[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you're listening to alternative rock or other popular rock music, which makes up less than five percent of modern albums released, then this may be true.

I'm curious where you found this figure.

I'm not sure how you can claim that the majority of music released is in genres that don't have a high amount of mainstream popularity, unless you're only talking about the amount of "new" music and not the amount sold. Just because there are a lot of releases doesn't mean people are buying them in equal amounts.

Most contemporary albums that I've heard don't seek to create an accurate soundstage. Actually, part of the fun and creativity is in the variety of possible ways to mix instruments. I'm glad that not all mixes are forced into an accuracy "box."

 

[eyeresist]

Maybe it's because the producer usually sits to the right of the mixing desk, if he has to share it with anyone.

 

[Epicurean]

Now this is interesting, because I feel the exact opposite, everything is a little more to the right! Especially voices that are supposed to be in the middle always seem to be very slightly to the right. I know it is not the PPA, which I've measured and swapping headphones doesn't change it either so I guess it is my ears playing tricks on me.

 

[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm curious where you found this figure. I'm not sure how you can claim that the majority of music released is in genres that don't have a high amount of mainstream popularity, unless you're only talking about the amount of "new" music and not the amount sold. Just because there are a lot of releases doesn't mean people are buying them in equal amounts. Most contemporary albums that I've heard don't seek to create an accurate soundstage. Actually, part of the fun and creativity is in the variety of possible ways to mix instruments. I'm glad that not all mixes are forced into an accuracy "box."

There's a LOT of music, now-a-days. Do you really think that the music on MTV makes up the majority of it? The "big" labels don't possess the majority of albums, but rather just the most expensive ones regarding PR and marketing. Classical albums are being released every day, still in high numbers - don't you think they make up a large number of music output? What about all those "indie" artists, or the folk, blues, and jazz people? And all of the world music? (Note: I didn't count electronic genres into my statements because it's unrealistic music to begin with.) Or how about all of that music of these same genres being released by other labels in other countries? Have you ever considered how much music is being released in Scandinavia, Israel, Russia, Brazil, and other parts of Europe?

There's a ton of music being mixed correctly (one can be artistic with mixing AND accurate - just look at contemporary band Sigur Ros) even within the "pop" field. It's all about the kind of recording you want to portray. If you want to make the spacey "universal orchestra" kind of feel like Sigur Ros does, then go for it - that's just as realistic as any other more traditional mixing strategy, and it's certainly artistic. But then you have people who just pan things every which way with no apparent strategy - where drum sets are simply NOT portrayed as drum sets, but rather different drums and cymbals thrown all over the room. The drummers in some of these bands must have long, elastic arms.

It doesn't stop at drummers, but that's a very good example of one of the pitfalls of contemporary pop mixing. Trust me, once you move away from Nickelback, U2, Greenday, and other MTV contemporary acts that have fallen under the stream of multi-media coloring and corporate corruption, you will find that this is a very rare thing in the other 90-95 percent of music recordings.

 

[infinitesymphony]

I understand your point, but I don't think that realism always yields the most interesting results. Throwing up a spaced pair of overheads is an old standby that usually results in an "accurate" drum sound when panned to the drummer or audience perspective, but while it's certainly more standard than other techniques, it's not the only "right" way to record and mix.

I've heard plenty of non-pop and non-rock music that used very "unrealistic" mixing techniques, but none of it sounded bad simply because of some panning (more like the songs themselves or the playing / singing technique

).

I guess my point is that some mixing engineers do arbitrarily pan instruments. Sometimes, it's just to unclutter the soundstage. Other times, harder panning is used to emphasize certain effects, riffs, solos, etc. in the mix. There are definite guidelines when engineering, but there are no hard and fast rules.

So, if the mixing and mastering engineers weren't paying attention, the left channel could be much louder than the right. Plus, metering doesn't (always) account for the ear's frequency response. One channel might be louder than the other because it's in one of the ear's resonant frequency ranges, even if it appears softer in a visualization. That said, I'd guess an extreme channel imbalance is either a production flaw in the case of vinyl, or just a lazy mastering engineer.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schalldämpfer /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yep... this literally kept me awake at night. I'd be listening to fall asleep, and I kept thinking to myself that there is so much more going on in the left channel, is my hearing damaged? I actually tried swapping the clips of my KSC75 to see if I could still tell which one was supposedly the left channel. Lo and behold, yes. There was not only more vocal, but also more of the higher strings, like violins. Solo's seem to be concentrated there, too.

Nope, but you probably have obsessive compulsive disorder

 

[stevenkelby]

Man, what a coincidence! I discovered this today and spend ages playing with stuff to figure it out (unsuccessfully) then I find this thread tonight.

Hadn't really noticed it before today.

There is more volume in the left on most of my stuff, radiohead, beth orton, white stripes today, when I switch one channel off, then on, I notice it.

This was with PC, FLAC and 320mp3, Foobar, Lite DAC, Xin, DT-990.

Weird but true.

