RE: (idm) Re: DSP plugin

From Matthew Allen
Sent Mon, Aug 9th 1999, 22:16

DSP in its most literal definition is Digital Signal Processing. Anything
where you have a streaming in-coming digital signal (audio or video) and you
muck with it. Anything. Basically anytime you use a digital processor (going
all the way back to the first digital keyboards) in order to get it out to
analog you have to use Some sort of DSP. How this term is being used
recently is a little different. Most people now refer to Anything that's
been mangled on the computer as having gone through a DSP effect. Due to the
cheapness and availability of music programs on the computer these digital
effects are becoming more and more prevalent. Some band started out using
your basic straght outta the box software(metasynth, acid, various Protools
plugins) and others have gone the 'i'm almost a programmer' route. (max,
Csound, Kyma). Due to the very nature of how a signal is digitized and then
analyzed alot of these sound mangling routines can come off sounding very
similar, and theres also the Wow factor which has recently begun to die out
with the graphics end of things but is just starting on the sound side. The
WoW factor is basically the 'hey jhonny isnt it cool what i can make david
bowie sound like' effect. 
        The photshop plug-in analogy, i thought, was very good. If a little
brusk. Not everyone made the same out of the box stuff with photshop when it
came out, just like not everyone is using the preset Metasynth filters to
make their song sound 'weird'.

m.

-----Original Message-----
From: Shimone Samuel [mailto:xxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx]
Sent: Monday, August 09, 1999 1:50 PM
To: xxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: (idm) Re: DSP plugin


well then. would you like to take a go at it and use a better metaphor?
Once again the question: What is DSP and why are you purists so opposed to
it?

Shimone

Tomas Jirku wrote:

> Dave Walker wrote:
> >If you've ever used Photoshop (or a similar program)
> >for graphics, you've used the various plugins for
> >sharpening, blurring, distorting, whatever the
> >pixels on screen.  Lots of audio software these
> >days (ProTools, for example) allows you to,
> >in a similar fashion, do transformations on
> >recorded audio.  DSP stands for Digital Signal
> >Processing.
>
> don't even think about comparing sight to sound. unless, of course, you
> are on LSD.
>
> tomas