Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Pensado 
Also, I would like to get some discussions going on the physics of music, as well as the psycho-acoustic applications that you guys are using. Please share with us any excellent books you have run across.
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Hey Dave,
I think this thread could be one of those threads that just keeps going. At least this topic has been consuming by brain cells for 7 years, and counting...
In our studios we have two windows, thus daylight ambience. One morning entering the studio after a late night mixing session, I sat down and started to listen to what I referred to as a great mix the night before. As I heard it (12 noon) I thought it sucked but everybody said that I was crazy and that it sounded great. I kept fiddling with the mix during the day and as we reached night I thought I had made a great mix(again). Then I pulled up the mix from the night b4 and I realized that it was way better. Then I got real mad and went home, contemplating why the H*** my ears were playing trix on me.
It wasn't my ears playing the tricks but my eyes. It took my quite a while and many bad mixes to realize where the problem was. At night, I have chosen the light atmosphere that I like. My small monitors are about 3 yards away from the wall where the large monitors are flush mounted. The distance is lit my vague light causing a cozy atmosphere. I realized that during the mix I was actually mixing more with my eyes than my ears. The voice was sitting back 1 yard on a green field while the strings were sounding in the distance, off, somewhere in deep space. I could see a million images as I was mixing. AS LONG AS the light was right. Then one day we had a maintenance guy in to work on the console. He had left a bright light(Lamp) between my small and main monitors and as I started to mix I thought, Jesus - I cant SEE my mix like that. Then it struck me like a meteor from space. I am mixing with my eyes. Well not exactly - but if I cannot SEE my mix - then I cannot mix.
That is when I figured out that the mixes I make "in the dark" are NOT sounding bad at daylight - only I am not able to SEE the mix as the daylight is shining from the back windows giving me a contrast where I cannot see the mix between the speakers. So I put up curtains - and when I come in the next day to listen - I pull those curtains down, pour up a nice cup of 'cino, light a cigarette and listen back to the nice mix I had made during the dark.
Atmosphere is EVERYTHING to me when I make music. That is why I am yelling at the DUC - constantly - for digidesign to finally offer a few options to PT where you can have a "Look" that does not light op the studio like a x-mass tree during dark.
So that was the light situation. Heres another Psycho Acoustic thing I am working on:
Applying the sound of a "venue" to a sound source without a reverb decay.
It aint no biggie putting the i.e. vocal into a convolution reverb and make it sound like that venue. Only thing is that now that vocal gets a decay which it did not have before. It gets wet. That is what reverberators do. An EQ also changes the sound but does not add a decay to the source. So if a room can be captured and used via an impulse response then one should also be able use that impulse with say, Q-Clone. And that is possible. I have successfully been able to capture the sound of a room without and apply it to a source without applying decay it. The process is long and takes at least an hours to make it sound good. But it is, indeed, very interesting sounding.
Anyway - cool thread - Hopefully others will share their Psycho"path" acoustic experiences here, as well....
