Does Anybody Here "See" Sound/Music?

[Cheebs]

I've always wondered how many people are like this.

When I mix a song, my brain transforms the sound into more than just sound. I can "see" the space each instrument takes up. It goes more than just "this guitar is on the left and this guitar is on the right". I see the left and right guitars forming 3D objects. For example, the guitar on the left will be an upside-down L going from my mixing desk to about 3 feet above my desk and then pointing in towards the middle. The vocals will be an orb below the overhang of the guitar L. Etc.

I more or less mix by playing a game of tetris with the sound until everything is in the right place and at the right height, depth, position, etc. When I'm done the song is usually a solid block sitting on the desk about 2 feet deep, 4 ft high, and 5 feet wide.

I don't have perfect pitch myself, but I know 2 people who do. They say they see tones the way others see colors. Anybody can look at a shade of blue and tell if it's navy, sky, aqua, etc. These guys with perfect pitch "see" the color of a tone and know not only what note it is, but if it's sharp or flat even without any other reference sound playing. Sort of like E is red and A is green or something. A flat E is pink and a sharp E is burgundy etc.

So...anybody else in this boat?

[Josh]

When I write music (which i never do with an instrument in my hands anymore) I do it by visualizing the different parts of a song as different patterns of shapes and whatnot sitting at different heights and depths on a plane. The job is to figure out how to connect those parts together.

This is a really shitty explanation btw... I've never been able to explain this to anyone.

[Survival Kid]

Whatever you're on, I want some.

[Cheebs]

Whatever you're on, I want some.

Personally, I can do it most effectively when I'm dead sober. When I got into sound work my brain gradually re-wired itself over the years until it just clicked into being.

[Cheebs]

When I write music (which i never do with an instrument in my hands anymore) I do it by visualizing the different parts of a song as different patterns of shapes and whatnot sitting at different heights and depths on a plane. The job is to figure out how to connect those parts together.

This is a really shitty explanation btw... I've never been able to explain this to anyone.

I can sorta' see what you're getting at. Seems similar to how I mix yet much more open-ended. Yeah, this kind of stuff is really hard to explain.

[Josh]

I totally understand what you're saying btw... makes sense. I've never really tried applying this visual weirdness to a mix, since I don't really mix things (outside of live sound) very often.

Perhaps I should.

[stormy]

I've always been amazed by people with perfect pitch. It is a really cool talent, almost like a superpower.

[Cheebs]

I've always been amazed by people with perfect pitch. It is a really cool talent, almost like a superpower.

For reals. From what I understand it can also be a curse. The one guy I know drives himself nuts. He'll hear a large truck come to a stop with squealing brakes and be unsettled that the tone of the squeal is just a little too flat for a "B" or something. The imperfection of the tone strikes him as ugly.

[Frogacuda]

It's called synaethesia. I thought we all learned about this when Rez came out.

[icarusfall]

I learned about this from LSD - that was years before Rez for me.

Also: I play music that's so different from what you normally hear I imagine I have to be thinking about it differently than most...