Donny, I'm right with you! I'm also sensible to timing and pitch mistakes. Worst part is when I listen to live music, or via TV shows... OMG!!
Sometime I argue with my girlfriend that get tired of hearing me complain... When you hear things that others don't, it creates tensions.
Last time I went to a big show (BonJovi) I couldn't get passed the fact that we where sitted on a nasty spot full of slapback echo.
A line in the film the Matrix said, 'ignorance is bliss' !! ;)

Amen Donny! I definitely suffer from the curse, and have been known to visibly wince when I hear bad engineering. This is especially true at live shows where the "engineer" is the younger brother of one of the band members, and thinks that "Set it and forget it" is his mantra.
I rarely do live sound, but if it's an artist/band that I like and I know I'm going to want to enjoy the show, I'll likely volunteer as sound operator just so I can have an enjoyable experience!
When it comes to enjoying recorded music it's the same thing really, but add in bad production values, musicians showing off their skills instead of supporting the music or song. It's both a blessing and a curse, and since I've spent decades training myself to listen, I guess I can't complain too loudly!
When it comes to sitting in the control room during a session, I'm often the hero with "super hearing"... I'll take it!
Jeff

Well, it's comforting for me to know I'm not the only one. ;)

I really wish there was some way to get back to listening in the way I did before I became a professional in the audio field. To listen to a song without peeling away the layers of the onion, to be able to just listen to the song and enjoy like a"civilian". LOL

After being around me for a few years my girlfriend started hearing things wrong with live sound mixes on her own without my help. I was so proud.

I call it a gift and a burden. 38 years pro for me. I can't even go into noisy halls anymore, its way too distracting. I can't talk to people in noisy places because my hearing is so acute, it becomes a serious challenge to try and not be effected by the reflections.
I also lost this as a musician too. I remember when music was magical ( the first year playing guitar). I lost that "innocent magic" a year after working with bands trying to keep up being a human Jukebox in the club scene. I mean, listening to every part of a song from notes to mix, to stay on the A circuit. I don't regret it though, because I think it has made me a better person who's aware of life in general.

I've developed wonderful personal skills which has served me well in business. I've had the ability to infect others with this as well. (not so much online though :))

I love music so much, its hard not being excited about it. Being excited has kept me youthful. I'm 57 this year and still don't have gray hair. Everyday i can hardly wait to do something with music. I stay up until 2 AM and wake up at 7/8AM. Been like this since I was 14 years old. I hate to sleep because its all so exciting to me.
It all gets better and better every year.

audiokid, post: 413898, member: 1 wrote: ... Being excited has kept me youthful. I'm 75 this year and still don't have gray hair.

I'd never have known, Chris. You don't look a day over 57.

Bos! You caught that before I had a chance to fix it :) . My big problem with aging is with my eyes and computers. I can't see things quickly anymore. My mind is sharp but something is happening with my vision. I hope it doesn't get worse. I should invest in better glasses lol
I'm debating passing RO onto someone new solely because computers might have to part in my life. I need to save my sight for audio. Its scaring me some but...
If I stay outside more, it improves. Mobile phones are terrible for me. I can't see well if I use them for more than 2 minutes at a time. Do you guys find this with mobiles?

Sorry, didn't mean to distract the OP. As long as my ears hold out, I'm smiling.

They make a product that can help fix this problem. Unfortunately, you can't just go buy it at the music store, although sometimes you can buy it from a guy who hangs out in the alley behind the music store. Or any of the employees when they're on their break. I hear they're starting to sell it retail in Colorado and Washington. :)

audiokid, investing in quality vision is pretty important, IMO. I was getting really tired at work staring at a computer all day and I couldn't figure out why, other than you know, work. This went on for the better part of a year. Eventually I got new glasses with a better prescription and the problem went away immediately - slight, subtle eyestrain is very tiring. Also, I hear there's a product you can get from the guy behind the music store that helps prevent glaucoma.

