Tim Smith

Whew! This makes me feel much better now that I know it all isn't some kind of an impediment to my hearing syllables. Remember trying to pick apart a Rush song for the first time? I remember thinking, I have no idea what he just sang, but the music was incredible. The vocals were cool too, I just had no idea what any of it was. Over the years some of the lyrics from these bands has finally begun to sink in. I suspect millions might have bought albums because they liked the music and only read the lyrics on the album cover. Even THEN we might not get exactly what this was about all depending which 'maybe' goes to prove that constructive words, grunts and various syllables added something to the whole pie even when misunderstood or not understood ?

Did you ever hear a song on the radio and never really heard the lyrics so you made up what you thought it said? Or maybe you heard a song and thought you knew the lyrics only later to find out you had it all wrong? I remember my first exposure to rock and pop in the late 70's. All I could pick up out of one song was "Maggie" That was the loudest word in the song. And concerning Pink Floyd, I picked up " we don't need no education" and "all we are is just a......nother brick in the wall" Oh and " you can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat!". To me Meatloaf was just some guy screaming. I couldn't make out any of what he said. Boston's More Than A Feeling, I only picked up " More than a feeling" the rest was unrecognizable. Tom Petty- uah ya blah blah LIKE A REFUGEE. He was particularly difficult to understand. " Somebody been kickin' you arooooooung son" or something like that. My hearing tests ok and was even better back then. Am I the only one who wondered about a bunch of these lyrics? What they actually said?

Glad you found a way to improve the graphics!

I don't know enough about it to say one way or the other. I think in terms of higher resolution and maybe a more exact process. In reality it reminds me of the argument between 16 and 24 bit audio. Yes there are some advantages to 24 bit over 16 bit in terms of head room and sudden dynamics. The change actually threw a bunch of engineers off who were accustomed to mixing in 16 bit because they had to watch their peaks and responses per channel more. High resolution 24 bit behaved slightly differently. Many who didn't wan't such a responsive mix stayed in 16 bit. Maybe a lot of this was snake oil too, but I remember there being this big discussion with experienced engineers on Cakewalk who swore on the differences. When I mix in 24 bit I can tell some difference in track behavior. I think it's just a different way to see it in order to mix it. When it comes to these equalizers, not the same concepts exactly. Like the saying, " You don't know what you don't have until you realize you don't have it." Most engineers don't have the time to niggle about frequency clashes that produce undesirable harmonics within any given plugin if those differences are barely noticed.. They trust the engineer got it right. Since much it falls into negligible territory beginners won't pick up on or might not notice, run of the mill EQs abound and are happily used. So I guess the way I see this is we get what we pay for. We really do most of the time. Sometimes we pay a lot more for only a small gain though. If any given EQ is touted highly and charged for accordingly, you can best bet all of the true engineers in the audio field who tried it would uncover a rat if the product was misrepresented in any way. I'm not talking about just the YouTube mixing engineers, some of whom could be design engineers but usually aren't. I'm also talking about the guys with the audio analyzers, the oscilloscopes, etc. Those people with specific training in the software/electronics end of these designs. These would be the guys buried in calculations who eat drink and sleep numbers. These guys would not let an inferior product get away with it because they test these things, so when Fabfilter Pro Q gets raves from these guys and my ears are really liking the results I am getting up against a basic DAW included EQ, I trust that product and will use it. I asked about the Kirchoff EQ here, but I think one of the things I really wanted was affirmation of it by those more knowledgeable than myself in the internals of these things. Let's face it, some of these EQs are pricey, so good reviews from reliable sources count for something. When they make the claim that this EQ might be "better than" Fabfilter that's really saying something. The only thing I have to go on is a review or two on YouTube. Good reviews to be fair. User experience is important because I think we are all aware that YouTube channels can be paid off by plugin makers to demo their products in a positive way. There could be some bias there. Not that there is, but that's the thing with the web in general, we need to investigate claims because anyone can make them.

There are many advantages to being a nobody.

Come to think of it, they make a product for guitarists called gorilla snot. I guess it's pretty grippy when it dries. In hindsight, I'm going to guess the "boogex" was intended to sound similar to a mesa BOOG ie. You could prolly get some canon ball sized sound out of it.

