Your Minds Ear

Today we’re going to talk about your Mind’s Ear, a little bit of play on words here but really really important. Something I use constantly when I walk into a room, it has benefits but obviously has its downside too because you’re never really satisfied with what you hear but what we’re trying to develop in this video with your mind ear is a mental definition or a reference of what good quality sound is, what music should sound like to you, what music should sound like to you to give you that emotional connection and there is a whole series of variables that must be satisfied.

So let’s look at some of the first ones, low Frequency Attack and Decay, first thing I noticed when I come into a room is how the room handles the low frequency energy. You can hear it in a just a heartbeat, a split second, just one note and you can tell if the room is going to be able to manage the energy correctly. You can also tell if it’s going to have the right Attack and Decay rates for low frequency energy. Most of the time you can hear the fundamental, it’s the harmonics that get distorted, usually not the opposite so you have to really get a vision, a picture of this, a reference point in your mind for low frequency so you have that to take with you every time you go into a room.

Middle and high frequencies, obviously reverberation time is critical, has the room manage the reverberation time correctly, is there a nice linear decay of the energy so that when one note fundamentally strikes in the room it lives and dies on its own volition naturally? So you have definition, you have separation and you have focus so that’s the three variables that we need to have in the mid-range. Can you hear all of these in your head even though you’re not playing music in your own room? Are you able to take your room with you if the room is your definition and compare it to what you’re listening to in the room you’re currently residing in? You have to have a reference standard for comparison because that will teach you what’s right and wrong with your music in your room and other rooms that you go into.

So you’ll be able to then with a reference to notice immediately what’s missing okay and then if you can define and quantify what’s missing and then you can fix it, you can look at how to fix it. We have different ways we can do that, two types of treatment obviously absorption and diffusion and then we can start saying type, amount and position of that treatment. I’ll do a video on that later on but the goal here is to kind of get a mental picture of good quality sound, reference out that you know of and then carry that with you when you go into rooms. It will help you learn about different sizes and volumes and acoustics and you’ll be able to apply that to your own room and you know figure out what’s missing. So when you walk into a room and you hear it’s got great low end how do I get that my room or the middles and highs really have great definition and separation, how do I get that in my room and you’ll get that by having a reference.

—

This is an unedited transcript from our video series from Acoustic Fields. There will be some errors in grammar and sentence structure that occur during this translation process.

For complete understanding and comprehension, please view the video which is included in this text. For any additional information regarding this topic or others relating to room acoustics, please contact us directly at:

P: 520 – 392 – 9486

info@acousticfields.com