How much low end?

[miroslav]

I recently read some comments in a magazine about the need to use less low end in your mixes than in the past, since most people listen on smaller systems (iPods, computers, etc) rather than on some huge dance hall system with monster subs....
....but I'm not sure if it's really necessary to actually cut back on low end during the mix/master process more than what already sounds right to you on your studio monitors, in order to "prep" your mix for these small playback systems.
I mean...wouldn't those smaller systems by their design roll off whatever they can't handle anyway AFA low end?

I guess it's kinda the same (IMO) erroneous mix mentality where you do your mix on accurate monitors in your studio...and then you go and second guess yourself and adjust your mix to make it sound right for a car stereo system!
I'm thinking you can't worry about all the different playback system that are out there, so mix for your monitors, assuming they and your room are pretty accurate or you've learned how to mix in that environment...
...and then let the low end fall where it may (or where it can) on those smaller playback systems.

Thoughts....?

PS
I like a beefy low end...that 70's THUMP...though I don't get into that real heavy sub-low end like you might hear in hip-hop/rap music.

 

[Bristol Posse]

I recently read some comments in a magazine about the need to use less low end in your mixes than in the past, since most people listen on smaller systems (iPods, computers, etc) rather than on some huge dance hall system with monster subs....
....but I'm not sure if it's really necessary to actually cut back on low end during the mix/master process more than what already sounds right to you on your studio monitors, in order to "prep" your mix for these small playback systems.
I mean...wouldn't those smaller systems by their design roll off whatever they can't handle anyway AFA low end?

I guess it's kinda the same (IMO) erroneous mix mentality where you do your mix on accurate monitors in your studio...and then you go and second guess yourself and adjust your mix to make it sound right for a car stereo system!
I'm thinking you can't worry about all the different playback system that are out there, so mix for your monitors, assuming they and your room are pretty accurate or you've learned how to mix in that environment...
...and then let the low end fall where it may (or where it can) on those smaller playback systems.

Thoughts....?

PS
I like a beefy low end...that 70's THUMP...though I don't get into that real heavy sub-low end like you might hear in hip-hop/rap music.

mix for what sounds good on your monitors, Check on 2-3 alternate systems to ensure compatability and call it a day. A good wel balanced mix is going to stand the best chance of standing up tp any playback environment
UNLESS... you are specifically mixing for venues where you are very aware of their systems and you are sure the track will never be played anywhere else

 

[LeeRosario]

there is the practice of mastering for "intended" media. But that usually involves a level of professional control. Like mixing specifically for radio, or film. Stuff like that.

When the average listener is in control of the final medium (CDs, mp3s, etc), obviously I feel it's best to do what is right for you emotionally. That is when you're the producer of the work.



Technically speaking, there are advantages and historical truths to the idea of rolling off low end that apply to now:

1) Low end energy inherently takes up alot of the dynamic range potential in a mix. For example, it is possible to squeeze out a few extra db with less low end content. In fact, this test is not far fetched and actually pretty common. By simply adding to the upper end octave (around 2khz or the "critical range") you can give the illusion of raising the entire mix a few db with a simple presence boost. To me, it's like shading in painting. It's like when a bass heavy track shows up on the radio, it's a completely different emotion than brighter tracks.

So it turns into a technical and emotional thing at the same time. "How do I feel vs. what it's doing to my stereo".

I mean listen to the new Dave Mathews album "Big Whiskey and the Gru Grux King", very bright in my opinion compared to some of their older stuff. It almost sounds inherently louder.

Smashing Pumpkings is another example of very brittle and piercing type mixing. So it can be used to create a certain effect.

So as a producer, I would never throw out the idea of mixing an album very bright if the music demands it.

2) Historically speaking, music was occasionally mixed bright to create a mood of excitement and grab the listener right away. Like if you think about the 50's surf rock era (which I was never a part of), you had that whole Beach Boys thing...

you also had that convertible "family outing at the beach" craze. So engineer's had to figure ways to get things to cut through the less advanced car-stereo technology of the time on top of keeping it audible in a convertible with the wind blazing past your head.

So that's another practice scenario on mixing bright for types of playback mediums.

3) Low end is probably the hardest thing of all to control in the mix, period. It's where the beef of the rhythm section resides. Too much ruins it. Too little ruins it. It's a pain in the ass really.

