[71 dB]

I want to try to say this: Thank you, it's true that I need to stay on track learning such things.

You're welcome. What you need is of course up to you.

With composition I'm too about to learn about it. My previous view has been that I just couldn't find what would dominate the feelings of listeners when it comes to harmonies - and rythm, and tuning of instruments. I just started to make music and was convinced that there is no way to find out that some thing would lead the top causes of feelings that music triggers in listeners. Also the way that it blends into cultural preferences and early childhood learning was sometimes discouraging for me, I didn't know what I actually wanted to achieve.

The third of a scale or the middle note of a triad is generally the "feel" note. So, in (the context of) C major it would be E (happy) and in C minor it would be E♭ (sad). Using sus chord the "feeling" can be neutralised: Sus2 chords (e.g. C-D-G) sound calm/dreamy while sus4 chords (e.g. C-F-G) sound energetic.

My view today has changed in some respect. I see the impressive acomplishment that the composers of the likes of Bach have achieved. TBH I was quite often hindered by the fear that I might tarnish the fun of music making with any process that is systematic and therefore would also show me how much work is to be done, e.g. by entering all notes and pressing all buttons, all the decisions that are more the result of math-like thinking and less the result of just fun and some experiments. It's like some question .. like do you want this to be a hobby, an extensive hobby or even some sort of career. And I have not decided yet how big the hobby shall be, but I don't have to, currently. I have found some personal art form and will see what it's good for at some point in the future.

Knowing music theory is like knowing how curry, pepper and salt affect the taste of the food when cooking. Music theory doesn't tell you what to do. It illuminates the way for you so you don't stumble in the dark. A hammer doesn't force you to use nails on everything, but it is there when you need it. I know to use sus2 chords when I need calm/dreamy mood, but it is MY choice what mood I want.

 

[71 dB]

The tech we need is sample rates up to 48 (as anything beyond that is snake oil),

What tech we need depends on what we are doing with it. Most of the time sample rates up to 48 kHz are enough, but if you are recording the ultrasonic signals emitted by bats, you may want to use much higher sample rates. How much high sample rates are "snake oil" depends on for what purpose they are offered. Sample rate of 384 kHz may not be "snake oil" at all when recording bats, but it is massive snake oil when people are sold old Beatles albums "remastered" from the studio tapes at 384 kHz sample rate.

tech that allows us to connect that DAC to our current sources, say USB2 and higher, Ethernet, SPDif or others and tech that implements some other features/functionality we may find useful. So “figuring out what to buy” doesn’t make any difference if you can’t buy it and instead you have to buy one that includes snake oil!

Of course the situation dictates what properties you need in your DAC. You have to choose from the options that are available for you. If all of them include snake oil then tuff luck! Maybe someone notices this deficiency and starts manufacturing and selling products targeted to you and like-minded people: Snake oil free DACs or SOFDACs.

I do, that’s the whole point! Even with relatively “old tech” you can’t avoid buying snake oil, only with discontinued tech can you avoid the snake oil but it doesn’t have the modern functionality and it’s discontinued so you can’t buy it anyway!

Is this really so difficult a concept to grasp?

G

It is not difficult to grasp, but you demand too much from capitalism. Do you really think it is realistic to expect DAC manufacturers offer products with exactly the functionality you want and nothing else?

 

[castleofargh]

So if we don't have a sample rate at least twice the highest frequencies a computer won't know how to connect the sample points correctly? Twice frequency gives more waypoints?

