WWMBD: What would Michael Brauer do?

[The_Metallurgist]

And I think I stumbled upon a few more pitfalls to avoid. Learning what not to do is crucial...

fully

What's bothering me is that in some ways it feels almost like you're trying to discourage me (?)

i can understand how you'd feel this. i'd much rather you looked at the inherent problems first and try and negotiate them within your constraints. i think that by understanding the limitations of our environments, we can better address (i.e. prioritise) how we move forwards from where we are today. Rome wasn't built in a day, but they did have a Plan.

Have I plateaued and stagnated for a time?

oh yes, this is a totally valid point you make. i think we go through stages, where sometimes progress is rapid and in others we can actually regress. you are confronting both the issues of a new working methodology as well as entering a genre to which you are not directly affiliated, and this could be a factor. perhaps the best way to judge the relative effectiveness of a fairly significant shift in work flow , is to mix a genre you are aufait with, and see how this feels. you might get a better idea of it's effectiveness and value in future or even specific projects. Matt is dead right in saying that day 1 of any trial is going to be shaky and it can take quite a bit of noodling to find what works best. exploration is important, but i think we need to base it firmly on a solid foundation. if your listening environment is compromised, then making that judgement call can be difficult. and i worry sometimes, about the quality of the feedback.....given that so many don't actually fully understand the limitations of their own listening environment - my previous notes in this tread above refer. and elsewhere, for that matter.

if you feel you are on a plateaux, don't panic. take some easier mixes and relax a bit....take the strain off yourself? i'm not so good at practising what i preach in that regard....i tend to push harder and get in an even bigger mess, which isn't healthy.

Forgive me if I feel a slight lack of respect, especially if that's not what's intended. But allow me to say that I've been forcing myself under serious duress to make the improvements you've suggested over the past year: looking at the big picture, improving my monitoring system/environment, reducing the tendency to overprocess... All of that is present on this mix... And then I'm confronted with a lack of talent/work ethic, and the indirect suggestion that I've been dishonest about what I'm monitoring through?

fullest respect towards your endeavours, dude. i must say, however, that we are not mixing a static target.....but it's a continually moving one. given that no two projects ever offer the same challenges, the outcomes can be highly varied as a consequence. i think when the environment stabilises and your cross referencing is becoming more consistent, you'll feel progress. the problem inherent in the mixing process is that so many variables exist and it's the accumulation/totality of all those variables that we present to the forum. we can't nail all problems on day one, and being confronted with a non-static project doesn't help. i don't know if this helps, but i often go back to old projects and re-assess my mixing decisions. in most instances, i shake my head in disbelief at some of the parameter changes i've made. working with a static target, in this way, we can better assess our own individual progress. this is why sometimes we can make a mix that satisfies us, and sometimes we mess up.....it's that moving target analogy. some mixes suit our current development than others. the further the genre from our comfort zones, the more we risk going off course. but unless we take the risks and reflect on the effectiveness of the outcomes, we won't progress......

I'm not offended, not upset... And I could easily get a better mix/balance with a more comfortable workflow. But I've forced myself to try a new, uncomfortable approach that might help me focus on the mix as a whole rather than myopically adjusting individual tracks until I've completely lost objectivity and creative impulse. You suggest an improvement mindset, but that's exactly what this mix was all about. Whether or not it has borne fruit on this mix in particular... Well, I've conducted better mixes. This wasn't, however, an attempt to avoid fundamentals or dazzle the forum with a new, fancy gimmick... just trying a new method that seemed consistent with mixing toward a vision for the big picture, which I acknowledge as my biggest weakness. I wasn't improving doing the same old thing, but I also can't afford top of the line equipment upgrades every time I plateau with a family to support on a crappy grocery store job... but considering that most of the classic records that most people compare favorably to modern records were mixed on aura tones and ns-10s... the latter of which is INSANELY nonlinear, both in terms of frequency distribution and resonance times across the spectrum...

i take your points here fully.

