your brain already does it 
iām jealous of the synesthesia crew
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Vision 4K is a spectral analyzer. It has different modes, so you can see transients, stereo field, and phaseā¦ I would give you a link, but it costs money, and i donāt shill.
I donāt mind using other peoples visuals than my own if it serves the music. But it should recontextualize it, or be transformative in some way that is different than the intention of the original use of the visual. Or its just plagiarism (fuck that shit).
and the video game footage felt too disconnected and too dynamic for my likingsā¦ plus it struck me as attention bait, like a tiktok video or some YT commentary, where they put up trackmania while they talk to keep your attention.
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Jeezusā¦ you trying to get a FLIR ball or something?
(i guess Im shilling for defense contractors now! haha)
I visualize sounds kind of like colors and textures when Iām working on something and because of that I try to avoid as much as possible looking at plugins that have a lot of visual feedback, I love to do as much mixing as possible without my eyes so I can focus on how the colors and textures of the sound feels conceptually in my mind. I think about the mixing sessions of the 60s-70s when engineers and artists sat in the control room, listened and made adjustments accordingly. So many of the interesting techniques we rely on to this day were developed then. I wish I could have a set up like that where there was almost no visual feedback, I feel like itās done more harm than help for music. Iāve sat with other musicians and producers that start making major adjustments almost entirely based off of the visual feedback of their plugins and it makes me cringe so hard.
As far as visual art to accompany music I do love that, when I used to DJ regularly I had a controller and laptop set up separately entirely for visuals, I used to mix the visuals in between (or sometimes at the same time as) mixing tracks. That was a lot of fun I had an entirely library of different visuals I put together for those events it was a lot of fun
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Yea Iāve also discussed this! I agree I enjiy more to not have the visual feedback and trust my ears. VJāing is very cool! Definitely always awesome to have visuals at shows and performances for sure! The more you do the more you learn! Hereās a great paper if you like to read by my old teacher!
Written by Hiili Hiilesmaa
Ahh yes! I agree with you! My views are quite similar in terms of visuals and audio āsamplingā as it were to take a piece of something else and change it in a way that breathes a new loom or life on it while also using it as a piece to build something greater of your ownā¦ or something nonsenical like thatā:joy:
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Cheers man thanks for sharing!
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I also tend to āfeelā sound in my head rather than āseeā it, but it depends on the sound.
In fact, one of my difficulties with production is that I have difficulty āseeingā a whole sound in my mind, since itās time-based. Kind of like your example of the ship moving through space. I can see the ship at any one pointā¦ but itās hard to wrap my head around it moving over time.
When Iām making music, I tend to think in terms of how the sound feelsā¦ whether itās rough, shiny, spikey, smooth, warm, cold, dry, wet, moving, still, sludgy, slick, weak, strong, etc.
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I often times visualise overlapping opaque colour planes.
Also different kinds of surfaces.
That helps me with blending sounds and creating moods.
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It sort of mutates, both as a function of whatever I do to transform the jam and where and when I listen to it. Visually itās things like changing perspective to a slightly different position or angle, entering rooms or buildings nearby, etc.
Also, it seems like the images persist with the tools I used, and then those get further mutated in subsequent jams. Itās interesting with stuff like effects or modular too, where the tools get so entangled.
On a boring note I think some of this is pretty literal. For example, when I got my Quadraverb it had a beautiful (but dying) orange display, and when I jammed with it Iād often see sunsets. I recently replaced the display with a more well-behaved green one, and I still love the sound of it but donāt see sunsets when I jam with it as much.
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Mm, quite interesting indeed yes texture is huge, the characteristics some sounds give can so interesting especially now with all these crazy tools we have. So, you capture more of the still frames in a film or something of the effect, as I gather. By difficulty in music production does that mean like finishing music, or like progressing out of loops. Do you mind elaborating 
?
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For me it isnāt colours, but physical sensations. Like the feel of a rough texture in my mouth, or the bulging of an object like a water filled balloon. Itās somewhat like a physical impression of something with the wrong stimulus.
I use it as a sort of instinct when slotting sounds together.
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Definitely, I am a strong believer in knowing your tools. Each blade is different, no two are alike. Forge the bonds with our weapons we must. This is the way. Absolutely though that our actual environment can play a big factor into how we perceive something and our use of the instrument or tool in question.
