I used to work at a musical instruments startup and we tried blind tests of prototypes to assess which combination of materials recipes/sensor design/firmware algorithms etc were 'the best'.
Ultimately these tests only reveal the biases of the players. They will prefer – and actually perform better with – that which they believe to be configured in a certain way, regardless of whether it is in reality or not. We had one prototype that us engineers hated to death because the only difference between it and the rest was that it was a different colour, but ALL the players hailed it as the golden standard.
The same goes for the famous 'Does Fuck All' button on recording mixing desks, which you can use to tell players that you've made the change that they wanted to satisfy them. And also when you're buying speakers it's very common to be shown the same set of speakers three times and have three opinions.
I just recently tour managed a friend and would set up her mic sound every night, and each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.
"And also when you're buying speakers it's very common to be shown the same set of speakers three times and have three opinions."
I've noticed with sensory inputs in general that the things that impress you immediately, and the things that impress you once your brain has adjusted to the input and has settled in, are different. For the visual example, observe the difference between the settings on the TVs in the store vs. what the community will generally agree is the optimal long-term setting for your TV. Also, while the first ten minutes of a 3D movie may be pretty whiz-bang, I've generally stopped noticing it's in 3D by the end.
I think in both cases, our initial preferences are for something sharper and exaggerating the differences, but over the long term that becomes quite tiring. A case could probably be made even for smell; in the store the strong, unusual perfume may be very impressive but if you are going to use it all day long, I prefer to be around people who use something a lot more subtle.
I've also noticed that there's a difference between products that demo well and products that serve well. Oftentimes the products I most rely on in daily life are really unimpressive when first introduced, and conversely, the products that make a huge splash in a demo are kinda annoying to use. I suspect this is behind many hyped-up, venture-funded startups that fail to get lasting traction in the marketplace.
Besides the novelty bias you've identified, I also think there's a context bias. Products that make a lasting impact on our lives do so by fitting into the context of our lives - they are well-adapted to the situation in which they will eventually be used. Products that demo well fit into the context of a demo - they look splashy and exciting when shown to a set of observers who are specifically judging the product. The set of qualities optimized for each of these situations differs.
After some years using flat panels, I decided to grab old CRTs from my storage, and I am loving them.
I realised later, that most flat panels are optimized to look good on the brightly lighted stores, they have high brightness and saturation, and look brilliant. Even at home at first they look better than the old CRTs... until on daily usage I get annoyed with their poor contrast and colour reproduction.
Yes, on the store a red looking extra red looks good... but when you see on the screen a photo of a relative and their shamed pink face became a monstrous mess of bright yellow and red, then you realised it doesn't look so good...
I was a hold out for CRTs for many years; I had an old UNIX workstation CRT. I'd bought it for $25 from a computer garage sale because the company had switched to Windows desktops from the workstations, and these weren't plug-and-play with PC graphics cards. It was big and beautiful for the time, and remained beautiful for a while beyond when LCD monitors started coming along. But, eventually, LCD surpassed that (very nice, originally very expensive) professional CRT. My current 4k LCD display on my laptop is miles away from even the best CRTs. No flicker, no ghosting, and extremely precise color adjustment capability, make even mid-range LCDs a better looking display than the best CRTs of the past.
Factor in weight (that big old workstation monitor weighed something like 75 pounds, and I hurt my back bringing it down the stairs when I finally got rid of it) and LCD is a no-brainer improvement over CRT. I have no desire to go back to CRTs.
My only 4k device is my laptop, which is a Dell with a "TrueLife" display (it's also a touchscreen, which I wasn't looking for, but it came with the lappy mode I wanted, and I've grown to like it in a short time). I've been kinda on the look out for a super good deal on a 4k monitor, but haven't pulled the trigger on that yet...I'm leaning toward a Samsung, but I would guess the higher end Dell monitors are fine...I've always liked my Dell monitors in the past. I used to always buy Viewsonic, but my last Viewsonic monitor was garbage in nearly every regard, so I don't consider them anymore.