my auunt was about your age and had laser corrected eye surgery and it brroughther vision bback to 20/20. its unfortunate, but i think lcd screens are going to be part of adio for a long time. i think the standalone screen is going to become extinct as touchscreenn control surfaces like the slate raven keep coming out. hopefully this will ease the boring ness of staring at the same spot for hours, by at least having us lookk al around the control area. cant wait to get rid of the mouse. faders and endless encoders aarent enouogh for me.

i've always been aware of production. even before i started to record. i used to wonder how everyone got through the whole song without mistakes, how Elvis got that echo sound, how good the reverbs sounded on Drifters records ... i used to sit and picture them singing in a big dark studio with huge drapes everywhere ... and when i saw pictures of them with the mics like 44' and 88's i would say to my self i want one of those.

i would sit in my Dads Nash and de tune the am radio so there was more high end and slight distortion ...on purpose.

You are NOT alone Donny, it's an occupational hazard. I can enjoy a good recording without over analyzing it, in fact that's a sort of litmus test for me. Because it becomes a chore as soon as I find something unpleasant about a recording, televised music, or live show and it takes me right out of enjoyment-mode. At least with a bad recording or bad TV show you can just turn it off, or change the channel. At bad live shows, you might find me trying to fashion a crossbow - or locate a loose brick to get the soundman's attention.

The thing is Hawk, I don't only get that way with poor recordings... I wish that were the only case... but I'm that way with good recordings too. If I hear a song that was recorded great, I still pick it apart to see what makes it so great. LOL

I always listened to things like drum performances and great singing, just as your typical civilians do. But I think I can recall the exact time when I changed my listening, it was shortly before I became an assistant engineer, and if memory serves correct, it was Boston's More Than A Feeling that made me perk up my ears and start picking songs apart. The guitar tone on that album amazed me, I'd never heard anything like it before, and of course, Brad Delp had an incredible voice, too.

The thing is, it's not like I was a huge fan. I liked them just fine, but I wasn't like a raving fan boy about them. It's just that around that time, that song got so much airplay that you couldn't help but hear it.

I'm pretty sure that this was the benchmark that made me start listening in a technical sense... which is weird, because I was a HUGE Beatle's fan at the time (still am) and if anything , you'd think that I would have deconstructed their stuff first.

after few months working on a project, and the excruciating word up a half db, word down a half db, my client old me last week "an im never gonna here music the same way again", i said yup, theres no going back.

im partilly able to control my mind when listening for entertainment but it really never stops. Although ican say that the opposite has held true where ive discovered new songs/music, that i would never have otherwise listened to, just cause the production was amazing, tori amos is just one example.

i think this happens to everyone, whether your a couch coach watching sports, or critiquing the finish moulding on a house if your a carpenter. i personally dont feel like i enjoy music any less, just because i might miss a verse while dissecting the effx chain :)

bouldersound, post: 413897, member: 38959 wrote: After being around me for a few years my girlfriend started hearing things wrong with live sound mixes on her own without my help. I was so proud.

My girlfriend started to hear pitch errors of some signers.. we're getting there !! ;)

Its a good feeling when your spouse is with you, nothing better. But, tread lightly. It can go sideways when they start telling you the mix is too bright at the baby freqs, especially during parenting years. :eek:

I'm not ego centric or a chauvinist but, I'm aware and careful of the cross over points between men and women. I do trust my wife for many area's of music but not when it comes to mixing at the finer levels where I purposely add excitement and snap. She can become very annoyed with upper freq fast. That would be a good thing if all i was doing was her style of music, when it comes to attitude in Rock, one must be careful who we let influence us too. I know there are exceptions to everything, but that doesn't apply with my wonderful wife. She is definitely not an asset in the upper registers.

