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Post by duke on Jun 20, 2017 20:54:50 GMT -6
Topshelfmg's “Mastering Monitor Converter Options” thread, along with ericn's posts in that thread, have stirred up questions that have been lurking in the back of my mind for some time.
I can wrap my head around mixing in a project studio, given that fullrange extension is not required.
But my (quite likely flawed) understanding of tracking and mastering requirements is that both normally call for much greater low-frequency extension than mixing typically does. I got this impression from reading books rather than from any first-hand experience on my part, but ericn also mentions it in his replies to topshelfmg.
So my assumption is that tracking and mastering are more demanding as far as low-end extension, and therefore more challenging than mixing, in a small room. Is this correct?
Those of you who do tracking and/or mastering in your project studios, how do you approach monitoring for those jobs?
Thanks!
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jun 20, 2017 22:03:36 GMT -6
Topshelfmg's “Mastering Monitor Converter Options” thread, along with ericn's posts in that thread, have stirred up questions that have been lurking in the back of my mind for some time.
I can wrap my head around mixing in a project studio, given that fullrange extension is not required.
But my (quite likely flawed) understanding of tracking and mastering requirements is that both normally call for much greater low-frequency extension than mixing typically does. I got this impression from reading books rather than from any first-hand experience on my part, but ericn also mentions it in his replies to topshelfmg.
So my assumption is that tracking and mastering are more demanding as far as low-end extension, and therefore more challenging than mixing, in a small room. Is this correct?
Those of you who do tracking and/or mastering in your project studios, how do you approach monitoring for those jobs?
Thanks!
In the days of the real studio all had a full range system, even if you mixed on the NS10's you checked your mix on the big speakers. At some point in the project studio regression we put on blinders/ ear plugs and many convinced themselves that the desk top age meant we only needed what fit on the desk! As egos got bigger Studio Monitors got Smaller, yet it's all about that bass and that beat, it's just nobody is listening to what's going on down there! Most real mastering engineers will tell you story after story about projects where nobody knew what was going on below a certain frequency! It's funny to hear something done on 5in speakers in a " studio" playing through a pair of 18's thumpin somebodys Escalade! I can't count the projects I have saved where something the producer/ engineer couldn't hear ate up all their headroom! I laugh every time I see a desktop mastering setup, it seams a number of people got the idea in their collective heads that it would be easier and cheaper to be a mastering engineer and they were qualified because they could get more lowend out of their desktop set up than their freinds. I understand that the economy of what passes for a music industry these days means people work in the environments they have and these are acusticly compromised, but we need a full range check and that falls on the last stage so in my mind you must be able to QC full range if you call your self a mastering engineer! Being able to do this during tracking and mix just makes it easier!
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Post by duke on Jun 21, 2017 0:10:09 GMT -6
In the days of the real studio all had a full range system, even if you mixed on the NS10's you checked your mix on the big speakers. At some point in the project studio regression we put on blinders/ ear plugs and many convinced themselves that the desk top age meant we only needed what fit on the desk! As egos got bigger Studio Monitors got Smaller, yet it's all about that bass and that beat, it's just nobody is listening to what's going on down there! Most real mastering engineers will tell you story after story about projects where nobody knew what was going on below a certain frequency! It's funny to hear something done on 5in speakers in a " studio" playing through a pair of 18's thumpin somebodys Escalade! I can't count the projects I have saved where something the producer/ engineer couldn't hear ate up all their headroom! I laugh every time I see a desktop mastering setup, it seams a number of people got the idea in their collective heads that it would be easier and cheaper to be a mastering engineer and they were qualified because they could get more lowend out of their desktop set up than their freinds. I understand that the economy of what passes for a music industry these days means people work in the environments they have and these are acusticly compromised, but we need a full range check and that falls on the last stage so in my mind you must be able to QC full range if you call your self a mastering engineer! Being able to do this during tracking and mix just makes it easier! Thank you very much Eric for once again taking the time to educate me. I hadn't thought of the sapping effect undetected excess low frequency energy could have on headroom. Excess low frequency energy would hopefully be detected in the tracking stage, is that right?
The people with small rooms who are doing it right - what are they doing? Turning on the subwoofer and using that + mixing monitors? I see several manufacturers of mixing monitors offering matching dedicated subwoofer systems.
I presume you have found that, despite the limited room dimensions of project studios, it still make sense to use something fullrange like B&W 801s for mastering, assuming one can shoehorn them in? Seems to me the midrange voicing "goal posts" might be in a different location for mixing vs mastering monitors (NS10's come to mind, but perhaps that general approach to voicing is the exception these days?).
