I mean apart from the obviously awful quality sounds that have been recorded with a banana, the others that have decent quality i wouldn't be able to tell if they miss something to be called a clean sound.
Is it just about background noise or self noise in the sample ? This is obviously easy to say but sometimes i hear samples that don't have anything wrong with them and see people in the comments say the quality of the samples isn't optimal and i have no idea how they can tell.

My biggest clueless feeling comes with effects though! Excluding lack of good controls or UI, i mean listening experience only.

HOW can you tell a good reverb from a bad reverb ? And the same for any other kind of effects... What do you listen for to recognize that ?

 

Yeah, same problem here. I adopt a pragmatic angle.
I send the track to @No Avenger and ask him to diagnose and fix the mess.

 

Last edited: Oct 14, 2020

I don't mind noise if it fit's the genre or aesthetics.

What I do mind is bad choises of reverb. My ears/body instantly feels that a chosen reverb or virtual space created for instruments is wrong or incoherent. Like placing drums in a small room while the rest of the instruments live in a different space. It just feels unconnected.

 

steve faoki is that you???

 

what ?

 

Oh yes in a song it's a completely different story, bad taste is more flagrant.

 

If it sounds good, it is good. Experience is the difference between knowing when to use what where or just blindly trying things. How do you get the best learning experience? By making mistakes and solving problems.

 

Exactly. So I'd say it's easier if our experience was back starting with a Yamaha SPX90, or earlier!, and having some experience to compare to.
Yet I can also attest to what @Boosire says, in that even after decades of using my ears and getting paid for it, I still cannot sometimes hear what another hears in something.

 

i trust my ears for MOST tasks.
Because if not, there is no point making any choice.

Same way with photography : i see it, it exists. I don't see it ? Don't care. Because i can't MASTER something i can't sense.

Example : i CLEARLY hear Nebula superiority. Especially on cab sims and mechanical reverbs (spring, oil can ...).

When i test a VST synth, i simply test an arp bass against my fav other synths.
If there is punch attack (filter quality) AND massive bass content, synth engine is good enough TO ME (and i said TO ME).

I don't really care about what others hear or not.
I tried to convince ppl on this topic : i stopped

Sometimes, even if there is a quality gain, i just don't care.
As an example, i stopped using Nebula
Too much hassle.

 

I see what you mean. But without direct comparison how can people just hear a reverb or a chorus for example and think "this is not good quality" ? What do they listen for in there ?

 

If it sounds rubbish! As I've said; we end up comparing what we've heard of lots of reverbs over the years. Especially real spring or plate.
Starting out with just the stock reverbs of a daw 20 years ago, it was kind of easy to hear the difference when the first good 3rd party reverb came along! You see?

 

True, true. My neighbours are already complaining.

 

As the others already said, it's mainly a question of already gained experience and gathering experience by trial and error.

OTOH, it's often not a question of good or bad, but of fitting or not.
A reverb with a lot of audible reflections is probably not good for percussive sounds, but these reflection are maybe not audible with a pad, or even add some thickness to it.
An 1176 with a lot of distortion maybe ruins vocals but can be great for drums.
So this depends a lot on the source and your goal.

Moreover, your ears are deceived very, very often without a proper comparison.

So, to sum it up, it's a matter of experience, comparisons, source and goal, IMHO.

 

My 2c... if I can hear the f/x, it was the wrong f/x for the job. Good audio is greater than a sum of its parts. Think of it as if it were like a sandy beach. It's lovely to bask there but when you're conscious of the grains of sand inside your shorts, it ain't so nice.

 

Ah. I've noticed that when it comes to people talking about sample packs.
Like, when they A/B Cymatics kick drums against another company, and the Cymatics kicks are the right length for the genre and already EQd and compressed. That sort of thing.
But again, hearing that comes down to experience and having comparisons to mind. And particularly, those people had a goal or vision first.