Silona - Learning How To Fly [OoF]

[OctopusOnFire]

Hey Octo,
I'm really liking M2-003.  Great balance and clean sounds, quite polished.  The vocal has good contrast and is centred nicely within the stereo mix.  I also like the build of the ensemble as the song progresses. Very tasteful.  What drew me to listening to this song further was how well it translated on my MacBook Pro speakers. It sounded really good and I just had to plug the headphones in and continue listening.  Great work, an enjoyable audition.  thank you.

Thanks for giving it a listen, and I'm glad that you enjoyed it! 

[Monk]

Long story short. If you're using Sonarworks Reference and you're keeping the microphone in your hand while measuring (as they recommend), KEEP IT AT AN ARMS LENGTH.

Greets, OoF

A quick couple of points:
If you want results that offer direct comparison in the Acoustic's Department, you must use a mic stand, and you must ensure the mic is placed in the EXACT same reference point EVERY TIME (including height). You only need to be a couple of inches out to make a significant difference in the meaurement....and it becomes entirely meaningless.

Secondly, you can't EQ your way out of a bad room. What they don't tell you in the small print is that if you put more energy into a null, it goes deeper!!!

Don't believe what your eyes are telling you in the FR curves. This is NOT what your room is doing. Nulls below 200Hz, and especially below 100Hz go deep and steep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I suspect they are taking into account our natural inability to sense sub bass (ear's non-linear response) as well as the issues your monitors will have putting out a lot more energy in the sub region than is necessary musically, in order to try and counter nulls. More energy down here means less clarity in the 1kHz zone. It looks like they use a bathtub strategy to cover more Hz, but not have to go so deep. They are playing with psychoacoustics.

If you want good acoustics, you need a decent size room, of approprate proportions, and someone who knows how to treat it acoustically and set up you and your gear in relation to it. Only then can you use EQ, and only then to tune the fine detail....repeat "fine detail", i.e. about a couple of dB.

You can't cut corners....no pun intended.

Headphones are not a substitute, as they have their own significant issues which most musician-mixers are oblivious to. Headphones have their uses, but mixing entirely on them, or defining bass (or anything that challenges their crappy FR), isn't negotiable, unless ignorance is bliss or someone is trying to make money out of you, or both.

Regards,

[DctrRoss]

The mix sounds good. It may be a bit dark but I think mine is over the top bright and that is what I have been listening to, so maybe I'm not a good judge. I'll be working on something all day and not bring up a reference mix, then come back the next day and wonder what the hell was wrong with me.

All the stuff about your room and eq and stuff, I have a crappy small room, speakers not in the correct positions, weird reflections, a concrete floor and so on. I work at home in the same room and listen to music all day. You just have to acclimatize to your room. Before I start mixing, I usually sit and listen to 2 or 3 songs I know sound good so that is what I am used to. I didn't this time though and I haven't compared my mix to anything since we didn't get the mix with these stems.