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Old 12-11-2009, 07:36 PM   #38
yep
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Join Date: Aug 2006
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In terms of front-to-back space, this is actually a topic that I am a little skeptical of (or maybe just incompetent about). I usually tend to think that good "front-to-back" placement is really no different than just plain old good sound. I.e., an instrument that sounds "too forward" or inappropriately "pushed back" is not much different than an instrument that has been played, recorded, or processed inappropriately.

In a general sense, resonant low mids sound "further back" and dry or gated upper mids sound "up front". And it's often that simple. There is a strong instrument-specific component to this principle. A string bass with a little bit of gating or close-miking, and a smidgen of EQ to bring up the string/finger sound will seem to be pushed a lot closer to the listener, whereas a mandolin with a little reverb and a slight upper-mid rolloff will sound pushed to the other side of the room.

I.e., it's not about how the frequency spectrum looks in an analyzer, it's about the psycho-acoustic cues that tell us the difference between, say, snapping fingers right next to your ears versus snapping your fingers with your arm stretched far away (try it-- it's obvious). One "pops" and even leaves a bit of sharp, residual pain, and we can hear detail and texture in both the high and low frequencies. The other sounds cluckier and thuddier.

Close to the ear, the highs reveal every rasp of the fingerprints in an articulate and detailed way. Further away, they become a ghostly whisp of air. Close in, the lows are a quick, thunky "punch" of pressure on the eardrum. Further away, the lows are are felty, thuddy "puh". Close in, the mids sound like a sharp, slightly painful "click", like a wood block hit sharply by a drumstick. Further away, the mids are a meatier "snap", like the sound of slapping a steak on the counter, if that makes any sense.

In a way, you can learn all you need to know by snapping your fingers or clapping your hands in different ways in different places.

"close" (and "small") sounds like: articulated, textured highs; punchy, thunky lows; and sharp, pointed mids. "far" (and "big") sounds like airy, ghostly, harmonic highs, poofy or wahwy lows, and "bamphy", explosive mids.

Note that I linked close and "small", along with far and "big" sounds. Rolling thunder does not sound "in your face". A lover sighing in your ear or kissing your cheek is about as "close" and "in your face" as sound gets, but it does not sound "big". For men who shave, or for women who apply makeup, that distinctive, articulated rasp and textured brushy sound are the best comparison for a literally "in your face" sound that you can get.

"close" sounds have a dry, textured, sandy, maybe grainy or powdery quality. "far" sounds have a boomy, rolling, "full" and "washed out" quality.

A lot of modern production aims for both "big" and "in your face" from the same sounds. This is a very dramatic, very artificial kind of soundscape that can become rapidly fatiguing to listen to. But good or ill, it's worth talking about.

Maybe the most common example of "big" and "in your face" sound is the stereotypical movie sound effect of a puff on a cigarette. I think everyone is familiar with that throaty, crackly, satisfying sound of burning tobacco in a movie soundtrack. As a former longtime smoker, I can tell you that in reality, a cigarette makes practically zero sound. But the movie sound does a brilliant job of approximating what it FEELS like to take a drag off a cigarette. If all you knew of smoking came from the movies, you'd think that every puff of a cigarette filled the room with a rumbling crunch of crackling tobacco. Another similar effect from the movies is the big, satisfying crunch of boots walking in snow or gravel. Nevermind that it doesn't actually sound like that in real life, it FEELS that way--the skill of the foley artist lies in creating a soundscape that sounds realer than real, larger than life, and truly cinematic.

You can apply similar techniques in music recording, although much like in foley recording, intensity needs to be used with discretion. Making everything sound huge and in-your-face creates a painful, deafening, "TV commercial" sound at any volume.

Audio engineers and audiophiles often make a lot of fuss over "smooth" and "vintage" sounds, and they are frankly right, most of the time. There are not very many popular recordings made in the past 10 years that I expect people will still be listening to in 40 years. Music mixed to sound like a television commercial does not age well.

That said, it would be disingenuous to pretend that such soundscapes and techniques are irrelevant or illegitimate-- they are the dominant sounds on commercial radio today, for good or for ill.

What defines this modern sound of having both size and immediacy, both depth and in-your-face-ness is the combination of textured, detailed mids and highs with depressed, clean lower mids, and deep, booming, exaggerated lows. This is typically achieved by either multitracking or parallel processing (ie, two or more tracks of the same instrument, each track having a different sonic role).

If you have followed this thread all the way through, you should have a pretty good idea of how to achieve these different effects. It bears repeating that recording a single source with multiple mics, or processing it differently across multiple stems creates an unnatural sound, and that unnatural sounds can become tiring, gimmicky, and fatiguing to listen to.
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