I understand your point but don't see how this is different from anything else in the business world
An idea, in and of itself, is the one thing you can create with nothing but your own resources — even if those are nil in terms of material value. With an idea, one could, one would think, approach people with other resources, and turn the idea into relative wealth for your family and yourself.
Without the ability to protect the idea on par with the corporation, and also without the ability to defend that protection, the means is removed from the common man, and we become a society with built-in starting lines for corporations that are far in advance of the common man... when the common man is the one that needs an assist, if indeed anyone can be said to need one.
Just because the business world has evolved to a particular state, does not validate that state. The status quo is no more than that. Sometimes, it is exactly where we should not be. This is one of those cases.
The cost of getting a formal opinion is around thirty thousand on average.
And that, my friend, serves as a complete condemnation of the system. As soon as the cost exceeds what can reasonably be found in the cookie jar of a guy who digs ditches for a living, the system can be confidently and accurately described as completely and utterly broken. I can afford a patent out of pocket change. Joe the ditch-digger cannot. Joe may be the next Einstein; between him and I, the odds favor neither of us in terms of how inventive, creative, innovative and so forth we may be. Yet the fact that I have more cash will determine that I will succeed from ground zero, thus crushing my opponent. This is stupid.
That's what copywrite is for. It prevents people stealing code (along with derived code in some cases) and calling it their own.
The problem with copyright and patents with regard to software and hardware is that I can legitimately, in a black box room with no outside input, reinvent exactly and/or essentially, the same methods and/or hardware. This is because problems and tasks serve to define solutions in a space made up of our prior knowledge and education, which is a space that is massively shared. I spend my money, my effort, my neurons, my education upon solving a problem, get it done, and then find that I can't use this solution because someone else has solved the problem as well. They may not even have done so first, but they got to some government flunky first, which is a function of funding more than anything else. That is (patently) ridiculous.
The most legitimate issue at the core of all this is, it is unreasonable for me to steal the fruit of someone else's labors; I'm not talking about where someone wants to share, as is often the case in the Linux community, for example, but as might be the case where a group and its employees depend upon the proceeds gleaned from the work they have done. Other key issues include encouraging people to solve problems by offering them the opportunity to profit, and excluding the realm of the obvious from protection. I doubt there is a perfect solution, but there is certainly a much better one than patents, and that is trade secret.
When a solution is created of great complexity and/or sophistication, not sharing the means can be a very powerful way to extend the ability of that creation to earn for its creators. The more complex it is, the more likely it is to remain the exclusive domain of the creators for some time. However, the more useful it is combined with the premium being charged society for it, the more pressure there is on outside factors to also solve the problem(s.) And nothing stops the legitimate invention of an idea elsewhere.
I maintain that patents are a terrible social burden; one delivered to us all wrapped up in the ribbons of good intent, but which turned out to nothing less than a box of intellectual black plague.
Copyrights are inappropriate for software because they are unable to distinguish the legitimate re-invention of a process, line by line (or gear by gear), which was essentially dictated by the problem itself. In other words, my code can be entirely my code, and come out exactly like your code; likewise, my water-wheel may look exactly like yours. In simple terms, if the problem is, "Use C to solve the problem, emit 'Hello World' on the command line", my code will probably look just like yours. Ridiculous example? No. Because if the problem is "blend these two layers of 8-bit pixels" the odds are very high that we'll also produce the same code if we're both graphics experts. And so on. Then someone comes along, sees the lines are the same, and claims that the one who solved the problem later was taking the earlier publisher's work, which in fact, is not the case at all.
Worse, if I am intentionally stealing your layer blending code, if you copyright it, which requires you to expose it, I can examine your code, determine how it works, and intentionally re-arrange the operations so that my code does what yours does, but does not resemble it. So much for copyright "protection."
Trade secret is hugely superior. The only way you can get to a solution is to work it out. If you can work it out, then you deserve to benefit from the fruits of your labors, and they are your labors, because I never let you see my code. This rewards the inventor(s) for inventing (one key goal of the copyright and patent regimes) and serves to protect inventions in direct proportion to how complex and/or innovative they are (another key goal.) Obvious solutions are
Patents in general poison the design, engineering and production regimes of progress. They direct wealth to specific individuals, often to what seem to be absurd degrees, at the expense of getting the next (set of) thing(s) done.
Like many efforts that one can trace back to good intentions, patents represent a spectacular backfire in social planning.
This wouldn't be so bad (speaking as a US citizen), but we have entirely lost control of our government and can no longer make changes of government systems that have gone bad using any peaceful means. Consequently, we will remain saddled with greater and greater retardation in every regime from fiction to mechanical widgets and large, complex systems.
I think historians may look back upon this time, specifically upon intellectual property issues, and tag it (quite accurately) as one of the key factors leading to a "dark age"; as progress slows down and eventually reaches a point where it just isn't worth making the effort (and we're not that far off now, I think.)
You would want something to give when it is so obviously broken, and in this case, that something would be the patent system. But I don't think it will. The government never admits it is wrong... just look at the drug war. Billions spent, and what do we have? Cheaper, better, more easily obtained drugs.
Well, there's a bright spot... maybe progress can go underground as well. It seems that one of the key factors in "thriving" is to get away from our government.:-(
Are you thinking that you have to install software like Windows and OSX?
No. The issue is one of pre-compiled, "atomic" applications as opposed to compile and link at install time, and/or depending upon other sets of packages with varying licenses, availability, states of progress, etc. Not how the application itself gets installed. Under Windows and OSX, we can create a 4-ish megabyte binary that is the final executable; the same should be true for Linux.
But if you don't like the GPL then this is not your platform.
Although the GPL/LGPL licenses are certainly popular, they are not the only ones out there. There are numerous projects that have not been (L)GPL encumbered. Just not (as yet) a widget set that'll work for us, or at least, not one we've found. So I disagree.
What QT and GTK+ have available will do just fine
Not unless they can be compiled in without further obligation of any kind, they won't. Last I checked, that wasn't the case.
...are you saying you want a GUI lib for Linux that is not encumbered with an EULA or cost? And you want it put in the kernel space in lieu of user land?
I'm saying that ideally, I want a GUI to become part of every Linux installation, just the way the GUI is part of Windows, just the way the GUI is part of OSX, just the way the GUI was part of the Amiga's operating system, Be's operating system, etc. In other words, I want Linux to move away from being a text operating system with a myriad of dissimilar graphics patches semi- sorta- available, to a real modern (that is, at least post-1985) OS that has a uniform and dependable GUI that is always there. Failing that, I can work with a widget set over x-windows that I can compile in, if the only downside is the extra weight in bytes; but that's not the optimum way to do this, as every other operating system and application pairing outside of *nix has adequately demonstrated.
