last question for today...

After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me that
he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the must not
sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen to it
carefully and he's right:

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".
I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the whole
music.

What causes this effect?

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high". As
well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and 300-500Hz and
4kHz boosted "near".

How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the phantom
source.

Greeting Thomas Thiele

thomas wrote
After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me that
he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the must not
sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen to it
carefully and he's right:

So this guitar player is the singer to? It can be good to have another pair of
ears, but you need to learn about recording on your own.

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".
I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the whole
music.

Guitar-plane???? A kind of bad EQing??? Phantom source????? You lost me here.

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high". As
well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and 300-500Hz and
4kHz boosted "near".

8K is good for voice, I don't know about 1K, but 300-500Hz...no never on a
typical voice.

How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the phantom
source.

There you go with the phantom thing again.

Mixing is a fine art, you have to get each track sounding good on there own and
use automation to make them all level. You must take the song into parts and
use automation for adjustment as the song progress.

ThomasT wrote:
After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me
that he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the
must not sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen
to it carefully and he's right:
the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".
I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the
whole music.
What causes this effect?
I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high".
As well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and
300-500Hz and 4kHz boosted "near".
How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the
phantom source.


The effect ThomasT is talking about is elevation.
That is an effect only in the stereo center. The sound
seems to be elevated in the center above the hight of
the speakers. That are special spectral clues which can do this.

http://www2.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/hand...l_Hearing.html

The science cannot tell the real reasons. It is a stereo artifact.

Kind regards

Eberhard Sengpiel

ThomasT wrote:

last question for today...

After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me that
he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the must not
sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen to it
carefully and he's right:

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".

That depends on the music. Is the guitar there to decorate the vocals,
or are the vocals there to decorate the guitar?

I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the whole
music.

What causes this effect?

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high". As
well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and 300-500Hz and
4kHz boosted "near".

How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the phantom
source.

Greeting Thomas Thiele


Drop the level by moving the fader towards you. Isn't that simple?

--
Les Cargill

Raymond wrote:

So this guitar player is the singer to? It can be good to have another pair of
ears, but you need to learn about recording on your own.

In this case, yes. But this effect happens on some other voices, too,

Guitar-plane???? A kind of bad EQing??? Phantom source????? You lost me here.

Hard to explain in only few word.
Imagine that you hear both guitars left and right in the hight of the
speaker.
(if extremely panned directly from the speaker)
The snare comes exactly from the center. But a little bit behind the
imaginary left-right line.
And all three points (guitars, snare) makes a imaginary plane.
You you what I want to say?
The vocals sounds like you use two stereo speakers left-right
(distance 5m) for the music but for the vocals a center speaker in the
center but 0.5-1m higher.

Mixing is a fine art, you have to get each track sounding good on there own and
use automation to make them all level. You must take the song into parts and
use automation for adjustment as the song progress.

I mix now for about 10years. (not regualary of course)
But I did not notice this effect.
Some kind of reverb or room. Don't know.

It's not really bad. We are dicussion the last 3% of a 100%
professional recording.

Eberhard Sengpiel wrote:

The effect ThomasT is talking about is elevation.
That is an effect only in the stereo center.

http://www2.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/hand...l_Hearing.html

The science cannot tell the real reasons. It is a stereo artifact.

And why not the snare too? An why keeps the Bassdrum down?

Btw. I could not reproduce this in the studio.
But I don't have this session anymore...thank you IBM...

The vocals sounds like you use two stereo speakers left-right
(distance 5m) for the music but for the vocals a center speaker in the
center but 0.5-1m higher.


Are you monitoring on a two or three way speaker system with the tweeters on
the top and there is more high frequency content in the vocal track?

Rgds:
Eric

"Thomas Thiele" schreef in bericht
...
"Eric K. Weber" wrote:

Are you monitoring on a two or three way speaker system with the
tweeters on
the top and there is more high frequency content in the vocal track?

In the studio my main monitors are JBL LSR32. So three way.

But this effect I descriped is not really noticeable there but on my
home stereo (three way speakers and JBL C1 (not together of course).
And especially on Headphones. I don't mean the effect that yout hear
phantonsource between the ears and over your head. I mean the vocals
are higher than the snare and higher than vocals on a professional Mix
(commercial CD).


