Mix Translation

[GretschHead]

Frame of reference:
I am a musician who has completed, years ago, a project in an SSL facility. For the budget and genre, it came out well compared to other projects. However, at that time, I knew squat and wish I had paid more attention.

A few years ago, I had a project/home studio and was working towards a smaller project and due to extraeneous reasons, never got to finish. During this time, I researched and learned a lot. I did some mixes and, in the room, was extremely pleased. If what i had in the room was captured on CD, I would have been ecstatic. However, translation was a beast I never conquered. On a low-end budget, I tamed the room as best I could, had a "decent" set of monitors (Mackie 824's) but never did as well as I thought I should.

Past problem:
The issue that killed me was the low mids. I was able to get a controlled, focused bottom end in the room but it always translated to mush and mud elsewhere. I did find and was able to work around anamolies higher in the spectrum.

Present Scenario
I am looking to get started again on a small, simple scale and am a bit afraid of hitting this wall again. I am looking to find some techniques, tools, or tips to help.

Present considerations:
I did before and plan again to spend hours listening in efforts to learn the room and speakers.

I know tuning the room is huge and I am getting help from Auralex. i realize it does not equal an engineered room but it is a start.

Questions:
Even if the room is not perfect and the monitors are not perfect, shouldn't I be able to learn what to expect and work around it? At least to a partially succesful level?

Besides soaking in the music, is there a technique or analytical approach in listening to better facilitate learning the room?

Would I be better served monitoring at lower volumes when I find the room or setup intolerable?

Are there other things that may help me in overcoming this issue?

Should i just shoot myself? just kiddin


I plan to talk about monitors and a replacement later but hope to address the room side of things or the techniques involved in learning an area.


thanks for any help
Rob

[Crash]

RealTraps - Home

Happy Holidays! GIK Acoustics.

Go there and read and learn.

[bobbybland]

Gik Acoustics have changed my monitoring totally.The good thing is you do have good monitors in the Mackie's they just need an accurate room to translate better.Ethan and Glenn have a ton of info on their sites.I would recommend reading them both and calling to see what will work out for you.

[Glenn Kuras]

Even if the room is not perfect and the monitors are not perfect, shouldn't I be able to learn what to expect and work around it? At least to a partially succesful level?

Besides soaking in the music, is there a technique or analytical approach in listening to better facilitate learning the room?

Would I be better served monitoring at lower volumes when I find the room or setup intolerable?

Are there other things that may help me in overcoming this issue?

The short answer is NO.

Think of it this way, for now on when you mike up a drum set you have to put on the blindfold and just feel around. Now over time you might get it, but what a silly way to work. Room acoustics work the same way. If you have nulls and peaks of 30 dB throughout the frequency range in your room then how could you ever really hear how the mix will sound?

Glenn

[mpw]

I'm just a beginner myself, but I've found it a big help to simply turn the volume down. Getting your music to sound good on "ordinary" systems seems to mean less bass. The inexpensive gear does not seem to dissipate large amounts of bass energy very well without sounding terrible. The expensive monitors always seem to be able to handle more bass gracefully.
So after the initial mix goes out to the car for a listen, it will often have to have less bass the next time. Everything gets listened to on two other systems besides the expensive monitoring speakers and that practice seems to help.

Some bass players seem to do silly things with their eq's. They goose up the lowest lows that even an elephant could not hear, creating all kinds of high energy chaos. Many audio systems just can't reproduce these frequencies anyway and they seem to just make the overall mix much more difficult, so they get eq'd out and into oblivion, making them less of a problem.

Nothing worse than turning down the volume on a recording you're working on and having half of the instruments disappear from the mix. Lots of stuff gets listened to at low volumes and so it's important for it to be correct down there too. It seems to be easier to get the bass to translate properly by doing more at lower volumes.

[einstein863]

Like Crash said, bass traps are a good place to start. A full room treatment would be best. If you don't have that kind of money using a spectrum analyzer during mixing can be a big help as it allows you to "see" the db levels of the frequency bands in your music. If your mixes aren't translating well this can help you zone in on problem frequencies and then eq accordingly.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by einstein863

Like Crash said, bass traps are a good place to start. A full room treatment would be best.

Yes, and not only because bass traps and room treatment help you mix faster and more efficiently by avoiding trips to the car. When you mix in a well-treated room it's also a lot more fun and less effort. You can hear small (less than 1 dB) changes in volume, EQ, and panning much more readily than in an untreated room where everything is made muddy by all the reflections.

--Ethan

[jeff_free69]

I'm finishing round 2 of my room treatment and LOVING it . only downside is that its made me realize how bad my living room sounds now! (I don't think the wife is going to go for that too!).

the front of the control room is pretty much covered with a combination of RealTraps and DIY OC 703/705 panels, so early reflections are REALLY down. From my chair on back are various reflective wood surfaces on the walls + more traps in the corners. I decided it made a lot sense to do this work BEFORE going out and spending $1000+ on new monitors. Even my crappy JBLs are a pleasure to listen to now and mix translation is much more predictable!

[flame Linear]

what if one was to through up a pair of speakers outside and a remote mixer, would'nt this be a easyway to get a good mix if on a budget granted you had a space outside away from noise?

[donsolo]

Originally Posted by flame Linear

what if one was to through up a pair of speakers outside and a remote mixer, would'nt this be a easyway to get a good mix if on a budget granted you had a space outside away from noise?

Too much Noise Floor to hear detail. Wind, Wildlife, grass growing...too much noise.

[Acoustic Cloud]

I would rather record vocals and acoustic guitar in a very well treated area with a 57 and 58, than in an all hard surface area with a U-47 and Neve preamp.

One sitch is way cheaper, and sounds bettah!!! Guess which one?