May 06, 2004 02:32 pm ok, my graph didn't work, lol
Music Visualization...How do you visualize?
Posted on May 06, 2004 02:32 pm
ILLbizzel
ILLbino - one of WA's finest
Member Since: Feb 10, 2004
I'm one of those people that tries to not only hear, but visualize music as well. When I visualize music, I try to think of it as an X-Y axis. While the X axis is the left and right speakers, I visualize the Y axis has Low and High pitched sounds. So I visualize a graph that has balanced sounds throughout the 4 coordinates. I guess I should be using a 3rd dimension (Z) for 3d sound too, but I'm not setup for that yet, lol. How do you visualize your music?
Heres my visualization:
High End
-
-
-
-
L Sp-------------R Sp
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-
-
-
Low End
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May 06, 2004 02:32 pm ok, my graph didn't work, lol
May 06, 2004 02:35 pm Testing, lol.
......High End.......
..........Y..........
..........Y..........
..........Y..........
..........Y..........
L.Sp.XXXXX-XXXXX.R.Sp
..........Y..........
..........Y..........
..........Y..........
..........Y..........
.......Low End.......
May 06, 2004 02:36 pm sorry for all the posts, but the graphs aren't working, lol. I hope you understand what I'm saying, lol
May 06, 2004 02:38 pm Yeah, I see what you are saying. I don't really "visualize" it with anything except frequency analyzers and Har-Bal. :-)
Well, and the occassional visual plugin in WinAmp and WMP.
The only real visualization I do is where I place instruments, not be ther frequency range.
May 06, 2004 02:45 pm So when you use frequency analysis or Har-Bal, what do you look for? A balance throughout, or prevention of frequency clusters?
That's an area I need to focus more on. When I make a beat, I'll make a good sounding sub bass, but then I try to overlay a kick on it, it distorts it. So sometimes, I have to raise the pitch of the kick to keep the low end frequencys from fighting each other. I've been using a finger bass more often now and that seems to work better with some of the kicks I use.
May 06, 2004 02:47 pm Ya just want a nice smooth frequency spectrum, no massive peaks and valleys in it (you should see what a mess some plugins make of a spectrum) it's those peaks and valleys that make recording sound different in different speakers. Cuz if the peak or valley happens to be in a weak or strong point of that particular speaker it colors the sound, you get stronger or weaker sound at that point...just keep it smooth for best overall results.
May 06, 2004 03:04 pm I tend to visualize music with little black dots, lines, squiggles and other various symbols...
May 06, 2004 03:44 pm I see dancing wemons in grass skirts weaving gently toward me.
May 06, 2004 06:14 pm I actually see each instrument as a blob of color on a black background. My x axis accounts for both frequency, and panning, with higher frequency to the right. And my Y axis shows the amount of loudness, so that louder sounds are higher up.
May 06, 2004 11:34 pm i agree with the color thing. i was talking to my brother one time about how eddie van halen's guitar tone was cool to me because it seemed "brown", and a few months later he told me that he read in an article that ed likes his tone to sound...here it comes...BROWN.
i feel like if you let go and stop worrying about whether what you say is "dumb" or not, you can develop your own sense of how you visualize music and use it to help in whatever way you find necessary. it's different for every person though. the van halen story was just for kicks.
May 07, 2004 09:23 am I think being able to visualize music is a really necessary part of mixing.
When you can hear a mix and kinda 'see' where it's crammed or missing stuff you can tweak things nicely...
that said... I like my guitars to sound red and look like concrete with gravel on the top.:)
May 07, 2004 10:07 am I visualize very spatially- when I'm mixing, i tend to "see" instruments as occupying a physical space in the frequenxy/stereo spectrums. So, for me, the basic rule of thumb of mixing is to make sure no two objects fall in the same place and same frequency range in the mix, and that it stays pretty balanced from side to side in that respect... unless of course it fits the music to play with some imbalances. ;)
I see gutiar tones in color, though. A dark, rectifier-like metal chunk tune is "black," while an AC/DC crunch is kinda grey, and a warmer Rage against the Machine-like crunch is more of a warm tan. Bizarre, but it works...
-D
May 07, 2004 12:11 pm see here's an example of the subjectivity of this...tom morello tone looks "red" to me.
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