dunno if this is of any interest, but once in a while, even within the *same* discipline, you get these opposing (or at least different) meanings for the same set of words or letters. like "modulate" or "modulation". what it means to communications engineers is a bit different than what it means to musicians. but in audio/music DSP, we run across both contexts. another is "sample" (singular). what it means to a DSP engineer and what it means to a musician or production engineer is the same qualitatively, but very different quantitatively. some are not particularly excusable like saying "gaussian noise" when they mean "white". nor do i like to see "transfer function" used for a non-linear device like a diode curve (say "i/o mapping function" or something other than "transfer function"). this one i just ran across now. in binaural and stereo sound localization technique (like how do you get a sound to sound like it comes from a particular, specified direction), we have this concept call a "Head-Related Transfer Function" (HRTF) which defines (in an anechoic environment) the acoustic coupling transfer function from a reasonably distant source to each of one's left and right eardrums. the spacing of the ears by about 17 cm and the size and shape and makeup of the ears' pinnae essentially define the HRTF, as a function of azimuth and elevation angles, relative to level-flat and straight ahead. they even got these dummy heads (like KEMAR) that are supposed to standardize the human HRTF (since all of our God-given HRTFs are a little different, just as our noses are). i imagine some biologists study the HRTFs of different species to understand what they hear best and at what frequency ranges they can best differentiate source location (that's sorta important so that you run *away* from the growling tiger, rather than toward it, so you might live long enough to do the horizontal bop and sire offspring that sires more offspring that eventually ends up writing code or doing DSP). so now i start running across, in the context of stereo micing, this "ORTF" techinique. and i think that, in context, that it's <something> Related Transfer Function, but wtf is the "O"? i dug out some old books and papers when, what i shoulda, woulda, coulda done was just go to Wikipedia or Google (when will i learn?). i wish they wouldn't do that, particularly within the same damn-narrow discipline. r b-j
semantics...
Started by ●March 26, 2011
Reply by ●March 27, 20112011-03-27
robert bristow-johnson wrote:> dunno if this is of any interest, but once in a while, even within the > *same* discipline, you get these opposing (or at least different) > meanings for the same set of words or letters. > > like "modulate" or "modulation". what it means to communications > engineers is a bit different than what it means to musicians. but in > audio/music DSP, we run across both contexts. > > another is "sample" (singular). what it means to a DSP engineer and > what it means to a musician or production engineer is the same > qualitatively, but very different quantitatively. > > some are not particularly excusable like saying "gaussian noise" when > they mean "white". nor do i like to see "transfer function" used for > a non-linear device like a diode curve (say "i/o mapping function" or > something other than "transfer function"). > > this one i just ran across now. in binaural and stereo sound > localization technique (like how do you get a sound to sound like it > comes from a particular, specified direction), we have this concept > call a "Head-Related Transfer Function" (HRTF) which defines (in an > anechoic environment) the acoustic coupling transfer function from a > reasonably distant source to each of one's left and right eardrums. > the spacing of the ears by about 17 cm and the size and shape and > makeup of the ears' pinnae essentially define the HRTF, as a function > of azimuth and elevation angles, relative to level-flat and straight > ahead. they even got these dummy heads (like KEMAR) that are supposed > to standardize the human HRTF (since all of our God-given HRTFs are a > little different, just as our noses are). i imagine some biologists > study the HRTFs of different species to understand what they hear best > and at what frequency ranges they can best differentiate source > location (that's sorta important so that you run *away* from the > growling tiger, rather than toward it, so you might live long enough > to do the horizontal bop and sire offspring that sires more offspring > that eventually ends up writing code or doing DSP). > > so now i start running across, in the context of stereo micing, this > "ORTF" techinique. and i think that, in context, that it's > <something> Related Transfer Function, but wtf is the "O"? i dug out > some old books and papers when, what i shoulda, woulda, coulda done > was just go to Wikipedia or Google (when will i learn?). > > i wish they wouldn't do that, particularly within the same damn-narrow > discipline. > > r b-jSo what do you expect from a language in which one: drives on a parkway parks in a driveway etc ;/
Reply by ●March 27, 20112011-03-27
On Saturday, March 26, 2011 10:57:02 PM UTC-4, robert bristow-johnson wrote:> dunno if this is of any interest, but once in a while, even within the > *same* discipline, you get these opposing (or at least different) > meanings for the same set of words or letters....> nor do i like to see "transfer function" used for > a non-linear device like a diode curve (say "i/o mapping function" or > something other than "transfer function").I was with you up to here, but what I object to is not the word "transfer", but rather "function", except when an equation is referred to. In that case, linear or not: why does it matter? "Graph of a transfer function" is OK too if an equation exists.> this one i just ran across now. in binaural and stereo sound > localization technique (like how do you get a sound to sound like it > comes from a particular, specified direction), we have this concept > call a "Head-Related Transfer Function" (HRTF) which defines (in an > anechoic environment) the acoustic coupling transfer function from a > reasonably distant source to each of one's left and right eardrums....> so now i start running across, in the context of stereo micing, this > "ORTF" techinique. and i think that, in context, that it's > <something> Related Transfer Function, but wtf is the "O"? i dug out > some old books and papers when, what i shoulda, woulda, coulda done > was just go to Wikipedia or Google (when will i learn?). > > i wish they wouldn't do that, particularly within the same damn-narrow > discipline.(Office de Radiodiffusion T�l�vision Fran�aise, where the technique was invented in the 1960s. No transfer function there.) Wouldn't do what? While the subject is on the table, "stereophonic" and "binaural" are not synonyms. Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
Reply by ●March 27, 20112011-03-27
On Mar 26, 11:49�pm, Jerry Avins <j...@ieee.org> wrote:> On Saturday, March 26, 2011 10:57:02 PM UTC-4, robert bristow-johnson wrote: >...> > so now i start running across, in the context of stereo micing, this > > "ORTF" techinique. �and i think that, in context, that it's > > <something> Related Transfer Function, but wtf is the "O"? �i dug out > > some old books and papers when, what i shoulda, woulda, coulda done > > was just go to Wikipedia or Google (when will i learn?). > > > i wish they wouldn't do that, particularly within the same damn-narrow > > discipline. > > (Office de Radiodiffusion T�l�vision Fran�aise, where the technique was invented in the 1960s. No transfer function there.) Wouldn't do what? >well, i have to confess that i didn't read that far (that "ORTF" precedes "HRTF" by a couple decades). so maybe it's the HRTF folk publishing stuff in the 70s or 80s that caused me the confusion. it's a "function" (i guess you don't like that word) of my age but i came across "HRTF" before i came across "Blumlein". i started reading and learning about this issue in the early 80s and not the 30s or the 60s. but one might think after reading this for several hours that they would tell you what the "O" is. it's the "Office-Related Transfer Function". in both cases, it's an issue of designing and implementing a direction- dependent transfer function, H(phi,theta,s), that has the result of simulating a sound (musical or not) that is emanating from the direction with azimuth phi and elevation angle of theta.> While the subject is on the table, "stereophonic" and "binaural" are not synonyms.i know that. but you can relate the two with a 2-by-2 matrix (having a transfer function for each of the four matrix elements). this is why you shouldn't expect it to sound the same (or even "better") with good stereo headphones as with stereo speakers. unless your stereo system outputs different signals to headphones than it does to loudspeakers (it would need that 2x2 matrix or its inverse). dunno what i think about ORTF vs. coincident Blumlein micing. don't know enuf about micing to be able to say anything useful. r b-j
Reply by ●March 27, 20112011-03-27
On Mar 26, 10:28�pm, Richard Owlett <rowl...@pcnetinc.com> wrote:> So what do you expect from a language in which one: > � �drives on a parkway > � �parks in a driveway > � �etc ;/What does Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin mean, and what does a chemist mean when they say the word written here in quotes: "unionized" ?
