Philip
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/08 23:37:20
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Am I too late to cast my vote? I've been vexed with similar (and NoKey's) mixing issues. The only 2 cents I'll add ... assuming a fairly decent room is ... and countering expectation biases. 1) Crisp Car ambience requires you/I to make mixing decisions in your car also ... unless of course you never toy with sophisticated beatz, have no wide-dynamics, and/or have only 4 instruments going on while doing strict blue-grass. 2) The many-speakers test in any order: Besides my 'fair' Adam's ... I'm hoping to add 'other' monitoring-speakers ... to flip on 'your' extra speakers on at other areas of my home-studio (a tedious venture made simpler via a tidy rack mount, a decent sound interface, LCD monitor mounts, etc.). These extra studio speakers may be 'your/my lucky cheapos, computer speakers, HD-TV speakers, etc. ... I don't know yet!
post edited by Philip - 2010/07/08 23:38:45
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gamblerschoice
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/09 01:45:37
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Hook, the songs on the G/C site are all over five years old. In fact, I just checked at things like soundclick and motogator and a few others..I need to thank you for reminding me that is long past time to get these things updated. I am in the process of changing the g/c site to godaddy, $11 a year as opposed to $11 a month at yahoo.
Later
Albert
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NoKey
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/10 19:55:43
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Hi Philip, I don't think there's a time limit in sharing views and experience. Thanks for posting. I am right now using the cheapo headphones with the switch to 'Mono' instead of Stereo. What just now surprises me is this: How quickly the mind gets used to "accept" the quality of whatever one is listening to. When I had put them on, after using the AKG-240 in stereo, I noticed a BIG difference. But less than 20 minutes or so, I actually forgot what I was using! The other 2 thing on setting up a mono speaker, as Jeff suggests are: 1. How to amplifiy it 2. WHERE to locate it that does not block the view to my two pc screens. I have those two at head-height, and right below them is my two keyboards. So far, I need some sort of a swing-arm, strong and steady enough to hold a few pounds, or maybe, as I monitor, I have to move over from my usual center-sitting, where I play the keyboards and watch the screens. So, how to amplify the monitor (unless one gets a powered monitor)? I guess a powered monitor would be the simplest, so far. Thanks!
post edited by NoKey - 2010/07/10 19:57:24
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droddey
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/10 20:43:10
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I find that my crappy small monitors really insure that I don't have any nasty cymbal or hihat stuff, that there's none of that nasty mid-rangey stuff going on, and that there's not too much lower mid buildup, because they emphasize that stuff badly, whereas my big monitors are more forgiving of that.
One set of my head phones really points out any overly toppy sizzle. The other really points out any flabby upper lows. And a happy medium between the phones and the speakers gives me a good feel for where the level of ambience should be. Any small room that is sufficiently treated to have good base response will be fairly dead and you may use too much ambience without realizing it. Phones are a good sanity check.
And of course the balance between speakers and headphones gives you a good feel for whether the mix is balanced well left to right, and whether you have stuff too hard left/right so that it gives that pulling your head sideways effect in the headphones. The separation in phones is 100% so it can sound great in the room but really wierd in phones.
And of course using the mono button on your monitor controller and sit there and get all of your EQ and levels so that they sound good in mono. That is the best trick probably of all. If it sounds good in mono, then in terms of frequency overlap and levels, it probably sounds good period.
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NoKey
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/10 22:50:02
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"I find that my crappy small monitors really insure that I don't have any nasty cymbal or hihat stuff"
The above is very much what I found out, from having used my hi-fi speakers and headphones to mix and check effects, and so on.
Thanks for the good tips, Roddey.
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Rbh
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/11 11:08:53
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When using smallish and band limited monitors. I think the secret to getting them to work is in having rich and balanced spectral content. In other words- if the monitors are not capable of delivering 60 hz for example, the harmonics in frequencies above that 60 hz will suggest the fundamental is there Psycho-acoustically. I think people who mixed for Television/Radio and knew that they were often delivering through a mono 3 " speaker were pretty much an amazing talent.
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Jeff Evans
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/11 19:36:46
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I also prefer listening to a single mono small speaker compared to two small speakers. It is a true point single source situation. A single active speaker would also be good. I have a spare stereo power amplifier on hand and use one side of that to drive it. I am just mixing the main stereo signal from a headphone jack via a simple passive mixer setup which just combines the two channels into one. Looses a bit of gain but the power amp has plenty to make up.
Controlling the high frequency contect of your tracks and your Mix
Another area for keeping your mixes cleaner and better is the amount of high frequency content present in individual tracks and the main mix. It is very common to apply quite a lot of treble boost on individual parts and when you do this you can get into a situation that is if everything is bright then nothing is bright. As the ear gets bored and numbed easily it interesting to perhaps start thinking about where the high frequency sparkle is coming from within our tracks and mix, and when. And do we give our ears time to rest before we energise them again with more high frequency sparkle.
Where high frequency sparkle comes from can vary. Does it come from the high hats or cymbals in which case it will splash in and out and with the hats be there ticking away all the time. Or do we let it in through the piano or acoustic guitar maybe. Then it might have a nice natural rhythm to it and rest as well. Imagine the result when all these things have high frequency sparkle at the same time which is what many inexperienced mix engineers do.