No- I think they accompany tall people.

I wish I was a drummer sometimes. Playing drums seems so unlike anything else. You sit there and you hit the right things at the correct times. Yep About sums it up.

I thought Boogex was ok but the name always reminded me of this-

A wheel bracket came off of my mover deck. It wasn't very heavy. Lately my projects have not been music projects.

I've been welding. Does that count as a project?

It's only about 700 grand after taxes here in the US. Someone I know just inherited over a million. I would not want his life, even with the money.

Any stats out there on who listens where and what they listen to? I think there are the hard core listeners who have a track playing all day and sometimes all night. While others just dip their toe in here and there. If they actually have that data and it's reliable, it probably goes without saying they need to track individuals and their habits. I think the big hitters have that data and then some. I don't trust soundcloud as far as I can throw them. Too many paid shills. I hope the others are more reliable.

Points well taken. I will look more into the 12700k.

Thanks for these comments Jim. I highly regard your observations. I guess that's the thing I am seeing with AMD in general and one reason why my skeptic meter goes into the yellow when discussing a Ryzen replacement. Cclarry just did a 5800 series build and his didn't go off without a hitch. It's working fine now after some fixes. I hear you saying AMD is great and has leap frogged the last Intel offering by ( I'm assuming ) a small margin. It works ok "if" you do this and "if" you do that. By working ok, I mean a fairly silent well cooled computer with impressive specs for both audio and video work. It's those "ifs" that cause me to pause. Never had any "ifs" using Intel. I put it together and it has been working probably longer than I remember. I take for granted sometimes the trouble free operation it has given me all this time, so I guess I'm still slightly more prone to Intel. Not that one day I won't try AMD. Lots of variables, cost being one. For a studio that would be fine using an i5 , even the 3800 series might be a very strong consideration, but once again "if" it can be cooled properly and kept fairly quiet.

I have gotten likes almost immediately after posting. I believe the reason is to cause patrons to think there is some interest however small. In reality it's a bot. This is to keep those who pay for version of SC paying. If no one ever listened a lot of people would just stop paying them. Only dummys like me keep paying because I am using it more as a storage medium. The bots are usually very attractive and about 30 years younger than me. I guess they really dig us old men.

Uh...Is Amplitube a bad word around these parts? I have Amplitube MAX. That's my pedal collection.

I have a friend who built a 3800 Ryzen system. I have traditionally been an Intel man all the way. Lately though, the lines are getting much closer in terms of dealing with heat and performance on the Ryzen end. Even though I mentioned I was interested in probably more performance capacity than I likely will need, I won't be buying the highest end 700.00 dollar i9 chip for my build. It would be like me buying a Lamborgini and only driving in places with a 40mph speed limit. My hunch is that probably 90% of the Intel crowd are looking at something at least a few notches down from that. The expectation is still high so far as what can be expected from a mid tier or upper mid tier i9. Still an incredible system. In the example of my friend's 3800 Ryzen build he said he dropped about 2K on the build and I think he only has one hard drive. That does not seem lower priced than Intel, although this has been a selling point of the thread rippers. If I were looking at Ryzen I would probably look at the 5900 as of this writing. He claims he gets lightening fast performance out of the slightly older 3800. Heat was an issue in the past, but I think when we start to get into these hotter chips heat will be an issue no matter what. No such thing as a cool 12 core cpu on either front. I am eyeing Ryzen. Not really kicking the tires too seriously yet. For similar performance and a significant reduction in cost I might consider. What I have seen though, is as Ryzen becomes more competitive the costs are also going up and one won't do better on graphics cards either way. I'm still enough of an Intel man to gladly spend a little more to have it over AMD, however if the differences are significant, like me saving 500.00 on a build, then I'm looking.

Glad to hear Greg. Any day above the grass is a wonderful day.

Maybe you are making great music and 7 people liked it? I have found those numbers don't always line up. I was beginning to wonder if they had a deal with dominion. YouTube, same thing. They plays vary when I know who listened to it. In one version of SC you can look at the areas where the listens came from. I have that version but rarely use it.

You bring up some very good points in the subsequent statements after this. I'll do my best to answer this one. I look at my DAW probably the same way a lot of people look at an electric car, and why they hesitate to buy one. They don't wan to ever be in a position where they are low on charge and nowhere near a charging station. I look at what I might get into, because sometimes you just never know. I have started piano parts and branched them into something way more elaborate, or on the flip side, I might just throw the whole thing away and do something else. I can be very fickle that way. What often happens is I make something I think has potential, then after listening to it again I junk it or put it on the back burner. I can only stand so much orchestral stuff, so if I just got that desire taken care of I might go to a light guitar thing next. I would go insane only working fake orchestras all the time. I would also go nuts working small pop/rock things all the time. I don't feed on too much of any one thing for too long. This is a hobby and no one has offered me any money to make anything, so I don't tend to get very hung about any of it. I was on a Celtic kick for quite awhile. I also play what you might call religious music, but sometimes I don't want anything to do with any of that and might put some jazz together. I still like the feel of the Celtic stuff I sometimes come up with and that is usually always low track counts because they are simple arrangements in terms of mixing. And I hate to say this, but I have some serious things going on in my life right now and just haven't had the time to sit down and do any long term anything. If I do anything I am looking at doing it pretty fast. Not that I rush it. This is where mixing/mastering skills can save a lot of time. Back in the day I would spend an entire Saturday putzing with one song and STILL would not be happy with the end result. Now I can make something happen pretty quickly if I have a direction. ....to answer your question, my computer needs are very minimal and if I am tracking a vsti drum kit, I will most often rely primarily on the mixer that comes with the kit. There was a time when I might have mixed 24 tracks of drums sent from various drum vsts into Cakewalk. I can usually get a pretty good drum sound using the factory GUI and plugins. I don't have tons of vocal takes. The vocal either works or it doesn't and should not need more than one or two passes. I spend a lot of time sometimes mixing the bass to sit right.None of that really presses my cpu. I have a few real cpu hungry reverbs. Even so, using only one or two on a dedicated buss isn't a huge hit. I guess I mostly want to be covered for those "what if" moments. What if I decide to use a few different heavy sample libraries? I want to be able to do that and not worry. So I am more thinking of life expectancy for my present system and then covering myself for "what ifs". My present setup with the old 5820K overclocked almost never breaks a sweat, so I can't really justify an upgrade if it were only based on what I'm doing now. Probably most new computer upgrades/purchases are more based on fear than performance needs. I mean, I know I can't indefinitely keep winging it on this system so I try to think ahead some to cover myself for the future. I guess this isn't really fear. It's more just concern and planning. If my system tanks , then I will just be moving a lot sooner than I expected to move. The problem with computers from the last 10 years is if you treat them right they just won't die on the Intel end.

I hope you're feeling better there Greg. Think you caught it at the hospital?

How do you get them to reproduce like that?

My wife has no music talent at all. When she sings dogs howl. I believe she would be more than willing to critique my stuff, but she has no idea what she is critiquing. In that respect we are both on different pages. All she knows is I sometimes like to spend in the studio. I know she mostly doesn't understand why.

That chip is circa 2014. It is still a nice setup especially if it's overclocked, but has long since been surpassed by updated hardware.I have one because I haven't felt a need to move on until recently, and that's mainly because I bought a lot of software since then and have a fair investment resting on a reliable build. If I were to load it up with a heavy project plugin wise it would undoubtedly choke. I mostly get by it because I pull a few tricks that minimize stress on the cpu until I'm ready to mix down. If anything, coolers have gone larger as have higher end video cards. Might be worth looking at other configurations. I have seen a few builds which were very tight on space. Just thinking outside the box some here, maybe they make a video card jumper that would let me relocate my video card to another box cooled independently. Large video cards are now what main cpus once were. Room temps are important too. If you live in Brazil and don't have air conditioning, that's another 20-30F to overcome and imagine the advantage if the cpu could be extended outside the box. Part of the problem is in containing heat. There are other options but whether anyone has pursued them or not is another thing.