Monitor Mistake

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mattkw80

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Hey Everybody,


I am still a newbie when it comes to mixing, but I thought I would share my findings on a mistake I made.

Here are the different setups I do my critical listening through :


1. Edirol (Roland) MD-10D Digital Reference Monitors
2. B&W LM Speakers ($800 a piece, connected to a $2500 stereo receiver)
3. In my car (factory speakers)
4. On my television (with the CD playing out of my DVD player)
5. On a cheap boom box (Panasonic $40)
6. Through Cheap computer speakers

and

7. Through my uncle's B&W system ($5000 per speaker)

Anyway, my reference monitor's are obviously my best bet, and have served me well.

Here's where my mistake happened :

A friend and I were mixing his songs, and after an hour, had a mix on a song that we thought sounded great. After EQ, Compression, changing track volumes etc. We really thought we had done a nice job.

So... we burned a disk and took it out to the car, and to the televsion, and to the boom box, etc. We were shocked to find out that our mix sound HORRIBLE. Simply awful. EQ was wrong, volumes were wrong, it sounded as though we didn't mix it at all.

I later discovered, that the entire time, I had turned my reference monitors off, and was indeed mixing through the Stereo System / B&W Lm's.

I guess the B&W's must do so much "magic" to the sound signal that our mix sounded really good there, but HORRIBLE on everything else.


Anybody else have a story where they mixed through something other than reference monitors, and it didn't turn out well ?
 
I have those Edirols in the studios for client playback during tracking.... they are ok for that task, butu I can't imagine mixing on them!

Anyways - clearly you have to spend more time learning your monitoring system and how to translate mixes on them. Poor monitors like those Edirols will make the job much more difficult, but it can be done... listen to a lot of commercial music of different styles to learn what the monitors sound like with finished mixes, then use those as references for your own mixes...
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
I have those Edirols in the studios for client playback during tracking.... they are ok for that task, butu I can't imagine mixing on them!

Anyways - clearly you have to spend more time learning your monitoring system and how to translate mixes on them. Poor monitors like those Edirols will make the job much more difficult, but it can be done... listen to a lot of commercial music of different styles to learn what the monitors sound like with finished mixes, then use those as references for your own mixes...
Click to expand...


Nyar ! (Hangs head in shame)

...it's all I can afford right now. :>
 
It's alright. The NS 10's were a pretty nasty-sounding speaker (from what I've read) but they became an industry standard, because people got used to mixing on them.

Listen to music you know on your monitors, until you really understand what they sound like, and you'll be OK, until the royalty checks roll in, and you can spend a few mortgage paymnets on a pair of speakers. I keed.
 
But Matt, weren't you saying that your mistake was that you mixed on the home stereo speakers?

I'm also familiar with those Edirol's, and I think it would be hard to mix on them. they are great for some things though like video edit suites, client playback as Blue Bear mentioned. Even home listening as book shelf speakers. I bought a pair of Roland monitors which we use as our home stereo speakers. They sound really great for that!
 
i'm of the school of thought that you can mix on practically anything. I've got very very decent mixes out of my edirol ma-10a monitors; you just have to "know them" well, like any other set of speakers. this IS home-recording after all, we can't go around suggesting that everyone get top of the line gear; it's just not going to happen.

might i even suggest the opposite, that having less than pro gear may result in *better* mixes; since the one mixing has to be incredibly careful, compare the mix on other systems, and compare the mix to definitive mixes on the same system. It's all to easy for someone like blue bear to say "I can't imagine mixing on them!"... it's like somebody driving a car with automatic transmission speaking about standard transmission automobiles: "oh, i'd keep it in the driveway, but I can't imagine actually driving a standard!"... they're just tools; a dull saw works just as good as a sharpened saw provided you have the extra time a dull saw needs to complete the task. edirol monitors are definitely up to the task, they're infinitely more suited to mixing than regular PC speakers and I have no qualms whatsoever recommending them to recording hobbyists.
 
I get by on the Edirols, but one of my next upgrades is to go to the Roland DS-90's, or a set of Yorkville's.

I just was shocked as to how the B&W Lm's seemed to have over compensate and undercompensate volumnes and frequencies.

When that particular mixed was taken to other steros, the mixed no longer made sense.

For now, I set my Edirol's at listening level, or just below, and careful go to it. I then burn a Cd, and listen to it in all those places listed above.

Then I usually sit on it for a week, jot some rought notes, and fix anything that needs to be. (My VS2000 console allows you to save your mix in a "scene" which is helpful).

We all go to such lengths to make sure it sounds good, and then somebody is probably going to turn around, rip it in to an MP3 format, and listen to it on a pair of $10 headphones anyway !
 
mattkw80 said:
Hey Everybody,
A friend and I were mixing his songs, and after an hour, had a mix on a song that we thought sounded great. After EQ, Compression, changing track volumes etc. We really thought we had done a nice job.

So... we burned a disk and took it out to the car, and to the televsion, and to the boom box, etc. We were shocked to find out that our mix sound HORRIBLE. Simply awful. EQ was wrong, volumes were wrong, it sounded as though we didn't mix it at all.

