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Transient's and ADC's

When ever I hear digitized guitar signals they tend to have a dull attack(sounds very compressed). Is there something about consumer grade ADC's where they cannot handle the transient's as well as tubes?

I don't know if it's the processing after the ADC's or what but there seems to be something strange sounding with all digital versions of tube processing. I only hear the issue on the sharp attack of notes rather than on the sustained sound.

Is this the ADC? The input to the ADC or the after? It's pretty obvious to anyone with ears that there is a big difference. I just always figured it was in the software but after hearing several different products(pedals, computer, etc...) all having a similar issue with the attack it got me to wondering about the ADC's themselves.

Reply to
Jeff Johnson
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Clipping? Not by the ADC per se, but by the circuitry in front of it?

With any ADC you have a dynamic range tradeoff -- more capacity for big sounds means more noise, and most means of getting better dynamic range involve $$.

When you say "consumer grade ADCs" you mean you're recording this with your own equipment, and you're not satisfied? Have you considered getting a better sound card or dongle or whatever the audio input equipment is these days?

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
Reply to
Tim Wescott

It sounds like your problem is headroom; if the VU levels are set too high on a recorder, peaks are lost (like compression does). It's not the ADC's fault, it's the gain riding on the preamps that has to be right to get the transient peaks.

Sometimes, NOTHING works; for decades, every 1812 overture recording has had some variant of 'electronic cannon' because a microphone near a real artillery gun rarely overloads the same way an old artilleryman's ears do. The real guns sound fake when you play back.

Reply to
whit3rd

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