Critical and Analytical Listening

[Steve Henningsgard]

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

Very true. Perhaps it would be better if we qualified our answers with assumed intent? IE: "Generally, the lower-mids/mids frequencies of the kick will lessen the perceived attack, and add a muddiness to the mix. This is especially true in more aggressive music, with distorted guitars and denser arrangements. To remedy this, most good aggressive/dense mixes will have a several dB dip somewhere between 300 and 600hz. In addition, to help the kick drum cut through the mix even further, many good mixes have a narrow bump somewhere between 3khz and 8khz."

This doesn't really have much to do with critical listening though. I'd think we should be talking about signs that there is something conflicting in your mix, and how to develop your ears to hear what things are "supposed" to sound like, or how they'll generally sound when everything's working right.

This is hard :/ My head hurts!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Perhaps it would be better if we qualified our answers with assumed intent? IE: "Generally, the lower-mids/mids frequencies of the kick will lessen the perceived attack, and add a muddiness to the mix.

The thing is, steve, this is only meaningful IF one can:

a) recognize lower mids with their ears,
b) recognize that the problem is with the perceived attack,
c) discern and determine with their ears that this is actually what is happening.

There are many possible causes for a flabby attack or a muddy sound in the kick; what you mention, true as it may be, is just one of them. It's entirely possible that one may follow your EQ recipe and still have the problem.

At that point, it requires actually listening to and being able to recognize what is going on. This is the whole point behind critical listening. It's not about listing possible solutions or recipes, some of which only apply best to certain genres, but rather how to *identify the problem - or on a good mix, what's done right - by listening to what is actually going on*, and then creating the proper prescription from there.

The greatness and elegance behind that is that it works equally well for ALL genres. Sure, the solution will vary by what the song requires or asks for (never mind genre, it's different from song to song, sometime from measure to measure); this is why the flabby bass or the screechy mids will work here but not there. But the whole point is that the solution cannot be best determined unless the actual problem can be identified, and identifying the actual problem requires being able to analyze what our ears are hearing.

G.

 

[masteringhouse]

I wanted to have the discussion above before posting the eval matrix that I have used in past classes in order to see if folks here had similar opinions on what to look as far as common ground among good mixes/production. Not surprisingly they are very much the same including the points Steve has been making. Eval matrix is located here:

http://www.masteringhouse.com/masteringtips/listeningeval.html

Would definitely like to hear everyone's opinion on this as far as refinement.

I think that a good next step might be to have someone submit a mix for evaluation?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I think that a good next step might be to have someone submit a mix for evaluation?

I'd be very interested to see how "Heroes" by David Bowie, "Love Sick" by Bob Dylan or "Jockey Full of Bourbon" by Tom Waits rates on that matrix.

That is a very interesting test indeed, Tom. One of the more interesting things about it (to me, anyway, FWTW) is that some great mixes can score a five on some of those points and only a one or a two on others, and perhaps be considered by some to be "better" (whatever that means) mixes than something that scored solid fours and fives.

In that way, I'd be tempted to view that matrix as a kind of a personality test than a quality test - not of the tester, but of the mix...although something that scored all ones and twos is indeed probably a pretty lousy mix, yes .

---

There's still no discussion yet of HOW one determines how to score a mix on that matrix, though; i.e. how to learn to listen for these things.

G.

 

[masteringhouse]

I'd be very interested to see how "Heroes" by David Bowie, "Love Sick" by Bob Dylan or "Jockey Full of Bourbon" by Tom Waits rates on that matrix.

That is a very interesting test indeed, Tom. One of the more interesting things about it (to me, anyway, FWTW) is that some great mixes can score a five on some of those points and only a one or a two on others, and perhaps be considered by some to be "better" (whatever that means) mixes than something that scored solid fours and fives.

In that way, I'd be tempted to view that matrix as a kind of a personality test than a quality test - not of the tester, but of the mix...although something that scored all ones and twos is indeed probably a pretty lousy mix, yes .

Sometimes it can be difficult to separate the music from the production, all great artists above. Then as we've discussed before what about someone like Hound Dog Taylor? Not the best "technical production" but great albums nonetheless. It fits the music, makes you rock. Yeah there's distortion and nastiness but it fits and accentuates the music. So in a sense it's a good production. The treatment must be apropos.

There's still no discussion yet of HOW one determines how to score a mix on that matrix, though; i.e. how to learn to listen for these things.

G.

First off we listen in a variety of ways, we listen for information and communication (news, conversation), we listen for entertainment (music, comedy, movies), and we listen critically (mixing/mastering). The first step is differentiating these, which can be difficult. I enjoy Hound Dog Taylor, therefore I'm biased and think a rough production sounds great. Of course if there were strings and horns or some Phil Spector treatment in an HDT album I would think it sucked no matter how well recorded. How do you measure this objectively?