A computer or anybody. If you don't have a sample rate at least twice the frequency you record, you have officially failed to record, the end.
And same issue if you don't properly define the frequency range with band limiting/filtering. Those are the constraints that, at least in theory(with a perfect filter you don't have), leave only the right solution without a lot of extra frequencies that weren't recorded.
More than finding the right path for the signal, it might be an easier mental model to think about all we do to forbid or remove extra frequencies that weren't in the original signal when it was sampled.
Because a computer just doesn't care to join the dots. If it has to process something, it will be pure math from the samples. And a DAC always creates a continuous signal when it goes analog, there is no gap, no missing part. But there will be more than the signal. Take the infamous staircases of a filterless R2R DAC. We could think that it's missing the signal needed to turn the staircases into the smooth signal we want. But it's not what's happening. A better mental approach would be to consider that the staircases are the original smooth signal plus very many high frequency sines that contribute to giving that staircase shape.
It's just a mental exercise because in reality the DAC just reads a sample, set an equivalent voltage and stays there until the next sample gives a new value. It's as simple as can be, and there is no apparent need to consider very many sines when we're dealing with basically straight lines.
But if you do, it becomes much clearer why we use a low pass filter after that and why that makes the signal become smooth and right. With the filter, we attenuated the very many above band sines that gave that edgy and straight shape to the signal. Leaving almost only the signal within the desired band limit, and because of all those constraints we followed, what is that remaining signal within the desired band limit? But of course it's a high fidelity reconstruction of the recorded signal.

I'm not sure if it helps, but it's a visualization I like, it makes many things more obvious(to me at least ^_^).

 

[vergesslich22]

Music theory doesn't tell you what to do. It illuminates the way for you so you don't stumble in the dark.

It's difficult for me to answer, but I'll try. If I end up using something that resembles a modern form of classical notation and theory, I will happily do so. If I end up using purely classical notation and theory, I will also happily do so. There is a chance that I will not reach the classical style of doing such things, which then will be because of physical limitations, e.g. I only know playing the piano and so I'm already a little step away from having all the motivations of learning certain notations. So, I'm leaving it a hobby and fully respect the professional classical way of making music. I'm not good enough to have the need for it, which is a physical limitation of how good I can play instruments, how well I may ever be able to improvise and play along others, etc. TLDR: I'm purely hobbyist, I will stay with non-standard things quite often. As soon as anything provides introspection into the matter (e.g. the feel note), I'm in again.

 

[Ryokan]

This taken from an article on 'Stack Exchange' has helped explain

'Now, what about sampling? In the image you also have a red signal (which frequency is 1 Hz) that has been sampled too slowly, resulting in the black dot sample set. To have a clue about the real signal, we should have sampled it at, at least, 2 Hz. That way, we also would have samples (dots) at 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, etc seconds. And, as you can draw in Paint, the easiest path to join all the samples would be, again, the red signal. So we would have recovered our original signal successfully'.

 

[gregorio]

So if we don't have a sample rate at least twice the highest frequencies a computer won't know how to connect the sample points correctly?

Sort of. A more accurate way to think of it is that a computer is using a formula to connect the sample points, if the sample rate isn’t at least twice the highest frequency then the answer/result of that formula is ambiguous, there is more than one correct answer/result. So, the computer does know how to connect the sample points correctly but in addition it also connects them incorrectly, there’s two results from the formula and the computer will calculate both of them.

Twice frequency gives more waypoints?

Yes but there’s two things to remember: They’re not really “waypoints”, that implies we go from one point to the next, while in practice the formula for joining them operates on a bunch (set) of samples at a time. And secondly, as long as we have more than 2 samples per wave period it makes no difference how many more. Regardless of whether we have say 2.1 samples per wave period or say 5,000, the result is the same.

'Now, what about sampling? In the image you also have a red signal (which frequency is 1 Hz) that has been sampled too slowly, resulting in the black dot sample set.

Correct. The problem is that when a computer/DAC joins (“Interpolates”) those black dots (sampled too slowly) we will actually get 2 solutions, the correct red one AND the incorrect blue one. A computer/DAC will output both of them together, instead of only the red one.

To have a clue about the real signal, we should have sampled it at, at least, 2 Hz.

Again, not quite. We do have “a clue” about the real signal, in fact it will be reconstructed perfectly. The problem is that we also have “a clue” that points to another signal at the same time, the blue one (which is called an “alias”). Assuming the sample rate were more than 2 Hz and a filter were applied to the incoming audio signal just above 1 Hz, the result would be only the red (correct) one.

And, as you can draw in Paint, the easiest path to join all the samples would be, again, the red signal.

Again, sort of. You couldn’t really “draw in Paint”, the samples aren’t joined by a straight line, a curve or any other shape available in Paint, you need to take a whole “set” of samples and use a formula (called the “Whittaker-Shannon Interpolation Formula”) to calculate the “shape” required to join them.

