Smack me down and tell me I know nothing

[Qwerty]

Howdy,

I am getting the shits with this game. I feel like I am getting nowhere fast. Here's my story -

I record and mix in the box in a little room upstairs about 1130 cubic feet.

I am using Yamaha MSP-10 nearfields with the SW-10 sub-woofer. I have treated my room with traps and fibreglass rockwool insulation. I have applied a corrective EQ solution to give me one cubic foot sweetspot at my mixing position.

I have generated sine wave test tones from 20Hz-20KHz and used an RTA on C-weighting to give me flat response across this spectrum in 1/3 octave increments, 31 bands. I have pumped out pink noise and ensured that it was evenly distributed across the spectrum.

If I A/B these corrective EQ changes at my sweetspot with commercially released stuff with which I am familiar, I can certainly here a major difference in sound which has enabled me to "see" further into the mix - bigger, wider and deeper.

I have remixed my greatest hits collection, but it is the same old story. They sound fantastic on the PC, either as source or "mastered/finalised" stereo .WAV file but when I play it in anything else it sounds WWWWAAAAAAYYYYYY different.

Why?

Am I wrong in thinking that if I am mixing in a "flat" environment, then my mixes should be transferrable?

Or is it just time to re-tune my ears?

When I am making this mix, am I looking to make it sound "good" or make it sound "flat"? I am attempting to make it sound "good" while trying to make sure nothing pokes out of the mix to far. Should I just be going for flat?

Another way of asking this question is to imagine you are mixing the latest hit from RHCP. Like all their songs, Flea's bass lines are critical and need to be fairly upfront. Does the mix engineer create a mix which has the bass pumped, the bass a little to the front or just plain old normal and let Joe User crank the BASS controls on his stereo?

If you want an example, my most recent effort is posted in the mixing clinic -

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=103648

When I was mixing this song, the top-end sounded way too hot so I pulled it back down a little. When I play it on the car CD or stereo downstairs, it sounds like mud - if I put the treble back in at about +4, then it starts to sound more like what I hear on my PC. This I just don't get............

I post this here not looking for specific reviews of the song, but for more general feedback on approach and methodology.

Apologies for the vent.........Thanks for your time.

Q.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Well... you mentioned you're EQ'ing monitors - right there, that's not a great idea.... first off - putting EQ in the monitor chain is adding phase artifacts which can mess with your sound.

Second - a 31-band EQ is not really powerful enough to handle all the dips 'n valleys in response that can occur in a room.

Third, so you've "sorta" evened out the freq resp at that one specific spot... move even an inch off that spot and that EQ curve you spent so much time on is meaningless.

You're far better off simply learning how to work with your room and your monitors as is....

And your mix -- I listened to it and the issues I'm hearing are really in the mixing itself (possibly arising from the way it was tracked, but anyways) -- the mix elements are not really working together to form a cohesive sound -- it really sounds like all the tracks were simply thrown together... in most arrangements you try to provide spectral balance across the frequency range, from lows to mids to highs. You choose your tracks/instrumentation to acheive this. A well-conveived mix will give each track its sonic space, so that no one part overpowers another....

In your mix, there's no sense of space or depth, ie a soundstage to give the impression that a mini abnd is playing in front of your speakers.

So you've got two issues to look at --

1) rethink the EQing of your monitor chain

2) work on your mixing skills

A good mix comes from well-arranged and well-recorded tracks, and if you nail the mix, you'll find it translates easily across many systems. A bad arrangement will ensure a very rough time mixing, which also means it's going to be that much harder to get it to sound "correct".... even on one system!

Good luck!

 

[distortedrumble]

if your sub has a separate volume control...this could be your problem....your setting your mix to probably feel the bass at every point...by doing so you focus on the bass to the point where it interferes with the rest of your mix....I'm thinking you have crossovers for the msp10s and the subwoofer? if so..you might want to think about trying it out of the msp10s alone and see if that can better your sound a bit...i think a bit of ear retraining could be in order. i mix on my pc speakers and then test it running it through windows media player.....sounds weird i know but i know that when the bass kills my woofer or starts crackling the desktop speakers....theres way too much bass...if i ease up on i can get a mix that i dont think much of but i "run with it".....now when i put it in my car....thats when it comes alive and i can hear a lot of the mix.... so i'm saying pushing the envelope is good but but sometimes the best packages are shipped in a manila folder.

 

[ds21]

Same thing... RTA won't work

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=102865

 

[Qwerty]

Re: Same thing... RTA won't work

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=102865

OK - I understand that concept - I have used acoustic treatment of my room and bass traps to tame down my spikes. This has successful and reduces my spikes around +/- 20db.

The corrective EQ I am using changes a max of 6db at any point. I don't think I can hear phase artifacts, but am not 100% sure how to test this or what to listen for.

I know this only provides a limited sweetspot, but ripping walls off just wasn't an option and the room itself is too small to produce sub-bass properly.

Anyway, I back off to mixing school.............. Thanks for all your assistance!

Ciao,

Q.....

 

[kylen]

Querty, don't get too discouraged !

I poked it with a stick for a little while in the garage here - there's some good stuff locked in there.

I agree about the remix part and it seems a little mid-bass heavy and the vocals and some other stuff are a little over compressed.

Maybe you even want to import a good reference track into your mixing app and have it ready to compare, just a mouse click away.

Anyway I like playing around re-balancing mixes so I threw a mastering limiter (voxengo elephantHQ), a multiband comp/lim (PSP Vintage Warmer), and SIR on it for a quick evaluation.

I'm sure you know the drill but the thought was - push into a mastering limiter a couple of dB to bring up the loudness a touch, balance the bass/mid/hi EQ and dynamics a touch more, and finally throw you into a slightly more 'live' room (used a PCM91 impulse from noisevault). That sounded OK,brought out the drums and guitars a bit. I suspect with some serious EQ like CurveEQ (voxengo) or whatever parametric you have you could further balance the bass/lo-mid/hi-mid/hi to perfection.

I'm not suggesting you don't remix it later but you indicate you're stuck - maybe by hanging out in the 'mastering' space a bit and rebalancing your tune you might gain some insight about how to mix it better.

Here's to Rebalancing !
kylen
(cool song too !)

 

[Qwerty]

Querty, don't get too discouraged !

Maybe you even want to import a good reference track into your mixing app and have it ready to compare, just a mouse click away.

Thanks - I appreciate that and it helps. I think what you say about reference tracks is key, along with Bluebear's (paraphrased) advice to stop everything being set to 10 for the duration.

I have been listening to Pink Floyd's The Wall -- tell me now if this is also the wrong thing to do -- and I would be lying to say that the mix I did sounds anything like that CD.

So thanks for clearing the wax out. I think I actually get it.

It's about space, ebb and flow..... And that mix HAS THE VOLUME TURNED TO TEN FOR JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING.

I will create a remix along these lines, see what it sounds like and then we can battle about turning off my corrective EQ and nuking the only slightly "sweeter" spot in my room.... (Point taken BlueBear)

Q.

 

[dwillis45]

Ear Wax!

At the risk of looking like a complete idiot, the ear wax thing is no joke. About six months ago, I was mixing some material and I began to notice different sound levels between my left and right monitors. I checked my setup to make sure everything was correct and realized it was actually my left ear. I swim frequently so I assumed it was water. The problem got worse over the course of several days so I went to see my physician. He determined that I had a large deposit of wax and suggested a lavage (Is that French for "wash"?). He cleaned the ear using a large pump device filled with saline which forced the wax deposit out of the ear. The process was very loud but essentially painless. I was shocked at the hearing improvement, particularly at the high-mid end of the eq spectrum. In fact, this simply inexpensive process (about $75-100 including the office visit) was more noticable than any of the upgrades I've made in my studio. This includes new monitors, new preamps, etc.

 

[theshaggyfreak]

Re: Ear Wax!

At the risk of looking like a complete idiot, the ear wax thing is no joke. About six months ago, I was mixing some material and I began to notice different sound levels between my left and right monitors. I checked my setup to make sure everything was correct and realized it was actually my left ear. I swim frequently so I assumed it was water. The problem got worse over the course of several days so I went to see my physician. He determined that I had a large deposit of wax and suggested a lavage (Is that French for "wash"?). He cleaned the ear using a large pump device filled with saline which forced the wax deposit out of the ear. The process was very loud but essentially painless. I was shocked at the hearing improvement, particularly at the high-mid end of the eq spectrum. In fact, this simply inexpensive process (about $75-100 including the office visit) was more noticable than any of the upgrades I've made in my studio. This includes new monitors, new preamps, etc.

There are kits you can buy to do this process yourself. You can pick this sort of thing up at Eckerds or any major drug store. It's kind of weird after you have it down and how everything is REALLY loud for a day or two.

