Morning after curiosity is SOOO true- I do this on every song- Get up and often in my pajamas Im checking out the mix to see wut up haha

rsp@odyssey.net


Here's what I do to overcome expectation bias, and it took my awhile to get there. It's gotta pass the morning after test. If it doesn't sound like I want the morning after what I considered a near final mixing session, I take some notes about the issues the mix has and come back to it. Sometimes it's later that day, or maybe the next. The days of mixing for a few hours and considering it done/finished are over for me, unless it passes the morning after mix in several enviroments.

Randy

Would that be before or after coffee? How come it all sounds better after a beer or two? It leads me to a new idea for a plugin. The two beer ambient reverb.

  Far too often talking about a given subject goes from one topic to another.
Lets say the question is (can a person hear the difference in such and such
bits compared to so and so bits?). Pretty soon it has gotten so far away
from the question to something totally unrelated.

  Are visual and numbers more important than the ears? This and
hundreds of other questions will get such varying responses because
of either lack of knowledge, (don't care, it don't matter) as well as other
views or responses.

  There have been studies that show for example that colors effect
people. Notice there are no (black) bottles of dish-washing liquid.
Have you ever seen a speaker box (sound system) covered with
yellow covering? (Although the old metalflake roll and pleat Kustom
cabs were cool).

  In reality these two examples has nothing to do with the product
quality or sound performance. However it could be argued that the
soft rolled and pleaded outside of the cabinet (does) have an
affect on the cabinets sound). The question is, does it matter?

  This is where I get interested in all this bias/ expectations subject.
The problem is what area of this subject is it applied to?
record quality?
production?
preference?

  I sometimes read or hear someone say they don't like country music.
Why? sometimes the answers are things like they only talk about
things like (my baby left me) Now that is interesting. Does it mean
that pop music does not have lyrics like this? I would love to go
off on a tangent here but I'll refrain myself.

  I think the best engineers, producers etc are very intelligent people.
(in this case) use of common since. Knowing what, when, how etc
to do with a product to achieve an end result that best suites the
goal given the people used to do so.

  I think the key word is "focus".

  This is a mental, aural, and sometimes visual ability that a person
reaches through the use of these things be it a natural gift to begin
with or one that is hard earned (or both).

  There however is a tendency for some aspiring musician, engineer
producer or whomever to worshop a producer or group who has had
great success. To appreciate and know they're story is one thing
but to talk about them like they are some ... to be worshiped is to
live in a virtual mindset.

  To say that modern music is no good is also putting ones self
in a limited mindset where little to no self growth is possible.
I hate to say it but some people are even proud to be ignorant.
Some are even offended when others want to grow and learn.
I saw this even way back in high school. ( boy that was years ago)

  And it still exist today. I guess my point is a persons ability and
desire to be good at something is in direct proportion to the efforts
put forth and the information available to do so. In many ways we
are on our own to say what is needed, what's best etc to achieve a
goal as an artist, mix engineer, producer etc.

  I'll give a little history of my own experiences in the road and
desire to be a writer, recording engineer, producer etc. When
I got my first 4 track I was so thrilled. I soon became aware
of the problems with it. You know? the wore out heads thing.
I created and wrote songs and things were good because
at least I had (something) to work with.

  Then came the computer age. Remember the 286 pc with
about 256k ram? turtle beach 4 track software in doss?
Then onto cakewalk software for doss. then another computer
and cakewalk (whatever it was) then pro audio, then sonar.
I was limited in what I could do in achieving a quality finished
song/mix by what I had to work with.

  When sonar got to the point where things could be done
that allowed some reasonable stage of being for lack of
better words (pro) that was so great. Then came the
somethings wrong subject. The computer is working well
and all the cool stuff is just simply WOW! I soon realized
that my "room" sounded bad. Oh man? Another headache!

  It took about 3 years of trial and error treating the room.
O.K? I finally got the room to some reasonable standard
of (not offending the recordings). Great! now two things
are at least brought to reason. Now? My vocs don't sound
good, whats up? Ah! I'll go get a AT 4033. Wow that's
nice but? My at the time 24 channel mixer was picking
up the local cb guy with megawatts of power.

  Recording or mixing was out of the question. No the
FCC would not do a thing about it. O'K. No more mixer
now its mic pres direct to the interface. Then all kinds of
hardware, eq, comps. Still I had bad vocal sounds.
I refused to think that the idea of recording vocs in
an unprocessed (eq, comp, de-ess etc out the yin yang
hardware setup while tracking worked. It sounded
absolutely horrible!

  This is where it gets interesting. I had to (learn) to
sing without the mental concept that that hardware
gear was the only way to record vocals. That is a
biased expectation and an illusion. Once I was
able to face the facts and even re-learn and re think
what recording vocs was it was a complete turn
around in not only my voc quality of sound but also
the performance of it.

  Next came another problem now that those mentioned above
are at least to some good level of quality. Mixing! Why can't I
mix well?  I still have 6 different monitor setups in my mix area.
Bose and jbl's in the upper corners, Sony towers down below,
some small cubes and 2 sets digital self powerd studio monitors
(Fostex and roland) and even a sub if I want to use it.

  The object was to see (if) I could mix on any of these setups
and or to check the mix on any given setup. The conclusion?
The Rolands are the only monitors I can mix to my liking on.
I don't even double check anymore on the others, or the
car and all the "see how it sounds on this or that system.

  I had to come to a point where (something) has to be
reference to go by. without that there is no way to say that
this (using a term) (is) a reference. Now lets say that
all is good about the things mentioned so far.

