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[alanfc]

Hi- I've been noticing something, don't know if its real or not.

On pro recordings are they processing the left and right side of a stereo file differently?

In my car I hear a distinct difference when I play around with the panning.
I used to think it was because the left speaker in my car stereo is under my leg, but then I started listening in the center of the front seat with my legs up. (not while driving).
The right side always seems to be brighter. Am I imagining? If the =are= doing this, is it working because its creating some kind of depth or space, so that both left and right aren't blasting at the same volume, sort of one dimensionally?

I notice in Sonar, unlike my old Cakewalk, that when I bounce to wave I have alot of choices, I think one of them is L/R on separate tracks.  =Should I even go THERE? =

any theories, edu., etc would be greatly appreciated.

(feel free to bump me over to the amateur page, just thought this would fit here)

[lucey]

alanfc wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 10:48

I used to think it was because the left speaker in my car stereo is under my leg, but then I started listening in the center of the front seat with my legs up. (not while driving). The right side always seems to be brighter.

Do you seriously think the Right channel of ALL recordings is brighter on purpose? Wow...

Maybe your left speaker has a blown tweeter?

[alanfc]

lucey wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 08:13

alanfc wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 10:48 I used to think it was because the left speaker in my car stereo is under my leg, but then I started listening in the center of the front seat with my legs up. (not while driving). The right side always seems to be brighter. Do you seriously think the Right channel of ALL recordings is brighter on purpose? Wow... Maybe your left speaker has a blown tweeter?

well geez I don't know. I thought there may be some standard thing people are doing these days. Then I thought maybe the depth thing with bright-not bright had some basis.
OK I'll go away
thanks

[Ronny]

alanfc wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 11:21

lucey wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 08:13 alanfc wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 10:48 I used to think it was because the left speaker in my car stereo is under my leg, but then I started listening in the center of the front seat with my legs up. (not while driving). The right side always seems to be brighter. Do you seriously think the Right channel of ALL recordings is brighter on purpose? Wow... Maybe your left speaker has a blown tweeter? well geez I don't know. I thought there may be some standard thing people are doing these days. Then I thought maybe the depth thing with bright-not bright had some basis. OK I'll go away thanks

No don't go away, your questions are valid and could involve factors that aren't even associated with the music production itself, for example a tweeter out on one side as Brian mentioned. Phase on one of your speakers being reversed. A weak connection on one side, cable lengths or gauge from amps to speakers not being matched, component failure on one side of the stereo amp and a host of other causes. One thing that is definite is that there is no standard for high end to contain bright signals on right side and low signals on the left side. It's all completely material dependent and boils down to individual mixes. What I would do is take a familiar song where you hear the brightness coming from the right, play it on other players and check, also you can burn that tune twice to a cd-r, on the second version reverse the L and R. If you still hear the right side brighter than it's going to be a problem caused by one of the above mentioned possibilities. In any case, you really need to achieve a sweetspot between the speakers when you evaluate them as there are physical elements to a car's interior that will accentuate or attenutate high and low frequencies differently. For example, if the speaker is on a side wall and close to the dashboard, you'll perceive more lows than a speaker in the middle under the dashboard and away from the side doors. The closer to a reflective surface you are, generally the more the highs will be masked by the lows, corners compound the lows even more.

[jazzius]

it always scares me how much trust people put in the reference quality of their car stereo

[alanfc]

thank guys-
I have my car stereo, a small boombox in the living room, a boombox in my office, maybe find some friends with primo stereos, I'll cover it all. This is for our homemade CD we'll give out at gigs and to friends/family, so we're not going for world domination here. Just want no regrets, no stone left unturned.

I know I do a little messing around with my guitar tracks L/R, so when I see the Sonar giving me the choice when bouncing to stereo I got to thinking..
Anyways thanks for your time I'll get right on this.

