"Away" with mix notes

[ALX]

What was done.

XY Channels
1. Split XY Mic wave into 2 separate mono channels.
2. Time Align XY channels. XY channel 1 was shifted 4 samples behind ch

Can we hear a 4 sample alignment out of 44100 samples per second?

Is it important anyway, given that it's the overall mix that matters and what our vision necessitates, rather than an academic approach in this instance?

3. Gain Match XY channels. XY channel 2 was reduced to -.01db.

Is the human ear capable of hearing a -0.01dBFS change, either subjectively or objectively?

Let's reflect for a moment. How much does the head need to move either closer to, or further away from the sound source (in stereo, it's 2 speakers) to make a 0.01dB difference without even touching the fader?

4. Linear Phase EQ both XY channels together on the XY sub bus.
12db LSh at 22.50Hz -5db.

I suggest that firstly there's no issue with bass below 22Hz that needs solving. But even if there was, would a shelf at this level do anything?

5. Add reverb tail to XY mics.

Why would you want to do that?

In what way will this help the listener with their subjective illusion of space in which the musicians are performing?

Furthermore, you're adding material on top of the stuff which is already in abundance. It creates an additional cloud of excess, even with EQ.

Find correct predelay and room width.

Why?

Next find the best Reverb time. One that matches the natural ambience captured in the XY mics. The XY mics captured a good amount of early reflection so I did not use the ER on the reverb plugin.

We have a room with ambiance which the microphones have captured. There's plenty of it in the close mics too The mic's aren't merely capturing ER's, but LR's and importantly, the RT60. It's a small, reverberant room, I think we can all agree?

Controversially, all you are doing here is putting this small room inside a larger one, resulting in significant ambiance clash while trying to defy the Laws of Nature (acoustically). Small rooms don't have a long RT60 as you have inferred in your selection of reverb tail. All the psychoacoustic spatial cues which define the room in the recordings, still remain. This makes it highly ambiguous to my ears, a fake. Fake is a distraction from the performance.

I am even asking myself if trying to change the illusion of space (impossible) is what this performance needs. It's a performance which appeals perhaps more to the musical academic than the public in general, we could say. They aren't interested in ear candy, just the performance itself.

In the real world, the brain is super capable of assessing space, and from a very early age. The eyes confirm to the brain, what the ears have conveyed and we don't think anything of it, it's second nature. Take the eyes away and the brain doesn't suddenly abandon this natural trait, as you are persuading me to do here.

The fundamental reason we have reverb emulations, is so we can place instruments which were recorded in a dry space, missing all those spatial cues which define room size, into the illusion of a performance. You can't shoehorn one wet room inside a bigger emulation, nature doesn't work that way.

UPDATE: Sonic Optimization

This is the responsibility of the recording engineer! Different forum

Great opportunity for discussion. And thanks for the interesting listen.

Max Headroom,
Those are all very good points you brought up. I could spend days explaining the concepts behind the decisions that were made mixing this piece. AES is a very good site to learn about new trends and theories in the professional audio industry. All of the suggestions I made make the source cleaner or more musical. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is making the source cleaner and more musical. All of my suggestions are very easy to try and if you try them I am sure you will hear an improvement in the recording. Adding the reverb tail is not as easy to try so I have attached a dry version. I feel the version with the tail added sounds more musical than without. Also, 2L and Sonos Luminus are two very highly regarded labels that use this technique as well as many others. Technology allows us to do more than we were able to when I attended sound engineering school 20 plus years ago. My mixing knowledge went to another level when I started looking at digital audio as information converted to music.

I will give a couple of general explanations into my methods.

Example 1: Digital audio is information –
It does not have the capabilities of the human ear attached to a brain (super computer) to filter or focus on the most essential information. It records everything and gives everything back to you. You have to isolate the essential information. For example, very good AD converters can capture information as low as 5Hz. Most speakers can only play ref level bass above 60Hz. If a speaker can not audibly reproduce those sub frequencies, this is wasted current that an audio system could be using to reproduce what the speaker can actually play. That is why you should always cut sub lows even if it is at 10Hz or lower. Cut what you can without hurting the music. With that said, if you cut too much it messes with the harmonics of the uppers tones and makes the bass sound hollow and weak. I am always trying to find ways to preserve the original digital information and cut any unnecessary ones and zeros.

Example 2: Using a low shelf vs. a high pass filter –
Steep filters flip phase 180 degrees. Shelves do not mangle phase in the same way. Much more gentle to phase if you are only cutting 6db or less. When phase is mangled, it blurs transient information.

Example 3: Aligning XY Mics –
Both the X and the Y mics pick up the whole room, L and R information in both mics. You may not be able to hear a difference in the close capture when sample aligning. That is not the goal. You are aligning the XY mics to align the reverb captured from the room. You are looking to hear smooth and clear reverb tail decay.

Hope this gives a better understanding of "Why".

ALX