How much low end?

[dintymoore]

...
"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".
...

I think that's the truth.

I just set my subwoofer to rock the room, right below too much bass, using a reference CD I use, then try to match that when I mix.

 

[LeeRosario]

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.

for sure. I agree 120%.


@ Glen, all the technicalities are true. Definitely no disputing that. I mean, I don't think I intended to. I might of veered off the deep end a bit on what should of been a light opinion. Let me back up a little bit, I might of run over my own foot miswording things again.

I'm thinking in a little more artistic value and a little less technicality with my previous suggestion. I definitely don't wanna suggest that anyone was specifically mixing for a small niche trend by taking things out of the norm. Whether 50 years ago or today.

I don't think anyone intended to say "hey fred, make sure that mix sounds good in a 57 chevy, or you're fired" . I was acknowledging a trend that existed and the frustrations that had to have come up. I'll say the approaches where subtle, cause of course they would of had to be. Nothing to make needles jump out of grooves.

Eitherway, I wanted to express brighter mixes being more of an artistic ideal and to a very general extent, a technical issue. I mean I know the 50s where a very lab coat kind of time in the recording studio, but I don't think it's too wacky to rule out the competitive drive of making things sound exciting, or newer or different or what have you. Of course, all to the limits to the specs of the day

I mean this was stuff that I sat down with my professors and chewed on for days on end. Essentially the guys that could tell me yes from no. And I mean if it could be done, even in the slightest just to stand out a bit more, then it was always a "sure, very probable" from them. I think it was a lecture on the evolution of twangy type music and it's effect on the listener, what that meant to radio and how things progressed...

I guess I was trying to relate that history to the issue of how to judge low end in a mix in today's world. Some how bringing that back into "is too much low end a good or bad thing".


But for sure, I'm not debating anything you're saying, just trying to tie a little history with a little modern know how . Of course the correct answer is "you can never really mix for one medium if you intend to release it on every medium".

Unless some type of music industry hitler comes outta left field and demands that everything BUT IPods be annihilated from existence. Which in that case, I'll find another job.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Hey there Lee,

I didn't intend my post to be the first volley in a point/counterpoint debate. And I'm not disagreeing here, just continuing the conversation and exploring the details is all.

What I will say is that I'd like to see the uniforms of yore come back. Not necessarily the lab coats in the recording studio, that's a bit silly, perhaps. But the good old-fashioned white nurses uniforms. This crap of nurses wearing baggy, pastel-flowered pajamas has GOT to go. Talk about your health care reform! We need the cute little hats and the tight skirts over white silk hose and the patent leather bed restraints and...

...ummm....my mind drifted away somehow, What were we talking about again????

G.

 

[LeeRosario]

...ummm....my mind drifted away somehow, What were we talking about again????

G.

truth is after "nurse uniforms", I've mentally regressed 10 years. Now I'm trying to figure out what phantom power does on this behringer 4 channel mixer.

 

[Beck]

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...

I still mix for the person with a decent sound system, whether that person actually exists or not. For me that means referencing to a good studio monitoring system, including a properly treated room.

IMO, the end user should expect to take a sonic hit with a portable player, and there’s only so much you can do. Otherwise I worry we get to the place that even artists are second-guessing their creative decisions based on a popular portable end medium, which may not be tomorrow’s end medium.

I think the practice of referencing to little plastic thingies would be a bit shortsighted.

As for getting the best quality out of the reproduction system, the listener always bears part of the responsibility for that. Some computer speakers aren’t really so bad and they can tweak the EQ in WMP or whatever they’re using. Low frequencies can’t really hurt anything on devices that can’t reproduce them. They can cause a sonic ruckus on full size systems that do reproduce them if they’re low enough at great enough amplitude.

As a rule I usually roll things off somewhere between 40 and 60 Hz, but I’ve always done that. Anything below that I don’t even want to know about.

Maybe Molenda is secretly trying silence those rumbling buzzing automobiles that sound like giant insects going down the street. In that case make it brick-walled for anything below 850 Hz and anything above 860 Hz. Then use a notch filter to pull back on what’s left by 20 dB… and yer done.