[b0dhi]

While tinkering in Nuendo tonight I made this audio test file. It's a pure kick drum and a high pitched pure sine wave together. The idea is simple, but what I found was that the instruments interfered with one-another severely. That is, when the kick drum hits, the sine wave is muffled momentarily. It's very easy to hear at moderate volume, and right in your face at high volume.

I tested with a sine wave of between about 500hz to 14khz and the effect was audible throughout.

I'm very curious to see what other headphones have this effect, and in particular, whether the electrostats and piezo type drivers do any better than my dynamic phones, which all exhibit the effect.

I'm linking to a compressed MP3 and an uncompressed, 192Khz 24bit .wav file in case anyone wants to check if the problem is in the audio signal itself. I've looked but it seems fine to me. Also note that I've allowed plenty of dynamic head room.

Compressed MP3 (~200Kb)
Uncompressed 192Khz 24bit .WAV (~9Mb)
Hard Panned MP3 (~200Kb) for comparison.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by b0dhi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Compressed MP3 (~200Kb) Uncompressed 192Khz 24bit .WAV (~9Mb)

There is something wrong with the links, cause they both point to the same MP3 file...

Edit: Fixed now it seems.
Downloading and trying out on my 'phones

Edit 2: Using the Lambda Pro's I notice a change to the sine wave when the kick drum hits in. Just like it goes down in frequency and get unclear (muffled).
Hardly noticeable at normal listening level, but very clear when I turn up the volume.

 

[JadeEast]

Its probably a psycho-acoustic drop out thats happening with your
brains attention going from tracking one tone to a tone and
a pulse.

Try mixing the tone panned hard in one ear and the kick
panned hard in the other and see what happens.

 

[EsthetiX]

Is part of your kick drum sharing the same frequencies? I hear what you're talking about. I never notice this happening when I'm sequencing. I don't think it has to do with how fast your headphones are though. Sounds like you're side chaining almost, sure you didn't set up a quadro track to fool us? LOL

 

[b0dhi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif Its probably a psycho-acoustic drop out thats happening with your brains attention going from tracking one tone to a tone and a pulse. Try mixing the tone panned hard in one ear and the kick panned hard in the other and see what happens.

Thanks for that great idea. You can test for yourself here:

Hard Panned MP3 (~200Kb)

It's a pure sine wave on the right side for me. I think that leaves only the headphones and possibly wave interference as the only possibilities.


Quote:

Originally Posted by EsthetiX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is part of your kick drum sharing the same frequencies? I hear what you're talking about. I never notice this happening when I'm sequencing. I don't think it has to do with how fast your headphones are though. Sounds like you're side chaining almost, sure you didn't set up a quadro track to fool us? LOL

lol. This has been bugging me for a while now. I can hear it during bassy trance tracks and I've always thought it was because my headphones were crap (long ago), but the effect is there with the GS1000 also. I did try a wide range of frequencies to test for interference, but if someone can do the test with quality 3-way speakers it would be great. If it isn't some interference effect I would have to assume it's the headphones that are having trouble moving with the very dynamic signal, but any ideas on this would be much appreciated.

 

[dissembled]

I can't access the uncompressed version. The sine wave for me stays the same even when the drums start.

There's a slight ripple effect (wave sound increases dramatically) that lasts for less than a second..but no muffledness.

 

[b0dhi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Edit 2: Using the Lambda Pro's I notice a change to the sine wave when the kick drum hits in. Just like it goes down in frequency and get unclear (muffled). Hardly noticeable at normal listening level, but very clear when I turn up the volume.

Interesting, I wasn't expecting it to happen on the stats too. I wonder if 3-way phones (UE 10 anyone?) would fare any differently.

 

[b0dhi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dissembled /img/forum/go_quote.gif I can't access the uncompressed version. The sine wave for me stays the same even when the drums start. There's a slight ripple effect (wave sound increases dramatically) that lasts for less than a second..but no muffledness.

Both links should be working, just tested them. I hear the ripple effect too, but just an instant before the ripple occurs there is a break in the sine wave. However, even a ripple is interference. The ER6 are are armature drivers yeah? It might be the reason you hear the ripple but not the muffle.

 

[James63]

Well I tested this on 3 things, Senn 650s, Grado MS-2i, and my B&W 703 speakers. For this test I used a mac mini-optical out-recievers headphone jack.

On the Senns it is very easy to pic out and it sounds like the sine way drops and them speeds up.

On the MS-2i I can hear it but not as much. It has a different sound, and almost sounds like a churp. It seems less detailed than the 650s

On my speakers I can hear nothing. There is no change in the sine wave that I can hear. I also put my ear right by the different drivers and they are complely diffent sounds that do not effect each other from what I can tell.

Note. I listed to all of the test at 87db

 

[EsthetiX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by b0dhi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for that great idea. You can test for yourself here: Hard Panned MP3 (~200Kb) It's a pure sine wave on the right side for me. I think that leaves only the headphones and possibly wave interference as the only possibilities. lol. This has been bugging me for a while now. I can hear it during bassy trance tracks and I've always thought it was because my headphones were crap (long ago), but the effect is there with the GS1000 also. I did try a wide range of frequencies to test for interference, but if someone can do the test with quality 3-way speakers it would be great. If it isn't some interference effect I would have to assume it's the headphones that are having trouble moving with the very dynamic signal, but any ideas on this would be much appreciated.

