---
title: "Psychoacoustics (The Perception of Music)"

description: "Ever notice some music sounds louder than others? It's not all volume, a lot of it is perception and evolution!"

status: complete

date: 2023-06-29

kind: solo

guestSlugs: []

listenUrl: "https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/Psychoacoustics-The-Perception-of-Music-e26aus4"
appleUrl: "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psychoacoustics-the-perception-of-music/id1567355195?i=1000618693938&uo=4"
spotifyUrl: "https://open.spotify.com/episode/7aA5wLTxlFRZfV6VvWOTnT"

topicsDiscussed:
  - "Analog"
  - "Mixing"
  - "Music production"
  - "Psychoacoustics"
  - "Sound Perception"
  - "Recording Techniques"
  - "Loudness vs Perceived Loudness"
  - "Harmonic Frequencies"
  - "Clipping in Audio"

hostNote: |
  Some mixes can sound quieter than others even at identical volume, not because of the fader, but because of the frequency spectrum they occupy. That's psychoacoustics: the physics of how we hear, not just what the meters say.
  
  I get into **clipping** (why analog clipping adds character while digital clipping sounds brittle), the warm-versus-sterile debate between analog and digital (spoiler: digital has taken the lessons from analog and applied them mathematically), and how our ears respond differently to loudness across frequency ranges. The headphone section covers why mixing on cans introduces binaural biases you need to account for.
  
  The frame I keep coming back to is the interplay between sterile, artificial, and realistic, having the tools, recognizing which one you're hearing, and choosing deliberately.

selectedMoments:
  - label: "Introduction to Psychoacoustics"
    startSec: 1
    note: "Why some tracks sound louder than others, the rabbit hole that sparked the episode."
  - label: "Explaining Clipping"
    startSec: 139
    note: "What clipping is, how it works, and why analog distortion adds character while digital clips are harsh."
  - label: "Analog vs Digital Sound"
    startSec: 274
    note: "The differences between analog and digital recordings and their effects on perceived warmth and tone."
  - label: "Loudness Perception"
    startSec: 586
    note: "How our ears perceive loudness differently across frequency ranges and what that means for mixing."
  - label: "Headphone Mixing Insights"
    startSec: 771
    note: "Headphone mixing and binaural sound, benefits and pitfalls."
  - label: "Conclusion on Music Perception"
    startSec: 902
    note: "Balancing sterile, artificial, and realistic sounds, having the tools and recognizing when to use them."

excerptQuotes:
  - text: "That generally creates clipping. So what clipping is, is you can picture a sine wave up and down, up and down, like a slinky going up and down."
    startSec: 144
    reviewed: true
  - text: "Because it's in the analog space rather than the digital space, it is adding character."
    startSec: 181
    reviewed: true
  - text: "It can sound very brittle and fragile and digital. But the magic of where digital is gone is that it's been able to take the lessons from analog and apply it mathematically."
    startSec: 315
    reviewed: true
  - text: "Some modern mixes can sound quieter unless you have a big subwoofer or something like that in comparison to other ones because it's a less full frequency spectrum."
    startSec: 540
    reviewed: true
  - text: "It's like playing with those, you know, the interplay between sterile, artificial and realistic. And being able to switch in between the two, having the tools, recognizing it."
    startSec: 906
    reviewed: true

faq:
  - question: "What is psychoacoustics in music?"
    answer: "Psychoacoustics is the study of how humans perceive sound, particularly how different sounds can be perceived as varying in loudness despite similar measurements."
  - question: "How does mixing affect perceived loudness?"
    answer: "Mixing techniques, such as the balance of frequencies and the presence of certain instruments, can affect how loud a track seems to listeners even if the volume levels are equal."
  - question: "What role does clipping play in music production?"
    answer: "Clipping occurs when audio signals are pushed beyond their limits, resulting in distortion, which can be used creatively in music production."

transcriptPublished: false

draft: false
---