sharke

 but also check on a pair of iPhone buds every now and then too.  

Those things are crapola.

slartabartfast


Several replies here suggest improving your listening environment or monitors as a solution to the problem. But it seems to me that this sort of misses the point.

Lets say you have a perfectly treated room and truly "linear" monitors and using your ears in that environment you produce an impeccable mix. Will you not have the same type of problem when you play that mix in an imperfect environment on speakers that are undoubtedly not linear? Many of the devices that listeners will be using are distorted by design to boost certain frequencies, and many have the potential for the listener to adjust an equalizer in ways that you cannot even imagine.

The advantage of a perfect mixing environment, if there is one, is that what you hear will be consistent and represent the actual frequencies in the mix. But to convert that mix to something you can play in the car without adjustment, you would need to either imagine or model how it will sound in that environment. The ability to pre-visualize (pre-herenize?) how it will sound is probably the major skill that professionals have to master. The best way to "model" various listening environments is to play the mix in those environments, where, as you have found, they frequently do not cut it. The VRM devices are a way to more conveniently do this, than trying to mix while riding down the freeway. 

In any case, it is difficult to imagine how a "perfect" mix could be moved to all listening transducers/environments/listeners with equally good results. Hence even cell phones typically have equalizers. Do not blame your reference monitors for the failings of the cheap stuff your music will actually be played on. But you will have to take into account the translation of your perfect mix into real world sound if you want to minimize this kind of problem.

Hi Slartabartfast,
I've heard some folks question the value of good mixing environments before and even heard some folks talk about it (not you...no offense intended here) like they've found some sort of secret, and all those mixing guys are who have treated rooms have all been doing it wrong forever. Of course that's not the case.

While it's correct that a listener will hear whatever product you or I produce in whatever environment they're in, that's a different problem than the one we face when mixing. The problem we face when mixing involves making decisions about the relative sound of that product, and tweaking that product to try and make it sound a specific way. The fact that we are making those decisions is what makes a treated room important.

Here's a quick analogy. I've said before that mixing in an untreated room is like painting in a room lit by colored lights. Let's pretend I'm doing just that and painting a portrait. My job in this case is to make the portrait look as much like my subject as possible. If my room is lit by colored lights, I won't ever be able to tell how much of one color to use with relation to the other colors, and because of that, my painting will never come out right except in the room it was painted in at the position that the canvas occupied when I did the painting. Even worse than that, if the lights are wrong in a specific way, I won't even be able to tell where the lines on my painting are ending up, which means the shape of my subject will be unrecognizable.

On the other hand, if I have good light, I'll be able to get as good a reproduction as I'm capable of producing (which in my case, is a stick figure, but that's another story...I went into music for a reason). Now, will this portrait then be displayed in less than perfect light? Of course it will, but because I had reasonable conditions when I created it, it will still be the best reproduction of that subject that is possible in the environment it is displayed in, whereas if it was created in bad lighting conditions, it will never, ever, ever be right no matter what.

Creating sound in a room that doesn't have accurate sound is exactly like this. If I'm trying to get an acoustic guitar to sound a particular way, I have to be able to hear accurately how it sounds so I can make the appropriate modifications. A listener has no such obligation, and in fact is absolutely free to listen in whatever environment he/she would like to, even if it sounds like trash. The difference is, if what I create sounds awful in the first place because I couldn't hear what I was doing, it will pretty much never sound good. Whereas, if it sounds good in an accurate room (again, because I could accurately hear what I was doing), I'm giving myself the greatest opportunity for it to sound good in whatever environment the listener happens to be in.

Shorter version of all this - look at a painting in a dark room and it looks bad while in that room. Paint a painting in a dark room and it looks bad everywhere.

Dean

Razorwit

slartabartfast


Several replies here suggest improving your listening environment or monitors as a solution to the problem. But it seems to me that this sort of misses the point.

Lets say you have a perfectly treated room and truly "linear" monitors and using your ears in that environment you produce an impeccable mix. Will you not have the same type of problem when you play that mix in an imperfect environment on speakers that are undoubtedly not linear? Many of the devices that listeners will be using are distorted by design to boost certain frequencies, and many have the potential for the listener to adjust an equalizer in ways that you cannot even imagine.

The advantage of a perfect mixing environment, if there is one, is that what you hear will be consistent and represent the actual frequencies in the mix. But to convert that mix to something you can play in the car without adjustment, you would need to either imagine or model how it will sound in that environment. The ability to pre-visualize (pre-herenize?) how it will sound is probably the major skill that professionals have to master. The best way to "model" various listening environments is to play the mix in those environments, where, as you have found, they frequently do not cut it. The VRM devices are a way to more conveniently do this, than trying to mix while riding down the freeway. 

In any case, it is difficult to imagine how a "perfect" mix could be moved to all listening transducers/environments/listeners with equally good results. Hence even cell phones typically have equalizers. Do not blame your reference monitors for the failings of the cheap stuff your music will actually be played on. But you will have to take into account the translation of your perfect mix into real world sound if you want to minimize this kind of problem.