I don't see how you justify the more restrictive EULA's/cost of Microsoft and OSX WM's
There is no inherent EULA or restriction on development, release, and sales of applications for either MS or OSX. You can write a GUI-centric application for Windows or OSX without ever incurring any kind of obligation to either Apple or Microsoft. Both companies go to some lengths to make sure that they, in turn, have no particular obligation to you, but then again, this seems quite reasonable. Apple provides a complete development system with every copy of the OS. You can literally put your Mac on your desk and begin writing an application, and when you're satisfied, begin to sell it. Nothing else to it. Windows requires just a little more effort up front, either digging up one of the many free development systems, or coughing up for a commercial one if you prefer, and then it's the same thing -- code, compile, sell, ship... no other obligations exist within the bounds of the tools you need to build a GUI application. No requirement to expose your source code. No requirement to expose anyone else's source code. No requirement to pay any fees at all. No requirement to get the user to go out and fetch the latest library(ies) for anything. No requirement that you charge, or not charge, for your application. No requirement that you split your application into specific chunks. As a developer, there are paths available (some including Linux) that allow you to build Windows applications without ever even buying a copy of Windows yourself -- yet you'll still have a fully functional, GUI-centric, windows app that works just fine and is perfectly sellable. As far as I know, you can't do that for OSX, but it's not a *legal* problem, it's related to the issue that nothing like Wine exists for OSX as yet.
The core reason for most of these huge advantages is because both OSX and Windows actual
Like it or not, if it stops me, it stops my company. I own it, lock, stock, and barrel; I set the course.
I see plenty of GUI apps for Gonome and KDE. So some developer's are successful. What's their secret? Perseverance?
There are various reasons; the most common, I think, would be a willingness to work with the GPL, and/or the LGPL, because most widget libraries are so encumbered. And/or, a willingness to pay for a proprietary widget library. And/or, a willingness to provide source code. I don't share any of these outlooks, nor do I anticipate doing so at any point in the future.
As for "success", this is not a technical problem — it is a strategic one. Adding legal, technical, and financial obligations are negatives; delivery of an application into a new OS (though unknown in terms of sales performance) space is a positive. One has to weigh the one set of issues against the other and make a considered decision. Mine is, too many obligations are incurred, and so, no go.
Now — should it turn out that we missed a widget library that is non-GPL, non-LGPL, free for anyone to use without any kind of legal, financial, or technical obligation whatsoever, and which works on virtually any Linux distribution as-is, and which carries a complete enough subset of widgetry so that one could, for instance, port Photoshop using it (Photoshop being a similar product with fewer and generally less powerful features than we offer), then I'd be more than pleased to reverse my decision.
The best solution to this, in my view, is that Linux as an OS develops a real, embedded GUI capability that is stable, 100% omnipresent, not tied to any one language, and feature-full, similar to those offered by all versions of Windows and OSX. A third party solution in its optimum form would add weight, over and over again, to each application (because to ensure stability it would have to be compiled in.) That's not really critical any longer, memory and disk space being what they are today, but it isn't nearly as good as an OS level solution.
That's an interesting user viewpoint. Here's a developer one:
The reason (and this is the only reason!) we don't develop an installable package for a particular flavor (e.g., Intel) of Linux is that there is no OS-level support for a GUI. I'm not talking about xwindows, which is virtually prehistoric, I'm talking about a modern C-compatible toolkit of menus, buttons, dropdown lists, windows, mouse handling and so on. Instead, Linux is a completely unpredictable patchwork of this windowing system, that one, and this other one over here. The problem is that there's no reasonable way (meaning, unencumbered, no extra cost, standard, always-there, doesn't require a compile or link during installation) to produce a GUI experience for the end user.
To understand our frustration, compare this to the Microsoft or Apple experience; you read the docs, you call the OS functions, everything works. For MS, you can make the same binary of a product work from Windows 98 (or even 95, if you're careful) on up through XP, and presumably Vista. Apple's tougher, OS9 is not OSX and though you can bundle Intel and PPC binaries together, the older 68k machines are "right out" as Monty Python would have it. Still, most of the active user base has PPC machines and the Intel machines will emulate the PPC architecture, so the target isn't difficult to hit at all.
I fully understand that Linux not being tied to any graphic subsystem is considered one of its strengths by many of its users, I am simply saying that this is the barrier that we find stops us from producing a Linux version of our software (which Linux users would find to be a considerably more powerful alternative to the Gimp, just so you have a reference to the class of applications I'm talking about.)
What we look for is the ability to produce an installable binary that provides the same GUI, including look and feel, which does not depend upon any third-party library or code outside of the OS itself. Windows and the Mac both provide a rich, standard set of GUI elements and let us easily deliver that installable binary. Linux does not; hence, we don't produce a public Linux version. We do have an in-house proof-of-concept port running under RH9, but as it depends upon third party widgetry and must be compiled into the target system, it'll never get out our (my!) door. I had the project run for two reasons; first, I'd like to sell a Linux version, because I think Linux users are more feature centric and less marketing sensitive than, for instance, windows users, and we have a very, very strong product to address that, and second, we use Linux for a number of things here and I like having our own product available on all our machines to handle all our graphics needs.
A few months back, I saw somewhere, possibly on Slashdot, that red hat and some other companies were joining together in an effort to provide a standard GUI layer. Haven't heard anything further on that, but it did give me some hope.
What is underneath the screen is a wall, yes. The screen is custom built.
I bought the building (which used to be a church) specifically because behind where the pulpit was, above the chair-rail, a nearly perfect 16:9 space exists in a room that has very high ceilings. I saw that wall and the rest, as they say, was history.
Do not equate HDMI with HDCP. HDMI is a variation of DVI, and both support HDCP.
I didn't. Read the post again. I said that "HDMI enables HDCP, which in fact it does, and which in fact component does not. That was, and is, the basis for my suggestion that component be the preferred transport for HD content. Digital transports are being misused. So I suggest they be shunned. This is practical because (a) component gives you just as good an image, (b) is very difficult to encrypt without pissing off the entire consumer base and (c) is difficult technically as well. I didn't mention DVI per se because HDMI was the subject.
I am no fan of our current government. If I could, I would remove each and every one of them from their jobs, and instruct the replacements that the same will happen to them if they foul up like the currect crop of incompetents has. I'd jail Bush for illegal wiretapping, publicly shame several (then) ex-members of the supreme court for constitutional erosion, withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, restructure and downsize the military to protect our borders and interior and NOTHING else, eliminate all drug and other "mommy" laws, free the political prisoners resulting from those laws, revise eminent domain to only be possible under the very most extreme circumstances, return lands stolen by eminent domain to the rightful owners if they so desired, restructure immigration policy so that immigration was again possible for people who don't hold degrees, implement a socialized medicine system, return foreign aid (and a whole bunch of other social crutches) to the private sector, begin a national effort to make roads safe by preventing access by animals, fund research for non-animal meat sources, extend responsibility for consequences to legal officials and employees (in other words, if they screw up someone's life by inaction, incompetence, or inappropriate action, they ARE responsible.) I'd severely limit copyright terms (perhaps to 3 years), eliminate the patent system entirely in favor of an informal trade secret approach, implement a flat tax, limit legal interest rates and make usury a crime again, drop the minimum wage which I consider simply a barrier to work... and lots more. The US is simply a terrible mess, as far as I am concerned.
Is capturing a DVI signal and then recording it something you want to do?