I'd second Dell for monitors. You can also get a 4K TV, but do your homework on 4:4:4 chroma, since not having this results in basically JPEG compression on the image, which results in things like red pixels around text making it blurry. Note also that the Vizio 2016 P series claims to do 4:4:4 chroma at 60hx at 4K over HDMI, and it connects at that rate, but the actual displayed image is 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 in the low-latency gaming mode. http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-usage/pc-monitor/best has a good list, but in general, if you want DisplayPort, you won't find it on a TV. There are also things like the Wasabi Mango, Seiki, LeTv, modded freesync firmwares, etc. I just wanted something that worked, and for gaming at 120hz@1080p on a 55" IPS screen, I'm not disappointed.
Going the other direction, the Acer Predator XB321HK is a 32" 16:9 (I'm not a fan of the ultra-wide stuff) 4K screen with great picture and GSync if you play games with Green Team's GPUs. It's over a grand and only does 60hz, but it's a big nice 4K panel and it's not a TV.
Lastly, you have things like the Dell P4317Q, which is targeted at stock traders. It's a 43" 4K screen for a relatively-affordable $1350 with a proper DisplayPort input. I nearly got this instead of my Vizio P55-C1 (which is the only IPS screen of all the 2016 Vizio P series), but I liked that the Vizio did 120hz, but I'm disappointed about the lack of real 4:4:4 chroma and the resultant blurry text. Still, if you want a huge desktop monitor, the Dell might be the way to go. The Philips BDM4350UC is about the same as the Dell, and has a lot of discussion here: https://hardforum.com/threads/philips-bdm4350uc-43-inch-4k-i...
As an avid gamer: that's why you keep your distance from the "AAAAAAA GIGAHITZ" currently steaming on the hype train ^^ There are tons of amazing, enthralling games out there so full of substance - Factorio for the latest example I came across
This reminds me of the Pepsi challenge. They blindfold you and have you take a sip of Pepsi then a sip of Coke. The results usually have Pepsi wiping the floor with Coke, despite Coke outselling them everywhere. It turns out the reason for the disparity it that they only test the initial sip. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke which seems better to most people when just sipping rather than drinking a whole can.
I've never understood this. I'm not a huge soda drinker, but I can tell the difference between at least Pepsi, Coke, and Dr. Pepper, by smell alone, no tasting required. One sip and I can tell you Diet or Regular, on top of the brand. I have not observed that I've got an above-average sense of smell or taste. What good does the blindfold do?
Few of us got a free dinner out of an unfortunate friend of ours who claimed, for years, superiority of one product over another and his ability to taste the difference easily.
So one night we decided to put his claims to test: he was summarily sent to basement with a few friends; while the remainder of us prepared the samples in the kitchen.
We (preparers) then left the room while he sampled and wrote down his choices - as double-blind as we can make it.
He was wrong even more than random guessing would've allowed; and the video of his confident, but entirely erroneous reports are still an amusing viewing amongst our group :)
Mind you, he still claims superiority of one product and his ability to tell. But time again, these claims don't bear testing...
>but I can tell the difference between at least Pepsi, Coke, and Dr. Pepper, by smell alone, no tasting required. One sip and I can tell you Diet or Regular, on top of the brand
Well, the point of the article is that there are many people who claim that they can do such things, but when they're put to the test...can't.
Have you actually tested yourself, or do you just assume you can do it?
In short: Richard Clarke, an audio guru, put his own money up to reward people who could tell the difference in sound quality, consistently, between two level-matched amplifiers of varying price. No one has passed. Audiophiles have been complaining about it for years.
This reminds me of the Line6 Helix Challenge[1], where you have to decided between the Real amp vs Simulated amp.
Sure they made it to promote their product and I guess there is no money involved. But in the end they show your scores and the % of all tests. If you take out the "don't know" it is near 50/50.
