general mixing versus mastering questions

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Chris Jahn

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I personally like my mixes very hot, with kicking kick, huge toms, sharp guitars etc...

I often have a problem when i listen to my mixes on things other than my monitors (i use a mid range set of powered krk rockets so im using "real" monitors) the things i like to hear loud in the mix, are often to loud when i listen to them on cds' or in the car etc...

for instance, the toms are usually way to "boomy" the bass dominates the mix, the kick is a little to "hot" etc.... this all sounds fine when im listen to the "raw" mix straight from logic on my monitors, and is still pretty ok when i reference on lesser home speakers (still straight from the DAW).

I have tons of experince on the other end of recording, and always new that most issues with the mix were non existant once mastered. i.e. the engineer would always give us quick referance cds at the end of the night with the warning that "its not gonna sound right untill mastered" which was true, once mastered there was a world of difference (of course)

This brings me to my real question after that long winded nonsence. If im using good monitors and a good program and i like my mix the way it sounds straight off the boards (if you will) then how much can i count on that mix staying true to itself after i have it mastered. Ive yet to have anything ive done professionally mastered and im scared of the resualts. If im happy with the sound as is, will i be happy with it post mastering, and what are things you want to avoid or make sure of in a raw mix so that mastering goes well?

Sorry that was so long
 
Mastering isn't going to dramatically change the sound or balance of your mix.

It can enahance certain elements, help clean it up a tad, add a little punch / impact, and boost the average volume. And that's about all it CAN do. If you like the mix as-is, then you can always just tell the ME not to muck with it too much, and if he does, tell him to go back and re-do it if he wants to get paid.

(Edit: If you like the sound as-is, then is there a reason for you to have it mastered? Just curious.)

.
 
Chris Jahn said:
II have tons of experince on the other end of recording, and always new that most issues with the mix were non existant once mastered. i.e. the engineer would always give us quick referance cds at the end of the night with the warning that "its not gonna sound right untill mastered" which was true, once mastered there was a world of difference (of course)
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Uh uh.

The burden in the audio production process - when done right - is front-laoded. The performance is more important than the tracking, the tracking is more importantant then the mixing, the mixing is more important than the mastering. By "more important", I mean that if you get the first step wrong, you'll never fully correct it in the next step. One should never plan on fixing the tracking in the mix any more than is unavoidable, and one should never plan of fixing the mix in mastering any more than is absolutely necessary.

Mastering is supposed to be for polishing the mix, not repairing it.

Work you mixing as if there were not such thing as mastering. Get it right in the 2mix first. Then the polish that's added by proper mastering will *really* make it shine.

G.
 
Chris Jahn said:
I

This brings me to my real question after that long winded nonsence. If im using good monitors and a good program and i like my mix the way it sounds straight off the boards (if you will) then how much can i count on that mix staying true to itself after i have it mastered. Ive yet to have anything ive done professionally mastered and im scared of the resualts. If im happy with the sound as is, will i be happy with it post mastering, and what are things you want to avoid or make sure of in a raw mix so that mastering goes well?
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You could just opt for a master limiter to bring up the volume.
 
i agree, and apreciate what glen is saying, but i am aware that mastering wont "fix" a bad recording, i guess my questin is more related to what what im hearing at home.

Studio monitors (of course the quality can vary greatly) are for the most part UN-realistic. the quality of the the sound is better, the responce is flat, and if they are decent quality and your room is decent, you are in a what you hear is what you get situtation, correct? meaning most home speakers, car speakers etc... are not going to sound nearly as hot.

That said, im wondering if what im hearing in the mix will translate to the
"real" world after mastering. because prior to mastering, the mixes i burn to cd dot not.

Now i know that im losing massive information when i bounce to cd, but i worry that my referance is just off regardless. If i like my mixes straight from my DAW through my monitors, but i dont like my unmastered burned copies, WHICH ONE AM I TRUSTING as the true resault post mastering (with the over all compression and eqing that mastering will provide)
 
Alright I have no idea why people haven't mentioned this yet, but it sounds like you just don't know your monitors yet! What "knowing" your monitors means is that, when listening to them you know how your mix will translate to consumer speaker systems. A good example is the Yamaha NS10's. Those things sound like shit! They intentionally have a hyped midrange. What this does, though, is force you to drop the mids in your mix in order for it to sound even close to flat. Then, when you play your mix on consumer speakers, that dip in the mids will translate to a pretty decent sounding mix.

My point is different monitors do different things to the music. What you have to do is learn how to use what your monitors give you and to learn how your mix will translate to consumer speakers; to "know" your monitors. In your case, your monitors sound like they have a tight, possibly slightly lowered low end. If so, this would translate to a boomy hot low-end on consumer speakers. See where I'm getting?
 