 

[Scotty757]

I have noticed this phenomenon as well (was my first observation when i got my first piece of mid-fi gear).

I think I have a possible explanation.

It is mainly the mid-highs and highs that are accentuated on the left. Most recording folks are not lazy, and they are highly in tune with their own hearing. Anyone who is raised with a classical music background (read: going to the symphony), is quite used to hearing more accentuated highs on the left because: A) Thats where the violin 1 section is and B) thats where the alto and tenor stand if there are solos in a choral piece. The tenor and bass conventionally stand to audience right.

Just a random thought, but it could be true.

 

[eyeresist]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scotty757 /img/forum/go_quote.gif It is mainly the mid-highs and highs that are accentuated on the left. Most recording folks are not lazy, and they are highly in tune with their own hearing. Anyone who is raised with a classical music background (read: going to the symphony), is quite used to hearing more accentuated highs on the left because: A) Thats where the violin 1 section is and B) thats where the alto and tenor stand if there are solos in a choral piece. The tenor and bass conventionally stand to audience right.

The layout of the modern orchestra really annoys me. Some genius decided, "Hey, let's have the high pitch instruments on the left, the medium ones in the middle, and the deeper ones on the right - perfect tonal balance!"

Yeah, if you tip your head to one side.

 

[robert]

I generally find that the Right side is more often overloaded. but, I listen mostly to jazz.

so, a test. a really great recent disc: "Masada String Trio, 50th Birthday". Feldman/violin is about 10/11 o'clock, Cohen/bass 12 o'clock, Friedlander/cello 4 o'clock. anyone else have the disc? what do you hear?

I've run the MoFi "Soundcheck" and Chesky discs lots of times, and always come up balanced. hmm.

 

[Scotty757]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eyeresist /img/forum/go_quote.gif The layout of the modern orchestra really annoys me. Some genius decided, "Hey, let's have the high pitch instruments on the left, the medium ones in the middle, and the deeper ones on the right - perfect tonal balance!" Yeah, if you tip your head to one side.

Hmm, thats not how my home symphony usually plays (I know some conductors specify layouts in their text).

We generally have the first violins in the front left (same as above), whith the basses behind. The cellos in the center, followed by the violas, then the second violins on the right. The horns and winds are spaced pretty similar. I like the setup, but it does tend to skew the melody to the left side of the theatre.

 

[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eyeresist /img/forum/go_quote.gif The layout of the modern orchestra really annoys me. Some genius decided, "Hey, let's have the high pitch instruments on the left, the medium ones in the middle, and the deeper ones on the right - perfect tonal balance!" Yeah, if you tip your head to one side.

That's why Stockhausen has his string quartets play out of helicopters... one for each musician...

 

[infinitesymphony]

What about the idea of having a dominant ear? The brain tends to have a dominant hemisphere, so perhaps this is also true for ears. I realize that the idea of true "dominance" is obsolete, but you get the idea.

In a music perception class, I heard about a study in which melodies were played individually to the left and right ears. I'm not exactly sure about the specifics of the study itself. Trained musicians showed right-ear dominance while nonmusicians showed left-ear dominance.

From http://www.jrsm.org/cgi/content/full/96/6/284:

"A hotly debated topic is the possible difference in cerebral asymmetry between musicians and non-musicians. In a pioneering behavioural study Bever and Chiarell reported right-ear (left hemispheric) dominance in musicians, left-ear dominance in non-musicians. The first imaging study, with positron emission tomography (PET), showed that right>left asymmetries in non-musicians confronted with timbre, chord and pitch tasks, but left>right asymmetries in musicians. The authors speculated that the left-sided dominance in musicians might be related to an analytical process—i.e. they interpret music more deeply than non-musicians. Musicians also showed increased blood flow velocity in the left hemisphere whereas non-musicians showed right hemispheric lateralization only during harmony perception. In a magnetic resonance study, musicians showed higher activation than non-musicians in the secondary auditory area and in dorsolateral prefrontal regions of the left hemisphere, whereas non-musicians displayed opposite dominance. Further, in musicians, activation of the left planum temporale, which was also anatomically larger than in non-musicians, was found to be stronger. This left lateralization in musicians has been replicated by other groups. A point to note is that, for musicians, mere passive listening is more difficult because of their spontaneous analytical processing, and this possibly contributes to the left lateralization."

 

[HiWire]

These are excellent theories.

I certainly agree that the modern orchestra can be unbalanced-sounding, depending on the conductor - I've been attending the symphony every other week for the last few years. However, I think the weight of tradition has overcome more modern arrangements so far.

Also, the dominant ear theory is very logical - our brains certainly have been demonstrated to follow a trend of lateralization throughout our neurological systems.

I've also posted a potential hardware source of the problem in the headphone section.

 

[regal]

Somewhere I read that a lot of people lose more hearing in their right ear, I think it was from shooting.

I notice no more dB's left vs right but I have found that I always prefer to listen to guitarist who play in the left channed. My theory is the left ear is processed by the right brain (the creative side.)