Learning To Listen

millercarbon,

there you go slobbering on the page again.  Yes, I used the word slobber.  At first I was going to use dribble but you got so caught up in yourself that all you left behind was a bunch of slobbering babble. 

" When people talk about tone they really are talking about volume. Frequency response is volume."

Yes, you actually wrote that.  Frequency response is bandwidth and volume is amplitude.  Do you ever re-read your posts before hitting the send button? I am not sure I found anything in your post that was at all useful.  You seem to have little understanding of the recording and playback process and the way the human ear responds to sound.

The simple answer to misc-audio's question is to listen to the real thing and compare.  Listen to the sound of a bow on a bass or fingers sliding on newly installed guitar strings.  Yes, cymbals are good sources but you need to hear the real thing in order to know what they sound like.  Not some digital recording.  You also said:

  "You can listen for hours and hours and hours and if that is all you do, just sit there and listen, it will get you nowhere."

You are so wrong on every level about that.  If you listen to the real thing that is how you learn ..... and that's all there is to it.   P.S. it doesn't take 20 years to know what a hummingbird sounds like.        
           

I did this course and it was fantastic. Really interesting, and the exercises are challenging.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/critical-listening-for-studio-production

Really helps you spot the snake oil salesmen.  

I’d suggest starting with a single instrument whose sound you know well, ideally something with a full frequency range e.g.piano or cello.

Take a slow movement and try to focus on single notes: Initial attack, decay and reverb. Does it sound thin or full, too harsh or too soft? can you hear the harmonics of the base tone? Does it sound real or muffled or sharp?

Once you are comfortable with say solo piano move on to Trios: apply same approach to the added cello and violin. can you locate each instrument; is there air around each instrument and do they gell together?
Go from there to say a Symphony for strings only: can you hear first and second violins, violas, cellos and double basses in their respective locations? Does it gell or grate with you?

going on to full orchestra: start with piano or cello concertos, same questions. 

Only listen to large scale orchestral works once you have become really comfortable with all previous steps and with a bit of luck you might end up liking Mahler and Stravinsky!
Most of all: enjoy the music

larryh111:

millercarbon, 

there you go slobbering on the page again. Yes, I used the word slobber. At first I was going to use dribble but you got so caught up in yourself that all you left behind was a bunch of slobbering babble.  

" When people talk about tone they really are talking about volume. Frequency response is volume."

Yes, you actually wrote that. Frequency response is bandwidth and volume is amplitude. Do you ever re-read your posts before hitting the send button? 

Yes but, um, do you? Bandwidth is the entire frequency range across which a component works. Do you ever read your posts before hitting the send button? Or do you just not know the difference between frequency response and bandwidth? 
 
If you do know, then you deliberately edited my post to make it sound like I said something different. The full quote is:

When people talk about tone they really are talking about volume. Frequency response is volume. If the volume is equal at every frequency then we say it is flat. But all we mean is everything is the same volume.
The full quote makes clear we are talking about tone, which is the relative loudness of different parts of the frequency range.

That's just what it is. When you see a frequency response spec, what does it say? 20-20k +/-3dB. The 20-20k part is the range. What do you suppose +/-3dB is? What do we measure volume in? dB. So it is frequency by volume. Just what I said.

Question now is, should I be like all the other butt hurt snowflakes, go whine to a mod, have your post removed? Or leave it up there for everyone to see just how bad you blew it? Tough call. I think I'll let you remove it, or someone else. Wipe up your own slobber.

millercarbon,

This above is quicksand and you are standing in it with both feet. Do not move too much. it will help you.

Learn to listen, for once.