Psychoacoustics in the recording studio

Producer Bruce Swedien considers understanding the nature of sound and hearing as an essential element in developing your studio skills:

Determining the abilities and limitations of human hearing is invaluable to us involved in the production of music recordings. Any resource that produces sound for the purpose of human listening should take into account what the listener’s ears are going to do with that sound, if we are going to take that resource to its utmost potential.

He also mentions the importance of listening - especially to live instruments - and the acoustic environment. Read the full article.

Why so loud?

Perhaps a truism of composition is that most (all?) effects can be overused. Including compression:

Hearing explained

A good resource covering the basics acoustics and psychoacoustics, as well as the ear, the auditory brain, and to hearing loss and current research.

The Science of Music

four programs from BBC radio4 with Robert Winston and guests.

Unwanted Sounds

Christian Marclay:

And on a much lighter note:

Maryanne Amacher

Interesting talk about her sound art and how technology and listening shaped her work:

From a drummer's perspective

Here is drummer Gavin Harrison talking about working with less common time signatures (7/4 in this case):