They intentionally have a hyped midrange. What this does, though, is force you to drop the mids in your mix in order for it to sound even close to flat. Then, when you play your mix on consumer speakers, that dip in the mids will translate to a pretty decent sounding mix.
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Huh? If those monitors force you to drop the mids while mixing, your mix will translate to be lacking mids on consumer speakers. Sometimes the smiley EQ curve sounds good to people, but that doesn't make it right.

I agree though that the key is to learn how your room and monitor's mixes translate across to consumer systems.
 
thanks, thats a good place to start, and its more than likely true. So that brings me to the second part that i hope somone can answer. If for instance i do (this is just hypothetical) have monitors with a low, low end, and im mixing what is pleasing to me, from those speakers, but that translates (in this case, but it could be anything) to "boomy" in consumer speakers, how much can mastering take care of that "problem" without me having to mix based on assumtions about what my mix will sound like in the real world?
 
Chris Jahn said:
If for instance i do (this is just hypothetical) have monitors with a low, low end, and im mixing what is pleasing to me, from those speakers, but that translates (in this case, but it could be anything) to "boomy" in consumer speakers, how much can mastering take care of that "problem"
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Actually, assuming you go to a reputable mastering house ... that is precisely what you should expect to be addressed.

In your current monitoring environment, what is about 99% likely to be happening is that you are not hearing everything as you should. Your room accoustics and monitor position are likely skewing the sound; and your mixes are actually more boomy than you are hearing from your inaccurate / skewed reference point.

A reputable mastering engineer will be lending an objective ear from what will ideally be a very accurate point of reference (accurate monitors and accoustically flat listening environment). He / she will make adjustments to your mix based on what should translate accross a wide spectrum of playback systems.

.
 
chessrock said:
In your current monitoring environment, what is about 99% likely to be happening is that you are not hearing everything as you should. Your room accoustics and monitor position are likely skewing the sound; and your mixes are actually more boomy than you are hearing from your inaccurate / skewed reference point.
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Another good point! Acoustics play a huge roll in what you hear/don't hear. It is quite possible that your room has a severe dip in some important frequencies, which would result in less-than-stellar accuracy in the low-end of your mixes.

Do you have any friends who have access to a more suitable place to mix? Such as a "real" recording studio? The point is, the better you get it to sound before mastering, the better it will sound after mastering!
 
Same thing happened to me when my band got recorded. We got everything done and sounded KILLER on the monitors, took it to the car and BOOM muddy bass, and lacking mids...It really has to do with knowing how your monitors replicate sound, and adjusting accordingly. It'll take time, but it'll be worth it.
 
jrhager84 said:
It really has to do with knowing how your monitors replicate sound, and adjusting accordingly. It'll take time, but it'll be worth it.
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Exactly! There are two major points to cover with your monitoring chain - which includes the room acoutics as chess and steve pointed out.

The first is that your monitoring allows you to hear everything you need to hear. Some frequencies may be hotter than flat, some may be colder; there's no such thing in practical life as a perfectly flat monitoring experience. But as long as it's not leaving much out altogether or not wildly varying too much from reasonably flat, you can be OK.

The second is your ability to translate what your monitors are giving you to what's going to happen in the real world. When folks talk about "translation", they really should not be talking about how well their monitors "translate"; their monitors are speaking their own language and not translating anything. It's the engineer's ability to translate what their monitors are saying into what the outside world will sound like that counts.

Getting it to "sound killer" in the studio is only the goal if there is virtually no translation required between the studio and the outside. Getting it to sound the way it needs to in the studio so that it sounds killer on the outside is what really needs to be done. Therefore what you need to do is to learn that when it sounds like A in your studio, it'll sound like B on the outside, and that if you want to get it to sound like A on the outside, you hactually goota get it to sound like C in your studio.

G.
 
To complete what has already been said, you need to take your mixes, get them to sound as good as possible on your studio monitors, then take that mix and put it in as many other systems as you have access to and determine what the best compromises will be made to get your mix to sound great on all systems.

For example, you state that your mixes sound great on your monitors, but parts sound too "boomy" on other systems. This means that-assuming your alternate audio sources aren't themselves eq'd for more bass- the listening environment when mixing has a deficiency in bass. You've been compensating for that when mixing by cranking more bass in your toms. The solution, apart from acoustically tuning the room you are mixing in, is to remix with less bass.

You also should play professionally mastered cds through your monitors, and all other audio sources, and take note on how it sounds so that you can adjust your own mixes accordingly.

For me, mixing on my studio monitors is only the first in a series of different listening environments before I call a song done and move on.
 
One thing that I will add to the above. While you may like your mixes hot, it's best to perform that at the mastering stage for at least two reasons.

One is that you can't really determine how loud a song should sound until you have placed it next to all of the other songs on the CD. It's mainly guesswork at the mixing stage unless you are assembling the CD as you go.

Secondly, while it's easy ot make things loud, it's a bit more difficult to make things loud and clean. This usually takes a combination of staging compressors and limiters as well as possibly overdriving an A/D converter. During mixing your main focus should be on getting the individual tracks to blend well, not so much to realize the final product.
 
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