Module 2 Project Share: Perceived Space Graphs

[alexruthmann]

After sharing and discussing your Perceived Space Graphs and chosen recordings with your Crew over in the Meet category, share it here as a Reply to this topic so that everyone can see your completed Space Graphs.

Tips for sharing

• Embed a YouTube video or Soundcloud link to the track you analyzed in your post. Our community software makes this super easy. Just put a link to the track or video on a separate line with blank lines above and below the link, and a playable version of the file will embed. Like this:

• Add the start time of the place in the YouTube video where your analysis starts. If you add the following code at the end of our YouTube URL: #t=timeinseconds (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OCGJRAtpfA#t=76), the embedded video will start 1 minute and 16 seconds (76 seconds) into the video like this:

• Add a screenshot of your Perceived Space Graph. Our community software makes it easy to just drag and drop an image file right into the post where you are typing. Embedding the screenshot (in addition to the link to your Google Chart) makes it easy for someone viewing your post to see your graph, while reading about your post.

[zimran]

This is my Module 2 project share. Not sure how this works so I hope I have it right.

I picked "Step" by Vampire Weekend. It's a song I learned to play recently on guitar and I like it.

For my space graph, I picked the verse, which starts at about 30 seconds and lasts until 1 minute. You can see the graph here:
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1EUiGkrDyrxTNeWjD9MZnrfAPRU3_CDC-v1vWQZskER4/edit?usp=sharing

The verse is not so spatially interesting in terms of panning. Most of the instruments seemed to be more or less in the center to me. What is interesting is how the doubling of the vocals makes that more interesting by adding some texture and harmony, and also how the tambourine sound doubles the snare in the background. The snare is pretty loud and reverby, and the tambourine just adds more energy to it. I think it works well.

By bass and kick drum are both pretty quite, but very dry so they seem closer. They play a basic ground baseline which continues throughout the song. Overall, the mix in the first verse seems pretty sparse, everything is very clear.

Once nice vocal effect I will add in the transitions. When the two voices are singing in the intro, they seem panned hard left and right, and then when the verse begins they start to sing together in the middle, which makes the song become more immediate. And again, when the chorus starts, the backing vocal drops out and the main vocal gets more reverb. Half way through, the backing vocal comes in on the side to ask the main vocal a question "What you on about?". The second verse doesn't have backing vocals at all.

As the song is about the band growing up musically (and in general I suppose) and transitioning from one phase to another, it's nice to see that reflected in the vocals

[renegadeninjanl]

So here is my Module 2 project. I am not sure how accurate my graph is since I have no musical background but here goes anyway.

The song I decided to analyse was "The Recipe" by Kendrick Lamar Feat. Dr. Dre (produced by Scoop DeVille).

For my Perceived Space graph, I decided to analyze the song from 0:00 to 0:45. To view my chart click here or you can look at embedded screenshot of my chart below:

I like how the song used different instruments and brings them in at different parts of the song for certain periods. Initially I found it difficult to distinguish between the different instruments being used in the song because of the overpowering bass and drums. But after listening to it several times carefully I was able to identify several of the instruments being used. Most of the sounds I heard felt like they were coming from the left and right of me. It was like the same sound was being played twice at two different locations. I am not sure how accurate I was so feedback will be much appreciated.

[ethanhein]

I think your analysis is right on. It's a pretty common practice to take a mono sound like a single vocal, and making it stereo by duplicating it and placing one copy on each side. There are plugins that do that, I use them myself. This is a really interesting track, you're totally right about the variety of instrumentation entering and exiting.

[Obviebear]

I have chose to do the space graph on the song Closer, Faster by Against the Current. They mainly make covers on Youtube but they also have original songs, this being one of them. They are probably one of my favourite bands at the moment.

