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[maxdimario]

I have noticed that as time goes by, recorded music has become more "visual" in nature.

When listening to a solo piano acoustic performance,  and then a recording of the solo piano on cd at home, I sometimes feel as if I am  'seeing' the outline of the sound, and not feeling it.

I say piano because it is a relatively dark instrument and is difficult to reproduce in a way that is true to the experience in real life.

pro-tools pop to me is mostly visual, for example.

The sense of hearing (or feeling vibrations or impulses) evolved before the sense of sight, and is used for localization by marine life as well as other animals.

Thinking about the highly evolved sense of hearing (in water) of dolphins, one can only marvel at the amount of information that they can extract by interpreting timing and phase relationships of sound impulses in water.
I saw a documentary which starred a dolphin that  with eyes covered could find a plastic hoop thrown in to the pool and bring it to the surface.

So, the interpretation of impulses and waves in sound is something that is of prime importance to many life-forms, as for some it gives them an idea of the outside world and any danger that might be close-by.

Hearing is more closely tied to our physiological state than vision.  One sees something and recognizes it 80% of the time and then analizes it to give it a meaning, whereas hearing is ideally, immediately understandable. Hearing a sound of any kind provokes a feeling.

So we must understand the power that is inherent in real-life sound events to move and inspire the listener.

It is my belief that frequency response, tonal balance, intemodulation distortion and THD, although useful in order to diagnose and design electronic audio equipment is not as important to music as are the time-wavefront relationships in music.

Anyone who has heard recordings done with the simple analog tape or  disc studios of the 50's knows that when listening to the analog master there is a sense of 'being there'.

Being there is dependent on localization and timing.

this quality of being there has been progressively lost beginning in the 60's with the miniaturization process, and in the late seventies almost dissapeared (ic consoles?).

And to top it off, musicians and engineers now SEE music on their DAW, taking attention away from the hearing sense.

Even worse record buyers buy cd's because they SEE the music on MTV!

[Bobro]

Interesting- when I was a kid I had a very strong sense of synaesthesia with music, and now that I've laid off the alcohol for some some time (being a parent) it's come back in full force.

And I experience the opposite of what you're saying-"protools pop" triggers nothing visual for me, while other, mostly but not only older, recordings can set off some pretty spectacular sensations, like big colored sculptures moving around. One of the highlights of my life was spending countless hours on a song to make it sound like a certain tree, in color and texture and emotion, and a very talented (and stoned it's true) musician, unaware of the goal, hearing the piece and saying, whoa, it sounds like a tree, there's the leaves turning orange, there's the branches...

I suspect this kind of thing is quite common.

Synaesthesia is not, however, a substitue for hearing, it's a mixing of the senses, perhaps like experiencing an emotion from a sound.

I do believe that videos and DAW images are actually detrimental to experiencing and developing synaesthesia, or any other personal evocational experience, because they present dummy substitutes and distractions. I do agree with you that those kind of "visual" aspects can be bad influences.

And, about timing and localization- I am finding that microphone technique is the easiest and most direct way to get sounds that trigger my synaesthesia. This involves both the frequency and the time domain, but it seems to me that those are part of a continuum and not two seperate things.

Anyway, peace.


-Bobro

[Greg Youngman]

Dolphins, whales, bats are nothing special.  They are what they are by design.  Now, we human beings, on the other hand, are pretty pathetic.  Most of the ones I run into are only using about 2% of their brain.  

[Bob Olhsson]

When people perform together, they breathe together and the audience breathes along with them. This shared musical experience of the body is lost in most assembled as opposed to performed productions.

One of the most revealing exercises I know is to sing along with an older recording and then try to sing along with a contemporary recording.

[ted nightshade]

My experience is a lot like Bobro's -maybe that's why I like his work so much. His synth sounds really seem like shades of earth tones, umber and amber to me, like they do to him.

The visual aspect of music is mostly what I'm after when tracking. Mixing a couple tracks together, I'm staring at the monitor, finding that sweet spot where the bleed pictures all come together for a clear, vivid 3D image. Only I can't see the sounds if I can't hear them- with earplugs in the image is totally different.

I can see the visual aspect of pop PT stuff- I stare at it in whatever dismal public place or business where they're playing the stuff as muzak. But my taste for the visual has led me on purist paths, and I do think the crucial place for that is mic placement. It seems to have everything to do with phase.

