[Ardour-Users] Automation from analog mix?

[David Kastrup]

Jörn Nettingsmeier <nettings at stackingdwarves.net> writes:

> On 12/18/2010 10:35 AM, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Arnold Krille <arnold at arnoldarts.de> writes:
>>> No, the 16 channel converter is already there to record the main
>>> signal directly after the pre-amps. You need another 16 channels for
>>> the signal after the fader to get all the information you want for
>>> automation of eq, gate, compressor and volume.
>> 
>> Nope.  Just the stereo mix at the end.  It has all the required info
>> after decorrelation ("echo compensation techniques") if you take into
>> account that changes are confined to small bursts of activity.
>
> i don't quite grasp what decorrelation or echo compensation techniques
> have to do with it.

Figuring out which parts of the end result come from a particular known
source.  If you want to go for equalizer settings as well, you can just
do the correlation on the signal split into several bands and go from
there.  That's quite more ambitious than volume-only, but not
unthinkable.

> and since even the most basic aspects of a mix are already very
> difficult to track, i was assuming that you were thinking of measuring
> each channel strip individually, with noise, to increase the
> likelihood of catching all eq changes and other parameters within a
> reasonable time frame and level of accuracy and precision. my point
> was, if you're prepared to do that, you are wasting resources that
> could be better spent elsewhere.

There is no shortage of CPU power for reasonably well-defined tasks for
which efficient algorithms are known.

> you have proposed a method, and i was giving this method a hard time,
> not you. that's what technical discussions are for - to beat the shit
> out of our ideas so that we can be sure what remains is useful and
> robust. i expect everybody to do the same to any propositions of mine.

Well, how about attacking the "import an existing DAW session from a
system without compatible exports" angle?  "Without compatible exports"
can mean that the DAW internal data is not accessible (secret, or lost),
or that it never was accessible (analog mastering).

"Digitally remastered" is a lucrative commercial label (because the
copyright starts running again with the new mastering), being able to
start with the results of the analog mastering would seem like it could
be worth something to somebody.  Not exactly the ultimately endearing
idea for free software proponents.  But I don't think the "all idiocy,
only idiots would want something like that" characterization is fitting,
either.

I also don't understand the need to _attack_ ideas as long as they are
just put forward without demanding an implementation.  If somebody
happened to pick up the idea and implement it, he would not dare
mentioning it on this list lest he'd be called names for that and made
the laughing stock of the community.

-- 
David Kastrup