I am a music lover who studied math and started coding by chance. My work gravitated naturally towards digital signals and then audio DSP. I consider myself well versed in DSP, as I have designed, used, and sold DSP audio effects and guitar amp models. But I am not an engineer. I meet with some engineers who design tube guitar amps and, honestly, I have no idea what they are talking about. We have no common language.
I meet amp designer and builders to record sine sweeps of course and to experiment with the digital models of the real thing. I think it is exciting, but the amp builder himself doesn’t care much about either the recording process or the result itself.
And such are most people who play with sound. There is a disconnect between digital and analog lovers for sure and probably between mathematicians, engineers, and programmers. We all want to accomplish something very similar, but we choose to go about it in different ways and talk about it in different languages.
It should be simple to get all of us on the same page. There are straightforward overlaps, for example, between the design of an analog low pass filter and that of a digital one. If you want to get nerdy about it, both analog and digital engineers should recognize the transfer function of a generic Sallen-Key second order low pass filter. Sometimes, it is not as easy. Transforming the Bessel filter into its digital equivalent does not preserve the maximally flat impulse response, should you care about this. Still, even though the analog and digital Bessel filters are different, their derivation seems similar.
I lived with an engineer once too. He had built an amp powerful enough to blow out any window. I don't know why, as nobody would ever use it. I thought it was cool but wouldn't touch it still. I tried explaining what it is I do but couldn't do it. I picked up a few of his books but couldn't get through the first five pages.
Is it possible to get on the same page? I think so. Perhaps it is the fault of digital engineers. Even though I have been playing with DSP for years, I am still overly focused on known complex filter prototypes when I could have paid attention to the generics of filter design and derivation. Not starting with the basics is always a weakness.
Perhaps it is the tangible vs. intangible thing. Some people like to lug equipment around and turn knobs. It feels more significant than pressing keyboard buttons.
Perhaps it is snobbishness and security. You could spend a few hundred on a reverb unit and proudly hold it in your hand with some sense of security that you got the right thing because it is in your hands and because you paid a lot for it. Or you could download a random reverb plugin for free and always wonder if it is the right choice among the thousands of similar plugins out there.
Perhaps it is a question of simplicity. My old Fender amp had one knob called Reverb. It sounded great. My digital reverbs have 6-7 sliders and require a lot of fine tuning to get them right.
Perhaps it is the commitment. If you've spent the money, time, and effort to commit to a medium, it is not easy to change to the other one. You must admit that, perhaps, your decisions before were wrong. Were they? Probably not. My take is that it doesn't matter. You can accomplish wonders in any medium if you know what you are doing. I've experimented with the same two digital reverbs for years now and I am certain that I can make them sound exactly the way I want. If I was to pick up the greatest analog unit out there, I would probably get worse results and will need time – a lot of time – to get to the same level of comfort and expertise. Knowing your tools seems better than getting the best tools out there.
authors: mic
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