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Ohh, yes that something I have not maybe put so much attention on! Will definitely have to be more aware of the individual sensations in my body! Do you feel similar responses or is it more random and varied to the given context? Iām not sure if this count but since I was very little, I experience these golden little light strings in the air and you can like follow them and they lead to as I have gathered āfavorable outcomesā, It is triggered by certain ideas and combinations and concepts that work intuitive on could call it?? Itās always been more visual, but I feel it along the lines of how you described your experience. A tool in you belt!!
Something akin to gradients perhaps?
I have almost no visual imagination unfortunately! I studied literature at uni, been a massive reader all my life, and I almost never visualise scenes from prose. I do get odd responses from visual experiences though. A certain part of wall that I used to pass on my way to work would sometimes make me taste blood in my mouth.
I donāt know if my responses are predictable or random. I know that I can collect sounds together that feel right and work for me on one day, but on the next something is wrong and I have to change something, but that feels more like refinement to me rather than a whole new ācriteriaā.
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Iāve got Aphantasia. My mind is fully blank visually, and donāt have the auditory equivalent either.
The only way I can create is by making something and seeing how it feels - there is absolutely nothing already in existence to try and create.
Itās a bit difficult to explain. Iāve been really interested about visualizing sound and in the past wasnāt able to do that to a great extent. I was actually a bit bummed out about it when I realized some ppl do it and it wasnāt happening for me.
Itās been a slow proactive progression and I think painting has made it stronger.
Basically Iāve created a mental framework of different sounds relating to certain colors and tones. In some cases itās very loosely determined and in others incredibly accurate.
I close my eyes a lot when creating sounds and nowadays it happens more automatically but depends on the day still a lot.
I mean it in two ways, but itās sort of the big and little version of the same thingā¦
The big version is having trouble seeing the āwhole songā in my head as a composition and not just sort of the part Iām working on now, or how the different bunch of parts all build to a bigger storyā¦
Back when I was the kind of musician who played music that was written down, this part was easy to think about, because there were little instructions above the notes that told me what to doāto crescendo because we were heading into a new section or whatever. Plus a conductor whoād literally be waving their arms around at me. But as the composer, that stuff trips me up a lot.
The little version is when Iām editing a sound, like a sample, sometimes I have trouble thinking about the qualities of the sound I like because of how they change over time . . . itās actually more like the opposite of what I said about the āspace ship,ā now that I think about it . . . . like I can see the ship moving, but when I try to think about any one still image of it, the whole thing disappears.
Honestly, very rarely. I aim to speak pointedly, but find that I rarely have the correct words to fully articulate what I want to say. This may be, to some extent, a limitation of our spoken language mixed with a limitation of self.
Art and music may in some form have parallels to this but perhaps, in them, Iām more limited by my own abilities. That can at times makes expression a compromise of sorts, just as it is with speech. In order to actualize the idea, the concepts become less transparent, and the lines become less firm. I think we silently negotiate this with ourselves every time we open our mouths or try to express ourselves in our various creative outlets.
Iād like to believe that at times Iāve been able to output something close enough to my vision to be satisfied, but itās often later, after the fact, that Iām able to think that way because itās usually in the moment that I feel limited or frustrated with trying to get ideas down on paper or down on tape.
The opposite can be true of speech, where the feeling of having said what we meant (in the moment) is later invaded by the feeling that we were not able to adequately express our feelings or a concept to others.
In a way, speaking is more akin to a live musical performance, and in the same way we often fixate on the things we could have done better or different where for an audience, unless itās really awful, a lot of people are generally satisfied with what theyāve heard.
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When I was little and first started reading for myself, reading (good) prose was almost like watching a movie. I could literally see it all in my head, almost right in front of my eyes. Iāve been a nonstop reader of books and comics ever since.
But my ability to āseeā books has fluctuated a lot through the years. It took a big dive in my teens, got better in my 20s and 30s, and is now much worse again . . . but maybe still not as bad as when I was a teenager. A lot depends on the prose and the setting Iām in when I read, but itās strange how much this little thing in my head has shifted over time.
Sometimes audiobooks help me picture things, but just as often it gets in the way. Depends a lot on the book and the reader.
I think one of the reasons Iāve moved over to poetry recently is because itās more about the sound of the words, and less about having to picture scenes in my head.
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