PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

garyb wrote:yes, and no.
...
it's not either/or, any hybrid form works. the math will be done in the system given the task. Scope is really external hardware to the computer, in that it's a seperate processing unit. there's really no way for one to be on the other. they can share info, but not tasks(for the most part).

even 'worse' ... any part of the system can apply any kind of math, int, float, variable data length...
it's up to the respective processing block, wether in the DAW, a VST plugin, or Scope.
The programmer should choose the math format according to what's being coded - and there IS plenty of options...

Someone posted (in the Modular section here) a link to a VST clone (a very simple one) of the Modular.
It's certainly well programmed, but the author doesn't get along with audio dynamics inside his system at all
(which is a bit irritating as he mentioned 'intelligent' scaling of audio level within the patches as a particular strength of the device)
Anyway... this is a good example for (failed) range management/control, which is one (important) aspect of scaling numerics and choosing an appropriate format.
If you tweak similiar modular patches in Scope, you will immediately notice a more balanced handling, a smoother way of dialing, as there's obviously more headroom in the whole setup. The numerics fit the functions, so to say...

The afforementioned VSTi will drift into distortion very quickly and you often have to manually 're-set' a dial to avoid the red part of the meter, but then find yourself in a situation that the 'initial' part becomes too thin.
But... (except for distortion) this doesn't influence fidelity of the sound too much - the filter output of high resonant parts was nice indeed, but you couldn't do specific (continuous) tweaks, as you had to interrupt and set back levels on the way.

More math savy folks will be able to properly explain how much the frequency content (which we perceive as 'sound character') of a signal depends on bit deepth, but imho its way more about dynamic range.
My usual 'hands-on' hint is to render a file into an 18bit and a 24bit version and try to tell the difference in a random sequence...

I fully get your point that sometimes you want to keep what you recorded in the most pristine form.
Me too - but I've amended this attitude somewhat more into the 'practical' domain.
To be honest the biggest driving force behind this was sound, which simply was 'too good to be true'.
Kensuguro recently gave an example with Garritans Brass library (in the Music section).
These horns were recorded with world class gear (probably), but they just don't sound like what 'brass section' triggers in our heads.
My suggestion was to 'spoil' the individual tracks to give it back some 'blood' or funk or whatever you call it...
Now how great is that ? I bet those horns would have been way more cutting it in 12 bits

If I needed a Piano on a track, one of my hottest candidats would be from the Korg DSS-1 sample library
Hear what you can do with a 12 bit Piano...

My point is quite simple: 'sound character' is defined mostly in the 300-900 Hz range, 'precision' is faked frequently by extended highs beyond 8khz, or even that 16khz 'airy' bs...
The focus is way too much on technical figures than on the sound itself as it reaches our ears.
That's why I stopped worrying and started to love the bomb
The little synth mentioned above gets raving reviews by some of it's fans at KVR - its fine for an occasional (!) line of notes or an fx, but the tone is so boringly balanced and precise.

ok, lot of bla beneath the topic (question), so at least a rule of thumb (...or what my self resorted to...) :
make a kind of prototype setup that covers Scope and VST sources.
If you monitor via Scope, compare the final DAW rendition to the original sources.
In case you notice any significant differences, try to find out how it's been altered and adjust processing accordingly.
That way you learn to anticipate what your specific system will do and you compensate in between (if required).
You won't find any solution in contemplating about numeric formats - there are too much and you cannot(!) know how they were applied internally.

keep it simple, Tom

my brain will explode

24, 32, floating boat32bit fixed 32 40 float.. XTC mixing in sequenser, passing singal throu sfp........................ mixing in scope... recording , playback only.... vst bit resolution

god...... what a mess... it is not clear at all what depends to what.

Please guys... lets take it from the first first part of the routing window.. or even the microphone that that is connected to the analog mixer or whatever.

sorry Arcadios, maybe I shouldn't have written so much between the lines, left to your own interpretion...
so I'll say it straight:
forget about the format bs, it is NOT relevant for keeping a whatsoever 'quality' at all

that may read as a polemic or a joke, but it's meant totally serious.
just think about what the FILE format means and what you CAN hear (according to experience)

most of all (as a Scope user) you probably don't do the following:
process a file (track), write it to disk, apply another process, write it to disk, next process... render - write, render - write etc
in THAT case the file format does in fact have a non-leglectable influence.

