Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    
    Mix Magazine had an article about this recently, and I think I remember
    reading an EM that was talking about this too.
    
    Personally, it takes me a couple days to get a mix down "right". I have
    the obligatory set of "accurate" studio monitors (define accurate ;^)),
    but I use them as reference monitors, and they sound much different
    from the boom box in the kitchen, my car stereo, and the living room
    stereo (all of which are the true "reference monitors"). I think most
    everybody has a set of boom box speakers that they also mix with. I use
    those and headphones as well to compare the mix. I also make use of the
    spectrum analyzer (well, whatever that set of LEDs on the eq is) to
    check for overall spectral balance.
    
    And it takes a couple days to get the mix right. I'll start by mixing
    to to reference monitors. Then I'll ride into work the next day and
    listen to the tape on my car stereo, taking mental notes about what's
    wrong with it. I might also put it on the boom box in the den to get
    a different perspective. I'll end up back into the studio for the next
    night's mix, and apply what changes I thought it might need. This of
    course changes the overall mix, so I have to reiterate the entire
    process. The mix that works best on all of them wins. Sometimes that
    takes a while. I try to be patient (so does my wife).
    
    /pjh

    I used to be very discouraged with my tapes, for similar reasons.  Then
    I did two things.  I bought a graphic EQ and started using compression
    on everything.  Yes, *everything*.  Well, actually a peak limiter most of
    the time.  Suddenly, I was able to get the bass up clear in the mix,
    keep the guitar parts controlled beneath the vocals, etc.  It also
    cleared up a lot of noise problems.  
    
    My indispensable studio effects: compression, EQ, reverb in that order.  
    
    The other trick: I never mix for "wide stereo".  I actually mix mostly
    to mono, but when I do do stereo mixes, I keep things away from the
    extreme left and right, and use stereo reverb to add some width.  This
    helps fight head alignment woes.
    
    Last but not least:  Buy the best cassette machine you can for your
    mastering.  Get one that has HX-Pro, which will significantly improve
    your high end performance.  Have the machine aligned at least every two
    years.  If it doesn't allow adjustments to the biasing, have your
    dealer set it up for your favorite tape and use that tape all the time.
    Use the best tape you can afford (Metal if you have the bucks).
    
    Then you can forget about the audio and worry about the music.
    

    Yes, it's a heartbreaker to visit someone and pop your new cassette in
    their player, and hear mud where there once was music.  Most folks have
    cassette dex with poorly adjusted Dolby, and the loudness control on,
    and the speakers sit on the floor, beaming whatever high frequencies
    are left straight at your knees.
    
    But of course if you mix for the tubby playback, that will not work at
    ALL for a boom box, which is shy on bass but has treble to shave with.
    
    Your best response is to just mix as clean and clear as you can on as
    uncolored a system as possible.
    
    karl

    re .1
    Paul,  
    	
    Have you really come up with a mix combination which sounds equally
    good on a boom-box, a car stereo and the system in your living room?
    When I have tried to do this it seems to sound equally bad on each
    including on headphones (just to be consistent, I guess).
    
    re .2
    
    I have a MIDIverb II and my 4-track/mixer (YAM MT2X) has 2-band
    equilization.  Could you suggest some reasonable units which could
    give me add-on compress/limiting for a reasonable price?
    
    re .3
    
    Karl, 
    
    This is where I am, too.  It just feels so frustrating to try to
    explain to people what they're not hearing!  I have found that
    increasing the volume helps.  For this reason, the compression argument
    (.2) makes sense.  In a Bach Organ prelude transcription I recently
    did, you couldn't "hear" the pedal notes unless the system was cranked.
    Only then did the listeners comment, "Wow, that really sounds like
    a real pipe organ".  Otherwise, all you heard were harmonics and
    it sounded more like a synthesizer (which, after all, it was :-]).
    
    Clusters,
    Bill Allen

	Who are you mixing for?  Shoot for the sound you want on your
	master system and make the highest quality stereo master you can.
	OK, then you've got something you can play back on your home
	system to show your friends what they're missing. When you dub
	copies to give away, compress and EQ those for the environments
	they'll be played in.  This way, you'll be all set up to
	re-master for LP or CD as needed. 

