I'm still so confused. I really wanna understand this concept. What you were saying about it giving the brain more to process and giving the mix a more long term addicting effect is SO fascinating to me. I've been producing for several years but only recently began to dig into the technical/engineering side of music, so when you say things like "resonance states" I have no clue what that is. I was able to get a piece of what you are trying to say, but I desperately want to understand this concept fully. Are there some outside sources I could refer to? Do all professional engineers know this concept? Is there a way to explain it that's a little more fundamental? I greatly appreciate you taking the time to impart this knowledge and hope you are willing to offer a little more help.
Understand you, it is deep stuff, with mathematics you can undestand the technical side of it a bit more clearly, but don't become mad like Mad Phonetics above just because you don't understand everything instantly, it takes some thinking, some practising, an open mind set and some perspectives before it sinks in and you understand how it works. In another thread I wrote about how you can expand your creative and technical abilities/understanding as an engineer by becoming more skilled at other types of mixing/balancing, you can harmonize these to boost your learning curve.
Please note that you do want to enrich the music to such a degree that it takes a long time to fully integrate the song, but the art is to balance that so that within a single play the brain will not constantly pay attention to a lot of things and not be able to be at peace and not be able to rest during the listening of the song. That balancing process is about focusing the separation to the key elements of the chorus without destroying the resonances you have created. That quality is to some degree a bi-product of harmonizing the mix with a rich set of resonances, because it makes the sound sources slightly more stable in the stereo field which gives the mix a relaxing quality. Mixes that have a lot of frequency masking on each speaker creates a blurry stereo image because the sound sources then fluctuate sideways more, depending on the content.
To push you in the right direction, start by purchasing a better audio interface. I think the Apogee Symphony is a good start, it gives you access to +26 dBu resonance potential. Record and mix the choruses with that (also do the mastering with it), and use your current audio interface to balance the verses. I know this is a big step but you need to do what it takes. Now build two entirely different platforms, one for the verses using your current audio interface, one for the choruses using your Symphony interface.
Most about the verse setup should be unique relative to the chorus setup, including the DAW and the creative workflow. Please notice that in the future you might separate these into separate studios at separate locations, maybe tailored towards various genres. In the future you can scale out your music fabric using the Apogee SoundGrid (released soon) and take your mastering to the next level with the Antelope Audio Eclipse 384 + 10MX atomic rubidium clock. That solution gives you worse latency, but it does not matter because it is the combination of the other qualities about that solution that you want access to... For the verse platform you can also use an Apollo + UAD solution, just ensure the intros are created with the chorus setup to attach the listener much enough and quickly enough.
But this creative work with the music creation process will make you skilled because you are constantly learning about various signal chains and how they all combine to create a certain musical result. You are not limiting yourself within the boundaries of a certain small set of platform parameters, you are constantly working on the much deeper level, you learn to think like a producer.
Commercially, what is great about this too is that you can focus the engineers' current abilities to the appropriate setup, meaning that you can work as a team to deliver products more quickly even at more varying skill sets.
On a side note. When you dig deeper and deeper into the art of music, it becomes more and more mind bending. This can be stessful if you do not also try to open up the brain a little by studying highly intelligent concepts. I recommend Chris Langan's CTMU material (
http://www.megafoundation.org/CTMU/Articles/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdf), the RA material and the Metaphysics book written by Darryl Anka (very good but might be a bit difficult to get). I also recommend studying Nassim Haramein's work which opens you up to ideas about the physical nature expressed using equations. For cutting edge electrical work I recommend that you study Gerard Morin's work, he is currently in the process of discovering free energy. For understanding the human biology and its relations to these concepts I recommend Dan Winter's work. The combination of these will stretch and bend your mind in a way that makes it easier to process and grasp multidimensional concepts, having mathematical attachment. I also recommend the book Total Recording written by David Moulton, it is more technical but provides a basic framework that will give you some nice guidance and perspective on the very basics of engineering...
Personally I am quite influenced by Chris Lord-Alge's approach to mixing because I find there is a transparency about him and his approach to engineering that I like. Before I went into deep territory I learned the traditional art of mixing (learned a lot from him), I think it is good to ground yourself in the traditional art of mixing and do so well, before going deeper. But one should not get stuck in that phase, quickly practice and grasp it, then move on to the deeper creative side of engineering.