You're more likely to have a bunch of tracks, apply some complex Scope processing and just write the final mixdown.
It doesn't even matter much if you have a simple 16 bit source (if it can cover the dynamic range) of the single track.
Your Scope processors will operate at full 32int or 32+8 float resolution in a mathematically optimized environment.
Even if you just chop off everything beyond bit 16 it will be a fu**ing great mix.
The source and destination file formats have almost no influence.
As mentioned: try to tell a 16bit from a 20bit file... it WILL be very hard

cheers, Tom

so far so good.
i wish it was all analog...
anyway

the confusion for me starts were the CORRECT match of scope with sequenser is. includin the vsts.. the recording .. the playback through scope the final mixdown....
and mix through scope.
and what about moving a sliders of the sequensers mixer? does that really allow different bit resolution process through the chain of the signal?

bits are number of data that will be multiplied by 44.100, 48.000, 96.000, times per second.
the more the better? no.
mmm i mean yes.
well no for just reproducing a stereo audio track.
but yes for applying effects and mixing many tracks.( it is parallel to a photoshop effects processing. if you have a foto on higher analysis it is much easier to enter and fix some artifacts on a surface of a foto. or some effects may apply much better on a foto that is of higher bit analysis.
well, someone would say that foto is STILL in time but music is MOVING in time..... thats another thread....
Really, can a scope reverb be applied on an analog signal? no i guess.. it must be converted to digital first..... and what is the depth of scopes analog source? 32bit ineger? and if i pass it through lets say masterverb and listen to it throu STMmixer and scope analog dest.... still 32bit integer that converts again to analog?

i said too much myself

with all respect... looks like you're still on the wrong track... but of course it's your party...

let me pick up the photo example, as I'm familiar with (film) slides up to 8x12" size
those used to be scanned on special machines resulting in 12-35 MB picture data
15 years later we receive that stuff directly from the photographer's cam... 100 MB per picture
do these pics contain 300% and up more detail ? NO, they don't (there's a significant amount of noise)
but they are much faster to get and pretty cheap

with digital audio it's exactly the same
it's a matter of fact that no affordable converter delivers a precise 24bit result, the last bits are all noise
just like what the camera sensor produces

it doesn't matter which slider you use to put the level up or down
that doesn't affect a reverb processor either
but it sure makes a difference if you use Masterverb or P100 as a reverb...
while still no Scope reverb achieves the transparency of the Eventide 2016 hardware unit (imho)
so it's all in the method of processing, not the level

you may loose a tiny bit of information by converting numbers, but that's neglectable for the overall result.
(unless you convert back and forth a dozen times)

but: the most precise sound representation may not always be the one with the most pleasing 'feelin'.
imho you can handle all that according to your ears.
If it sounds ok, it doesn't matter if it's based on a 14bit number.
I know you're into classic...
compare the voice of Maria Callas (from a noisy record) with the one of Anna Netrebko from a SACD

cheers, Tom

well, yea....
i have to say that i agree to most of your points...
in fact in every aspect what counts is what stays in history of the paper, the photo papar the film or the audio recording etc...

Netrebko is a huge artist offcourse.. and god.... so beautiful(before she went fat...even this way she is hot )
but.. for sure she cannot be compared to a myth like Callas. Pavarotti who is a myth made some good recordings because of his time... and even this way i will never stop researching for more artists and deeper in history nomatter the period. Do we need more quality to listen to Caruso, Corelli, Del Monaco or Wunderlich and Dieskau? Some of them were having good contracts in big recording companies but the best to listen to especially in opera is from Live recordings that in older times was always worsw in quality...(and i can say i prefer them because there were recorded from on microphone sometimes that sounds much more real to my ears than the many channel and many mic positions of into the orchestra metod, which finally will become a hoby for high end colectors that dont know a shit about reality.

Alsp, there is much of discussion here.. like why do we have to compare different situations and different personalities... everyone is different and arts have place for everyone.

