11 replies to this topic

[Spectrum]

Everyone loves a documentary, right?

Saw this recently in a classroom for sales training that was highlighting the possibility that there's a whole lot difference between what's going on and what we think is going on. And I immediately considered how we love to get stuck into music making with our whiz bang dual 30" LCD screens.... ooops!





(It may help to expand the video size to full-screen)

Now consider what impact the DAW (digital audio workstation) GUI (graphical user interface) may have on the final audio product, and why some music programs have a 'blackout' function to switch off the visuals while one truly hears the soundtrack.

So what do you think?

[Jester_Fu]

So if i change the lines for all my midi sequences from being thin to really really thick in Cubase, that's going to make MORE bass and a fatter sound. Ace... as long as i make everyone look at the sequencer while it's running, i guess.

I think they said that this is an effect based on sensory conflict... and it relates to speech perception. I'm not convinced that the human mind is 'hard wired' to respond the same way to things that don't represent a face... and i haven't seen a sequencer that's face like so i'm not initially convinced this has relevance to music production.

I'm also not convinced the 'black out' function has to do with allowing you to hear the true sound. I suspect it's more of an ambiance thing like with high-end hi-fi gear allowing you to turn off displays. I'd agree that reducing the number of distractions would help you focus more and certainly my hearing seems more acute when it's dark and my vision isn't effective, but i don't think it's an effect of eye's overruling ears when it comes to staring at a sequencer/DAW screen. You'd be opening up a whole can of worms with the hardware debate if this was ture - it'd certainly present some strong merits for always achieving better sound when using hardware rather than in the box... but i don;t agree that's true either.

[Koof]

The video is amazing. It's not completely unexpected, that some of our senses can trick others, though. I'm not sure how we can see these results in terms of the use of DAWs, but probably you would expect the one to be better (sounding) which looks better. At least that would be MY first assumption.

I agree with Jester Fu, that the blackout function is there to focus on the sound, and only on the sound. If you see that something has to be there, you are more likely to actually hear it as well (or imaginge to hear it) even if it is too quiet.

[Sid]

Wow this is amazing!

I had noticed early on that sometimes my imagination can really have me fooled when it comes to sound. Ever got that perfect EQ setting on a disabled or bypassed EQ box? What about when a performer wants a change in their feedback 'Can you add/reduce some blah?' You could be doing something completely different then they say 'that is perfect thank you so much!'

This is why having educated ears is so important. Once our music director was tuning his guitar, a 14yo violinist turned to him and told him he was sharp. He told her that he wasn't sharp she was flat but she stuck to her guns and insisted he was sharp. He was flabbergasted, he showed her his tuner - in tune. 'Then your tuner is wrong' the 14yo said. He got angry and told her off so she was quiet but you could tell by the look on her face that she knew she was right. He rechecked his tuner and found it wasn't tuning to A440. She was right he was slightly sharp. He appologised on the spot and never questioned her again haha - admittedly she was/is a musical freak. My point here is that he was watching the needle and not listening.

There's a good argument that says the brain wouldn't have the same visual connectedness with a DAW than it would with a person's lips. But I don't know, I've seen so many people 'mix with their eyes'.

Don't let the lighting guys see this, they'll insist that this is proof that visuals are more important. = P

[Jester_Fu]

Interesting, Sid.

Is it a case when 'mixing with their eye's' that you hear the same thing they're seeing, though? I mean, in the case of you music director he, and it seems mainly he, was effected by giving preference to visual information that seemed to totally conflict with the audible information. Perhaps he's just not able to perceive sound as sharply due to experience (and loss of hearing due to it) - but there was someone else there that even when told the tuner was right only shut up to avoid an argument and didn't change what she heard and retune her instrument. If it was a case that your ears could be over-ruled by what you're seeing then you'd expect to hear the same 'good' results as the person mixing with eye's/VU's/Spectrum analysis etc. I think mixing with eyes is something more down to inexperience and not directly an effect created by being able to see what's going on. I think, different to what Spec posted, that' an effect of habbit rather than something hard wired in our brain.