And, it’s not really “the easiest path”. Assuming the conditions are met, namely; more than twice the sample frequency and a (anti-alias) filter set at half the sampling frequency, then the ONLY “path to join all the samples” (with the Interpolation Formula) is the red one.

G

 

[gregorio]

What tech we need depends on what we are doing with it. Most of the time sample rates up to 48 kHz are enough, but if you are recording the ultrasonic signals emitted by bats, you may want to use much higher sample rates.

“What we are doing with it” is recording and reproducing audio signals for consumers, bats don’t buy many DACs or music tracks/albums do they?

You have to choose from the options that are available for you. If all of them include snake oil then tuff luck!

That’s exactly my point, the point that you’re arguing with!

It is not difficult to grasp, but you demand too much from capitalism.

I do not demand too much from capitalism. The vast majority of other products I buy either have no snake oil or have alternatives without snake oil.

Do you really think it is realistic to expect DAC manufacturers offer products with exactly the functionality you want and nothing else?

Of course not but I do expect them to offer products with at least the basic functionality I want, without snake oil. In some cases I have to buy a product and pay for more functionality than I personally need (but other consumers might) in order to get the functionality I need. That’s OK, it’s useful for some people, it might be useful to me one day or I have the option not to buy that level of functionality. What’s not OK, is having no option but to pay for functionality that is only useful to bats, that neither I nor any other human will ever need and has no purpose at all other than to sucker unsuspecting, ignorant or gullible consumers.

G

 

[gregorio]

If I end up using something that resembles a modern form of classical notation and theory, I will happily do so. If I end up using purely classical notation and theory, I will also happily do so. There is a chance that I will not reach the classical style of doing such things …

Music Theory has a very long and colourful history. For instance, the use of the “third of the scale” that @71 dB mentioned was pioneered by the English composer John Dunstable in the early 1400’s and was popularised amongst the highly influential French composers when his patron (the Duke of Bedford) was in charge of the English army fighting the French/Joan of Arc.

Pretty much all the rules of Music Theory were (strictly) laid down by the time of the High Baroque (Bach). The evolution of classical music composition after that was essentially the bending of those rules. During the time of the “impressionists”, the rules were so bent they were pretty much broken, it’s extremely difficult and ambiguous to see what the rules were supposed to be. The obvious progression beyond that point was to compose music that deliberately avoided/did the opposite of those rules of harmony (pioneered by composers such as Schoenberg). In practice that didn’t work quite as anticipated and so much of the evolution of C20th classical music is either going even further, no rules at all (of harmony, rhythm, notation or anything else), discovering/inventing entirely new sets of rules or pretty much any combination of the old rules, new rules and no rules.

In other words, pretty much any sort/style of music you end up creating will be based on Music Theory (which now of course incorporates C20th classical music) and a “classical style of doing things”, whether you realise it or not. How much of that you decide to study is up to you of course but it can/will help inform the compositional decisions you make and/or suggest directions you wouldn’t have come up with on your own.

G

 

[71 dB]

“What we are doing with it” is recording and reproducing audio signals for consumers, bats don’t buy many DACs or music tracks/albums do they?

You and some other people are recording and reproducing audio signals for consumers. There are people studying bats and some of them may need to record bats. Some people may need to record ultrasonic frequencies for some other reason different from "audio for consumers.", say when developing ultrasonic cleaners.

That’s exactly my point, the point that you’re arguing with!

I am not arguing with that point! What I said was I don't care if DAC snake oil costs a little more. Why? Because I don't need to buy expensive DACs with special functionality. If I need a DAC, I buy one costing about 20 dollars and be done with it. I'm not crying over the fact that if it didn't support sample rates over 48 kHz, it would cost perhaps 30 % less. Your problems with DACs are your problems, not my problems. I have my own problems and DACs are not among them.

I do not demand too much from capitalism. The vast majority of other products I buy either have no snake oil or have alternatives without snake oil.

Well, hopefully you are happy about the fact vast majority of other products are available snake oil free.