Some engineers say to put in more low end than you anticipate because the mastering engineer can always shape that with better multiband compression or whatever. Others say to leave it light to make space for other things. Truth is, low end or not, I think if an engineer maintains the history of the genre with a good sense of balance, then you're ok.




Actual fun fact: that whole "nasal singing" thing of the 1920s was actually developed to cut through the narrow bandwidth of the really lacking record players of the day. As soon as sound systems developed with better low end, you start hearing singers progress to deeper voice singing.

Not too many people realize this.

 

[Ronan]

I mean listen to the new Dave Mathews album "Big Whiskey and the Gru Grux King", very bright in my opinion compared to some of their older stuff. It almost sounds inherently louder..

Wow! DMB have made some bright records in the past. Under the table and dreaming sound really cool but crazy bright. Curious to hear the new one.

 

[LeeRosario]

Wow! DMB have made some bright records in the past. Under the table and dreaming sound really cool but crazy bright. Curious to hear the new one.

I mean it's a really good album though. I wanna say it almost feels a little grungier (almost more distorted) than the previous albums, which might give that "holy shit" bright feel to it. It has some grit to it.


Definitely worth a listen!

 

[darrin_h2000]

I recently read some comments in a magazine about the need to use less low end in your mixes than in the past, since most people listen on smaller systems (iPods, computers, etc) rather than on some huge dance hall system with monster subs....
....but I'm not sure if it's really necessary to actually cut back on low end during the mix/master process more than what already sounds right to you on your studio monitors, in order to "prep" your mix for these small playback systems.
I mean...wouldn't those smaller systems by their design roll off whatever they can't handle anyway AFA low end?

I guess it's kinda the same (IMO) erroneous mix mentality where you do your mix on accurate monitors in your studio...and then you go and second guess yourself and adjust your mix to make it sound right for a car stereo system!
I'm thinking you can't worry about all the different playback system that are out there, so mix for your monitors, assuming they and your room are pretty accurate or you've learned how to mix in that environment...
...and then let the low end fall where it may (or where it can) on those smaller playback systems.

Thoughts....?

PS
I like a beefy low end...that 70's THUMP...though I don't get into that real heavy sub-low end like you might hear in hip-hop/rap music.

Trust your studio monitors...they show you how to make your stuff sound good on all systems...if somebody wants more bass...that is what thier tone knob is for...chances are thier systems are for the most part allways running bass heavy...you dont want to sell them a mix that requires them to turn that down to keep it from being too boomy.

 

[Waltz Mastering]

IMHO, low end is the hardest thing to get right. As mentioned some of the DMB records are on the bright side but also have a very solid low end.

I think now a days the low end is being pushed a bit more than it has in the past because of the speaker and system designs being able to reproduce the low end in an extended manner.

The wavelength of a 30 hz frequency is very long (over 36 feet) compared to a 300 hz frequency (3.5 feet) so without the right monitor and listening environment it's a little harder to nail down.

Not enough low end and a track will sound thin and lack cajones. To much and you get into boomy and mud. I guess balance is the key.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I'm thinking you can't worry about all the different playback system that are out there, so mix for your monitors, assuming they and your room are pretty accurate or you've learned how to mix in that environment...
...and then let the low end fall where it may (or where it can) on those smaller playback systems.

That's pretty much it...with one caveat, perhaps: if you're targeting maximum exposure, you might not want to engineer a song that depends upon, or has a main hook within, an extended frequency band that some systems can't handle too well. For example, I wouldn't produce a song that actually depended upon an 808 drop to deliver it's main hook unless I was producing strictly for dance/trance clubs.

Imagine The Who's "My Generation" if you couldn't hear the bass leads. Remember, that song came out when most people were listening to it on AM transistor radio, and not a whole lotta base could be delivered. The solution; ensure that the first few overtones delivered well enough to get across on the crappy mass public radios of the day.

G.

 

[mixsit]

I find that as a project is getting dialed in and I'm shifting into final 'macro view is where I seem to do a shift and start paring it down from what I thought was cool earlier in the process. Maybe it’s just my 'reality check tuning phase' kicking in.

 

[miroslav]

I don't really bother to mix for specific playback systems.

