Overcoming Expectation Bias (and other delusions)

Ethan Winer, IIRC, has convinced me that expectation bias colors psycho-acoustic perceptions quite a bit.  I'm astonied by how my own ears play such nasty tricks on songs (on all levels, I'm afraid).
 
Double-blind listening, different monitors, forum feedback, etc. helps overcome some song ruts, to be sure.
 
I hope to get your thoughts on how to keep my/your ears out of being tricked by 'my own ears'.  Thanks so much for your nooby and/or seasoned thoughts.

Or the other way around as well. Sometimes, you can get bogged down in a mix and just start thinking, man, this started out so promising and now it just sounds like crap, and jus walk away. Then come back months later and think, maybe I'll mess with that again, and listen to it and it's actually really interesting. Mainly because you aren't listening to it relative to some expectation you were trying to achieve, but just as whatever it is.

I've done this a number of times. I go back and listen to these test bits that I've done, which at the time I considered basically educational failures, and thought, hmmm... you know that's not bad.

Anyway, yeh, the don't look at the meters thing is good. Though, as bit was pointing out, a lot of the golden ear types seem to think that looking at them at all is wrong, as though having more information is bad. You just shouldn't look at them all the time. We are primarily visual creatures, and the visual can override the auditory. So periodically just closing your eyes and listening really helps, and listening as a song, not as a bunch of individual tracks that you serially move your concentration to. That's hard to do sometimes when you have worked on it for some time.

I sometimes think that it would actually be better to track a song, then just put it away, and start on another. Once you are well into the second song, then start mixing the first one in between tracking sessions, so that you are constantly being pulled away from it to work on something else, then coming back to it periodically. Then after you finish tracking the second song, complete the mix of the first one. Then repeat the process.

It seems like it would avoid getting too bogged down in one phase of the process, and make you move back and forth so that you are constantly resetting your mental picture of both. And also, just as a practical thing, sometimes I may go weeks without playing an instrument, because I've tracked something and now I'm mixing. I think it might be healthier for that reason to interleave the processes as well.

But anyway, I'm drifting off topic.

Philip


Ethan Winer, IIRC, has convinced me that expectation bias colors psycho-acoustic perceptions quite a bit.  I'm astonied by how my own ears play such nasty tricks on songs (on all levels, I'm afraid).
 
Double-blind listening, different monitors, forum feedback, etc. helps overcome some song ruts, to be sure.
 
I hope to get your thoughts on how to keep my/your ears out of being tricked by 'my own ears'.  Thanks so much for your nooby and/or seasoned thoughts.

Philip, you're an artist-creator of music. You hear what you create from within as well as what comes from the speakers. The two blend together in the mind without any discernable phase variance <--( little yoke there). A sound engineer is trained in the perception of sound on the scientific level (or should be) and he doesn't so much hear "the dream". So he is able to analyse the work from a quantitative perspective and apply the rules of the science to it. I'm finding that being an artist and an engineer is a very complicated process.

Extreme Thanks Jimmy, Bit, Crg, Droddy, Tarsier, for your excellent wisdom ... which I can only read and re-read.

I've had the same problem with the visual arts (oil painting, illustration, etc.).  What appears beautiful, looks like a "fart" the next day ... under different lighting. 

It gets cyclic and neurotic (for me) ... tweaking, resting, arranging, scraping away non-dominants, chasing the pans and EQs, etc. while trying to maintain a window of beauty.

A powerful dry performance, as per Jimmy, IIRC, is strongly recommended by many artists.  Of course if its inspired-performance,  that would be the art spirit, IIRC. 

Memory of that performance must glare right on through to the final production.

An elegent chinese brushstroke, emotive vox, inspired guitar shred, etc., does contain much inspired 'performance' (in all of you) ... which (when manifest) mighjt be sketch-recorded as a dominant detail or such ... and oft requires little coloration to pollute it.

I suppose there are abstract and concrete performances ... but I won't go there in my current dilemma.  Right now I'll just soak all your thoughts more than mine.

Just my opinion of course....

Unfortunately, as flawed as it may be, the ear and your personal emotion about what you hear really IS the only thing that matters in the end.

When I hear people talking about double-blind testing and all that, it seriously makes me feel a little ill.  And sad.  Ok...at the very least, a little uneasy.  Because a lot of people have told me that there's no way I can hear a difference between 44.1 and 96k sampling rates.  It's been argued HERE in fact.  Argued with numbers, and papers written by third parties.  Uh huh....right.
 
