Little experiment

Alright, so since a few folks got confused let me give the final hint: this is about the MUSIC, not the SOUND.

The two clips are supposed to be the same sound (if not it's an artifact of the transformation), but with so-slightly editing which should have changed the MUSICAL appealing from one clip to the other.

In about 11 hours I will reveal what's all about (now it's my evening: I'll do it my tomorrow morning).

@Khuja Wangtishvili they are indeed supposed to sound the same, concentrate on the music -- and it may well be that they are the same for you.

@MHirsch sorry no idea about that, perhaps you have a firewall in your network?

@QuasiUnaFantasia @Joannchr @MacMacMac @CyberGene try ignoring the piano sound or perceived spatial location (which might be artifacts of the musical editing) and see if musically they sound any different to you.

after re-listening, it sounds like if there was 2 different takes of the same passage as the swing feels slightly different in the 2 wav files, even though it might be an illusion. This also demonstrates the poor short term auditive aural memory capacity of the human ear which is below 4 seconds.

RIP try ignoring the piano sound or perceived spatial location (which might be artifacts of the musical editing) and see if musically they sound any different to you.

I see. Well, I listened to them many times side by side, I hear absolutely no difference. I voted "equally bad" only because I don't like the music, so it's not "good" for me but I don't mean there's anything wrong with it either.

RIP Alright, so since a few folks got confused let me give the final hint: this is about the MUSIC, not the SOUND.

I got that right away ... because the caption on first one plainly states No Delay, while the other says Downbeat Delay.

RIP sorry no idea about that, perhaps you have a firewall in your network?

Why my firewall should affect a playback, unless it's trying to establish an inbound connection? 😃

On listening to the samples again, I must concur with CG. I hear no meaningful differences between them.

MacMacMac because the caption on first one plainly states No Delay, while the other says Downbeat Delay.

Good catch. I guess there's something in the performances that relates to swing and being behind the beat or something like that but it must be really subtle in this case since I can't hear any difference at all. I've not been listening to a lot of jazz for years, so I may have lost the ability to hear these slight differences in relation to jazz rhythm. And the playing is very simplistic to me, kind of be-bop-ish but too cliched which is why they both rather annoy me.

With a little help from my friends ….

Joannchr With a little help from my friends ….

Alright you got it.

A retired theoretical physicist with the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the University of Göttingen in Germany had too much time on his hands. He was (is) an expert on the physics of synchronization, and a lover of jazz music. So he edited this clip, adding 30ms delay between the piano and the drum. That way it sounded (to him) much more jazzy and swingy. I agree, but my test was not blind, I am a physicist and a geek (in addition to being a lover of jazz music) so I felt my preference could be biased, so I used you guys as guinea pigs.

I think the results are exactly what I thought: people who are lover of jazz and musically very sensitive, like it and may even acoustically aware of what is going on:

HZPiano In any case, based on the better jazzy swing feel alone, "perhaps clip 2".

and

dore_m I feel like 2 is behind the beat a bit, and I prefer it.

Those who are more classically trained (or simply like more that kind of music) don't:

navindra Definitely 1 for me. 2 feels wrong somehow.

And of course many in-between including those for which 30ms is not long enough to notice (might be different when playing a virtual instrument).

I think this research is just a useless curiosity (or at most something to slightly improve things like programmatical MIDI players such as Numula). I would expect and feel that in real playing one would not keep a constant 30ms delay and would instead change that continuously based on feeling as I more lengthily articulated in the discussion https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/765-js-bachs-prelude-in-color-with-pianoteq-8-and-leds/28 (which now that I think about it should have been its own discussion and not a hijack of @navindra recording…)

MHirsch Why my firewall should affect a playback, unless it's trying to establish an inbound connection? 😃

In my experience, firewalls blocks all sort of things (and I mean network-based firewalls, usually deployed in the gateways or routers). If anybody here can download just the audio and repost (or perhaps recreate the whole experiment with another clip), you'll get a chance to give it a listen.

PS: the name of the physicist is Theo Geisel

RIP people who are lover of jazz and musically very sensitive

Hello,

I found this quite interesting and fun 🙂.

I've been through really stressful days, and had no time nor energy for any kind of analyses, close listening or any of that. It was even too much to hook up my hifi for it, so I listened to both clips on my phone speaker, just once each, and went with the gut feeling I got.

I'm happy to find that my gut feeling was 'right', while at the same time, everybody's feeling was 'right'.

It is interesting to be categorized 'musically sensitive' -- deep down I've always known that but am beginning to discover that more consciously just lately. I love jazz (but not all jazz) and have a growing love for classical (but not all classical). I do notice that jazz tends to go straight to my bones more spontaneously, while on the other hand classical music often triggers quite different emotions, which can be rather strong at times as well.

Anyway, a nice thread, reinforcing the special quality of this here li'l Clack community.

Cheers and happy emotional responses,

HZ

so the difference was only in timing?

kawafanboi so the difference was only in timing?

Yes, even though to introduce that delay there might be other artifacts (which I can't hear) leading to some people thinking there was a change e.g. in the tone of the instrument.

Finally got this playing.

TBH, I hear no difference. 😃

I wonder how many people here have played in an ensemble, practiced with metronome often, or recorded to a midi click frequently. After reading the clue in the title, I think I got it pretty quickly. Just wondering if that kind of experience helps heighten the sense of timing.

I'm not sure it's a sense of timing as such. It's also a matter of attaching importance to the timing. For me, for example, the two sound clips are equivalent because their difference is irrelevant; the meaning in the music is unaltered from one clip to the next.

dore_m most definitely. In my case I am trained classically and always practiced with the metronome with ticks aligned with the fastest notes (1/8 or 1/16) of a given passage . That’s why I’m struggling playing jazz which is frustrating as I love it but the swing is against my DNA that’s maybe why I had a sense that there was a slight delta , even though I had to check by looking at the waves to confirm my impression as it’s definitely not easy to spot and I m not certain I would have bet money based on my impression .

I knew there should be some delay, it's in the title after all but it doesn't change it for me. Both sound equivalent as music and as feel. But I think people who listen and play a lot of jazz are naturally more sensitive to the swing.

CyberGene But I think people who listen and play a lot of jazz are naturally more sensitive to the swing.

I'd like to think that I was proficient at jazz, but I'm clearly not - but I guess I fall into the category of listening to jazz a lot. I also played in music groups as a kid, especially drum and bugle corps (which is marching band on steroids).

Also did alot of midi recording to a click, and can see how off I am when quantizing.

I used to play a lot of jazz but after I switched to classical the first thing I noticed was how cr*ppy my rubato was, so for many years now I've been practicing a classical/romantic solo piano feel where tempo and rhythm are not that strict and I guess I've lost that jazz feel... So, I agree with @RIP that this might have to do with classical vs jazz idiom. I wouldn't say classical isn't about having a good sense of rhythm though, maybe depends on the repertoire, I'm personally more about slow and lyrical pieces.