Probably that is why "super light on cpu"

About on par with what we expect from newer gen waves stuff eh?

For example so is ssl ev2 version a lot better than previous versions. I don't know what to expect from a newer gen, but it would be good if they had some consistences in audio quality.

Now Waves have released the second Magma series plugin, it is the big brother to LIL Tube called BB Tubes. Is there any reason even do some measurement on it?

BB tubes does have the option to upsample, looking at the tech specs.

Waves releases Magma BB-Tubes: Beautiful to Beastly Tube Saturation

a bug has been found regarding the oversampling

I completely understand what is aliasing (thanks to KVR and mainly Gearspace). I am reading about it for years now. I can completely agree that in essence and in practice "we" need to avoid it.

Yet I have a hard time finding a track or hearing about a track that didn't make up to the top charts or best-selling tracks because it had aliasing in it. So obviously "magic" is somewhere else.

Fabien or others mentioned specific genres etc. This is not about it. Plenty of various top-selling music across all genres were made ITB during the time in question, I mean during the time when plugins didn't remedy aliasing so much as today. Yes, you can argue that when you compare music from 2000 to this, it sounds different but it's a moot point. I mean how can you tell that the artist didn't want or did want specific noise at the specific time in the track - during the 90ties or 2000...

This is not a troll attempt or irony I am just gobsmacked and intrigued about it so much that in my mind this easily goes into "does not matter anymore".

Let me be clear about it, I am not against oversampling or any algorithmic suppression of aliasing, actually contrary. Yet I can't think about it in any other way than "it's an exaggerated topic". Again I understand "room for improvement" and our stream and request for plugin perfection (or lack of it) but then I apply this to the real-world stream where actual music was made and then I ask myself...wait how did they achieve it back then?

And the only logical explanation in my naive mind is "magic is in the artist not the technology behind it".

Oh well... a fascinating subject.

I've never noticed aliasing on a commercial release. It will tend to be masked in a mix anyway. Not including deliberate aliasing on electronic music or early samplers, which are a part of the sound.

You can hear quantisation distortion on early digital albums such as Jagged Little Pill, but even that is accepted as part of the sound.

Of course you're right, but I also don't think anybody on this thread suggested that aliasing will stop a track from climbing up the charts.
Just like aliasing, noise, amp hum, a cheaper mic or a less than ideal room won't either. Does this mean that we should stop worrying about these things though?

No of course not. As I said above I am not against preventing aliasing or seeking perfection. I guess you could sum up my previous response into Less worry about technical, focus more on creating music.

I am not saying this as empirical advice, not at all just as a reminder that sometimes we get into this trap of "higher fidelity" when in fact our heroes created and paved new genres without ever thinking about aliasing.

Regards

Ironically, noise, amp hum, cheap mics, and bad rooms have a far greater impact on the recorded quality of music then the aliasing demonstrated in this thread, and yet folks (especially around these parts) seem to worry about them far less.

Of course these have a much greater impact, no doubt about it, but they are also harder or more expensive to address than aliasing.

The question is, since there is no shortage of great plugins which have aliasing under control, why should we keep using the aliasing ones?

It's pure navel gazing - if you train your ears to hear aliasing - you'll hear it - 99.9% of people won't hear it or care about it. Most of the great pieces of hardware were designed by ear because people simply didn't have the sophisticated test equipment to do anything else - particularly in the UK where there's wasn't much money about. If a hardware equivalent to plug in doctor existed in the 1960s and 1970s - half of the great pieces we worship today wouldn't have made it past the test bench due to one technical flaw or another.

Fighting digitally induced sound imperfections ain’t no sin when one is aiming for the perfect sound. Some people seek perfection and improvement throughout their work, while others may feel unnecessarily distracted having to think about digital imperfections and don’t need to be bothered by this.
Well, this thread looks like mainly a point of interest to the former group of music producers.

I’m thankful to the contributors in this thread for all the time spent and all the tests that are being performed on all kinds of plugins related to their aliasing inducing properties.

I’m afraid that the only part of this community which feels annoyed by this thread and would spend their precious (for audio creation) time to write objections to the importance of the issue is kind of linked to the development process of the plugins that resist to get better by using antialiasing technologies in their products. Forum discussions like this one seem to reveal the missteps of some plugins developers and obviously become attractive targets for their anger. With or without their blessing, threads like this are very helpful and encourage the improvement in audio plugins design.

That's easy - the "magic" is in creating music that connects with people and is well marketed to do so.

You're right, aliasing doesn't really matter. Just like arsenic in your drinking water, a little never hurts.

(I hate aliasing and oversample the crap out of everything I can )

You are of course right. So we can close down the forum.

That's finest survivorship bias. As you said later, there's an artist in between filtering out the right sounds, the right gear, the right settings.

All music that builds on recorded audio is usually very analogue heavy. Pre 98 or so, practically all recorded and released music passed some sort of well equipped studio. Typically outsourcing the whole mix to an analogue mixing desk handling most compression, EQ and sat. Many of the first "near ITB" productions sound like crap. Give Euro-Dance a try, or the rave/techno mainstream from this period, compare how these genres evolved and sound so much more sophisticated today.

I think you ignore the fact that this thread discusses processor design, their musical flexibility, and ergonomic concerns. Not the music!

The primary advantage of physical correctness (= no aliasing) is a much greater flexibility for the artist, and a much greater ease at fine tuning the parameters in a natural manner. When aliasing the signal, an LFO does not act predictably, at least not for a musical being. Same is true with just any form of modulation. This wastes time and nerves.

A compressor that aliases doesn't even cover 20% of what a physically correct compressor can do. In practical terms, the artist doesn't have to spend hours searching a setting that's artistically tolerable. Wondering why the 1ms attack never sounds right, despite the fancy photorealistic UIs.

Hey Fabien,

I really wonder what's your suggestion for producing/ mixing sample rate wise?

Is it better to work in like 88,4 or 96khz with hypersonic filters and mostly avoid os or would you suggest to work in 44,1 or 48 khz and os all non linear processors?

Of course the quality of the os of the used processors is important too (personally I don't like fir os filters) and how much os should be applied? The more the better or should it be depending on for example if an compressor does 1db or 3db of gain reduction?
Probably the daw needs to be taking in account here as most samples library's are in 44,1khz and need to be oversampled by the daw when working in a higher sample rate..

I know its not an easy answered question but your opinion would be very appreciated here.

Cheers!

I think it's more about unintended consequences of aliasing and the impossibility of undoing it once it's there (aside from removing the root cause).

I've found the thread make me more aware of my choices. I still use plugins that alias. But I like to know I can have some plugins that don't do that.

I take this thread as general information on how to prevent aliasing or manage it, if that's the intended goal, as opposed aliasing is always we evil. I understand there's a lot of perspectives on this thread from middle to one extreme or the other.

I do think that aliasing isn't widely well known about still, and can be the cause of what someone would critically call "digital sound", or spend time chasing their tale over trying to figure out. I think used as a choice and tool, it actually can be an effect. To me it's more about education than eradication.


Not sure this answers all your questions, but it's a good read.

TDR Fabien discusses hi res processing

Some thoughts on "high resolution" audio processing