I was mainly wondering about the notion of manually reducing low end content...VS...letting the playback devices attenuate the low end by their inherent designs.
I guess I don't see why you would actually pull back the low end if the playback system is going to roll it off anyway. That way...your mix will adjust on its own per system, and those that can handle the low end will "naturally" let it play through at its full level and range.

Though in the magazine article...it looked like the author was mainly pointing out that most people listen to music on small PB systems these days (iPods, computers, etc)...so I guess he WAS suggesting to mix for those systems VS a full-tilt Hi-Fi rig....
...but I still don't think that's a good idea, unless you get into offering alternate mixes per PB system!

 

[Waltz Mastering]

I guess he WAS suggesting to mix for those systems VS a full-tilt Hi-Fi rig....
...but I still don't think that's a good idea

I think your right.

Seems like the most popular playback systems these days are an Ipod w/headphones or external playback system usually with a small sub, car, home theater w/ full range or subs, and boom box.

It's quite a large moving target. I'd mix for the full range stuff.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I was mainly wondering about the notion of manually reducing low end content...VS...letting the playback devices attenuate the low end by their inherent designs.

I think the author is the one that you should be asking, miro; he's the one making the dubious proposition .

Is this article available on line?

Are you sure he's not referring to just making sure that key elements of the mix are not too low to be reproduced properly on these systems? It makes some sense to make sure that a bass solo on a rock song or the kick on a 4/4 dance song be audible, because without them those songs won't make much sense. So if you have to have them, ensuring that those *key elements* are strong in the overtones will help ensure their translatability on poorer-response systems is not a bad idea.

But when it comes to simple general fidelity, crippling the fidelity to match that of limited-fidelity systems doesn't make any more sense than making sure your Mona Lisa is color balanced to look best under a fluorescent shop light. However, a portrait where you can *only* see her smile under full outdoor summer sunlight doesn't make that much sense either.

G.

 

[NYMorningstar]

But when it comes to simple general fidelity, crippling the fidelity to match that of limited-fidelity systems doesn't make any more sense than making sure your Mona Lisa is color balanced to look best under a fluorescent shop light. However, a portrait where you can *only* see her smile under full outdoor summer sunlight doesn't make that much sense either.

G.

He didn't refer to it as crippling the fidelity but LeeRosario made some real good points in his post above on why you would want to roll off on bass and mix bright.

 

[miroslav]

I think the author is the one that you should be asking, miro; he's the one making the dubious proposition .

Is this article available on line?

This months EQ magazine...article by Michael Molenda...can't remember the title of the article at the moment....but it's there.
From the way I read it...he is saying to specifically roll off the low end during mixing to accomodate the newer/smaller PB systems, like iPods.

Their online stuff tends to be a month late....

 

[miroslav]

He didn't refer to it as crippling the fidelity but LeeRosario made some real good points in his post above on why you would want to roll off on bass and mix bright.

Well yeah…from tape/vinyl days…too much low end can be problematic....but actually mixing BRIGHT?
Naaaaa, I can't handle bright mixes...they are very grating, even painful on my ears.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those guys who go THUMP----THUMP-THUMP down the road, but I gotta have some decent low end in my music.
Most car stereos...the first thing I do is roll off the treble 2-3 clicks to kill that harshness.

 

[NYMorningstar]

Well yeah…from tape/vinyl days…too much low end can be problematic....but actually mixing BRIGHT?
Naaaaa, I can't handle bright mixes...they are very grating, even painful on my ears.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those guys who go THUMP----THUMP-THUMP down the road, but I gotta have some decent low end in my music.
Most car stereos...the first thing I do is roll off the treble 2-3 clicks to kill that harshness.

Well it's all about balance and the limits of your stereo.
I get why you might not like the high end (sirens, babies crying, nails on a blackboard etc.) but painful? Mixing bright doesn't mean to go to that extreme.

 

[miroslav]

Mixing bright doesn't mean to go to that extreme.

Well...it's all relative, isn't it.

I mean...for me, a good mix would be a well-balanced mix...
...so when someone specifies a *BRIGHT* mix...to me, that's probably brighter than what I like...which is a well-balanced mix.