Firstly you have to listen to a lot of music to know what's appropriate and what isn't. Sometimes this is also a bias if an artists wants to take a style in a new direction and you are stuck in your ways. Then what elements of the production are distracting and don't "fit". How do you feel after listening to it? Do you want to turn it or down? How does it engage you? Can you hear the individual elements that you should be well enough? Why or why not?

You have to be able to give reasons other than "I think it sucks".

 

[Dogbreath]

Most interesting conversation.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

You have to be able to give reasons other than "I think it sucks".

DAMN IT!!! [*Glen crumples up his paper and grabs a clean matrix sheet]

G.

 

[masteringhouse]

Ok 'nother question: How do you listen without bias?

Not only in your individual opinions about a particular type of music or artist, but without being influenced by the meduim in which you are listening? The coloration of the monitors, sound of digital versus analog, sound of the room. Does your mood at a particular time affect how you listen? Do you tend to filter out particular types of noises? Do you become used to something after hearing it over an extended period of time to where things that were first distracting are now ignored or sound good?

Listen to the sounds in the room you are at the moment and identify all of the sounds that you hear. Next cover your ears for a few minutes and listen again. Do you hear anything different?

Did you hear yourself breathing, your heartbeat, possibly even the sound of muscles moving in your neck? What else did you ignore or filter out?

 

[joeym]

I try to apply Glen's credo to my mixes lately:
the best mixes are the ones that mix themselves.

Namely, performance and tightness have to be good at source. I'm spending more time on the individual tracking than I used to before and I find it works. Not perfect yet, but I'm learning....(hopefully )

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Firstly you have to listen to a lot of music to know what's appropriate and what isn't. Sometimes this is also a bias if an artists wants to take a style in a new direction and you are stuck in your ways.

Ok 'nother question: How do you listen without bias?

I'm really glad you brought up bias at this point, Tom, because (again, IMHumbleO) this is one of the first things that one must do in getting their ears going is to recognize and filter out any listening biases.

I have started out in my discussions on critical listening by identifying three biases to overcome right off the bat. You touch on one of them just a bit in that first quote, and that is the bias of genre. Even if one is only interested in recording one kind of music, the best mixes of that kind of music are made by those engineers with a very broad palate of music tastes and influences. Even mixes that are straight up, right down the middle of the genre tend to sound better mixed by ears with wider cross-genre palates.

The second bias is the bias of relative volume; understanding that a change in volume can provide a false perception as to a difference in quality of the mix other than just volume. I'm not talking volume war stuff here, just a much more simpler psychoacoustic effect that can fool some rookie ears that don't know to watch for it.

The third is the bias of brand name. Whether we like to admit it or not, the majority of us tend to judge a mix coming from a commercial label or a big name engineer differently than we judge our own mixes or those of other indie engineers. What often passes for a good mix from a brand name would be skewered if one of us put the identical mix up in the MP3 clinic, and many of our good mixes that get nitpicked and criticized apart would find much of that criticism fall by the wayside if a big name engineer's name were put on it. A mix needs to be judged purely and honestly by it's content; who does it is irrelevant, and the Big Boys make just as many mistakes as anyone else.

There is also a fourth effect that I wouldn't say is a bias, but it is an effect that I think is important to understand; the more one's ears focus on critical listening, the less the brain's auto-correction circuits take effect and the more we realize that there is a tangable difference between the way recordings sound and the way things sound in real life. Even the best sessions done in the best rooms on the best gear by the best people, with all the stars aligned and everything done absolutely perfect, to the trained and objective ear is virtually never going to pass a blindfold test comparing that recording to the live performance. There is always going to be something ethereal about the real world that just does not get captured. Understanding that difference and that it's going to exaggerate as our ears get better on the analytical side can help avoid a lot of time and headache chasing phantom mixes down the line.

G.

 

[masteringhouse]

All good points Glen (as usual).

It's kind of related to bias, but one of the first skills one needs to develop for critical listening is dicrimination. Being able to listen to a piece of music and hear all of the individual parts. Of course you can't do this if you are unknowingly filtering out parts of the music, and oddly you can't focus on a part unless you do filter out parts of it.

 

[gecko zzed]

I wanted to have the discussion above before posting the eval matrix that I have used in past classes in order to see if folks here had similar opinions on what to look as far as common ground among good mixes/production. Not surprisingly they are very much the same including the points Steve has been making. Eval matrix is located here:

http://www.masteringhouse.com/masteringtips/listeningeval.html

Would definitely like to hear everyone's opinion on this as far as refinement.

I think that a good next step might be to have someone submit a mix for evaluation?

I checked out the evaluation matrix and I agree that it represents a fair summation of the points that contributors have been making here.

