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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2014 13:44:29 GMT -6
OK, I play a reference track and things are thin in the low miss, bass and highs are present in typical fashion. I put my song up and mine is fuller and rocking but clean!
What is my problem?
Is it that my room is canceling out some low mids so that commercial tracks sound thin and they portray my much-mid-heavy music as normal? i just can't imagine my tracks being so off.
Can someone recommend a good reference track that is full and solid but clean in the lower mids as a tool in this?
Thanks all.
rob
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Post by jeromemason on Feb 20, 2014 14:04:44 GMT -6
Happens all the time if I've been away from the desk for a while...... here's the deal, we all want to make mixes so that they have a massive and full bandwith. We want them warm and fat. The problem is, send that out through little speakers, or headphones and see how it sounds then, that when you start to get the idea. You've got to account for the smaller speakers, rather than your monitors.
I fell your pain! I usually will listen to commercial stuff for about 45 mins before I start mixing and flip to it probably every 30 mins. It's what everyone does..... some will say they don't, and if they don't and their mixes are making it to commercial radio, then I want to learn how to mix from them! I've yet to meet someone that does flip to a reference every half our or so and listen to reference tracks at least 30 mins before they get going.
Just IME
EDIT: I just saw your request for a track.
I always, not matter what I'm doing, pull up "The Cowboy in Me" by Tim Mcgraw. Mike Shipley was my ultimate idol, what he did with the lowend and just about every frequency in that song is absolutely perfect on any speakers. I sure miss Mike.....
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Post by svart on Feb 20, 2014 14:12:58 GMT -6
Yeah, it can be a number of things. I'm going to list a few things that can really affect how someone hears, don't take anything too personally, it's just a list.
1. Pride. Everyone hears their own stuff in a better light because they have more pride and invested interest in their own music. It carries over to the mix too, as they hear things as they want them to be, rather than they really are. Notice how you described your mixes with words that project the thought of quality while using semi-degrading words for the professional mix? "Thin/typical" vs. "fuller/rocking".. Exactly.
2. Monitoring. Monitor quality, mix position, room quality, etc. You should be able to determine if it's a reflection/mode issue by moving around the room while the music is playing. do you hear things change all that much? If not, then it might not be your room or monitors. Your monitors might also have strange missing frequency ranges in the crossover areas or exaggerated spots. Your monitors might also suffer due to poor reproduction. Professional mixes are done to sound similar on all systems, while you might be mixing to sound best on your monitors. Unfortunately this describes a situation that means your mix won't translate very well to other systems. Might be time to try different monitors.
3. Room. It might have bass issues. Unless your room is large and the reflection points are very far away, you might be getting a lot of bass or not enough bass in the room. Only a professional waterfall plot will tell for sure, but as a quick trick, go stand in the corner in the back of the room and listen to your track and the reference track. you'll quickly tell a lot about the really low bass since it tends to build up in corners. you should have bass traps in your corners already though..
4. You simply might be TOO used to hearing your own mixes. Your ears and brain will get used to things you listen to repetitively and you won't hear problems as "abnormal" anymore. I'd suggest taking time off from mixing and ONLY listen to as many different professional songs as possible. Give your brain and ears time to readjust(think days to a week..) and as soon as you listen to your mixes again, adjust them as quickly as possible while A/Bing the reference tracks. You'll REALLY notice the differences right away. this helped me many times. Be sure to give yourself enough time! Don't even try to do this if you only plan on trying after a couple hours.. it really needs days of time.
5. Get the midrange right. Most of the mixes I hear that have issues, the issues are all in the midrange. people boost highs and lows to get the perception of HI-FI sound but the midrange is still murky and lacking detail. Detail does not come from high frequencies, it comes from clarity in the midrange. Monitors that have a lot of scoop (KRK, etc) sound great while mixing because they are all high and low end, which give that HI-FI scoop natively. Professional mixes are all about the midrange and get clarity from arrangement, levels and appropriate EQ, so they don't resort to huge lows and highs to make the HI-FI sound..
Hope this helps.
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Post by philip on Feb 20, 2014 14:45:29 GMT -6
+1 excellent post!
Amen to giving attention to the mids. Took me a while to realise it myself when I was a rookie.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2014 15:44:48 GMT -6
Yup, yup… all good stuff. Thanks guys. My greatest takeaways here are to check out the suggested track… thanks Jerome, to spend some time with my references before each session and to fight the battle in the mids. All good info but these few were great.
Many thanks!
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Post by RicFoxx on Feb 20, 2014 18:56:27 GMT -6
Yup, yup… all good stuff. Thanks guys. My greatest takeaways here are to check out the suggested track… thanks Jerome, to spend some time with my references before each session and to fight the battle in the mids. All good info but these few were great. Many thanks! The little Equator D5's are a great little speaker with good mids and can be had for $349/PAIR new. Imaging is good also...great reference speaker! Here is a review: www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec12/articles/equator-d5.htm |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2014 21:12:14 GMT -6
If you don't have a pair of the popular midrange freq speakers at hand, Avantones etc.,
you can try using an extra hard low and high shelf filter eq in the 2bus for mixing until the mids are right. I once did this with convolver and a manually drawn digital room correction target curve that emulated the avantones response curve. Works good for fixing mids and make the mix sound right generally. But it can not emulate ringing effects of those speakers that may reveal even more probs....
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Post by svart on Feb 20, 2014 21:35:10 GMT -6
On the subject of the midrange-y monitors like avantones/auratones, etc.. They reproduce midrange fairly well because their cones are very light and there is no crossover in the middle of the midrange, unlike 2way monitors. Light cones make fast speakers, generally. Fast speakers can reproduce details that aren't heard in 2way systems. Large woofers need stiff and heavy cones to reduce distortion that would happen when the cones would flex under fast movement, but stiff cones usually mean heavy, unless they use expensive materials. The crossover points on 2way tweeters is usually pretty high and the crossover is usually around 1k-2.5Khz, so it's right in the middle of the range you need linearity and detail!
I always double check my mixes with my auratones, and sometimes I'll do whole mixes on them first before going to the big monitors.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2014 22:33:44 GMT -6
Yup, recently got one Avantones. I will spend more time there.
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Post by cenafria on Feb 21, 2014 3:58:04 GMT -6
Bob Hodas had a really good recommendation on the Pensado interview: before you set up your control room, set up your speakers in different places and find which sounds best. Pretty obvious, really, but extremely useful. You wont be fighting the room so much (perhaps that is part of your problem). I hope this helps.
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