Leading edges of notes

Actually... it's all part and parcel of the same thing...

There are no secondary reasons as to how to distinguish between different instruments and/or how the instrument is being played.

Like I said before .. EVERY note played by EVERY instrument.. is comprised of Attack,Sustain, Decay and Frequency content.

Of course when you talk about bowing a violin.. there is no "edge" to the sound.. much like using felt beaters on a ride cymbal.. it is just a growing wash.. However, this rising level of the note is still known as the "attack".. "attack" is synonymous with "leading edge" .... just like the edge of a cliff can be steep or gently sloping so too can the note of an instrument.

To take the example of the violin.. how do you determine whether the string has been bowed or plucked?? Well the Attack of the note is a very strong (and probably the primary) indication as to how the string has been played. The fundamental note remains the same as the string is fingered exactly the same.

Of course attack/leading edge/rise time.. whatever you want to call it is intrinsically linked with bandwidth and frequency response... a bandwidth limited system will not be able to reproduce the correct attack to the note. This attack leads to a greater sense of note start definition.. and also to a more accurate sense of timing .. Anyone that has ever played with a bass guitar through a combo with a graphic eq will know this all too well.. play some slap guitar and roll off the frequencies above 500hz.. and the result is a mumbling bass rumble with little ability to hear individual notes played. You get a similar effect if you disconnect the tweater on a pair of speakers or listen to music through a sub only .. the bass looses all it's definition. Take a snare drum and tune it relatively loosely and then reduce the tightness of the snare.. and you end up with a drummer that sounds like he's playing out of time..because the initial hit of the stick on the drum is not clearly audiable before the sustain of the drums note. Exactly the same is true of Bass drums.. It is perfectly possible to get a spot on ultra tight drummer play a kit and have him sound completely out of time due to poor tuning of the kit.

GTM

 

All true (mostly - the difference between a bowed and plucked string is just as much in the sustain of the bowed and decay of the plucked string)...but this does need a serious reality check. The attack of pretty much any bowed string instrument, or blown reed instrument (including vocal chords) is sufficently slow that just about ANY CD player on the planet will do a reasonable job of its replication, and these are the dominant sounds in most classical orchestral music. The difference between e.g. Naim and MF or Quad in handling this is almost irrelevant in comparison with what they do with the rest of the note (and I believe the effect of any furniture is an even lower order effect). For percussion and plucked strings etc (including their keyboard manifestations - piano and harpsichord) the attack is far more important.

And Tone...for Mahler (note spelling!) the important aspects are dynamic range and clarity (i.e. lack of harmonic or IM distortion) - the attack on his big climaxes is normally pretty slow (and orchestras frequently blunt it further by a slight dithering of instrumental entries - it comes over more anguished that way!).

I do find it difficult to reconcile the statements that "classical music sounds absolutely dreadful through all the Mana'd systems I've heard" and "I think it just lowers the noise floor and removes overhang. If you are not used to it, it sounds 'wrong'. If you go to plenty of live music venues, it sounds 'right'." A lowered noise floor has to be of supreme benefit to classical give the much higher dynamic range in that compared to pop/rock/jazz etc, and classical is predominantly characterised by the pure acoustic (i.e. unamplified) sounds of the live event. Just idle curiosity of course, since I've still not heard a Mana's system (other than my speakers on a couple of soundbases).

 

Hi all
I just got a quick lesson of leading and trailing edges from Nestorovic.
I just wanted to apologize for the bullshit I wrote and I just wanted to ask you to forget it.

thanks

 

Hi Graham,

I do believe Bub was being whimsical. Mana'd systems perfectly recreate classical music, in fact all forms of music are recreated with absolute accuracy on Mana'd systems.

We mere mortals dont know this yet though, because we have yet to sample the 'food of the heavens!'

Chris

 

Aah, dynamic range.

Hi-fi just can't cut it. When I visited John Clark's place near Edinburgh earler this year he played his drums that were set up in the corner of a bedroom. It was ear splitting and you felt every pecussive rap or leading edge in a way that no hi-fi on earth could possibly reproduce, not even one sat on lots of....

