Recording Lingo: What the heck do people mean?

[JGriffin]

So if I go to your site and define "wooly" as having a high-pitched, bleating sound similar to the sound of a sheep, does that help? What if that's what I mean when I use the term, even if nobody else in the world uses it that way? Does that mean it gets imposed on the whole world of recording professionals, and Tchad Blake must mean "a bleating sound" if he uses the term "wooly"?

Just taking it to an absurd extreme--words like warm, bright, wooly are attempts to communicate something about how we perceive a sound, but it may take a few minutes of discussion to figure out WTF we're talking about if we use the words in different ways.

The word "decibel" has a solid meaning you can demonstrate in concrete terms. "Wooly" doesn't, and putting some kind of definition on your website may make you feel like you've nailed it down, but I don't think it makes the language any more accurate, because plenty of people are using the term without being aware of your definition of it. And they may disagree with your definition. And your definition may turn out to be wrong in many, many uses. Unlike "decibel".

See what I mean? Like Professer pointed out, maybe the place to start is with words that have a meaning that can be quantified in measurable terms. The AES, which has been around a few years, may be ahead of you in this task.

I completely agree. I don't think that one standard definition of "wooly" as it relates to audio can or ever will be nailed down, and I think the effort to do so is quixotic. Just the last page of this thread proves that: four different guys, four completely different ideas of what "wooly" means--and as I predicted, some of it stems from our past experience with the use of the term, and some of it stems from how we feel about wool. And the definition was nonsensical--why would a bass amp have harsh and grainy high end if it were covered with a sweater? Covering an amp with a sweater would result in an audible attenuation of the high and high-mid frequencies. And we would have to cross-reference what "harsh" and "grainy" mean as well.

[cdbabel]

So if I go to your site and define "wooly" as having a high-pitched, bleating sound similar to the sound of a sheep, does that help? What if that's what I mean when I use the term, even if nobody else in the world uses it that way? Does that mean it gets imposed on the whole world of recording professionals, and Tchad Blake must mean "a bleating sound" if he uses the term "wooly"?

Just taking it to an absurd extreme--words like warm, bright, wooly are attempts to communicate something about how we perceive a sound, but it may take a few minutes of discussion to figure out WTF we're talking about if we use the words in different ways.

The word "decibel" has a solid meaning you can demonstrate in concrete terms. "Wooly" doesn't, and putting some kind of definition on your website may make you feel like you've nailed it down, but I don't think it makes the language any more accurate, because plenty of people are using the term without being aware of your definition of it. And they may disagree with your definition. And your definition may turn out to be wrong in many, many uses. Unlike "decibel".

See what I mean? Like Professer pointed out, maybe the place to start is with words that have a meaning that can be quantified in measurable terms. The AES, which has been around a few years, may be ahead of you in this task.

It is true the definitions won't fit for all of the words uses. Many words have more than one definition and all of these definitions tend to get listed in a dictionary.

There are some special measures that can be taken to clarify the meaning of audio related words that WikiRecording allows for, such as adding audio examples of the word.

What I've learned in the last couple of hours is that its very fruitful to try to define these words. It really makes people think about how they are talking about audio and how to communicate what they really mean.

Its important not to take a sophistical approach to this by saying "We never really know what a word means or how someone is going to use a word, so the developing a nomenclature is useless." The point is not that we will capture how these words are already used, but rather give people new, more standardized meanings for these words. And it won't be an overnight change by any means, but its gotta start somewhere.

[Professor]

I think what would really help is to start by explaining why these descriptions are even used, and why it's important for an engineer to be both familiar with common ones and open-minded towards new or incorrect uses.
E Jeff, if you've ever worked in ProAudio retail, you'll know that we get all sorts of weird descriptions and misuses. For example, someone shows up at the store telling me they need a "phone plug", and I know that could mean a 1/4"-TS, a 1/4"-TRS, a 1/4"-long-frame, an RJ-11 telephone plug, or they might be confused and are really looking for a "phono" plug. Next guy comes in and asks for "banana" plugs for his speakers, so I reach for a little plastic dual banana, and he may shake it off and say, 'no a banana plug like you use on a guitar'. To him, the "banana" plug is a description of the visual look of that 1/4" 'phone' plug.
A good pro salesman needs to know that people use the wrong terms all the time, even for objective stuff like connector names.
"I need one of those little 3-pin mic cords" - OK, I know those.
"I need an XLR cable" - OK, that was easy.
"I need a Cannon connector" - Good thing I know that ITT/Cannon invented the XLR, and I reach for our Neutrik selections.
My personal favorite was when I got a phone call from this desparate guy who says, "I just bought this new amplifier and it's got the weirdest connections on the back that I've never seen in my life." My response? "Yep, those are Speak-Ons, and I've got 'em in stock."

It is the role of the sales guy to be a translator - yes, but it also the role of the engineer to be a translator.

Your running live sound, and someone says they hear some feedback on stage, but you hear nothing in the house. They keep complaining, so you take down the master level to all the stage monitors and ask them if it's gone. "Nope, it's really clear now," they shout back. So you grab your isolation transformer kit and head for the stage to discover the powered monitors are humming away from a ground plane difference, and so you pop in a little Sescom transformer and make it all better.
It wasn't "feedback", but we have to understand that most people don't understand our technical jargon, even the most well-defined elements.
They know the word "feedback" but don't know what it means other than "bad sound stuff". So they use it to describe "hums", "buzzes", "general noise", "distortion", and on rare occasions actual "feedback".
So our Wiki-Recording patrons might well benefit from learning the 'accepted' meanings of all those terms, but they must be taught to not get obsessive about them. The engineer needs to translate and be prepared for misuse of the terms by others. And they need to start with the objective stuff before moving to the subjective stuff.

Once an engineer realizes that even the technical language is often misunderstood, it may actually become easier to be a good translator in the studio. Imagine an engineer sitting there and his artist asks for a "more wooly" sound from the rhythm guitar. It's not for you or I to decide how the engineer should translate that, it is for him/her to decide which knob or mic or outboard box will give him this artist's idea of "more wooly".
We always make the joke of the producer or artist asking for a track to sound "more red", but the fact is that it happens. You could try to offer up a whole batch of possible definitions for the aspiring engineer to memorize like flash cards and cycle through as possibilities when confronted with the request, or you can encourage the engineer to not sweat it, be broad minded, and try to envision what that person thinks is "more red". Then the engineer reaches up, turns a knob and says, "how's that". There are all kinds of possible replies s/he'll get, but the most likely is "yeah that's it", "yeah, but a little more", or "no, that's not it, try another". The engineer learns to translate the language of that particular client, and the two form a stonger bond because of it.

So yeah, I'd say start with the stuff that is definable like "feedback" or "cannon connector" but even there explain that these are often misused to describe _________. That's a much more important first step than tryinng to define the undefinable.

-Jeremy

[cdbabel]

I think what would really help is to start by explaining why these descriptions are even used, and why it's important for an engineer to be both familiar with common ones and open-minded towards new or incorrect uses.
E Jeff, if you've ever worked in ProAudio retail, you'll know that we get all sorts of weird descriptions and misuses. For example, someone shows up at the store telling me they need a "phone plug", and I know that could mean a 1/4"-TS, a 1/4"-TRS, a 1/4"-long-frame, an RJ-11 telephone plug, or they might be confused and are really looking for a "phono" plug. Next guy comes in and asks for "banana" plugs for his speakers, so I reach for a little plastic dual banana, and he may shake it off and say, 'no a banana plug like you use on a guitar'. To him, the "banana" plug is a description of the visual look of that 1/4" 'phone' plug.
A good pro salesman needs to know that people use the wrong terms all the time, even for objective stuff like connector names.
"I need one of those little 3-pin mic cords" - OK, I know those.
"I need an XLR cable" - OK, that was easy.
"I need a Cannon connector" - Good thing I know that ITT/Cannon invented the XLR, and I reach for our Neutrik selections.
My personal favorite was when I got a phone call from this desparate guy who says, "I just bought this new amplifier and it's got the weirdest connections on the back that I've never seen in my life." My response? "Yep, those are Speak-Ons, and I've got 'em in stock."

It is the role of the sales guy to be a translator - yes, but it also the role of the engineer to be a translator.

Your running live sound, and someone says they hear some feedback on stage, but you hear nothing in the house. They keep complaining, so you take down the master level to all the stage monitors and ask them if it's gone. "Nope, it's really clear now," they shout back. So you grab your isolation transformer kit and head for the stage to discover the powered monitors are humming away from a ground plane difference, and so you pop in a little Sescom transformer and make it all better.
It wasn't "feedback", but we have to understand that most people don't understand our technical jargon, even the most well-defined elements.
They know the word "feedback" but don't know what it means other than "bad sound stuff". So they use it to describe "hums", "buzzes", "general noise", "distortion", and on rare occasions actual "feedback".

So our Wiki-Recording patrons might well benefit from learning the 'accepted' meanings of all those terms, but they must be taught to not get obsessive about them. The engineer needs to translate and be prepared for misuse of the terms by others. And they need to start with the objective stuff before moving to the subjective stuff.

Once an engineer realizes that even the technical language is often misunderstood, it may actually become easier to be a good translator in the studio. Imagine an engineer sitting there and his artist asks for a "more wooly" sound from the rhythm guitar. It's not for you or I to decide how the engineer should translate that, it is for him/her to decide which knob or mic or outboard box will give him this artist's idea of "more wooly".

We always make the joke of the producer or artist asking for a track to sound "more red", but the fact is that it happens. You could try to offer up a whole batch of possible definitions for the aspiring engineer to memorize like flash cards and cycle through as possibilities when confronted with the request, or you can encourage the engineer to not sweat it, be broad minded, and try to envision what that person thinks is "more red". Then the engineer reaches up, turns a knob and says, "how's that". There are all kinds of possible replies s/he'll get, but the most likely is "yeah that's it", "yeah, but a little more", or "no, that's not it, try another". The engineer learns to translate the language of that particular client, and the two form a stonger bond because of it.

So yeah, I'd say start with the stuff that is definable like "feedback" or "cannon connector" but even there explain that these are often misused to describe _________. That's a much more important first step than tryinng to define the undefinable.

-Jeremy

I do agree that it is the engineers job to translate what the artists says into what the artist wants. The nomenclature is intended for practitioners of a particular field, namely audio engineers (both amateur and professional.) Beyond that, I'm sure artists will always say whatever they feel like saying, and since they're paying us, I have absolutely no problem with that

And those truly technical terms that do have real and immutable meanings are the focus of WikiRecording in general. The problem of these more abstract terms was introduced when people started to write How To guides.

Often the question comes up "How does the sound change when I do this rather than that?" and words like Bright or Warm or Wooly become very useful way of answering that sort of complex question without a long explanation every time that idea comes up.

In short, we define the un-definable in order to help teach people what methods to try when an artist asks them for more "red" in a mix. It might even help engineers sort out for themselves what the qualities are in a sound that we do have control over and in what ways we have control over them.

Knowing what a 1/4" plug is useful technical information, but its just as important to mess around with microphone placement then it is to learn about what sort connection the microphone uses. Too often, people have learned the technical without messing around with the creative.

Admittedly, this sort of nomenclature will be pretty darn useless for seasoned professionals. But for newbies and DIY types, I'm convinced it will be a valuable tool.

Either way, for now I won't shy away from trying to define creative terms. Its a risky experiment, but it should be a hoot to try.

[Professor]

Too often, people have learned the technical without messing around with the creative.

Wow, I've always seen it as exactly the other way around for the DIY recordists. That's exactly why they don't know what cables they need, or how a patchbay 'works' and why we are faced with questions like 'how do I make it sound more professional'.

I understand that the purpose of the whole site is to define the technical stuff, and I commend you for trying to define the subjective. Maybe the simple thing is just to have a separate entry for any descriptive word you see. Don't try to give a one line "definition" of an adjective, but instead give the term it's own page: consider this...

"Warm" (also warmth, warmer, etc.) - When used in audio to describe a sound or the effect of a particular device or process on a sound is generally taken to mean ________________. Though some users will also use the term to describe:
definition 1..........
definition 2..........
Similar terms often taken to be synonymous or at least closely related include full, thick, dense, soft, wooly, etc.
Opposite terms often used as antonyms or to describe opposing characteristics include cold, light, bright, thin, airy, distant, etc.
Be careful not to confuse the term when used to describe the physical state of a piece equipment such as an amplifier which may run "warm" or even "hot" with regards to temperature. Also be aware that the term is not often (though may sometimes be) used to describe the amplitude of an audio signal, as in a signal that is being run "too hot".

See, if you give every term a page like that, complete with the space for additional definitions, but maybe with a lockout around the first two lines, and an ability to submit potential synonyms and antonyms, but not to remove or edit them, then you could have a really nice, comprehensive, and flexible system for defining these kinds of subjective terms.

-Jeremy

[cdbabel]

Too often, people have learned the technical without messing around with the creative.