I think one of the nice things about the analog era from the past is the amount of high frequency sparkle has always been a limited to a certain extent through all stages. Tape machines and vinyl. Then end result always seemed to have just a nice amount of top end to it. Check out Dave Gilmour’s ‘On and Island’ for sheer taste in the amount of top end present in that final mix. It is just so warm. But then something clear comes along and it is like a bright light in a dark sky.
By quieting down high frequencies your ears open up and become sensitive to them. It is like how your eyes open wider or the iris opens up in low light. Then you can see more. The listener can become much more responsive to or effected by subtleties. You can listen for longer periods too. And you are much less effected by ear fatigue and recover much more quickly between sessions as well.
Listen to your tracks in isolation and really hear the top end present. Dull things down a lot on purpose. Listen for a moment then bring back the sparkle slowly. You will always end up with less that way. Decide which things are going to stay warmer and duller and what things are going to be allowed to stay clear. Many tracks can be smooth and only have one or two or three that are very clear or sparkly. It’s OK for things like the snare to cut through as well because they are only present a certain amount of the time within the music per bar. Before you wack that exciter on something maybe check to see how bright everything else is and after toning it all down to normality then what you thought was a bit dull before now is just right. How often is something sparkly present. If it’s too often, then maybe look for something else that is around less often to lend the sparkle.
Listen to your final mix too and gauge the amount of high frequency sparkle there is overall. If some parts stand out as being too obvious, get in there and tone them down further. It is great way for digital recordings to sound very subtle and analog. How does this high frequency control effect your mix. It makes all the instruments clearer and easier to hear and balance as well. Think of having a slightly less toppy mix at the end of the day and in mastering one can always add a touch of sparkle to a mix. As opposed to ending up with a very bright, crisp and sharp mix that needs to be seriously toned down in mastering.
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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NoKey
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/11 19:54:13
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Thanks Jeff for all these extras you mention.
You hit right on when you mention high-frequencies as a significant factor....
My not too long ago mixes sounded like castanettes on the cheap headphones (I am waiting on the mono speaker setup).
But since the explanations and suggestions given to this thread, I do believe there's been some crucial improvements..Not there yet, though, but willing to travel.
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droddey
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/11 20:10:38
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These days, hugely excessive high end seems to be the rule of the day, then of course squashed to oblivion which eats up some of that, but still, they are very bright. If you compare modern mixes to what was common even back in the mid-90s before the DAW was ubiquitous, i.e. tape based stuff, the amount of high end is far greater now generally. I'm always trying to go for a fairly vintage sound. In these days of DAWs, I find myself getting rid of lots of high end in order to get a warmer sound. Ribbon mics, tubey pre-amps, tubey mics sometimes, tubey compessors, etc... And even then I still end up EQing fair bits of high end out. I think some of it is that so much stuff is either DI'd in or close mic'd these days, whereas back in the day it might have been more distant mic'd in a nice sounding room, through an amp. And the natural softening of transients and slight high end roll off of high end by tape, which doesn't happen in a digital world. You really have to work at it these days to achieve what would have been fairly naturally achieved back in the day. Of course it's just style and personal likes and dislikes. Most kids these days would probably find my type of mix boring and distant, because they are used to everything being on one flat plane, and almost equi-volume and heavily limited.
post edited by droddey - 2010/07/12 01:07:42
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Philip
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/11 21:44:40
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+1 Droddy, Jeff Evans
You are both exquisite audiophiles and do inspire me in my mixing challenges.
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gamblerschoice
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Re:Making a mix good enough...
2010/07/12 00:56:28
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By quieting down high frequencies your ears open up and become sensitive to them.
I use this idea in a different way on occasion. I have tried, to some degree of success as far as I can tell, to "bring down" a certain instrument or group of instruments inside of a song in order to make the listener actually "listen" for them. Not so much a "less is more" theory, but more like a "make them look for it".
they are used to everything being on one flat plane,
So true, and something I am also working at. I want to get as much dynamically diverse feeling to the songs as possible without losing the "average" audience.
I live at the end of a road that has a 2 little league baseball fields, tennis courts and basketball courts, plus a community pavilion where they have civic band concerts (that is what they call them in the newspaper) several times each summer. This evening was one of those free concerts, and I can hear it all very well from my deck in the back of the house. So they open this show with the Star Spangled Banner, the conductor announces the typical, "Please remove your hats and stand....", which I can hear clearly, and the song starts. The first few notes are almost too quiet to hear, and the song builds slowly in intensity until you can picture each and every instrument clearly in your head (can't see the stage, a few large trees in the way). This caught my ear, and as I listened to a few more songs, it became so much more apparent, I mention it to the wife. The huge dynamic range, from whisper quiet to full volume in and out as the expression of the song requires, does she notice it? "Well, yes, but wouldn't it be better to hear the whole song at a more even volume?"
No, it would not be better. In fact, that range of volume is what is missing today, on the radio, on television, in movies, everywhere, a flat plane of high volume.
I have officially withdrawn from the "volume war"
Later
Albert
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