[bigaudioblowhard]

i think most ME's are unwillilng to discuss whether their hearing is balanced. does this sound crazy or could this whole right brain,left brain, right handed, left handed thing affect the way we pay attention to sounds. Dont forget our hearing probably evolved for other purposes than relative eq and levels within music. i appreciate the honesty of the member who hears something and posts in.

[dcollins]

bigaudioblowhard wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 19:57

Dont forget our hearing probably evolved for other purposes than relative eq and levels within music. i appreciate the honesty of the member who hears something and posts in.

Well, it evolved to hear and localize dangers, which requires some symmetry to left and right.  Language, music, one hand clapping etc., were secondary...

However, there is evidence that even if your two ears _are_ the same, they are wired to get speech in the right and music in the left!

From the auditory list
--
"Asymmetric Cochlear Processing Mimics Hemispheric Specialization"
Described in Science, Vol 305, Issue 5690, 1581 , 10 September 2004
by Y. S. Sininger and B. Cone-Wesson:

"We always assumed that our left and right ears worked exactly the same way," said lead researcher Yvonne Sininger of the University of California at Los Angeles. "As a result, we tended to think it didn't matter which ear was impaired in a person. Now we see that it may have profound implications for the individual's speech and language development."


The discovery, described in the current issue of Science Magazine, will help doctors enhance speech and language development in hearing-impaired newborns and the rehabilitation of persons with hearing loss.


Sininger and her colleagues studied hearing in more than 3 000
newborns, specifically tiny amplifiers located in the outer hair cells of the inner ear.


These cells contract and expand to amplify sound vibrations, convert the vibrations to neural cells and send them to the brain.


The scientists inserted tiny probes into the babies' ears that emitted two different types of sounds and measured the amplified vibrations. They found that speech-like clicks triggered greater amplification in the right ear, while music-like sustained tones were more greatly amplified by the left ear.


"We were intrigued to discover that the clicks triggered more
amplification in the baby's right ear, while the tones induced more amplification in the baby's left ear," Sininger said. "This parallels how the brain processes speech and music, except the sides are reversed due to the brain's cross connections."


"Our findings demonstrate that auditory processing starts in the ear before it is ever seen in the brain," said co-author Barbara
Cone-Wesson of the University of Arizona. "Even at birth, the ear is structured to distinguish between different types of sound and to send it to the right place in the brain."

--

DC

[bblackwood]

bigaudioblowhard wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 21:57

i appreciate the honesty of the member who hears something and posts in.

Indeed. This forum is for all mastering related questions whether they seem odd or not to some folks. I happen to think this question is perfectly legitimate, and will answer by saying there are no real audio standards in mastering, aside from desired format...

[jfrigo]

dcollins wrote on Mon, 28 February 2005 21:11

"We were intrigued to discover that the clicks triggered more amplification in the baby's right ear, while the tones induced more amplification in the baby's left ear," Sininger said.

He must be listening to Latin music with a lot of percussion as opposed to melodic ballads...

But really, there's no concensus that things will be brighter in one side or the other. Some songs may tend to sound that way because of the arrangement, but that's far from a significant pattern.

[alanfc]

OK good/thanks-

DCollins=
I love this stuff, I take the biology stuff very seriously. Especially human development and kids & all. We are all still hairy critters and not so far from the caveman days. I've learned more about the brain and human instinct in the last 7 years than I could have ever imagined. (raising my daughter).

[lucey]

Didn't mean to run you off partner ... just an odd hypothesis.

As for your car .. do others hear this?  Maybe your car has speaker/amp/phase issues or maybe you are a little deaf on the left from years of listening to loud guitar amps with one ear!


As for L/R it's funny, as I always prefer to hear music with the Left ear/Right brain, and sometimes have to fight a tendancy to go left heavy in mixing as the right is more easily annoyed by some tones such that things can seem louder.

As a 10 yr. old I lost 2db in the Left ear at my first concert by listening more on the Left.  It was AC/DC with Bon Scott just before Highway to Hell, in a large wooden horse showing building ... yowza!