    Let me throw a different perspective on this.  I build custom hi end
    home speakers.  My main goal in building what I consider to be a great
    pair of speakers is to have them reproduce exactly what the signal
    from the amp calls for.  Taking this thought further back in the
    process of sound recording and playback, I am aiming to recreate that
    which was placed on the master tape.  I beleive this is the goal of
    most speaker companies with the exception of those that try to 
    recreate the sound that existed in the studio/concert hall ie. BOSE
    tries to take the recorded sound and make something more of it.
    
    	With this in mind I beg you (the people gifted enough to create
    music, of any flavor), to mix the music using what ever you have to
    to allow an amp to generate a signal that accuratly reflects you
    artistic presentation.  Don't mix for the speakers, mix for the
    tape or the recording medium, the people who care to hear what you
    wanted them to hear will bother reproducing it correctly.
    
    	When I purchase CD's I often buy them for the recording and
    mastering quality.  For example I like the production work of 
    Alan Parsons (Dark Side of the Moon /Alan Parson Instrumental Works)
    and Donald Fagan (Night Fly / A Decade of Steely Dan).  A great
    recording/mastering will sound good on bad equipment and great on
    good equipment, on the other hand a bad recording/mastering will
    never sound great.
    
    
    			Now ask me how I REALLY feel.
     

	re: Bill

>    re .1
>    Paul,  
>    	
>    Have you really come up with a mix combination which sounds equally
>    good on a boom-box, a car stereo and the system in your living room?
>    When I have tried to do this it seems to sound equally bad on each
>    including on headphones (just to be consistent, I guess).


	I wish. What I've found is that I can come up with a reasonable
	compromise, and there are a couple of tricks I've found I have
	to do to make that compromise.

	For instance, I try to get as much harmonic content into the bass
	as practicable - including doubling bass lines. This is because 
	if I use mud bass, it either completely disappears on the boom box/
	cheap stereo, or worse, it breaks up the rest of the signal 
	("mudulation?")... So this way I don't mix the lower side bass up too
	high, and I can still hear a bass line on a small speaker. Nice trick,
	I read about it in Mix, I think it was two months ago. 

	Another trick I'm working with, and I'm not great at it yet, is to
	make masters on the 32, and then patch my graphic EQ back when making
	copies to cassette, boosting the highs slightly and depressing the
	mids slightly (like -3 to -6 dB). Of course, mileage varies depending on
	tape, deck, head cleanliness, etc, but the last few copies I've made
	have come out different. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what the
	tape duplicators do... This may sound like an obvious, but I recently
	did an a-b of the new Stones tape against the CD. Well, of course
	the CD sounds better, but the whole spectrum is different too. If
	I eq it back, it sounds more balanced, and while it still doesn't
	approach the CD in dynamic range, it sounds considerably better on
	my studio monitors. Also of course, it sounds fine on the boom box
	with EQ pretty flat. 

	Anybody else tried this?

	/pjh

>                      <<< Note 2222.6 by WOOF::DRIGIAN >>>
>I am aiming to recreate that which was placed on the master tape.  
>Don't mix for the speakers, mix for the tape or the recording medium
    
    In the case of a non-acoustic recording (all synth or sampler), there
    is no external reality to check one's recording efforts against.
    Therefore what one hears thru one's speakers and headphones is IT.
    So I HAVE to mix for the speakers, because that's the only way I
    have to hear the music.
    
    It is true that if I know I'm going to analog tape, I'll preboost
    the highs that I anticipate losing later on, especially if I'm bouncing
    tracks on a multitrack deck.  Mixing for VHS PCM (all digital) is much
    more straightforward (with a higher dynamic range available), unless
    the PCM tape is meant to be a duplication master for cassettes, in
    which I have to compensate for the reduced headroom available inherent
    in the cassette medium... read, mild compression.
    
    >the people who care to hear what you
>wanted them to hear will bother reproducing it correctly.
    
