"Sound Enhancer"?
- Thread starter RecordingMaster
- Start date
Track Rat
Just Your Average Sized Member
And if while mixing, you experience an erection that lasts more than 4 hours, seek immediate medical attention.gtrman_66 said:I bet this thing works about as well as Enzyte. "This is Bob. Bob decided to go big time with a call to Enzyte, the all natural male enhancement pill"
Damn hucksters will try to sell anything these days.
Sound Enhancer
In my opinion there has only been one reasonable reply so far:
We understood the question. The answer remains the same. You can make good sounding recordings on the speakers you are using if you take the time to learn their strengths and weaknesses. This sound enhancer is just a box that adds a little (or a lot) of EQ to the signal. It probably adds some 3k and cuts some 400Hz to give everything more 'clarity'. It is the audio equivelent of an optical illusion. If you mix through an EQ curve like that you will most likely end up with dull, muddy mixes.
MY TWO CENTS:
I agree that you should consider instead monitoring on multiple systems... Use your Pioneer system (without a coloration device), use a set of headphones, and use another system (preferably as accurate as possible...). It doesn't matter if this is a crappy boombox, a computer speaker system, etc. If you cross reference on these, you will find the strengths and weaknesses on them all... Then you can apply this to making your mixes sound good on as many systems as possible...
Realize that you can only sound good on certain systems and cut your losses...Think of where the majority of people listen, if your mix is designed for a sweet system, then most people won't hear the subtle nuances of your mix... In fact they may distort and cloud on such a system making your mix suck to the majority of your listeners...
Back to your question... This box or plugin or whatever it is could be utilized for a certain purpose, so you may want to keep it (especially if resale value is low)... The main think you may want to consider is to keep it subtle... You would probably rarely use it and only for mastering purposes... Usually not to the whole mix... Just freq. ranges where there is a problem with the clarity... Good luck in finding the reasonable purpose that this piece could serve... You never know... Maybe you'll base your signature sound around it and we'll all be smirking when your getting rich and famous as a studio innovator...Good luck
In my opinion there has only been one reasonable reply so far:
We understood the question. The answer remains the same. You can make good sounding recordings on the speakers you are using if you take the time to learn their strengths and weaknesses. This sound enhancer is just a box that adds a little (or a lot) of EQ to the signal. It probably adds some 3k and cuts some 400Hz to give everything more 'clarity'. It is the audio equivelent of an optical illusion. If you mix through an EQ curve like that you will most likely end up with dull, muddy mixes.
MY TWO CENTS:
I agree that you should consider instead monitoring on multiple systems... Use your Pioneer system (without a coloration device), use a set of headphones, and use another system (preferably as accurate as possible...). It doesn't matter if this is a crappy boombox, a computer speaker system, etc. If you cross reference on these, you will find the strengths and weaknesses on them all... Then you can apply this to making your mixes sound good on as many systems as possible...
Realize that you can only sound good on certain systems and cut your losses...Think of where the majority of people listen, if your mix is designed for a sweet system, then most people won't hear the subtle nuances of your mix... In fact they may distort and cloud on such a system making your mix suck to the majority of your listeners...
Back to your question... This box or plugin or whatever it is could be utilized for a certain purpose, so you may want to keep it (especially if resale value is low)... The main think you may want to consider is to keep it subtle... You would probably rarely use it and only for mastering purposes... Usually not to the whole mix... Just freq. ranges where there is a problem with the clarity... Good luck in finding the reasonable purpose that this piece could serve... You never know... Maybe you'll base your signature sound around it and we'll all be smirking when your getting rich and famous as a studio innovator...Good luck
chessrock said:
So, I like your response (as it is what I really want to hear)
But, I have an idea..................What if I hook this thing up an the *beginning* of my sound chain? Will it *fix* the problems with my recordings instead of just *enhance* them?
Please give me your 2 cents worth. I wait patiently
RecordingMaster
A Sarcastic Statement
Blue Bear Sound said:
Well I guess it's official...one can't ask a question here without others attempting to make them feel stupid. How satisfying that must be.
By the way, "RecordingMaster" was just a feeble attempt at being sarcastic. Obviously that, I am not...hence the whole point of why these discussion boards exist.
