Members nat whilk II Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 Just curious - how many of you can look at a waveform and, just by looking, have some idea of what it sounds like? I don't mean an A440 sine wave or the usual single-cycle waves like square, saw, pulse, etc., but more complex waveforms than that. Assuming you know the time scale you're looking at, and also assuming that the waveform is not so complex as to be totally indecipherable. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 I can't recognize the sound source, but can definitely make out areas of lots of bass, percussion, trebly zones, etc. You can actually tell a lot about a mastered sound by looking at a waveform, like whether the amount of bass energy is consistent. Try taking a file of program material, filtering it in various ways, and comparing the various results -- it's quite educational. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chris Groegler Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 I have processed a lot of VO files over the years and by doing that I can tell what some of the letters are just by looking at the wave form.....as I'm sure others can. S's, t's, and p's are pretty simple to see. Not too sure if anyone can view a waveform and be able to say what it will sound like, but with some music (depending on how much it got squashed in mastering) you can clearly see where the beats are....kick and snare. I think it's great to take the time and dig into the wave forms to see what it's like in there. You can learn a lot about what is happening and in turn be able to make more precise edits. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Spencer Crewe Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 I'm in the same boat as Chris G. I've been staring at them for so long, I'm able to recognize frequencies and in the case of vocals, vowel and consonances. It's sickening, I tells ya. It haunts me in my sleep. I occasionally drift off while in conversation an imagine what the waveform of the person speaking to me would look like..... HELP MEEE!!!!! *ahem* I feel better, now. Cheers!Spencer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted July 29, 2005 Author Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 Interesting replies...... So I wonder if looking at waveforms is slowly becoming at skill in itself, and is used more and more as part of the mixing/mastering process. Of course, the first response may will have to to this idea is, "anything that makes people think they don't have to use their ears is a distraction at best, a deception at worst". But I don't think anyone in the field would ever think that looking at waveforms could be a replacement to listening, but just a supplementary tool. I'd like to see a list of the ways audio engineers and programmers "read" waveforms as part of the way they do their work. Anything from mastering houses to mixers/remixers to va synth and physical modeling creators/programmers. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Spencer Crewe Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 Honestly, being able to read waveforms has made me more efficient at what I do - I don't care what anyone else says. The fact that I can zero in on an offending sound (after hearing it....) to deal with it in a timely fashion so as NOT to interupt the flow of a session (because a session's "flow" is extremely important to me for acheiving an overall "feel" in the music) is a bonus in my book. Cheers!Spencer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 I used to do a lot of voiceover engineering for radio docs by a German radio journalist. The typical work had interviews in English wtih German voiceover and translation. I got very good at finding my way around. My client would tell me the words of the section she wanted to go in, whether they were her or the interviewee and I usually could go right to it visually (maybe 4 out of 5 times)... She'd come from a tape background (and was really unsure about this whole computer based thing -- we started working together in '94 on ADAT and moved to hard drive a while later (but before I got my multichannel ADAT i/o interface -- I was using an AWE32.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Slowly Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 FWIW, media player has a sine wave display in visualations. I guess you can get practice there. Slowly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeebus Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 Originally posted by Slowly I guess you can get practice there. Slowly Is it ok if I practice quickly instead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dylan Walters Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 Originally posted by nat whilk II Re: can you read waveforms? No, but I see dead people .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Slowly Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 Originally posted by Jeebus Is it ok if I practice quickly instead? Are you the world renowned Jeebus from Canada? Slowly aka Kcbass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeebus Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 Originally posted by Slowly Are you the world renowned Jeebus from Canada? Slowly aka Kcbass I'm not sure how many people with the nickname Jeebus reside in Canada, but yes, I am one of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FrankieP Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 I can read a different group of waveforms. The kind that requires shocking a person either at the start or the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FrankieP Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 BTW nat whilk ii... I sent it out today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted July 29, 2005 Members Share Posted July 29, 2005 I don't see any problem with using your eyes as well as your ears to make decisions. There's also an element of "ear training" when you can make a visual and auditory correlation. For example, purists might think using a spectrum analyzer for mastering is dishonest. But it saves a lot of time to be able to quickly identify trouble areas WITH PRECISION. With your ears, you might know there's some kind of, say, upper midrange problem, but the spectrum analyzer will point out exactly where this is happening. Over time, you'll find yourself getting better and better at picking out the problem frequencies, even without the spectrum analyzer. BTW I've also done a lot of narration work and yes, it's easy to pick out the plosives and other "sounds that matter." Waveforms also make it easy to see where the breath inhales are, and you can sort of tweak them to keep them from being objectionable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 29, 2005 Share Posted July 29, 2005 I've gotten pretty darned good at reading them. Frequency is not too hard to do, and things like time vs other instruments (who's early? Who's late?) are quite easy to see... if I FEEL a problem, then I look at the display and I can usually "see" the offender fairly easily. Plosives, t's and sssss'es are easy to see too. So are things like fret buzzes and botched (no offense Botch ) notes on bass and guitar. If you do enough of it, for long enough, you start to learn to recognise patterns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pri_tru_lib Posted July 30, 2005 Members Share Posted July 30, 2005 Well, I can certainly discern when the waveform is squashed... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Perfessor Posted July 30, 2005 Members Share Posted July 30, 2005 Up, down, up, down, up, down...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members F-holes Posted July 30, 2005 Members Share Posted July 30, 2005 Originally posted by Perfessor Up, down, up, down, up, down...... Oh, Baby! That's hot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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