Speaking of the B&W 801s, what is your opinion of their lower treble region (2.5-5 kHz ballpark)? To my ears that region is a bit over-emphasized, but maybe that's good for a monitor?
Sorry to be tossing out so many questions. Please feel free to ignore some or all.
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Post by reddirt on Jun 21, 2017 3:22:33 GMT -6
Probably most of us are engineering and tracking in the same room so it's very difficult when the clock is ticking to record, listen, make changes, record, listen in finitum. You may say ,"what about listening through cans?" Yes, I do but the volume required to hear with discernment above the acoustic sound is often I find injurious to my aging ears. What I do is, hopefully I know my mics well enough that I can guess what's required and take a reasonable stab at placement and if it's not obviously sucking upon ist listen I'll run with it. It's not ideal and i would love 2 rooms but I have to trust my experience .
L F headroom suckers can normally be seen on meters or in woofer movement if you know what you're looking for (and you should be looking if working with small speakers) It certainly can be (a not insurmountable) conundrum though, for sure.
Cheers, Ross
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Post by c0rtland on Jun 21, 2017 8:52:23 GMT -6
A nice pair of headphones helps me check my low end. It's not perfect, but between that and listening in different areas of my room I can get a good representation of the low end. That's what I've been workin with.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 21, 2017 8:53:48 GMT -6
My Avantone Abbey monitors go down to 37Khz. I steeply roll off below that. I still occasionally miss on the low end. Typically when I'm far away from the monitors I can hear sub bass exciting the room. Even with speakers that extend quite low, my room sucks, so it's still tricky.
What about headphones, can they show you the bass properly?
I only use headphones to check the stereo soundstage.
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Post by notneeson on Jun 21, 2017 10:11:55 GMT -6
I work in a couple of commercial rooms and a project studio (albeit decent size, treated, with a sloped ceiling). Each room will tell me different stuff about the subs and requires calibrating expectations accordingly. The project studio is the toughest to nail. However, because I can recall stuff there at no additional cost to me or my clients, I have the luxury of popping back in to tweak the lows if I miss.
Personally, I don't find headphones very useful for bottom octave stuff.
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Post by swurveman on Jun 21, 2017 10:33:36 GMT -6
I find tracking loud electric guitars live more difficult and important than the low end in the grand scheme of things in my dual purpose room. I DI the bass and trigger samples from the other drum kit pieces. So, I don't have a lot of concern there. Trying to get the right electric guitar sound listening on headphones before the samples are mixed in is much more difficult. I am starting to have the guitar players wait till all the samples are in place before recording them and have their amps in another room where they can listen through my Adam A7x's while playing. My room's about 3,800 cubic feet. 22'x22'x8' here's the kind of stuff I do: www.dropbox.com/s/8cmi4wd31kosjqv/Better%20Together.wav?dl=0Here's a acoustic guitar tracked with a simple beat to help the player keep time: www.dropbox.com/s/wv19klr9lipi3ne/Driver%20March%2026.wav?dl=0
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Post by jazznoise on Jun 21, 2017 11:10:02 GMT -6
Acoustic problems are compounded when the same space is used for recording and mixing, which is true of many project studios. Mastering again in the same space compounds the issues - the acoustic requirements (as good as possible) are the same for mixing and mastering, but there's tradeoffs in a room used for mixing. There's space requirements, it may also be used to store some equipment, it may have class for looking into the control room or other things that help with workflow but may not prioritize acoustic quality.
The lines between tracking and mixing are very blurry to me, incidentally, and the desired quality of that room depends on the workflow. Personally, I need a good tracking room, and that room would have always have a good amount of low frequency reverb. This is because by the time the band is playing the song I've already done some mixing - I've been picking microphones and their placement to start getting the intended result, by the time they've finished playing the song I've done a balance of each section of the take and some rudimentary EQ. I probably won't have any artificial reverb at this stage. So the singer's rough mix when he does his overdub is pretty close to the intended final idea, just with a few less frills. The amount of ambiance I can use, the tonal qualities of the instruments has already been decided by the time they pack up their gear. It just needs some spit and polish, and if needs be we can add some double tracking at my mixing/project room at home.
I know some people do this completely differently - instrument by instrument overdubs with DI's for guitar, multiple different takes of everything. I would think for them, the tracking room is much less critical, but how much so depends on their use of artificial reverb, microphone technique etc. etc.
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Post by Guitar on Jun 21, 2017 15:22:12 GMT -6
I have a big ass old pair of Technics SB-LX30 on the left side top of my small mix/production room. They have big 10" woofers that go down to 38 Hz. Since they are also sort of dull on the top end, they make a good reference to see if things are too bottomy, toward the end of a mix. I like speakers, so I have a lot of them set up, 5 pairs plus headphones.
I also keep an eye on my master limiter, and headroom, to make sure I'm not losing too much room to low frequency peaks. Also looking for big sub bumps on the Pro Q 2 analyzer. Or just high pass filtering a lot of things by ear that need it.
One line that stood out to me recently in the Jacquire King UAD video was, "If you're boosting a lot of 60, 100 Hz, you usually need to compensate by filtering out 30-40 Hz on those tracks." Something I never thought of but have quickly taken to heart.
The car check used to be the classic test, but I haven't needed to do that in a while.
Don't know if your room is treated, but that's a Rubicon moment that you can't turn back from -- it will change everything.
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Post by massivemastering on Jun 21, 2017 17:52:34 GMT -6
Assuming you're talking Nautilus / Diamond -- I used 802's -- same general top end as the 801 (I think both the mid & tweets were the same) and I believe the same thing applies in the Diamond series (common mid-tweet). That - uh - "forwardness" in that (2-6kHz-ish) region was a big reason why I ended up looking to replace them. 15' away in a home theater, that's great - Keeps the vocal a bit more defined, on top, etc. And it was fairly easy to work around (but it drove me batty). I'll save my feelings for the vast majority of near-field monitors. Not that there aren't some decent ones out there, but most of them, I'd like to throw into a tire fire.
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Post by donr on Jun 21, 2017 18:11:49 GMT -6
John, what near fields have you found workable?
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jun 21, 2017 19:54:46 GMT -6
There is something about the newer large B&W's that gives me a headache after awhile. My favorite B&W was the 808, the rock and roll 800. For lowend most seam to lean on headphones and the visual information of that meters and DAW provides. Subs, there are good bad and indifferent and most are packaged as singles. So many seam more of an afterthought of the marketing dept rather than a true intergrated bass system. Let's not even get into set up.
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Post by duke on Jun 22, 2017 0:35:29 GMT -6
Wow, thank you all so much for your in-depth replies! I learn things from you guys that I never would have thought of, and that are not in the books I have. Thank you all for taking the time.
I can't help but be amazed at how you guys find ways to work around a small room's limitations... trusting your experience, watching the cone motion, moving around the room to listen in different locations, using software, paying close attention to meters, using many different pairs of speakers (including headphones) that you know well...
I wondered about using the same space for recording and mixing, whether an inherent "room sound" would make it hard for you to tell what was on the recording vs what the room was contributing as you mixed or mastered. But it sounds like once you know what's happening in your room, you can take it into account.
I've had the good fortune to work with acoustician Jeff Hedback on a few projects, and in fact he's the one who told me to come here instead of going to that purple site. Ime his rooms sound very neutral and natural (no characteristic "room sound" that I could detect from listening to my own voice). And FUN... when I closed my eyes in rooms where he had done the acoustics, the rooms felt about twice as big as their actual dimensions. That really impressed me. So I'm trying to learn more about what you guys do to deal with small rooms so that, if I get the chance to do a speaker system for small rooms, I'll hopefully have a better idea of where the goal posts are. Whether it's a room treated by a professional acoustician or by a hard-core engineer on his own.
For instance, it sounds like in-room clarity down low is a big challenge, especially with content down into the bottom octave. That's not surprising, but it's good to hear it from you guys first-hand. I love a well-defined challenge.
And I'm also interested in John's opinion on nearfields, given that he likes Tyler Acoustics speakers in (what looks to me like) a mid-field-ish setup. I'm under the impression that good mixing monitors are an artful blend of characteristics that may not necessarily be the "best sounding", but which highlight what YOU need to hear to produce a mix that is itself a "best sounding", hopefully while still being non-fatiguing and enjoyable to work with. And obviously that task may be best accomplished by multiple different pairs of speakers, which throw their respective spotlights on different aspects. I'm still working on defining this challenge.
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Post by jazznoise on Jun 22, 2017 7:23:50 GMT -6
Trusting your speakers and your room down to 20Hz is a big ask. It's down to your ability to hear frequency bands, your auditory mapping (that sounds like a bass note ringing too loud, the sub-bass synth line has too much of its 2nd harmonics, the bass and the keys are beating on certain lower notes etc. etc.), the acoustics of the room, the speaker quality and the loudness you listen it.
Duke, would you consider trying to get the experience of a day's studio work for yourself? There's no better R&D than to actually see what your client does, or even try to do it and see where the difficulties lie. It's the same for us - being in a band informs how I approach recording artists.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 22, 2017 7:51:46 GMT -6
What do you guys do when one bass note rings too loud? Even when I automate volume, it's never right.
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Post by Guitar on Jun 22, 2017 10:30:46 GMT -6
What do you guys do when one bass note rings too loud? Even when I automate volume, it's never right. If you're talking about bass guitar, usually that's imperfect playing most often for me. No real way to fix it other than play it again until it sits right. If it's the same frequency on different varieties of material, could be a room mode. Room treatment would be advised, but small changes in seating and speaker positioning can make huge differences also. You can test this on YouTube by searching for "Frequency Sweep" videos. Just be careful with the volume of these. Or you can get really into it an plot waterfall graphs of your listening position measured with a relatively flat omni mic. There are some cheap measurement mics from Behringer for example. The software is free. Forget what it's called.
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Post by popmann on Jun 22, 2017 11:12:15 GMT -6
Guitarists will buy point to point wired tube amps, hand wound pickups with a special CABLE, or Luther built acoustics that ring true as a piano....and then they go to record a bass track and they buy some Squire or MexiP and wonder why there are issues. I am equally shitty on any bass. I promise you that the hotspots are the fault of the wood/construction/electronics/strings. Which part of that? No idea--don't care, because it's an easy fix. Buy a good bass. Put good (style&axe appropriate) strings on it. What problem? Now....if you're recording an amp, you can band aid the problem of the shitty bass....but, now you CAN introduce issues because of the room nodes making certain notes "bigger" at the microphone....but, if you DI--you want a good axe... no matter how good or shitty the player.
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Post by M57 on Jun 22, 2017 11:29:50 GMT -6
What do you guys do when one bass note rings too loud? Even when I automate volume, it's never right. Between Guitar and popmann you've probably got the range of explanations and solutions, but I agree - automation doesn't work in a lot of cases with bass. I have some pretty nice basses and go DI and still have the problem, so no doubt the culprit is my shitty playing - BUT I will say that I've found a little surgical notching out at the problem frequencies combined with automation has worked reasonably for me. From there, I've been known to slap on a soothe plug-in with a modicum of 'sharpness' and 'selectivity.' It also occurs to me that you could automate an EQ (or soothe) to kick in only when the problem occurs - It's probably a fair amount of work to set up, but in my case, a little OCD goes a long way.
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Post by duke on Jun 22, 2017 11:33:32 GMT -6
Trusting your speakers and your room down to 20Hz is a big ask. It's down to your ability to hear frequency bands, your auditory mapping (that sounds like a bass note ringing too loud, the sub-bass synth line has too much of its 2nd harmonics, the bass and the keys are beating on certain lower notes etc. etc.), the acoustics of the room, the speaker quality and the loudness you listen it. Duke, would you consider trying to get the experience of a day's studio work for yourself? There's no better R&D than to actually see what your client does, or even try to do it and see where the difficulties lie. It's the same for us - being in a band informs how I approach recording artists. YESSS!! A day of studio experience - what a fantastic idea! THANK YOU!! Wish I was in Nashville where a lot of this site's members are... but a quick Google search turned up a solid 2+ pages' worth of studio names here in the Dallas area.
Reports I've gotten from home audio users about the measured in-room frequency response smoothness of my little distributed multisub system have made me optimistic about the technique's potential benefits in a small studio. And given that speakers + room = a minimum phase system at low frequencies (in small rooms), this smoothing of frequency response is simultaneously reducing modal ringing. This makes the job of bass trapping easier, and in theory EQing should also become easier.
Trustworthy down to 20 Hz is indeed a big ask... usefully smooth in-room all the way down to 20 probably won't be feasible in smaller bedrooms, the devils always being in the details of course. But I think "worthwhile improvement" will probably turn out to be generally feasible.
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Post by duke on Jun 22, 2017 11:36:16 GMT -6
What do you guys do when one bass note rings too loud? Even when I automate volume, it's never right. Apologies for another newbie question... what does it mean to "automate volume"?
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 22, 2017 12:27:54 GMT -6
No worries Duke. I record using Logic X. There's an automation feature. It gives you a line across the track you want that represents volume. Basically, you can raise or lower the line (volume) as much or as little as you want at any place in the track, even for one small part of one note. The volume will then automatically change where you programmed it to. It's the same as riding a fader, but more accurate.
