Re:Silly question about Asterisk@home
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Build Your Own PBX
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· Score: 1
the WAF of asterisk is average.
for the first few months after installing asterisk the WAF was very low with comments such as..
"why can't we just have a normal phone system like everybody else"
"so and so called today and they said my voice sounded like it was under-water"
"i tried ringing so and so today and it just beeped in my ear"
and stuff like that,
once you have ironed out all the crinkles and fixed all your config file typos it generally just goes. my rule of thumb now is - don't touch it unless its broken, my asterisk box hasn't missed a beat for over 4 months now, still get the occassional jittery call but it generally just goes now.
the reality is most singers and not only singers but the musicians themselves would sound like total shit if this and a whole lot of other technology were not used.
when you pump a singer through a 50,000 watt PA system you need to do a lot to the signal to get it ready to be amplified to that level and still sound good.
as a sound engineer I get to hear what they really sound like and sometimes its pretty amusing.
in general most vocalists first get fed into a basic parametric EQ which is often used to cut back a lot of the bass and mid frequencies and often boost the high frequencies to make the vocals more understandable. Next they are generally compressed using a multiband compressor that squashes the signal to make the signal more even and fatter. Often a gate is also employed which physically turns the microphone off when the signal falls below a certain level so that you don't hear breathing and other background noise. next the signal is fed into an autotuner which can be programmed to subtly correct minor flaws while leaving out deliberate pitch changes (I often just turn it on when I no a singer has to stretch to reach a high note).
next an aural exciter introduces harmonics that add sparkle to the voice and lifts it above the mix.
then we pipe it through to add subtle reverberations that make it sound more full and often additional effects such as chorus and flanging are used on backup singers to puch them back further in the mix.
without all this gear most professional singers would sound no better than your average kareoke bar singer.
i have some very interesting recordings of rather big name acts straight out of the mixing desk before all the effects are applied. My next door neighbours 13 year old kids band sounds better than some of them.
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the WAF of asterisk is average. for the first few months after installing asterisk the WAF was very low with comments such as.. "why can't we just have a normal phone system like everybody else" "so and so called today and they said my voice sounded like it was under-water" "i tried ringing so and so today and it just beeped in my ear" and stuff like that, once you have ironed out all the crinkles and fixed all your config file typos it generally just goes. my rule of thumb now is - don't touch it unless its broken, my asterisk box hasn't missed a beat for over 4 months now, still get the occassional jittery call but it generally just goes now.
Walmarts storage breakdown (where 460Tb goes)...
Illicit Pornography 200Tb
Hidden Toilet Camera archive footage 100Tb
Sys admins private warez collection 80Tb
Previous employees records 60Tb
CIO's mp3's 15Tb
Sales Records 3Tb
Records of Returned / Faulty Products 2Tb
the reality is most singers and not only singers but the musicians themselves would sound like total shit if this and a whole lot of other technology were not used.
when you pump a singer through a 50,000 watt PA system you need to do a lot to the signal to get it ready to be amplified to that level and still sound good.
as a sound engineer I get to hear what they really sound like and sometimes its pretty amusing.
in general most vocalists first get fed into a basic parametric EQ which is often used to cut back a lot of the bass and mid frequencies and often boost the high frequencies to make the vocals more understandable. Next they are generally compressed using a multiband compressor that squashes the signal to make the signal more even and fatter. Often a gate is also employed which physically turns the microphone off when the signal falls below a certain level so that you don't hear breathing and other background noise. next the signal is fed into an autotuner which can be programmed to subtly correct minor flaws while leaving out deliberate pitch changes (I often just turn it on when I no a singer has to stretch to reach a high note).
next an aural exciter introduces harmonics that add sparkle to the voice and lifts it above the mix.
then we pipe it through to add subtle reverberations that make it sound more full and often additional effects such as chorus and flanging are used on backup singers to puch them back further in the mix.
without all this gear most professional singers would sound no better than your average kareoke bar singer.
i have some very interesting recordings of rather big name acts straight out of the mixing desk before all the effects are applied. My next door neighbours 13 year old kids band sounds better than some of them.
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