all speakers are non-linear. it's the room which makes them so. and all rooms have their own response (no one pair of NS10's will sound the same in different rooms....which is one reason why speaker reviews are a bit of a rouse). one of our challenges is to minimise the amount the room disrupts this response, or perhaps more importantly, how it sways our perception of what is happening. but monitors do offer the biggest constraints, second only to the room we work in.

i'd strongly recommend running some room frequency response tests, so you fully understand where the issues reside in your listening environment (which will automatically include the monitoring combined). it's the low-mids and of course the sub bass that will be the chief problem instigators, as you already know. that's always a good start - if you are sitting in a 30dB null at 73Hz, you need to know that!! the second is to find a monitoring arrangement that minimises disruption by your room. i personally use an Avantone (but not for this reason, but it is excellent at helping avoid excitation of room modes because of it's bass rolloff). i once had them running as a pair but later went mono-only; there's no cross-over phase issues to deal with being only one speaker, and the box is sealed, so you don't have a resonance misguiding you. i don't use it as often as i did, but i use it a lot very early on in the mix process, but then rely on my nearfields for EQ adjustments and hearing compression. the cans go on from time to time to check how things are working out....but i don't use them to make parameter changes, at least not without checking back on the nearfields.

a point about speaker choice. while it gets a lot of discussion out and about, i learned the hard way about failure. the ONLY way to select a pair of monitors is by spending time mixing on them. NOT hearing how they sound in the shop. you will know on the first print and how they translate, if they are good for YOU, and importantly, for YOUR room. this takes me back to my audiophile days and the challenges of matching amps with boxes! might sound awesome in the auditioning room, but get them home and it's a different story. if i'd heard my current nearfields in a shop, i would have waved a middle finger at them and never looked at them again. i also tried out a pair of boxes which were getting some rave reviews, especially on the price-performance chart. i did a mix, and thought it sounded great. then i put it over some other reference speakers for translation and they were an out and out disaster. but i'm sure some folk can do great mixes with them. it's all a challenge, and it can take a lot of energy to settle on what works. AND to respect the needs of budget constraints while so doing.

you say that bass is a problem in your room which makes it's assessment in your mixes difficult? in this mix, i'm hearing the harmonics and i think you shaped the mix on those harmonics. what you need to do perhaps, is try to train your ears to ONLY hear the FUNDAMENTALS and starve them of the harmonics. over time you will be able to make a much better assessment with your current monitoring (even if it's bass-shy). even boxes that drop off at 80Hz can tell you the fundamental of a kick at 60Hz.....and how well the bass guitar and kick are working together, or not as the case may be. my nearfieds are low-cut at 90Hz. i don't let the bass slow the mid-range response and cloud my judgement. when i want to hear the bass, and sub end, on goes the sub (non-resonant, i hasten to add) and off go the nearfields. if i want to hear it all combined, then i go through the 3-way midfields.

So I talk and ramble a lot, but maybe that helps give a better perspective of what I'm trying to do. I've not ignored your advice, nor will I ever... But at the same time, the "advice" herein almost seems like "give up, you don't have the talent or finances to mix." If you think so, that's fine and understandable... Just don't think I'm not working my ass off, because you'd be dead wrong.

what do i think? i think you are one of the hardest and most determined chaps in the forum. but don't confuse "working harder" with "working smarter". but i do feel sometimes, that you over-do the academic aspects of the mixing process and make things more complicated than they should be and my response to the MB strategy was no doubt out of this concern. it's essential to try out new ideas and push the comfort zones, and i can see you do a lot of that already. but i'd probably ease up on the explorations and experimentations, and try easing up on the processing/number of processes and go back a bit to basics. i can't talk....because i can max out my CPU on even the simplest of mixes today. last year i was far too conservative. but having said that, i do much more of the "less", but have more plugs running - cubase5 has far too few insert slots! lol. i find the interactions, even the placement of a plug in the signal chain, can make a marked difference in delivery. and this can be a complete experiment in it's own right, just on one instrument!

