Music sounds better if you listen to it repeatedly for awhile...

[VitaminD]

I've noticed this.. but not really opened my eyes to the effect until tonight.. but I can put a section of song (usually something on which I'm working) into a loop and playback many times in a row. After it has played back more than a handful of times, I lose the ability to hear much of the inharmonics (if there are any)!! It is almost as if my brain is simply not paying attention to them and is, instead, focusing on either the parts that do work well together or the concept in my mind more so.

Sometimes I can work on a song for hours non-stop.. think it is nearly done.. sounds pretty good!

The next day, with fresh ears, I play it back and cringe.. WHAT WAS I THINKING LAST NIGHT?!?

and it isn't just frequency fatigue (which is part of it) but more some kind of 'inharmonics blinders' that slowly get worn over a period of time of listening to the same thing over and over again.

Am I a freak or do others experience this effect?

[metamorphosis]

David Firth summed it up best.

[xNiMiNx]

David Firth summed it up best.

Haha, never seen that, hilarious.

[stonestreet]

Have you heard about this:

4Naeser, M. A., and Lilly, J. C., .The RepeatingWord Effect: Phonetic Analysis of Reported Alternates., Journal of Speech
and Hearing Research, 1971.

III. Alternates. A single word is spoken once into a tape recorder and the tape smoothly spliced, without
a click, into a loop. The word is repetitively played back with a high rather than low volume. After one
or two minutes of listening, from 50 to 150 repetitions, the word clearly perceived so far abruptly changes
into another meaningful and clearly perceived word: an .alternate.. After 10 to 30 repetitions of this rst
alternate, a sudden switch to a second alternate is perceived, and so on4.
The following is a small selection of the 758 alternates reported from a population of about 200 subjects
who were exposed to a repetitive playback of the single word Cogitate: agitate; annotate; arbitrate;
artistry; back and forth; brevity; ca d'etait; candidate; can't you see; can't you stay; cape cod you say;
card estate; cardio tape; car district; catch a tape; cavitate; cha cha che; cogitate; computate; conjugate;
conscious state; counter tape; count to ten; count to three; count yer tape; cut the steak; entity; fantasy;
God to take; God you say; got a date; got your pay; got your tape; gratitude; gravity; guard the tit;gurgitate; had to take; kinds of tape; majesty; marmalade.

We are good at constructing things.

Laters

[robogone]

I'd say no. Two words in explanation:

Justin Bieber

[Zombie Queen]

Good music sounds better, bad music sounds even worse. However if you cross the pain threshold of repetitiveness, it works the other way.

[Josmoker]

A variation of this:
Working in loops too much or for too long often leads to tracks being too dense - I get used to the loop, think I need to add something, then get used to that as well, add another thing, and so on. Then when I play it back the next day or so, I've lost the "history" of the loop and it sounds crowded and chaotic...

[budweiser]

It's the paradigm behind the last (boring but successfull) daft punk album...

[VitaminD]

David Firth summed it up best.

Yes, it is like that except somewhat in reverse... play 4 first (I know there are issues with the track but not too bad) to play 8 (READY FOR RELEASE!!) at night.. then play 1 in the morning after a good rest.

[Hink]

I've noticed this.. but not really opened my eyes to the effect until tonight.. but I can put a section of song (usually something on which I'm working) into a loop and playback many times in a row. After it has played back more than a handful of times, I lose the ability to hear much of the inharmonics (if there are any)!! It is almost as if my brain is simply not paying attention to them and is, instead, focusing on either the parts that do work well together or the concept in my mind more so.

Sometimes I can work on a song for hours non-stop.. think it is nearly done.. sounds pretty good!

The next day, with fresh ears, I play it back and cringe.. WHAT WAS I THINKING LAST NIGHT?!?

and it isn't just frequency fatigue (which is part of it) but more some kind of 'inharmonics blinders' that slowly get worn over a period of time of listening to the same thing over and over again.

Am I a freak or do others experience this effect?

I have, but here's the rub...I would say pretty much as often the exact opposite has happened with other things going on in a song. I can get stuck (especially while mixing) on something I pick up on and then that's all I hear, in one song (that I have many, many versions of and more "takes" than you can imagine) this happens to all the time. For some reason the inner me does not want this song finished. I have other songs where I do the what was I thinking last night and then some where I go back after months (or even years) and think "what was I thinking dropping work on this?"

I think the problem (both ways) is a very simple and understandable, perhaps two ears and one brain is just not enough. I have been doing this all by myself for decades (the last time I was in a band was 1987) and it's a problem, I find myself just chasing my own tail. While a lot of people work great alone I think it might be more common to need more perspective from other sources. This one song that should be done I should just draw a line in the sand and say "the performances are done" and stick to it. I know this is 100% true, even the sharpest engineer might miss what appears to stand out like a sore thumb to me. It reaches a point where I am not even sure if I am hearing the problem anymore and have resolved the issue but my ears still think they hear it. I think that's just the nature of the beast when it comes to some of us home recording types.

One thing I have learned over the years though is try not to let the scenario you describe be negative, if you spend a lot of time working on something and the next day you hate it try to look for what positives you got from the session. With long sessions there has to be some things you learn, discover or gain from the session.

[codec_spurt]

It's called 'hypnotics'.

I spent 8 hours listening to the intricacies of one loop.

Yes, the next day, you think, wtf?

eh eh.


But what an eight hours!

Money can't buy that.

[xoxos]

in heaven sword and dragon sabre wuji is born into a life of conflicts and spends most of his time running round trying to avert disaster. he is wooed by four women, none of which he has time or priorities for. zhao min obliges wuji to fulfill three tasks for her, thereby increasing the duration and complexity of their relationship. before their marriage, wuji is also obliged toward zhirou, whereupon she requests that he fulfill three tasks.

that's romance for ya

[codec_spurt]

in heaven sword and dragon sabre wuji is born into a life of conflicts and spends most of his time running round trying to avert disaster. he is wooed by four women, none of which he has time or priorities for. zhao min obliges wuji to fulfill three tasks for her, thereby increasing the duration and complexity of their relationship. before their marriage, wuji is also obliged toward zhirou, whereupon she requests that he fulfill three tasks.

that's romance for ya

Beautiful words my brother.

I am at a loss.

Just stunningly beautiful.

That's all.

[michael2]

isn't that the idea behind labels arranging relentless airplay of an act?

[Sendy]

Reminds me of how a word tends to lose all it's meaning and sound like gibberish if you repeat it over and over again.

When you listen to a part of music, it's heard within the context of what what was heard moments earler. Fairly obvious stuff but when you're working on a loop this principle tends to run amok.

When I used to use an Atari synched up to an Amiga running a tracker it was impossible to listen to a track properly without starting it from the beginning every time. And to be honest, I'm thankful of those times.