A Channel level

[⚖musicalmemoriesuk]

It might seem obvious but when either balancing sounds / selecting the mic placement of a sound.

If we’re trying to recreate a sound scape the channel level gives us the perception of where the instrument is in relation to you.

The quieter the sound the further away the louder the sound is nearer.

We could be in the room or a mic in the room.

But them comes in other elements that we have spoken about before that’s ambience which actually generates the feel / size of the sound scape.

So do we look at the level as the loudness of a sound or where we what it placed on the stage ?

[♔Chello]

Interesting observation - I've done this too.

Instruments are almost always electronically amplified, which means that a musician can be placed far back on stage, but be amplified to such an extent that he sounds louder than the others standing in front of the stage.
Microphones (in a near-field setup), on the other hand, will pick up the ambience and tell the actual location regardless of volume.

Ambience is based on the acoustics and signature of the instrument, which in turn is affected by the acoustics of the room it is in.
That is precisely why I am of the opinion that artificial reverb can ruin the overall picture, because its basis is not the instrument in question, but an (unknown) digital universal source.

Imagine if we could have adjusted the ambience for all instruments; not just drums and perc.

We are limited to choosing a suitable instrument from among those we have on the keyboard, which all have different amounts of ambience added.