I thought of a good way to learn how popular songs are mixed lately, and I was just wondering if anyone has every implemented this idea.
When listening to a song, maybe you wish to hear how the guitars are panned. You could simply listen and hope that in the massive wall of guitars you hear, you can pick out each one…
Or, if you had such a device/plugin, you could pan a filter back and forth and anything that is not panned in that position would be attenuated.
For example, with EQ you can boost (say 15 db) a given frequency with a narrow bandwidth and that frequency would be pronounced. Now you can move the slider back and forth and the frequency changes. If you were to decrease the overall output by 15 db, then only the selected frequency would be “normal” and all the others would be attenuated. You could then move it around to hear how the wave sounds at different parts of the spectrum.
Now what if you applied that to a stereo mix, with a narrow width filter that attenuates the volume of any sound not at it’s particular panning position. If you did so, you could then move it around and hear where things were panned. For instance, you could hear the single guitar track at 90% left without the clutter of the 100% left guitar track and the other two right tracks. You could then learn how engineers combine guitar tracks together to create a larger picture.
This may not even be possible, but I thought I’d share the concept with everyone and see what they thought.