"I have notes."

[Bob Womack]

"I have notes."

There are words that can be "music to our ears" but words these aren't among them. In the milieu of of the last year, work that used to demand that producer and engineer be together in the control room to finalize is now regularly handled completely remotely. We are talking about mixing here. I execute most of my mixing sessions solo now. My composers and producers quite often start off with a description of what they are looking for. The good ones point me to an example or two I can listen to on YouTube or Spotify for inspiration. I mix the music and send them a copy via FTP or WeTransfer for review. They get back to me with "notes." "Please drop the kick drum beat at 1:20 a couple of db." "can the piano and bass hammer the beat at 2:57, please?" I read the notes, make the changes, and export another mix. They send me more "notes." You get used to it, especially in the theatrical movie/broadcast world with a hierarchy of music composers, music contractors, show directors, show producers, show executive producers, etc., all eager to generate "notes."

However, since my work begins its life in either a movie or broadcast, the technical side gets a little more complicated than that. For each round I export one mix at -24lufs, 16 bit/48k dithered to 16bit in case they accept it. Then I export a "premaster" at -24lufs, 24bit/48k dithered to 24bit in preparation for a quasi-mastering job. Then I open a mastering session, import my "premaster," peak normalize it, and then set levels and use a look-ahead limiter to knock down the peaks enough so that it can be exported as a -12lufs CD-level copy at 16 bit/48k. Then I send the -24lufs 16 bit/48k and -12lufs 16 bit/48k copies to either composer or producer as the new round. That round needs to be clearly labelled so that everyone knows which revision number it is.

Why all the blather? The -24lufs copy is ready to insert into the program, as is. Once you let that copy out of your grasp you'd better make sure it is ready to air because members of the production team may just grab hold and throw it into the program without coming back to you. The -12 copy is so that listening copies can be distributed that will show up in the production team's iPods, iPhones, etc. at about the same level as the rest of their commercial music. No matter how much you warn the production team not to worry about low levels someone doesn't get the memo, hears a -24lufs copy, and gets alarmed that it is TOO QUIET!!! That fire requires a round of checking and emails to put out as well.

That brings us to mathematics, and "Womack's Theorum."

Womack's theorum - Crew morale varies inversely with version number.
As the version number goes up, morale goes down. It's absolutely reliable.

So you see, the actual business of changing the mix to please someone far away and twice removed isn't that bad, it is all the collateral business of versions numbers, leveled copies, and transfer, that makes it a headache. That and the fact that the "notes" usually show up at quitting time, and especially on Fridays.

Have a good weekend, everyone.


Bob

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

That brings us to mathematics, and "Womack's Theorum."[INDENT]Womack's theorum - Crew morale varies inversely with version number.
As the version number goes up, morale goes down. It's absolutely reliable.

I used to do some work for an ad agency producer, and part of her job was to pass along notes. By the bushel, seemingly.

Priscilla's Theorem: "The airdate is your friend."

[AcousticDreams]

Bob I just want to say how much I enjoy all of your posts. While the language of "LUFTS" is completely beyond my understanding at this point, I appreciate the insight of the complicity that you must endure. I will say this over and over again: What I have learned on AGF Recording side, has been much, much more helpful than what I have learned on Gearspace. I believe that is because the majority of people here are interested in truly sharing their knowledge & have for the most part shed themselves of their egos. There has been very little chastising on the recording side. Everyone is always eager to help at no matter what level you are on.

There will always be obvious frustration of trying to please everyone at every level. All wanting to tell you what needs to be done. While I believe there is great benefit to group art( as most people have played, written, performed their Best songs as a group rather, than an individual) it is still hard dealing with egos. In so many cases, Everyone wants to have their fingers into the pie just to able to say that they were a part of it and for no other reason.

As a backyard-boutique manufacture of many small products I have found there is a happy medium to listening to my gut, and listening to the customers suggestions. A very fine bowyer friend of mine said to me once " I get some really crazy requests for modifications in which many of the time is not right so I will not do. And yet, I have gotten some really great ideas from my customers as well that has made my bows even better."

Personally, I am one of those people that goes into infinite details in making a product. I had spent hours & hours trying to figure out new ways of making my past products better. I would make variations of my products to fit everyone's needs. (of course the problem with that is that you can not make money with that much time invested. But that was o.k..as I was in it most for the art and for the benefit of the consumers I was making the products for= Traditional archers. Which are some of the finest people on this earth.

