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In Reply to: Why does a violin sound different than a guitar? posted by benhen on April 15, 2007 at 17:39:30:
That is, the 'attack' or 'starting transient' is different.All humans detect what instrument it is, by paying most attention to the attack, which 'fully characterises' the instrument, resonances, harmonics, and all. And then, we pay more attention to the decay, than to the sustained component of a note also known as the 'continuous tone'.
With a guitar, because it is a member of the instrumental group where there can be little or no sustain per note, the decay plays the next biggest role in our identification.
[For identifying an instrument, which CAN do sustain, the continuous tone is STILL the least important part of any note to our hearing and to our affective responses. Also, that most expression is in the attack and the decay, much more so than the production of continuous tone.
Given that many instruments, like pianos and percussion just don't have a continuous or sustain component in any notes, this ought to make sense. {:-| !
Because all instruments, even different makes of the same instrument, STILL have distinguishing timbre, don't they!?
As do musicians! Again, it is mostly in how they start and finish notes!
So, what is called 'the characteristic timbre' of an instrument is identified using the attack and decay. The sustain or continuous tone (with such an instrument's harmonics) is, relatively, unimportant to our hearing and affective systems. ]
This reply is a complete and sufficient answer to your query. Apart from Clark none of the others got more than close. And, Clark WAS more succinct than I!
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
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a French horn and a trombone playing the same pitch. Same attack, same decay, same sustain. I'm afraid your definition of timbre cannot be stretched quite this far.Timbre is in the sustain. Anybody can tell a bowed violin from a plucked guitar. But the attacks and the decay characteristics tell us nothing about the timbre. And *that's* where the relative strengths of the harmonics enter the picture.
"So, what is called 'the characteristic timbre' of an instrument is identified using the attack and decay."Well if attack and decay include everything including the kitchen sink, then it's pretty hard to parse out any meaningful subset from there. I mean, if that's the way it's defined, then just say "timbre" as a catch-all term and say that's the way it sounds, just because it does. There's only a couple of meaningful parts to timbre, attack and decay, and it includes all? Interesting definition, and not a real good one for engineers.
Engineers like to separate these things into more components to analyze. An attack and decay ENVELOPE is something different, and only talks about the amplitude modulation change with time. There's frequency spectrum in there as well, but that is a subcomponent.
But hey, if you just want to call the attack and decay an all inclusive time domain representation of the rise and fall in amplitude of the note, then of course you can recognize an instrument in this interval. It, after all, includes all the information you say it does. To me it's a rather weak term, to lump sum everything in that interval. It has no interesting features to talk about, it is too inclusive to talk about the various component features. But okay, if that's the true musical terminology, then I learned something.
Then let's just say a guitar and violin sound different based on their timbre, which is to say the total sum of everything that makes up their sound. Wow, what a concept! Obviously, this is true, it is the definition of the differences in the way they sound!
The only point you have elsewhere is that the timbre of the instrument is most recognizable by the attack and decay portion of the timbre of the instrument. That too is obvious, and not all that interesting, to be honest.
I may have been wrong to assume attack and decay as the amplitude modulation envelope of the instrument's sound, but if it does include the harmonic spectrum and all else, then there's really not much to discuss at all.
If the sound is most important in just the attack portion, again, it too is so inclusive as to be not significant an analysis of what is really important. It just says it's all important, at the beginning, and that's enough. Well, duh! We could all could have figured that out.
So I guess I don't really see the point of the argument with these definitions.
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