Wave shapes, Character and Headroom - A Question for the pro's

[Doomera]

I don't know if there are any pro's on here, I really haven't paid any attention to who might be on these forums.
But if there are any professional producers, I have some minor technical questions to ask.

About me
FYI, I have conditioned power, proper grounding, proper cabling and shielding and a well rounded studio.
Now you might hate me for this, but I am self made. I have learned everything I know from comparing my music to all the number one hits out there, and adjusting my mix until my mastering matches.
12 years, I have been at this, I love it and wouldn't stop to save the last person on earth.
I am an electronic Musician. I create electronic music, so keep that in mind when replying and please refrain from interjecting stereotypes.

Question one
- Wave shapes
Alright.
Lets pretend I have a 555 timer based synth, just a simple tone generator with a pot, one resistor, one capacitor, a TRS jack with a cable hooked up to a speaker and a 555 timer. When configured properly on the 555 it creates a rough sounding square tone. But why? I understand oscillation, and how when multiple clicks overlap they create resonance and that resonance creates a tone. (or at least thats what seems to happen with the 555 synth) Why I am asking, is I can buy my Sub 37, My arturia, my Microkorg and my Juno all have a basic Square, or saw, or triangle, and with no effects or compression, they all sound completely different. They are ALL squares. But they don't sound the same at all.
Why? What factors, other than quality and material in the resistors and capacitors can affect the sound? And additionally, what factors can affect the shape. I mean, how do you alter the shape of a square to get a sine, or a triangle or a sawtooth?

Question two
- Impossible pitch

You have heard of perfect pitch? Ha, well this question is about what I am calling impossible pitch.
Occassionally I will come across a song that I try to play along to. I match the octave on the piano(using various VST's) and I match the key. Yet oldly, though I am in key and can play in tune, some rare songs are in tune and on the same octave, and yet have a deeper sound(some part of the instrument seems to be in a different octave even though there are no audible layers.
Next time I come across this I will post an example. It drives me nuts, because its as if some sound has a thickness and deepness without actually having any lower frequencies, unison, pitch modulation such as tremolo or overdrive etc. And also no second layer in a different octave.
If ANYONE knows what I am talking about, please, enlighten me.

Question three- Headroom
These are probably some of the most infamous questions in the world of music.
What decibel range should I master my mix at?
And what are the rules with regards to the decibel ranges of highs, mids and lows? As in, if you were to rate a soundcard's performance in bandwidth, how much of that bandwidth in a percentage can be low, how much can be high, and how much can be mid? I constantly try to push my mix, to make i louder, more clear, and better compressed. But I just want to know what the old school rules are.

That's all for now. My questions are crazy and frustrating, so I apologize if they drive you nuts trying to answer them.
Cheers.

 

[DarkRed]

I don't know if there are any pro's on here, I really haven't paid any attention to who might be on these forums.
But if there are any professional producers, I have some minor technical questions to ask.

About me
FYI, I have conditioned power, proper grounding, proper cabling and shielding and a well rounded studio.
Now you might hate me for this, but I am self made. I have learned everything I know from comparing my music to all the number one hits out there, and adjusting my mix until my mastering matches.
12 years, I have been at this, I love it and wouldn't stop to save the last person on earth.
I am an electronic Musician. I create electronic music, so keep that in mind when replying and please refrain from interjecting stereotypes.

Question one
- Wave shapes
Alright.
Lets pretend I have a 555 timer based synth, just a simple tone generator with a pot, one resistor, one capacitor, a TRS jack with a cable hooked up to a speaker and a 555 timer. When configured properly on the 555 it creates a rough sounding square tone. But why? I understand oscillation, and how when multiple clicks overlap they create resonance and that resonance creates a tone. (or at least thats what seems to happen with the 555 synth) Why I am asking, is I can buy my Sub 37, My arturia, my Microkorg and my Juno all have a basic Square, or saw, or triangle, and with no effects or compression, they all sound completely different. They are ALL squares. But they don't sound the same at all.
Why? What factors, other than quality and material in the resistors and capacitors can affect the sound? And additionally, what factors can affect the shape. I mean, how do you alter the shape of a square to get a sine, or a triangle or a sawtooth?

Question two
- Impossible pitch

You have heard of perfect pitch? Ha, well this question is about what I am calling impossible pitch.
Occassionally I will come across a song that I try to play along to. I match the octave on the piano(using various VST's) and I match the key. Yet oldly, though I am in key and can play in tune, some rare songs are in tune and on the same octave, and yet have a deeper sound(some part of the instrument seems to be in a different octave even though there are no audible layers.
Next time I come across this I will post an example. It drives me nuts, because its as if some sound has a thickness and deepness without actually having any lower frequencies, unison, pitch modulation such as tremolo or overdrive etc. And also no second layer in a different octave.
If ANYONE knows what I am talking about, please, enlighten me.

Question three- Headroom
These are probably some of the most infamous questions in the world of music.
What decibel range should I master my mix at?
And what are the rules with regards to the decibel ranges of highs, mids and lows? As in, if you were to rate a soundcard's performance in bandwidth, how much of that bandwidth in a percentage can be low, how much can be high, and how much can be mid? I constantly try to push my mix, to make i louder, more clear, and better compressed. But I just want to know what the old school rules are.

That's all for now. My questions are crazy and frustrating, so I apologize if they drive you nuts trying to answer them.
Cheers.

Question two, is due to the overtones of the particular tuning in combination with the voltage levels.
Question three, mastering must take into consideration what production and recording process (what sound sources are "real", what sound sources are samples, how were they all tuned, are they even in tune?) produced what mix at what voltage levels and how (e.g. what is the amount of clock jitter and phase inaccuracies in the signal), in conjunction with evaluating the mix in detail, such things as the dynamic range of the sound sources, you can then answer whether it meets the requirements for your mastering goals. When it does, it is the monitoring process that drives that content to the goal. And every time the lows, mids and highs will be different, because every production is different.

It sounds a little like you desire more depth and mix balance, that comes from well powered hardware with lots of headroom and low clock jitter, that well tuned sound sources are passing through, so that even at a very low final playback quality there will be lots of dynamic range and resonance left in the content. Without much resonance in the content, and without enough signal to work with, it is more difficult to balance the mix. There are many common reasons behind all of this. Productions are not in a high quality tuning, engineers are utilizing a poor monitoring process, a poor audio interface, a DAW + audio interface solution with much too high total latency, much too little hardware, too much software inappropriately applied, wrong kind of production etc. etc. So there are quite a lot of dimensions you need to approach well, before the final master contains rich music.