On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Monty Montgomery <xiphmont@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.