Why mix on monitors?
 

I still listen to music on a very nice stereo system and occasionally, mostly online, listen through headphones. But then I'm 65.

Virtually all the younger people I know, people in their 20s and 30s, listen primarily on earbuds.

So why is music being mixed mostly on monitors any longer?

Didn't Justin Vernon mix that first Bon Iver album on apple earbuds?


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Same reason everyone mixes on little Yamahas and car stereos. I want my mix to sound as good as I can get it on every system. About 90% of the headphones and 99% of the earbuds I've tried result in terrible mixes. I mix on ordinary Bowers and Wilkins speakers, because they are almost as good as my old 4311s, and I'm used to knowing what I have to hear to get a good mix for playback on more than one system.

When I'm mixing (and I'm just a hack), I finish by using my laptop speakers.

And that's really the key. A song can be mixed on anything from a couple of speakers you ripped out of some old AM radios to high quality monitors. But if you're going to use those AM radio speakers, you'd better know how to compensate so that your mixes transfer well when played on other systems, because if you make that song sound great on those old AM radio speakers, I promise it's going to sound boomy when you play it on your stereo. The reason being those little AM radio speakers have no bottom end, so to hear bottom end when you mix you'll have to overcompensate for it. Those old AM radio speakers were also very tinny so if you make your mix sound really great on them, you'll likely have pulled out so much top end that the song sounds flat and lifeless when played on a stereo.

Ideally, you'd want to mix on a set of monitors where you didn't have to do anything but make a song sound as great as you can make it and at the same time worry less about the need to make adjustments based on your listening environment. On high quality monitors in a well-treated room, you can do that. The further you stray from both high quality monitors and a well-treated room, the more you'll have to compensate for it in your mix.

I record, mix, and master for a living.

Here's the unspoken truth: Whatever monitor system you work on needs to manipulate you. Well.

It doesn't matter if you mix on the most accurate system in the world, if you don't know it and you don't know what effect it has on you, you'll mostly likely be manipulated badly.

If you mix on a system and know its drawbacks and its effects on you and know how to compensate, you can work on all kinds of systems. But that takes time, experience, investment, etc.

Most people don't know how headphones influence them, the psycho-acoustic influence they have. Most people won't be manipulated well when mixing on headphones.

And mixing? You want to mix to the highest "sneer level" you wish to satisfy. For instance... Foreigner did a lovely song called "I Want to Know What Love Is." Really nice. But they recorded and mixed it entirely on small Yamaha NS-10M monitors. On earbuds and cheap, hyped headphones it sounds fine. On the $10,000 monitor system here at the studio it sounds small, squashed, dull, lifeless. On my nice stereo system at home it sounds the same. In fact, during the heyday of the NS-10M, a LOT of mixes sounded like that - great for the car radio, horrible on a nice system.

You have to ask yourself, "When a client buys a hi-def copy of my mix at a premium price and puts it up on his nice sound system, do I want him to grimace or smile?

Only you can decided that for yourself.

Bob

PS. After I mix, I "shop" my mixes around to about four different monitor systems and then my car and my home stereo. Oh, yeah, I also check 'em on headphones, both popular and professional. Sometimes something unexpected crops up.

And to add to what Bob mentioned .

If the music is mixed and sounds good on a really good system, it usually translates down to lesser quality systems. But in answer to the OP there is a at least an even chance the the reverse may not sound so good. As Bob mentioned on the Foreigner song.

Now one thing I will say I have noticed is for some reason with my mixes I get sounding pretty good on studio monitors and I then check my home, and systems, as well as my laptop internal spk's and earbuds. And usually it sounds OK on everything including ear buds in my laptop but sometimes the laptop internal spk's will sound hyped in the upper mids

You can't mix what you can't hear.

If you attempt to mix on sub-standard monitors that lack the ability to reproduce a fair representation of what your mix contains then you're really only guessing as to what the final mix is going to sound like on a better system.

If the target market for your work is earbuds or lo-fi then mix accordingly, cross-checking on something that's going to mimic that playback medium.

Aloha Runamuck
 

Aloha,

You referenced 20 & 30 somethings & their love of earbuds - also tiny screens & crappy cellphone amplifiers, I would add. Although I know many younger musical people who love trying to achieve or listen to great sound, I agree with you, most don't care about or ever get to experience great sounding musical recordings - or know the difference.

