Do you hear what I hear...?

[Cailyn]

I'm finishing the mix on my CD, and on one track I could hear the click track bleeding into the acoustic guitar mic. In some cases, this will disappear into the mix but there was a pause and that click, so I did a fresh take with a different setup and eliminated the click.

After, I played the bad segment for my sister. She could not hear the click, even when I told her what to listen for. I did the same with my son. He couldn't hear it either.

Got me to thinking about how finely attuned our hearing becomes to details in music...perhaps we have super hearing?

Just a random thought...

[TonyB]

You got a good point there. Have you thought about posting a clip of the song for us to hear?

Anyway, audio engineers tend to "tune in" more than the average listener.

I produced a CD for a band back in October. It was a 5-song EP that took me weeks to mix. I kept hearing things in some of the songs that no one else was noticing. I wasn't happy with the way some of the songs turned out.

Anyway, two weeks ago I heard one of the songs playing on the radio and it never sounded better. I didn't hear "those nasties" that I thought I was hearing back in Nov and Dec 08.

Sometimes I think we are listening too hard. Sometimes I think I will myself into hearing snaps, crackles, and pops.

[Mute Riot]

I'm definitely going to have to agree that we listen harder for things than the average listener. And it's because of this that we become good engineers. I also think that we hear things that others don't because of the equipment that we use to do our job. There are quite a few things that you can hear on near-field monitors that you won't be able to hear on Apple earbuds. Another reason could be the medium by which we listen. Obviously, 24-bit, 48k will sound better than radio, but with that compression of the sound, it's possible that some of the imperfections that we hear won't be audible.
My 2 cents.