Hi Slartabartfast,
I've heard some folks question the value of good mixing environments before and even heard some folks talk about it (not you...no offense intended here) like they've found some sort of secret, and all those mixing guys are who have treated rooms have all been doing it wrong forever. Of course that's not the case.

While it's correct that a listener will hear whatever product you or I produce in an whatever environment they're in, that's a different problem than the one we face when mixing. The problem we face when mixing involves making decisions about the relative sound of that product, and tweaking that product to try and make it sound a specific way. The fact that we are making those decisions is what makes a treated room important.

Here's a quick analogy. I've said before that mixing in an untreated room is like painting in a room lit by colored lights. Let's pretend I'm doing just that and painting a portrait. My job in this case is to make the portrait look as much like my subject as possible. If my room is lit by colored lights, I won't ever be able to tell how much of one color to use with relation to the other colors, and because of that, my painting will never come out right except in the room it was painted in at the position that the canvas occupied when I did the painting. Even worse than that, if the lights are wrong in a specific way, I won't even be able to tell where the lines on my painting are ending up, which means the shape of my subject will be unrecognizable.

On the other hand, if I have good light, I'll be able to get as good a reproduction as I'm capable of producing (which in my case, is a stick figure, but that's another story...I went into music for a reason). Now, will this portrait then be displayed in less than perfect light? Of course it will, but because I had reasonable conditions when I created it, it will still be the best reproduction of that subject that is possible in the environment it is displayed in, whereas if it was created in bad lighting conditions, it will never, ever, ever be right no matter what.

Creating sound in a room that doesn't have accurate sound is exactly like this. If I'm trying to get an acoustic guitar to sound a particular way, I have to be able to hear accurately how it sounds so I can make the appropriate modifications. A listener has no such obligation, and in fact is absolutely free to listen in whatever environment he/she would like to, even if it sounds like trash. The difference is, if what I create sounds awful in the first place because I couldn't hear what I was doing, it will pretty much never sound good. Whereas, if it sounds good in an accurate room (again, because I could accurately hear what I was doing), I'm giving myself the greatest opportunity for it to sound good in whatever environment the listener happens to be in.

Shorter version of all this - look at a painting in a dark room and it looks bad while in that room. Paint a painting in a dark room and it looks bad everywhere.

Dean

This here sums it up beautifully, Red. Well said, Dean. I'd like to help reinforce the above a little more even. You can spend an eternity trying to compromise or "train" yourself to listen to what you think is right or listen to reference mixes. To me, it all defeats the purpose. When you record and mix something, the object is to listen, make the right calls, and move on. This is impossible if you have imperfections and let me tell you brother, there is no happy medium.
 
If money is the problem, save your money and get the right stuff. If your wife is the problem, have a talk with her. It ain't like you're going out with friends getting drunk and into trouble. You're home and doing somthing you love. Why do something you love and live with the frustration? If you don't do something to fix this problem the right way, it will NEVER go away and you will be sitting there working on mixes for weeks without getting the results you are hoping for. Trust me man, I'd never tell ya something I wouldn't do myself.
 
Even more important than room correction in my opinion, is monitor correction. I'll mix something good in a crappy room with my monitors at least being eq'd correctly. I've done it 1000 times. IK Mulitmedia's ARC is an excellent tool for this. People bash on it and say it's crap, but it's what saved my life. And at the worst case, it will eq your monitors to make them sound flat. Every studio needs their monitors eq'd. So this is step one.
 
Subs: I hear quite a few people bashing on subs. I say get one if you can. The reason being, those little monitors will never give you the right bass response. All the nearfields claim to go down to whatever Hz...but without a sub, just about none of them do. You don't need a lot of sub...just enough to hear and feel your low end. If you wind up mixing bass heavy, turn up the sub and try another mix and export. If you are bass light, turn down the sub and try another mix and export. It may take an hour of trial and error but it will help and you'll eventually dial it in.
 
And lastly, knowing what to listen for as well as how to fix it is the most important. But this one here is totally moot if you can't make the right calls because you can't hear the right stuff. All these compensation type things etc...it's not the way it's supposed to work. In this field you either do it right, or you sit there and keep on guessing and trying to train your ears to hear things that really don't exist while you waste time and frustrate yourself to the point of wanting to sell it all.
 
Trust me man...I've been there. You're not supposed to learn your monitors or rely on reference mixes to help with your decision making. I will never agree with that and will fight tooth and nail with people about it. The object of this whole thing is to sit down, listen to something, hear what you hear and be able to fix it if need be without learning anything or second guessing/compensating. The "learning" part should be "learning how to engineer" not "learn" for the sake of compensation.
 
You are NOT supposed to sit there and learn how monitors sound or make yourself remember to raise 106 Hz +3 dB in your material because the speakers don't allow you to hear it.
 
You are NOT supposed to go out to your car and listen to a CD and take notes only to go back into your studio and try to apply these things that you don't even hear "because the car speakers told me."
 
