developing your hearing...

[jkhuri44]

This is probably a stupid question.. or statement....

BUT...

How do you get better at listening??

Ie. how do you know your not getting placebo'd?? when your trying out stuff to see if it makes a difference??

More on that...when someone "who knows what they're talking about" says, "X is WAY BETTER than Y"...and this person is testing things in a good monitoring environment... do they really mean it when they say there is a huge difference??

I dont know if im making any sense....but im really perplexed here, and just wondering if anyone can shed some light, spin a few tales about this kinda stuff?

Cheers...

Jamil.

[davemc]

Everyone like things better then other things.. Its all personal. The more and more I got to hear better gear and my ears got better the more I heard subtle things.
Although what I like or do not like could be different then you. So at the end of the day try for yourself. Which is hard in Australia.
When you try things match levels.. So many times I have seen people fooled by volume jumps. Also see what it is like in a mix.
Room and monitors do make a difference, if your missing stuff you will not hear it. Although I used to always boombox check for a reference without teh detail of my studio monitors.

A difference between the Studio Projects mic and my Neumann was more depth, 3D image and my realistic sound. Now a $200 mic vs a RRP $7k mic there is a lot of $'s difference. What it is worth it to you to try the best possible sound is your choice. For some things the $200 mic could work better. Most studios still use 57's.
I know a few people who crap on there cheaper gear is just the same as the better stuff. I often wonder if this is:
1) They never heard better gear.
2) They really think there cheap gear is better. They are entilted to there thoughts.
3) There hearing is not up to a standard to hear the difference. (A lot of home engineers fall into this camp)
4) They know there is a difference between hi-end and low end as they used nice things. Although need to spin the marketing of there studio so they can get work.
I know a lot of people who fall into the last one The I have plugins of X,Y and Z just like the real thing. We have valve pres. be!@#$%^& valve pres better then any Neve.......

[jkhuri44]

yes, i feel the more i grow, and am able to hear more good stuff, i will be able to expand my "palate" (i think thats how you spell it).

im refering to all things here, whether it be mics, cables, speakers, compressors etc etc


some things are more obvious than others...

[astrovic]

That's an excellent question, and something I've always struggled with. When is a high "silky", a bottom "round" or a tube "warm" (yeah, I know the last one is a bit of a wank, but anyways)?

"Palate" is the perfect word for it! Palate is not taste, or opinion, but the ability to discern the detail in something. From this palate, you can form your opinion, and the wider the palate, the better position you are in to make an informed opinion.

Developing a palate can only be achieved through practice, practice, practice. Also, it's always good to have in mind what you are looking for in advance, as this focus directs you towards the end result. By way of analogy, over the last couple of years I've been getting into wines, but until I went to a wine centre that had little sniffer bottles scented with typical wine smells (e.g, peach, grapefruit, apple, dirt, chocolate, pepper, leather - all smells and tastes you can discern in wine), I really didn't have much idea what I was looking for. After that, I had a much better perspective on what to have in mind when tasting a wine, and whilst many people sneer at wine buffs, you really can taste the difference if you know what to look for.

It would be nice to be able to do shootouts with gear in the same vein, especially with someone experienced holding your hand and telling you what to listen for, but that's rarely possible. The online shootouts are nice, but to be honest the differences are so minimal to me that they don't do a lot to develop my quite humble palate.

Dave's comments are right on the mark. If all you've ever worked with is "prosumer" level, you might have a well-defined grasp of prosumer quality and even a great prosumer palate (sounds like myself!). Hardly qualifies you to compare that gear to hi-end audio - your palate may not be developed enough to really understand what you're hearing and even a proper A/B test might not be enough to show you the differences. So your opinions will not be fully informed and might come out skewed.

As a home "engineer" myself, the world of Neve and Neumann would probably be wasted on me because I wouldn't be able to really discern the difference between it and a lesser, and to the extent I could the difference wouldn't justify the cost jump. In any event, my humble little room and its limitations would negate any benefit as Neve into Neumann + my room = mid/ow mud :) So I accept my limitations, work with what I've got, improve it incrementally and if I need anything to sound top-notch, I'll go and visit the davemc's of this world :)

[jkhuri44]

I went to a wine centre that had little sniffer bottles scented with typical wine smells

We should have something like that...i dont know how shootouts operate...or how precise they are...

but an audio sniffer centre would be sweet...