I've seen people do it and heard the results - but even sitting there watching them, i can tell it sounds shit. With the example of muso's who ask for a certain thing to be adjusted and you can just look like you're fiddling and they'll be happy... again i think that's more perception and, quite often, arrogance rather than something hard wired in your brain - it's not something everyone does the same. I've heard stories from friends that installing a temperature knob, not connected to anything, in an office building often solves arguments about temperature even though the knob does nothing. That's more cognitive reasoning than some subconscious action. There was no problem in the first place but, due to the persons conscious personality/prejudice, they say something is... and then only when they think they have control over it does their reaction change even though nothing else has. It indicates a preference for visual information but i don;t think it means everyone reacts the same or you can't be trained out of it by making conscious changes.

With the EQ - i can't say i've ever had that. I've often thought "that still sounds shit - WTF is going on" and then found a bypass or kill on, but never set up an EQ in bypass and thought "yeah, perfect" only to find the bypass was in. I've certainly used instruments to short cut the process of leveling a room, though. I'm inclined to rely on my eyes in that situation as i can process the information faster and, i guess the same as your example, trust the instrument over my ears for that fast result. The final leveling and tuning is always done with ears though to ensure the room sounds good. I don't have to put the instruments away or turn them off to do that, though. I can think of times where i have seen a spike but can't hear it so pay no more attention to it, for example. I can switch off the visual information and still process the audio - the example spec posted the only way to do that is to look away.

Though maybe there is some merit when you have to interpret more complex sounds like music. Speech is a fundamental thing and we don't recognise words based on pitch/tune (from what i understand) or we'd all have trouble understanding anything anyone says and worse when they sing! I guess we process the words and use the pitch/tone and volume to add meaning to the words and place context around them - but that's conscious training, IMO. I mean, if you come from a house where there's always lots of noise and yelling and talking loud then you think that's normal where other people may interpret that as anger. But that's interpreting the sound and not fundamentally processing it. With how you interpret music being an important part of how you hear it then i can see there's a bit more merit in visuals having an effect on what some people hear. I don't think it's a blanket rule, though - like the speech in Spec's original post.

[ineedasn]

I have a really random, and probably stupid, idea about this subject.

I think it would be interesting and really trippy if a music video was made showing a number of different faces. Each face would sing the song, but with slightly varying mouth movements. Therefore, every viewer would hear the song differently at each moment depending on which face they were looking at.

Not sure what my point was, but I think it would be interesting.

[Sid]

ineedasn, on 25 May 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

Therefore, every viewer would hear the song differently at each moment depending on which face they were looking at.

Oh that would be awesome! The lyrics change depending on which face you look at!! Cool.

Jester_Fu - I THINK I agree = )

I believe that - with the case of the guitar tuner anyway, that this is a matter of being a little lazy. That's the risk of using a tuner and why some old school muso's encourage learners away from using tuners. You're relying on a 'third party' device - not your brain. If he had a perfect sense of pitch he may or may not of picked up on it depending how concerned he was about it at the time. I guess I wasn't really suggesting that this is an exact example of the McGurk effect like in the link.

One thing is for sure though, and again this is why it's important to have educated ears, our audiences' ears are the only things that are truly important. You could argue that damaging your equipment is secondary to that (or primary! depending on your love for your audience and the cost of your equipment = p... But save a loudness Nazi coming in with a SPL meter, nobody's going to refer to a VU or spectrum analyser in the crowd to double check if they're enjoying it or not. Ears have to be the QC. Otherwise it's like a chef checking his food with a microscope instead of tasting it before it goes out haha

I'm a little confused by

Quote

If it was a case that your ears could be over-ruled by what you're seeing then you'd expect to hear the same 'good' results as the person mixing with eye's/VU's/Spectrum analysis etc.

I don't follow... oh ok, so you're saying 'in the case where there's something going wrong - eg feedback, distortion, buzz etc, and your man doesn't hear it, the visuals would direct it to his attention? Yeah that would be a positive.

But as with the case of the guitar tuner you're relying on a device. If the metering etc is wrong, what you will hear is incorrectly influenced.

