An ADSR is all about time/duration.
Attack is the time it takes to reach maximum output, decay the time it takes to reduce to the sustain level. Sustain is as long as you keep the key depressed and release the time it takes to reach zero after releasing the key.
From the same guy, Josh McDermott, that gave the video presentation about room reflections - this time about summary statistical processes in auditory processing
"Adaptive and Selective Time-averaging of Auditory Scenes"
It's a nicely done summary with sound clips & examples of a paper he delivered here
From the summary:
"Adaptive and Selective Time-averaging of Auditory Scenes"
It's a nicely done summary with sound clips & examples of a paper he delivered here
From the summary:
Every sound develops over time - there's no definition about the duration of each stage in the ADSR definition of sound envelopes, AFAIK. It's also not confined to just syntesizers so talking about KEY depression & release time is probably confusing although may help understanding?
It's kinda academic but moving away from synth use, it's difficult to define when a sound has moved into each stage (computer analysis of sound encounters this problem) so an attack may be very fast but it is still an attack stage of the sound, a decay is also present in all sounds - the two stages release & sustain maybe not so easy to identify, define in every sound?
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I was expanding my original post which you seemed to disagree with but you're entitled to have your own opinion
ADSR .........Attack is how long it takes for a sound to reach maximum volume. Decay is how long it takes for a sound to drop in volume until it reaches its fundamental frequency. Sustain is for how long a sound remains at the same volume until it begins to decay, and Decay means how long a sound fades back to silence.
ADSR can be applied to a single sine wave, or a simultaneous multiple number of sine waves, or multiple sine waves combined with white or pink noise. Each of the ADSR values of each component can be of any length of time or volume.
It gets more complex with for example, wave table synthesis combined with analog synthesis, or maybe FM synthesis combined with granular synthesis , or any type of synthesis you want. After that, you can stack any number of individual synthesisers, whether they be hardware or software based together to create extremely complex evolving sounds. Or very short sounds, or wobbly bass sounds. Any old sound you want.
Even more, you can combine synthetic sounds with organic acoustic sounds, and further process the results with any number of algorithms that all contain basic ADSR envelope controllers.
So as you can see, ADSR is pretty much ubiquitous to most aspects of audio analysis and sound design.
Enough?
ToS
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Can ADSR be applied to noise floor modulation?
If it is noise, and it modulates to and fro across the floor, then I'm quite sure the concept of ADSR will apply with equal equanimity.
ToS
I agree & the point I was trying to make to CharlesD was that there is no definition about how long a particular stage takes - attack & decay stages are obvious, all sounds must have them no matter what the stage duration, milliseconds or more - release or sustain are not so obvious & milliseconds duration f a stage would similarly apply to them.
I also don't agree with CharlesD in defining ADSR in terms of how it would be done on a synth - not an accurate analysis of sounds in reality
I can't speak for CharlesDarwin, maybe he is more interested in playing synths rather than programming them. Lots of players are like that. And it depends upon what kind of synth he is referring to - lots and lots of different types out there. From his point of view, he could very well be right.
If MarkW4 sits in front of a pair of near-field monitors all day long with a set of cymbals as reference beside him, I would be surprised if he said cymbals don't have an ADSR envelope to their sound. Good, musical sounding cymbals are really expensive items - very hard to make. Even harder to reproduce - a very very complex sound indeed.
Besides, the term 'ADSR' is both descriptive as well as analytical.
As we know, semantics and nuance of language in terms of an evolving debate about audio perception - biological or otherwise - is really important when involving autism, perception narrowing, and the intricacies of neural processing. The latter I know quite a lot about, but not ready to discuss - yet.
So, can we get our facts right?
ToS
Can ADSR be applied to noise floor modulation?
Lets not get fixated on ADSR - natural sounds have a sound envelope because of the physics of objects that create sounds. Whether this can be defined in exact ADSR stages or some are missing D or S stage, is moot & really I cant see what's that interesting about it? Could noise modulation be considered a sound envelope which falls into these stages ADSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDR, I really don't know or care that much about?
I do find sound envelopes are of great importance, however. Every instrument has its own sound envelope shape & differences in these shapes are responsible for timbre, I believe & can have a duration of many seconds from A to R.
I hope the debate does evolve, at the moment it appears to be quite narrow. It's up to Merrill of course but I'm wondering if "Auditory perception of noise floor modulation in DACS" wouldn't have been a more appropriate thread title.
Pity you're not ready to talk about neural processing yet - I enjoy learning things I don't know (which are many)
I'm all for getting facts right, too but to what do your refer?
Edit: I did get the phrase "perception narrowing" wrong & I corrected myself later "perceptual narrowing" is the correct, recognized term in neuroscience
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That your demeanour can sometimes be dismissive and it puts some people off sharing with you. We know you are thirsty for the truth, but some of us are as equally intelligent and thirsty too. It's just our collective terms of reference can be and often are somewhat different. It's a cultural thing, we all come from different worlds, different backgrounds. Besides, why are you in such a rush?
I will talk about what I know when I'm good and ready ........
Respectfully ToS
I don't sit there all day. My preference for cymbals is Zildjian K Custom Hybrids because of their versatility and good sound.
ASDR is volume envelope model used by MIDI synths and samplers (however triggered). IIRC, ASDR controllers actually modulate the 'velocity' parameter, not volume. Velocity is modeled based on piano actions where key velocity determines note volume and timbre at the same time. In practice, the ASDR model usually sounds pretty artificial to me as a note evolves through the four envelope controller stages. While it can be a rather rough approximation to the envelope of a natural instrument, it can be quite effective for use in sound design of multitimbral patches. However, it doesn't particularly remind me of the sound of real cymbals, or vice versa.
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I'm hoping it does evolve too but that also depends on the participants, not just me - I will throw in aspects that I find interesting in auditory perception research which I feel have relevance to audio reproduction
Its a long shot, for a number of reasons but my naivety makes me think that some understanding of auditory processing mechanisms together with an understanding of electronics could jointly progress audio reproduction.
You mention "noise floor modulation in DACs" as a topic of interest (to you?) so let me give my thoughts on this in my next post
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