rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (05/31/85)
[] They say fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I guess that means I must rush in here with a few words of encouragement. If I have been following this ...communication...correctly, and if I try to strip away some of the wrapping material, I think that - as might be expected - it is quite possible to agree with both sides. I also think it might help to review one aspect of an "art." It has always seemed to me that are at least two aspects to an art. One is the often cited business that what one does depends on taste, self expression, geist, or some such ineluctable justification. On the other hand, I have often thought of art as being "incapable of being reduced to a science," or. at least, not yet so reduced. ... What does that mean? Well, to me it means that there are so many unquantified variables involved that it is not practical to reduce their management to reasonable proportions for the purposes of teaching it to someone. ...You have to do it ...by ear, so to speak, like seat-of-the-pants navigation of a plane or boat. It <can> be marvelously accurate. It can also lead to your landing upside down in the drink. So what...its an art, and you expect those kinds of outcomes. From a science you expect complete predictability, every time. From this point of view, certainly all audio is an art. There are almost always so many variable involved in any situation that it beggars the mind. It is rare indeed that one can determine that Cause A produced Observation B and not 0.96CauseA + .001CauseB + .003 Cause C + ... . Examples: The recording process itself, which karn assumes is a science, offers many possibilities for diddling. What kind of filtering is used A/D and D/A? Are phase correction filters used or not? Either way does it affect the sound? And that's in the digital domain, where it is possible that the process does in fact approach a science. In analog, things are much more fluid. The mastering process is a real art. Just <why> it's an art is hard to say. Some do it superbly, some to it poorly and others are so-so. opinions vary as to who is in which category ...an art, right? Of course, if we come right down to it, most "science" is an art, too. And for the same reasons. There can be a zillion influences on any ...process. Some scientists are better than others in running experiments so that it really is 0.99999 Cause A producing effect A. Some are complete butterfingers and have to stick to....gedanken(?) experiments (conceptual only). Now, only in CS do we at last have complete control of all variables, complete rigor and complete assurance that software A is producing effect A and will always and everywhere do so. Uh-Huh, Now let me sell you this neat bridge... -- "It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg