Muddy, whooly, splattery, hum?

[crawler486]

Guys can someone post this "sound" terms with description
or comparison to other sounds that can be universally understood by
other people from other countries like me. Does this makes sense?

To whoever wants to add sound term and description, please
reply to this post.



...I hope I wont sound stupid by posting this.

[smoguzbenjamin]

It's a perfectly normal question if you ask me

here goes:
Muddy - a bassy mess that makes it hard to distinguish notes
Wooly - Think of Zvex's "Wooly Mammoth" distortion pedal. It sounds smooth with more bass than treble.
Splattery - Like a gating transistor
Hum - just go hummmmmmmmmmmm like you see buddhist monks do in films and you'll get the idea

Any other sounds that might need describing? This might be good for beginners, by the way If we get a good list going we can ask Peter to stick this in the archives

[petemoore]

Muddy and Wooly: could be good or bad...opinion.
 Mud...ill defined, fat bass content [sometimes I like to play in the mud].
 Wooly...Alot like 'Muddy' [lack of definition in the bass], but more intermodulation tones. 'Too much' wool is undesirable.
 Splattery...sometimes a complimentary term, [good] when used to describe that tonal element of  Octave effects, imagine your note is a water baloon smashing into a wall...Schpplaattt...can be very cool, however in a generic Fuzz sound it would probably be very undesirable...[also used sometimes to describe a gating sound of a transistor...gad=good or bad].
 Hum...almost invariably undesired..bad. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, not very musical at all...annoying...
 EDIT: The way You like 'it'.

[crawler486]

I wish there's a site similar to runoffgroove.com that
contains "undesirable sound" clips  

[smoguzbenjamin]

That's actually a good idea. Although runoffgroove is constantly making new stuff, I guess there's only a limited supply of bad stuff that can happen

[Mark Hammer]

Wait a second!!!  Since when was "wooly" or "splattery" a *bad* thing?

[RDV]

Wait a second!!!  Since when was "wooly" or "splattery" a *bad* thing?

Sort of subjective, eh?

Keep yer stick on the ice.

RDV

[Phorhas]

I think that there is a kind of generaly undesirable splatter... like that of a bad Ge Fuzz or misbiased OA or Tranny... that wierd gating/on-offing effect going on, just when you were aiming for that sweet slow decay...

[B Tremblay]

I wish there's a site similar to runoffgroove.com that
contains "undesirable sound" clips  

Thanks for the indirect compliment!

Check out the New Clipper page at the 'Groove.  There's a clip of a Blue Clipper built according to the incorrect schematic that's been floating around for ages.

That will give you a good gated/splat reference.

[Ge_Whiz]

I wish there's a site similar to runoffgroove.com that
contains "undesirable sound" clips

There is - I call it a 'gig'.