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Human Mistakes
#21
(14-04-2014, 10:39 PM)The_Metallurgist Wrote:
(14-04-2014, 12:00 AM)Pedaling Prince Wrote: .........if you hear something in one of my mixes you don't like it's not because I'm being affected by my room; it's because I liked the sound the way you're hearing it.

this statement is incorrect and naive.

you have no way of telling how much you are being affected by your room.

If that's true then a truly "accurate" recording is physically impossible. Even professionally treated rooms are never perfect; nothing is. Your best defence against that is to get familiar with how high quality professionally mixed material sounds in your environment; do enough of that and you should get a good feel for how your gear sounds the way you have it set up. Will you ever have a completely "accurate" picture? No. But then again, the goal of art is expression, not accuracy. You need not know how the canvas was made to know how your paint looks on it.

(14-04-2014, 10:39 PM)The_Metallurgist Wrote: headphones sacrifice stereo and depth image . . .

I suppose, if you're speaking strictly of the stereo image provided by speakers you could say you're sacrificing that, but I believe the word "sacrificing" is misleading as it implies a total loss of stereo image. Headphones do not do that; they merely alter your perceptions of stereo and depth. More to the point they tend to exaggerate them since your ears are now physically isolated from one another and each channel's signal is being fed directly into them. This tends to exaggerate the effect of any panning or reverb, which is why it's so important to check a mix on both speakers and headphones. Headphones will tend to distort your judgment of reverbs and pans, but they'll also pick out details in the sound you're likely to miss on speakers, like that tiny click or dropout. Not to mention that listening on headphones gives you a good idea of how your mix will sound if the listener decides to listen on headphones, or is using an iPod, an MP3 player or a cell phone to listen to your work.

(14-04-2014, 10:39 PM)The_Metallurgist Wrote: . . .and most will have extremely uneven frequency response issues too.

So do speakers. Unless you can afford multi thousand dollar THX approved studio monitors.

Which most of us can't.

(14-04-2014, 10:39 PM)The_Metallurgist Wrote: being familiar with your gear doesn't address these problems, but merely conditions our brain's perceptions and colour's judgement.

All judgment is "coloured." By your room. By your gear. By your mood. By your ears. By your attitude. By your taste, for that matter.

Being familiar with your gear merely means you're aware of how it colours your judgment. You can never entirely eliminate inaccuracy endemic to your environment but you can at least minimize it by maintaining an awareness of how your studio environment affects what you're hearing. Once you're familiar enough with your gear and your setup you can produce work that will sound good on a wide variety of systems. I've played my mixes on everything from high end systems all the way back to the little speaker in my iPhone. I've played my mixes on high end headphones all the way down to Koss iSparks (ugh... those things were terrible for anything; if you're on a budget do not consider these things). I have yet to create a completed mix that didn't sound good in every environment I tried it in. And when I complete a mix, at minimum I listen to it on my speakers, my headphones and the iPhone speaker to get a good, balanced feel for it from those three different perspectives; that gives me a good solid idea how it will sound in a variety of environments.

(14-04-2014, 10:39 PM)The_Metallurgist Wrote: i'd also add in passing, that if you can look at a spectrum for a vocal and deduce the tone from such, you are likely to be the first in living history to do so.

I didn't say I could "deduce the tone" of a vocal with a spectrum analyzer; that can be done only by listening. What I said was:

"I rarely use any kind of spectrum analyzer unless I'm having difficulty resolving a particular problem, most often when vocal tone doesn't sound right. Sometimes it helps, when something sounds off, to have a visual representation of that sound to help you figure out where the problem might be."

If you're going to comment on my ideas, at least get your facts straight. What I said was a spectrum analyzer can be useful in determining where the problem is after I've already determined that the tone is off by listening.

(14-04-2014, 10:39 PM)The_Metallurgist Wrote: when did you last have your hearing professionally checked, by the way?

Seriously...? Rolleyes

There are plenty of mixers out there who have damaged hearing from years of working in the field and are able to function just fine so long as they bear their hearing's limitations in mind; like getting familiar with your gear, you also have to get familiar with your ears and their limitations as well. Once your ears are unable to hear above, say, 12 kHz that's probably where you're at the point where you just don't have good enough hearing to judge.

As for my hearing, I haven't had it professionally tested if you must know (wow you depend heavily on measuring stuff, don't you? Tongue). However, to give you some practical real-world examples of how good my hearing is:

I have always been able to tell when there is a CRT-based TV or monitor on in a room because I can detect the 15,734 Hz tone created by the frequency of the CRT's electron gun scanning the screen; I can still hear this tone even today. I'm 41 years old; the average man my age can't hear about 14 kHz. Tongue Also, in the tub this morning I pressed the Indiglo night light on my watch and discovered it, too, makes a faint high pitched whine when the light is on. It sounds a lot like the CRT noise so I'm guessing it's at least 15 kHz, possibly higher.

All right. To me, here's what it boils down to:

So far I've listened to two of your mixes: "Revelations" and "Human Mistakes." Granted, two mixes is probably only a tiny fraction of your work. Still, I think it's rather telling that I liked neither of them (which is why I haven't thus far sought to listen to any more).

Now. If I did like your work, and you were saying all this, then I might be a little worried about the quality of my own. However, thus far you have done nothing to prove to me that you have any idea what you're talking about. Sure your technical ideas seem to make sense on proverbial paper, but if the work I've heard from you so far is a representative sample of those theories in action... well... doesn't sound like your approach is working to my ears... Dodgy

Also, from what I've read of your comments to me and others, you seem to have this idea in your head that your way is the only right way. That's the way you come off, at any rate. In any art, and make no mistake music mixing is an art, there is no such thing as that one "right" way to do something.

For example, normally I am unequivocally against the idea of master buss compression, genre of music notwithstanding; I view compression as something that should only be used on individual tracks in a mix, not on the mix as a whole. However, while I will never use compression on my master buss, I am fully willing to recognize a legitimately effective use of it, such as juanjose1967's mix of this song. He used master buss compression but made it astonishingly transparent and effective. Though he used a technique I oppose, he ultimately created something I liked, which only goes to prove that no matter how strongly you believe something should not be done a certain way, there will always be someone, somewhere, who does it that way and makes it work better than you ever would have thought it could.

If you don't like my work, so be it; you have a right to your opinion. However, you should be aware that based on the comments I've gotten here, and elsewhere, you appear to be in the minority in that. Even Mike Senior himself has enjoyed my work, praising my sense of balance in particular.

So. You want me to take your advice seriously? Drop the technobabble; to me, it's meaningless. If you want to impress me, you've got to create a mix I like.

I've heard work by Mike Senior, and I liked it. That proves to me that his technospeak is not just babble; he knows what he's talking about.

From the work I've seen from you so far, you have yet to prove that to me.
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#22
(14-04-2014, 03:03 PM)pauli Wrote: I'll have to take another look at the piano track in this song because this first time I tried mixing this I wasn't able to get a sound I liked out of it... but in your mix and others I've heard it used quite nicely and (I'd like to think) I've learned a bit and gained some skills since this attempt, so I'd like to try and add a little more character Big Grin

OK well, if this helps, I applied EQ +3 dB @ 80 Hz, +15 dB at 7600 Hz and +3.5 dB at 12 kHz and also applied a nice open reverb to emulate the feel of a concert hall.

(14-04-2014, 03:03 PM)pauli Wrote: I was actually looking for a sample from a captain kirk line (What are you? Machine, or being?)

From the Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever." Tongue

(14-04-2014, 03:03 PM)pauli Wrote: I fell behind when I got stuck on a mix fraught with technical considerations that were making musical considerations almost impossible :/ but I'll be dropping in to see what you've been up to!

I look forward to that. Smile
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#23
I think animosity is impeding on a very important discussion, here... technical versus musical processing. My observation is that most engineers lean toward one camp or the other, most likely due to their backgrounds as either musicians or audio technicians. Fabulous results abound from both styles, obviously. I try to balance the two approaches but as I was a musician for 15 years prior to learning the basics of mixing and recording, my processing decisions most likely "serve the music" the way I want to hear it (and in the places I'd want to hear it), and I'd probably be more likely to go against my gut/personal taste to try and get the sound an artist is going for. But the more technically oriented engineers are looking to create much more cross-platform sounds... sounds that will hold up well under many different listening systems and listening situations, which is more likely to sell, without question.

This leads me to the observation that there are some serious apples to oranges comparisons going on here... we're here practicing/showcasing our mixing skills without the intention of producing something that will satisfy both the band and their producer with the dollar signs for eyes, so at least in my opinion, personal taste is going to be a big factor in any sort of artistic decisions we might want to make... and obviously there's a difference in opinion here Tongue

One of us is the kinda guy who's looking for results that have strong cross-compatibility with other systems, which I agree requires a well treated room and quality equipment (and a recording from a well treated studio with professional mics really helps, too)... and his mixes get a lot of (in my opinion) unfair criticism, partly targeted at his artistic decisions (again, personal taste, here) and his unwillingness to sacrifice good translation to all systems, including audiophile systems, for somewhat better musicality on a limited number of systems... and this is further complicated by the home studio nature of most of these projects... where in most cases, you can only guess at the room, mics, artists intentions, and many of them were recorded under constraints that make it very very difficult to achieve his goals without compromising in some way.

