Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

From: GAmoore@...


> One comment that Jack said got me thinking - that humans can only hear 
> a
> finite number of things at the same time. My uncle, who has a masters 
> in
> (classical style) music composition once told me something similar. 
> I'm thinking that
> maybe a good mixer would think about exactly what item the listener 
> should be
> listening to, instead of leaving it to the listener. And thus maybe 
> make
> changes to eq and level when things enter the mix, and then as they 
> settle down,
> maybe they should be dulled and brought down. Does anyone do this?

Two different ideas.

What your uncle said is a compositional thing. Most people can follow 
three lines - but that's only the first listening, and you can always 
hear the whole jigsaw puzzle even if you can't follow the lines. There 
are billions of examples of music that has way more than three lines 
going on, and even more billions of examples with lots of parts going 
on. I mean, just a typical rock song has a drum beat, bass line, a 
couple of rhythm parts, lead and bg vox, etc.

Your second idea, about mixing, is pretty common in orchestral mixing, 
in fact Keith Johnson suggests doing that in the EWQLSO manual. The 
idea is that you use a little more of the close mic position samples 
eq-ed up a little to call attention to important entrances, then back 
them off gradually. It's a subtle thing that can be very effective.

> One thing I have noticed is that leaving some sounds in, even if very 
> quiet
> still add to the feel. When playing back on monitors somewhat loud, 
> you bring
> the fader down (-20 db or so) and it seems to be dropping out, but 
> later when I
> burn to a CD and play in the car or the living room stereo, those 
> things are
> still quite present without being obtrusive.

That's because the car stereo has a very limited dynamic range.


Nick Batzdorf
818/905-9101, cell 590-9101