most people are able to mix the mid range zone well, but it's the treble and bass regions that are problematic. most of the time, your trebles are smooth in delivery, which suggests to me that you are using very small speakers which over-present the trebles. indeed, the reason the NS10's are popular is the peak right in the sensitive zone of our hearing. by over-presenting the treble in this way, it causes the engineer to shape the zone more proficiently and implement cuts when needed. a less aggressive speaker won't present the problems so bluntly which can cause the user to miss opportunities. but small speakers will cause challenges in the low-mids and bass/sub bass end of course, and primarily this is your challenge, me thinks. MB's strategies won't fix this. no one single pair of speakers can do all things well, and this is another painful lesson i've learned the hard way. i have 4 systems at the desk, but 2 are used mostly, the others are final checks, if i remember or have the energy to take a mix that far! it depends on my goals/mix vision. if i've put all my time and energies into hacking an arrangement, i might not even bother fussing over the bass end! objective already achieved, move on....i don't fuss over things i know i don't have a problem with. i'm also aware that not many forum participants are in a good position to reliably assess bass anyway; so long as i can assess it reliably, and when i need to, that's all that matters. mp3 removes bass....so that's another factor most forget about or are not even aware of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>>>>>>>>>>>> another key point:
small speakers are crap at helping us to judge the effectiveness of compressor parameter changes (but they do have their strengths/benefits elsewhere). you are far more likely to over-compress than under compress. and i'd point out that i hear a lot of over-processed mix presentations in this regard. but flagging up the problem that you are over-compressing simply disguises the ROOT CAUSE of the problem - your monitoring. are you reading this Matt?

it's my opinion that you don't spend enough time exploring your mixes in mono (i mean mono-single speaker, not stereo mono, with both speakers mixing down to mono!). FORGET ABOUT PHASE....don't obsessssss over that, but of course it's important to keep it in mind. if you did the mono thang, it would force you, screaming and kicking, to a much better mix. this metal mix is a case in point. and you can't simply pan your way out of trouble in the stereo domain - nobody listens to music sitting in the sweet spot (other than silly audiophiles), so they hear the accumulated outputs of both speakers in their rooms. but for goodness sake, back off on the compressor deployment....and this is why your mention of MB had me more than a little worried.

it's my opinion that not everyone is cut out to mix, and i don't care what Matt has to say on that issue. whether this applies to you is only for YOU to decide, and this will depend on what is important to you at the end of the day. but i ask myself the question from time to time, and i think it's important to reflect on rate of progress and time spent in achieving that progress and whether the totality of constraints are such that it makes further progress limited than is satisfactory for our own ego. i get all of Matt's references, but he's missed one important one "Knowing when to quit" by Jack Barranger. EVERYONE should know when this point is valid.....whether it's mixing, the day job, a relationship, a business, woteva. it's a crucial skill to learn, it's a life skill because there will no doubt be times when we have to make that call......but what skills do we possess to make it? but i'm way off topic now!

i hope this makes better sense and helps pull the previous posts into a more clear light. i'm happy to clarify points, should you feel there's some ambiguity at any time.

on topic:
this mix has a programme loudness of -19.6LUFS. it's true peak is -3'ish, though much of the mix is hanging around the -4 mark. if you simply pushed the fader up 3dB so the peak is 0dB, the LUFS would come down to around -16. i note that your intro is loud....so too the outro relative to the majority of the mix. speaking objectively, it's SL is -17LUFS, then the mix disappears.....and we have a loudness weaving around the -20LUFS scale. i don't understand your reasoning.

at 0:30, the solo guitar is only coming down the mid channel, so you've lost some realestate there. i'm not sure if it's lacking in the raw materials, but i'm not getting power anywhere in the guitars...and it's not simply because of the missing bass elements already mentioned by others. no power, no emotion. i should have been possessed by an uncontrollable urge to mosh, but it escaped me. it's gotta connect dude, and the decisions you make in your mix can make or break this experience. you gotta make it bang. power wont come from the low end....all this will do is cause the woofer to go sluggish and gobble headroom! so how do you plan to make them bang so they complement the snarles, growls and slime in the vocals? clue: changing your mix buss work flow to an MB layout probably won't help

that nice, sharp attack on that kick got my attention