I later discovered, that the entire time, I had turned my reference monitors off, and was indeed mixing through the Stereo System / B&W Lm's.

I guess the B&W's must do so much "magic" to the sound signal that our mix sounded really good there, but HORRIBLE on everything else.


Anybody else have a story where they mixed through something other than reference monitors, and it didn't turn out well ?
Click to expand...

Are you mixing in a "treated" room?

I have done nothing but battle myself doing mixes in that it takes me more work than what I should be doing to get things sounding good. I'm always burning CD's and playing my mixes on different systems. After enough time I have graduated to the next level of realizing that my room I'm recording in sucks! I need to work on the room and get it tuned to the point where my mixes will translate better.

I'm not buying anymore gear at this point and I'm going to focus on room acoustics. I would have saved myself a lot of time had I done this in the first place but like so many other people that get into HR you get gear lust and want to buy nice expensive things like preamps and never really focus on the room.

Treat the room.
 
therage! said:
Are you mixing in a "treated" room?

I have done nothing but battle myself doing mixes in that it takes me more work than what I should be doing to get things sounding good. I'm always burning CD's and playing my mixes on different systems. After enough time I have graduated to the next level of realizing that my room I'm recording in sucks! I need to work on the room and get it tuned to the point where my mixes will translate better.

I'm not buying anymore gear at this point and I'm going to focus on room acoustics. I would have saved myself a lot of time had I done this in the first place but like so many other people that get into HR you get gear lust and want to buy nice expensive things like preamps and never really focus on the room.

Treat the room.
Click to expand...


I have been told that you can buy those white "drop ceiling" tiles from Home Depot for really cheap, and that they will suffice in treating the room. (Put them on the wall for acoustic tiles).

Treating the room seems like a vast and almost impossible project if you don't know somebody who can show you what needs to be done, at your house, in your exact recording space.
 
mattkw80 said:
I have been told that you can buy those white "drop ceiling" tiles from Home Depot for really cheap, and that they will suffice in treating the room. (Put them on the wall for acoustic tiles).

Treating the room seems like a vast and almost impossible project if you don't know somebody who can show you what needs to be done, at your house, in your exact recording space.
Click to expand...

Those might help some but....

You are going to need Bass traps. Treating the room may very well be the most important link to having success in recording. When I started out I paid no attention to it and heard many around here talking about it's importance. They are absolutely right, but at that time my ears were not ready. Now they are and I'm hearing just how bad a untreated room has on tracking and mixing.

Here's a good link..

http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html
 
mattkw80 said:
I just was shocked as to how the B&W Lm's seemed to have over compensate and undercompensate volumnes and frequencies.
Click to expand...
Then let me ask like this; Do you believe that for the most part, you might have been making mix decission that were 'compensating' if you will, for the wrong speaker? (I guess this kind of depends on whether you feel you know one or both of them well enough.)
It also makes me wonder if for some of the 'level problems the B&W's might have been power-compressing?
Thanks.
Wayne
 
mixsit said:
Then let me ask like this; Do you believe that for the most part, you might have been making mix decission that were 'compensating' if you will, for the wrong speaker?
It also makes me wonder if for some of the 'level problems the B&W's might have been power-compressing?
Thanks.
Wayne
Click to expand...

Not sure.

Don't think I'm supposed to be mixing on them.
 
I hear you man.

I had a little pair of Audix 4" two-ways I was borrowing for a while. I got really used to them and could kick out a decent mix. Then I had to give them back, and I've been using a pair of Athena bookshelf speakers for mixing. They've got way too much high end and are lacking definition in the mids, so all of my mixes have lots of translation problems.

I believe it's important to have monitors that are flat or unflattering. If you can make your mix sound good on those speakers, the mix will sound good on any speaker. And hi-fi speakers that sweeten the lows and highs will probably flatter the mix even more. If you mix on hi-fi's, you might have a good mix on hi-fi speakers, but when you move the mix to any other system, it can be pretty nasty.

My old band mixed on some hi-fi's (15" 2-ways, then 8" 3-ways), and the mixes always had problems with dynamics and frequency balance. The first album had way too much bass while the second was really dull.

Luckily, I've got all the tracks for our second album, so I'll practice mixing on my BX8's when I get them.
 
Reminds me of a tannoy 12 dtm story long ago...i bought a pair for the studio and wow...they are true main monitors...so i decided...well..lets try them in my livingroom too...

oh man...big mistake..awfull!

Studio monitors are for mixing in a controlled situation, hifi is for at home!

But watching/listening a music-dvd in the studio is a real treat. You hear things you have never heard before.....awesome!
 
ow, and very important...when in doubt..always ask a neutral person.

Most of the engineers i know run away when they hear a mix of them played back on the air. Me too...you are used to hearing that mix over and over in the studio and that's a big difference once it's mastered and even more when it goes to the broadcast compressors.

Almost on a daily base a can hear my mix (tv) back with a delay of +/-2 sec on commercial tv...and boy i tell you...what you put in is not what comes out
 
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