 

[LeeRosario]

Well yeah…from tape/vinyl days…too much low end can be problematic....but actually mixing BRIGHT?
Naaaaa, I can't handle bright mixes...they are very grating, even painful on my ears.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those guys who go THUMP----THUMP-THUMP down the road, but I gotta have some decent low end in my music.
Most car stereos...the first thing I do is roll off the treble 2-3 clicks to kill that harshness.

for sure. I always take brightness with a grain of salt. I mean if it it's not being helped by SOMETHING (good analog tape smoothing, smooth mics, high-end A/D/A...etc) it just sounds really harsh.

I gotta say when it comes to cars, my Honda Civic 02 rice burner really sits kind of well on the factory speakers which I still have. Very worn out over the years. Kind of like my NS-10s. I figure if a mix sounds good with that system flattened out, then it translates well anywhere.

Of course to add to that old saying "you can mix on a boom box of you know it better than anything else".

I was reading up on an older album Foo Fighters did with Rob Cavallo (I think of him as the Robert Rodriguez of music producing) and apparently he rented some type of Honda SUV specifically for testing mixes with the band during mix sessions. I guess the stock sound system is something he is fond of.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I don't see mastering to accommodate the limits of the technology of the day as the same thing as mixing to accommodate a particular subset of the current listening public, and that (IMHO) it's erroneous to use one as a precedent for the other.

Let's remember that back in the early 20th century the mastering was done on-the-fly right behind the glass; it was actually part of the recording process. Combine that with the fact that the discs that were being pressed were the state of the art (and really the only choice) of commercial and consumer reproduction technology. Combine those two facts, and it makes sense to engineer the frequency response to get the best out of the medium.

Fast forward the Tivo of history a bit to the 50s, where mastering now becomes an off-line process (and takes on the added job description of having to master collections of songs into coherent albums.) Now the main concerns of mastering for the media have to to with applying equalization curves both so that the needle won't jump out of the groove and so that the whole song collection can actually fit on both sides of the vinyl. But this is worried about *in mastering* and the mixing engineer does not for the most part concern himself with it. This also opened up for the fledgling market of distribution of open-reel tape recording versions, which often (not always) bypassed all the RIAA equalization issues associated with creating the masters for vinyl. The market is now opening up and choices are becoming available to the end-user.

Today we have a re-birth of vinyl, CD, SACD, DVD-A, DVD, MP3 and streamed audio (which will improve as bandwidth and algorithms improve), with DSD coming fast down the pike. All played on anything from mePods (which, BTW, are used more and more with something other than earbuds or headphones, and some of those loudspeakers ar better-sounding then the Hi-Fi speakers of three times the size and price we used 30 years ago) to car stereos to 5.1 home entertainment systems.

Do we a) mix for the lowest common denominator, or b) put out the best intrinsic product we can and let the cookies crumble into the various systems as they may, or c) or do we MIX the best product that we can, and then decide if we want to put out multiple masters "custom" mastered for various formats.

"a)" makes no sense to me, becuase, frankly, it will wind up in an inferior-sounding mix on anything except those cheapo $5 earbuds. Who here wants that?

"c)" sounds kind of interesting, but IMHO is ultimately a waste of time except for vinyl mastering. We don't make masters that roll off the high end to accommodate MP3s; in fact we spend time arguing on forums like this that higher sample rates and ultrasonic frequencies are important, and then just push our stuff to MP3 anyway, rendering such arguments purely academic. And as far as rolling off bass to provide extra headroom, I never had a problem finding headroom because of bass that wasn't solved in the standard course of mixing,without even having to consider playback format. I have not yet made anything intended for vinyl, but if I do, I'll let the mastering engineer handle that, but I'm not going to cripple my MIX for that reason.

Which for me, leaves "b)" as the only answer that makes any sense in today's world.

G.

 

[gecko zzed]

Which for me, leaves "b)" as the only answer that makes any sense in today's world.

Which, in fact, seems to be the answer for most of the mixing/mastering questions on this board:

"How do I mix for PC speakers?"
"How do I mix for AM radio"
"How do I mix for MP3s"
"How do I mix for car stereos".

For all of these questions, my "go to" answer is: "you don't".

You mix for the best possible result on your monitoring system (and hope that it is reasonably accurate), and let this be the result, no matter on what other system it might be played on.