No. Not personally. Though I see no reason why I should be prevented from doing so; copyright wasn't designed to support such restrictions. Capturing a component signal is something I hope to do, though.
HDCP protects a DVI signal.
No. HDCP doesn't "protect" the signal. It was never at risk. Saying it "protects" it is misdirection and hyperbole. What HDCP actually does is prevents the end user from (for instance) time shifting, recording for personal archival recovery, capturing the news on one's wedding day, you name it, it is in the way. DRM is not "protection", it is an insult to the consumer. It says "we assume you are a lawbreaker, and that you will violate copyright." It is presumption of guilt by fiat, the condemnation of one individual because of the acts of another (if it is even that), and nothing you can say will lift it one centimeter above those miserable goals.
Why do you consider Component the best?
It is the best generally available to the consumer. As far as RGB goes, one thing wrong with it is that the color gamut available isn't realistically broad with RGB or any other three-axis system you can name (and of course, that includes component.) Another is that RGB isn't generally available, so it's not really relevant to the issue at hand. Likewise, no 4 or greater axis system is generally available, and so that (again) leaves us with component. Component has the agreeable characterisic of being recordable with three high-speed A/D convertors, or as a triple analog stream if media were to become available that could accept three channels of such dense data. Good analog recordings have many merits. Digital have some too, of course, but unfortunately the industry is mostly using digital to screw the consumer, so I'm inclined to bypass them at this time as best I can, and suggest the same to others. At the moment, HD 1920 by 1080 is the top end, and component works just fine for that. So there is no need whatsoever for HDMI or DVI in the HDTV space. The industry can (and probably will) make an artificial need by intentionally degrading the component signal; such plans are, I hear, in the works. I have one word for that: Despicable.
DVI cables, as well as monitors and video cards that have DVI ports, can transmit an HDCP-encrypted signal just as well.
That's why I suggest people support component. Digital channels are being misused. Analog is a great deal more difficult to screw up, and since component historically has not had encryption, it's almost impossible to mess with. I wasn't saying that only HDMI was bad; I was saying that HDMI was bad, since that was the topic, and then suggested a realistic, non-DRM infested replacement. I'm perfectly ready to stipulate that DVI is bad as well, if that'll make you happier.:-)
Use component. HDMI enables HDCP and *that* isn't something you want to do.
HDMI doesn't give you anything hugely useful. It can incorporate audio into the same cable with the video, however, for most people who have separate surround systems, this is an inconvenience, rather than a feature. Digital audio needs to go to the surround system, while video, component preferably, goes to the display device. If you're using your display's built-in audio, you're almost certainly involved in a sub-par overall experience
Component, thus far, is the best of the best. Good (by which I mean just good... not stupidity like monster overkill) cables will give you excellent results. How do I know? Because I have a 22-foot diagonal display sourced from a 1080/1920 projection system. Component gives single pixel resolution without any trouble; that's awesome at that amount of detail.
Remember: HDMI is bad and supporting it is the last thing you would want to do. HDMI enables HDCP, and HDCP is a pond-scum mechanism for DRM / copy protection.
What's to say that the optimal encoding (in whatever psychoacoustic sense) is a function of the 44k x 2 x 8 CD-quality version?
CDs are 44k x 2 x 16, actually.:-) But I wasn't saying it was optimum, I was saying it is the common experience. As for some bits being more significant than others... well of course, that's the whole point. Twice each, unless the encoding is nonlinear. But in the sense that some parts of the signal can be thrown out and "not missed" (Sony's theory with ATRAC, for instance), I disagree. Assuming you weren't recording noise/nonsense (ie, 64 bit recording of a 16 bit signal) then no, I can't see throwing anything out. Higher bit rates throw less out, so I'm in favor. Wider words, given the available fidelity in the rest of the chain to get the data to them, also throw less out, so again, I'm in favor. I am staunchly against processing that (for instance) detects one signal in the presence of another and assumes (again, as per Sony) that you can't hear "A" because "B" is present at the moment, and so throws out A. Even if that were true, A has side effects on other things just because it is there, simply given that a degree of nonlinear mixing occurs at the ears even in the deadest of acoustically dead environments.
I've been down this road with audio and images. JPEG (and MPEG) look like crap until the compression is so light it isn't helping any. And of course it precludes further processing, for instance, detail in dark areas is gone. ATRAC sounds like crap. Lossy compression is a response to trying to use limited resources (memory, storage, bandwidth) to represent what amount to considerably less limited data sets. Fortunately, we're coming out of the limited resource stage, and as far as I am concerned, the time to abandon lossy compression is the very first day you can handle the data set. With 512 megs of memory, I don't see the need to lose anything further out of a CD quality signal -- put it that way. 30 to 60 megs wouldn't bother me at all, and I still think that if listening to high quality music is your goal, then a 512 meg machine can afford this type of resource utilization for music. I have gigs in all my machines, so I *really* don't care, personally, but I'm atypical.
With regard to lossless compression, other than IP encumberment and the computing resources required to unpack the data, I have no further objections (though I think those are significant as they stand.) I've written quite a few lossless compressors myself, and in fact, one of the highest compression lossless image compressors you can find today is mine -- the TRIM compression in WinImages (and previously, Imagemaster) is my work. It continues to match or exceed the best lossless compressions available today, 17 years after it was created. And if you think that sounds a bit smug, you're quite right.:-)
The 24-bit designation refers to the depth of sound and has NOTHING to do with dynamic range.
Yes and no. The 24-bit designation refers to the number of discrete levels that are recorded. That's not "depth of sound", it is just a recording accuracy specification (which also depends entirely upon all the other elements in the chain to be useful.) The dynamic range is a function of the curve described by the 16 million values available in 24 bits. If the range is linear, then the dynamic range is easily, and obviously, determined. If the range is nonlinear (log or semilog, for instance) then it is also easily determined, but it isn't what you'd naturally presume from 24 bits.
What you get is that amplitude of the A pulsing (i.e. getting louder and softer) at a low rate.
Right, and when that amplitude pulses slowly, say at one Hz, you now have direct examples of A, A minus 1 Hz, and 1 Hz in the signal. Which is exactly what I was telling you, and exactly what a transform of the signal will show you. You can't say "the amplitude pulses at one Hz" without also saying "there's a 1 Hz product in the signal." A sine wave is nothing but amplitude. Describing a repetitive amplitude change and claiming it doesn't represent the frequency at which it is changing is incoherent.
...and of course, as you tune further away, you can observe that 1 Hz ramp up in frequency until it is in the audible range of your ears (20 Hz or so). That'll continue to happen until the strings lose the ability to vibrate because one is too loose. You'll actually hear the three tones.
Try it. Don't imagine it, because your imagination isn't doing you any favors here. Just try it.
Traditional (meaning, since the 50's) electric guitar sound is always high on the curve; a clean amp sounds quite flat by comparison. However, you'll note that once you record your tone, it can be transferred onto a CD and played back without any problems on a good audio system — sounds just like when you made it (assuming the recording was done well, of course, and no one crushed your performance with typically heavy handed use of compression.) This demonstrates that a "warm" signal can travel just fine all the way through a solid state system, and so validates the idea that a flat amp is a true amp that in no way does anything "bad" to your tone. It just reproduces the guitar faithfully, and a guitar without an edge is a boring guitar (unless you're a classical player!)