Wow, I've always seen it as exactly the other way around for the DIY recordists. That's exactly why they don't know what cables they need, or how a patchbay 'works' and why we are faced with questions like 'how do I make it sound more professional'.

I understand that the purpose of the whole site is to define the technical stuff, and I commend you for trying to define the subjective. Maybe the simple thing is just to have a separate entry for any descriptive word you see. Don't try to give a one line "definition" of an adjective, but instead give the term it's own page: consider this...

"Warm" (also warmth, warmer, etc.) - When used in audio to describe a sound or the effect of a particular device or process on a sound is generally taken to mean ________________. Though some users will also use the term to describe:
definition 1..........
definition 2..........
Similar terms often taken to be synonymous or at least closely related include full, thick, dense, soft, wooly, etc.
Opposite terms often used as antonyms or to describe opposing characteristics include cold, light, bright, thin, airy, distant, etc.
Be careful not to confuse the term when used to describe the physical state of a piece equipment such as an amplifier which may run "warm" or even "hot" with regards to temperature. Also be aware that the term is not often (though may sometimes be) used to describe the amplitude of an audio signal, as in a signal that is being run "too hot".

See, if you give every term a page like that, complete with the space for additional definitions, but maybe with a lockout around the first two lines, and an ability to submit potential synonyms and antonyms, but not to remove or edit them, then you could have a really nice, comprehensive, and flexible system for defining these kinds of subjective terms.

-Jeremy

Great suggestion, I'll take the time to change the policy tonight. These discussions are so helpful!

[JGriffin]

Your running live sound, and someone says they hear some feedback on stage, but you hear nothing in the house. They keep complaining, so you take down the master level to all the stage monitors and ask them if it's gone. "Nope, it's really clear now," they shout back. So you grab your isolation transformer kit and head for the stage to discover the powered monitors are humming away from a ground plane difference, and so you pop in a little Sescom transformer and make it all better.
It wasn't "feedback", but we have to understand that most people don't understand our technical jargon, even the most well-defined elements.
They know the word "feedback" but don't know what it means other than "bad sound stuff". So they use it to describe "hums", "buzzes", "general noise", "distortion", and on rare occasions actual "feedback".

Almost the exact same thing happened to me in college, when my professor in a video production class complained of hearing "feedback" when she was in fact hearing mic handling noise from the boom operator. Two important lessons that day...

[standup]

E Jeff wrote:
>>Its important not to take a sophistical approach to this by saying "We never
>>really know what a word means or how someone is going to use a word, so the
>>developing a nomenclature is useless."

Actually, I think that's exactly the problem I'm seeing here. We don't know what people think they mean when they throw out a term like "warm".

On Wikirecording, you've got this: "Warm describes a sound/recording in which the middle frequencies, those above 250 kHz and below 2000 kHz, are most prominent."

I want you to go to your mixer, play back a vocal, and grab the mid knob. Give me a big ass boost at around 1800 Hz (I'm assuming you mean Hz, not kHz) and I mean +12 dB at 1.8 kHz. Listen to it. Does the word "warm" come to mind?" If it does, fine, you can say that if you want. Now play it for a half dozen people, give them a checklist of descriptive terms including "warm" and I'll be real surprised if anybody else checks off the "warm" option.

You've tried to give it some precision, but I don't think you've succeeded in this case--this just shows how imprecise these descriptive terms are. Trying to make them precise kinda robs human communication of its complexity. Perception is complicated, and if "warm" ALWAYS meant a frequency boost at 400 Hz and nothing else, it would fall out of use because it wouldn't be all that useful a term. Not that it's a useful term.

[cdbabel]

E Jeff wrote:
>>Its important not to take a sophistical approach to this by saying "We never
>>really know what a word means or how someone is going to use a word, so the
>>developing a nomenclature is useless."

Actually, I think that's exactly the problem I'm seeing here. We don't know what people think they mean when they throw out a term like "warm".

On Wikirecording, you've got this: "Warm describes a sound/recording in which the middle frequencies, those above 250 kHz and below 2000 kHz, are most prominent."

I want you to go to your mixer, play back a vocal, and grab the mid knob. Give me a big ass boost at around 1800 Hz (I'm assuming you mean Hz, not kHz) and I mean +12 dB at 1.8 kHz. Listen to it. Does the word "warm" come to mind?" If it does, fine, you can say that if you want. Now play it for a half dozen people, give them a checklist of descriptive terms including "warm" and I'll be real surprised if anybody else checks off the "warm" option.

