Harmonics Without the Math: What “Warmth,” Saturation, Tubes and Transformers Are Really Doing to Your Music

Making a Scene Presents - Harmonics Without the Math: What “Warmth,” Saturation, Tubes and Transformers Are Really Doing to Your MusicWalk through enough recording studios and eventually somebody will tell you that a microphone preamp sounds warm because it has tubes, another sounds punchy because it has transformers, and a plug-in sounds analog because it adds harmonics. Give the conversation another ten minutes and somebody will announce that even harmonics are musical while odd harmonics are harsh, as though the harmonic series itself has joined a political party. These words describe real things, but years of advertising, studio mythology and musicians repeating what other musicians told them have turned some useful engineering ideas into a strange collection of half-truths. http://www.makingascene.org