RecordingMaster said:
I think Blue Bear was probably bashing the product and not you. It's not a stupid question to ask about stuff like this, because you honestly haven't experienced things like this yet. But it IS a stupid product and stupid marketing scheme. It bothers folk like us to see that the marketing behind these BS products appears to be working (since you're considering it) when really they should be kept out of everyone's hands. Frankly the company who makes it should be totally ashamed.
It's almost guaranteed that this thing isn't going to give you better mixes. If it does, it's luck and nothing more.
No magic box can make your speakers any more detailed than they're capable of being. It's that simple. You COULD do a little bit of compensating EQ to them to make them more tonally balanced (not necessarily the same thing as more detailed), but if you go down that road you need to do it RIGHT; ie with a tone generator and realtime analyzer in exactly the right places in your room with your speakers setup exactly right. And you need to have a really good EQ.
And even then, most recording engineers frown on EQing your speakers because it tends to cause other problems in the process.
The best advice thus far was just to take your mix around and play it back on whatever different speakers you have lying around. Compare it to other recordings that you like and see what you can do to get closer to that sound. You'll likely find that one particular set of speakers is good for checking the bass level, your car system is good for checking the mid balance, your Pioneers are good for checking the panning, etc etc etc...
I should also note that
a) I didn't read anywhere that this device even claims to "bring out tracks that have been lost in the mix" as you say. Not that any device could reasonably do that anyway.
b) If a track is lost in the mix, you've got a problem you need to fix, not hide with some box. You need to bring it out in the mix.
Farview
Well-known member
I think you are being a little sensitive. The world is full of people making these useless 'magic' boxes and other people trying to buy them to somehow get around just doing things the right way. After the first half a dozen posts telling you that this thing is junk, you made the assertion that we may have misunderstood the question. That was a sure sign that you weren't getting the message that this thing does nothing useful. After that, the posts started getting more forceful in an attempt to get the point across. We were trying to help, stop whining-start reading.RecordingMaster said:
lpdeluxe
The Precision Bass Guy
bleyrad got it right...
Strip away the impatience and the holier-than-thou of the responses, it's still true that no box will do anything you can't do for yourself, except maybe fool you into thinking you didn't waste your money. If everybody posting on this website devoted him- or her- self to making better recordings, and not worrying about whether they had the cable du jour, or whether the electrons were lined up properly with the planets, or a million other things that we all seem to obsess about, maybe we could simply, and honestly, make good music. Forget the voodoo.
Ask yourself this: how come Sir George Martin never talked about the incredible, transparent interconnects that added life and sparkle to the Beatles' recordings?
Hint: it wasn't because he was keeping them secret. No, he would have marketed them if they existed.
Strip away the impatience and the holier-than-thou of the responses, it's still true that no box will do anything you can't do for yourself, except maybe fool you into thinking you didn't waste your money. If everybody posting on this website devoted him- or her- self to making better recordings, and not worrying about whether they had the cable du jour, or whether the electrons were lined up properly with the planets, or a million other things that we all seem to obsess about, maybe we could simply, and honestly, make good music. Forget the voodoo.
Ask yourself this: how come Sir George Martin never talked about the incredible, transparent interconnects that added life and sparkle to the Beatles' recordings?
Hint: it wasn't because he was keeping them secret. No, he would have marketed them if they existed.
mattamatta
New member
Oh sweet, I need those interconnects!
lpdeluxe
The Precision Bass Guy
Oh sweet, I need those interconnects!
I have the last few pairs available. Send me a money order for $2KUS, and I will ship them forthwith. (Note that, for security purposes, the cables are labeled with Radio Shack logos. That's just to keep them secret...you and I know better!).
I have the last few pairs available. Send me a money order for $2KUS, and I will ship them forthwith. (Note that, for security purposes, the cables are labeled with Radio Shack logos. That's just to keep them secret...you and I know better!).
Blue Bear Sound
New member
Actually no - he didn't have to even think about it because the gear (and interconnects) he was using at the time were all top-notch. That's the nice thing about using great gear, you don't have to think twice about it, you just have to concentrate on capturing the artist (instead of gear workarounds!)lpdeluxe said:
Blue Bear Sound
New member
I wasn't trying to insult you personally, but I posted what I said because you clearly were not getting the point everyone was making.... no one misunderstood you at all, but certainly you misunderstood everyone else concerning their points about "sonic enhancers!" In case you still didn't get the message - those units shouldn't be used in place of recording technique, or as a misguided attempt to compensate for a poor listening environment....RecordingMaster said: