable EQ, yes...almost. You'd also have to add some processing that will emulate the attack and release times of the circuitry, as well as some harmonic generation and some very fast automation to be able to emulate the harmonic decay times and such. As I said in the last post, circuit coloration changes amplitudes in all thre basic building block ways, not just by frequency...though that is a major component of it.

The problem with it in practical application is there are always going to be non-linearities in the sound that cannot be mathematically modeled with any precision after a few iterations. Which is why the Stradivarius Problem you describe would be close to unworkable as well. Way to many variables going to an infinite number of decimal places to be able to do anything but approximate on even the fastest supercomputer. This is why emulation plugs rarely sound like the real thing.

But at the end, it's doing nothing but adjusting amplitudes in order to shape the tone, which is the same thing on both a technical and physical level that an EQ does. The only difference is the level of sophistication of curve; the irreproducability of that curve does not mean that it's not a curve. It's still dyhamically shaping the amplitude modulation of the signal voltage.

All we can do with voltage to change a sound in any way shape or form is to play with it's amplitude. This can be done in any of three "axis": frequency, amplitude and time. That is true whether we are talking a signal processing plug or device (e.g. an EQ is all about frequency amplitude, a compressor is mostly about controllong amplitude by amplitude, but it also does some limited amplitude control by time via the attack/release settings) a simple channel fader (general amplitude over time), the frequency response curve of a loudspeaker or the response characteristics of a piece of hardware like a preamplifier.

G.

 

[DigitMus]

Bottom line:

You can gild a turd, but in the end you still have 99.99% turd and .01% gold.
It just looks prettier.

 

[xstatic]

Glen, I beleive that alot of what we do is conditioning whether we realize it or not. It sound like we actually agree on a bunch of these points I have to explain it to clients all the time. Sometimes we make decisions based not on whats right or wrong, but whats real. Part of the reason that I like "character" pieces is that I know that other asp[ects of my own studio are lacking and a lot of my clients have gear that really needs som assistance. As for the tubes thing, when recording is concerned, I don't care one lick about tubes. I care only about end result which is typically attributed to design and not actual tubes. None of the gear I buy is based on whether or not it has tubes. If it does, fine, if it doesn't, fine. Clients seem to be easily mystified by some of the tube and warmth myths though. I always have to explain to them that in the end it comes down to design and implementation and not the tube itself. With guitar amps I do feel like the tube has a different sort of impact though. Design and implementation still matter a lot, but all of the stuff that I like the most in that end of things does have tubes.

As for the whole EQ thing, I beleive that EQ does have a lot to do with different timbres even. I also believe however that our current available EQ's and methods are nowhere near being that flexible that things can truly be mimicked. That is also why I believe that running stuff through preamps for coloration can only be achieved in that way and not with EQ's. Its kind of weird how sound works. Things cna look very similar on say an analyzer, yet sound radically different in real life. The thing about preamps is that they do sort of apply an EQ to signals in a technical sort of way, but they do it differently with different signals, varying volumes, and even the way the signals react with one another and then again as the dynamic changes. This kind of thing to me may "technically" be mimicable, but realistically we are a LONG ways away from that kind of processing.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

As for the whole EQ thing, I beleive that EQ does have a lot to do with different timbres even. I also believe however that our current available EQ's and methods are nowhere near being that flexible that things can truly be mimicked. That is also why I believe that running stuff through preamps for coloration can only be achieved in that way and not with EQ's.

We are in complete agreement all the way down the line it sounds like, x. Just some quick post-it notes:

I didn't mean to emphasize "tubes" so much as if I were talking "toobs" . I was just shortcutting the vocab to mean "vintage gear with the vintage sound". I understand that there is more to it than just the use of "toobs". My fault in perpetuating a myth accidentally there .

As far as the above quote, you are spot-on, IMHO. I didn't mean to suggest that one could use a parametric EQ and a graphic EQ or any combination of them to emulate circuit coloration. What I meant was that coloration is more than anything a very complicated (and dynamic over time) EQ curve. It's a curve that - just like a Stradivarius violin (or any other violin, FTM) - has unique non-linear (chaotic) properties to it that are next to impossible to model with 100% accuracy. Modeling such instruments is not much different than modeling the weather in that regard. But that doesn't mean it's not a form of curve filtering.

It's slightly more than pure EQ, sure, in that there is also some compression-style modification involved in most tube (and here I DO mean tube) curcuits, but the effect of compression can also in itself be built by modulating volume over time and even fequency. The same amplitude-shaping building blocks can be used to make either EQ or compression.

But this is all going much further into semantics and theory than I ever intended. Man, I had no idea that calling the use of coloration a form of EQ would be so controversial. It's such a basic concept to me. All I meant was that it was the use of a device to change the tone of the signal (instead of, say, using it to amplify the voltage or make cinnamon toast ), and that it's doing so by applying a dynamic response curve or filter to the amplitudes of the signal. Which is about as close to the definition of EQ (as a verb) as one can get.

G.

 

[hipskind]

I say dump the girlfriend and date the API. You will spend way more time together anyway.

LOL! That's funny...You haven't met my gal though. She's awesome. She's a vocalist with a small but mighty studio in her basement. She does a lot of vocal tracking down there and knows her stuff very well.

But it sounds like hipskind is actually talking about the opposite: taking tracks recorded through better gear and then running them through a worse preamp later. In that case, I do think that it's highly likely that only damage will result.

Nope, actually I was talking originally about tracking through "worse" gear, then re-running it through "better" gear later (like taking it thru her API's, which she understandably-yet-regrettably won't let me take out of her house) on the off-chance it might make an (and I shudder to use this term lest it start another firestorm of theoretical arguments!) "improvement" in my signal chain. And on that question, it seems the general consensus is something to the effect of "Possibly, but probably not--try it and see". So for that, I thank you all!