Then the high frequencies of the vocals are just a bit to loud. There are
books about the building of the stereo images. Some of them tell a story
that the bottum is also the bottum frequency wise. High frequency sounds
tend to go higher. Some monitor systems have more problems with this then
others.
Take a bit of the high frequency of the vocals and it will be fine. But if
it sounds right is is okay.....

Regards,

Harrie
www.studiofroombosch.com

"Eric K. Weber" wrote:

Are you monitoring on a two or three way speaker system with the tweeters on
the top and there is more high frequency content in the vocal track?

In the studio my main monitors are JBL LSR32. So three way.

But this effect I descriped is not really noticeable there but on my
home stereo (three way speakers and JBL C1 (not together of course).
And especially on Headphones. I don't mean the effect that yout hear
phantonsource between the ears and over your head. I mean the vocals
are higher than the snare and higher than vocals on a professional Mix
(commercial CD).

Lowering the vocal fader helps.

Carve out a little notch in the frequencies in the guitars, etc. that
you may find are overlapping/interfering with the vocals - sometimes
that helps.

Playing with the EQ can assist in the placement of the vocals or other
instruments on the stereo sound field.

I hope this helps. Best of luck!!!

Ken/Eleven Shadows
http://www.elevenshadows.com

Les Cargill wrote in message ...
ThomasT wrote:

last question for today...

After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me that
he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the must not
sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen to it
carefully and he's right:

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".

That depends on the music. Is the guitar there to decorate the vocals,
or are the vocals there to decorate the guitar?

I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the whole
music.

What causes this effect?

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high". As
well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and 300-500Hz and
4kHz boosted "near".

How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the phantom
source.

Greeting Thomas Thiele


Drop the level by moving the fader towards you. Isn't that simple?

Lowering the vocal fader helps.

Carve out a little notch in the frequencies in the guitars, etc. that
you may find are overlapping/interfering with the vocals - sometimes
that helps.

Playing with the EQ can assist in the placement of the vocals or other
instruments on the stereo sound field.

I hope this helps. Best of luck!!!

Ken/Eleven Shadows
http://www.elevenshadows.com

Les Cargill wrote in message ...
ThomasT wrote:

last question for today...

After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me that
he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the must not
sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen to it
carefully and he's right:

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".

That depends on the music. Is the guitar there to decorate the vocals,
or are the vocals there to decorate the guitar?

I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the whole
music.

What causes this effect?

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high". As
well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and 300-500Hz and
4kHz boosted "near".

How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the phantom
source.

Greeting Thomas Thiele


Drop the level by moving the fader towards you. Isn't that simple?

In article ,
(ThomasT) writes:

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".
I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the whole
music.

What causes this effect?

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high". As
well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and 300-500Hz and
4kHz boosted "near".

How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the phantom
source.

Greeting Thomas Thiele

I get the impression that you are saying that you hear the voice as coming from
a place *physically* higher than the rest of the mix (rather than louder). Is
that correct? I think there is a bit of a language barrier here so it would be
best to define our terms. The position of a sound in the stereo field from left
to right is sometimes referred to as "imaging". As far as I know there is no
accepted term to describe height since presumably there would be few cases
where the apparent height of a sound would be any different than the rest of
the mix. Maybe there is some psycho-acoustic anomalie causing an audio illusion
in this case but this is not common in my experience. The term "phantom source"
is not really recognized in the pro audio community so it may be confusing to
use that term.

Is this the only time this has happened or do other recordings exhibit this
same phenomenon? If so then its probably something about the way your speakers
are set up or the room. Could also be reflections off nearby surfaces. With the
info you have given so far its very hard to know.

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

In article ,
(Ken / Eleven Shadows) writes:

Lowering the vocal fader helps.

I dont think the original poster means that the vocals are too loud. I *think*
he's talking about the apparent physical height of the sound--sort a vertical
imaging thing. Like it seems to be coming from above the speakers. I'm not 100%
sure thats what he means but that was my impression from what he wrote.

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

Garthrr wrote:

I dont think the original poster means that the vocals are too loud. I *think*
he's talking about the apparent physical height of the sound--sort a vertical
imaging thing. Like it seems to be coming from above the speakers. I'm not 100%
sure thats what he means but that was my impression from what he wrote.

You are right.

In article , Thomas Thiele
writes:

Garthrr wrote:

I get the impression that you are saying that you hear the voice as coming
from
a place *physically* higher than the rest of the mix (rather than louder).

Exactly.

I think there is a bit of a language barrier here so it would be
best to define our terms.

