I Think I Just Had an Epiphany About Channel Faders

[Anderton]

They're more like bus faders, for the sub-mixer that consists of the gain controls in EQ frequency bands.

 

After all, EQs are just amplifiers. They divide the amplification into different ranges, but still, all you're doing is altering levels to avoid masking, fix problems, or whatever. Then when you have your correct submix levels for thevarious frequencies, the channel fader serves as a bus or group fader.

 

It's easy enough to think "well of course, that's just a different way to saying what we all know." But I've never looked at EQ before as a frequency-based sub-mixer, and the channel fader as a "master volume control" for them. It's changing how I think about the way multiple tracks interact.

[KenElevenShadows]

Makes sense conceptually. I think I might have been thinking about it in this sense but never fully crystallized or verbalized it like you have. But there you go. 

[Anderton]

12 hours ago, KenElevenShadows said:

I think I might have been thinking about it in this sense but never fully crystallized or verbalized it like you have.

 

Same here. Putting it into words made me think about it on a deeper level.

[KenElevenShadows]

2 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

Same here. Putting it into words made me think about it on a deeper level.

 

I had long thought of EQ as boosting specific frequencies (or dipping them, obviously) and the fader for non-frequency dependent boosting, but putting it all together like how you worded definitely helps conceptually.

[Nowarezman]

 It's all about hearing, and the very mysterious connection between hearing and thinking.  Or maybe "awareness" or "mindfulness" is a better term than "thinking".  

 

I think sometimes my entire musical education is about hearing the insides of sounds.  Analysis is a terrible term, has a sort of formaldehyde stink about it.  But if you don't have awareness of sounds at many levels, in a sense you're not really hearing, you're just registering audible symbols of pre-programmed responses.

 

nat

 

[Anderton]

12 hours ago, Nowarezman said:

But if you don't have awareness of sounds at many levels, in a sense you're not really hearing, you're just registering audible symbols of pre-programmed responses.

 

That's something I try to explain at seminars...the "average listener" hears music in a different way. It's like a wash of sound punctuated by specific sounds of interest, rather than the pointillistic tapestry musicians hear. 

[ProfD]

10 minutes ago, Anderton said:

...the "average listener" hears music in a different way. It's like a wash of sound punctuated by specific sounds of interest, rather than the pointillistic tapestry musicians hear. 

D8mn bro...that's heavy and could be the genesis of a quotable.😁😎

[Anderton]

18 minutes ago, ProfD said:

D8mn bro...that's heavy and could be the genesis of a quotable.😁😎

 

If anyone here wants to use "pointillistic tapestry" as the name for an ambient album, feel free

[Nowarezman]

Yet I still feel that I need to be able to access that "wash of sound" listening mode or else I will have lost a primal (in all senses of the term) experience.

 

nat

 

 

 

[Anderton]

Well, you can switch modes...like I do at movies. If I like a movie, I have to see it twice. The first time to deconstruct every technical element, the second just to enjoy the show. Fortunately, one does not preclude the other. But I do think if you're a musician, your brain defaults to the high-res view. This can be a problem when mixing, if you end up focusing on one sound at the expense of others.

 

For example, when people tell me they can't get a good balance with the bass guitar part, I advise that they NOT listen to the bass. Listen to everything else, and see if the bass dominates or goes into the background in the context of listening to the other tracks.

[Nowarezman]

Right - so many things, if you focus on them directly, run away from you.  

 

With movies, I rarely recall more than tiny bits of the music soundtrack unless I am determined to focus on it to the exclusion of other "distractions" e.g. dialog, plot, popcorn.  

 

nat

 

[Theo Verelst]

An equalizer EE-wise adds a change to the signal, which is normally audible. It is however possible to built in a equalization in a signal which feeds a channel strip, which can be exactly countered by setting the opposing eq up in the mix strip. Also, if you have a signal component in one channel, and the same but opposite in another, with the right mix ratio, they will exactly cancel out, maybe that's interesting ?

T

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

On 8/18/2023 at 11:43 AM, Anderton said:

 

If anyone here wants to use "pointillistic tapestry" as the name for an ambient album, feel free

 

YES!!!!!!!

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

It might be that I just sat down with a good glass of Bourbon, and I am auditioning the new Audeze headphones while listening to the upcoming remaster of Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones...but I have now read this thread 3 times, and it's kinda breaking my brain...I mean, yeah, I get it...but do I ?!?

[KuruPrionz]

12 hours ago, Paul Vnuk Jr. said:

It might be that I just sat down with a good glass of Bourbon, and I am auditioning the new Audeze headphones while listening to the upcoming remaster of Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones...but I have now read this thread 3 times, and it's kinda breaking my brain...I mean, yeah, I get it...but do I ?!?

Don't overthink it, your mind will burst into flames!!!!

One of my best mix tricks is to get a mix done and ignore it for a couple of days. Then put it on the speakers in one room and go listen to it in another room. 