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Qwao5uwp9ojYi56LeG2WJWHwWoEb50sJtTpDzzrmbtA/edit
The guitar part for most of the song is in an awkward position that I have never noticed before. I don't know if it's just the recording of it that I listen to but it's off to the left a little bit but in the middle as well. the background vocals come from both sides and have a decent amount of echo. they come from both far sides and not the middle. There is a little bit of echo on the lead singer but it does not add that much depth in the sound.

[ThatOne]

I did this song because I love the stereo effect on the guitar. Most of the song is spaced the same throughout.

[rfcq]

I’ve chose this song because this is one of my favorite songs. The rhythm is nice,
becoming easy to identify the instruments with clarity.

And here it is what I understood:

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1651gsQGpLgJp26yDfAqmL5VHDR8KG6f2Tnq8HReS__M/edit

[zimran]

Hi

How does this work? If I take a track (vocal) and hard pan it left, then duplicate it and hard pan the duplicate right, how do I avoid simply having the track be in the "middle" (since tracks equally panned across left and right are in the middle)?

[nubbins]

I picked The Nightfly, by Donald Fagen.

Not entirely sure how accurate this graph is, as the sound gets a little dense further in. I worked this graph from the first 1:50 of the song, and might get into the other sections of the song later.

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1LB0uRyudLSB7akFa1pEsvnI0rco2vH4SSAAtA-Smrfs/edit?usp=sharing

The main spine of the song is the bass, drums, and the piano, which seem to remain fairly consistent in space all the way through. There's a slightly wet reverb on the snare, particularly, on the drums, but the kit mostly seems like it's all in the same space, as is designed to sound tight and relatively sparse.

The guitar part seems to move around quite a bit, with many of the licks seeming to be panned between left close and further away right (on a side note, although not included in this graph, Larry Carlton's solo seems mostly to be centre and far, behind the vox). The EP, also, while being fairly symmetrical, also seems to occasionally favour the right side, and seems often to move around in reply to the guitar licks. There are also various synth instruments used, often on the big almost percussive chords in the verses, but the main one I picked out sounds a bit like a theremin, which is usually far at the back favouring the left. I think the piano part, while fairly balanced, also tends to pan according to where on the keys you are (bass tones are panned more to the left, treble tones favour the right, giving you a sense of the space of the actual instrument).

Vocals are pretty consistent, placed around the middle, with BVs behind that. A generous amount of reverb on these gives them a kinda spacey feel, which seems to work well against the tight and sparse rhythm section.

I picked this song firstly just because I like it, but because the way the sounds are arranged shows off the interesting chord changes and obviously the skill of the musicians, but also gets at the mood of the song, of a 'DJ with issues' manning the night shift - moody in it's intermittent sparseness and denseness, groovy while introspective, and generally coming across as a kind of subversion of the easy-listening late night jazz style.

[alexruthmann]

If I take a track (vocal) and hard pan it left, then duplicate it and hard pan the duplicate right, how do I avoid simply having the track be in the "middle" (since tracks equally panned across left and right are in the middle)?

You can create two instances of the box for the sound and put one hard left and one hard right. This is often done in production as a "chorus" effect with one take a sample on the left and another on the right. One tip is to listen for perceived "width" of a sound source. Does it sound like it is coming from a small, point source, or is it wide and all-encompassing? You can change the width (and depth) of the boxes to best represent how you hear the sounds.

[JimHenry]

I think Zimran was asking how a centered narrow sound differs from a centered wide sound in the mix since both appear equally in the left and right channels. Using Nick Gilbert's Perceived Space Graph as an example, how would Ld Vox differ from Piano in the mix?

I think you answered the question but perhaps with a bit of subtlety. What I understand you to say is that slightly different versions are needed in the two channels to create a chorus effect. Is a chorus effect the way width is created in the mix? And are two not quite identical versions of a track needed to create a chorus effect?

Is this the same thing that is going on in double tracking which I understand to mean that a second recording has been made of the same material and both are used in the mix?

