Can someone please explain micro and macro dynamics

[newlash09]

Hi all

I've seen these words freely dandied in many hifi reviews. Was always at a loss, as to what exactly they meant. Can someone explain please. Thanks

 

[JANDL100]

Macro addresses the outer envelope of large level changes and ultimate loudness.

Micro addresses the smaller / smallest changes, the subtle nuances of music.

 

[CnoEvil]

This blog might help: https://miloburke.com/blogs/personal-blog/posts/micro-dynamics-and-macro-dynamics

 

[DUVET]

Hi all

I've seen these words freely dandied in many hifi reviews. Was always at a loss, as to what exactly they meant. Can someone explain please. Thanks

no

YES​

 

[dave]

I think you'll know it when you hear it, it's kind of oh that's what they were talking about. Some of my stereos have the ability to make me jump (out of my skin). That is a similar quality. Some don't, no idea why.

 

[lazycat]

BOOM BANGABANG vs

tingalingaling

 

[oldius]

My descriptions now feature such micro detail as, 'Does it sound good?'

 

[Mynameismud]

In my interpretation macro is pretty clear, big obvious shifts to louder. Radioheads Creep transition from verse to chorus a fine example. Micro dynamics are a bit harder to pin down. Neil Young plays with micro dynamics very effectively in many songs. Harvest moon verses for example have a lovely bobbing up and down effect. Subtle but masterful. You don’t hear it on all systems and not all musicians necessarily play around with more subtle dynamics.

 

[tackleberry]

Bollox then….

Can we just say big and little sounds?

 

[2010*zuma]

You know when you experience them what they are - period

one thing I haven't done for years in hifi is look for things, they are either there or not….life ain’t long enough for that

the system either delivers or dunt

 

[CnoEvil]

Bollox then….

Micro Bollox or Macro Bollox?

 

[montesquieu]

Ok here's a musician's take:

A piece has macro dynamics when you can distinguish between the loud and soft bits. In a musical score they may be expressed as piano (p), pianissimo (pp), forte (f) or fortissimo (ff). In, say, jazz, this might be the difference in low to peak volume from, say, a double bass solo to a climactic chorus when everyone is playing LOUD.

Micro-dynamics are more about the expression of a phrase - the expressive range of volume in a guitar solo where there are accented and unaccented notes, like musical punctuation in a single phrase.

In my music student days I remember spending months with a Russian piano teacher, who for literally months had me play single notes at different levels of volume, working on control over how I controlled the piano's hammer strike, and then its decay, and finally controlling them damping by letting the note go. There's a particular Mozart piano sonata whose slow movement in F starts with three 'C' notes (the C above middle C) against an F chord in the left hand. If you listen to a proper Mozart exponent - Ingrid Haebler for example - each of these notes, just three notes at the start of a piece, will all be played at a slightly different level of loudness (and also with slightly uneven timing). That's expression - micro-dyamics. What musicians call 'phrasing'. You can hear it in any sort of music (pretty much) from Bach to Clapton.

From a hifi system perspective, it's how well both macro dynamics (big swings in loudness) and micro dynamics (musical phrasing) are captured. When my wife comments on a system, what she comments on (and likes) is the ability to recreate microdynamics (expression) - capturing the relative volume levels, rhythm and correct timbre associated with individual notes and lines is what she calls 'musical'.

I personally find macro-dynamics less important than micro dynamics - though actually this is the distinguishing point between hifi and live music. In a real concert - I recall vividly a Lieder recital in the Holywell Music Rooms in Oxford, where Mark Padmore at one point was so loud he had my ears distorting, yet a song later had people on the edge of their seats struggling to hear the dying away of a note ... actually you wouldn't want these extremes in a hifi system as it would be too much of a pain to listen too. (Most people would be fiddling with the volume control). It's why it's a total nonsense to make your target to have your system sound like 'live music' - the reality is that live music at real dynamic volumes in your listening room would actually be a bit unpleasant.