The most visual recordings I have seem to be old Bob Wills era 1 mic country stuff, Jimi Hendrix records, Ellington, seems to have a lot to do with the artistic vision, could be what they're smokin' has something to do with it...

[chrisj]

All the stuff you're calling visual is also associated with the audiophile trait known as soundstage depth (also 'sonority') and the stuff that isn't working for you is associated with sort of cardboardy soundstage shallowness, other things such as the characteristic Pro Tools sonic signature, what you get from entirely mathematical summing, etc.
I can turn the one thing into the other if you like. I'm doing just that for some of the CAPE entries. I trust you will find them 'visual' even though they won't sound like Duke Ellington or anything...
If you have a certain tone (not like sinewave, but an instrumental or vocal tone) and it's already recorded so all the overtones are there, the only way it can get better is to go deeper. A nice example of this is Marvin Gaye's voice on the 'What's Goin' On' album. The sonority is really extraordinary, and very well recorded.
How visual is the snare on 'Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)'?

-note: actually the first poster had 'visual' associated with the modern stuff, maybe because it's so bright and shallow? The deeper stuff is more tactile.
Okay, I've confused people enough

[Eric Bridenbaker]

syn-es-the-sia:

n. Physiol. Sensation produced at a point other than
or remote from the point of stimulation, as of a color from hearing a
certain sound (fr. Gk, syn = together + aisthesis = to perceive).

http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html

Seems that the "remote point" of stimulation is a key factor here. Recording a band live with multiple mics is analagous to the ear simultaneously being in many places at one time. Hearing the same performance from many angles could fall under this "remote point" definition. Subltle cues (mic bleed and phasing) can reinforce this experience. Modern pop mixes also have several different perspectives going on simultaneously, but typically not of the same thing... So I can picture this as a kind of "mosaic" visualization, as opposed to the more synergistic "blend" of a live recording.

In regards to association of color to sound, it may be intersting to not that such notable figures as Isaac Newton, Alexander Scriabin, Nikolai Tesla, Helmholtz, and many others at one point or another worked on the theory that each color in the spectrum had an associated pitch in the musical scale. This can be determined mathematically by continually doubling a pitch's frequency until it reaches a corresponding value of a color frequency in the visible spectrum.

Evidently, the ear is capable of discerning the same pitch across a range of multiple octaves, wheras the eye only has one "octave" of visible range. The commonly accepted frequency limit of visible Violet light is approximately double that of Deep Red.  

It is also interesting to watch a black light, for instance, as it looks as though it is starting to take on a tinge of red at higher frequencies... indicating that there may exist another "invisible" octave of light lurking in what we call the "Ultraviolet" range.

Of course, there is also the issue of perfect pitch (which I believe to be present in even the most casual of listeners). Different frequencies are clearly recognizable and have certain elusive "characteristics", that are nonetheless identifiable and commonly experienced by many listeners. Eg. 350Hz, 700Hz, 1400Hz and so on (corresponds roughly to an F) could be described as "muddy", "boxy", "wooly" and so on... Wheras 110, 220, 440, (Corresponding to the A note) are of a more vibrant, unrestrained nature. Look a the Neve 1073 EQ and you will find that it uses exactly these frequencies - Rupert knew what he was doing!!!

There also exist studies pertaining to tempo, and brain wave entrainment. Seems different meters and tempo can cause the brain to enter different "states" favoring Alpha, Delta, Theta waves etc. It has been suggested that heart rate can also be entrained in a similar way.

Being involved with sound and music is so cool.... I think I'm going to chill out for a bit now...


Cheers,
Eric

[ted nightshade]

chrisj wrote on Tue, 07 December 2004 09:41

All the stuff you're calling visual is also associated with the audiophile trait known as soundstage depth (also 'sonority') and the stuff that isn't working for you is associated with sort of cardboardy soundstage shallowness, other things such as the characteristic Pro Tools sonic signature, what you get from entirely mathematical summing, etc.

Hey Chris,

I'd like to get some mathematical summing together that sounds like summing in the air in a room. Am I dreaming? For now it's all live to 2 track because I love the way sounds come together that way. I'd like to be able to do a couple overdubs, mix digitally, and keep that.

[maxdimario]

When I meant that I 'saw' pro-tools music I meant that I see where the sounds are in relation to each other much as I would look at something on an aesthetic level. A picture, or a TV screen.