Finally, I just read about artificial double tracking (ADT) where a second track is made from the first by slightly slowing and speeding the original track which is then used to create a double track effect.

Am I headed in the right direction? Or am I wandering off into the weeds?

[aliques]

I picked this song, because College Dropout, and Late Registration are two of my favorite albums. And I love this song particularly because of the combination of piano and the drums My analysis starts at :11 and goes to 2:00.

I'm curious to hear everyone's feedback. I'm pretty new to this, and it almost seems too simple of a beat

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1YKbEEE5OeGFQmbpvdABYDU-yKcFhn8q9SgUDmpQ6d7M/edit

EDIT: if I were to do it again, I would bring the snare closer and keep it in the middle. I just don't feel like uploading a screenshot again ...lol

[alexruthmann]

I think Zimran was asking how a centered narrow sound differs from a centered wide sound in the mix since both appear equally in the left and right channels. Using Nick Gilbert's Perceived Space Graph as an example, how would Ld Vox differ from Piano in the mix? If Nick heard them as overlapping left to right, then I would suggest extending the Piano boxes into the middle of the graph.

Based on what I see in Nick's graph, I would interpret the Ld Vox to be heard in the center and not overlapping (left to right) the two piano tracks, which are located hard left and hard right.

Is a chorus effect the way width is created in the mix? And are two not quite identical versions of a track needed to create a chorus effect?

In general, a chorus effect is where you have one track that is in some way doubled (or more) to create the effect of multiple performances at the same time, like the difference from a solo voice to a choir of voices.

Chorusing, in general, does not necessarily have anything to do with width. You could have a chorused, multitracked guitar part panned hard left, for example.

Is this the same thing that is going on in double tracking which I understand to mean that a second recording has been made of the same material and both are used in the mix?

Finally, I just read about artificial double tracking (ADT) where a second track is made from the first by slightly slowing and speeding the original track which is then used to create a double track effect.

Yes. Both are ways to create a chorus effect. You can double (or more) track the sounds or you can use ADT.

[TullyHill]

Make a copy and put one copy left and one copy right. Then the middle is empty.

[zimran]

Hi

Thanks to everyone for their responses.

My question though, is this: if I had a single vocal track and I wanted it to play dead center, I would have the track play out of both speakers at exactly the same time and volume. This would create the audio illusion of a single voice in the middle of the two speakers.

How is this different from taking a track, making an exact copy of it, and playing them in perfect sync at the same level, one hard right and the other hard left?

Doesn't there have to be some difference between the two tracks so they don't become just a centered "illusion" track?

[nubbins]

My question though, is this: if I had a single vocal track and I wanted it to play dead center, I would have the track play out of both speakers at exactly the same time and volume. This would create the audio illusion of a single voice in the middle of the two speakers.

I don't know if that's entirely true. Alex will be able to smack me down if I'm entirely wrong, but my understanding is that you could have the same part split and panned hard left and right, and then match those outputs precisely in both ears, with essentially the same sound coming out of both speakers, but it doesn't sound central - it could equally appear that the sound is surrounding you, on both sides.

In other words, the fact that a sound is matched in both channels doesn't necessarily mean it's central - it depends on the specific output, its panning, and any other effects applied that influence perceived position in space.

[ans318]

My Next Breath by Hawk Nelson

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1iCHtexmsfTHq25EB_QNdmEUEg3yBzPNi5IPjc1WVai8/edit?usp=sharing

[alexruthmann]

@zimran Here are links to a few more technical articles that may help answer your questions:

http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_stereophonicsound.php

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ruthmann/PWYM/moylanspace.pdf (from the Further Resources page for Module 2).

[JimHenry]

Thank you. Those two resources were helpful. I never appreciated the degree to which a recording engineer can influence the perception of a song.

[Jared_Johnson]

@rcfq for the Fleetwood Mac Song.

Is it just me or is there a definite hi hat in the right of this song? The drums are spaced left and right throughout but I think the hi hat stays in the right.