Yeah, but I'd certainly know which brand I was drinking after a sip, and likely before, hence the confusion. That doesn't seem "blind", aside from in the most literal sense. How can there be a big reveal of "you chose Pepsi!" and the surprised reaction when they'd (I thought—this thread is making me reconsider) have to be entirely unfamiliar with mainstream sodas or have suffered some kind of nerve/brain damage not to be able to tell which they were drinking from taste and smell alone. I don't find the differences between the two to be subtle, but maybe it's just me after all.
There are two important things here. One is that until you do a blind test, I wouldn't bet on your abilities. People think they can tell things and effects apart if they have a lot of experience. But it takes a proper experiment and they find out they just relied on their biases.
The second thing is that "proper experiment" I mentioned. It's one thing to tell someone they're getting Coke and Pepsi. It's another to tell them they get two new products (but actually Coke and Pepsi). Yet another to tell them they're getting Coke and Pepsi and give them generic-cola-1 and -2. All of those may tell you something interesting.
Check the paper "Blind Taste Test of Soft-drinks – A Comparison Study on Coke and Pepsi" - people actually can't identify the brand properly.
Interesting that respondents seem to be using "sweetness" as a stand-in for "how much I like it". I'd class Coke as a fair bit drier than Pepsi—still quite sweet, but noticeably less so than Pepsi. The "open" version of responses, though, rate Coke as much sweeter.
I don't get measuring the "caffeine" perception, but maybe I'm just unusual in not knowing what caffeine _per se_ tastes like? Possibly something's being lost in translation (so to speak) here.
I wonder what percentage identified _both_ drinks correctly. Perhaps it turns out that ~half+ of all people are really bad at differentiating flavors in colas.
Interesting that "can't identify" went up with Coca Cola. I definitely find both its nose and flavor to be milder than Pepsi, so I guess that makes sense.
(for the record, I go for Coke over Pepsi, which you'd have to pay me to drink, though even Coke wears out its welcome with me after a half-dozen ounces or so)
> I wonder what percentage identified _both_ drinks correctly. Perhaps it turns out that ~half+ of all people are really bad at differentiating flavors in colas.
If you serve it cold enough most people can't tell the difference between coke and 7up.
I used to drink a ton of Coke and I guarantee I could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. These days I rarely drink soda, and while I think I could tell the difference, I could probably be fooled.
You might then be surprised to learn that many people cannot tell the difference, even from taste, between coke and pepsi.
Dr. Pepper I think has a more distinctive taste but my point is that your experience may not line up with what most people expect and you may in fact have an above average sense of smell and/or taste.
That would certainly surprise me. Coke tastes sour to me and Pepsi sweet. I can't imagine confusing them. (If you couldn't tell, I hate the taste of Coke.)
First, have you actually tried it blindfolded? If you know what you're smelling the test is completely invalid.
Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
Not literally blindfolded, but with cups of soda with no information about which was which. Not something I've practiced, but I've tried it out a couple times after I noticed by chance I could do it. Definitely works, not even difficult. And I say "what?" to the question "do you smell that?" often enough that I doubt I've got any general special ability in that department.
> Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
So possibly I'm a soda-only super-smeller/taster. Ha, there's a handy skill. :-(
Out of curiosity, have you actually tested your ability to tell the difference? You know, someone other than you puts, say, 10 samples in identical cups, randomly makes 2 coke, 3 pepsi, 1 Dr Pepper, and 4 from another brand unfamiliar to you, and you're able to identify each by smell each time?
That could get tough if the unfamiliar ones were carefully-chosen to smell similar to the three main ones, for instance. I picked out those three because they're so easy to tell from one another (which is why the Pepsi Challenge things strikes me as silly) and because "blind" Pepsi/Coke taste-tests were the topic. I'd guess something like RC thrown in the mix could make me confuse it for Pepsi, and some of the closer Dr. Pepper clones might get me, especially on a smell-only trial. Coke'd be tricky since its got the mildest odor of those three and I'd have mainly picked it out by process of elimination. With the other brands thrown in I could well miss a few.