No, in my view the key to a succecssful hifi system is micro-dynamics. Obviously some music - pop and rock for example - tend to be less critical for micro dynamics than classical (particularly chamber music or other small ensemble music) or 'serious' jazz - plinky-plonk excepted.

YMMV obviously depending what you listen to and what you value but for me, this is the meaning of those shorthand terms 'micro' and macro' dynamics.

 

[uzzy]

All open to interpretation .. dynamics are all about the changes in volume levels in a piece of music. The audio fraternity then somehow got into macro and micro .. this is from an article on music mixing concepts
"Macro dynamics refers to changes in level over a longer period of time. For example, a rhythm instrument—guitar, keyboard—may play more quietly in the verses of a song, than in the choruses.
Micro dynamics might refer to either of two things. It could describe more rapid changes in dynamics, like from note to note in a phrase, where some notes are accented (louder). It could also be used to describe differences in level within a note—for example, a hard-played piano note or drum hit will start off with a louder impact noise—a Transient—and then the rest of the note will be lower in level, gradually (or quickly) decaying to silence. The waveform graph below shows level (vertical) vs. time (horizontal), and you can see the variation in level of a typical percussive note, with its initial Transient, which lasts only milliseconds (thousandths of a second), and the main portion of the note, that either sustains (holds), or decays (falls off in level, as in this example).
"

It gets a bit like the song "your say tomatoes and I say tomaaatoes"
Of course it is all down to the major problem of describing in words what the audible sound was like ..
So the reviewers will look for metaphors and all the grammatical tools at their fingers to basically take four pages to tell you not a lot as you know at the end of the day, until you hear it yourself you do not know what to believe

 

[newlash09]

Ok here's a musician's take:

A piece has macro dynamics when you can distinguish between the loud and soft bits. In a musical score they may be expressed as piano (p), pianissimo (pp), forte (f) or fortissimo (ff). In, say, jazz, this might be the difference in low to peak volume from, say, a double bass solo to a climactic chorus when everyone is playing LOUD.

Micro-dynamics are more about the expression of a phrase - the expressive range of volume in a guitar solo where there are accented and unaccented notes, like musical punctuation in a single phrase.

In my music student days I remember spending months with a Russian piano teacher, who for literally months had me play single notes at different levels of volume, working on control over how I controlled the piano's hammer strike, and then its decay, and finally controlling them damping by letting the note go. There's a particular Mozart piano sonata whose slow movement in F starts with three 'C' notes (the C above middle C) against an F chord in the left hand. If you listen to a proper Mozart exponent - Ingrid Haebler for example - each of these notes, just three notes at the start of a piece, will all be played at a slightly different level of loudness (and also with slightly uneven timing). That's expression - micro-dyamics. What musicians call 'phrasing'. You can hear it in any sort of music (pretty much) from Bach to Clapton.

From a hifi system perspective, it's how well both macro dynamics (big swings in loudness) and micro dynamics (musical phrasing) are captured. When my wife comments on a system, what she comments on (and likes) is the ability to recreate microdynamics (expression) - capturing the relative volume levels, rhythm and correct timbre associated with individual notes and lines is what she calls 'musical'.

I personally find macro-dynamics less important than micro dynamics - though actually this is the distinguishing point between hifi and live music. In a real concert - I recall vividly a Lieder recital in the Holywell Music Rooms in Oxford, where Mark Padmore at one point was so loud he had my ears distorting, yet a song later had people on the edge of their seats struggling to hear the dying away of a note ... actually you wouldn't want these extremes in a hifi system as it would be too much of a pain to listen too. (Most people would be fiddling with the volume control). It's why it's a total nonsense to make your target to have your system sound like 'live music' - the reality is that live music at real dynamic volumes in your listening room would actually be a bit unpleasant.

No, in my view the key to a succecssful hifi system is micro-dynamics. Obviously some music - pop and rock for example - tend to be less critical for micro dynamics than classical (particularly chamber music or other small ensemble music) or 'serious' jazz - plinky-plonk excepted.

