Sound separation secrets? - Digital V Analog

Hi all,

    I recently posted a question on sound separation with examples of Brian Eno mixes.  The thread got a bit focussed on him rather then my initial question.  So I will rephrase it.  Lets say I have 3 Synth Pads sounds (similar patches) and want to separate them as best as possible.  I use Eq - compression, panning etc all within the SONAR DAW.


    Now I get good results but I just can't get the xtra separation I hear in Brian Eno type mixes.  Now I know its Brian Eno we are talking about but I'm thinking one major factor (at least) is the Analog gear he uses.  Its difficult to explain but its almost like I can hear "air" between the sounds he uses in his mixing.  I'm starting to think that the mere fact these signals are physically running through separate channels (circuitry) on a mixer that they get this separation.  Whereas in my DAW, its all just coding that separates them.


    Would I be correct in this assessment?  If so are there any tricks that will help me get this "Air" type separation within my DAW?


Thanks in advance..
Ste

Thanks some good observations WDI.

I mentioned in the other thread that you should

"start with nothing and don't add much more"

And now you are asking about Air?

You are thinking it's analog vs digital?

I think you need to go listen to more Brian Eno and learn more about him. Read that thread again.

You used to much.

moffdnb


Hi all,

   I recently posted a question on sound separation with examples of Brian Eno mixes.  The thread got a bit focussed on him rather then my initial question.  So I will rephrase it.  Lets say I have 3 Synth Pads sounds (similar patches) and want to separate them as best as possible.  I use Eq - compression, panning etc all within the SONAR DAW.


   Now I get good results but I just can't get the xtra separation I hear in Brian Eno type mixes.  Now I know its Brian Eno we are talking about but I'm thinking one major factor (at least) is the Analog gear he uses.  Its difficult to explain but its almost like I can hear "air" between the sounds he uses in his mixing.  I'm starting to think that the mere fact these signals are physically running through separate channels (circuitry) on a mixer that they get this separation.  Whereas in my DAW, its all just coding that separates them.


   Would I be correct in this assessment?  If so are there any tricks that will help me get this "Air" type separation within my DAW?


Thanks in advance..
Ste

When you are listening to good examples of this, are you saying you can easily picture "where" these sounds are coming from? I.e. imaging? If that is just what you mean, then a bit of familiarity of how people hear location might help you emulate that sound. In a nutshell, people hear location mainly in two ways: 1) a slight difference in arrival time at the two ears and 2) echo patterns. The "arrival time" difference in the direct sound helps with direction, while the echo patterns help more with distance, especially when comparing two sounds or comparing a sound with its echo. I mean to say that the ear-brain neurology is doing the "comparing", not the mind. Echo patterns include elements of multiple arrival times and also elements of spectrum modification that naturally occurs with distance or reflections. As an oversimplified example, in a room, a sound coming from near the rear of a stage may have a shorter primary echo (off the back wall, e.g.) than a sound near the front of the stage.

Quite often, a reverb effect will try to provide you with parameters that reflect this kind of psychoacoustic modeling, though it is most often modeling a "room" and rarely some natural setting. Impulse-based effects might be more versatile in this regard, as they are based on an actual recording of a sound source that is emitted from one specific location and received at another specific location within a specific environment. I imagine that if a piece had, say, 8 different sounds with 8 different desired perceptions of location, one would need eight different impulses to apply separately to the individual sounds, each representing a different source location in a specific environment. Or else one would need to record those sounds in the actual setting, using pristine recording techniques that capture the ambience as well as the direct sound.

Given the above, it is easy to guess that any other reverb or echo-based effects, or any other time-based effects applied to either the individual sounds in the composition or to the whole composition will damage the spacial cues of any carefully-constructed (or recorded) sounds. Since many synth sounds already have reverb, chorus, echo or some other stereo imaging already built in, they might not be good candidates for this type of work. Same goes for sounds that are recorded in one space when intending to present them as coming from a different space -- they would need to be recorded clean of any ambience.

I am saying all this without any knowledge whatever of how Brian Eno works, just intending to suggest areas for study. I am pretty sure that pop recording, processing, mixing, and mastering techniques are pretty much the opposite of the above.

Bill B.

WDI


I don't know if it's the tape, or the mixing board doing the summing, or the outboard gear or a combination of it all, but I've had a difficult time getting mixes in the box sounding as good as analog recording gear. We only have a 1" inch 24 track Tascam machine, not bad but definetly not a 2" Studer and it still sounds better then mixing in the box. The mixing console is an average 32 channel Tascam.

Things I notice...

Analog seems to have better dynamics. For instance, quite sounds don't get lost behind louder sounds. Things like a quite reverb are still audible behind loud instruments. ETC. This makes mixing sooooo much easier. When mixing in the box, I'm always trying to bring things out in the mix because they tend to get lost, muddy sounding. Ultimately, flat sounding.

I don't have to worry about overs. It's sooooo much easier setting levels and not worrying about them. With digital, I'm always rechecking levels because people tend to get louder and louder. You can easily loose a good take with digital if your not careful. I even made a mistake not checking a level during recording to tape and later realized the meter peeked the whole song. Listen back to the track and it still sounded perfect.

Also, analog sounds thicker to me. People call this coloring the sound. To me it sounds more natural. For instance if I compare a cranked guitar amp recorded on tape vs digital, tape just sounds right. The digital kind of sound weak to me.

The good thing about recording in the box is of course all the editing cababilities.

I don't know, just my not so professional 2 cents.

this question might seem stupid but... do you mix with your analog gear and your DAW in the same room and using the same monitors?

Interesting.  Thanks to all.