[EDIT] if it helps, it seems to me that having a "Pepsi Challenge" is like having an "Orange Challenge" where the other contender is a lime. It's not exactly gonna be hard to tell which one you're dealing with, even if the sample's the same size and you're blindfolded. Throw in a half-dozen other citrus fruits and yeah, I could see getting a couple of them wrong but just those two? No. Judging from the reaction here, though, I'm starting to wonder if I need to re-evaluate my sense of smell/taste. Maybe it's not only farther from normal than I thought, but in the opposite direction.
> if it helps, it seems to me that having a "Pepsi Challenge" is like having an "Orange Challenge" where the other contender is a lime.
One thing you might not be realizing is that many people have absolutely shot their palates with modern flavorings, sugar bombing, etc. (though these days, smoking at least is less of a thing). I too don't have trouble telling the difference between Coke and Pepsi (and have done it blind), but if you took away visual cues, I think you'd be surprised how many people would bilge even the orange/lime test.
Once when I was in college, I could get Pepsi from the nearby vending machine but no coke. I figured, "pepsi and coke are basically the same, this will be fine!" and proceeded to pour some bourbon into my pepsi.
It turns out that they are not the same, and there's a reason lots of people order whiskey and coke and nobody orders whiskey and pepsi.
I've tested coke/pepsi/RC by random identical cups and I was able to tell, but it was more difficult than I expected it to be. I believe some of that is the way your brain works to where, if you believe you know what you are about to eat/drink, it primes you with your memory of the flavors. Going in blind makes it more difficult to do so.
To me at least, Coke has more citrus notes and is a bit more sour. RC, at least in the US is slightly more bitter and also seems to have a slightly sweet aftertaste, but not that different from Coke. Pepsi is more sweeter as well, and doesn't have the citrus hit.
The more interesting difference is Sugar cane Coke, like they have in Australia, and Corn Syrup. They are both equally sweet, IMO, but the corn syrup has a different aftertaste and texture. Still mostly identical.
The Pepsi Challenge doesn't really work in Australia, because Pepsi here tastes like the HFCS Pepsi in the US (yergh), whereas Coke here is made with sugar and is much nicer.
I never really understood the point of the Pepsi Challenge until I went to the US and had HFCS Coke, which tastes much more like Pepsi. The same is true of Coke Zero, which the ads here loudly proclaim "tastes just like regular Coke". Yeah, regular HFCS Coke, not sugar Coke. Yuck.
Interestingly enough, when I used to drink Coke Classic, and tried a Mexican Coke which uses real sugar I did not like the taste compared to HFCS coke. Now I prefer Coke Zero, which tastes very similar, but when I would go back to Coke Classic I would find it too sweet.
I think a lot of it is just which taste you're accustomed to.
The Matrix kind of did this, with the switch in color saturation & tint between "inside" the matrix and "outside." Inside was desaturated and tinted green; outside was desaturated and tinted blue. At the time it was considered a nuanced way of exaggerating the difference between the two.
The Wizard of Oz used this in the sense that they saved the change (from black and white to color) for a later point I the movie (about 7 minutes in, iirc). Rather than the movie starting in color the transition was used to ad splendor to the world of oz.
No Pepsi just tastes better. The whole people prefer coke when drinking a whole can comes from Blink where a Pepsi scientist throws out three or four different reasons why kiosk testing might not reflected by consumer purchasing. It ends with both the scientist and gladwell saying "brands are powerful".
Coke has a slight vanilla flavor that Pepsi doesn't have. I generally prefer Pepsi to Coke, but sometimes I have a taste for Coke because of that slight vanilla flavor.
On the other hand, I tend not to drink pop for long periods on end. My first pop in a long while always tastes incredibly syrupy, to the point where it's borderline unpalatable. If I have more than a couple of pops in a short period it starts tasting like what I 'remember' it tasting like.
