Do you listen to learn?

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BenignVanilla

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Over the past 10 months as I have been learning the basics of mixing, I have found that right now I don't enjoy music as much as I used to, mostly because I am constantly listening for what is where, how much is there, where is there, etc. LOL.

Tonight Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance came up in rotation. I sat for 4:34 and did nothing. What a great song for listening to for just getting a nice two guitar mix and how it should sound. Drums, two guitars, bass, vocals, some florishes here and there. So well mixed, yet so basic. I added it to my "reference tracks" playlist.

So what do you guys listen to, to learn about mixing?
 
Yep - Everything.

A great mix is where everything went right. A bad mix can happen when only one small thing goes wrong. You can learn from either.
 
There are two fronts to this battle to improve your own recordings.

The first is to listen to what you regard as good and figure out what makes it good.

The second is to listen to what you regard as bad to figure out what makes it bad.

With luck you will learn to do more of the former and less of the latter.

But neither case should dampen your enthusiasm for listening, because listening and discovering a reason why something is not sound so good is as exciting as listening and discovering an hitherto unrevealed secret.
 
Haha, when I owned a car, i used to find myself driving while leaning to the right to get a proper spacial representation of the mix. It probably wasn't too safe, but I heard a lot of good ideas/techniques that way!
 
Switching from critical listening to enjoying the music? That's often a problem when you turn your passion or hobby into your obsession or profession. Time for confession to ward off depression.
I have a fairly big music collection & I try to work my way through it to some degree while revisiting fav's often as well as getting newer stuff reasonably often.
My reference recordings - hmmm:
Songs of Love & Hate - Leonard Cohen.
30 Secs over Tokyo - Pere Ubu
Boy Child - Scott Walker
Almost Blue & Imperial Bedroom - Elvis Costello
Pet Sounds - Beach Boys
Odyssey & Oracle - Zombies (mono Version)
Deep In The Woods - The Birthday Party
801 - 801 Live
Queen II - Queen
Jaqueline Du Pre - Saint Sean CC#1 with her hubby
Television - Marquee Moon
Velvet Underground - VU with Lou Reed Live 1969
Al Stewart - Past Present & Future
Horslips - The Book of Invasions
Mull Historical Society - Loss
Wire - Best of
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
&
Gallagher & Lyle - Break Away (honestly, some things can't be explained).

A wide range of frequent fliers on my stereo that are, to my mind, terrific recordings. They also have the advantage of being music I can still get lost in. It's the quality that allows me to get lost that I then try to critically listen for - performamce, capture, mix, treatment (I can't hear mastering - too cloth eared but then again - isn't that the point {esp with out the source material as reference{)
They're all quite different in their sonic intentions - except maybe the Scott compilation & Imperial Bedroom where lush yet off kilter arrangements also aim at clarity (less successful with with the E.C.).
But, as has been said - when I hear something that works or doesn't I'll often go back to it to try to understand why.
I don't have the CL skills set to do that efficiently or in a way that I can translate to my own work but I'm learning very, very slowly.
 
Ive got over 12,000 songs on my ipod and I listen to music in bed from about midnight to 3 am. Every night. I have everything from Bobby Goldsboro to Metallica. I spent months converting my album collection to mp3's (several thousand albums). Its amazing how once you start recording, you begin to disect all you listen to. Tom Pettys' records have always been recorded very well. Its a shame that artist today have acsess to million dollar studios and the output sounds worse than alot of the stuff we (home recorders) put out. :)
 
BenignVanilla said:
Over the past 10 months as I have been learning the basics of mixing, I have found that right now I don't enjoy music as much as I used to, mostly because I am constantly listening for what is where, how much is there, where is there, etc. LOL.

Tonight Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance came up in rotation. I sat for 4:34 and did nothing. What a great song for listening to for just getting a nice two guitar mix and how it should sound. Drums, two guitars, bass, vocals, some florishes here and there. So well mixed, yet so basic. I added it to my "reference tracks" playlist.

So what do you guys listen to, to learn about mixing?
Click to expand...

It sounds dumb but I learned the most while 1 car speaker was blown. I found mixing techniques I never knew existed listening to only one channel. I put switches in the car to shut off the left or right speakers. Switching between the two on the same songs is a totally new experience.
 
Ah, Grasshopper.

Before you "listen to learn", you must "learn to listen".

Go now. You may.


:p
 
LOL @ RAMI

and yes, I listen to everything to find out what was right and wrong, and even the occasional how/what did they do to get that sound. Now it's time to experiment. lol

I listened to a lot of things that I used to like a long time ago and now I'm like wow their sound sucked. But before I got into recording never realized it. Take it as you are learning grasshopper....lol
 
i noticed several years ago that i was doing this exact thing... listening to learn. i found one thing that helped alot is the "remastering" craze several artists have been on lately.
at first i thought, why bother... it's just something to get music fans to buy the cd's once again. then a picked one up, and began alot of learning.
example: i had Megadeth's "Rust In Peace"... love that disc. then i got the remastered version. i would load the first track from the original, then the first track for the remastered... and so on... so i could listen to the two back-to-back. hearing the changes in the mix helped alot.
also, i play mainly metal... but for great mixing, i listen to alot of Prince & Enigma. there is so much going on on some songs that it amazes me how, when you actually sit & pay attention, everything can still be heard. Dream Theater is also great with the mixes.

but with all the styles i listen to, i've found myself going back and listening to it all again... but this time to learn, not just enjoy.
 
Talkin 'bout re-mastering...the Beatles "Love" is a great reference. Also, step outa the boat now and then and listen to some (lotsa) classical music. Pay attention to the shifting textures and instrumental combinations and their relative placement in sonic space and how it affects the mood of the music. Those old guys were on to something that modern music in most genre's has lost along the way


chazba
 
RAMI said:
Ah, Grasshopper.

Before you "listen to learn", you must "learn to listen".

Go now. You may.
Click to expand...

Alright Yoda, I was gonna give some rep for this but I figure you've got enough for now (especially from me).

To the OP, yeah I try and listen critically as much as possible, for arrangement, groove, and production. I'm not great at it but I'm learning. As for switching it off, I hardly ever do but I enjoy really getting inside a song and/or piece of music so I don't really feel the need to "step back" for entertainment purposes.

On a similar topic, does anybody else find themselves losing interest in a conversation when there's a really great track playing in the "background"?
 
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