Critical and Analytical Listening

masteringhouse

masteringhouse

www.masteringhouse.com
I'm starting this thread for the purpose of general discussion on how we listen, evaluate, and develop better skills for analyzing mixes and mastered tracks.

Often many of the questions on this forum revolve around what kind of gear can I buy, what settings do I use, etc. to make my mixes sound pro. The biggest investment (IMHO) that any budding engineer can make is to spend as much time as possible developing their ear. A pro is able to determine even before moving the first knob what they want to change (if anything) and a procedure for achieving it even though this may change along the way. It's my hope that this thread may help to start some of the less experienced members of the forum moving in that direction, and the experienced to possibly think of things from a new angle. Some of the biggest lessons I've learned are from the "students" that I have taught.

Anyway, to start the discussion, what differentiates a good mix from a bad one?
 
I'd say a good mix will let the music and song come through without the casual listener ever noticing the engineering job. A bad mix will make it difficult to focus on the music. A fantastic mix will enhance the listening experience and make a good song sound even better!
 
okay . . . I'll go first with some points that I've most likely made elsewhere.

What I look for in a good mix are:

1 a good representation of the full frequency spectrum, from the farty lows to the tinkly highs. This is not always easily achievable if the instruments needed for that spectrum are not there.

2 a moving sonic landscape as the song progresses (which, I admit, is part of the orchestration and instrumentation, rather than mixing), so that there is variety in the instrumentation and the dynamics of the material. I like mixes in which there are empty spaces.

3 a broad stereo landscape, so that there is something interesting to listen to from the far left to the far right. However, we need to be judicious here: it's difficult to focus on an intricate guitar lead way right while a fiddle is doing something different and just as intricate way left.

4 a stereo landscape that makes sense: a drumkit is only about two metres wide, and I kind of like to hear it that way in the mix, as opposed to having an extremely wide image with toms pinging from ear to ear. Though it is fun to do weird and interesting things with instruments (e.g. guitar panning across the horizon), I tend not to like these effects much. I am more satisfied when I can shut my eyes and hear where the band members would be.

5 generally, vocal lines that are crisp, clear and intelligible. In most cases, I believe the songwriter has written the words so that someone else can listen to them.

6 I am undecided about reverb. Last year I favoured a very dry sound. More recently I'm back into bigger reverbs. Sometimes I will listen to a completely dry vocal and think "that's awesome", then I will try it with some reverb, and I will think "that's awesome". I guess the rule is: let the song decide what needs to be done. What I do like about reverb (and delay) is that it provides interest in the background.

7 I like to hear acoustic instruments that sound like acoustic instruments. Hence I get edgy when someone wants chorus on their six-string, or they want to blend a pick-up sound with a miked sound.

8 More subjectively, I think a good mix draws you into the song. Some aspect of the song itself should hold your attention. This could be the quality of the lyrics, the quality of the singing, the cleverness of the arrangement, or whatever: it's the job of the mix to make sure these attributes are drawn to the attention of the listener. I recall a discussion with someone during which I likened mixing to flower-arranging. Each bud in a bunch has its own intrinsic beauty, but a good flower arranger will present the flowers in such away that the arrangement as a whole, drawing on all the characteristics of its elements, is greater than the sum of its parts.
 
Wow, steve, that a pretty damn good answer, sweet and to the point. Especially since I found the question as Tom posed it to be a pretty difficult question to tackle. But we all know I'm lousy at short answers :D.

I guess I need to come at this thinking what makes a great mix. There are a million perfectly good mixes out there that don't necessarily meet all of these bullet points. Let me phrase it as, "elements that can contribute to a good mix":

- The mix sounds pleasurable and does not sacrifice key elements of the mix when played on a variety of different playback systems.

- The mix is not tiring or fatiguing to listen to (unless it's intended to be.) This means both on a single pass and over multiple listens.

- The mix, at a minimum, supports, and at most helps create, the intended song arrangement rather than constraining or hiding it.

- The mix, at minimum, supports, and at most, helps create the intended mood or emotional thrust of the song.

- The mix, at minimum, supports, and at most, helps create the main hooks in the song.

- The mix provides the proper emphasis to the strongest element(s) of the song, whether they be the lyrics, the vocalist(s), the musicianship or the composition, and that it shifts the focus of this emphasis as necessary throughout the song.

- The mix provides comfortable sonic space (in all four sonic dimensions) for each instrument/track to do it's thing without having them fight or mask each other.

- The mix do all these things with an absolute minimum of unwanted or undesirable noise or distortion added by the mixing process itself.

G.
 
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Looks like we're off to a great start here!

To technically qualify some points made above:

  • frequency balance in the mix and individual intruments
  • stereo image
  • focus and priority of instruments/vocals in a mix
  • lack of distortion (though some will use this creatively)
  • use of textures to create movement and interest in the mix

What else?
 
Riffmaster said:
How about conservative and tasteful use of effects? I know I still struggle with this one. :D
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  • frequency balance in the mix and individual intruments
  • stereo image
  • focus and priority of instruments/vocals in a mix
  • lack of distortion (though some will use this creatively)
  • use of textures to create movement and interest in the mix
  • tasteful and creative use of effects

What's that audio issue that everybody seems to complain a lot about on forums?
 
masteringhouse said:
Well I don't view EQ as a height thing, that's my only beef with it.
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You're taking the analogy too literally there, Tom. It's not "height" in the manner of the physical dimension of height. 4D refers to four sonic dimensions, not four physical dimensions. The fact that soundstage and depth just so happen to resemble somewhat the physical dimensions of width and depth is pure coincidence.

There is no dimension of height in a stereophonic image (phase delay advocates notwithstanding). The third sonic dimension is the frequency spectrum. Yes, one can go "up" and "down" in frequency, but that has nothing to do with going up and down the third physical dimension of height. It's just another *sonic* dimension unrelated to physical 3D space where one can go up and down in it's own manner.