Maybe. Its hard to explain. Even in my native language.
It like the vocals are lying over the music. Not _in_ the music.

Well, again, that doesnt really help to clarify what we're talking about. When
most people say "over the music" they are talking about loudness or a sense of
the vocal not being in the same acoustic space as the rest of the mix. If that
is what you men then I have misunderstood you.



The position of a sound in the stereo field from left
to right is sometimes referred to as "imaging". As far as I know there is
no
accepted term to describe height since presumably there would be few cases
where the apparent height of a sound would be any different than the rest
of
the mix.

The human hearing are able to decide not only left and right but also
low and high and front and back.
Its a frequency issue. Thats why our ears have such a complicated
form. Soud from behind sound different. This works only with known
sources.

Yes, the ear can detect these things in the real world but, to my knowledge,
two speakers cannot cause a sound to appear to be higher or lower in space
while they can make a sound appear to be front or back or left or right. Front
to back can be achieved with reverb or room ambience and can be heard even on
one speaker. Left or right is obviously achieved by how much the sound appears
in one speaker more than the other.

in this case but this is not common in my experience. The term "phantom
source"
is not really recognized in the pro audio community so it may be confusing
to
use that term.

Not? In german it is...(say not in the pro but academic audio
community)

Is this the only time this has happened or do other recordings exhibit this
same phenomenon? If so then its probably something about the way your
speakers
are set up or the room. Could also be reflections off nearby surfaces. With
the
info you have given so far its very hard to know.

I try to make some mps3 on weekend.

That wont help if the problem is your speakers. You already said you dont hear
the problem on your home stereo so maybe its peculiar to your studio monitors.

Garth~



"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

Garthrr wrote:

I get the impression that you are saying that you hear the voice as coming from
a place *physically* higher than the rest of the mix (rather than louder).

Exactly.

I think there is a bit of a language barrier here so it would be
best to define our terms.

Maybe. Its hard to explain. Even in my native language.
It like the vocals are lying over the music. Not _in_ the music.

The position of a sound in the stereo field from left
to right is sometimes referred to as "imaging". As far as I know there is no
accepted term to describe height since presumably there would be few cases
where the apparent height of a sound would be any different than the rest of
the mix.

The human hearing are able to decide not only left and right but also
low and high and front and back.
Its a frequency issue. Thats why our ears have such a complicated
form. Soud from behind sound different. This works only with known
sources.

in this case but this is not common in my experience. The term "phantom source"
is not really recognized in the pro audio community so it may be confusing to
use that term.

Not? In german it is...(say not in the pro but academic audio
community)

Is this the only time this has happened or do other recordings exhibit this
same phenomenon? If so then its probably something about the way your speakers
are set up or the room. Could also be reflections off nearby surfaces. With the
info you have given so far its very hard to know.

I try to make some mps3 on weekend.

In article ,
(Garthrr) writes:

That wont help if the problem is your speakers. You already said you dont
hear
the problem on your home stereo so maybe its peculiar to your studio
monitors.

Thomas,
I believe you said you are using JBL LSR 32 monitors. Are these the speaker on
which you heard this problem? I have the same speakers and have never noticed
the problem you described.

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

Garthrr wrote:

That wont help if the problem is your speakers. You already said you dont hear
the problem on your home stereo so maybe its peculiar to your studio monitors.

Not in the studio, but on different home stereos and especially on
headphones.

thomas wrote
Not in the studio, but on different home stereos and especially on
headphones.

Sounds to me you "may" have some kind of reflection and or absorption problem
going on in your studio.

ThomasT wrote:

last question for today...

After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me that
he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the must not
sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen to it
carefully and he's right:

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".

To loud (volume) or too high (intonation)?

What causes this effect?

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion
of "high". As well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination
"far" and 300-500Hz and 4kHz boosted "near".

Aha, AHA!

How do bring the vocals down?

Don't.

I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position
of the phantom source.

It is a quality of a recording if it is not just a shoestring. Don't try
to fix this, it only happens when the recording is OK, I don't know
exactly why.

Greeting Thomas Thiele


Kind regards

Peter Larsen


--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

"Eric K. Weber" wrote:

The vocals sounds like you use two stereo speakers left-right
(distance 5m) for the music but for the vocals a center
speaker in the center but 0.5-1m higher.

Are you monitoring on a two or three way speaker system with
the tweeters on the top and there is more high frequency
content in the vocal track?

