For Elton John, sorry seemed to be the hardest word. For the sound engineer, it’s something we all have to say sooner or later, whether we’ve accidentally deleted a take, dropped a mic or broken wind in the control room. But there’s another sentence that engineers find even harder to utter:
"I don’t hear any difference."
We’re often placed in situations where we are expected to notice that one thing sounds better than another. When friends enthuse about their new master clock. When celebrity engineers demonstrate the ‘secret sauce’ technique that’s possible only with their signature plug‑in. When we turn a virtual Bakelite dial on an expensive plug‑in emulation of something that was used by the Beatles.
Confirmation bias is a powerful selling tool. Our value as consumers stems from our belief that we can tell the great from the merely good, and it serves manufacturers’ interests to reinforce that belief. We’re only going to buy that expensive preamp or processor if we can convince ourselves that we hear the difference. Our self‑worth as engineers is on the line, too, and there’s peer pressure in play. Who wants to be the one person in the room to admit that they can’t hear what everyone else can?
The ability to identify small differences is undoubtedly a real skill, and one that can be developed through experience and ear training. But it’s a double‑edged sword. By the time I send a mix to a client, I’ve usually been working on it for many hours, and have probably lost any sense of the bigger picture. I’ll be nervously asking myself questions about details. Is the bass level right? Is that vocal half a decibel too bright? Is the release time too slow on that compressor?
Our value as consumers stems from our belief that we can tell the great from the merely good, and it serves manufacturers’ interests to reinforce that belief.
Sometimes the feedback is good, sometimes less so. But what’s 100 percent guaranteed is that it will have absolutely nothing to do with whatever details I was worried about. I’ve been praised to the skies for doing things that I wasn’t conscious of doing at all. I’ve been picked up on faults that made no sense to me. But no client has ever accused me of making the vocal half a dB too bright, or queried the release time on my compressor.
The most important thing about having the ability to focus on detail is to know when not to use it. It’s an equally important, and arguably rarer, skill to know what level of change makes a significant difference to the end result. The best choices in the studio are often the bravest ones — and there are few braver things an engineer can do than admit to not being able to hear a difference.
Sam Inglis Editor In Chief