What is "flabby" to you?

[skiraly017]

Flabby - John Paul Jones' bass lines on "Heartbreaker"
Not Flabby - John Paul Jones' bass lines on "Ramble On"

Flabby - Jack Bruce's bass lines on "Crossroads"
Not Flabby - Jack Bruce's bass line on...?

Flabby - Lemmy from Motorhead
Not Flabby - Geddy Lee from Rush

[RDV]

Is it the same as "flatulent"?

RDV

[petemoore]

  Flabulent
  Flabulest
  Flatuflab
  Flourescent Flabulas
  Flabulous
  Whoops...'bbBHRallphhp' ...just emitted sounds reminiscing of yesterday's deadly bean.

[mac]

To me flabby is lack of definition of low freqs, ie, the HH invader speaker of my LC15R
and muddy is lack of definition of the whole spectrum, the HH invader speaker and the aged valves of my LC15R


mac

[petemoore]

  It's about the same thing as LOBD. But could, like many of these sonic-descripto-texted terms, mean something closely related to something different.

[Mark Hammer]

Okay, more nice responses to the question.  Even if we can't arrive at clear consensus, at the very least, anyone who had absolutely no clue whatsoever could be referred to this thread and have some better idea of the range of perceptions/associations people have.

[petemoore]

  I welcome the concept of defining definitive terms...
  It's nice to know sorta or More Exactly what are we talking about, using words as opposed to lengthy explanations that can be more simply represented by a few words.

[$uperpuma]

Good answers everyone.... I now have a better understanding of flabby myself! Good thread!

[Mark Hammer]

I daily life, I'm a "measurement guy" (though if you want REAL measurement guys, you turn to gaussmarkov and RickL, but that's another story).  In the music gear biz, what too often substitutes for real measurement are buzzwords, since the properties that *ought* to be measured are hard to pin down.  For instance, what would be the parameters to be measured that define the difference between a Tube Screamer and a Fuzz Factory?  Damned if *I* know, and I'd be very surprised if you did either.  But the differences are audible, real, and somewhat describable.

But, as Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, the description of the thing is not the thing itself.  And since the buzzwords people use to describe something often come from associations with phenomena from senses other than hearing, a buzzword descriptor used by person A might not have the same associations as it does for person B.  That's not a problem.  The problem starts to occur when person A tells person B about pedal X, and person B posts something on-line or tells a friend, or hangs around a music store on a Saturday morning shmoozing with the guys and starting rumours, using descriptors that s/he thinks are equivalent in meaning to the original buzzword.  Eventually, somebody somewhere says "I heard that pedal X was <insert buzzword here> and that the cure for it was to <insert your choice of mojo here>".  THAT'S where it starts to be a problem.

So, the more often we can collectively turn buzzwords into something that has measurable parameters that can be if not measured on a DMM, at least agreed upon, the better off we'll all be.

[jonathan perez]

buzzz

today i played at school in west sacramento, and the bass amp they provided had a single 15...

keep in mind, i use a 6505+, and 2 1960A cabs...

and my other guitarist uses a XXX, and a "stack"

so volume is a must. we cranked that sucker (bass amp) to 5, and the speaker had NO note definition. by the time he had hit 5 notes, the speaker was still trying to figure the first note! it was VERY "flabby." no tightness, lack of bass, and definition was totally put to shit.

damn shame, but noone really noticed.

OT, but i (i love the sound of drums, but dont play) have all Paiste Rudes (14HH, 18 thin,18 china, 19 c/r, 20 thin), and a 24 Paiste 2002 Mega Rock Bell ride, and they are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO loud!!!

that bell could cut a man in half from 15 feet away!!!

flabby (to me) is reminiscent of the sound of a resonant head on a kick drum with a tear down the middle...

or a guitar speaker with a tear on the side, with LOADS of bass trying to go through...

OR!

try this...find a 6 inch speaker amp, and blast a 100 watt head, or stereo system through it...

well, before the fire or explosion, that sound, to me, is flabby.

[phaeton]

Well said, Mark (as always).

While I agree with you that we should all lay down some foundation of non-buzzword descriptors, I think that "flabby" might entail *many* different parameters.  In fact, there are a lot of particular 'soundwords' that we use that are like that.  I mean, everyone knows that "bright" means "trebley" or "thick" means full of mids, but how do you really convey "splattery", or even "brittle".  F'rinstance, I think I know what these things mean, but it's very possible that I'm wrong.

How do you measure "splat"?  Where's our graduated scale of "brittleosity"?

[Mark Hammer]

Well said, Mark (as always).

While I agree with you that we should all lay down some foundation of non-buzzword descriptors, I think that "flabby" might entail *many* different parameters.  In fact, there are a lot of particular 'soundwords' that we use that are like that.  I mean, everyone knows that "bright" means "trebley" or "thick" means full of mids, but how do you really convey "splattery", or even "brittle".  F'rinstance, I think I know what these things mean, but it's very possible that I'm wrong.

How do you measure "splat"?  Where's our graduated scale of "brittleosity"?

Now you know why reviews in Guitar Player drive me up the wall.  Maybe the guys in the office know what all those words mean, particularly if they are all in the room when the guitar/amp/pedal is being tried out, but all I can do is think I know what they mean based on the words alone.

[phaeton]

Well said, Mark (as always).

While I agree with you that we should all lay down some foundation of non-buzzword descriptors, I think that "flabby" might entail *many* different parameters.  In fact, there are a lot of particular 'soundwords' that we use that are like that.  I mean, everyone knows that "bright" means "trebley" or "thick" means full of mids, but how do you really convey "splattery", or even "brittle".  F'rinstance, I think I know what these things mean, but it's very possible that I'm wrong.

How do you measure "splat"?  Where's our graduated scale of "brittleosity"?

Now you know why reviews in Guitar Player drive me up the wall.  Maybe the guys in the office know what all those words mean, particularly if they are all in the room when the guitar/amp/pedal is being tried out, but all I can do is think I know what they mean based on the words alone.

Agreed.   I remember once reading a description about a guitar review and they said "notes higher up on the neck were dripping honey".

I stopped reading Guitar Player for awhile and focused on Consumer Report's auto reviews for a source of frustration and anger.  ("The vehicle exuded minor pitches and muted kicks" was a little more intutive, even if I thought their reviews were total tripe)