RE: I am afraid I'm strongly with the first responder - It's an abstraction

The attack or starting transient - fully characterises the instrument and carries most of the player's expression and individual tone.

[If we swap attacks from one instrument's note to another instrument, listeners will identify the attack instrument as the instrument.]

For many instruments - piano, harpsichord, and percussion, this is followed by the decay. They can't do a continuous tone. If we remove the decay of any instrument, it turns out to be the second most important in identification.

Some instruments can do a continuous middle bit and yes there are harmonics on that, but this part is the least significant in identification of an instrument.

So much for the standard definition of characteristic timbre which needs to be modified.

Beginnings and endings are where it's at.

I was a chorister from age nine, and began soloing by eleven, and one of the sayings has stuck with me - 'If you can't pitch, you can't pitch.' You have to begin right.

All of this has been known since before stereo.

So the ability to launch a note correctly, and transient response are vital to fidelity. Funny that silly old tubes sound kinda right to me.

Fourier is a marginally useful and reductive abstraction. Reductivism can blind us to the target whole.

Hi-fi has to coherently reproduce the leading edges of notes - rarefactions and compressions, sharp positive going 'waves'. And, not add/subtract more reflections than in the originals that reached the mikes.

Diffraction at the speakers is more destructive than most people suppose.

Warmest

Tim Bailey

Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - All sounds, from the screech of nails on a blackboard to a symphony orchestra, are made up of sine waves. - Tre' 14:14:53 03/18/12 (23)

RE: All sounds, from the screech of nails on a blackboard to a symphony orchestra, are made up of sine waves. - Michael Koster 08:21:03 03/21/12 (5)

RE: All sounds, from the screech of nails on a blackboard to a symphony orchestra, are made up of sine waves. - Tre' 14:13:02 03/21/12 (0)

RE: All sounds, from the screech of nails on a blackboard to a symphony orchestra, are made up of sine waves. - Michael Koster 08:30:47 03/21/12 (3)

No (nt) - Tre' 14:03:29 03/21/12 (0)

Way to GO Michael !!! - drlowmu 12:12:40 03/21/12 (1)

RE: Way to GO Michael !!! - Michael Koster 17:02:35 03/21/12 (0)

RE: All sounds, from the screech of nails on a blackboard to a symphony orchestra, are made up of sine waves. - 6AS7_6SN7 12:50:49 03/20/12 (1)

Thanks Luca as always a very coherent response... - Minussss3db 23:45:08 03/21/12 (0)

I am afraid I'm strongly with the first responder - It's an abstraction - Timbo in Oz 21:24:00 03/18/12 (3)

RE: I am afraid I'm strongly with the first responder - It's an abstraction - Tre' 14:15:02 03/21/12 (2)

RE: I am afraid I'm strongly with the first responder - It's an abstraction - Timbo in Oz 14:38:40 03/21/12 (1)

Thank you (nt) - Tre' 16:32:14 03/21/12 (0)

Are Triangle waves and square waves made up of sine waves? - Chris O 14:39:56 03/18/12 (8)

RE: Are Triangle waves and square waves made up of sine waves? - Eli Duttman 17:33:07 03/18/12 (0)

yes - Tre' 15:07:07 03/18/12 (6)

" made up of sine waves " - FenderLover 17:42:40 03/19/12 (5)

Yes I covered Fourier in my 'mid-life crisis degree' - Timbo in Oz 04:35:40 03/21/12 (4)

RE: Yes I covered Fourier in my 'mid-life crisis degree' - drlowmu 12:14:29 03/21/12 (3)

Possibly at his misuse or overemphasis by others? - Timbo in Oz 14:17:07 03/21/12 (0)

RE: Yes I covered Fourier in my 'mid-life crisis degree' - DanK tubes 12:42:12 03/21/12 (1)

Sharing Bob Fulton's work....... - drlowmu 15:14:09 03/21/12 (0)

Not really... - op48no1 14:39:14 03/18/12 (1)

RE: Not really... - Michael Koster 08:03:52 03/21/12 (0)

Follow Ups

RE: I am afraid I'm strongly with the first responder - It's an abstraction - Timbo in Oz 14:38:40 03/21/12 (1)

Thank you (nt) - Tre' 16:32:14 03/21/12 (0)

RE: I am afraid I'm strongly with the first responder - It's an abstraction

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