Audio Measurement: The Blessings And Curses

There’s no question: the single most important judgement tool for audio professionals are the ears. There is actually no measurement instrument in the world that is as versatile, fast, convenient and intuitive. And after all, music is made for ears, not measurement instruments. But there is also no instrument that can be as imprecise, mood-dependent and subjective as the ears. Thus, audio engineers and equipment developers alike need a complementary tool of judgement, to overcome these disadvantages. This gap is filled by a variety of audio measurement tools available, like spectrum analyzers, loudness meters, oscilloscopes and many more.

Here on The Science of Sound, we will rely heavily on measurements as we dig deep into the guts of our beloved audio tools and processes. But it’s important to be very clear and mindful about what we can and cannot achieve by relying on measurements. So here are 4 blessings and 4 curses of audio measurement.

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About JENS: Sound Localization In The Median Plane

In a lot of ways, music mixing is all about creating a spatial impression and placing every instrument in its specific position in a virtual space. Besides the usual suspects like panning and interchannel delays for positioning in the horizontal plane and reverberation and equalization techniques to create a sense of distance, there is a third dimension of sound localization that is often overlooked: the median plane, which means localization in the front, back, above and below directions. Let’s have a closer look at the human abilities to distinguish these directions and at my neat FREE plug-in you can use to fool the ears a bit more when mixing.

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Welcome to The Science of Sound!

Hey fellow audio enthusiast!

I’m so excited today to finally announce the launch of The Science of Sound, and I’m even more excited to welcome you as one of my very first readers. For a start, let me shortly outline what my new blog will be about. As you might have guessed already, it’ll be about all things sound. And with science!

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