Flying is "science" too...but they still put windows in the cockpit so the pilots can stay in touch with REALITY.  If the pitch guage shows you're level, but a glance out the window shows you're at a 45degree dive....are we going to wait for a double blind test, or are we going to go on emotion and correct the problem?

My ears can't read.  And they can't do math.  Well...you could probably argue that they can do calculus if you want to discuss audible depth perception or something....but still.

My friends will tell you that one of my favorite statements is:  "If we all wanted to bang the same chick, mankind would have a serious problem."  That's my way of saying...there's no way of accounting for taste.

For example:  A lot of people think that Angelina Jolie is a beauty.  I don't find her all that attractive.  She's "pretty" hot.  But not HOT, hot.  Now, I do think that Erikah Badu is one of the hottest women on the planet.  And I don't need a double blind test to prove that to myself.  AND...I could find just as many people who agree with me as I could those who don't...based on emotion.  After all, Angelina and Erykah are essentially the same piece of equipment with (presumably) the same guts, knobs, bells and whistles.  Sometimes, it's the way one piece of gear makes me FEEL that makes all the difference in the world.

And some guy with charts and equations explaining to me why I'm wrong would never matter to me.  If I still FEEL that one thing is better than the other, it makes it so in my world.

And litterally, it's the same thing to me. If I have an Avalon preamp with purple knobs sitting right next to an identical Avalon - but with silver knobs....which one will sound better?  I may not think they sound any different....but surely someone in the room will.  Is he wrong?

And if the emotional attachment to the piece of gear due to a visual difference matters to the other guy - and leads him to feel more inspired or creative...or more in control of getting it to tape, then more power to him.  I can't fault him.  I may giggle a little.  Just like I do every time I see Stevie Ray Vaugn coax AMAZING tones out of that s-h-i-t-t-y lookin' Strat.

Music is emotional.  Recording a great performance is fundamentally simple.  Especially if you have a piece of gear that moves you - for whatever reason - toward that end.
 
And it's even better if you're "in love" with the gear - wether it has a black face, a silver face, or a blue stripe.
 
Boiling it all down.  Simply put.  If something moves YOU to make better music (or recordings), easier....then your illusions/bias is all that matters.
 
Just spitballin'.....

I don't think I've ever walked away from a mix that sounded horrible and it sounded better the next day.  But I get your point, for sure.

Many times, I've listened on Tuesday to a mix I loved on Monday, only to decide that I hated it.

But then, a year later....it sounded great.

I thought I new what the term expectation bias meant.

Now I'm not so sure.

Mine is;

Anything that anybody could dream up to believe something will make something better when they couldn't tell even if it did.

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"I thought I new what the term expectation bias meant.

Now I'm not so sure."



I am hoping someone will recognize this as a reworked aesthetics wise crack... ;-)

"The other night my wife's all-girl band play played at what is basically a biker bar.  I came in after they had started and my wife (the lead singer) had the worst mic.  It wasn't cutting out, but had all kinds of problems with volume.  The "musician" of the group had set the levels and of course her mic and flute/sax mic were way too hot.  The rhythm guitarist was playing though the PA because the backline didn't have an amp for her.  The bassist (as always) was too loud and it was hard to hear the unmic'ed drums.  It was excrusiating for me, but the crowd didn't seem to mind and they made almost $200 in tips (a princely sum for a small joint).  So, who was right - me the proffesional or the audience who seemed to have a good time (and payed to boot)? "


There you have it!!!!

Discussions about Aesthetics always come around to the basics.

A "fart" recorded with 10 million dollars worth of gear is still a fart.

Most people would just use a sample anyway.

LOL...that's awesome!

I am hoping someone will recognize this as a reworked aesthetics wise crack... ;-)

As you can probably tell, I failed aesthetics. I had a friend who was majoring in aesthetics, and he turned out to be a bit of a sociopath. And about 4 hours ago, I had three budding aestheticians come tour the studio. They were most impressed with my pop filters.

My expectation bias consists of this: I expect to have fun when I plug in and play and/or listen, and my internal bias makes sure I do. It's that simple. I find it aesthetically pleasing to have fun with music.

Matt,

yea.  And one of the $200 was a C-note.  I'm thinking someone may have been in trouble w/ the little lady when they got home and only meant to tip a ten.

Better is better, but after reaching competence it is more a matter of taste.  I'm sure an 18-year old has better hearing than the 70-year old I take my mastering to, but only one has grammies and gold records on the walls.

;-)

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