  The final (mixing). The more one has to try to make the
mix sound good the more problems there are. (This is
my feelings on the subject). This doesn't mean that a bunch
of plugs and all this fancy routing etc is not necessary. In
many cases I may have all kinds of plugs doing this and that
(but) I have learned that when I reach for a plug or whatever
to do a function and if it doesn't work (then) there becomes
a point where I say the track is no good. No use beating
a dead horse.

  I think that sound quality in this day and time is better than ever
as many have shown. What it does not mean is that anyone can
do that by means of copying some mix's frequency and duplicating
it, or any fancy analyzer that say's anything. These types of
tools and all the fancy (numbers) stuff and analogies (can) be
very useful tools (in the right hands) and for (the right reasons)

  Some people (do) know the difference in good sound quality and not.
Whether they consider (that) a virtue or not is a whole other story. 
(I speak of the average person that is). Mpg get's a bad rap (I think)
in many cases because (some people) want to be cool. Almost like
a status symbol. If a person enjoys the fidelity of say a wav file
then that's fine. However to say a mix is absolutely lush and
beautiful (because ) it does go to 20k at a high bit rate leaves
me questioning what (that) person calls quality.

  A guy once told me who was a well respected guy on speakers
once said when I asked about speaker wattage said no speaker
is capable of more than about 30 watts. That was a long time
ago and there must have been some truth to his knowledge
because he was in the Re coning business.

  I once read that no speaker system has a flat response. Hum?
the chart says so! I was floored when I did my own test. If a
person has studied equalizers and the phase shifts and all the
affects that the Q's etc have on what happens there is a reality
that something has to be sacrificed to achieve a certain function.

  The science of sound and gear and physics and all that stuff
really fascinates me. What it does is to I think make me a little
more rounded and respectful of the facts. And the fact is even
my views on all this are yes? biased why? I don't have A U87
or an akg414 or a tube tech pre or any of that "dream about"
gear.

  I have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars over the
years learning what doesn't work though if that counts.

.



 

You'll love this one:
 
A few years ago, I was a frequent visiter to the Sweetwater forums.  Someone decided to do a double blind mic test.  He had his wife sing the same song in to four different mics.  He then posted links to the wav files, short fifteen second clips of each mic.  Then everyone posted what mics sounded best, second best, etc.  Once about 25 people had responded, he told us what each of the mics  were.  The four mics were, to the best of my recolection, a Royer ribbon mic $1500, an AKG C414 $900, an Audio Technica 4050 $500, and either a Neumann or Soundelux mic that cost around $3000.  Every single person who voted picked the cheapest mic, the AT 4050 as the best sounding mic.  The test maker was shocked!  How could everyone have picked the "wrong" mic?  Clearly the $3000 mic should have won, because it sounds best.  Once the people who participated in the test found out which mic they picked, about 9 of them then said, "after listening to the clips again, I believe the $3000 mic does sound best".  HA!
 
Another example of how full of crap some brand snobs can be.  Everyone picked the AT as the best sounding mic...because it is the best sounding mic (of the group).
 
Rock on everyone!

"I can't recall who the engineer was.  But he's uber-famous.  I saw him interviewed a while back, and he basically said....

The mix doesn't matter, because we'd all do it differently anyway.  So, often, he doesn't even listen to mixes a second time before they go to mastering.  If he liked it at the time, then it must have some merit."

This is the same way I think... and I am under the impression that the 2000+ year old study of Aesthetics has drawn a very similar conclusion.

At any moment many many people are qualified to have a valid opinion... and by no means do they need to coincide.

In a few moments YOU and many other people may not remember what their previous opinion was and pursue a new train of thought.

The important part is to always take your current interest seriously and apply yourself with intent and passion.

IMO, That's the best you can do.

oh yeah, and work on your stamina and attention span.

all the best,
mike

There are regularly shootouts on Gearslutz. Inevitably, once the answer is revealed, the votes start coming in for the most expensive one and stop coming in for the cheaper one, even if the cheaper one did better before the answers were revealed.

Though, a big problem with these types of shootouts is that they are seldom well designed, and therefore they leave immense wiggle room for people whose bias was not supported by their choice. So then the argument goes on for pages why the expensive one is still obviously the better one becasue the test was clearly flawed.

I found the inteterview....the producer is Kevin Shirley (Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Black Crowes, Slayer, Journey, Rush, Joe Satriani, Bon Jovi...)

My personal favorite work from Shirley lately was the Joe Bonamassa - Who Killed John Henry record from a couple of years back.  Just some mean, nasty guitar tones on there...and some very heartfelt, dark, introspective tunes.  Very cool.

Nevermind the fact that I'd like to smack the glasses off of the twit interviewing him here...but Shirley has some very cool things to say.

My favorite quote is..."You can just go up your own butt trying to work out whether or not if there's enough bass guitar or not...and it doesn't really matter at the end of the day.  You can mix it a thousand ways...."

http://www.recordproduction.com/kevin-shirley-video.htm

droddey

I sometimes think that it would actually be better to track a song, then just put it away, and start on another. Once you are well into the second song, then start mixing the first one in between tracking sessions, so that you are constantly being pulled away from it to work on something else, then coming back to it periodically. Then after you finish tracking the second song, complete the mix of the first one. Then repeat the process.

It seems like it would avoid getting too bogged down in one phase of the process, and make you move back and forth so that you are constantly resetting your mental picture of both.
 
 

That is what I've discovered (via lots of embarrassing mixes and impetuous work).
Time is an element in any real artistic work that can not be undervalued or overlooked.
 
My short-term ears are almost ALWAYS wrong.   Long -term ears (letting the song breath and sit comfy in it's new mix while the 'new-wow-delusion' wears off) have a better chance of being objective and usually are.  I also think listening to as much well mixed music as possible really cultures the ears (which i do not do nearly enough of).
 
Great thread (again) Philip.