As for the bypassed EQ, first year TAFE we had a mixing desk where you had to 'activate' the EQ with the push of a button. I used to take supreme joy in catching my classmates EQing something without pressing the button. I was never a prick about it, just go up to them and say quietly so the others did hear 'you have to press this'. It's the most embaressing thing, because I flip between active and bypassed a lot when adjusting the EQ it never happened to me. Which is good because my face goes bright red when I'm embaressed.

If you're saying that all of these types of things are inexperience or lazyness rather than the McGurk effect then yeah I agree. I wonder if you could ever test it though... thinking back to first year TAFE a friend of mine showed me his mix of a live recording he'd made. The mix was ok, except that everything was high pitched. I knew what the problem was because I'd used that equipment before and had the same problem. He didn't believe me though - he couldn't hear it. I made him open the session - everything was perfect, he thought I was crazy and laughed at me. = ( He passed because he had done everything right, the TAFE equipment was faulty. But in the real world there's no way he'd get paid.

[Jester_Fu]

^Yeah, that's what i'm saying. I agree that some people can be tricked by their eye's because they don't know - or know how - to trust/use their ears. The McGurk effect is something ingrained in us and the video says it doesn't matter how hard you try to learn out of the effect, it can't seem to be done. But as you pointed out - you could hear an effect your friend couldn't even though you'd had the same visual information he did. To me that's proof that looking at Audio gear or a DAW doesn't intrinsically override what you hear unless you're the kind of person who's already decided they can mix audio with their eyes. There's plenty out there who do - and as you pointed out, they either don;t get paid, get paid badly or generally not considered well.

I would agree that you can use some visuals to train your ears, though. Just like listening to frequencies and sounds in isolation, i think you can use visual indications of a frequency or peak in tracks to teach people how to recognise the sound/frequency.

ineedasn, on 25 May 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

I think it would be interesting and really trippy if a music video was made showing a number of different faces. Each face would sing the song, but with slightly varying mouth movements. Therefore, every viewer would hear the song differently at each moment depending on which face they were looking at.

That's actually a very cool idea. Nothing stoopid about it!

[Baran Gueltekin]

interesting, but i'm not sure how that information can be used in the favour of music theory though...

[rhythmboy]

Baran Gueltekin, on 30 May 2011 - 01:53 PM, said:

interesting, but i'm not sure how that information can be used in the favour of music theory though...

In many different ways actually:

For example, in Medieval music circles, there can be much debate about how the notation of early Gregorian and Renaissance scores should be performed. Academics will debate almost endlessly about what a particular symbol should sound like when played, it is not good enough to just play what sounds good - you must play what sounds correct.

In fact, music notation and the rules of music theory can be just as much about 'eyes before ears' as all the other examples Sid and Jester raised. Self-taught songwriters who rely on instinct and their ears can be criticized by those who do have strong music theory knowledge who know how to write and read notation. But who is the better musician? Does knowing how to write a cadence with a French or Italian 6th on the stave make your song catchy and appealing?

However, it can work the other way in favour of music theory as you say. Part of the reason that many of the rules of counterpoint, cadences, chord progression, transposition etc become 'rules' is that generally they do sound good, and have been proven thousands of times in great compositions. And a musician who can read it off the page is able to play your piece without having to teach them or explain it to them, and you can trust it will come out right.

Sid's example of the musical director with the tuner is also a good example of how performers can rely too heavily on artificial tuning systems than our ears, often to their detriment. There's a reason that in symphony orchestras everyone tunes to the oboe's A, because then everyone is in tune with each other, rather than a machine. That being said, those musicians are well-trained and know what an A should sound like from memory.

Now I'm wondering if anything I have said is relevant to the original discussion...

[Sid]

rhythmboy, on 11 June 2011 - 09:58 PM, said:

in Medieval music circles, there can be much debate about how the notation of early Gregorian and Renaissance scores should be performed.

oh man you just reminded me of the hour of my life I lost last Saturday night when I started a conversation about vibrato with a classical musician.

[steve.childs]

Very interesting article.