That's what leading edges are - percussive raps, someone hitting something or plucking a string. What follows the leading edge needs to be kept in proportion, but can this actually be achieved?

Hi-fi is but a set of compromises enabling us to hear music reproduced by electro-mechanical means. There are no absolutes, only compromises.

I'd rather sacrifice a little leading edge to hear the rest of the note (if it is a note) given that the reproduced leading edge is already compromised once it recorded, reproduced electro-mechanically, and is no longer live.

 

No problem, it wouldn't be the first time that I got it all wrong. If I were to emulate your signature style, RdS, I'd put myself as "the club's biggest ignoramus" (certainly insofar as hi-fi is concerned). And I think that this thread is a fine proof of the old English saying that "ignorance is bliss". I hadn't realised that there is so much to all this leading edge business. Having now read all this, I propose to forget it all and go back to listening to music! My violins and pianos and drums sound like violins and pianos and drums, or at least close enough to satisfy me, and I accept that the exact recreation of a musical event in one's own living room is not only beyond my pocket but also probably beyond technology. I am happy with a reasonable facsimile, which I have, so I don't feel the need to live on the edge, leading or otherwise. My thanks to all who answered.

 

Hi Tones

I woueldnt be so hard on yourself. Im sure you just listen to the music and enjoy it a very good thing indeed.

Perhaps, even, this particular attribute of hifi isnt one of the ones you listen for specifically when youre deciding if you like the sound an item of hifi is producing.


Chris

 

I don't think you got it all wrong. We indeed experience notes as a whole, not attack+body+decay. But it is important for a hifi system to be able to resolve the very complex phase of transient attack, which we don't listen to as such (expect for some very obvious cases, such as in plucked instruments) because that is, to a great extent, what gives subjective colour to a note.

Having read most answers, it does seem to me that some people are exagerating the 'leading edge' bit, and many people associate it with percussion instruments. That is not true, as some other members explained.

And here I think I agree with you: let's forget about transients and listen to the music: if the sound is crisp, well defined and melodies are easy to follow, most certainly the system is good at resolvent transient complexity.

I happen to be very aware of the fact because when playing a softly voiced organ, the way you depress the key actually affects the transients. So, that is one thing an organist must learn to do: to control transients. But most people (and even a lot of organists) just mention 'crispness' - they acknowledge there is a difference, but they don't know where it comes from.

Take, as an example, Walcha's and M-C. Alain's touch. Walcha is crisper, Alain is mellower. Why? Because Walcha articulated the notes and played each note with a lot of strength whereas MCAlain doesn't do it.

But, when we listen to Walcha's playing, only a specialist will note that his transients are actually crisper than Alain's and that a great part of the difference comes from there.

So, in a way, you *are* right. As long as your system satisfies you, it must be good with transients, which people don't notice as such anyway.

 

This needs explanation. Some people may know that the strength you put into your fingers when playing an organ does NOT affect loudness: whether you pound on the key or just caress it, the volume is exactly the same.

But if you press the key suddenly you get a different transient than when you press it softly. The first is a distinct 'chiff' - each note sounds as if it has a consonant preceding the body - the leading attack. If you press the key very tenderly, you can eliminate the chiff almost completely, and what you get is a progressive setting in of the harmonics of the pipe.

The result is staggeringly different - you would swear the pipe is brighter when pressed suddenly. But no, only the leading attack has changed, but it affects the way one's brain reconstructs the sound.

I hope this has made things clearer (no, I'm not being ironic!).

 

It's even within the capabilities of any decent TT !!

By far the worst culprits for completely messing up this part of the replay quality is the speakers.. the vast majority of speakers suffer from pretty poor phase distortions.. throw in the effects of the room... and as Tones and others have said.. it's best just to be happy that a violin sounds like a violin, a trumpet a trumpet and a drum a drum etc. Hi-Fi in the context of a normal living environment is NEVER going to accurately recreate the live instrument being played in front of you.. Oh it will/can sound VERY VERY impressive.. but it won't be what was originally created by the musicians in the studio.

GTM