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Tuesday, October 06, 2020
How Do You Know What Sounds Good?
ProSoundWeb: Most of us feel that we know good sound when we hear it. We also have tools to help us analyze the properties of sound, and we’ve learned to interpret those measurements and equate them with good and bad.
3 comments:
Elliot Queale
said...
We are really starting to ask the existential sound questions here aren't we? Getting to the root of what it means to sound 'good' begs the question about the application. I hear recently that "live performances are trying to sound like recordings, and recordings are trying to sound like live performances". This is highlighted by the author's experience with the Zac Brown band, where he had never heard a live system that evenly covered. This really sheds a lot of light on what we desire out of our music experience. Why do we crave live performance when recordings allow you to experience a much richer and detailed sound? When the author walked past that student playing the sax in their dorm, did that uniquely live sound move him more than any other recorded sax? It probably depends, which, at the end of the day is probably the most important lesson. Often we can get caught up in our own past experiences with sound that we forget that we need to tailor our designs to the moment. Knowing when to use a sound, or more importantly when NOT to use sound, is vital to inciting emotion in an audience member.
This article makes a solid point. Memory itself is actually not all that great as many articles and hard evidence explains that we often remember how we felt but can lack on the details. In terms of sound it makes sense that we essentially compare the sound entering our ears to the quality of sound that we typically utilize to produce the sound that enters our ears. I have often found myself in my car, where my baseline of music comes from, and everything sounds fine and normal. But then I enter into my friend’s car and their stereo system is better and the music just sound better even if it is the same song. Taking it a step further, another friend has studio monitors that he uses to listen to music and the same song from my car to another car and now to the monitors is very drastic. I will inevitably end up noticing sounds and other subtle bits on the monitors that bring the song to a whole other level. Then there is live music, and the article puts that well. Live music is just a whole other beast: often I find that the atmosphere of where I am at ends up adding to the music that you just cannot get in a car or on the monitors.
I am not a sound-geek… I don’t really think about what I’m listening to and just enjoy what I enjoy. So this was an interesting read.
I’ve been to MAYBE 2 concerts in my lifetime, so I’m not too big on that. And I’m not the type of person who is restricted in what they listen to. Right now, I’m actually listening to Japanese orchestras. So what I listen to varies as well. I think a huge part of picking music that “sounds good” to me, depends on the mood. How am I feeling? Do I want to amplify this feeling? Etc.
Obviously I was aware that there is a science to sound. Otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. How sound and hearing works though is a dark-art that I’m not particularly sure is something I’m willing to delve deep into. I will end this comment with this, this past month there’s been an on-again off-again ringing in my ear that I refuse to go to the doctor’s to check out, but the sound of good music always drowns it out... so I must be okay!
3 comments:
We are really starting to ask the existential sound questions here aren't we? Getting to the root of what it means to sound 'good' begs the question about the application. I hear recently that "live performances are trying to sound like recordings, and recordings are trying to sound like live performances". This is highlighted by the author's experience with the Zac Brown band, where he had never heard a live system that evenly covered. This really sheds a lot of light on what we desire out of our music experience. Why do we crave live performance when recordings allow you to experience a much richer and detailed sound? When the author walked past that student playing the sax in their dorm, did that uniquely live sound move him more than any other recorded sax? It probably depends, which, at the end of the day is probably the most important lesson. Often we can get caught up in our own past experiences with sound that we forget that we need to tailor our designs to the moment. Knowing when to use a sound, or more importantly when NOT to use sound, is vital to inciting emotion in an audience member.
This article makes a solid point. Memory itself is actually not all that great as many articles and hard evidence explains that we often remember how we felt but can lack on the details. In terms of sound it makes sense that we essentially compare the sound entering our ears to the quality of sound that we typically utilize to produce the sound that enters our ears. I have often found myself in my car, where my baseline of music comes from, and everything sounds fine and normal. But then I enter into my friend’s car and their stereo system is better and the music just sound better even if it is the same song. Taking it a step further, another friend has studio monitors that he uses to listen to music and the same song from my car to another car and now to the monitors is very drastic. I will inevitably end up noticing sounds and other subtle bits on the monitors that bring the song to a whole other level. Then there is live music, and the article puts that well. Live music is just a whole other beast: often I find that the atmosphere of where I am at ends up adding to the music that you just cannot get in a car or on the monitors.
I am not a sound-geek… I don’t really think about what I’m listening to and just enjoy what I enjoy. So this was an interesting read.
I’ve been to MAYBE 2 concerts in my lifetime, so I’m not too big on that. And I’m not the type of person who is restricted in what they listen to. Right now, I’m actually listening to Japanese orchestras. So what I listen to varies as well. I think a huge part of picking music that “sounds good” to me, depends on the mood. How am I feeling? Do I want to amplify this feeling? Etc.
Obviously I was aware that there is a science to sound. Otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. How sound and hearing works though is a dark-art that I’m not particularly sure is something I’m willing to delve deep into. I will end this comment with this, this past month there’s been an on-again off-again ringing in my ear that I refuse to go to the doctor’s to check out, but the sound of good music always drowns it out... so I must be okay!
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