And on the other side of that token is the fella who is willing to overlook 100% cross-system translation to retain his perspective on the artists intentions, filtered by his own personal tastes... simple as that. This is an easier perspective to work from in the case of recordings made at home because if you can keep the damage under control enough to get it balanced in your untreated home-office/bedroom on mass market computer speakers, most people listening in similar situations and on similar equipment (and most casual listeners WILL be listening to music in those situations) will hear a balanced mix as well, provided you're referencing appropriately and you know what professionally mixed music sounds like on your equipment. Although I have to agree that a spectrogram is necessary for the bass, because even identical rooms can vary tremendously in bass response depending on what's in there and a zillion other factors.

But you can't really compare the two approaches on Boolean right vs. wrong grounds, because the objectives are completely different... This is an important topic of discussion that can benefit us all if we can keep that in perspective!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#24
(16-04-2014, 10:35 PM)pauli Wrote: And on the other side of that token is [Pealing Prince] who is willing to overlook 100% cross-system translation to retain his perspective on the artists intentions, filtered by his own personal tastes... simple as that.

I was pretty sure you were talking about me here so I put my name into the quoteback from your post for the sake of clarity. Smile

This is the only area in which I disagree with you. I do not "overlook 100% cross-system translation." I actually make a point of evaluating my mixes in four environments for this very purpose: on my speakers, on my headphones, on my iPhone with earbuds and on the iPhone's internal speaker. The idea here is to get an idea of the sound on audiophile systems (the speakers), high end portables (the headphones), low to midrange portables (the earbuds) and the ordinary craptastic mono system (the iPhone speaker).

The Metallurgist seems to be fixated on tailoring his recordings to preserve the relative balance in both stereo and mono across all listening platforms, even if this means compromising sound on high end systems. Myself, I do consider how my mix will sound on less capable systems and I am willing to make compromises if my mix has significant problems in one of my test environments (I've made adjustments to mixes because of things I've heard on the iPhone more than once). However, I don't expect the finer nuances of my mix to translate well to craptastic systems because... well, they are craptastic systems; they're not intended to reproduce subtle harmonics. So I expect my mixes to lose something in the translation when played in the average environment, but I'm not worried if the vocals seem a little louder or the guitar a little softer than on an ideal system so long as the spirit of my mix is still intact.

You're right about one thing, though. While I do consider and test for the performance of my mixes on more modest playback environments, I'm as dogged about refusing to compromise fidelity as Metallurgist is about refusing to compromise compatibility; when I do make an adjustment for compatibility it's usually only a balance adjustment and has little or no impact on the performance of the mix on high end systems.

In conclusion, I do consider cross-platform compatibility, but for the sake of making full use of the capabilities of the best gear I'm satisfied with about 80% compatibility. Which is why I refuse to compress the dynamic range of my recordings so they'll play "loud enough" on less powerful systems. It's been my experience that even recordings with dynamic range of 14 dB or greater will still play acceptably on the iPhone speaker; sure, you lose some of the quieter, more subtle parts of the mix but that's to be expected when playing on such a tiny speaker. So long as we can still hear the vocals and the passion of the singer and the music it's not really relevant if you can still hear that subtle synth pad or soft acoustic guitar. Wink
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#25
Hey, sorry! That was in reference to your work, but I don't think I phrased my point very clearly, but you've clarified very well. This is an important discussion in my opinion because to me both viewpoints and strategies are completely valid and produce very good, listenable, musical results. Dave is right, though, that many of the tracks offered were recorded at home and under less than ideal conditions, which makes his strategy very, very difficult to accomplish under the time constraints many of us have to deal with.

I think if the two of you found yourselves in an ideally treated control room working with material recorded in a well appointed studio by an experienced engineer, you'd probably also find yourselves more in agreement on mix strategy, because the technical challenges that make it hard for Dave to achieve his vision don't really exist. You guys really only differ in what you're willing to sacrifice to make your musical point Big Grin

Slightly off topic, you mentioned DR values of 14 or greater... after a hugely overcompressed disaster (check out my first mix of siren, it's bloody AWFUL) I did more (unposted) experiments with master bus compression and checking how it impacted DR values... and I've found that 10 is the minimum that my ears will find acceptable, and greater than 14 seems to be when I start smiling like a fool Big Grin. The metallurgist and voelund fortunately were willing to clue me into how much it sucked (and why!) and only after I re-worked it with their suggestions in mind did my mix quality start improving steadily.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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