Astroman, i like the way you move the discussion from weels and bulets of a car to who driver will drive the car. Sena or Prost and Scumacher.
And about the photo paradigm(example) i agree... Cinema whould be actually a more close parallelism because there there is (frames per second) thus happens in time. and has also many of the sound characteristics lke stereoscopy recently....

actually, nothing compares to the live experience.... So ....
even this way the artists of pop and rock need good equipment.. Dont forget that Elvis and Sinatra were always i top of recording quality of their time.....
but i wish i was in a live of them and i swear to God that i would sell everything i had to start listening again from my old Turntable....(what cables whould you suggest for the RB300 tonearm )

it's the performance that counts.

it's nice to be able to hear that performance, so whatever is the best sound quality you can afford to acheive, is the things to do.

but, it's the performance that counts. it's better to put more effort into getting good performances from the musicians, than to put more effort into sound quality at the end of the day, once the gear is assembled. though it's certainly a great thing to get the best possible sound quality, and while it's an important thing to do for sure, and while it's important to understand what sound quality is, means and is about, there's no point in getting stupid with it.

personally, i prefer the best sound quality possible. this is tempered by reason and budget, and my ears are reliable enough to tell me if i am getting what i need. if i hear about something that might be an improvement, i'll probably try it. if it's too much trouble, or too much money for the amount of improvement(it's pretty good already, not the absolute best, but my budget is limited), then i won't bother.

recordings like this are the reason, recorded at home in a living room not far from where i live, on a stereo reel to reel with one mic on the vocal and one on the band that could neither play in time or in tune or in key, but one of the most played radio singles of all time bar none. it was the vocal performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xm3qnh1sck
the DJ who first played this tune played it as a joke, meaning for the audience to laugh and deride, instead he got a flood of listeners who wanted to hear it over and over.

ahhh, run-on sentences. my specialty...

garyb wrote:it's the performance that counts.
...
recordings like this are the reason, recorded at home in a living room not far from where i live, on a stereo reel to reel with one mic on the vocal and one on the band that could neither play in time or in tune or in key, but one of the most played radio singles of all time bar none. it was the vocal performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xm3qnh1sck
the DJ who first played this tune played it as a joke, meaning for the audience to laugh and deride, instead he got a flood of listeners who wanted to hear it over and over...

yeah, strange - had to listen to this end to end ...

if the medium is capable to capture the performance, or even better... transport it's essence and emotion... cool.
I'm no opera expert, but the voice of Callas got a special resonating 'effortless' I never noticed with any other performer.
Don't mind those technically challenging parts she 'could' handle at all.
Netrebko has been compared to her (... the unfortunate fate of every great soprano), but lacks this 'undertone'.
Which is in no way meant to 'compare' the two artists - I fully agree that's bs neither deserves.

But the individual character is perfectly transmitted by relatively unperfect recording conditions of the time.
Of course Sinatra (as a top artist) worked with top gear, some a legend today - but such gear was developed according to ears.
In case of the U47 even economic restrictions applied, afaik. I already.
Been posting that a link a couple of times, but worth mentioning in this context... the shabby mp3 representation still gets the essence over...

Today there's often (or too much) focus on isolated specs: ...we lowered the noise floor by 50%... (let's say from -95 to -98dB)
fine - but of few significance with that company's target buying group.
The latter self tapping on their virtual shoulders what fine gear they have...
really, cant stand those 105+ x dB 0.00015% figures any more.

If I want a record to sound 'good' in the sense of 'emotional', I must know how to arrange sources, as I'm about to FAKE an experience that's technically not possible to capture (at least not with current gear).
I won't get any closer to this by ultra-precise capture and process in a single domain - so take it easy

cheers, Tom

yes.

I second the DSS-1. I think the 12-bit samples work well with the analog filters that each voice has...really smoothing things out and taking that high-frequency noise and turning it both into grit and sparkle simultaneously. No other way I can describe it, but it works, and works very well. In fact, I can't wait for the new expansion board release that adds USB storage capability as well, so speed up all the loading and unloading of samples. Floppies do suck.

http://web.me.com/tomvirostek/DSS-1/Purchasing.html

yeah, meanwhile I really regret to let the DSS-1 pass for 200 Euro, sh*t...

cheers, Tom