That being said, I trust my daughter for checking high freqs all the time. So, I suppose our hormones and where we are at different ages has a lot to do with this too.

and just tossing out links here:
http://www.mcrcad.org/2010-Sax-hearing.pdf

kmetal, post: 413930, member: 37533 wrote:

i think this happens to everyone, whether your a couch coach watching sports, or critiquing the finish moulding on a house if your a carpenter. i personally dont feel like i enjoy music any less, just because i might miss a verse while dissecting the effx chain :)

I think you're right. My girlfriend is a paramedic - we can't watch a medical show like Scrubs or Grey's Anatomy without her critiquing and pointing out all the things that the "doctors" are doing wrong.

"Hey! That's wrong! They're crazy...That's not a Tension Pneumothorax!" :rolleyes: I just nod my head and say "you're really smart" as I invisibly roll my eyes.

But, I'm often guilty of the same thing - if I'm watching a period movie where music that was popular at the time is being played in the background to set the point of reference in time.
I fancy myself a bit of a musical historian with rock and pop, and I get aggravated when I hear a song in a period movie that wasn't released - or even yet recorded - at the time that the movie is set.

"Why am I hearing"Badge" by Cream in this scene? This movie is supposed to be set in 1967... "Badge" wasn't released until 1969!" :cautious:

Yeah, you can tell I'm the life of the party. (y)

LOL.

ahhh, i can relate to the noisy room issue. its very confusing because you are zoomed out "listening the mix" out of habit.

difficult to turn off.
stop mixing!!!

I have a hard time watching the TV show Monk because they get details about being OCD wrong.

Wake up. I just think you guys have forgotten how to enjoy the music?

Remember? The way you used to? Headphones on. Lights out. Joint lit. And the beer. While watching Star Trek reruns. It still works. I can prove it. Here, wait.

Oh wow

Damn...

Don't Bogart that... who's knocking on my car window?

Try that and everything will be fine again.

Go ahead. I just tried it.
Mx. Remy Ann David

indeed.

There was a time, oh my yes. LOL

But that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

LOL!
I enjoy music even more now that I've gotten into engineering. I have been a musician since my earliest days, have always loved music, but now I can appreciate it more. A good recording of Gustav Holst's music really sets me on fire much more than before I started trying to make "that studio thing" happen.

Never could stand crappy recordings, though. A lot of Hendrix' music I won't listen to because of the bad sound/production. Even though Jimi's performance may have been amazing, I can't stand "the frequencies" and the reverb jelly that rolls over all of it.

Even my beloved Beatles get listened to more now since they remastered them. Back when the 80s CD remaster was done, I found my treble control being turned waaay down. To say nothing of the odd original vinyl I could find at flea markets back then.

I think I may have gotten off-topic a little. OK, I'm out.

One thing I have learned in my years in music is to listen with the different parts of your brain. You think I mean ears but I really don't. The are common functions associated with both sides of the vat of gray goo much like the different controls on a mixer.

There are two mains. One is objective and the other is subjective. One is the function that allows you to participate in a listening experience while performing some function related to its transmission. Playing an instrument, mixing tracks, even dancing to some degree (but this is a strictly fringe function) and brings many other things into the fold NOT related to the music-in-the-ears thing......This would be the SUBJECTIVE part.

Objective is the darkened room, scotch with two rocks, relaxing into the chair and really letting the music swirl around. Even when you're doing this to be critical, you're still being objective about it.

My SUBJECTIVE part tends to get in my way at functions and large amounts of background noise and general clutter tend to make my blood pressure spike a bit. Its frustrating to want to hear something but you can't get past all the frequencies in the same range going at each other and bouncing around the room like ping-pong reverbs. I say "whut??" a lot in busy environs conversations because I get distracted by other noise.

My very favorite place at a musical function is on-stage. Being SUBJECTIVE!

And to JohnTodd. Study your Eddie Kramer. There's not that much reverb. Its everything is frickin LOUD.

Davedog, post: 414799, member: 4495 wrote: Its everything is frickin LOUD.

That's my favorite part!