We (and I do mean we, I am a guitarist as well as a bassist and drummer) are simply used to those distortions, and we don't like it when they are missing. The good news for me is that sophisticated solid state systems such as Digitech's GNX3 can provide a faithful warm sound without requiring tubes. Running the GNX3 into a flat system (like a recording board and high quality solid state reproduction downstream) sounds as good, and sometimes better, than a tube amp and is certainly a great deal more flexible. Consequently, my Fender Twin is only used to drag out for short blues nights out; there's just no point at all if it's a full gig and we have the board there and I can use a GNX3. FETs have the same type of "rounded" transfer curve that tubes do. Given the appropriate bias and drive, they can sound just like tubes, and for the same reasons. Bipolar transistors cut off too sharply and they just can't be used for this type of service. In a digital system, any transfer curve can be reproduced, and good ones can be absolutely stellar in terms of warm, full sounds.
I'm a blues, rock and metal player — so I'm all about the edge, as you might imagine. I've been playing for forty years, and I've owned various tube and solid state models from VOX, Fender, Ampeg, Marshall, Behringer, Kustom, Silvertone, Crate, Gretsch, Traynor, Gibson, Hi-Watt, and Mesa Boogie. We've also currently got a Line 6 in the studio (which is a really fun system) but of all of that, the most flexible and widest range of sounds that *I* want to make has come from the GNX3, and previous to that, the "winner" was a GSP21, also a Digitech product. Today, with the ease of getting really big amplification out of the various rack mount amps... in the thousands of watts without any trouble at all... it makes the most sense to build the signal you want at a low level and then pump it to any degree of power that you need... or none, if you're recording. Miking guitar amps is really old school, and is so fearsomely limited, that we just don't do it any more unless someone really insists. Even then, we tell 'em we can't be responsible for the resulting tone, and we won't be screwing with the entire mike collection just because they don't like the tone. It is *so* nice when someone comes in with rack gear they actually know how to use. Maybe in ten years or so, everyone will be on board. Pun intended.:-)
Yes, exactly my point. That's obscene. Someone should buy those idiots a c compiler and remind them how to use it instead of the OOO (Object Oriented Obesity) technology they've been using.
Some audiophiles say they prefer vacuum tubes to anything digital or even solid-state analog.
That's a consequence of misunderstanding what "tube warmth" means. It is the character of a tube (or FET) to produce one type of harmonics when driven into nonlinear areas of the transfer curve; bipolar transistors produce an entirely different result. Guitarists noted this many years ago and tubes were used because the overdriven sound was what they called warmer. Today, a number of silly people have conflated that set of facts with the completely specious idea that tubes and transistors running in the linear portion of their transfer curces sound different, when in fact they don't. These same people will swear to differences in wires, even what kind of knob is on the audio gear... there really is no end to the silliness.
The best tube gear is pretty good. Quiet, high fidelity, wide bandwidth, decent dynamic range. The best solid state gear is a lot better, though. Tubes are inherently noisy, as a consequence of the heated cathode; that's one area where SS fairly easily exceeds tube performance. You can also get extremely wide bandwidth more easily out of solid state components, and conversely, it is not all that easy to get very low audio frequencies, not to mention DC response, out of a tube design. Possible, but definitely more annoying.
For reasons not to do with an "audiophile" mindset, I own some pretty high end tube gear. A couple of the best tube tuners ever made (a Marantz 10B and a Macintosh), some 8B amps and various tube preamps. I collect Marantz gear, you see. I also have high end Marantz solid state; a 2130 tuner, 300DC amp, and a 3650 preamp. Everything is in pristine condition, as you might imagine for a guy who has a full audio suite in his shop. The SS gear whips the tube gear's butt, and howdy. Ears and measurements both.
What is *most* amusing about this is that the thing that colors the reproduction more than anything else, and I mean by many orders of magnitude, are the speaker systems. Compared to the changes made to the sound by the speakers, the amps and the rest of the chain are so far below the surface you'd be just amazed. I'm talking several percent distortions from speakers and.003% (for example) from a preamp. Literally a thousand times more "color" from a speaker. And these putzes think they can hear cables and knobs. Man!:-)
True, but you don't need equipment capable of ultrasonic reproduction to hear this.
The audible beat frequencies are on the record, anything else is distortion caused by interaction with your listening environment.
This would be correct if (a) Mics were omnidirectional and omnisensitive and linear with regard to frequency response for all directions and (not OR, *and* !!!) (b) the nonlinear and mixing characteristics of your space were the same as the musician's space and (c) reflections and mixing were actually distortions -- but they are not -- they are, in essense, the ambiance of the room, and were you to get rid of them, you'd have an anechoic chamber, and having been in many of them, I'm pretty sure you'd hate it, big-time. Music sounds like shit on toast in an AC.
Any sidebands produced by the combining of ultrasonic frequencies and your listening environment will not lead to greater accuracy, it's just weird spurious stuff that the people making the record did not intend to be there.
Every space has characteristics it adds. The performer's space, yours, anything that isn't a pure anechoic chamber. The performers are not responsible for your space. You are. Having said that, this doesn't mean that your space doesn't, or cannot, contribute. Many recordings are made without microphones; that is, direct-to-media through the board and any FX loops that might be in use. In this case, there is no "space" and the only one that will affect anything is yours. Mics, when used, also have very specific pickup patterns. They don't always hear what is behind them (which includes things coming from the space you're in, theoretically speaking.) It's not as simple as just imagining a mic that picks up everything there is and gives it to you.
The bottom line is that recording those higher frequencies brings to YOUR space what was in THE MUSICIAN'S space. Mixing can occur right in your ears, for that matter. It's not like your ears are linear.:-)
Also, here's a little experiment you can do if you can find a guitar.
Tune the E string so the A at the 5th fret is perfect. Tune the A string so that it is perfect open. Fret the E string at the 5th fret. Pluck both strings. Slowly and gently, while both strings are still strongly vibrating, de-tune the A string. You'll hear (or see, if you can see the drivers on a guitar amp's speaker system) a very low frequency, wavering tone appear as you move away from A. This tone is the frequency difference signal between the two notes. The tone will increase in frequency as you move further away. Amplitude will depend on the resonant characteristics of the guitar itself; non-linear mixing is virtually guaranteed.
Believe me, if adding two frequencies didn't produce sum and difference frequencies, a whole lot of radio equipment wouldn't ever have worked.:-)
You are mixing up amplitude and frequency. When two waveforms interact, the interference pattern can boost or cancel out the amplitude, but it doesn't really affect the frequenciies.
Nope, sorry. Wrong answer. Graph the addition of two different frequency sine waves. Look at the results. It just gets more complex with more complex waveforms.
You make good points, but you have a slightly incomplete notion of compression and "lossless" formats.
Perhaps. However: I'm an EE, and an audio engineer. I'm somewhat experienced with compression, having been the first to produce a number of signal compression modes, some of which are still in wide today, for instance inside PNG, and several types of very high lossless compression in WinImages and the audio CODECS in one of the first all-digital SSTV systems. So while you may catch me out, you're going to have to work harder at it.:-)
A five-minute tune isn't 30MB, it's over 500MB.
I was talking about CD quality, and stereo. Which I probably should have stipulated, but then again, I don't think I've ever downloaded a >2 channel recording at bitrates/depths higher than a CD, so I think I was addressing the common experience, and perhaps you should have as well. I am perfectly ready to say that stuffing high bandwidth, deep word uncompressed signals into a PC is more demanding. But I am also presuming almost no one does such a thing at this point in time, and likely as (or if) it becomes common, media and RAM size will have swollen to accomodate such uses.
Another thing that we could do is use sophisticated mathematical algorithms to analyze the sound in detail and figure out which bits to throw away.
As an EE and and audio engineer and a musician, I have a simple reply to this: There are no "insignificant" bits. Only bits that are lost due to one factor or another. Lossy compression isn't something to figure out. It is something to abandon.
What we DO need to do is use higher bitrates
No argument. The more detail there is, the more I like it.
Slashdot Mirror
I am 100% unelectable. Believe it.
An idea, in and of itself, is the one thing you can create with nothing but your own resources — even if those are nil in terms of material value. With an idea, one could, one would think, approach people with other resources, and turn the idea into relative wealth for your family and yourself.
Without the ability to protect the idea on par with the corporation, and also without the ability to defend that protection, the means is removed from the common man, and we become a society with built-in starting lines for corporations that are far in advance of the common man... when the common man is the one that needs an assist, if indeed anyone can be said to need one.
Just because the business world has evolved to a particular state, does not validate that state. The status quo is no more than that. Sometimes, it is exactly where we should not be. This is one of those cases.
And that, my friend, serves as a complete condemnation of the system. As soon as the cost exceeds what can reasonably be found in the cookie jar of a guy who digs ditches for a living, the system can be confidently and accurately described as completely and utterly broken. I can afford a patent out of pocket change. Joe the ditch-digger cannot. Joe may be the next Einstein; between him and I, the odds favor neither of us in terms of how inventive, creative, innovative and so forth we may be. Yet the fact that I have more cash will determine that I will succeed from ground zero, thus crushing my opponent. This is stupid.
The problem with copyright and patents with regard to software and hardware is that I can legitimately, in a black box room with no outside input, reinvent exactly and/or essentially, the same methods and/or hardware. This is because problems and tasks serve to define solutions in a space made up of our prior knowledge and education, which is a space that is massively shared. I spend my money, my effort, my neurons, my education upon solving a problem, get it done, and then find that I can't use this solution because someone else has solved the problem as well. They may not even have done so first, but they got to some government flunky first, which is a function of funding more than anything else. That is (patently) ridiculous.
The most legitimate issue at the core of all this is, it is unreasonable for me to steal the fruit of someone else's labors; I'm not talking about where someone wants to share, as is often the case in the Linux community, for example, but as might be the case where a group and its employees depend upon the proceeds gleaned from the work they have done. Other key issues include encouraging people to solve problems by offering them the opportunity to profit, and excluding the realm of the obvious from protection. I doubt there is a perfect solution, but there is certainly a much better one than patents, and that is trade secret.
When a solution is created of great complexity and/or sophistication, not sharing the means can be a very powerful way to extend the ability of that creation to earn for its creators. The more complex it is, the more likely it is to remain the exclusive domain of the creators for some time. However, the more useful it is combined with the premium being charged society for it, the more pressure there is on outside factors to also solve the problem(s.) And nothing stops the legitimate invention of an idea elsewhere.
I maintain that patents are a terrible social burden; one delivered to us all wrapped up in the ribbons of good intent, but which turned out to nothing less than a box of intellectual black plague.
Copyrights are inappropriate for software because they are unable to distinguish the legitimate re-invention of a process, line by line (or gear by gear), which was essentially dictated by the problem itself. In other words, my code can be entirely my code, and come out exactly like your code; likewise, my water-wheel may look exactly like yours. In simple terms, if the problem is, "Use C to solve the problem, emit 'Hello World' on the command line", my code will probably look just like yours. Ridiculous example? No. Because if the problem is "blend these two layers of 8-bit pixels" the odds are very high that we'll also produce the same code if we're both graphics experts. And so on. Then someone comes along, sees the lines are the same, and claims that the one who solved the problem later was taking the earlier publisher's work, which in fact, is not the case at all.
Worse, if I am intentionally stealing your layer blending code, if you copyright it, which requires you to expose it, I can examine your code, determine how it works, and intentionally re-arrange the operations so that my code does what yours does, but does not resemble it. So much for copyright "protection."
Trade secret is hugely superior. The only way you can get to a solution is to work it out. If you can work it out, then you deserve to benefit from the fruits of your labors, and they are your labors, because I never let you see my code. This rewards the inventor(s) for inventing (one key goal of the copyright and patent regimes) and serves to protect inventions in direct proportion to how complex and/or innovative they are (another key goal.) Obvious solutions are
Patents in general poison the design, engineering and production regimes of progress. They direct wealth to specific individuals, often to what seem to be absurd degrees, at the expense of getting the next (set of) thing(s) done.
Like many efforts that one can trace back to good intentions, patents represent a spectacular backfire in social planning.
This wouldn't be so bad (speaking as a US citizen), but we have entirely lost control of our government and can no longer make changes of government systems that have gone bad using any peaceful means. Consequently, we will remain saddled with greater and greater retardation in every regime from fiction to mechanical widgets and large, complex systems.
I think historians may look back upon this time, specifically upon intellectual property issues, and tag it (quite accurately) as one of the key factors leading to a "dark age"; as progress slows down and eventually reaches a point where it just isn't worth making the effort (and we're not that far off now, I think.)
You would want something to give when it is so obviously broken, and in this case, that something would be the patent system. But I don't think it will. The government never admits it is wrong... just look at the drug war. Billions spent, and what do we have? Cheaper, better, more easily obtained drugs.
Well, there's a bright spot... maybe progress can go underground as well. It seems that one of the key factors in "thriving" is to get away from our government. :-(
No. The issue is one of pre-compiled, "atomic" applications as opposed to compile and link at install time, and/or depending upon other sets of packages with varying licenses, availability, states of progress, etc. Not how the application itself gets installed. Under Windows and OSX, we can create a 4-ish megabyte binary that is the final executable; the same should be true for Linux.
Although the GPL/LGPL licenses are certainly popular, they are not the only ones out there. There are numerous projects that have not been (L)GPL encumbered. Just not (as yet) a widget set that'll work for us, or at least, not one we've found. So I disagree.
Not unless they can be compiled in without further obligation of any kind, they won't. Last I checked, that wasn't the case.
