theoretical question for Dietz

[William]

I have asked these questions before - this is a weirder one, but I am wondering if MIR behaves differently in two situations:

as an example, if someone has 20 instruments playing simultaneously in MIR and makes a recording;

 - then one does 20 separate solo recordings, with all the instruments in the same places, the exact same levels, but each soloed.  Then they are mixed as simple audio tracks later on.  So MIR is playing each instrument separately in this case.  

Is there some interaction that happens when all of them play together?  Or would these two overall recordings sound exactly the same?  At some point I thought I noticed a difference but wondered if I was hallucinating. 

[Dietz]

Dear William,

under ceteris paribus conditions, both scenarios will produce identical results. The interaction between the signals happens due to the acoustics in the room, the positions assigned to the single instruments within this room, and their directional behaviour. No secret "snake oil" here. ;-)

Be aware, though, that you have to take into account possible random variations of the sources. Don't forget to use MIR Pro's RoomTone only once, and match your levels carefully ;-)

Kind regards,

[William]

Thanks Dietz, I appreciate getting that info.  I will look into some medication for the auditory hallucinations. 

[Dietz]

It's quite possible that you haven't been hallucinating, William. There are so many possible variables which will influence the sound in different ways that I really believe that you indeed heard some differences. It's just that MIR is not the reason for them. :-)

... especially dynamic processing like compressors or limiters in a  master bus (or actually any non-linear processing, like tape saturation and the like) will most likely react differently with a single instrument than they would with a full-blown mix.

Kind regards,