You've tried to give it some precision, but I don't think you've succeeded in this case--this just shows how imprecise these descriptive terms are. Trying to make them precise kinda robs human communication of its complexity. Perception is complicated, and if "warm" ALWAYS meant a frequency boost at 400 Hz and nothing else, it would fall out of use because it wouldn't be all that useful a term. Not that it's a useful term.

I was trying to avoid using the term "boost" because I don't think thats what warm entails. Warm is not a function of the EQ, but rather what we hear. Note that I said that sounds in those ranges are simply more prominent. That doesn't mean a +12dB boost, but rather that the focus of the sound is in the middle range.

Read some of the above replays too. We've talked about the problem of "always" quite a bit and i think we came up with an acceptable solution (a.k.a multiple definitions like in dictionaries).

I think i did make the mistake of using kHz sometimes when Hz was correct. Take a look at on wikirecording and if you see mistakes, fix um! Thats the point!

[standup]

I've read all the replies, that's what makes this an interesting discussion. "Boost" is beside the point. If somebody wants "warm", a frequency cut somewhere between 1000 and 2000 Hz may be the answer. Depends on the source. And, to go back to the wikirecording definition, there are probably sounds that would "warm up" when say 125 Hz is boosted, a full octave below your defined "warm" nomenclature.

"Always" is another useless term, that's kinda what I'm trying to point out.

When nailing stuff down, being able to say "-3 dB at 600 Hz" is a somewhat precise term--though it leaves out the bandwidth of the cut. "Warm" is not a precise term, and is subject to endless debate. Obviously.

[RefD]

*runs Realistic hi-Z mic with 1/4" plug into Big Muff to use it as a preamp*

"hairy", i tell ya!

[Professor]

Ohhh, I haven't had a chance to visit the site - I didn't realize you were trying to aim in the direction of precise frequency numbers there. That seems like it's definitely aiming in the realm of too precise.

I didn't include my actual interpretation of what warm means when I gave that earlier layout because I figured you'd probably already collected a few and I didn't want to muddy the waters with yet another. But I suppose I might as well offer since what I just read above seems way off base to me.
I don't think I've ever seen warm used in a negative way when describing gear, so it's probably safe to write that it is "almost always used as a positive description." And while I'm a big proponent of subtractive EQ, I rarely hear people using "warm" to mean "less HF or upper-mids", it is almost always used to mean "warmer" than something else, and to me it has always implied a boost whether large or small in the lower midrange, and certainly not in the upper mid numbers you had listed. I often think of it as also implying a slight harmonic ringing (distortion) added to each note, though typically very slight, lest it become "wooly". Mostly I think of it as a push in the lower mids.
I'd agree that it is not always purely an EQ thing as it can also be used to describe the sound of compressed signals as the quieter parts of the tracks are brought louder while the loudest parts stay put. Though if a compressor were bringing forward HF content I doubt you'd call it warm. So it really is going to be best described as "increased lows/low-mids" which is a 'spectral effect' though needn't only be caused by an equalizer.

Now, describing it in bands of frequencies rather than actual numbers is probably going to be a safer bet, at least at first. You might consider using numbers later, or on their own page. But to simply divide our 10-octave range of hearing into five or six descriptive names is safer and retains a bit of the subjective nature.
That being the case, here's a possible designation for a 12-ocatve range (one each way past our range of hearing): (this is simply my interpretation - but note the overlaps to keep the "definition" loose).
10Hz - 20Hz, 1-octave, "sub-sonic"
20Hz - 40Hz, 1-octave, "sub-bass"
40Hz - 160Hz, 2-octaves, "bass" or "lows"
100Hz - 300Hz, 1.5-octaves, "low-mids"
250Hz - 1.5kHz, 2.5-octaves, "mids"
1kHz - 8kHz, 3-octaves, "upper-mids"
6kHz - 20kHz, <2-octaves, "highs"
20kHz - 40kHz, 1-octave, "ultra-sonic"

Again, that's only my interpretation, but if you knock off the first and last which are out of our typical range of hearing anyway then you've got 6 phrases covering ten octaves from 20-20k. I didn't include "treble" because part of me wanted to describe it as the range of the treble clef (250-1kHz) and part of me was thinking of the shalving EQ knobs labelled "treble" on various audio products.