*Popmann makes a good point. I've got an OK Mexican P-bass that was nicely set up, but sometimes a note just blooms for no reason. It's not my playing (though I'm no bass player), it's the guitar. I'd love to have a really good one, but it's just not a priority for the few times I play bass on a track. Even then, I usually replace it with a real player. It does bug me though, so I'll look around for a deal on a better bass when I have some time for that.
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Post by duke on Jun 22, 2017 12:47:14 GMT -6
No worries Duke. I record using Logic X. There's an automation feature. It gives you a line across the track you want that represents volume. Basically, you can raise or lower the line (volume) as much or as little as you want at any place in the track, even for one small part of one note. The volume will then automatically change where you programmed it to. Thank you Martin. Wow, that's a powerful tool!
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 22, 2017 14:57:47 GMT -6
duke said, "Wow, that's a powerful tool! "
Yes it is. I use it a little somewhere on almost every song. You can clean up all the noise in a vocal track where there's no singing in less than 5 minutes. It helps with noisy guitar pickup hum in quiet parts too. Sometimes you want some noise, but not so much, and you can easily dial in the amount you like.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2017 23:55:47 GMT -6
It happened that i just worked the whole night on the mix of a super low budget recording of a death metal band that happens to be my next (live) band after 20 yrs. of not playing in a traditional band project... What a story......... I was involved on wednesday evening... They actually already recorded everything in Audacity in 44.1 kHz. With the cheapest Line6 guitar USB interface. Drums are midi drums for the recording, they realized there is no chance to get the drums in other ways at nearly no budget. They recorded everything in the rehearsal room. I was there, when they recorded vocals wednesday. With a wireless SM58 that already was the better option from a Samson cheapie LDC. There was a band 2 rooms away rehearsing while we recorded. I could not even hear, that one of the takes had a mobile phone noise and another one clipped the mic. They recorded in pieces part by part. The drum track (sum only, no midi track, someone else rendered the drums) i got was already clipped, audacity did not show this, Mixbus does. One of the guitar tracks and one vocal clip, too. The vocal track i got to work with at home was exported to 16 bit, not 24. They never recorded anything before and never were in a studio, young musicians (half as old as me). Pffffffffffffffff. Since i was not in the project/home studio, i had to mix with headphones overnight. A "not even project studio" production... MAYBE i have at least a chance to listen to my mix on Klein & Hummels in our home studio later today before meeting the guys... I cross checked the headphone-made mix with the speakers in my flat TV that i use as computer monitor in different volumes until i thought i have a somehow consistent mix that might make it. I made more than 10 mixes, before i had a nearly acceptable one. It is death metal. it could have been much worse with a quieter kind of genre.... They have to send the track to some guys from a national heavy metal club, whom they paid to get onto a sampler (!) and when i asked, if they are sure THEY would have to master the track because they mentioned it, as if this would be totally normal, they called the contact person and got the answer that there will be no mastering engineer, the bands have to provide readily mastered track! Now, it is pretty clear they do not have the slightest idea of what they do, too. Since the first sampler of this kind i was involved with, not only the mastering engineers obviously have to match levels so your ears don't bleed from one track beeing much louder than one before and having low DR. We also always had a producer involved who supervised all recordings before for consistency and paid for the studio beforehand, so also the amateur bands had chance to deliver a half way professional sounding product... Times seem to have changed very much....... Of course i am "not there" where i would be completely OK with the mix, but i am pretty sure it might make it through the loudness war. (Nobody asked for levels or preferred DR, so the sampler would work anyhow...so DRs and levels may be all over the place...) For this genre i chose to go down to DR7 finally, while my favourite mix was DR14, but i am pretty sure it would go lost on this sampler. And yes, it will make it to physical media (CD), not just online. Sigh. I am pretty interested, what the end product looks and sounds like... Oh my. The track has to be delivered on monday deadline. just time enough to get the ok from all musicians for a submission of the mix. Difficulty level: Survival. (Might be i post a soundcloud link in the "what are you working on" forum department. In fact i was already surprised how "good" everything still worked out compared to the most dilletantic homemade production since the Portastudio years as a teen... Improvisation ... sometimes there is no other way... Polishing a turd, but the musicians performances actually are quite good under these circumstances. So it might work out anyhow... Sigh, sigh. sigh... Sorry for anecdotal rant. worked the whole night on this thing...
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