YMMV obviously depending what you listen to and what you value but for me, this is the meaning of those shorthand terms 'micro' and macro' dynamics.

Thanks a ton for taking the time and effort, to elaborate on the subject in such detail sir. My respects.

 

[dave]

Todays thoughts, micro, to hear for example, little ticking noises right in the back ground (piano stool creaking in one instance), but still clearly audible as unique identifiable transient events. Macro is the ability for the sound to start abruptly with no warning, so much that it is a surprise.

 

[DomT]

Ok here's a musician's take:

A piece has macro dynamics when you can distinguish between the loud and soft bits. In a musical score they may be expressed as piano (p), pianissimo (pp), forte (f) or fortissimo (ff). In, say, jazz, this might be the difference in low to peak volume from, say, a double bass solo to a climactic chorus when everyone is playing LOUD.

Micro-dynamics are more about the expression of a phrase - the expressive range of volume in a guitar solo where there are accented and unaccented notes, like musical punctuation in a single phrase.

In my music student days I remember spending months with a Russian piano teacher, who for literally months had me play single notes at different levels of volume, working on control over how I controlled the piano's hammer strike, and then its decay, and finally controlling them damping by letting the note go. There's a particular Mozart piano sonata whose slow movement in F starts with three 'C' notes (the C above middle C) against an F chord in the left hand. If you listen to a proper Mozart exponent - Ingrid Haebler for example - each of these notes, just three notes at the start of a piece, will all be played at a slightly different level of loudness (and also with slightly uneven timing). That's expression - micro-dyamics. What musicians call 'phrasing'. You can hear it in any sort of music (pretty much) from Bach to Clapton.

From a hifi system perspective, it's how well both macro dynamics (big swings in loudness) and micro dynamics (musical phrasing) are captured. When my wife comments on a system, what she comments on (and likes) is the ability to recreate microdynamics (expression) - capturing the relative volume levels, rhythm and correct timbre associated with individual notes and lines is what she calls 'musical'.

I personally find macro-dynamics less important than micro dynamics - though actually this is the distinguishing point between hifi and live music. In a real concert - I recall vividly a Lieder recital in the Holywell Music Rooms in Oxford, where Mark Padmore at one point was so loud he had my ears distorting, yet a song later had people on the edge of their seats struggling to hear the dying away of a note ... actually you wouldn't want these extremes in a hifi system as it would be too much of a pain to listen too. (Most people would be fiddling with the volume control). It's why it's a total nonsense to make your target to have your system sound like 'live music' - the reality is that live music at real dynamic volumes in your listening room would actually be a bit unpleasant.

No, in my view the key to a succecssful hifi system is micro-dynamics. Obviously some music - pop and rock for example - tend to be less critical for micro dynamics than classical (particularly chamber music or other small ensemble music) or 'serious' jazz - plinky-plonk excepted.

YMMV obviously depending what you listen to and what you value but for me, this is the meaning of those shorthand terms 'micro' and macro' dynamics.

Very well written. I agree 100%

 

[tackleberry]

My system has good micro dynamics because I can hear the snakey rattle thing on hotel California

 

[tackleberry]

I can get that this can be used as a term in the the constructs of musical composition, but do we need more describing words in the fickle hifi land

 

[Beobloke]

Micro dynamics are found on 1970s Japanese direct drive turntables such as the DDX-1000

Macro dynamics is the art of choosing the right queue when at the checkouts of a large trade warehouse.

 

[DomT]

I can get that this can be used as a term in the the constructs of musical composition, but do we need more describing words in the fickle hifi land

All of the terms already exist for musicians but hifi people don't understand them unless they have been trained in musical theory; and even then it can be difficult to understand. So it's quite normal for lay people to create words that are easy for their audience to understand but clearly there will still be confusion, as firstly there is no agreed set of words, although some publications have invented their own, and secondly there is no consistent use of these words as there is between (trained) musicians.