I'm saying that ideally, I want a GUI to become part of every Linux installation, just the way the GUI is part of Windows, just the way the GUI is part of OSX, just the way the GUI was part of the Amiga's operating system, Be's operating system, etc. In other words, I want Linux to move away from being a text operating system with a myriad of dissimilar graphics patches semi- sorta- available, to a real modern (that is, at least post-1985) OS that has a uniform and dependable GUI that is always there. Failing that, I can work with a widget set over x-windows that I can compile in, if the only downside is the extra weight in bytes; but that's not the optimum way to do this, as every other operating system and application pairing outside of *nix has adequately demonstrated.
There is no inherent EULA or restriction on development, release, and sales of applications for either MS or OSX. You can write a GUI-centric application for Windows or OSX without ever incurring any kind of obligation to either Apple or Microsoft. Both companies go to some lengths to make sure that they, in turn, have no particular obligation to you, but then again, this seems quite reasonable. Apple provides a complete development system with every copy of the OS. You can literally put your Mac on your desk and begin writing an application, and when you're satisfied, begin to sell it. Nothing else to it. Windows requires just a little more effort up front, either digging up one of the many free development systems, or coughing up for a commercial one if you prefer, and then it's the same thing -- code, compile, sell, ship... no other obligations exist within the bounds of the tools you need to build a GUI application. No requirement to expose your source code. No requirement to expose anyone else's source code. No requirement to pay any fees at all. No requirement to get the user to go out and fetch the latest library(ies) for anything. No requirement that you charge, or not charge, for your application. No requirement that you split your application into specific chunks. As a developer, there are paths available (some including Linux) that allow you to build Windows applications without ever even buying a copy of Windows yourself -- yet you'll still have a fully functional, GUI-centric, windows app that works just fine and is perfectly sellable. As far as I know, you can't do that for OSX, but it's not a *legal* problem, it's related to the issue that nothing like Wine exists for OSX as yet.
The core reason for most of these huge advantages is because both OSX and Windows actual
Like it or not, if it stops me, it stops my company. I own it, lock, stock, and barrel; I set the course.
There are various reasons; the most common, I think, would be a willingness to work with the GPL, and/or the LGPL, because most widget libraries are so encumbered. And/or, a willingness to pay for a proprietary widget library. And/or, a willingness to provide source code. I don't share any of these outlooks, nor do I anticipate doing so at any point in the future.
As for "success", this is not a technical problem — it is a strategic one. Adding legal, technical, and financial obligations are negatives; delivery of an application into a new OS (though unknown in terms of sales performance) space is a positive. One has to weigh the one set of issues against the other and make a considered decision. Mine is, too many obligations are incurred, and so, no go.
Now — should it turn out that we missed a widget library that is non-GPL, non-LGPL, free for anyone to use without any kind of legal, financial, or technical obligation whatsoever, and which works on virtually any Linux distribution as-is, and which carries a complete enough subset of widgetry so that one could, for instance, port Photoshop using it (Photoshop being a similar product with fewer and generally less powerful features than we offer), then I'd be more than pleased to reverse my decision.
The best solution to this, in my view, is that Linux as an OS develops a real, embedded GUI capability that is stable, 100% omnipresent, not tied to any one language, and feature-full, similar to those offered by all versions of Windows and OSX. A third party solution in its optimum form would add weight, over and over again, to each application (because to ensure stability it would have to be compiled in.) That's not really critical any longer, memory and disk space being what they are today, but it isn't nearly as good as an OS level solution.
That's an interesting user viewpoint. Here's a developer one:
The reason (and this is the only reason!) we don't develop an installable package for a particular flavor (e.g., Intel) of Linux is that there is no OS-level support for a GUI. I'm not talking about xwindows, which is virtually prehistoric, I'm talking about a modern C-compatible toolkit of menus, buttons, dropdown lists, windows, mouse handling and so on. Instead, Linux is a completely unpredictable patchwork of this windowing system, that one, and this other one over here. The problem is that there's no reasonable way (meaning, unencumbered, no extra cost, standard, always-there, doesn't require a compile or link during installation) to produce a GUI experience for the end user.
To understand our frustration, compare this to the Microsoft or Apple experience; you read the docs, you call the OS functions, everything works. For MS, you can make the same binary of a product work from Windows 98 (or even 95, if you're careful) on up through XP, and presumably Vista. Apple's tougher, OS9 is not OSX and though you can bundle Intel and PPC binaries together, the older 68k machines are "right out" as Monty Python would have it. Still, most of the active user base has PPC machines and the Intel machines will emulate the PPC architecture, so the target isn't difficult to hit at all.
I fully understand that Linux not being tied to any graphic subsystem is considered one of its strengths by many of its users, I am simply saying that this is the barrier that we find stops us from producing a Linux version of our software (which Linux users would find to be a considerably more powerful alternative to the Gimp, just so you have a reference to the class of applications I'm talking about.)
What we look for is the ability to produce an installable binary that provides the same GUI, including look and feel, which does not depend upon any third-party library or code outside of the OS itself. Windows and the Mac both provide a rich, standard set of GUI elements and let us easily deliver that installable binary. Linux does not; hence, we don't produce a public Linux version. We do have an in-house proof-of-concept port running under RH9, but as it depends upon third party widgetry and must be compiled into the target system, it'll never get out our (my!) door. I had the project run for two reasons; first, I'd like to sell a Linux version, because I think Linux users are more feature centric and less marketing sensitive than, for instance, windows users, and we have a very, very strong product to address that, and second, we use Linux for a number of things here and I like having our own product available on all our machines to handle all our graphics needs.
A few months back, I saw somewhere, possibly on Slashdot, that red hat and some other companies were joining together in an effort to provide a standard GUI layer. Haven't heard anything further on that, but it did give me some hope.
What is underneath the screen is a wall, yes. The screen is custom built.
I bought the building (which used to be a church) specifically because behind where the pulpit was, above the chair-rail, a nearly perfect 16:9 space exists in a room that has very high ceilings. I saw that wall and the rest, as they say, was history.
I didn't. Read the post again. I said that "HDMI enables HDCP, which in fact it does, and which in fact component does not. That was, and is, the basis for my suggestion that component be the preferred transport for HD content. Digital transports are being misused. So I suggest they be shunned. This is practical because (a) component gives you just as good an image, (b) is very difficult to encrypt without pissing off the entire consumer base and (c) is difficult technically as well. I didn't mention DVI per se because HDMI was the subject.
I am no fan of our current government. If I could, I would remove each and every one of them from their jobs, and instruct the replacements that the same will happen to them if they foul up like the currect crop of incompetents has. I'd jail Bush for illegal wiretapping, publicly shame several (then) ex-members of the supreme court for constitutional erosion, withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, restructure and downsize the military to protect our borders and interior and NOTHING else, eliminate all drug and other "mommy" laws, free the political prisoners resulting from those laws, revise eminent domain to only be possible under the very most extreme circumstances, return lands stolen by eminent domain to the rightful owners if they so desired, restructure immigration policy so that immigration was again possible for people who don't hold degrees, implement a socialized medicine system, return foreign aid (and a whole bunch of other social crutches) to the private sector, begin a national effort to make roads safe by preventing access by animals, fund research for non-animal meat sources, extend responsibility for consequences to legal officials and employees (in other words, if they screw up someone's life by inaction, incompetence, or inappropriate action, they ARE responsible.) I'd severely limit copyright terms (perhaps to 3 years), eliminate the patent system entirely in favor of an informal trade secret approach, implement a flat tax, limit legal interest rates and make usury a crime again, drop the minimum wage which I consider simply a barrier to work... and lots more. The US is simply a terrible mess, as far as I am concerned.
No. Not personally. Though I see no reason why I should be prevented from doing so; copyright wasn't designed to support such restrictions. Capturing a component signal is something I hope to do, though.
No. HDCP doesn't "protect" the signal. It was never at risk. Saying it "protects" it is misdirection and hyperbole. What HDCP actually does is prevents the end user from (for instance) time shifting, recording for personal archival recovery, capturing the news on one's wedding day, you name it, it is in the way. DRM is not "protection", it is an insult to the consumer. It says "we assume you are a lawbreaker, and that you will violate copyright." It is presumption of guilt by fiat, the condemnation of one individual because of the acts of another (if it is even that), and nothing you can say will lift it one centimeter above those miserable goals.
It is the best generally available to the consumer. As far as RGB goes, one thing wrong with it is that the color gamut available isn't realistically broad with RGB or any other three-axis system you can name (and of course, that includes component.) Another is that RGB isn't generally available, so it's not really relevant to the issue at hand. Likewise, no 4 or greater axis system is generally available, and so that (again) leaves us with component. Component has the agreeable characterisic of being recordable with three high-speed A/D convertors, or as a triple analog stream if media were to become available that could accept three channels of such dense data. Good analog recordings have many merits. Digital have some too, of course, but unfortunately the industry is mostly using digital to screw the consumer, so I'm inclined to bypass them at this time as best I can, and suggest the same to others. At the moment, HD 1920 by 1080 is the top end, and component works just fine for that. So there is no need whatsoever for HDMI or DVI in the HDTV space. The industry can (and probably will) make an artificial need by intentionally degrading the component signal; such plans are, I hear, in the works. I have one word for that: Despicable.
That's why I suggest people support component. Digital channels are being misused. Analog is a great deal more difficult to screw up, and since component historically has not had encryption, it's almost impossible to mess with. I wasn't saying that only HDMI was bad; I was saying that HDMI was bad, since that was the topic, and then suggested a realistic, non-DRM infested replacement. I'm perfectly ready to stipulate that DVI is bad as well, if that'll make you happier. :-)
Use component. HDMI enables HDCP and *that* isn't something you want to do.
HDMI doesn't give you anything hugely useful. It can incorporate audio into the same cable with the video, however, for most people who have separate surround systems, this is an inconvenience, rather than a feature. Digital audio needs to go to the surround system, while video, component preferably, goes to the display device. If you're using your display's built-in audio, you're almost certainly involved in a sub-par overall experience
Component, thus far, is the best of the best. Good (by which I mean just good... not stupidity like monster overkill) cables will give you excellent results. How do I know? Because I have a 22-foot diagonal display sourced from a 1080/1920 projection system. Component gives single pixel resolution without any trouble; that's awesome at that amount of detail.
Remember: HDMI is bad and supporting it is the last thing you would want to do. HDMI enables HDCP, and HDCP is a pond-scum mechanism for DRM / copy protection.
CDs are 44k x 2 x 16, actually. :-) But I wasn't saying it was optimum, I was saying it is the common experience. As for some bits being more significant than others... well of course, that's the whole point. Twice each, unless the encoding is nonlinear. But in the sense that some parts of the signal can be thrown out and "not missed" (Sony's theory with ATRAC, for instance), I disagree. Assuming you weren't recording noise/nonsense (ie, 64 bit recording of a 16 bit signal) then no, I can't see throwing anything out. Higher bit rates throw less out, so I'm in favor. Wider words, given the available fidelity in the rest of the chain to get the data to them, also throw less out, so again, I'm in favor. I am staunchly against processing that (for instance) detects one signal in the presence of another and assumes (again, as per Sony) that you can't hear "A" because "B" is present at the moment, and so throws out A. Even if that were true, A has side effects on other things just because it is there, simply given that a degree of nonlinear mixing occurs at the ears even in the deadest of acoustically dead environments.
I've been down this road with audio and images. JPEG (and MPEG) look like crap until the compression is so light it isn't helping any. And of course it precludes further processing, for instance, detail in dark areas is gone. ATRAC sounds like crap. Lossy compression is a response to trying to use limited resources (memory, storage, bandwidth) to represent what amount to considerably less limited data sets. Fortunately, we're coming out of the limited resource stage, and as far as I am concerned, the time to abandon lossy compression is the very first day you can handle the data set. With 512 megs of memory, I don't see the need to lose anything further out of a CD quality signal -- put it that way. 30 to 60 megs wouldn't bother me at all, and I still think that if listening to high quality music is your goal, then a 512 meg machine can afford this type of resource utilization for music. I have gigs in all my machines, so I *really* don't care, personally, but I'm atypical.
With regard to lossless compression, other than IP encumberment and the computing resources required to unpack the data, I have no further objections (though I think those are significant as they stand.) I've written quite a few lossless compressors myself, and in fact, one of the highest compression lossless image compressors you can find today is mine -- the TRIM compression in WinImages (and previously, Imagemaster) is my work. It continues to match or exceed the best lossless compressions available today, 17 years after it was created. And if you think that sounds a bit smug, you're quite right. :-)
Yes and no. The 24-bit designation refers to the number of discrete levels that are recorded. That's not "depth of sound", it is just a recording accuracy specification (which also depends entirely upon all the other elements in the chain to be useful.) The dynamic range is a function of the curve described by the 16 million values available in 24 bits. If the range is linear, then the dynamic range is easily, and obviously, determined. If the range is nonlinear (log or semilog, for instance) then it is also easily determined, but it isn't what you'd naturally presume from 24 bits.
Right, and when that amplitude pulses slowly, say at one Hz, you now have direct examples of A, A minus 1 Hz, and 1 Hz in the signal. Which is exactly what I was telling you, and exactly what a transform of the signal will show you. You can't say "the amplitude pulses at one Hz" without also saying "there's a 1 Hz product in the signal." A sine wave is nothing but amplitude. Describing a repetitive amplitude change and claiming it doesn't represent the frequency at which it is changing is incoherent.
Try it. Don't imagine it, because your imagination isn't doing you any favors here. Just try it.
Traditional (meaning, since the 50's) electric guitar sound is always high on the curve; a clean amp sounds quite flat by comparison. However, you'll note that once you record your tone, it can be transferred onto a CD and played back without any problems on a good audio system — sounds just like when you made it (assuming the recording was done well, of course, and no one crushed your performance with typically heavy handed use of compression.) This demonstrates that a "warm" signal can travel just fine all the way through a solid state system, and so validates the idea that a flat amp is a true amp that in no way does anything "bad" to your tone. It just reproduces the guitar faithfully, and a guitar without an edge is a boring guitar (unless you're a classical player!)
We (and I do mean we, I am a guitarist as well as a bassist and drummer) are simply used to those distortions, and we don't like it when they are missing. The good news for me is that sophisticated solid state systems such as Digitech's GNX3 can provide a faithful warm sound without requiring tubes. Running the GNX3 into a flat system (like a recording board and high quality solid state reproduction downstream) sounds as good, and sometimes better, than a tube amp and is certainly a great deal more flexible. Consequently, my Fender Twin is only used to drag out for short blues nights out; there's just no point at all if it's a full gig and we have the board there and I can use a GNX3. FETs have the same type of "rounded" transfer curve that tubes do. Given the appropriate bias and drive, they can sound just like tubes, and for the same reasons. Bipolar transistors cut off too sharply and they just can't be used for this type of service. In a digital system, any transfer curve can be reproduced, and good ones can be absolutely stellar in terms of warm, full sounds.
I'm a blues, rock and metal player — so I'm all about the edge, as you might imagine. I've been playing for forty years, and I've owned various tube and solid state models from VOX, Fender, Ampeg, Marshall, Behringer, Kustom, Silvertone, Crate, Gretsch, Traynor, Gibson, Hi-Watt, and Mesa Boogie. We've also currently got a Line 6 in the studio (which is a really fun system) but of all of that, the most flexible and widest range of sounds that *I* want to make has come from the GNX3, and previous to that, the "winner" was a GSP21, also a Digitech product. Today, with the ease of getting really big amplification out of the various rack mount amps... in the thousands of watts without any trouble at all... it makes the most sense to build the signal you want at a low level and then pump it to any degree of power that you need... or none, if you're recording. Miking guitar amps is really old school, and is so fearsomely limited, that we just don't do it any more unless someone really insists. Even then, we tell 'em we can't be responsible for the resulting tone, and we won't be screwing with the entire mike collection just because they don't like the tone. It is *so* nice when someone comes in with rack gear they actually know how to use. Maybe in ten years or so, everyone will be on board. Pun intended. :-)
Yes, exactly my point. That's obscene. Someone should buy those idiots a c compiler and remind them how to use it instead of the OOO (Object Oriented Obesity) technology they've been using.
That's a consequence of misunderstanding what "tube warmth" means. It is the character of a tube (or FET) to produce one type of harmonics when driven into nonlinear areas of the transfer curve; bipolar transistors produce an entirely different result. Guitarists noted this many years ago and tubes were used because the overdriven sound was what they called warmer. Today, a number of silly people have conflated that set of facts with the completely specious idea that tubes and transistors running in the linear portion of their transfer curces sound different, when in fact they don't. These same people will swear to differences in wires, even what kind of knob is on the audio gear... there really is no end to the silliness.
The best tube gear is pretty good. Quiet, high fidelity, wide bandwidth, decent dynamic range. The best solid state gear is a lot better, though. Tubes are inherently noisy, as a consequence of the heated cathode; that's one area where SS fairly easily exceeds tube performance. You can also get extremely wide bandwidth more easily out of solid state components, and conversely, it is not all that easy to get very low audio frequencies, not to mention DC response, out of a tube design. Possible, but definitely more annoying.
For reasons not to do with an "audiophile" mindset, I own some pretty high end tube gear. A couple of the best tube tuners ever made (a Marantz 10B and a Macintosh), some 8B amps and various tube preamps. I collect Marantz gear, you see. I also have high end Marantz solid state; a 2130 tuner, 300DC amp, and a 3650 preamp. Everything is in pristine condition, as you might imagine for a guy who has a full audio suite in his shop. The SS gear whips the tube gear's butt, and howdy. Ears and measurements both.
What is *most* amusing about this is that the thing that colors the reproduction more than anything else, and I mean by many orders of magnitude, are the speaker systems. Compared to the changes made to the sound by the speakers, the amps and the rest of the chain are so far below the surface you'd be just amazed. I'm talking several percent distortions from speakers and .003% (for example) from a preamp. Literally a thousand times more "color" from a speaker. And these putzes think they can hear cables and knobs. Man! :-)
This would be correct if (a) Mics were omnidirectional and omnisensitive and linear with regard to frequency response for all directions and (not OR, *and* !!!) (b) the nonlinear and mixing characteristics of your space were the same as the musician's space and (c) reflections and mixing were actually distortions -- but they are not -- they are, in essense, the ambiance of the room, and were you to get rid of them, you'd have an anechoic chamber, and having been in many of them, I'm pretty sure you'd hate it, big-time. Music sounds like shit on toast in an AC.
Every space has characteristics it adds. The performer's space, yours, anything that isn't a pure anechoic chamber. The performers are not responsible for your space. You are. Having said that, this doesn't mean that your space doesn't, or cannot, contribute. Many recordings are made without microphones; that is, direct-to-media through the board and any FX loops that might be in use. In this case, there is no "space" and the only one that will affect anything is yours. Mics, when used, also have very specific pickup patterns. They don't always hear what is behind them (which includes things coming from the space you're in, theoretically speaking.) It's not as simple as just imagining a mic that picks up everything there is and gives it to you.
The bottom line is that recording those higher frequencies brings to YOUR space what was in THE MUSICIAN'S space. Mixing can occur right in your ears, for that matter. It's not like your ears are linear. :-)
Also, here's a little experiment you can do if you can find a guitar.
Tune the E string so the A at the 5th fret is perfect. Tune the A string so that it is perfect open. Fret the E string at the 5th fret. Pluck both strings. Slowly and gently, while both strings are still strongly vibrating, de-tune the A string. You'll hear (or see, if you can see the drivers on a guitar amp's speaker system) a very low frequency, wavering tone appear as you move away from A. This tone is the frequency difference signal between the two notes. The tone will increase in frequency as you move further away. Amplitude will depend on the resonant characteristics of the guitar itself; non-linear mixing is virtually guaranteed.
Believe me, if adding two frequencies didn't produce sum and difference frequencies, a whole lot of radio equipment wouldn't ever have worked. :-)
Nope, sorry. Wrong answer. Graph the addition of two different frequency sine waves. Look at the results. It just gets more complex with more complex waveforms.
Perhaps. However: I'm an EE, and an audio engineer. I'm somewhat experienced with compression, having been the first to produce a number of signal compression modes, some of which are still in wide today, for instance inside PNG, and several types of very high lossless compression in WinImages and the audio CODECS in one of the first all-digital SSTV systems. So while you may catch me out, you're going to have to work harder at it. :-)
I was talking about CD quality, and stereo. Which I probably should have stipulated, but then again, I don't think I've ever downloaded a >2 channel recording at bitrates/depths higher than a CD, so I think I was addressing the common experience, and perhaps you should have as well. I am perfectly ready to say that stuffing high bandwidth, deep word uncompressed signals into a PC is more demanding. But I am also presuming almost no one does such a thing at this point in time, and likely as (or if) it becomes common, media and RAM size will have swollen to accomodate such uses.
As an EE and and audio engineer and a musician, I have a simple reply to this: There are no "insignificant" bits. Only bits that are lost due to one factor or another. Lossy compression isn't something to figure out. It is something to abandon.
No argument. The more detail there is, the more I like it.