[LAU] eyes verses ears

[J. Liles]

On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Monty Montgomery <xiphmont at gmail.com> wrote:

> > A mix is purely an auditory medium, right? So, (and I'll play dumb
> > here) why do we need to visualize a mix?
>
> Eyes are better at some things than ears.
>
> A regular example from some audiophile equipment forums...  I won't
> name names, but on one particular forum 'Just listen!' is used as a
> panacea to dismiss any kind of scientific or objective discussion of
> equipment.
>
> The obvious response is, "Are you suggesting [Company name] take the
> oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, multimeters and computers away from
> their design engineers?"
>
> Visualization can be quite useful, even in audio.
>
> Cheers,
> Monty
>

Let's not forget the distinction between visualization and measurement. The
number of people (and we're talking about musicians/producers here) looking
at visualizations of audio and the number actually using the visualization
to measure something meaningful are, I imagine, very different. Measurement
is obviously invaluable when designing DSP algorithms etc. It is not
necessary *at all* in order to make music. Peak/clipping indicators are
pretty handy, but after that the returns diminish rapidly.
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