Studio 1 — Frameworks — Spacial Characteristics.

Critical listening is primarily analysed from the engineer’s point of view, listening to the physical details of music: frequency response, dynamic range, tone, imaging, and how your instruments are blended together. (Music-production-guide.com, 2015)

One of the most important elements of critical listening are the imaging and spacial characteristics. The spacial aspects of a track define how the elements sit within a mix, whether they are in the forefront the background or to the sides. The main effects and processes used for this is reverb, delay and panning.

Panning in a mix is import in making the recording sound realistic, for example it is important to have the kick in the centre of the mix but the other percussion instruments can be panned slightly left and right to make it sound like an authentic drum kit in a realistic space. If you can imagine listening to a track where the kick is in your right ear, you would imagine the drum kit is placed to the right of the sound stage, this would then throw off the balance of other instruments on stage as panning other instruments with higher frequencies to the right wold become difficult, as your kick would be too loud and drown them out. Here is a helpful video on panning and stereo imaging and how each element is important to making your mix sounds great.

Reverb is an effect used to create a particular soundstage; this can be anything from a small enclosed space to a giant choir hall. When a decent amount of reverb is added to a sound it makes the sound more ‘wet’, smooths it out and improves the sustain, this causes the sound to seem further away. This is an example of a few different types of reverb used on a basic clean loop. You should be able to recognise how the reverb changes the perceived distance of the sound, especially in the large hall reverb example and the small room reverb example.

Delay can also make a recording sound further away as it creates an echoing sound effect. The delayed signal may either be played back multiple times, or played back into the recording again, to create the sound of a repeating, decaying echo. Delay effects range from a subtle echo effect to a pronounced blending of previous sounds with new sounds. Here is an example of some mixing techniques done by Signature Sound Studio used in Pro Tools in order to make these female vocals sound very delayed and ambient. You should be able to notice how the delay effect can be very similar to verb when used minimally. In this example the female vocals sound very processed by the end, however this is what the mixing engineer wanted to achieve.

All of these effects mentioned above are important in filling out a track as each instrument needs its own space to feel and sound correct within the mix. Critical listening occurs when you still want to understand what a song is about, but also have some reason or responsibility to evaluate what is really going on. This is where we break down the different effects and elements used in order to find out how the engineer achieved these certain effects. Without critical listening, as audio professions, we aren't able to truly identify how sounds, moods and emotions are portrayed through the use of creatively and effectively modifying recorded sounds.

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