Sound colorization - Rant

[Djpsycode]

Hi all, I'm concerned that listeners will never be able to hear there favorite electronic tracks the way the producer intended them to be heard, due to the colorization of speakers and headphones in this day and age, unless we hear a track with speakers that have flat sound we are not hearing it as intended. If we do managed to locate speakers that have not had enhancements made to specific frequency ranges, we still cannot be fully sure as the producer may also have produced a track based on the colorization of his speakers. I would imagine listeners may be surprised how different their favorite tracks sound given all the right variables. Is it just me....?

[DJA208]

I think i understand what you're saying. There's so many different ways to listen to music these days that when you produce a track it's hard to tell what its going to sound like on everything.

Best thing to do is just check your tracks after doing a mixdown on several different things like Good headphones, crap headphones, car stereos etc.

It annoys me that when im in the process of making a track it'll sound great on my Monitor's, but then go to play it through my GF's car stereo and it sounds crap haha.

3rd world problems for producers eh! :tup:

[Manu]

It's just you. Not everyone can afford and/or care about a set of flat sounding monitors.


http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2014/03/10/steve-reich-dont-tell-me-you-dont-have-the-right-equipment-what-matters-is-your-musical-imagination/

[Djpsycode]

No offense but that sort of mind set it exactly what's wrong with the majority of Dj's now days, we should be concerned about sound quality, I saw a great interview with Tony Andrews from Funkton One, hopefully you will see it from a different perspective.

http://youtu.be/Y9mfwYhBIrg

[TCMuc]

Hi all, I'm concerned that listeners will never be able to hear there favorite electronic tracks the way the producer intended them to be heard, due to the colorization of speakers and headphones in this day and age, unless we hear a track with speakers that have flat sound we are not hearing it as intended. If we do managed to locate speakers that have not had enhancements made to specific frequency ranges, we still cannot be fully sure as the producer may also have produced a track based on the colorization of his speakers. I would imagine listeners may be surprised how different their favorite tracks sound given all the right variables. Is it just me....?

You're right as probably no one will ever hear a track the same way the prouducer heard it when he made it.

You're wrong when you think is a problem per se.

And you're even more wrong when you think this is a problem of "this day and age".


First of all, we can't know how a producer intended a song to be heard, we can only assume that the way he heard it on his speakers in his room is the way he wanted it to sound. So as you said, in order to hear it like he did, we would need to know what speakers he used. Also would we need to what room he made the track in, how that room was treated and how that affected the sound of the speakers.

Even if the producer had used speakers with a perfectly linear frequency response and we used the same speakers to listen to the song, but did so in a different room, wie wouldn't be hearing the song exactly like he did.

And speakers have always been coloring sound, this definitely isn't a new phenomenon.


Is that a bad thing? NO! Music, like every piece of art, is always subject to perception and interpretation, which imho plays a much larger role than minor differences in some details because of the use of different speakers. I'm not talking about some cheap computer speakers or Apple ear buds, but as long as people are using proper speakers, I don't see a problem.

Being concerned about different people hearing songs on different speakers is like being concerned about people not being able to properly perceive Vincent van Gogh's painting, since the light conditions will be different to those in the Netherlands in the mid/late 19th century.



Listeners will/can be surpised when listening to a song on different systems, but I don't think there are any "right" variables...

[disparate]

TCMuc summed it up better than I could.

Attempting to have every soundsystem produce sound in as 'flat' a way as possible would be not only impossible but a bit of a waste of time. The best club sound systems are set up to make the music sound great in that particular room, and even when a producer has a great monitoring setup they're thinking about how the mix translates to other systems rather than simply how it sounds on a 'true' system.

There are things that the music world needs, like better soundsystems/sound techs in a lot of venues, less people listening to music on iPod headphones, etc.

[thehadgi]

Slightly OT, but I've found since I got into production, I've stopped using EQ adjustments on my ipod, itunes, car, etc. Not that I'm thinking I get a 'flat' response, but it is interesting hearing how different music sounds across different output sources