    You mean my few audiophile friends will hear the music like I do, while
    the rest of the world has unadjusted old cassette decks and speakers on
    the floor, and the amp's loudness control on.  Or they have boom boxes
    with no bass.
    
>A great recording/mastering will sound good on bad equipment 
    >and great on good equipment, on the other hand a bad 
    >recording/mastering will never sound great.
    
    Well, that's true.  I guess I don't understand your point.  Yes, we
    need the absolute flattest possible recording and reproduction chain.
    
    karl

    
    Re: .7
    
    I do a lot of EQ tricks, although usually at the track recording level
    rather than the mastering.  I find my cassette machine reproduces the
    sound of my reel-to-reel very well, although some tape brands do give
    me a midrange boost.
    
    I typically cut back the bottom octave (50 Hz on my graphic) because
    most speakers can't reproduce 50 Hz anyway (my apologies to you
    audiophiles out there).  On stuff like guitars I also cut out a lot at
    125 Hz since there isn't much energy below there (lowest fundamental is
    about 80 Hz), and I also take off stuff above 10 Khz sometimes to cut
    hiss, again a lot of stuff (bass for instance) has little or no
    information there.
    
    I find boosting at 2.4 KHz and 6 KHz can be used to brighten up things
    in the mix.  Adjustments that I make between 400 Hz and 2.4 KHz are
    strictly to "color" the basic sound. Another thing I do is boost at 6KHz 
    by 3 dB on any track that I will be bouncing on tape (to compensate for
    the generational loss).  I always do my EQ adjustments *after*
    compression.
    
    Audiophiles may think I'm crazy, but these adjustments have given me
    cleaner and punchier sounding tapes.
    
    							Brian
    
    P.S. As far as mixing for "cheap" speakers, I think that some
    recordings touted by audiophiles as favorites, Pink Floyd's DSOTM, for
    example, also sound quite good indeed over cheap systems.  Think about
    it.

re: .9

   
>    I typically cut back the bottom octave (50 Hz on my graphic) because
>    most speakers can't reproduce 50 Hz anyway (my apologies to you
>    audiophiles out there).  On stuff like guitars I also cut out a lot at
>    125 Hz since there isn't much energy below there (lowest fundamental is
>    about 80 Hz), and I also take off stuff above 10 Khz sometimes to cut
>    hiss, again a lot of stuff (bass for instance) has little or no
>    information there.
    

	I dunno about the 50hz bit. What about the fundamental for a kick
	drum? 

	Otherwise, neat stuff. I like this topic, I'm learning some good
	stuff.

	/pjh

    Re: .10
    
    I cut 50 Hz, even though there is stuff there (kick drum, bass gyuitar
    fundamentals, etc.), simply because a lot of speakers can't reproduce
    it.  What you need for a kick drum is a sound with some harmonic
    content, i.e. energy in the 100-200 Hz band, which even boom boxes can
    reproduce.  After all, you can certainly hear kick drums from a rap
    tune over a boom box which probably has little or no response below 150
    Hz.  I find boosting at 125 Hz useful if you want to add punchy bottom.
    But I also make sure the stuff down in that range is compressed, so I
    don't have lots of low frequency transients.
    

    I'm truly shocked by some of the replys in this note because I feel
    that compromising your mix for inferior playback is like selling your
    soul, cheating the really appreciative listeners out of their just
    desserts. However, I can understand the desire to appease the
    mainstream of mediocrity, they represent the majority.
    
    By the way, it's just as important to accurately reproduce the timbres
    of electronic instruments as acoustic ones. Whether the sound was
    created by the oscillations of a string, metal tube, or circuit does
    not change the fact that poor reproduction will not give you what the
    artist recreated. It's like going to an art gallery with rose colored
    glasses.
    
    Chris_who_still_hasn't_quite_got_over_it

    Re: .12
    
    Geez, I'm not cheating anybody.  If you came to see what I use for
    recording at home, you'd see it's comprised mainly of what audiophiles
    call "mid-fi" home stereo components plus a (noisy) PA mixer.  
    