I need to read up and learn the language of "LUFTS" a bit more, as I really have so little to no understanding of it at this point. The question I have at this point is in understanding if something happens after you give the program material at -24 lufts? Does it get altered to -12 by the people you give it too? And if so Why does it need to get to them in -24 if the goal is -12. Again, Please forgive the nativity of my questions.

[Glennwillow]

I recorded a series of 3 CDs for a very good pianist on a Steinway grand at a local church. The pianist has rather severe hearing loss issues and wears hearing aids. So her notes were always about "too much bass" or "too much reverb" even when the piano was recorded flat and no reverb was added. But of course if a person has high frequency hearing loss, everything comes through their ears sounding like it has too much bass.

I kept asking myself, how do you put an acceptable recording together for someone with severe hearing loss? I wondered what she was hearing when she played the piano live? Of course, she was in front of the piano and the microphones located on the side of the piano with an open top are picking up a much fuller sound.

I finally got her to provide me with some piano recordings she liked from Wyndham Hill and they had WAY more reverb on them than my recordings of her playing, which were dry by comparison. When she realized this, she finally stopped sending me notes about reverb. Frankly, I thought my recordings sounded a whole lot better than the Wyndham Hill recordings.

I like your theory, Bob, about morale going down as the number of rounds of notes are generated. Too much junk is generated by people who don't know what they are talking about, but at the same time, you can't dismiss their notes because they are coming from the customer who "needs to be heard."

Coming up with a common language is tough, too. So many people who want something different do not know how to describe what they want. You so often end up going in circles with so much wasted effort.

My son does a lot of compositional music for hire. It's very time consuming work. And so many people react by initially wanting something different and yet eventually going right back to the original stuff that was submitted. He's very patient, but this kind of stuff would get to anybody after a while. He's doing a lot more video game work these days with people he knows from the past, so he is getting a lot less of that "notes" hassle lately.

I'm glad I don't do this stuff for a living. Everybody is an expert.

One of the things I learned as a design engineer over 50+ years of work is that I have to know way more than the customers do. When people give you feedback that is just wrong, you have to know how to handle this without degrading your product and without losing customers. People will run you right down a rat hole if you let them. As K&G noted, sometimes people give you really valuable feedback. When that comes, it's a huge benefit. But an awful lot of stuff you get back from people is highly misleading.

- Glenn

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

While the language of "LUFTS" is completely beyond my understanding at this point, I appreciate the insight of the complicity that you must endure.

Thanks for your kind words! pardon my typo - it is LUFS - "Level Units relative to Full Scale." It is a measurement of loudness that doesn't only take into account peak level but signal density, balancing off between uncompressed and compressed audio.

Bob

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

I recorded a series of 3 CDs for a very good pianist on a Steinway grand at a local church. The pianist has rather severe hearing loss issues and wears hearing aids. So her notes were always about "too much bass" or "too much reverb" even when the piano was recorded flat and no reverb was added. But of course if a person has high frequency hearing loss, everything comes through their ears sounding like it has too much bass.

I kept asking myself, how do you put an acceptable recording together for someone with severe hearing loss? I wondered what she was hearing when she played the piano live? Of course, she was in front of the piano and the microphones located on the side of the piano with an open top are picking up a much fuller sound.
...[snip]...

I wear hearing aids, and I'm sure very few of those with hearing loss and possibly wear aids, go through the effort that I do.

Most hearing aids have a 'music' setting, but to me they always seem to be someone's version of how music should be enhanced to sound better. I have a custom program for music where E/Q based on loudness, noise suppression, limiters, compressors, etc are all disabled. Basically all that is on is the E/Q to compensate for my hearing loss. This custom program works pretty well for 'critical' listening to music but not at all well for general use.

When I'm using my recording or playback system I will often listen using either EIMs or headphones, with my hearing aids removed. I have my audio interface EQ, for playback, set up to replicate the curve that is in my hearing aids. This also works pretty well for me. I use this playback method for recording, mixing, general listening to music, as well as for video conferencing (Zoom, etc).

[Bob Womack]

My spelling of "Theorum" was bothering me so I looked it up. "Theorum" and "Theorem" are both acceptable spellings but "Theorem" is much more widely used. I'm switching to that for my web article.

Bob

[AcousticDreams]

Being involved with so many different technical hobbies & Past professions, I make notes on everything! I have to or I will forget the months and months of research & experimentation I put into it.