Right, Pepsi is kids' soda. It's a candy pop. There's no point in sipping it chilled, because there's no complex flavor to appreciate. Coke on the other hand, goes well with alcohol, and also has a very nice mix of spices like nutmeg, vanilla, and bitters, with greater carbonation, for a very nice slow sippable drink when chilled at the right temp. Coke is a mans' drink. Pepsi is for slobs who drink soda, period. For someone who rarely drinks soda, a coke is acceptable whereas a pepsi is just gross.
I'm exactly the opposite. I'll sip Pepsi chilled, but when I drink Coke, I'll chug it to satisfy a thirst, never stop to sip it - if I do, I generally don't enjoy the taste, while with Pepsi I enjoy the nuances of the flavour.
I don't get why you say it has greater carbonation. The carbonation in Coke gives a harsher feel, which I tend to dislike other than when its hot and I'm very thirsty. Pepsi gets frothier, and is more mellow, but in overall levels of carbonation I don't think there's much difference.
The only other cola than Pepsi I'll sip is RC, which has a strong caramel undertone.
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen someone analyse Coke to such a degree, and it's pretty fascinating. I've drunk probably gallons of the stuff in my life and I couldn't tell you what it tastes of other than Coke.
A nice coke from a glass bottle is really enjoyable. But I rarely indulge. Soda is just a way to tax ones pancreas far too hard. I guess my lack of drinking it often makes me admire it more.
I only drink glass-bottle Coke sans corn syrup, and I only get to do that when visiting the Philippines (I don't go to Mexico very often—have only been there once). There, they use cane sugar to sweeten it instead of high fructose corn syrup. It tastes different, and to me, better. It seems more refreshing, especially when chilled and drinking it in a tropical setting.
I have the mexican cokes but strangely enough I actually prefer the glass bottled regular coke. The mexican coke taste very sticky. I am crazy arent I?
Whoops.. thank you for pointing that out. I have in fact read Blink, so that is probably where I picked up this dubious factoid. I need to read it again to refresh my memory so I don't find myself unknowingly quoting it.
It's one of those things I tracked down after seeing one to many people say it as if it was a settled fact (never mind of course that there isn't really reason to assume people wouldn't prefer an entire can of the sweeter cola)
To me, Diet Coke tastes "crisp", while Diet Pepsi tastes "slimey". I can tell the difference in a heartbeat and I dislike Diet Pepsi (while I drink a lot of Diet Coke).
...and then it's still better when drinking the whole can.
Coke is bitter in the wrong ways. I can't describe it any better than that, I love IPAs so it's not like I'm against bitter drinks but give me a Pepsi any day.
I mean I truly don't care that much in the end, I'm definitely not one of those silly who will refuse one or the other, but it's not just about the initial sip being better.
I prefer them in different instances. I can enjoy Pepsi at any point - the sweetness lets me sip it and enjoy it whether or not I'm particularly thirsty or feel a particular desire for something sweet. While with coke I tend to need to be thirsty or really have an urge for something sweet to enjoy it, but in that situation I tend to prefer it. I'll chug Coke but sip Pepsi. It's very possible that's down to brand presentation - e.g. the Coke association to the "bottle opening sound" is very real - their marketing is so extremely ingrained in modern culture.
"Sweeter" is also a subjective term. They might have the same amount of sugar, but Pepsi definitely tastes sweeter than Coke when just opened.
To me, for lack of a better word, Coke has "harsher" bubbles that somehow drown out the sweetness. Which is why a can of Coke that's been open for an hour is way too sweet to me.
The bite from the carbonation is the flavor of carbonic acid, which is unstable and will resolve back to H2O and CO2 when not under pressure. A heavier carbonation ends up having a higher concentration of carbonic acid when you first open it up, but as the bubbles burst the concentration goes down.
While it differs for different cultivars, I don't think "a lot more" is true in general. For the best tasting commercial varieties, I think they are roughly comparable.
Hayward Kiwi (the most common commercial variety in the US) are harvested fairly hard at about 6 Brix (approximately percent dissolved solids assuming those solids are sucrose) and ripen up to about 12-14 Brix.[1]
Strawberries are usually 8-10 Brix, but a peak of the season fully ripe (and delicious) modern variety like Seascape or Tristar might be 12-14 Brix[2], the same as a fully ripe kiwifruit.