    I *have* worked in pro studios, complete with capabilities for digital
    recording and I know the difference between what I could do *there* and
    what I can do at home.
    
    I don't know what kind of music you listen to, but I hear compressed
    recordings all the time.  In fact, I think the last *uncompressed*
    album I heard was a CD of Amanda McBroom (she sings "The Rose" on this
    one) on Sheffield Lab, which shocked me because it actually had a
    *natural* dynamic range (almost blew me out of the listening room, in
    fact).
    
    The highly touted DSOTM by Pink Floyd is highly compressed.  Have you
    ever actually played in a rock band?  Trust me, the true dynamic range
    of a rock band is not captured on that album.  Yeah, it sounds great.
    It sounds great on my mid-fi home stereo.  Sounds good on my $50 boom
    box, sounds good in my car, etc.  I think that shows that Messrs.
    Parsons, Waters, Gilmour, Mason and Wright knew how to make a good
    recording that would sound good on *any* system, but *better* the
    better the system got. Even so, MFSL went out to do an "audiophile"
    remix for those who felt the regular mix/mastering wasn't hi-fi enough.
    
    Even with CDs, the playback gear of the masses is less than ideal.  A
    $300 boom box can't do justice to its CD players (except, maybe,
    through good phones) and to get realistic dynamic range you need a good
    amount of power and good speakers.  I play my bass guitar through a 400
    watt amplifier and a 15" speaker in a tuned cabinet.  How the heck is
    my 30 wpc receiver going to reproduce dynamics like that?
    
    Let's face it, all recordings are an audio illusion of one sort or
    another.  The (hard) trick is to make it seem *not* like an illusion.  
    
    							Brian

    At risk of being rude (and sounding ignorant), I mix using headphones;
    specifically, two sets - a set of Rat Shack Nova-10s (that's right) and
    a set of Signet TK22s.  I also use an older top-of-the-line Sanyo amp
    and a set of Advent Utility cabinets as monitors.

    I've played my recordings on everything from boom-boxes to car stereos
    to several-thousand dollar audio systems, and have yet to hear anyone
    gripe about the quality of any recordings I produce.  In fact, the
    audiophiles that I know consistently rave about the tapes I make. So
    much for "selling my soul". 

    While what Chris (.12) may have written is theoretically correct, most
    of us are pragmatic, in that we live in the real world, and don't have
    megabux to spend on getting the "perfect" recording.  In fact, there is
    no such thing as the perfect recording.  As far as I'm concerned, if
    you can pick up what the musician is trying to communicate, then s/he's
    made his/her point. The quality of a recording, while important, is
    secondary. 

-b

    re .11 - despite many rumors that the low E on a bass guitar is
    40 Hz, it's actually 80 Hz.  What most people hear as "60 Hz" hum
    is actually 120 Hz.  Cutting agressively below 50 Hz really doesn't
    take that much out of the music, unless you're talking orchestral
    bass drum or pipe organ.
    
    len.
    

    Regarding .12, I was only referring to the concept of mixing on cheap
    monitors with the sole intent of making the mix sound better on cheap
    monitors. I'm sorry if my reply was not clear.
    
    Karl, you have me confused with someone else. I do not design and build
    custom speaker systems. I also do not object to compression. I did
    suggest to someone to use dbx as an alternative to compression because
    he was having trouble getting his signal on the tape. If you have any
    further comments please direct them to me via MAIL. 

    The human ear easily reconstructs low fundamentals by implication of
    their harmonics.
    Tom

	What truly amazes me is the recordings from the 50's and 60's
	that were done on gear that is no where as sophisticated as
	the low end 4 track deck/portable studios that many of us have.
	The song 'Come Go With Me' was done a mono deck in a basement of
	a house, where the person singing lead was in a closed closet
	(A microphone was in there with him) because he couldn't be heard
	over the Saxaphone (That's probably why 50% of what he says is
	totally muffled).

