Pro Sound Web: We spend a great deal of time considering individual sounds in a space. We prescribe attributes to the instruments and the players in order to organize our thoughts about the sounds and how they blend. We may often say a singer is “mid-rangy,” a snare is “ringy,” or perhaps the acoustic guitar is “warm.” We do the same for microphones, pre-amps, compressors, and what have you. It is surprising how little time is spent considering the sound of rooms, reverbs, delays, and whatever other spaces are coexisting within our mix.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Recording: Recording: The Importance Of Space In A Mix
Pro Sound Web: We spend a great deal of time considering individual sounds in a space. We prescribe attributes to the instruments and the players in order to organize our thoughts about the sounds and how they blend. We may often say a singer is “mid-rangy,” a snare is “ringy,” or perhaps the acoustic guitar is “warm.” We do the same for microphones, pre-amps, compressors, and what have you. It is surprising how little time is spent considering the sound of rooms, reverbs, delays, and whatever other spaces are coexisting within our mix.
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2 comments:
It's so interesting just how many separate elements one has to consider when mixing down to something that will ultimately be heard most frequently through decent-quality earphones or laptop speakers. Each room has its own feel when you record in it, and as this article shows, that effect can be both a benefit or a hindrance depending on the intended sound of the finished product. Certainly whenever possible, one should try to record every separate element of a piece under as similar conditions as possible (same room, same weather, etc), but that's a luxury that recording artists aren't always afforded. So it's good to know about things like comb-filtering and how to read a room to understand how to analyze its qualities, the effect it will have on your recording, and what possible effects it will have on your final mixdown.
It is fascinating when an article aligns with some of the teachings we have had here. I know we have discussed spaces in the sound StageCraft mini and the effect of the space. I imagine that things like reverb and whether a space is moist or dry, which affect a live performance, also affect a recording, even moreso than in a live performance, since a program is able to pick up sounds more clearly and, when listened to in repetition, the inconsistencies (of spaces, humidity, weather) may be more apparent.
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