trusting your ears and working blind

[Epic Audio]

Want to throw in a problem I'm dealing with. And which I think generally very much underestimated, or maybe it's just me overestimating it. I didn't have much opportunities yet to discuss it prolificly with people, so every feedback, experience, thought... is very welcome!

It's all about trusting your ears when editing audio material.

Everyone knows how important this is. But when looking at it closer it's not as easy as it seems to be. Some time ago I happened to come across the "McGurk-effect" which showed me impressively how much a visual event can trigger what you believe to hear. Even when you know the effect, it appears. This is tested and proved with words vs. movement of the lips (and in background knowing which lip movement create which sound...), but I believe that when working with e.g. an eq, this effect may be of significance also. And after thinking about it, I'm afraid that the more experience in eqing you have, the greater is the danger of this effect to appear.
So the consequence for me, to ensure that I can trust my ears, was to get rid of visual influences while e.g. finding the right amount of gain of an eq band.

Practically I do this either with the mouse: grab the knob/slider, close my eyes, mess around with it until I don't know what is the value I'm starting with and then find the right amount while listening and after that open the eyes again. (Of course being limited to set only one parameter at a time)
Or with hardware controllers, that I assign to the relevant knobs in the plugin. (I'm mixing on cubase, using the "quick-controls" to assign, which has some big weaknesses, I asked for some improvements, but Steinberg seems to not give a f*ck on what clients say) I do have haptically high quality knobs but in the end I'm always limited by the max amount of 128 steps per channel that midi provides. Btw. this seems outdated as hell between this ridiculous super precise high tech stuff around us. Is there any developement of the midi standard? If so, who is working on it?

These difficulties when trying to work blind, especially in digital environment make me wonder whether I'm the only one who is concerned about it...

[Grae_]

Epic Audio wrote:Want to throw in a problem I'm...

[Its Clipping]

Yeah 8 bit controllers sucks but sometimes old ...

[clint]

Normally the room/environment is your problem w...

[audiosabre]

Epic Audio wrote:And which I think generally ve...

[audiosabre]

resolV wrote:Never EQ or compress in solo, even...

[Agnivesh]

audiosabre wrote: I'd have said something alon...

[Grae_]

Its Clipping wrote:Vive la révolution de la pré...

[Grae_]

Well about the McGurk effect, that it applies t...

[Grae_]

Me again : Here is a quite interesting article...

[ReedIndeed]

resolV wrote:Me again : Here is a quite intere...

[Grae_]

You're welcome. I think it's the way it should ...

[ReedIndeed]

resolV wrote:You're welcome. I think it's the w...

[gregh]

ReedIndeed wrote:resolV wrote:You're welcome. I...

[Grae_]

very nice ressource gregh. Thank you. Yeah, no...

[gregh]

resolV wrote:very nice ressource gregh. Thank y...

[RoadCrewWorker]

This is a very cool topic and good thread on it...

[gregh]

RoadCrewWorker wrote:.......... sound-designing...

[JOJOLO]

So to summarize : always try to edit you track ...

[highkoo]

Id bet pretty much eeeeeveryone has spent at le...

[RoadCrewWorker]

gregh wrote:what a great idea for a conceptual ...

[Grae_]

I guess this is a way to learn a lot... on how ...

[Mc UB]

highkoo wrote:Id bet pretty much eeeeeveryone h...

[Epic Audio]

Thanks @ all for participation so far. For me s...

[Epic Audio]

RoadCrewWorker wrote:gregh wrote:what a great i...

[highkoo]

I used to have a template of a simple 32bar Hou...

[Epic Audio]

highkoo wrote:I used to have a template of a si...