	No matter what anyone says about cheating the audiophiles or how
	nice it would be to keep the dynamic peaks and valleys, I prefer
	to make sure that my mixes sound good in all possible mediums.
	I also assume that there will be instances where I can't handle
	the worst case as perfectly as possible, however, at least I've
	tried to make sure that things sound as good as possible. I find
	that usually when it sounds pretty good on cheap speakers, it doesn't
	take that much to make it sound extreamly good on a good deck
	(That's the joy of graphic equalizers and parametric equalizers).

	I do mixes for my duo's demo tapes & they keep getting us work.
	As for compression, I use it on the duo's vocals when we play live.
	Since most of my Bass lines are sequenced, and I like the bass to
	be a consistant volume, I use my MX-8 to compress the levels.
	When I sequence drum parts, I like the Snare and Bass drum to
	stand out and I use the MX-8 for the velocity compression also.
	In most cases, what I used for the Demo Tape is what I'm using
	live. I worked 44 weekends last year (counting the 5 weeks I did
	a different places as a weekend). I think the demo tape accurately
	portrays the band, which is not easy to do on a $25.00 cassette deck.

							Jens

	No one told me when I bought my Porta-studio that I was going to
	have spend another $1000.00 on gear (not audio counting the playback 
	system) just to get a recording that I really was happy with.

    re bass guitar frequency - 
    
    I was wrong, folks, the low E on a bass guitar is 41.2 Hz.
    
    Can you forgive me?
    
    len.
    

    
    
    
    	I tend to find I mix better if I mix after a break ( 2 days) from the
    music I'm mixing. I use Yamaha NS10's because they are widely used, and
    have great diffinition, but they are by no means perfect. 
    
    	The room I mix in is pretty dead and slightly boomy so I basically
    listen to a lot of CD's ( good ones ) in that room to get used to its 
    problems rather than trying to fix it with eq.
    
    	The other thing that helped me a lot was to buy a radio shack 
    DB meter. By mixing at between 80 - 90 db , you tend to get a very
    volume consistant mix. Its also good to know what level you are mixing
    at because after 5 hours behind a console, things start creeping up ,
    ie: 105 db. 
    
    	It took me about 2 years to get something I'm happy with but I 
    find I'm much more consistant now after lots of pratice.
    
    BC
    

>    	I tend to find I mix better if I mix after a break ( 2 days) from the
>    music I'm mixing. 

    I find that Sequences need a similar cooling off period. I usually wait
    until the next day and a very close re-listen at a fairly low volume
    to see what I did wrong. It's funny how many thing that you tweek or
    re-do after a day or 2. 

    After I put a sequence together, I do a mono mix onto tape & try to
    add all of the other parts. What I'm doing is testing the sequence
    to see how it holds up. While this may sound strange, I often tweek
    things after hearing how it sounds with the rest of my accompanyment
    (vocals, guitar & any additional keyboard parts that I expect my 
    keyboard player to add). A lot of times, I change the instrumentation
    to avoid conflicts (The wonders of MIDI, It's as easy as selecting
    a different patch in my sequences). Then after playing the song for
    a month or so, I usually tweek levels a bit more. Lastly, I commit
    it to tape for use on my demo tapes (used to promote the Duo). 

    Unless the song is an original, I don't use the tapes for anything other
    than demos. If it's an original, I tend to spend 2 to 3 times more effort
    than a cover tune. The delay between 'takes' seems to always improve
    the end result. Now, when will DAT/CD recorders be on the market???

							Jens

    This IS a good topic... it should be in the MUSIC notes files, too.
    
    The importance of a good mix can't be stressed enough. A lot of our
    studio's clients allocate about 2 hours to mix their projects, and,
    of course, they are shocked when we ask them how many DAYS they plan
    to spend on mixing (usually, we compromise somewhere in the middle).
    
    I recommend both Mix and Recording Engineer/Producer magazines for
    this subject. They are always interviewing well known engineers about
    it (which just goes to show..it's ain't easy).  I think it's the most
    difficult skill to learn in the whole recording process. So don't feel
    weird about it.  Most of the pro's mix for mid-fi, with concessions to
    low and hi-fi (like adding in the extra harmonics that will only be
    heard on hi-fi). One engineer said he routinely doubles his bass lines
    with an super-low sound (at least one octave below), that only becomes
    apparent with the better equipment.
    