I suppose it depends strongly on the particular cultivar. I know I was surprised by the difference when I looked it up a couple of years ago. I was doing a keto diet at the time, so you read a lot of nutrient tables.
According to these claims, Pepsi was served chilled, while Coca-Cola was served at room temperature, thus making the Pepsi more appealing.
So that anecdote is bullshit. Everyone with refined tastebuds knows that Pepsi taste like sweetened dishwasher liquid and Coke is much more spiced and refined with notes of bitter vanilla, nutmeg, and pepper. Pepsi is what people who eat Doritos and Mountain Dew prefer, ie. they don't care what they consume.
If you are already eating junk, soda is not appreciated, it's consumed rapidly. All soda is going to be similar in that vain. The point of coke is that you can put a glass on ice, and drink it very slowly for the flavor. Drinking soda in any other capacity doesn't make much sense, and is poor decision healthwise.
Once those differences have been normalised we stop feeling the same way about them, and become attracted to other things just because they are novel. This is why it's often better to call a mix 'done' before you start believing it's completely wrong and tearing it apart again, only to prefer the old version.
Interesting. I find the same thing with music itself. I often hate the albums I end up liking the most the first few times I listen to them. Possibly it's because those artists I make the effort to listen to when I don't like their new albums at first are evolving their sound rather than trying to rehash old successes.
Anyway, my first impression of new music often doesn't match what my later opinion will be after listening more.
This is the same for me. I've also learned how to recognize an album that I WILL like after more listening, which feels really weird, but it works.
Also, very catchy albums that immediately grab me rarely prove to have long-term listenability for me. An example would be the Postal Service album, I remember thinking that was really catchy and great, but after a few listens I hated it.
I can relate to food (supplement) products. That taste panel only test the product once, while the user eats it every day for years. So the test panel will prefer sweet tasty while the user would want a more natural taste.
> The same goes for the famous 'Does Fuck All' button on recording mixing desks, which you can use to tell players that you've made the change that they wanted to satisfy them.
This is classic. From [0]:
> When Florence’s mayor, Piero Sorderini told Michelangelo that the nose on his sculpture that he had been commissioned to do of a young David with sling in hand was too big, he did not argue that the nose was just right, Michelangelo merely took the mayor onto the scaffolding and gave the appearance of changing the nose. Sorderini was pleased and no one was offended.
>They will prefer – and actually perform better with...
That's an important distinction. There is something to valuing a tool that makes you use it better. My first version of Visual Studio I paid for out of pocket and I made sure to get my money's worth. My bicycles, probably don't actually make me that much faster, but when I enjoy riding them and like them, I am faster.
I spent double my budget on my last road bike when I decided to go all-carbon, and my rationale was I'd be more likely to ride it if I spent way too much money on it. That was CERTAINLY the case, at least for the first few years.
Depends on what you like. I ride a Cannondale Supersix for sport and love it. I used to race and still enjoy training hard, so my priorities are lightness, rigidity, and handling. A carbon frame beats steel in all of those.
I think the reputation for harshness is undeserved. I rode an aluminum frame (the gold standard of harsh and rigid) for a long time and IMO the difference between frame materials is way smaller than say 23 vs 25mm tires.
That said, I also have a 70s era steel frame as my commuter. It's a fun, springy ride that is respectably quick, and I enjoy riding it to work. I would not want to do thousands of feet of climbing on it though.
Heh, all the arguments over frame materials, and what do people actually feel when riding? Their tires, and whether or not the cables slap and vibrate depending on how they are routed.
The supersix is what software should try to be. Better than it's competitors when released, and it's been refined year over year, ignoring fads, to become a phenomenal machine.
Also, frame geometry and tubing size plays a larger factor in how the frame bends moreso than just the materials. Granted, to a certain extent, frame materials will dictate the geometry (e.g. skinny aluminum tubes would be a horrible idea).