That usually leads to some changes, most of them fairly subtle but as a composite the results are better. 

[KenElevenShadows]

6 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Don't overthink it, your mind will burst into flames!!!!

One of my best mix tricks is to get a mix done and ignore it for a couple of days. Then put it on the speakers in one room and go listen to it in another room. 

That usually leads to some changes, most of them fairly subtle but as a composite the results are better. 

 

That is a good technique. Fresh ears.

 

Welcome back!

[Stokely]

Definitely makes sense signal-flow wise.

"Signal flow"...way back when I was learning, it just didn't click.  I tried to memorize console functions and what they did, but one day--*snik* it just came together in my brain and it all just made sense.    Granted signal flow can still be confusing in a big complex board and with software these days.  Like trying to get multiple channels out of say Kontakt to multiple channels in Logic, etc.

What I find cool is that I changed careers to database programming a long time ago, but signal flow troubleshooting is still basically what I do all the time.  "Why aren't we hearing anything?" is tackled with the same mindset as "Why isn't the data appearing at the destination?".  It's pretty amazing to me the number of programmers/analysts I've worked with that don't troubleshoot well, they flail from end to end trying things and don't think about things as a flow (of audio, midi, or data).

[Anderton]

On 8/22/2023 at 10:28 PM, Paul Vnuk Jr. said:

I have now read this thread 3 times, and it's kinda breaking my brain...I mean, yeah, I get it...but do I ?!?

 

Good call on the bourbon! The OP was about seeing things from a different perspective. If you do a word association game with "EQ," I think most people would say "frequency." But maybe it should be "level" and then frequency.

 

Expressing EQ as faders with musical terms for different instruments would probably make using EQ easier for those starting out with recording. For example, you'd dial up "strings" and have four faders for different string characteristics tailored to the frequencies of strings, and a fifth, general purpose stage with boost/cut, frequency sweep, and Q. 

 

This would not be designed for surgical EQ. If audio needed surgery, you'd still need an EQ with a wide range of variable values.

 

Craig

[Sundown]

On 8/18/2023 at 12:10 PM, Anderton said:

 

That's something I try to explain at seminars...the "average listener" hears music in a different way. It's like a wash of sound punctuated by specific sounds of interest, rather than the pointillistic tapestry musicians hear. 

 

Very true … I try to spend a decent amount of time just listening … Sitting in front of my monitors in a well-treated, well-constructed room and really listening for details, depth, and insights. What I hear now (versus what I heard 20 or 30 years ago) is night and day. Stereo imaging is something that really gets lost in that wash … But once your ears are awakened to stereo, it really brings a new level of enjoyment to music. 

 

Todd

[Joe Muscara]

I just watched some videos on mixing, and one of the first points they made was on these two slides. First, they showed the vertical one, then the one with faders and most everyone went, “whoa.”

 

is this what you’re saying, @Anderton?

[ABECK]

Def a good graphic to remind us where instrumentation frequencies live.  I tend to think of it more as, where can I carve, or turn down frequencies, rather than boost.  For example, if I can't hear the vocals, I will start cutting frequencies of the other parts that are encroaching on that space. 

One of my first mentors told me a phrase that stuck with me always.  "Up is more."  Basically his point was people tend to reach for an EQ when really they just need to bump the fader up a bit. 

 

[RABid]

(sigh) The person who mixes the music at church certainly believes that eq knobs are equivalent to channel faders. At some point he wanted the bass drum to be louder so he cranked the bass knob on the V-drums channel. Bass drum comes threw loud and clear. Snare sounds like it has a bath towel over it. Cymbals are non-existent. What really makes it strange is the eq does not affect the monitor channels. For musicians using in ear monitors and singers using floor monitors it sounds fine. People in the audience get a mix, mostly the awful bass boosted sound but just enough sound from floor monitors to get a hint of cymbals. The internet broadcast is awful. All bass drum and piano.

[Anderton]

On 8/25/2023 at 6:09 AM, Joe Muscara said:

 

is this what you’re saying, @Anderton?

 

Almost...that representation is still oriented toward frequencies, not amplitudes of ranges that incorporate specific instrument characteristics. For example, you'll note they don't include something like a drum bus being processed by EQ. In my world, the drum bus EQ settings would have faders somewhat like this:

 

Kick and low toms (e.g., under 120 Hz)

Mid-toms and lower snare (e.g., 200 - 1 kHz)

Upper snare and high toms (e.g., 500 Hz - 2 kHz)

Cymbals and hi-hats (e.g., above 4 or 5 kHz)

 

For male vocals:

 

Depth (e.g., 0-150 Hz)

Presence (e.g., 300 - 1.5 kHz)

Articulation (e.g., 1.5kHz to 4 kHz)

Air (e.g., above 5 or 6 kHz)

 

That kind of thing.