No, it's called sidechaining and its a desirable effect. Actually there are different purposes for it. it allows the energy of the kick to pass through the Bass. Or it's just an interesting way to make your leads sound. Basically what you do is you have a compressor linked to the bassline and you set the kick to trigger the compression. You can define variables such as attack etc.. So what's happening is the instant the kick hits, certain frequencies will be cut out of the bassline to allow the kick to be heard loud and clear with no conflicting frequencies. Or you can make the actual amplitude fall. Here are a couple tracks that sidechain @ various parts of the song...

http://www.all-set.net/07-system_nip...ance-mycel.mp3
On this one its the leads that are sidechained at about 1:50 in.

http://www.all-set.net/02-wizzy_nois...emix-mycel.mp3
It's really prominent on the bass toward the end of this track.

PS: I have krk RP5 studio monitors and its the same thing as on headphones.
I think your little test was basically a frequency conflict though (I think that bass kick has a wide frequency range) you make it yourself? Anyway, not really sure, But I know it's not headphones.

 

[JSTpt1022]

I'm listening to the uncompressed and hard panned with my K701s. I don't believe it is psycho-acoustic. I hear no change in frequency with the hard panned but when listening to the original uncompressed, there is a definite warble in pitch during and after the kick. Oddly, this only seems to begin occurring with the third hit, not the first two. This leads me to conclude it is an artifact of the headphone drivers. I did not detect any muffledness though.

 

[nickchen]

Just took the MP3 version. I have the same effect that the sine tone gets out of pace by the drums: It becomes more silent and there's some downwards tone pitch.

Strong effect on my DT880, barely noticeable on my MS2 and MS1 (they don't differ here), overwhelming with the K81.

That would have been interesting with my old ugly DT770...

 

[edstrelow]

Unless it is a recording artifact or sidechaining, this would seem to be a test of intermodulation distortion rather than speed.

 

[James63]

Any one else try it on 3 way speakers. Can you here it?

 

[b0dhi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by James63 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well I tested this on 3 things, Senn 650s, Grado MS-2i, and my B&W 703 speakers. For this test I used a mac mini-optical out-recievers headphone jack. On the Senns it is very easy to pic out and it sounds like the sine way drops and them speeds up. On the MS-2i I can here it but not as much. It has a different sound, and almost sounds like a churp. It seems less detailed than the 650s On my speakers I can here nothing. There is no change in the sine wave that I can hear. I also put my ear right by the different drivers and they are complely diffent sounds that do not effect each other from what I can tell. Note. I listed to all of the test at 87db

Thank you very much for your observations. I've also not heard this distortion happen on 3-way speakers. I think this could be used as a way of quickly judging the intrument seperation of headphones, and I would guess that it's also closely related to the transient speed of the drivers too.

BTW, do you think the different distortion coming from the 650 and MS2i might be because the 650 has more bass? I noticed when I EQ the bass down on my GS1k the distortion is still audible but it's reduced a bit.


Quote:

Originally Posted by EsthetiX /img/forum/go_quote.gif No, it's called sidechaining and its a desirable effect. Actually there are different purposes for it. it allows the energy of the kick to pass through the Bass. Or it's just an interesting way to make your leads sound. Basically what you do is you have a compressor linked to the bassline and you set the kick to trigger the compression. You can define variables such as attack etc.. So what's happening is the instant the kick hits, certain frequencies will be cut out of the bassline to allow the kick to be heard loud and clear with no conflicting frequencies. Or you can make the actual amplitude fall. Here are a couple tracks that sidechain @ various parts of the song... http://www.all-set.net/07-system_nip...ance-mycel.mp3 On this one its the leads that are sidechained at about 1:50 in. http://www.all-set.net/02-wizzy_nois...emix-mycel.mp3 It's really prominent on the bass toward the end of this track. PS: I have krk RP5 studio monitors and its the same thing as on headphones. I think your little test was basically a frequency conflict though (I think that bass kick has a wide frequency range) you make it yourself? Anyway, not really sure, But I know it's not headphones.

I know what you mean, I hear side chaining in house tracks all the time, but it's not usually used in trance, at least not the trance I listen to. BTW your monitors have a tweeter for the high treble and a speaker for the rest of the spectrum. Because the high pitch tone is still in the high-mids range, your speaker will be playing both tones, so this is pretty much the same as a headphone and is probably the reason you hear it on your monitors but I and others don't hear it on 3-ways.


Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow /img/forum/go_quote.gif Unless it is a recording artifact or sidechaining, this would seem to be a test of intermodulation distortion rather than speed.

"Intermodulation distortion is the result of two or more signals
interacting in a non linear device to produce additional unwanted
signals.", so I guess this would classify as IMD of sorts, but the two source signals are also being distorted. If it is IMD, do you know why it is the two signals are interfering? I assumed it was something to do with how fast the drivers can move, because it doesn't happen when you use, for example, a snare instead of a kick drum.