I use to make a Flemish string jig and teach people how to make Flemish strings for Traditional bows. I included a 20 page manual with every detail I could think of. I was a custom Knife maker for many years...and I created a book on every detail for every single step of my process. That book was for me! As there were so many variations and details that could easily be forgotten. About the only thing I never really had to make too many notes on is when I was a Commercial Photographer. Yet I still made some.

I had an computer share tutorial from one of the team members at Audient on my ID44 about 6 months ago. I had him set up the Audient so I could only monitor through the Audient and not the DAW(He did not explain how he did what he did..he just did that one function). I wanted to hear directly through the Audient and listen for the quality coming from the Audient. Virtually I had done no recording since that day. When I turned on the Audient a few days ago I could not figure out how to get the Audient routed back to the DAW. It took me 5 or 6 hours to figure it out on my own. I watched several youtube videos but no where did the answer appear. I finally figured it out through logic of what had not been tried yet. You can bet I made notes galore on how to switch back and forth. Nothing in the DAW or Audient Routing mixing is straight forward. You have to first Know where to go to unlock sub panels. Anyway..now I have notes--Diagrams galore.

A story that parallels some of the frustrations you have to go through dealing with people; Back in the 80's I was a commercial photographer specializing in Guitar Photography. But I also developed a niche with one client in computer photography. Often combining special effects with computer screens. In those days...there was no photoshop...I had to do everything perfect on film.
Anyway...I did have one simple job of photographing graphics on a computer screen. I would vary the Fstops every so slightly on each picture. But often in those days..you would take multiple shots as back ups. In case there was a problem in film processing.

This one sweet lady client would want me on site while she tried to decide which Positive to use for commercial release. I would spend several hours with her a few days after the initial shoot, as she decided which Positive was the best exposure. The Kicker was...that there was often NO difference in exposure between the Main positives. They were simply backups at exactly the same exposure. YET, you could not convince her of that. She always thought there were minor differences. And she would spend a lot of time going back and forth between those Identical positives. it would drive me crazy! There was no difference. I just learned to keep my mouth shut and let her do her thing. I think she felt purpose-justification for her job, in spending that time. It was a total waste of time..but something one has to do in order to retain the client. And she was very nice person so it wasn't absolutely terrible.

Well Bob...You have impressed me. So someday you might have to put up with me and my Notes!(that is if I can afford you) Cause I am all about the Details.Be forewarned...LOL.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

But often in those days..you would take multiple shots as back ups. In case there was a problem in film processing.

Oh, yeah. In my field it was "Safety takes." "That one was the keeper, but let's do a safety take." We were working film and linear analog audio and video. A hair in the gate or a dropout in the oxide could send you back onto location with a thirty-man crew, which was prohibitively expensive and virtually impossible to match, so you had to do safety takes. When we were recording concerts we would roll two multi-tracks for the same reason.

This one sweet lady client would want me on site while she tried to decide which Positive to use for commercial release. I would spend several hours with her a few days after the initial shoot, as she decided which Positive was the best exposure. The Kicker was...that there was often NO difference in exposure between the Main positives.

I had a similar client in 24 track days. We'd get things sounding the way we wanted them and he'd look over at me and say, "How many tracks do we have open?" I'd think, "Oh, no!" We'd fill the multitrack and he'd have me sync up another machine for more stuff that amounted to nothing. I'd know that he was going for the bragging rights - "On this last one we used thirty-one tracks!"

We'd start a mix session on an non-automated Neve console at three-thirty in the afternoon. I'd have to mark our fader moves with white paper tape and Sharpies. We'd be mixing until twelve or one at night. By then, every fader might have ten or more numbered level marks on it. I'd be mixing a three minute piece and that would be, what, three hundred moves for thirty channels? There would be a point where I'd turn and say, "Ned, I'm out of memory. I can't remember where each of these three hundred moves occurs anymore." Ned would say, "C'mon! We are almost there. One more mix and we'll have it." We'd be mixing for another two hours and I'd be oblivious. At the end of the session I'd stumble blindly to my car, my mind so exhausted I could barely find my way home.

Two days later I'd have to play the takes of the mixes back. I would loose track of the difference somewhere around twenty takes in and he'd still supposedly be able to hear the differences. "Whaddya think? 38 or 43?" We'd get to the end of the audition session and he'd say, "We need to try again. Track 19 was just a little loud at 1:20 in." I'd have to pull down the little fader tape strips and put them back on the console. I would have lined them up on a door frame or some such to save until the project was finished. As i recall, he finally got tired of all the bragging rights things he did when he fell in love with a beautiful girl. Perspective!!!

Bob

[jklotz]

I used to engineer a lot of post production sessions for the Turner networks back in the day. Jeez, some of those revisions would go on for days, especially for the big campaigns. It was just fine for us. We were billing by the hour, however, it did get to the point of being ridicules quite often. "Wait, back it up again. Did he use enough of the letter "T" when he said "THE" at the beginning of the 3rd sentence? Can you go find the letter T from another take and edit it in?" My answer - Sure, but why don't we just go find another "the"? "No, no. The second half of that "the" was perfect".

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by ChuckS

I wear hearing aids, and I'm sure very few of those with hearing loss and possibly wear aids, go through the effort that I do.

Most hearing aids have a 'music' setting, but to me they always seem to be someone's version of how music should be enhanced to sound better. I have a custom program for music where E/Q based on loudness, noise suppression, limiters, compressors, etc are all disabled. Basically all that is on is the E/Q to compensate for my hearing loss. This custom program works pretty well for 'critical' listening to music but not at all well for general use.

When I'm using my recording or playback system I will often listen using either EIMs or headphones, with my hearing aids removed. I have my audio interface EQ, for playback, set up to replicate the curve that is in my hearing aids. This also works pretty well for me. I use this playback method for recording, mixing, general listening to music, as well as for video conferencing (Zoom, etc).

Hi Chuck,

As you know, there are high quality hearing aids and there are rather lousy, run-of-the-mill hearing aids. It sounds like you have good ones, and that's a good thing. The quality makes a huge difference.

My mother had cheap hearing aids. When everyone in the family chipped in, we finally forced some very good hearing aids on her, and then it made all the difference in the world. She was able to understand discussions and able to take part. And music suddenly sounded a whole lot better to her.

- Glenn

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by jklotz

I used to engineer a lot of post production sessions for the Turner networks back in the day. Jeez, some of those revisions would go on for days, especially for the big campaigns. It was just fine for us. We were billing by the hour, however, it did get to the point of being ridicules quite often. "Wait, back it up again. Did he use enough of the letter "T" when he said "THE" at the beginning of the 3rd sentence? Can you go find the letter T from another take and edit it in?" My answer - Sure, but why don't we just go find another "the"? "No, no. The second half of that "the" was perfect".

This is hilarious!!!

- Glenn

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by jklotz

I used to engineer a lot of post production sessions for the Turner networks back in the day. Jeez, some of those revisions would go on for days, especially for the big campaigns. It was just fine for us. We were billing by the hour, however, it did get to the point of being ridicules quite often. "Wait, back it up again. Did he use enough of the letter "T" when he said "THE" at the beginning of the 3rd sentence? Can you go find the letter T from another take and edit it in?" My answer - Sure, but why don't we just go find another "the"? "No, no. The second half of that "the" was perfect".

Oh, yeah.

Bob

[David Eastwood]

This has nothing to do with sound recording, but it has a very similar cycle.

Many years ago, I worked in a microbiology research lab. The scientists would regularly produce papers for potential publication in eminent journals, and before submission, they would submit them for review by their peers in the lab - a sort of pre-peer review, before the ‘real’ pre-publication peer review.

One such paper did the rounds, amassing more and more red ink each time. The author realized that he’d been correcting the same things back and forth for several iterations, and, in a fit of frustration, resubmitted the original draft to the same panel.

It passed, with nary a comment.

Ever try that, Bob?

[AcousticDreams]

A question for you Bob that is slightly out of your field, but might know the answer since you work a lot with films.

I am a huge classic movie watcher. I love those films from the 30's,40's& 50's.

Somewhere in either the late 90's or early 2000's the voice tracks became so hard to hear what the actors where saying( in the quieter parts of the movie). This is never the case in those classic movies. I can understand every single word. Yes...being old, some hearing loss of course.... but it is not just me, I talked to young people and they do not understand the words often either. I will go.."What did he say" and they say " I don't know, I could not hear it either" so it is not just me.

I assume this is because of the wide capture of digital and the fact that they are probably not using any compression on the spoken voice. Maybe the fact that the tape of yesteryear offered some compression like qualities?

I heard one argument stating that one of the differences was in the quality of the actors training. They worked hard on their vocal chords and pronunciation. But my gut feeling that the problem lies with the digital age and the wide dynamic range. And somehow...this problem has not been addressed.

What is your take on this subject matter?