on 'listening' and 'use your ears'

[knotkranky]

When I was a wee lad working from analog tape, there were no visual cues apart from a VU meter wiggling about. You only knew what was there from listening. No waveforms, no transients to measure, no part to see coming up next, no clipping to view, etc. It was a mystery what was on a track before you actually played the sound itself. Every decision was based on only the ears. You responded to the sound and nothing else. I know for a fact that it helped me develop my keen hearing because there was much less to rely on. No choice being a good thing in this instance, as it often is in production. There's simply too many distractions in computer production. A lot of the visual conveniences have made listening more difficult imo.

Fair enough, but in some ways analog was more forgiving, especially when you are talking about clipping.

I'm going to have to disagree. Analog is way more difficult to use. noise floor was a paltry 65db on a good machine. Keeping noise out of an ongoing project with generation loss at every turn takes expertise. Gain structure was god, Setup, calibration, parts wear out, project loses hi-end super fast after too many plays, yada yada yada.... Clipping was smeared with analog tape but we didn't rely on that, we just did our best with ears. I'm really glad and done with tape. Working with audio is freakin kindergarten today.

[knotkranky]

cool double post bug ^

[Tone Deft]

the arguments on which kind of tape to use had to be a LOT juicier than which DAW sounds the best.

[knotkranky]

^ Oh man you bet. Then there are the ref level and over-bias freaks. Moving between studios and cal'ing a machine for some simple drop-ins was PITA!!! I only miss it cuz I made WAY more money then... <sigh>

[supamonsta]

Ok with all that has been said,

I would only add one advice that worked great for me, as I hardly trust my own ears : "USE YOUR FRIEND EARS"

[Tarekith]

Here's one:

Clean your ears! Seriously, keep 'em clean, make a huge difference. A capful of low % hydrogen peroxide in each ear for 5 minutes once a month.

[SubFunk]

I think the point has been made before that when one tweaks a setting in Live it's best to not look at the screen when you're tweaking the effect. don't let your eyes affect the result.