Of course not but I do expect them to offer products with at least the basic functionality I want, without snake oil. In some cases I have to buy a product and pay for more functionality than I personally need (but other consumers might) in order to get the functionality I need. That’s OK, it’s useful for some people, it might be useful to me one day or I have the option not to buy that level of functionality. What’s not OK, is having no option but to pay for functionality that is only useful to bats, that neither I nor any other human will ever need and has no purpose at all other than to sucker unsuspecting, ignorant or gullible consumers.

G

"They" of course are not obliged to offer you or me anything! They offer products on the market in hopes of making money. If most customers want snake oil, that's what they are likely to offer. That's capitalism 101. Your wishes and demands would require some kind of communism with planned economy were people like you would be part of committee deciding the specs of products to be manufactured in the state owned factories. This kind of system would give you "snake oil" free DACs, but perhaps many other things would be worse than in capitalism. In general most people do not want planned economy.

 

[Ryokan]

And, it’s not really “the easiest path”. Assuming the conditions are met, namely; more than twice the sample frequency and a (anti-alias) filter set at half the sampling frequency, then the ONLY “path to join all the samples” (with the Interpolation Formula) is the red one.

Aliasing occurs when a signal is sampled at less than twice the highest frequency why is a filter needed with 44.1khz or higher?

 

[gregorio]

Aliasing occurs when a signal is sampled at less than twice the highest frequency why is a filter needed with 44.1khz or higher?

To remove any frequencies in our input/original signal that are higher than half the sample rate which would therefore have 2 or fewer samples per wave period and would introduce aliasing.

G

 

[gregorio]

Aliasing occurs when a signal is sampled at less than twice the highest frequency why is a filter needed with 44.1khz or higher?

To put it another way: If all we’re recording is a single sine wave with a frequency that is less than half the sample frequency (the Nyquist Point), then an anti-alias filter would not be necessary. In the real world though we are not recording a single sine wave lower than the Nyquist Point, we’re recording sounds/instruments which usually have at least some harmonics above 22.05kHz (the Nyquist Point of 44.1kHz sample frequency) and in addition there is probably also some noise/interference/distortion above that point as well. All of that has to be removed or it will alias down into the audible range. Remember that the frequency of the alias is mirrored below the Nyquist Point, so if we had a harmonic or some sort of distortion/interference at say 35kHz and our sampling rate was 44.1k, our alias would be at 9.1kHz (44.1k - 35k).

G

 

[gregorio]

There are people studying bats and some of them may need to record bats.

I’ve made it clear and even others have explained to you that the context is consumers (which includes me), not bat scientists recording bats or engineers recording albums for bats!

I am not arguing with that point!

That’s the point I made and as you’re arguing with me over it, ergo you ARE arguing with that point!

You disputed my point with the assertion: “This would be a problem if only snake oil was available, but this is not the case.”
Now you’re saying: “You have to choose from the options that are available for you. If all of them include snake oil then tuff luck!”
So which is it? If it’s tuff luck that I have to choose from the available options (which all include snake oil support for sample rates higher than 48kHz) then your dispute/argument with my point is false!

What I said was I don't care if DAC snake oil costs a little more.

It’s irrelevant whether you care about paying more for the DAC snake oil, the point is that you have no choice and therefore your argument is false.

Incidentally though, you’re probably in the wrong forum and certainly in the wrong thread because this thread and much of this forum is mainly concerned with caring about dispelling myths/snake oil that costs more!

Why? Because I don't need to buy expensive DACs with special functionality.

Again, irrelevant. And, I’m not talking about “special functionality”. Most music these days is consumed via streaming, some via download and a smaller amount via physical media, so having the functionality of say Ethernet (or wireless or other streaming protocol), USB and SPDIF is not “special functionality” it’s the opposite, the most common functionality.

They offer products on the market in hopes of making money. If most customers want snake oil, that's what they are likely to offer. That's capitalism 101.

Again irrelevant! But most consumers do NOT want snake oil, most want features/functionality that actually make some sort of difference. They generally do NOT buy snake oil deliberately, they buy it inadvertently because they have been mislead by marketing to believe it does make some sort of difference. That’s capitalism 102! And, the DAC chip manufacturers do not offer products on the market in the hope of making money. They do considerable market research of what the purchasers of DAC chips want and then design those features, they don’t just blow tens of millions on R&D and tooling on “hope”. That’s capitalism 103!