When it comes to their media, youngsters only care about convenience & speed. Most importantly, most younger folks do not even care about sharing live music as our generation & all previous ones did - the fabric of REAL not Facebook community & all that. And, they don't trust sound alone - they've been trained to expect video's or commercial tie-in's with sound since MTV - or it's boring to most.

Earbuds keep mostly poor sounding music inside their digital domain heads, unshared, (and kill the thousand year old tradition of the troubadour & sharing live music in the process. Unintended, but that is the effect.

Most younger folks don't even know or care how far recorded music sound quality has slipped since the digital age "Wall" took over. (Sorry Bob, I love zero's & one's too, & happily retired my tape splicers & noise reduction. But I still have mint condition records to compare to today's formats & most people do not ever get to listen to uncompressed, WAV file digital masters through a great studio signal chain. The difference brings tears to your eyes).

So if the younger masses are doing it with their earbuds (& anything to do with media), it probably has nothing to do with quality, only speed & convenience. I'm underwhelmed by the vast majority of all the apps & soon-to-be-outdated "amazing" crap that people carry with them these days. And I use a few of them too, Ha.

Using quality monitors is not a choice for most seasoned audio engineers & hobbyists, they need it. Otherwise, listening all day becomes ear fatigue central. And earbuds, headphones & IEM's WILL diminish & destroy your hearing if you do it all the time.

As for guitar player/home recordists who edit using headphones alone or try and record/edit/master on the cheap (especially using cheap recording signal chains with even cheaper monitors under say, $1500/pair minimum, IMO & direct experience) - "You keep doing that. That's what you're good at, Butch." It can be fun, but don't ever expect consistent, pro level recordings to result, no matter how great the playing or players are.

alohachris

PS: I gigged solo regularly for 53 years. I retired from regular gigging four years ago because I got tired of playing for crowds that were not wholly present. They brought their digital distractions with them, even the Boomers. I was spoiled for so long by the natural give & take of great, attentive crowds that I couldn't appreciate the break in the connection via digital interference. Sorry if this sounds a tad bitter, but there comes a point in one's life where you just say, hey, the latest stuff is NOT progress, & you jump off that wagon, hoping for better down the line. I just don't need a layer of technology between me & all aspects of living. I do know that I'll never edit/master with less than the relatively cheap near-field Adam A7X monitor's I've been using for awhile now (I do use my car & home stereo's as a lo-to-midfi references as well). Eff earbuds & mp3's while we're at it! Buy some decent monitors, friends! -alohachris-

I get it Chris. Recording technology is just getting better and better and cheaper and cheaper but we are experiencing a headlong "race to the bottom" of the delivery quality chain at the same time.

Oh, well.

Bob

i have friends over 62 who listen to music via desktop pc speakers or their iphone, and, these are musicians! i've offered to help them get a better sound system but they say everything is too large and takes up too much space. their choice. not mine.

play music!

Mixing is really an art form. It's not for everybody and there is no step 1,2,3. It's all in the ear of the beholder. If you're not a specialist in this field, just mix on whatever sounds good to your ears. As you get more experience, you'll find ways to improve. The point being, don't feel like you can't experiment because you don't have $$ invested in a room or equipment, but don't expect much of anything if you don't have some kind of ear for it.

My understanding is that you mix on well balanced monitors that you know. So that you can do the best middle ground mix possible. This is because the music you have mixed will be listened to on every device known to man. So you want to give the mix it's best chance to compete on those devices. I always ran my mixes through different devices to test the mix. You want to have the bass come through on a system with no bass and mid-range not to over take everything on a system that is real mid-rangy. And on and on. Consumer stereos are designed to make the music pleasant to the purchaser. If you mix on them and try your mix say on a boom box. You will find that you can't hear part of your mix. Chances are you turned the bass way down because the stereo speakers were bassy sounding now on a system that isn't EQ'd to bass the bass will be missing. This of coarse is simplified in an attemp to make it understandable.

Whatever you mix with the final product should also sound good on headphones (earbuds) as that is what most people do the majority of their listening with. With less than stellar recording rooms I have found editing with monitors problematic and I prefer using open backed detailed and uncolored headphones.

and soundcloud on the phone:)