In my formative years of recording, I folllowed this guy around like a puppy dog, in awe of his four-track reel-to-reel TEAC, which he mixed down onto a Revox HS77 (this was the early seventies!). One day he said "Check this out, Mike", and put a record (vinyl) on. It was Perry Como! I said, "I don't like Perry Como!". He said, "No . . . just listen" (with a few other words that decribed me as an ignorant, cloth-eared, bigoted ratbag). So I did . . . and it was an important listen, because I, at last, heard what he was hearing: the technical brilliance and production artistry of that recording. Other LPs he forced me to listen to included "Court and Spark" (Joni Mitchel), "Angel Clare" (Art Garfunkel), and ABBA. Quite different, all of them, but all having elements of mixing greatness.

I grew up with sixtes music, and I love it all. But, to my ears, some of those recordings were really not very good. These days I don't enjoy listening to it much because of that. Curiously, I never tire of listening to the Beatles, and I believe those mixes to be outstanding in comparison with mainstream recording at the time, and stand up well today.

I guess it's easy to dismiss mixes of artists you don't like, and to gloss over recording blemishes of those you do.

I'm willing to be a guinea pig for your evaluation sheet. In fact, it would be useful and interesting for a number of people to evaluate the one song, and then to see how far apart opinion is spread.

Here is a link to a thread which points to one of the song-writing challenges in the Songwriting Forum here:
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=262092

The track is called "House".

 

[gecko zzed]

All good points Glen (as usual).

It's kind of related to bias, but one of the first skills one needs to develop for critical listening is dicrimination. Being able to listen to a piece of music and hear all of the individual parts. Of course you can't do this if you are unknowingly filtering out parts of the music, and oddly you can't focus on a part unless you do filter out parts of it.

I've noticed two characteristics of people who come in to record:

1 They hear things that don't matter, and
2 They don't hear things that do matter.

This sounds paradoxical . . . but so many times I've had some one fiddle with, say, a bit of guitar for ages, when it is really of no consequence, and they don't hear that the whole vocal line is pushing ahead of the beat (or out of tune) or something.

I'm not having a particular go at performers, because I think the same thing happens when mixing. We can spend hours fiddling with a bit of EQ, or a particular effect . . . something that no-one will notice, yet miss the bigger picture of how the overall mix is sounding. This happens, in part, because we want it to be right, our brains declare it to be right, bypassing our ears altogether. (This often happens at the end of a long session!).

 

[masteringhouse]

I think many of us have had this experience. Clients spending hours editing tracks in PT while a vocal is out of tune and goes unnoticed, etc.

Also thanks for the offer on the track. Is there a version that we can download at 44.1k/16 bit?

 

[Steve Henningsgard]

On a very related note, is anybody else having a hard time NOT critically/analytically listening to music? Especially that which you have tracked/mixed/written yourself?

 

[gecko zzed]

I think many of us have had this experience. Clients spending hours editing tracks in PT while a vocal is out of tune and goes unnoticed, etc.

Also thanks for the offer on the track. Is there a version that we can download at 44.1k/16 bit?

I'm not sure that I've mastered that level of technology . . .I've only just learnt how to upload MP3s! I'm not sure how to go about uploading a proper WAV file, nor even where to put it!

 

[gecko zzed]

On a very related note, is anybody else having a hard time NOT critically/analytically listening to music? Especially that which you have tracked/mixed/written yourself?

I'm sure that people ARE critically and analytically listening to music . . . specially their own . . . but . . . I am not necessarily convinced that:
a) they are listening to the right things; or that
b) they know what to listen for.

I like to think that I am a critical and analytical listener . . . I certainly try my best . . . but I bet that in the hands of someone with greater experience and expertise they will find things in a mix that I haven't noticed, because I don't know how to notice them yet.

 

[Steve Henningsgard]

I'm sure that people ARE critically and analytically listening to music . . . specially their own . . . but . . . I am not necessarily convinced that:
a) they are listening to the right things; or that
b) they know what to listen for.

I like to think that I am a critical and analytical listener . . . I certainly try my best . . . but I bet that in the hands of someone with greater experience and expertise they will find things in a mix that I haven't noticed, because I don't know how to notice them yet.

Oh, for sure. I didn't mean to suggest that we're all masters of critical/analytical listening! What I meant was that I've found that, when one starts down the path of intentionally breaking up audio into its separate parts, I'm finding it hard to step back and listen as a whole!

 

[masteringhouse]

I'm not sure that I've mastered that level of technology . . .I've only just learnt how to upload MP3s! I'm not sure how to go about uploading a proper WAV file, nor even where to put it!

I can help you on that end, I just want to be sure that a version is available at 44/16?

 

[masteringhouse]

Oh, for sure. I didn't mean to suggest that we're all masters of critical/analytical listening! What I meant was that I've found that, when one starts down the path of intentionally breaking up audio into its separate parts, I'm finding it hard to step back and listen as a whole!

And as a mix engineer be able not only to listen to both separate parts and the whole, but groups of parts. For example, what does the snare sound like? What does the snare sound like when mixed with the other drums? What does the kick sound like when mixed with the bass? What does the song sound like when everything is mixed together.

For the mastering engineer the questions are how well is the song and its parts translating and how well does the song fit within the context of the album.