Do I have a problem here?

[Oz Nimbus]

Hey all,

I'm working on a record that will be mixed by another party in the future.

Here's my issue: The tracks look fine, zoomed out in SAW... but upon import to PT or Sound Forge they look a little skewed to either top or bottom. Particularly in the snare track.

Upon closer inspection in SAW, they look a little skewed as well.

This is what I'm talking about:
http://www.spectresound.ca/stuff/snareout.jpg
Everything looks nicely balanced

http://www.spectresound.ca/stuff/snarein.jpg
Zoomed in, it looks a little skewed towards the top. Where did the bottom peaks go?

-0z-

[PieterS]

How does it sound?

[DominicPerry]

Historically, SAW shows a symmetrical waveform to keep processing low until you zoom in to a certain level of detail. At that point, it shows you the 'real' waveform, asymmetry and all.

There's nothing wrong with an asymmetric waveform, it's quite usual.

Dominic

[mikebuzz]

I've seen this before also , after importing into another Daw they looked fine , it is the OLD Saw way of drawing the waveform . I thought it was a DC offset in my pre's !!!!


Perhaps this should be updated ?? Bob

Later
Buzz

[Oz Nimbus]

Historically, SAW shows a symmetrical waveform to keep processing low until you zoom in to a certain level of detail. At that point, it shows you the 'real' waveform, asymmetry and all.

There's nothing wrong with an asymmetric waveform, it's quite usual.

Dominic

Thanks! tracked some test snare hits into Sonar & they're asymmetric as well. They sound fine, was just a little worried. Dont' want the other engineer freaking out when he sees this.

-0z-

[Dave Labrecque]

Apps that don't show the asymmetry are the ones that oughta be updated, if they're interested in showing what's really there. :cool:

Sound Forge is another "real deal" waveform app. The human voice often shows severe asymmetry. It's part of how we sound. :)

[Bob L]

Virtually all sounds of instruments and vocals will be asymetrical... the zoomed out symetrical drawing comes from a performance standpoint... it is much faster to scan tens of thousands of samples on a zoomed out waveform just looking for max peaks in the peak data file and duplicating the other half... makes no difference in your ability to see transients and do what needs to be done when looking at a timeline across minutes... as you zoom in the drawing switches to an exact accurate waveform data taken live from the actual wav file.

People have just started making a big deal of this lately... it truly is meaningless in my opinion... in fact... many earlier expensive DAW systems used to only draw the top half of the waveform for reference...

Bob L

[DominicPerry]

Remember in the old days when no-one saw a waveform at all? Things still seemed to work out fine. I agree with Bob, it's a fuss about nothing, there's no need to see the asymmetry in a zoomed out waveform, it serves no purpose than to satisfy the obsessives.

Dominic

[mikebuzz]

It really does'nt bother me BUT a new guy might have issues thinking it was CHEESY ??? My 0.02$ and this is a PRO APP. !!!!!

Later
Buzz

[Iain Westland]

more bottom end

[mikebuzz]

No Mark but I occasionally turn it on its side ( I'm just like that !!? )

LAter
Buzz

PS: As I said it does'nt bother me , I did have some conversations on another app;s board about this SO ?????

[Bob L]

I think it was the Studor Sonic something or other high-end DAW that was in a huge booth the first AES show I introduced SAW and SAC in 92... I believe it started at $28,000 for 8 channels or so... It only drew half of the wveform on each track... at any zoom level... if I remember correctly... so I don't imagine I should be too concerned about appearing cheezy. :)

Bob L

[Cary B. Cornett]

Once again I must agree with Bob on this one. SAW was one of the first applications to create "peak files" for more efficient display of zoomed-out waveforms. When I first saw the way waveforms were displayed in SAW, I had to think about it for a minute, but then it made sense to me. The symmetrical peak display has never caused me any problem, since once I zoom in enough for it to make a difference SAW switches to showing the actual waveform.

On the other hand, in applications where this supposedly "cheesy" trick was NOT used, I found the waits for screen display changes really annoying.:mad:

Kudos to Bob for using common sense in his UI design! :cool:

[Dave Labrecque]

I think it was the Studor Sonic something or other high-end DAW that was in a huge booth the first AES show I introduced SAW and SAC in 92... I believe it started at $28,000 for 8 channels or so... It only drew half of the wveform on each track... at any zoom level... if I remember correctly... so I don't imagine I should be too concerned about appearing cheezy. :)

Bob L

I dunno, I think today I'd call an 8 channel DAW for $28,000 pretty cheesy, regardless of it's waveform display. ;)

Bob, it musta been pretty cool to be showing SAW alongside such a beast at the time. Wasn't there any kind of obvious apples-to-apples thing happening that was just confounding people? Or were the emperor's $28,000 new clothes just too pricey for people to recognize what you were pulling off? (namely, the emporer's new clothes :p)

[Bob L]

That was it... and then there was the first 4 track SAW being demoed just around the corner from them... in the back of the hall... in the cheap isles. :)

4 stereo virtual tracks on a 2 chan soundcard... the first realtime demonstartion of virtual mixing without hardware for each sound chan... definitely shook things up a bit... but the real press coverage was on the SAC demonstration...

Read the Live Sound Mag blurb here.... http://www.rmllabs.com/Review_SAC_LiveSound.htm

Bob L

[Iain Westland]

steven hawkins has the prototype at the moment ...

[TotalSonic]

I got to add that based on a lot of audio forum chatter it seems like an epidemic of folks putting over emphasis on how something "looks" or what an analyzer says as to whether there is a "problem" versus the true test - how something sounds.

I can think of a number of threads where the poster stated that the RTA reading didn't look like other tracks or that there were "bumps in the spectrum" - or that an analyzer detected DC offset - or that a phase correlation meter showed a wide image - or that a wave form looked assymetrical - and was wondering whether this meant a "problem."

It seems all the display, metering and analysis options made available with DAW technology are often an unnecessary distraction for many - as ultimately the only thing that should indicate whether there is a "problem" in audio is if something sounds "wrong" to you! I'll admit that meters and analyzers can be a decent way of aiding figuring out the source of an audible problem though.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Cary B. Cornett]

Other than numerous posts here, I haven't seen, spoken about, or heard anyone discuss using spectrum analysis as a recording or mixing tool as long as I can remember. . I first heard about the use of spectrum analysis in a studio long before this forum existed. At least one of the MCI console models could have its LED meter bridge switched to show a real time spectrum display. One of my friends has an RTA permanently strapped across the main monitor buss of his studio. I personally have not felt the need.


Having said that, it certainly can be used as a tool to find a problem, but adjusting your audio settings to make a picture look right is a very bad idea in my opinion. Agreed on both points.


In my experience, it's valuable purpose is for room tuning and acoustic design. Even there its value has sharp limits. For touring PA systems, it is about the only such tool that the operator has time (and usually the knowledge) to use. For a permanent system, there are much better tools for evaluation, and for acoustic design it is at best a rough and sometimes even misleading test.

I have used an RTA in theater situations to help with cutting feedback. Some time I might explore other uses, but it will never tell me visually whether a mix is good or not.