Sounds Different !!!

how do you know the true sound of your song? and what are you comparing it to. Listen to your mixes in a flat environment. This will let you hear the true sound. Your probably not hearing the true sound on your monitors and headphones.

One might ask, how do you know the "original mix" sounds right, because (with all due respect) the MA-7As are surely not capable of reproducing the true sound of your mix.

Hehe, I just did  :)

The Edirols only go down to 90hz, but the quoted range on your headphones is down to 10hz (which I'm skeptical about, to be honest, but they definitely go lower than your monitors). The bass you're hearing on your headphones *is* in your mix, it's just that the monitors aren't reproducing it.

Hmm, well... it's not so much a question of "go with", as understand what's there. Not having much low end in your monitors means you are almost certainly going to be mixing things too bassy. The headphones are good to check that against. But headphones don't give you as good a sense of stereo imaging. There are various trade offs of that nature.

There are lots of good monitors in that price range. I'm not really qualified to give a comprehensive buying guide, but basically your main problem right now is that you're not hearing enough of the low end to mix it accurately. So just getting something with a wider frequency range would be a big step up. If you consider that the low E on a bass guitar is somewhere around 41hz, you can see the problem immediately; you've got really quite a lot of stuff that's simply not present at all on the monitors you have. I would say getting down to around 50hz is more than adequate for most purposes, though others will have another view. As to the KRKs, yes, I like them, and think they're good value, but I'd stop short of particularly making recommendations. It's not like I've tried out every budget to mid price monitor out there or anything.

I would test the sound compared to another song on at least 3 systems and get them similar in mix and go with that.

The phones by themselves are not going to be good for testing a mix usually.

Try to find a playback system with a woofer involved, say a 10 or 12 inch woofer or 2 and do song comparisons there. That will tell you a lot about the whole mix and the bass.

Lance

I agree the KRK monitors are good value. I do not have a whole lot experience with them, but I have used the KRK Rokit RP6 G2 for a while, and I liked it (unfortunately a bit out of budget for me at this moment). However - you should take your time to select a good pair of monitors. If possible listen to several models before making a decision.

For the time being you could use your Sony phones in combination with TB-Isone ( http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-isone/ ). It is absolutely not a replacement for a good pair of monitors, but it certainly gives a better feeling for the stereo image (because it virtually "simulates" a pair of monitors) than using the phones solely. The plugin is very cheap, so that leaves you with enough budget to spend on a good pair of monitors and at the same time "buys" you some time to make a good decision without any pressure.

lol he should compare to something that has a mix HE is going for. Steely Dans album might be nothing like he is going for.

It SHOULD be something that was mixed and mastered pro though.

Comparing with a professionally polished song that is surely mixed RIGHT in his opinion IS THE ONE TO COMPARE TO.

If I compared my music to anything by Steely Dan, I would be way off as it is a totally different sound, vibe, era etc.

Lance

It's the classic translation conundrum: it sounds good here but not there, or worse, it sounds bad in both places but bad in completely different ways. You get everything sounding great on your headphones, only to find that it's too bassy in the car. So you tweak it for the car and now it sounds thin on the headphones. It can drive you nuts.

If you don't have the bucks right now to upgrade your speakers, here's an idea that won't cost you anything if you're a smooth talker. Ask someone with a proper listening environment to let you bring over your CD or MP3 and listen to it at their place. It could be a professional studio or a serious amateur setup - either will likely be better than your current environment. What this will tell you is generally which direction you need to take your mixes. I did that when I was first getting into this, and it was an eye-opener that helped me immensely. 

Another technique that will help you is spectral displays such as the free Voxengo SPAN. Run a few of your favorite commercial recordings through it and get a feel for what those spectra look like. Don't expect your own music to look exactly the same, but it will give you a baseline reference to go by. Some people dismiss visual feedback, saying "use your ears!". Pfft. With your monitors, in an acoustically untreated room, you're actually better off looking at SPAN than using your ears.

