Listening For The Best Mix

[fdwill]

Those of us who have worked at mixing a good multi-track recording have encountered the different sound from headphones, 'studio' monitors, car sound systems, and living room stereos, and all other playback systems. I'm asking for advice from more experienced people on how you have arrived at your 'best' mix: O.K. on most playback systems; best on high-quality studio monitors; what the 'artist' likes most, etc.?

[Bob Womack]

Firstly, you need to seek out some mixes that sound the way, or at least in the neighborhood of the way, you want your mixes to sound. Put them on CDs or create "lossless MP3s" and take them with you. They are your references. Secondly, you need to seek out a pair of monitors that make you mix the way you want to mix - ie. like your references, and you need to learn them. By that I mean you need to listen to your references on them extensively and critically and know what your target sounds like. Then mix a bunch of product on them, tweaking the results by shopping your mixes around on various speaker systems, always comparing your mixes to your references. Eventually you will develop an ear for what a good mix from you will sound like on THOSE monitors.

In the commercial world you can end up mixing on whatever the producer wants. Not fun, but there it is.

I've been fortunate to end up with my home base being a professionally designed Live-End Dead-End control room with some pretty darned good monitors that have been tuned to the room. I've had seventeen years of sessions to get used to the room and monitors so I'm developing a handle on those monitors' proclivities and my responses to them. I've gotten a pair of the little brother of those monitors as my main home monitors, along with a pile of other small speakers. However, I still also shop around onto other monitors in other control rooms in the facility, to more modern active monitors, and to my car stereo. I've also been known to shop my mixes to esoteric audio stores.

When in doubt, sandwich listening to your mixes in between listening to your references.

Bob

[fdwill]

Bob:
Your reply is very helpful, particularly the part about reference recordings. In my very limited experience, I've been using headphones for my mixing and then testing out the mix in various speaker systems. You can now see where my question came from. No matter what I use for listening while making the mix, the reference recordings will become my guide.

Any others care to share what they do?

[wcap]

Originally Posted by fdwill

Bob:
Your reply is very helpful, particularly the part about reference recordings. In my very limited experience, I've been using headphones for my mixing and then testing out the mix in various speaker systems. You can now see where my question came from. No matter what I use for listening while making the mix, the reference recordings will become my guide.

Any others care to share what they do?

This is what I have been doing too - mixing with headphones, listening on various speakers (stereo in house, in car, and also with my iPod), modifying the mix, listening again on various speakers, and repeating as necessary. I'm not very efficient at this (and only barely know what I am doing!).

The reference recording idea is a great suggestion. I will have to try this.


Bob,

I recall a previous thread some months back where you gave a recommendation for headphones that gave a somewhat close approximation to monitors and that caused minimal ear strain (the latter is particularly important from my perspective). Can you refresh my memory on what headphones these were?

Ultimately I'd like to get some decent monitors, but in the interim I need to work with headphones (and I need headphones when working with my Zoom R24 anyway, even if I did have monitors).

Thanks.

[Bob Womack]

I don't recommend mixing on headphones for two reasons:
1. With speakers, part of the left speaker's sound is heard by the right ear and visa versa. The result is a very different sound field from most headphones, which isolate the signals, each to an ear.
2. The extremely intimate connection between the driver and the ear with headphones over-emphasizes dynamic change and little details that will be swallowed up in the transfer through the room from a speaker to an ear. It can cause people to obsess over small details that don't matter in the grand scheme.

That said, the headphones I recommended are the AKG K240s. Besides preventing ear fatigue, they last forever. We've got sets that have been in service for thirty years with nothing more than replacement ear pads. The old K240m is the closest sounding headphone to the $6k monitors I work on every day.

Bob

[Rodger]

I've read for years that one shouldn't mix on headphones. That's the first time I've read the specifics of why it's a bad idea. Makes perfect sense.

Thanks Bob!

[Ty Ford]

However, you should BY ALL MEANS check your mixes on headphones because more and more, people today consume their music with ear buds or headphones.

When you do you will find, for example, that you need to pull back on effects because the air between the monitor and the ear or the room itself will diffuse (eat up) the effects. Meanwhile, you have overdone it for anyone listening on headphones!

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Smurf]

One thing most folks forget is that the commercial CD's we know & love have been Mastered, so trying to match that sounds exactly is just chasing your tail.

I am NOT saying don't strive for it, just keep in mind that they are polished & finished, where as what we are working on, when we are happy with it & done (is it ever done? LOL) is still one step away from those finished CD's...

Just sayin'....

[islandguitar]

+1 for what Ty said.......

I have just finished working on a informal CD ( professionally mastered however). The first thing my wife said was...."you know, the first thing folks will do with this is load it into their IPOD", ( or other device). Well, maybe not everybody...but it was an important observation.
It's certainly true that with headphones one does obsess! When I played things on regular speakers, some of that "stuff" went away. It's a great observation. Thanks for the info and tips.

[Rick Shepherd]

Check your mixes over a period of a few days, you'll be surprised how different they can sound later. Don't settle on a final until you have done this.

[Ty Ford]

Ain't that the truth!

I also try never to track and mix during the same session.

Give it a day (or two) and then come back to it.

Regards,

Ty Ford