I've seen Mercenary audio advertise a cd that has heaps of different equipment sampled on it...but i would think those cd's crap, because you arent there to see and hear what the performances were like, and you werent there to hear the audio with your ears, THEN compare it to the recorded result..

: (

[davemc]

I have done a few shoot outs back when I had a lot of gear. Also got a few shoot out CD/DVD's over the years. The mp3 web ones.. Well your just lost a lot of detail going MP3???
First thing is there is no best, as solo its hard to hear how they fit in the mix. Also different sounds need different sounds. I used Ribbons for some male singers over teh Neumann etc. Other singers worked with 58's .. I always looked at it in three camps with shoot outs.
Sounds real to the orginal source. Or added something nice.
Usable although colored or missing something.
Small and 2D.. Normally the Mackie/Plat range pres etc.

I mean one of teh things as a engineer. You look at the orginal sound change it the most you can. Then you say well to get it from where it is to where I want it to be. Maybe a darker mic into a darker pre will help etc etc

I know I have had a lot of people come in to shoot outs if your ears are not developed yet you can miss the differences even in a good room with nice monitors. There are some wave files on my for sale page 24/44.1k wave files..
http://www.indentmusic.com.au/forsale.htm

Have to get on to selling stuff again. Just had our first baby last week. So looks like I will be getting out of doing a lot of recording stuff if my day job lasts. Keep my self a little setup and dabble now it seems.

[Text_Edifice]

At a more practical level there's a couple of things I do to try and improve my ears

1) practice spectral solfege - get some CD's (even pink / white noise), monitors a parametric eq and a friend. Have one of you boost / cut set bands (start by limiting yourself to six bands - something like 120 Hz / 250 Hz / 500 Hz / 2kz / 8 khz / 10 khz) while the other tries to guess what's been changed. Flick the EQ in / out a couple of times but NO peaking. There was a cool little app called Earwise on OSX that did this for you but it's dissapeared somewhere out there on the web.

2) listen critically to as much (volume and diversity) music as you can on as many systems as possible. I just got some new monitors a month back and have been slowly working through my entire Cd collectoin (it's not small) to get an idea of how they sound and how my room sounds with them (still messing around with treatment / placement too). It's interesting what starts jumping out at you when you've listened to a bunch of unrelated discs back to back.

From this you can build a good reference library of music that has the sort of depth / imaging / tones / etc. that you would like to aspire to in your own work. It can be a bit demoralising to finish a mix then throw on your reference tracks and find you're not anywhere near as hot shit as you thought but I'd wager your ears will improve and help you tailore your mixes.

[astrovic]

I guess the good use you can put to those online shootouts is sit there and play them, whilst thinking about what you heard in each (maybe write it down). Worst case scenario you focus your mind on the detail what you are listening to and this could only build your palate. Can beat being in the room at the time, but hey it's better than nothing.

The less experienced you are, the more you would (should?) get out of that approach, and vice versa

[astrovic]

Oh and Dave - congrats on the baby!

My little girl turned 1 today and I've been on a high all day :) She rocks.

[davemc]

Oh and Dave - congrats on the baby!

My little girl turned 1 today and I've been on a high all day :) She rocks.

Thanks born on the 06/11/06 he he .. Yes doing well. Getting some sleep.
Congrates on your littel girl turning one I gather into everything now..

[mal stanley]

Listen to the great recordings over the past 60 years or so..pick a few from each decade...close the door for privacy and listen past the music to the sounds..the quality of the sound..the depth..ambience...balance of different frequencies...even the great mono recordings (Pet Sounds/ Rudy van Gelder Jazz rec's etc.).and earlier recordings still had great sense of depth..listen how that can be created by emphasising bright vs dark...
a technique you can still use..