When the time comes to upgrade your speakers, don't expect overnight improvement. You have to train your ears to the new speakers, which takes time. When you get them hooked up, pull out some of your favorite commercial CDs, kick back and listen. You don't have to take notes or anything, just listen and enjoy. Do this long enough and your ears will train themselves all on their own with no conscious effort on your part. After awhile, you'll have mentally recorded into your subconscious what a good recording sounds like on those speakers, and you'll have no problem determining if your own music is on target.

In the $500-600 range, the Behringers are a pretty good value. The 8's, though, not the little guys with the 5.25" speakers. IMO an 8-inch woofer is the minimum size unless you're going to be adding a sub. So don't waste your money on those little 5-inch KRK's either, they're awful. 

Also consider buying second-hand. Used studio monitors have rarely been abused, so they sound just as good as new ones for half the price. 

I can understand why some of you may think that Steely Dan's music may not have anything to do with the genre you are working in. But for some reason it is a great way to test monitors and differentiate between them. Also once you get speakers that reproduce Steely Dan really well, I have found they can cut a whole raft of genres really well too. It is just because everything is so well placed in a Steel Dan mix. Perfect drum sounds, vocals, guitars etc it's all there.

I have read some interesting articles about how some great live heavy metal mix engineers actually use folk music, K D Lang and even Steely Dan to get their FOH sounding great and then they find the system is 95% there for a kickass heavy metal mix. And of course they use the actual genre test CD's to bring it into line.

If it's only one genre of music you are going to create and mix then I suppose it is OK to use speakers that best reproduce it. But if you are intending to work on a variety of genres as you might do in more professional situations then the speakers also need to much broader in how well they reproduce those range of genres. There are monitors out there that can do it.

When I am asked to mix an important band in a big live sound situation (any genre) the first thing I do is to play Steely Dan out front. Usually I hear a disgusting mess, mainly due to the idiot live engineer (the night before) who setup a weird FOH curve thinking they were doing something great. Then I reset the FOH EQ flat and usually 9 times out of 10 Steely Dan sounds perfect. Which means the PA was installed and aligned beautifully. Then I might tweak 2 or 3 sliders just to make it perfect. Then all night I am hearing from the owners the PA has never sounded so good and I was the best live engineer they have ever had in there.

LeAnn Rimes but they never say what with.

Steely Dan wont help an 808 or 909 drum and synth bass I use a lot or just a heavy kick, totally different than them, and I need a song that has that type of stuff because the whole spectrum perception is different because of the different low end.

I do hear ya though Jeff 

I definitely use reference tracks that can go ALL THE WAY as well, just different than those ones, usually more bass heavy but still mixed and mastered very nicely.

Any ways, in general, yes reference tracks are crucial.

Lance

John

 you may want to check this out:

Bobby Owsinski:
The Pros And Cons Of Mixing On Headphones
Read more: http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2012/04/pros-and-cons-of-mixing-on-headphones.html#ixzz1sMBzscJY
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution


Bobby is a fantastic resource!!!
jonny3d

Mike I have heard also that LeAnn Rimes is an excellent reference to use.

Best Steely Dan albums are the last two out on CD. Not the vinyl. The CD's are way better.
I think they are 'Two Against Nature' and 'Everything Must Go' (I am only talking mix here not the music, the music is great on ALL the albums)

SilverfoxUK You do have to listen to them though on some pretty nice expensive speakers to actually hear how they really sound. That is how you use them. I have been lucky enough to be in the same room as some pretty amazing speakers at times and I usually listen to Steely Dan to add to my knowledge of how they sound.

Lance I hear you too and I create a lot of electronic music using many different kicks etc form the ones on the Steely Dan CD but the interesting thing is that when you use it as a reference all other things tend to sound great. I agree with Mike on that one. Once the playback system is sounding great it is ready for anything. Well put.