 

[kylen]

Yep, if you're susceptible to that kind of thing like I am you have to do your ears regularly. Usually around February I have to watch out for that kind of ear congestion.

Cochlea - it's part of the signal chain !

kylen

 

[StevenLindsey]

This may seem a bit stupid but this has helped me a great deal with my mixing:

I've spent a lot of time listening to songs on the radio through a small Sony boombox holding it on either side with my hands right up in front of my face with my nose resting on the tuner display and then comparing it to some of my mixes. I've learned how the frequencies "feel" in my hands as well as how the different instruments are supposed to sound. I burn to a CDRW, play my junk back on the boombox, listen as I just described and I can pretty well tell how it's going to sound in my truck. If I've got the lower frequencies out of kilter, I can feel it in my hands and it will cause the dinky speakers to vibrate in a bad way and buzz em out in spots. I've improved my mixing a great deal through this method. Usually, if I've gotten my monitor mix ok and then checked it with the boombox thing, it usually sounds pretty good on my living room Pioneer system and in the truck.

Now, how dumb is that!

I don't do a lot of eq'ing and doctoring, mainly thanks to people like Blue Bear, Harvey and many others here harping on getting the sound right at the source. Since I've concentrated more and more on that, the mixing has become much easier. I think once you've become proficient at tracking, the mixing is mostly just a matter of panning everything, adding whatever effect you want there if any and putting it on CD.

 

[sweetnubs]

I haven't listened to your mix but I can tell you one thing, a mix that does not translate is a bad mix period. It needs to be checked on multiple home stereo systems, boom boxes, cars, heaphones, etc. If it does not work there is something wrong with the mix. you are going in the right direction with tuning your room to your monitors. I highly recomend not equing your monitors but treating your room with absorption and diffusion. bass traps, which you have, will help with your tiny room. My general recomendation is diffusion on the back wall behind the mix position, absorption on the side walls and ceiling, and diffusion between the monitors. This is in the place where first reflections reach your mix postion as these will cause the most serious phase issues. You'll need to do a little vector tracing to find some of these spots. I'm sure you got equaliteral triangle going. I must ephasize each monitor needs to be the same distance from each ear. phasing. Make sure your monitors are behind the meter bridge (stands are preferable) otherwise you will get relflections off the console which can cause phasing issues. Also make sure you have properly matched your power amp to your monitor and your power amp is running at about 60-70 percent of full power. If your monitors are rated at 200 watts don't hook them up to a 200 watt amp and crank it to ten. Get yourself a 250 or 300 watt amp and leave it at 60 or 70 percent. make sure your speaker cable is of the proper guage. I recomend 14# wire or thicker. Really small guage wire like #25 can actually catch on fire! I'm sure you got it right but please check once more to see positive is wired to positive and negative to negative on your monitors. If wired backwards you will get serious phase issues. I know it seems strange but I have worked in large, well known studios where the monitors were wired backwards. Remember monitors are often swapped and interns sometimes do the swapping! Blue bears advice and song arrangement is spot on. The use of eq is essential in carving out "space" for the frequency spectrums of each instrument. Kick and bass is a prime example. The use of panning will also help. Reverb helps with depth in your mix by putting some elements in the back (more reverb) or up front. (dry) I disagree with some purists and i find eq to be the most important tool at our disposal. (not for tracking, only for mixing!) You can make a really good mix only with eq and panning and well rehearsed fader moves. The rest is icing on the cake. It sounds to me like you have phase issues. I have only addressed some phase issues that can arise during the mixing phase (pardon the pun) If you have them during tracking that is a whole other can of worms. micing to close to a wall? reflections off the floor? Drum sets are a phasing nightmare. Try to mute or gate open channels to tighten and clean your mix up and eliminate some phasing issues with drumsets. Mute automation is awsome. Even lower end reverb boxes are a problem as they are not true stereo, i.e. one channel is slightly delayed from the other which results in phasing. Look for a "true stereo" box, they ain't cheap. If you are computer based watch the use of your plug-ins. Each plug in has a latency time measure in milliseconds. This delay can cause phase problems hence why sequencers have the ability to use track delay to compensate for this. A very common problem. What's wrong with me, I'm being nice today? Nubs is feeling maternal.

 

[Qwerty]

Thanks for all the excellent information, everyone.

I am currently doing the boa constrictor thing and just trying to digest it all -- guess I'll see what pops out of my arse shortly....

Something tells me it will still be a turd that I am polishing.

Q.