You are NOT supposed to rely on reference material to assist you on your own material or "learn how it sounds" on your gear. They don't use your instruments...what's the point? If the mix you're working on is translating correctly, what you hear is what you hear. When you touch something, that thing you touched should sound "touched" on just about every system you listen on within reason of course. I can't tell you the last time I referenced anything other than when a client was going for a specific sound. Most times I don't need to. What I hear is what I'm supposed to hear. If I push a sub low freq, that sub low freq is pushed on every system I listen on other than a lap top. When I make a bad judgement call, that call is heard on every system.
 
So in closing....a good set of monitors...which you have, a sub, and something to correct the monitors like ARC and everything changes in your world for the better. It might cost you close to $1000, but to me, that's a VERY small price to pay if it allows you to enjoy this field and finish mixes in a timely fashion while keeping you happy.
 
When I was where you are now....I would have paid $10,000 to rid myself of that frustration and misery. But I didn't need to...ARC and a sub fixed me on every set of monitors I own. I didn't have to learn my monitors....I just needed them corrected and my mixes sound the same everywhere I play them. They may be bad mixes, but at least my consistency of "bad" is on every set of speakers I play my stuff through. LOL! :)
 
-Danny

I have challenges when it comes to mixing as well. However i will say this, I purchased ARC2 (room correction) and it made a HUGE difference in my mixes. I have a subwoofer that I can bypass as needed. The sub lets me know when I have anough bass/low end in the mix.  As far as the mix translating to the car or other speakers, it actually translates pretty well.  My mix issues seem to more along the lines of eqing the intruments properly and blending. Like hearing the bass guitar or vocals sitting perfectly in the mix, which I think is the track eq and volume.  My friends and bandmates think my mixes are fantastic, but I am stiving to get that sheen similar to a commercially produced cd. I use reference tracks of bands that are similar in style and I like their mix. This helps as far as volumes etc, but my engineering skills are still in early development.   But I will say, the mix sounds almost the same in my studio as it does on other speakers/systems. I hear the same imperfections in the studio and in the car.

FYI, after i measured (took audio samples) with the room correction software charts the before and after eq of a room. my before eq had a small spike around 80 hz, and huge dip around 120 hz, another small spike around 180 hz, then the highs started rolling off around 1.8 k. My room is just a spare bedroom 11' x 12', I have foam hanging on the walls as recomended by Aurelex.  before the ARC, what i heard in the studio did not translate to other speakers. Like I said above, the mix translate well to other systems now. I hear the imperfections and am challenged with how to fix them.  There have been much discussion about subwoofers, personal preference, some say use them others say don't. I have one, i use it a lot, but I always bypass and listen to just he speakers. My next purchase will be another set of monitors so I can A/B with the current set, maybe that will help, maybe not.
 

here is "the poor mans rta" from a previous post, its a free way to do some room correction, not sure how well it works but the author is very knoweledgable about this stuff: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?&m=1495170&mpage=1


All of  the above has just been MYexperience and opinion. I will be following this thread. I am interested to know what worked for you when you figure this out!  :)

Wanted to thank you all for giving me input here. Purchased some toys today.  I know it may not be ideal in the true sense of recording but I think it makes sense for what I'm trying to achieve right now.  I got a set of audio-technica  ATH M-50s and a Focusrite VRM Box.  I will use this in tandem with my Yamaha's. 


I'm REALLY liking these headphones.

Hey sharke,

I hear what your saying. I realize this is only emulated, but I figure it will help none the less. I read a lot of good reviews on it. Seemed like a small investment that could yield nice results.

Ear buds are merely one listening environment.  Your yamas are another.  The kilpsh another.  Your car another.  All of them are legit.  You should mix to the most accurate speaker system and hope you can "fix" the others so it doesn't sound bad.

Short of rebuilding a room and selling the house it is in to buy pricey montiors, there are several physical things you can do.

Check your room for any large flaws. 

From what you say the yamas don't really produce a defined low end - and I wouldn't expect them too.  Although they may say down to 55 hz they are probably uneven when you get below 100 hz, so when you listen to on a system w/ a lower end all the stuff you don't hear comes back to bite you.  HP filtering on tracks can help.  ARC can help.  But the best solution (if you room doesn't have a boom or a null somewheres down there and commercial stuff on the klipchs sounds great) is hook up your klipchs so you can "check" the mixes on them while you are working.  That gives you real world feed back and helps you learn the yamas quicker.  And you would be surprised at the amount of time mixers use their smaller monitors during the day - switching to the big ones to ... check the bass and impress clients.

Then take a cd of that mix and play it on other enviroments - computer speakers after you've mp3'ed it, car, bookcase speakers.  All those will show flaws - tho you don't want to mix to the lowest common denominator until you learn to do no harm to higher quality systems.  It is part of the craft part of recording.  If it sounds good on earbuds after compression yet still sounds great on high-end systems, you've got a great mix.

@