Your wishes and demands would require some kind of communism with planned economy were people like you would be part of committee deciding the specs of products to be manufactured in the state owned factories.

So you’re saying all the other sorts of products out there (which do present options other than purchasing snake oil) were made by communists with planned economies, people like me on a committee and in state owned factories?

G

 

[71 dB]

I’ve made it clear and even others have explained to you that the context is consumers (which includes me), not bat scientists recording bats or engineers recording albums for bats!

Context defined by who?

That’s the point I made and as you’re arguing with me over it, ergo you ARE arguing with that point!

You disputed my point with the assertion: “This would be a problem if only snake oil was available, but this is not the case.”
Now you’re saying: “You have to choose from the options that are available for you. If all of them include snake oil then tuff luck!”
So which is it? If it’s tuff luck that I have to choose from the available options (which all include snake oil support for sample rates higher than 48kHz) then your dispute/argument with my point is false!

The first claim comes from a place of ignorance. I am learning that DACs without snake oil don't exist. That's why what I say evolves with the knowledge I get out of this.

It’s irrelevant whether you care about paying more for the DAC snake oil, the point is that you have no choice and therefore your argument is false.

Okay, but I can change my argument to be less wrong, even be correct when I know more.

Incidentally though, you’re probably in the wrong forum and certainly in the wrong thread because this thread and much of this forum is mainly concerned with caring about dispelling myths/snake oil that costs more!

Yes, but I am learning more about this snake oil problem concerning DACs and I am happy to learn more from you if you choose to educate me instead of using your energy to prove how wrong I am.

Again, irrelevant. And, I’m not talking about “special functionality”. Most music these days is consumed via streaming, some via download and a smaller amount via physical media, so having the functionality of say Ethernet (or wireless or other streaming protocol), USB and SPDIF is not “special functionality” it’s the opposite, the most common functionality.

Ok.

Again irrelevant! But most consumers do NOT want snake oil, most want features/functionality that actually make some sort of difference. They generally do NOT buy snake oil deliberately, they buy it inadvertently because they have been mislead by marketing to believe it does make some sort of difference. That’s capitalism 102! And, the DAC chip manufacturers do not offer products on the market in the hope of making money. They do considerable market research of what the purchasers of DAC chips want and then design those features, they don’t just blow tens of millions on R&D and tooling on “hope”. That’s capitalism 103!

Well, I have been telling people here hi-res is snake oil. I am not to blame for this...

So you’re saying all the other sorts of products out there (which do present options other than purchasing snake oil) were made by communists with planned economies, people like me on a committee and in state owned factories?

G

No, but obviously having DACs with most common functionality without snake oil takes something else than the capitalism we have.

 

[vergesslich22]

@gregorio Thank you for this explanation! It's fascinating to read. I'll add some of my worries below, because it's what I had to face, and it's what made me ignorant of certain parts of music theory.

.. it can/will help inform the compositional decisions you make and/or suggest directions you wouldn’t have come up with on your own.

So, all of it can inform me, and a part of it will definitely inform me. Would that be a good approach?

It's off-topic, so I'll make this smaller text again:
One of the things that obstruct sheet music for me personally is when something looks "not yet normalized", or "not yet transposed for a special use case", my own use case. Mainly that's just keys (as in keys that stand at the start and tell you that there are notes that need to be corrected by +/- 1).

This notation is perfectly reasonable for the original use case, otherwise it wouldn't stand there. It's 100% correct sheet music, but, at times, that doesn't help me and I need to rewrite it, for example from the F key to the C key, or rather from any key to no key at all, which would be for a piano roll in a sequencer.

I know that's a very specific example. But it serves for me as a cheap example to make that there can be something that is right for the guy with the corresponding instrument. And it's the wrong notation for a guy with a sequencer software that is missing any function that helps you. I mean there could be software that does help, but there are just many that don't.

I'd call this some kind of a format war. And the solution is to simply remove important information, and start becoming ignorant. And it may go on from there (or from other places in life), the ignorance grows, and - if this is the case - then it's at some point more like a philosophical statement to say that something is based on music theory, because I would need to transform it back to there, and then transform it back to the computer world, again and again, which takes time.