Mixing goal: flattness or colorization?

JeffF

New member
I am just learning of mixing (instructional DVD series), so the following request for insight may very well shape my future mixing process/goal, please assist . . .

My equipment sales rep (of sound engineering education) stated that I should not be too surgical about EQ'ing (in terms of getting flat signaling) but rather try to finish a "musically colorized" mix--arbitrary, of course, in term, so let's set that aside, please.

Important to my need of understanding, whether end-users' playback is on better shelf or car speakers, or low-end headphones/ear buds or computer speakers, do each have something of designed colorization that requires uncolored (flat) mixes to translate well?

Does playback format, like MP3 and WAV, play a role in choosing whether to mix toward flatness rather than colorization?

I respectfully realize there is much more to mixing, but resolving this initial dilemma is pivotal in how I approach mixing for the expected range of end users' devices and formats, likely as above mentioned.

Thanks very much, JeffF.
 
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Jeff,

I'm no expert on mixing yet either but from what I understand, consumer devices such as headphones, speakers, car audio systems, ect. playback a different (usually narrower) range of frequencies than your studio monitors or mixing headphones. This is why many people who mix music will listen to their mix in their car, on a cheap set of speakers, or on Ipod headphones throughout the process. However, I have heard of some headphone brands actually adding color intentionally. I believe the popular Beats by Dre are one such set and the difference is most notable in the low end.

As for playback format, that is beyond my knowledge and I'll leave it to one of the people on here who know this subject far better than I do.

From reading these forums for the past two years, I have seen that a great deal of people prefer to record their sources flat or uncolored and then add color through mixing. If the source itself has color you can't take it off. If that color is an effect you desire though then you might change your process. A process that makes a great mix on one song may produce something dull or muddy on another.

-Krystian
 
You want the mix to sound good to you...how you intend it to be.
I don't think anyone really tries to make "flat" mixes.

That said...your room and your monitors should be able to produce a flat response (or as close to it)...so that when you are mixing, you're working with on a "blank/transparent"...that way when you add your color, it's accurate and not masked by your room/monitor color.

AFA the various playback systems...they will all add or take something away, and you can't really plan for every variation out there, which is why the accuracy/flatness of your room and your monitors is key. If you get it sounding good there, it should translate...and any changes made by the various playback systems are just going to happen, but the overall mix should translate.

Perfect flatness in a room and monitors is not easy. Many monitors are capable of flat/transparent response...but the rooms always skew that. So you will have to treat the room to some degree, and then also learn what you can't treat.
 
The answer to your overall question Jeff, is no. The only thing you may want to do is eq your voice to sound appealing as this is what most people are used to hearing. Any stock eq plugin with a "Male Vocal" will do. There are just way to many devices that people use to listen to audio on, to cover all the basis. I think the last poll stated that 68% of all audio listen to on-line is done using a smart phone with $12.00 ear buds.
 
My thoughts are that you should mix according to how you want the song to sound. The assumption is that you want the listener to hear the way you hear it. This, of course, is next to impossible, because, as others have noted, playback systems and quality are pretty well limitless intheir variety and all will sound different. But, with a bit of luck, they will get to hear something that is a reasonable approximation.

What you don't want to have happen is for your own system to impart a colouring to your mix that you are not aware of, and that can happen if, for example, your speakers or your room are contributing to the sound you hear.

So, colour your mix however you like, but make sure that your system is transparent, i.e. not messing around with your perceptions.
 
Honestly, the whole question of should you try to get a "flat" mix or a "colorized" mix seems alien to me.

Right off the bat, I'll say that if I've learned anything in, jeez, 20 years of home recording, it's that the number one thing that's going to shape the "quality" of your mix is your tracking. Both things like the overall quality and timbre of your tracks, and how they fit together, but also things like how tight your performances are (trying to get a "tight" low end in a mix is basically impossible if the tracks themselves aren't in the pocket, it seems logically impossible for that to be true, but it is). Over and above that, how the arrangement "works" together is huge too - if you have an arrangement where a lot of things are fighting for the same stereo and frequency space, it's going to be extremely hard to mix, compared to something where there are fewer conflicts to begin with.

So, my "workflow" is first, think about the arrangement and make sure it makes logical sense in the way the instruments are fitting together, next, record them as well as I humanly can and make sure the performances are as good as I can get them (note: I usually record myself, you have a lot less control over some of these factors if you're recording someone else).

Then, set levels, sit back and listen. Mixing is really just finding "problems" in a mix, and using the tools at your disposal - compressors, EQs, delays and reverbs, etc - to fix them. It's not about making things "flat" or "colorful," but listening critically to the recording and identifying things that are problematic. A vocal getting lost under the piano, a muddy low end, the bass and kick fighting for the same space, whatever. I always look at mixing as taking a recording and elimitating everything about it that sounds bad or otherwise doesn't work.
 
. . .
My equipment sales rep (of sound engineering education) stated that I should not be too surgical about EQ'ing (in terms of getting flat signaling) but rather try to finish a "musically colorized" mix--arbitrary, of course, in term, so let's set that aside, please.

Important to my need of understanding, whether end-users' playback is on better shelf or car speakers, or low-end headphones/ear buds or computer speakers, do each have something of designed colorization that requires uncolored (flat) mixes to translate well?

Does playback format, like MP3 and WAV, play a role in choosing whether to mix toward flatness rather than colorization?
...
Well, for me, "flatness" (and variance from that characteristic) is something that is important to understand about input and output devices, like microphones, preamps, headphones, speakers, etc. In those cases, I think flatter is generally better, though recognizing that's impossible. Understanding (or learning) how a device's unflatness affects its part of the process or chain is important.

In the DAW "flat" has no real meaning. In fact, everything has to be different, or a clarinet would sound like a ukelele, voices would all sound the same, etc. So, you don't EQ with your eye on the track's response curve, you do it with your ears on the mix, and that understanding of any "unflatness" that may be there because of the devices that captured your track, and how it's being output at the time of mixing, and maybe thinking about the kinds of devices it will end up being heard on.

Playback format is something that might matter more in terms of overall loudness, compression, maybe other FX, IME. At least, I don't think about the EQ curve when I'm choosing a bounce output format.
 
The idea that you dont mix for the playback medium is a bit of purist snobbery. That was right back in the day when everybody wanted a kick ass stereo to listen on but this is not reallity today. I listen to mixes on my monotors but also in my car and on my phone. But thats not a problem if you keep this core principle in mind. A good mix of well recorded music will sound good for any medium. Mixing shit will shound like shit on any medium as well.
 
The idea that you dont mix for the playback medium is a bit of purist snobbery. That was right back in the day when everybody wanted a kick ass stereo to listen on but this is not reallity today. I listen to mixes on my monotors but also in my car and on my phone. But thats not a problem if you keep this core principle in mind. A good mix of well recorded music will sound good for any medium. Mixing shit will shound like shit on any medium as well.

I agree that "a good mix of well recorded music will sound good for any medium". I also a agree with the corollary that "mixing shit will sound like shit on any medium as well".

So how do you determine what a "good mix" is? You've partially answered the question when you say "I listen to mixes on my monitors but also in my car and on my phone". Well, there are no surprises there. It's not an uncommon practice to mix on monitors and listen on a variety of systems.

It is not 'purist snobbery' to not mix for the playback medium. It is impossible to mix for the playback medium because you cannot know what anyone's playback medium will be nor what audio characteristics it will have.

So you have to do exactly what you describe you do . . . which is to create a 'good mix'. Which is created using your monitoring system and which sounds good on it.
 
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