    The fact that NS-10's are the standard in the studio has more to do
    with HAVING a standard that what the standard actually is. It really
    makes things easier for the freelance engineer, who only has to learn
    one "sound".  The mix is still checked on everything from Urie's and
    Westlakes to car stereos and boom boxes. It has to 'work' on
    everything, but not necessarily sound 'great' on everything. Audio-for
    -video is a good example.  Aren't you sometimes amazed at the amount of
    bass they can wring out of you TV's 3" speaker? But when you hear that
    same mix thru your system, it still works (albeit a bit heavy in the
    low end...but forgiveably so). Its a real art.
    
    Keep trying. The suggestions so far have been great; compression,
    a little EQ, watching the stereo imaging. We like to use some Aphex
    or BBE, too.  
    
    Pat

    
    
    	I think you hit the nail on the head by saying mixing is
    the hardest part of the recording process. I have found lately that
    I can make the job a whole lot easier by thinking about the mix the
    whole time I am arranging or putting something to tape. I feel that
    getting guitar or snare drums to "sit right" is a very hard thing to
    do.	
    	You can have this awsome drum sound but when you put it in the mix
    it just gets reduced to nothing, guitar can often be the same.
    I think once you learn to take out the bottom end of the snare and eq 
    guitar so as to not get in the way of the vocals, the whole lot just
    seems to come togeather so much easier. You then dont have to boost the
    bass to be heard over the guitar and your vocals can be understood
    while not getting too loud.
    
    BC  

    Agreed.
    
    The mix you (will) hear on my Commusic submission is at LEAST the
    40th attempt.  And frankly, I can't even say it took 40 tries
    to get it right because it's far from perfect.  It would be more
    accurate to say that it took me 40 tries before I gave up and
    accepted something that at least had no gross mistakes.
    
    I probably should look into some of those mixing references because for
    me mixing not only isn't a science, it's not even an "art".  To me, it
    seems mostly like sheer dumb luck.
    
    	db

    re .25
    
    I wonder...
    
    I find that the problem is not just that I tend to be to much of
    a perfectionist.  That's frustrating enough.  What's worse is that
    there are always more than one good option for a certain mix.
    
    On my CM VII submission the last piece is a transcription of a Bach
    choral fantasy.  I ended up submitting it with no reverb or other
    effect (which is the way we ended up using during the event it was
    designed for).  However, it sounds qualitatively different with
    reverb, not necessarily better, but certainly different.
    
    Mixing for me, sometimes means choosing between several good alter-
    native "sound configurations".  It is important for me to distinguish
    between this issue, and that of creating a listenable mix (ie one
    which the listener can hear most of what you were trying to do on
    his or her equipment).  
    
    I don't know whether that makes sense or not...
    
    Bill Allen
    

    Well, since everybody is talking about their Commusic submissions ...
    db played his unfinished mix for me in my car.  Frankly, it puts my
    submission to great shame.  It was not the final mix and I couldn't
    hear any problems.  I think that part of the problem is that a mix is
    always a compromise between what you hear in your head and what you
    start with before mixing.  In the end, you will always be disatisfied.
    There will always be something there that makes you cringe everytime
    you hear it.  (For me, it's the last big section of my latest
    submission.  I always FF or REW when I reach that part.)  There isn't a
    piece I've done that I wouldn't want to change something about.
    
    Reminds me of the craze sometime back with using stereo enhancement and
    other processing to re-release old monophonic recordings.  It was
    sometimes obvious that the new recordings were superior to the ears
    that the original releases.  But, it was probably still not as good as
    the original artists/composers would like it to have been or had in
    mind.  Which sounds a bit like colorization.  Personally, I think that
    most BW movies would have been shot in color if had been available.
    Witness how many movies are shot in BW nowadays.  Another topic ...
    
    
    Steve