Harsh? You're kidding. I love my bike (2008 Trek Madone 5.7, I think? The one with the integrated bottom bracket, the 'lowest' model with that but is made in the US).
The first time I rode carbon, I knew it had to be all carbon. It's so smooth, like butter. Not even a contest vs aluminum. I haven't ridden steel in ages, but based on weight alone, yeah, carbon.
You don't really need one (despite the obvious danger if taking this in the literal sense). There are tests that can determine pretty much every metric a bike is trying to nail. It becomes more of a "what's the best choice for X purpose" than trying to pick the best overall.
There's an important qualifier here, which is that the tools in question have to be nearly as good as each other, for their user's arbitrary decision making to become more important than the actual differences themselves.
I.e. as long as the bikes have two wheels etc, you will choose the one that makes you feel good.
> each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.
Very curious of about this one weird trick that you did. What did you do for it to sound right to her? Are you sure you weren't just tuning parameters in a way that allowed her to best identify resonance in a venue?
The main variables were volume (onstage and in the venue, separately), delay and reverb. We would start with a dry (no effects) sound and get the volume right first. This would already be kinda stressful for her as a dry sound is raw and unkind! We would then bring up the effects to a normal level which would sound way too extreme in soundcheck, as there is no crowd to absorb the sound - so again it wouldn't sound good to her. Then we would bring the effects down in order for it to sound right for an empty room, which felt more comfortable to her. Then for the performance the volume and effects levels would be higher to account for the crowd absorbing the sound.
So for soundcheck it was important for it to sound right for an empty room, whereas we were also somewhat covertly tuning parameters in anticipation of the crowd's effect on the acoustics.
So the key point is that we were building two sounds; one to fit her psychoacoustic perception in an empty room to make for a comfortable soundcheck, and another for the actual acoustic scenario of the performance. The latter was offputting for the performer despite being 'correct'.
Very interesting! Thank you for the detailed reply. I have always wondered about the detail that went into soundcheck. Sound often seems too loud in a bar venue. I don't know if that's where you are more likely to have an amateur sound tech or it is just difficult to get a loud enough sound in a small space. Or maybe I'm just a little baby when it comes to sound.
To get a good sound, or particularly a good loudness, in a small place is a lot to do with the proportionality of the speaker power output relative to the room size. You can have huge speakers sound awful in a small room and vice versa.
Levelling the playing field in 'amateur sound tech' (mostly good craftspeople who are just doing what they can with limited time/resources) is an active area of research in acoustics and DSP. I recommend Dr Josh Reiss of QMUL (where I'm based) for more on this. Check out his work on automatic audio engineering. Machine learning is very appropriate to this area of work:
>I just recently tour managed a friend and would set up her mic sound every night, and each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.
Could she have been responding to the acoustics in the new room?
During soundcheck there is no crowd around, so the acoustics sound super boomy which is not good for the vocalist. So one trick is to almost have a soundcheck sound that accounts for that, and then switch it up later once the venue packs out.
> We had one prototype that us engineers hated to death because the only difference between it and the rest was that it was a different colour, but ALL the players hailed it as the golden standard.
The products were black, this one was grey to trial alternative materials processes. So it was even more infamous for being a one-off, and we tried to hide it as much as possible as it confounded our usability test variables. No one could adequately explain why it was rated the best, so we dubbed it The Phantom.
Ultimately these tests only reveal the biases of the players. They will prefer – and actually perform better with – that which they believe to be configured in a certain way, regardless of whether it is in reality or not. We had one prototype that us engineers hated to death because the only difference between it and the rest was that it was a different colour, but ALL the players hailed it as the golden standard.
The same goes for the famous 'Does Fuck All' button on recording mixing desks, which you can use to tell players that you've made the change that they wanted to satisfy them. And also when you're buying speakers it's very common to be shown the same set of speakers three times and have three opinions.
I just recently tour managed a friend and would set up her mic sound every night, and each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.