Reply by ●March 28, 20112011-03-28
On Mar 28, 2:09�am, dvsarwate <dvsarw...@yahoo.com> wrote:> On Mar 26, 10:28�pm, Richard Owlett <rowl...@pcnetinc.com> wrote: > > > So what do you expect from a language in which one: > > � �drives on a parkway > > � �parks in a driveway > > � �etc ;/ > > What does Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin > mean, and what does a chemist mean when they > say the word written here in quotes: �"unionized" ?Onion omelet done on one side? Rune
Reply by ●March 28, 20112011-03-28
On Mar 26, 10:57�pm, robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> wrote:> dunno if this is of any interest, but once in a while, even within the > *same* discipline, you get these opposing (or at least different) > meanings for the same set of words or letters. > > like "modulate" or "modulation". �what it means to communications > engineers is a bit different than what it means to musicians. �but in > audio/music DSP, we run across both contexts. > > another is "sample" (singular). �what it means to a DSP engineer and > what it means to a musician or production engineer is the same > qualitatively, but very different quantitatively. > > some are not particularly excusable like saying "gaussian noise" when > they mean "white". �nor do i like to see "transfer function" used for > a non-linear device like a diode curve (say "i/o mapping function" or > something other than "transfer function"). > > this one i just ran across now. �in binaural and stereo sound > localization technique (like how do you get a sound to sound like it > comes from a particular, specified direction), we have this concept > call a "Head-Related Transfer Function" (HRTF) which defines (in an > anechoic environment) the acoustic coupling transfer function from a > reasonably distant source to each of one's left and right eardrums. > the spacing of the ears by about 17 cm and the size and shape and > makeup of the ears' pinnae essentially define the HRTF, as a function > of azimuth and elevation angles, relative to level-flat and straight > ahead. �they even got these dummy heads (like KEMAR) that are supposed > to standardize the human HRTF (since all of our God-given HRTFs are a > little different, just as our noses are). �i imagine some biologists > study the HRTFs of different species to understand what they hear best > and at what frequency ranges they can best differentiate source > location (that's sorta important so that you run *away* from the > growling tiger, rather than toward it, so you might live long enough > to do the horizontal bop and sire offspring that sires more offspring > that eventually ends up writing code or doing DSP). > > so now i start running across, in the context of stereo micing, this > "ORTF" techinique. �and i think that, in context, that it's > <something> Related Transfer Function, but wtf is the "O"? �i dug out > some old books and papers when, what i shoulda, woulda, coulda done > was just go to Wikipedia or Google (when will i learn?). > > i wish they wouldn't do that, particularly within the same damn-narrow > discipline. > > r b-jFunny you should mention "sample" as in DSP we think of it as a solitary point in time or space. But in statistics a "sample" is a collection of data points. For example if I want to know the average weight of humans I estimate it from a sample where maybe I weigh 5000 people. Thus these 5000 numbers will be a single sample. And that is why we have "sample mean" and "sample variance" in addition to "population mean" and "population variance." Population statistics by their nature are very hard to measure directly. In DSP when we talk about noisy samples having a noise variance, we have a "sample" from the samples. This drives me crazy and I always have to be careful to clarify what is being meant by each term. I like how the Japanese translate "modulate" as "tickle." So maybe one circuit tickles the next one? I think good writers who know that some terms have multiple and sometimes contradictory meanings will define them or point towards their definitions. The readers appreciate that. Clay
Reply by ●March 28, 20112011-03-28
On Mar 27, 8:09�pm, dvsarwate <dvsarw...@yahoo.com> wrote:> On Mar 26, 10:28�pm, Richard Owlett <rowl...@pcnetinc.com> wrote: > > > So what do you expect from a language in which one: > > � �drives on a parkway > > � �parks in a driveway > > � �etc ;/ > > What does Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin > mean, and what does a chemist mean when they > say the word written here in quotes: �"unionized" ?Ever wonder why a word like "polish" is pronounced differently when capitalized? Clay
Reply by ●March 28, 20112011-03-28
On Mar 28, 10:47�am, Clay <c...@claysturner.com> wrote: ...> I like how the Japanese translate "modulate" as "tickle." So > maybe one circuit tickles the next one?so Japanese musicians "tickle" the melody (or whatever part they're playing) from one key to another? i wonder what word "modulate" would translate to for Japanese musicians doing Western music? maybe it's "tickle". ? r b-j
Reply by ●March 28, 20112011-03-28
On Mar 28, 11:16 am, robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> wrote:> On Mar 28, 10:47 am, Clay <c...@claysturner.com> wrote: > ... > > > I like how the Japanese translate "modulate" as "tickle." So > > maybe one circuit tickles the next one? > > so Japanese musicians "tickle" the melody (or whatever part they're > playing) from one key to another? i wonder what word "modulate" would > translate to for Japanese musicians doing Western music? maybe it's > "tickle". > > ? > > r b-jwww.dictionary.com yields "1550–60; < Latin modulātus (past participle of modulārī to regulate (sounds), set to music, play an instrument)." I see in science very often where where one wished to describe something technically where such a precise word did not already exist. So one picks a "near in meaning" word and adds another definition to it. "Modulate" seems like such an example. And if different groups do it with different technical meanings we get confusion. Maybe they do tickle their instruments LOL.