[Tomas Danko]

dcollins wrote on Tue, 01 March 2005 05:11

"We were intrigued to discover that the clicks triggered more amplification in the baby's right ear, while the tones induced more amplification in the baby's left ear," Sininger said. "This parallels how the brain processes speech and music, except the sides are reversed due to the brain's cross connections."

Man, I never managed to talk over the phone using my right ear (to listen with, that is). So harsh and sinister a sound I have trouble understanding what the other person says.

And on the same note, it explains howcome I always feel a certain sound can't be panned, say, 40% left but it sounds "right" panned 40%... well, right. For instance. Or sometimes left is right, er.

You know, all this time I've thought I'm a messed up and flawed individual, and here you come shoving science up my ying yang basically saying that there's nothing wrong with me.

Why, I expected more than that from you. You almost disappoint me.

Cheers,

Tomas Danko

[Ronny]

Tomas Danko wrote on Tue, 01 March 2005 14:09

dcollins wrote on Tue, 01 March 2005 05:11 "We were intrigued to discover that the clicks triggered more amplification in the baby's right ear, while the tones induced more amplification in the baby's left ear," Sininger said. "This parallels how the brain processes speech and music, except the sides are reversed due to the brain's cross connections." Man, I never managed to talk over the phone using my right ear (to listen with, that is). So harsh and sinister a sound I have trouble understanding what the other person says. And on the same note, it explains howcome I always feel a certain sound can't be panned, say, 40% left but it sounds "right" panned 40%... well, right. For instance. Or sometimes left is right, er. You know, all this time I've thought I'm a messed up and flawed individual, and here you come shoving science up my ying yang basically saying that there's nothing wrong with me. Why, I expected more than that from you. You almost disappoint me. Cheers, Tomas Danko

I remember when they did the infant tests, but don't take them to heart WRT to perception of sound with adults. Our ears have evolved to this state over several million years and mainly have evolved around survival mechanism, distinguishing sounds that are dangerous to our existance above the din of non-harmful background sounds. The baby's ears are quite different, they are attuned to learning speech and sounds in the beginning because they can't physically take care of themselves and learning human communicative skills takes precedence to survival at the early stage, but after a year or two when the baby learns to walk and go outside the bounds of the mothers wing, "self" survival enters the equation and the ear has to learn what sounds are detrimental and perceive them as danger. IOW, baby's are in the learning mode and we are in the survival mode. These type tests are easier to perform on infants, but don't pertain 100% to the way that adults perceive sound or the way that we evaluate what is musical and what is not.

[Tomas Danko]

Ronny wrote on Tue, 01 March 2005 20:42

Tomas Danko wrote on Tue, 01 March 2005 14:09 dcollins wrote on Tue, 01 March 2005 05:11 "We were intrigued to discover that the clicks triggered more amplification in the baby's right ear, while the tones induced more amplification in the baby's left ear," Sininger said. "This parallels how the brain processes speech and music, except the sides are reversed due to the brain's cross connections." Man, I never managed to talk over the phone using my right ear (to listen with, that is). So harsh and sinister a sound I have trouble understanding what the other person says. And on the same note, it explains howcome I always feel a certain sound can't be panned, say, 40% left but it sounds "right" panned 40%... well, right. For instance. Or sometimes left is right, er. You know, all this time I've thought I'm a messed up and flawed individual, and here you come shoving science up my ying yang basically saying that there's nothing wrong with me. Why, I expected more than that from you. You almost disappoint me. Cheers, Tomas Danko The baby's ears are quite different, they are attuned to learning speech and sounds in the beginning because they can't physically take care of themselves and learning human communicative skills takes precedence to survival at the early stage, but after a year or two when the baby learns to walk and go outside the bounds of the mothers wing, "self" survival enters the equation and the ear has to learn what sounds are detrimental and perceive them as danger. IOW, baby's are in the learning mode and we are in the survival mode.

(Note highlighted words above)

...So, what's the difference as far as I'm concerned then?

Cheers,

Danko - Still learning

Ps. Very interesting topic, nevertheless. Thanks for your comments.