spectrum analyzer plug-ins: how are you guys using them?

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Hi_Flyer

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Sorry if this seems like a "newbie-ish" question, but I'm trying to develop mixing skills, namely using EQ to fit the instruments together in the mix. I understand it in theory, but its a little bit harder in practice.

Anyway, I've been experimenting with Voxengo Span, looking at the different sonic signatures of the different instruments and using that as a sort of guide when carving stuff out... I've also been trying to use to pin down ugly frequencies or tones that are jumping out of a specific instrument.

So is this more or less the kind of application these plug-ins were meant for? How do you guys use them?
 
remember....sound is aural, not visual. no one is going to watch your mix on a spectrum analyzer and say "The guitars are cutting into the vocals!! Look!!!!"

yes, analyzers are great for spotting specific frequencies, ie. a ringing sound or air conditioner hum or general noise...but beyond that i wouldn't rely on them heavily. if it has a phase meter or RMS/peak meters, watch those more than the frequency analyzer. Those are ones that aren't always easy to hear that can mess your mix up. besides, every mix is going to show a different analysis of the frequencies.

just my two cents though.
trust your ears, not your eyes.
 
SPAN has rms metering and ability to set slopes and stuff as well as averaging times. One thing I use it for besides watching the spectrum is you can see what kind of slope your lowpass and hipass filters have. Also I can see what my crossover slopes look like in a multiband compressor. You can hear that stuff for sure but when comparing different tools sometimes I like to see what the slopes look like - it can explain a few things about the differences between processors. Also if you null 2 cloned tracks (phase invert one) to hear specifically some nuance from a new plugin then the spectrum analyzer can show you stuff you might not obviously hear - say it's 2:30 in the morning and you don't want to crank the system up. I'm just a curious guy what can I say?

Also by watching a spectum you don't have to listen at all to balance things! :D haha just kidding - tweaking all the non-spectrum guys...

seriously though - either close your eyes or turn it off from time to time as watching can take priority over listening I believe. I think the brain makes it that way - in my house anyway!
 
I'll go ahead and agree with the others that you should mix with your ears, but I don't think spectrum analyzers are useless, especially for us home guys with untreated rooms. I get the mix sounding about how I want it, then check it with the analyzer to 'see' if there are any obvious problems with frequencies or stereo balance. It's just another tool in the toolbox.
 
scrubs said:
I'll go ahead and agree with the others that you should mix with your ears, but I don't think spectrum analyzers are useless, especially for us home guys with untreated rooms. I get the mix sounding about how I want it, then check it with the analyzer to 'see' if there are any obvious problems with frequencies or stereo balance. It's just another tool in the toolbox.
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Sometimes if I want a darker sound I put sunglasses on while watching the spectrum! :cool: :D
 
scrubs said:
I'll go ahead and agree with the others that you should mix with your ears, but I don't think spectrum analyzers are useless, especially for us home guys with untreated rooms. I get the mix sounding about how I want it, then check it with the analyzer to 'see' if there are any obvious problems with frequencies or stereo balance. It's just another tool in the toolbox.
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i understand what you're saying, but can you tell me what a good mix looks like? do you know exactly what to look for in your mix...that your speakers or room aren't telling you??? most people don't. and they end up compensating for something that makes it worse.
and every song is different. so comparing it to a commercial CD really doesn't do much either. In an AES proposal Bob Katz once wrote:
For instance, when mastering reggae music, which has a very heavy bass content, the VU meter may bounce several dB in response to the bass rhythm, but perceived loudness change is probably less than a dB.
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Now, he wasn't talking about spectrum analyzers but rather the need for a standard in metering/monitor/and level practices...but I can see it fits in here too in a way. Just because the spectrum analyzer is telling you that you have a ton of bass...the average engineer may look at it and think "shit, i need to turn the bass down, it's way higher than the rest of the frequencies." When in fact, the ear doesn't hear the lower frequencies as well as the higher ones and it may just be perfect for the song you're doing.
True, the analyzers aren't useless...but trying to decipher whether you have a good mix or not by looking at the peak or average levels for two channels is just a waste of time, and will probably make more people second guess their ears.
That's all ;) :)
 
Once apon a time, not very long ago, none of us knew what our music looked like. Before computers, we never really go a sense of what our stuff looked like. Sure, you could hook up an o'scope and watch it dance, but it was real time. There wasn't anything to look at and study.

This was the same period of time when everything was 'warmer' sounding, wasn't limited to death, and generally sounded nicer. Coincidence? I think not.

RTAs are for tuning rooms and entertaining stoners. You can find a bad frequency much easier by sweeping a parametric than by trying to decypher an RTA.
 
bennychico11 said:
True, the analyzers aren't useless...but trying to decipher whether you have a good mix or not by looking at the peak or average levels for two channels is just a waste of time, and will probably make more people second guess their ears.
That's all ;) :)
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Spectrum analyzers aren't useless that's true. I can see the bass, mids, highs signature of a commercial mix. I can see the bass guitar and kick balance, I can see the kick ooomph way down to the subbass, I can see the bass rolloff and HPF setting, I can see vocal sibilance, cymbol levels, hi-hat hits. I can see the vocal energy in the lo-mids. I think they can help - especially in the bass and aren't a waste of time at all. I can see stereo separation and overall slope of the material. In fact I was just watching the new Jason Mraz cd (Mr.A-Z) and noticed they closed the stereo seperation on the mids - I tried it and was impressed. So I picked up an idea - somedays I'm not particularly creative so I needed permission from Ted Jensen. :D

I agree too that visual input always comes in over aural input - at least for me, so I have to be careful when watching spectrums, watching controls, etc. All of that prejudices my brain - like, oh the bass has 6dB gain already - it can't be that then! Sometimes you just gotta shut your eyes and think. Like when the crazy audio app is displaying the waveform and it gets big - we're coming to a loud part now right - I can see it!

When looking at a commercial spectrum it has already been mastered so this kind of comparison isn't really fair unless you're setting a final or mastering balance. If you're in a mix you would have to slap a mastering limiter on the master buss and get the same rms/peak crest. My feeling is you'd have to be a very good mixer (or bad depending on your view of recent commercial masters) to have all the tracks come together at the summing buss to something that is pretty much mastered - in terms of cohesiveness and loudness. I suspect there might be a couple of folks here that can do it.
 
Farview said:
RTAs are for tuning rooms and entertaining stoners. You can find a bad frequency much easier by sweeping a parametric than by trying to decypher an RTA.
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True, You can use them as a crutch, but your "Golden Ears" will be years away.

If anything you should be using them the otherway around, use them to confirm what your hearing and adjusting, "hey look, my ears and listening are getting better, the RTA confirms it"
 
You don't need golden ears to hear a frequecy whistling as you sweep a parametric with a narrow Q and a big boost. As you sweep, you will hear certain frequecies that are overly annoying or sometimes they just whistle, those are the ones that need attention. It's really that simple.

On analog EQs, you really can't dail in exactly 2.26kHz even if you knew that was the right frequency. You still have to use your ears.
 
They're a tool, and there's nothing wrong with using whatever tools you have available to you. You mention Spectrum Analyzers and people instantly start shooting off the tired cliche's : You mix with your ears, not your eyes. Well, duh. :D
 
Actually when I go in to Guitar Center they make me go downstairs to the crutch section to shop! :D
 
chessrock said:
They're a tool, and there's nothing wrong with using whatever tools you have available to you. You mention Spectrum Analyzers and people instantly start shooting off the tired cliche's : You mix with your ears, not your eyes. Well, duh. :D
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I look at it more as a fundamental than a cliche, it may be obvious to you and I but you can't assume it for others.

As Farview says it's easy to find the a freq that sticks out by sweeping, it will also help with the training of the ears, there's all kinds of basics that are obvious to us but not for those starting out.
and
Hi_Flyer, don't be sorry about asking the question, yes there are all kinds of neat little plug-ins that will help you get a better mix, but it's easier with a good foundation, level-panning-EQ.
 
chessrock said:
They're a tool, and there's nothing wrong with using whatever tools you have available to you. You mention Spectrum Analyzers and people instantly start shooting off the tired cliche's : You mix with your ears, not your eyes. Well, duh. :D
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Apparently it isn't "duh" -- because people keep asking how mixes should look on an SA........... :rolleyes:
 
thanks for the tips... I'm still trying to get that narrow narrow Q parametric technique down. The problem is that when I do that, it seems like EVERY frequency is jumping way out, and of course it is, because you're boosting it way out!

How high should I be boosting that frequency?
 
Hi_Flyer said:
thanks for the tips... I'm still trying to get that narrow narrow Q parametric technique down. The problem is that when I do that, it seems like EVERY frequency is jumping way out, and of course it is, because you're boosting it way out!

How high should I be boosting that frequency?
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It's not just that the freqs are boosted, but one or two areas of the spectrum should often not only jump out a little "stronger" but - and this is the main thing - sound particularly annoying when boosted, even more so than the others. When you find the most annoying frequency, you know where to make a cut.

As far as how much to boost when doing the test, that varies by method. if you are leaving it at normal listening volume, somewhere around a 6dB boost should be plenty. Watch the volumes, though; a 6dB boost can not only cause clipping if you're not careful, but at higher volumes a 6dB boost at a resonant frequency can be ear-splitting.

Which is why I like to use a variant. I drop the monitor volume lower before running the test. This not only gives me more "monitor headroom" and (sometimes) the ability to push the boost as much as 10 or 12 dB, but tends to accentuate the annoying frequencies better; they'll seem to "jump out" more than the others easier at the lower volumes.

G.
 
I think he's having trouble with the Q or oct/db setting. Some of us guys in DAWs don't have analog EQs with that fantastic sound so when you set up a peaking band everything sounds like a resonance. What Q do you folks sweep at it seems like greater than 1/3 octave would make sense whatever Q that is...I don't sweep much personally so I'm not a good one to say...there's another way besides spectrums and sweeping to isolate areas of inbalance - that's what I use sometimes technique X, aptly named...
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Apparently it isn't "duh" -- because people keep asking how mixes should look on an SA........... :rolleyes:
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Won't an SA help to train one's' ear to frequencies? By that I mean the SA will show what frequency range you're hearing.

I've been interested in a spectrum analyzer myself but I'm not sure how long it would be useful to me.
 
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