It's like when we refer to the "color" of a quark. They don't actually have any physical color at all; they are smaller than the lowest wavelength of light, so they can't have any color. It's just a name we give to one of their characteristic properties.

...

Now, back to the issue at hand; I assume you're talking about either dynamic range or loudness when you're asking what we complain about all the time here.

I'd say, in terms of a good mix, I'd say that's one where the sound quality does not take back seat to the sound quantity when it comes to the trade off between dynamics and loudness.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I'd say, in terms of a good mix, I'd say that's one where the sound quality does not take back seat to the sound quantity when it comes to the trade off between dynamics and loudness.

G.
Click to expand...

  • frequency balance in the mix and individual intruments
  • stereo image
  • focus and priority of instruments/vocals in a mix
  • lack of distortion (though some will use this creatively)
  • use of textures to create movement and interest in the mix
  • tasteful and creative use of effects
  • dynamics (non-fatiguing to listen to, well-controlled)

Anything else?
 
Honestly, the more and more we talk about it, the more we'll realize that there's really no right and wrong when it comes to specifics of the mix. Sometimes a woofy kick with no bass or treble will sound fantastic. Sometimes it'll sound shit. Sometimes a huge 3khz spike in the guitars will be incredibly piercing and annoying. Sometimes it's exactly what the song needed! As long as it lets the song through, it's a good mix.
 
steve.h said:
Honestly, the more and more we talk about it, the more we'll realize that there's really no right and wrong when it comes to specifics of the mix. Sometimes a woofy kick with no bass or treble will sound fantastic. Sometimes it'll sound shit. Sometimes a huge 3khz spike in the guitars will be incredibly piercing and annoying. Sometimes it's exactly what the song needed! As long as it lets the song through, it's a good mix.
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True but I believe there are still guidelines. Is a woofy kick appropriate for a Metal song? How about a classic Bluegrass track? Is distortion appropriate for a Celine Dion track, how about Nine Inch Nails? Why?

A major point to why a mix sounds good or not is the appropriateness of a given treatment. There are also elements that are just bad across the board. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but few think that obesity and pimples are a sign of beauty.
 
masteringhouse said:
True but I believe there are still guidelines. Is a woofy kick appropriate for a Metal song? How about a classic Bluegrass track? Is distortion appropriate for a Celine Dion track, how about Nine Inch Nails? Why?

A major point to why a mix sounds good or not is the appropriateness of a given treatment. There are also elements that are just bad across the board. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but few think that obesity and pimples are a sign of beauty.
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A fair point; should we be narrowing down/separating this discussion into genre? Or possibly even intention of the recording?
 
steve.h said:
Honestly, the more and more we talk about it, the more we'll realize that there's really no right and wrong when it comes to specifics of the mix. Sometimes a woofy kick with no bass or treble will sound fantastic. Sometimes it'll sound shit. Sometimes a huge 3khz spike in the guitars will be incredibly piercing and annoying. Sometimes it's exactly what the song needed! As long as it lets the song through, it's a good mix.
Click to expand...
There's no absolute right and wrong when it comes to specifics that is right or wrong for every mix. That's not the issue.

We hear every once in a while "there are no rules". This is usually espoused by those who do not wish to learn any rules, of course, because it's just too much work. The fact is, there *are* rules to the game. They're just not the kind of rules those folks are thinking.

If that woofy kick sounds good here but bad there, there's reasons for that. It's not just a random occurance. It not just some form of magical intuition and happenstance that causes you or I to think, hey, woofy would sound good here. There are reasons why things work here and other things don't work there. Those reasons why are what you might call - for lack of a better immediate term (maybe Tom has one already) - basic laws of audio.

They are not necessarily rigid laws of human operation that one must always do this or they are doing it wrong, that's the wrong use of the word "law" here. They are the properties and probabilities of sound itself, and they can be taken advantage of when appropriate. Things like, "instruments of similar octave and timbre playing different lines usually sound better when separated in space or time", "objects with depth tend to have a faster high-frequency rolloff", or "lag the bass for a more laid-back groove".

And remember the topic of this thread; critical and analytical listening skills. Being able to take advantage of those laws or properties of audio means being able to hear when they are or are not happening and when they are or are not appropriate. It's hard to tell if the reason your track doesn't have the depth it needs if you can't recognize it's high frequency properties with your ears and determine whether they need attenuation or not with your brain.

I assume that this is what Tom is leading to. By starting with what defines a good mix, he can move to how to listen for a good mix. Or something along those lines. Give this thread a little more time to develop, Tom knows what he's doing here.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I assume that this is what Tom is leading to. By starting with what defines a good mix, he can move to how to listen for a good mix. Or something along those lines. Give this thread a little more time to develop, Tom knows what he's doing here.

G.
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Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Are there any time related issues when it comes to a good mix?
 
I want to stress that I didn't mean to kill the thread! I think we should focus more on the original intent, "general discussion on how we listen, evaluate, and develop better skills for analyzing mixes and mastered tracks." vs. discussing what makes a good mix.
 
steve.h said:
A fair point; should we be narrowing down/separating this discussion into genre? Or possibly even intention of the recording?
Click to expand...

I think that there are qualities that work across the board, but yeah genre is definitely important. An aggressive mix/master should sound different than a ballad.
 
steve.h said:
I want to stress that I didn't mean to kill the thread! I think we should focus more on the original intent, "general discussion on how we listen, evaluate, and develop better skills for analyzing mixes and mastered tracks." vs. discussing what makes a good mix.
Click to expand...

Without knowing what a good mix entails how can you evaluate? You need a ruler to measure things.
 
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