Frameworks for Critical Listening

Lachy
Oct 18, 2016
5 min read

Coming up in my blog posts will be a couple of articles which critically analyse two songs I really vibe with. I'm sharing this because for me, it's a crucial exercise in training my ears and a great form of research into the engineering of my favourite tracks. Journaling my analysis is not only a perfect way for me to take notes whilst engaging with an audience, but also to demonstrate my professional development 9 months into a Bachelor of Audio.

Today I'll cover a framework for how I would actually go about analysing a piece of music with critical listening.

Critical listening is a skill which is developed over time and experience and is inherent within the audio industry. The act of pulling other sounds out of focus and being able to listen to an individual instrument amongst an entire mix, is one part of this large auditory skill set.

For audio engineers, a pair of well-trained ears should have incredible control in perceiving and analysing sound. William Moylan states in his book The Art of Recording that: "In order for material to be under their control, the artist (audio professional) must understand the substance of their material: sound, in all its consistencies."

Breaking apart the physical dimensions of sound into sections and understanding their individual attributes is the first step into the analysis, and is fundamentally what you're doing by critical listening:

SPECTRAL - Frequency content

DYNAMICS - Amplitude

TIME DOMAIN - Space, atmosphere/environment

TIMBRE - Combination of frequency and amplitude which makes up the character of a sound (eg. pluck of a guitar string)

and I believe an extension to these four fundamental parts, which they all play a role in creating, is the hook or INTEREST in a song.

By going through these dimensions of the sound before finally looking at the big picture and interest of the track, it's a much more systematic and thorough critique of a mix; and it's what the top engineers in the world do best.

Below I'll go into more detail of these individual roles in a mix.

Spectral

Spectral is the frequency content or spectrum which make up a mix measured by Hz (Hertz). The audible hearing range we have as humans is 20Hz - 20,000 Hz, and the balance between the frequencies generally matches the way we perceive sound. We are much more sensitive to higher frequencies (specifically 500Hz - 4kHz) due to the in-built EQ's we have in our ears, which is why the frequency spectrum in the image above slopes down. That's actually what the chorus of my latest track looks like, more on that very soon.

What I would look for in a mix firstly is the balance and separation of the frequencies present. This is achieved through EQ, panning of the stereo image and gain structure. Frequencies can blend together nicely, a lot of high frequency content tends to melt together and become more bright. However the low-end frequency range tend to not play as well together, this is most difficult part of the mix to get right. In electronic music production the bass and kick should be separated into two roles: one drives the sub-bass frequencies (20-60Hz) and the other drives the bass-low mid frequencies 60-250Hz. If they overlap and try to play the same role, the mix will sound 'muddy' and a loss of clarity will be apparent.

Dynamics & Timbre

Dynamics is the amplitude or level control of each sonic element. Balance is achieved through gain structure and compression, which ultimately determines the dynamic range of the track - the difference between the loudest and quietest sound. An industry standard recording generally has a dynamic range of -18dBFS (which is measured as RMS or root-mean-square or just average) and peaks at around -8 to -10dbFS. Plenty of headroom for a mastering engineer to work with. When we're looking at mastered tracks, you'll see dance songs pushing around -2 to -3dB's of dynamic range. This is where the 'loudness war' begins, and it's hard not to participate in it when all the latest commercial releases have basically no dynamic range.

Fundamental transients of different sounds is another element I would focus on. Is the pluck of the guitar or click of a kick drum given enough dynamic space to cut through the mix? Techniques like side-chain compression & panning, shaping of the envelope/ADSR of elements (attack, decay, sustain, release) and automation can be employed to give significant elements enough space for their transient and timbre to shine.

Time Domain

Time domain and dynamics work hand-in-hand in achieving a gain structure in a mix. Time domain relates to effects like reverbs and delays to create space, atmosphere & ambience and give an environment to a static, dry sound source. More reverb and echo will push a sound further back in the mix and vice-versa, this is where the layering of textures with the combination of time domain and dynamics can create phenomenal sound scapes. My upcoming mix analysis of a Tycho and Tourist track will definitely focus on this element, as they both absolutely excel in this department.

What I would look for is how these effects create the intended purpose and how well they integrate together. Delay that is too out of quantisation will be distracting and disjoint you from the rest of the mix. Reverb that isn't well-crafted (EQ, diffusion, decay times, stereo balance) will create a build up of frequencies, less clarity resulting in a muddy and dull mix.

Interest

My mum has been completing an industry course called the 'Art of Artist Management', and one of the sayings recently taken from it relating to songwriting is about the hook or interest in a track. It was that the intro should have a hook, the verses should have a hook and the hook should have a hook. You can craft this interest into the whole aesthetic of the song by crafting and shaping the above dimensions of audio to create something unique and memorable.

You'll be seeing an in-depth article on this one very soon, but here is Tourist's 'Run' - taken from his U LP released this year:

The sound design has a personal aesthetic which is meticulously crafted, this becomes the hook when you spend this much time on making sure each sound has it's own character and life to it. The vocal cuts on this single and the entire album are extremely catchy and seamlessly melt into the production with the use of time domain. Overall an entire atmosphere and emotion is constructed to become the hook, in turn making it a pretty extraordinary record. Can't wait to jump into this one and chat more about it.

UPDATE: If you want to see this framework in action, check out my first mix analysis here of Tourist - Run.

Sources:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/how-ear-works