It seems that the sound plane becomes flat like a picture, and it needs to be filled in as you would compose a picture to make 'sense'.

As an extreme example, direct to 2 track analog doesn't need to be aesthetically perfect because it better communicates those elements of sound that let us experience the performance and the acoustic space around it. You're better off placing the mics well, and leaving it alone.

The simpler analog recordings will conjure a lot of images but more of a 3D physical/kinesthetic nature.

I wonder if teens feel what teens years ago felt when they heard their first favourite pre-SSL records.
I think that simpler analog recordings made you feel the artist was there with you emotionally, which can be addictive.

[ted nightshade]

I understand you completely, Max! That's pretty much just how I see it.

And the experience of the artist being there with you emotionally is indeed deeply addicting!

One thing I note is the way that compression makes things sit still and behave in the mix- let's you compose a little static layout for everything. Like watching tropical fish impaled on pins... whereas a nice uncompressed mix from just a few mics can be like watching tropical fish dart around in scuba land.

[ammitsboel]

Bobro wrote on Tue, 07 December 2004 14:44

Interesting- when I was a kid I had a very strong sense of synaesthesia with music, and now that I've laid off the alcohol for some some time (being a parent) it's come back in full force. And I experience the opposite of what you're saying-"protools pop" triggers nothing visual for me, while other, mostly but not only older, recordings can set off some pretty spectacular sensations, like big colored sculptures moving around. One of the highlights of my life was spending countless hours on a song to make it sound like a certain tree, in color and texture and emotion, and a very talented (and stoned it's true) musician, unaware of the goal, hearing the piece and saying, whoa, it sounds like a tree, there's the leaves turning orange, there's the branches... I suspect this kind of thing is quite common. Synaesthesia is not, however, a substitue for hearing, it's a mixing of the senses, perhaps like experiencing an emotion from a sound. I do believe that videos and DAW images are actually detrimental to experiencing and developing synaesthesia, or any other personal evocational experience, because they present dummy substitutes and distractions. I do agree with you that those kind of "visual" aspects can be bad influences. And, about timing and localization- I am finding that microphone technique is the easiest and most direct way to get sounds that trigger my synaesthesia. This involves both the frequency and the time domain, but it seems to me that those are part of a continuum and not two seperate things. Anyway, peace. -Bobro

This is very interesting!!
I've heard about synaesthesia but have never really met a person that has the ability.

It would be very interesting to have you take a listen to the Limiter test in the mastering forum and tell us what you hear or see.

Best Regards,
Henrik

[Bobro]

ammitsboel wrote on Wed, 08 December 2004 01:02

This is very interesting!! I've heard about synaesthesia but have never really met a person that has the ability. It would be very interesting to have you take a listen to the Limiter test in the mastering forum and tell us what you hear or see. Best Regards, Henrik

Downloaded the files already! Won't be able to listen on my system til next week (ADAMs, SEK'd 2496) so I'll listen tomorrow on my colleague's system (SGMs, Lynx).

It can be a hinderance. I'll mix for certain colors and wind up with a silly level balance between instruments, and enjoy levels of acoustic and analog noise that are probably unacceptable by contemporary standards.  Still learning to make compromises between one thing and another.

-Bobro

[ammitsboel]

Thanks Bobro,

Let us know when you've listened.

Best Regards,
Henrik

[chrisj]

ted nightshade wrote on Tue, 07 December 2004 12:54

Hey Chris, I'd like to get some mathematical summing together that sounds like summing in the air in a room. Am I dreaming?

Hey Ted!
I'd like to be able to do that too
If you're on the CAPE project, or if you're going to have access to the CAPE music this year as CD-quality files, I'm working on Team Spirit, Team Bluebeard, and Team Usual Suspects as a mastering engineer. I know that Team Spirit is a fully digital mix- Bluebeard may be, Usual Suspects might be (I have no information on them). Team Spirit is an entirely Pro Tools production.
I am of course going to try to make all of these breathe like buckets of greased 2" catching on fire from being dragged through flaming 12AX7s and 6V6s, and I do want it to feel like summing of air in a room. Spirit and Bluebeard are taking the most effort to do this, Usual Suspects is pretty much a rock-n-roll roar and for that one I'm opening it up a bit.
So, I'm publically trying to do just exactly that. You tell ME if I succeeded, when the time comes.
If I did succeed, I'll happily do it for you for money