18-02-2016, 01:35 AM
JJ, there's a lot of things that throw our judgements out the window when mixing:
your brain has "responded" to the change in your "monitoring environment". if you mixed on a pair of bright speakers tomorrow, you'd suddenly produce warmer mixes. and if you mixed on warm speakers, your mixes would tend to have more treble in comparison....it's the cumulative effects of how we each respond as individuals to the changes in stimulus that's important. some of this response is going to be based on how your brain is affected by the psychoacoustics, so sometimes there's no logic or actual consciousness on our part when we make a parameter adjustment. if the warm speaker presents a warm sound, we will automatically dial in more treble to compensate- but it's a reaction. importantly, if a "critical" listening environment isn't critical enough, then it will hamper development at a minimum, or provide a constraint/barrier to attaining the desired or necessary skill level.
you are right not to be discouraged when a 50 dollar plugin unwittingly messes with your psyche. and there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying things out and seeing what happens and taking a punt. indeed, with some CD referencing and getting used to the new "perspective" (perhaps before mixing anything with it), you may find that it can form an invaluable part of your mixing routine....or not. if it was me, i'd ask myself if it's worth fighting for, given how much it's indirectly messed with the frequency response outcome and done so with quite a bit of drama (in my opinion, FWIW). but as you say, it might have some values elsewhere from your perspective. only you can make that call, and that's how it should be.
what worries me however, is that if it's messed with your judgements in a way you were unaware of in the finished mix, how can you be confident of it's benefit/reliability when making [any] parameter adjustments in future?
your brain has "responded" to the change in your "monitoring environment". if you mixed on a pair of bright speakers tomorrow, you'd suddenly produce warmer mixes. and if you mixed on warm speakers, your mixes would tend to have more treble in comparison....it's the cumulative effects of how we each respond as individuals to the changes in stimulus that's important. some of this response is going to be based on how your brain is affected by the psychoacoustics, so sometimes there's no logic or actual consciousness on our part when we make a parameter adjustment. if the warm speaker presents a warm sound, we will automatically dial in more treble to compensate- but it's a reaction. importantly, if a "critical" listening environment isn't critical enough, then it will hamper development at a minimum, or provide a constraint/barrier to attaining the desired or necessary skill level.
you are right not to be discouraged when a 50 dollar plugin unwittingly messes with your psyche. and there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying things out and seeing what happens and taking a punt. indeed, with some CD referencing and getting used to the new "perspective" (perhaps before mixing anything with it), you may find that it can form an invaluable part of your mixing routine....or not. if it was me, i'd ask myself if it's worth fighting for, given how much it's indirectly messed with the frequency response outcome and done so with quite a bit of drama (in my opinion, FWIW). but as you say, it might have some values elsewhere from your perspective. only you can make that call, and that's how it should be.
what worries me however, is that if it's messed with your judgements in a way you were unaware of in the finished mix, how can you be confident of it's benefit/reliability when making [any] parameter adjustments in future?
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!