So yeah, maybe you might consider placing a "key" like that somewhere on the site, but then use only the descriptive names for the regions where boosts, cuts and other enhancements might be made. I know that seems contrary to your intent with the definitions, but I trust you can see where aiming at specific numbers is a pretty ambitious approach. The numbers also make it seem formulaic, which we would hope is never the case as that would put us out of work. Sometimes "make that sound warmer" can be interpreted as a boost in one range, or a cut in another, or running through a tube preamp.

-Jeremy

[floid]

hmmm...so what's your def. of "music"?
words, man, they are constantly evolving organisms that are, well they have this freaky problem in that they actually make no reference to anything in the real world - look in a dictionary for the "standard usage" definitions of these phrases you've been tossing out, and you'll notice this really interesting phenomenon: all these words get "defined" through the use of other words, which are in turn defined by other words, ad nauseum...the great thing is that in actual communication, even though the words being used may have no fixed referent, speaker and listener can clarify what the mean by arriving at a spot where they each think they have a good idea of the other person's mental imagery...even though this is impossible to prove. even if you can get a whole roomful of people to agree that a particular song sounds "wooly," they may well be identifiying different featuresof the sound, perhaps even different instruments...still, that might be the best thing: in order to define what these words mean, why not provide sound clips of things considered to exhibit this quality?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

and to think that so many amazing sounding records have somehow already been recorded despite a non-standardized nomenclature.

how DID they do it?????

[cdbabel]

Ohhh, I haven't had a chance to visit the site - I didn't realize you were trying to aim in the direction of precise frequency numbers there. That seems like it's definitely aiming in the realm of too precise.

I didn't include my actual interpretation of what warm means when I gave that earlier layout because I figured you'd probably already collected a few and I didn't want to muddy the waters with yet another. But I suppose I might as well offer since what I just read above seems way off base to me.
I don't think I've ever seen warm used in a negative way when describing gear, so it's probably safe to write that it is "almost always used as a positive description." And while I'm a big proponent of subtractive EQ, I rarely hear people using "warm" to mean "less HF or upper-mids", it is almost always used to mean "warmer" than something else, and to me it has always implied a boost whether large or small in the lower midrange, and certainly not in the upper mid numbers you had listed. I often think of it as also implying a slight harmonic ringing (distortion) added to each note, though typically very slight, lest it become "wooly". Mostly I think of it as a push in the lower mids.
I'd agree that it is not always purely an EQ thing as it can also be used to describe the sound of compressed signals as the quieter parts of the tracks are brought louder while the loudest parts stay put. Though if a compressor were bringing forward HF content I doubt you'd call it warm. So it really is going to be best described as "increased lows/low-mids" which is a 'spectral effect' though needn't only be caused by an equalizer.

Now, describing it in bands of frequencies rather than actual numbers is probably going to be a safer bet, at least at first. You might consider using numbers later, or on their own page. But to simply divide our 10-octave range of hearing into five or six descriptive names is safer and retains a bit of the subjective nature.
That being the case, here's a possible designation for a 12-ocatve range (one each way past our range of hearing): (this is simply my interpretation - but note the overlaps to keep the "definition" loose).
10Hz - 20Hz, 1-octave, "sub-sonic"
20Hz - 40Hz, 1-octave, "sub-bass"
40Hz - 160Hz, 2-octaves, "bass" or "lows"
100Hz - 300Hz, 1.5-octaves, "low-mids"
250Hz - 1.5kHz, 2.5-octaves, "mids"
1kHz - 8kHz, 3-octaves, "upper-mids"
6kHz - 20kHz, <2-octaves, "highs"
20kHz - 40kHz, 1-octave, "ultra-sonic"

Again, that's only my interpretation, but if you knock off the first and last which are out of our typical range of hearing anyway then you've got 6 phrases covering ten octaves from 20-20k. I didn't include "treble" because part of me wanted to describe it as the range of the treble clef (250-1kHz) and part of me was thinking of the shalving EQ knobs labelled "treble" on various audio products.

So yeah, maybe you might consider placing a "key" like that somewhere on the site, but then use only the descriptive names for the regions where boosts, cuts and other enhancements might be made. I know that seems contrary to your intent with the definitions, but I trust you can see where aiming at specific numbers is a pretty ambitious approach. The numbers also make it seem formulaic, which we would hope is never the case as that would put us out of work. Sometimes "make that sound warmer" can be interpreted as a boost in one range, or a cut in another, or running through a tube preamp.

-Jeremy

That is really useful. Thanks!