No offense intended, but it does appear that you have not heard real
stereophonic recordings.

Rgds:
Eric


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

Garthrr wrote:

I get the impression that you are saying that you hear
the voice as coming from a place *physically* higher

Yes he is.

best to define our terms. The position of a sound in the
stereo field from left to right is sometimes referred to
as "imaging".

Your definition is broken, the sound field is not a string, it is not a
plane, it is a box with an apparent depth like the room your in, but
away from you. If it isn't then the recording or the playback system or
both are broken.

Garth~


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

Garthrr wrote:

Yes, the ear can detect these things in the real world but,
to my knowledge, two speakers cannot cause a sound to appear
to be higher or lower in space while they can make a sound
appear to be front or back or left or right.

You need to listen to real stereo recordings instead of panpotted
recordings. The described effect is probably an illusion caused partly
by the brains knowledge about head related transfer functions, but it
seems to only occur with quality recordings, it could however be that
the voice is a bit overbright in terms of tonal balance, the relative
amount of energy around 9 kHz probably matters. No, there is some
reference, but I plain can not remember it.

Garth~


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

Raymond wrote:

Sounds to me you "may" have some kind of reflection
and or absorption problem going on in your studio.

Listen to real stereo occasionally.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

In article , Peter Larsen
writes:

You need to listen to real stereo recordings instead of panpotted
recordings.

I think we are talking about a pan potted recording in this case. Maybe the
questioner will confirm that.

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

In article , Peter Larsen
writes:

Your definition is broken, the sound field is not a string, it is not a
plane, it is a box with an apparent depth like the room your in, but
away from you. If it isn't then the recording or the playback system or
both are broken.


I dont claim to be an authority on the term (imaging) but I'm not quite sure
what youre saying here. Are you implying that apparent physical height of a
particular sound within the mix is something can be different than the rest of
the mix?

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

In article , Peter Larsen
writes:

You need to listen to real stereo recordings instead of panpotted
recordings. The described effect is probably an illusion caused partly
by the brains knowledge about head related transfer functions, but it
seems to only occur with quality recordings, it could however be that
the voice is a bit overbright in terms of tonal balance, the relative
amount of energy around 9 kHz probably matters. No, there is some
reference, but I plain can not remember it.

My understanding of what the original poster was describing is a vertical
spacial oddity, not an eq thing. That is unless you are saying that too much
9kHz would raise the apparent vertical position of the sound in question.

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

Some people (myself included) tend to hear mono-center sounds as being
vertically "higher" than the other sounds in the mix.

This seems to be more noticeable from panned recordings than those made with
simple miking.

In article ,
Garthrr wrote:
In article , Peter Larsen
writes:

Your definition is broken, the sound field is not a string, it is not a
plane, it is a box with an apparent depth like the room your in, but
away from you. If it isn't then the recording or the playback system or
both are broken.

I dont claim to be an authority on the term (imaging) but I'm not quite sure
what youre saying here. Are you implying that apparent physical height of a
particular sound within the mix is something can be different than the rest of
the mix?

Yes. BUT, it's not something you can consistently alter so as to work
the same on all speakers.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Garthrr wrote:

I think we are talking about a pan potted recording in this case. Maybe the
questioner will confirm that.

The pan-pot ist on center-position. So there is an artifical
stereoimage with the rwst but the vocals are mono (with stereo reverb)

Peter Larsen wrote:

amount of energy around 9 kHz probably matters.

That's what I read in thre book. 7-9kHz makes the impression of
"high".
Maybe your are right. But in my opinion that is what the vocals
need...

try playing with it in mono. . .



(ThomasT) wrote in message . com...
last question for today...

After hearing the mix of the preproduction the guitarist told me that
he don't like vocals. They are ok for the preprod. but the must not
sound so in the final product. They are to high. I listen to it
carefully and he's right:

the vocals are lying above the music. Not inside of the
"guitar-plane".
I think it is not a kind of bad EQing that they do not fit in the mix.
They do. But the phantom source is slightely to high. Above the whole
music.

What causes this effect?

I read that frequencies around 8kHz gives the illusion of "high". As
well the boostet 1kHz give the imagination "far" and 300-500Hz and
4kHz boosted "near".

How do bring the vocals down?
I don't mean pitch or frequencies. I mean the position of the phantom
source.

Greeting Thomas Thiele