The Art of Listening

[Lawrence]

... as it relates to mixing.

Just a quick discussion about a not too often touched on part of mixing. Critical listening. IHHO too few new engineers don't spend enough time training their ears. What does that mean? It means that every home studio room, room response, DA conversion and speaker system is different and in order to speed up the process of tuning your ears to your "mix room" or sweet spot (room treatment or not) you need to spend time there doing critical listening. I'll explain a bit more...

Every fan of every genre knows what "good" music in that genre sounds like. Knowing that is not enough for you to "get there" by itself. You need to know what it sounds like in your space and that knowledge has to be imprinted permanently on your aural memory. How do you do that?

Two ways.

1. Spend lots of time mixing in that room and studying your craft and eventually you'll get to a spot where your mixing skills and your ears meet at a happy place.

2. You can shorten that time considerably by planning for long periods of critical listening to high quality music at your mix position.

===========================================

A. Take some songs from your music library - not mp3, full bandwith audio - that you consider *excellent* mixes. Full round bass, great balances, smooth vocals, great use of panning etc, etc. Songs in the genre you mix most often.

Note: A dedicated mix engineer will critically listen to *all* genres to be prepared to mix anything. Rock, country, whatever. If you only mix hip-hop, listen to hip-hop. Not just songs you like... songs that are great mixes... even if you don't particularly like the content.

B. Pick a time regularly to do *nothing else* but sit upright at your mix position in the sweet spot and listen at a moderate volume. For newer mix engineers who are dead serious about the potential quality of their mixes, I'd do this at least 3-4 times a week for about 60 minutes a sitting or more.

C. Close your eyes, sit at the mix position and just *listen*. Turn off the cell phone, smoke a doobie, pour a shot of whatever, and just listen. To remove any possible sonic variable (media player processing etc), rip the songs and play them through your daw.

Listen for balance, frequency, depth, space, effects etc. Listen deep down into the music and analyze it. Listen to how the backing vox and leads interact sonically. Listen for really subtle things like spatial cues from subtle delays. If you do this regularly with really great mixes... you will imprint on your brain a sort of aural image of what a really good mix should sound like on your system under your particular listening conditions.

Eventually you'll just automatically know when something isn't right. When something is 2-dimensional, or too thin, or too fat, or the midrange isn't right, when the vox eq isn't right etc, etc.

Try it. It works. It's (imho) the biggest single reason why experienced mix engineers make better mixes, they *know* much better what the general target is. They don't hear better than you, they hear different than you. It's the same reason I can mix what turns out to be a decently balanced and translating rough mix in my iPhone earbuds. I listen to great mixes on them daily (even as compressed *.aac) so much I know immediately what music should sound like through them.

I still spend time doing this as a "refresher". I'll take some Quincy or similar into the studio and just close my eyes and listen. "Secret Garden" or the like. And when you get those great new speakers that you couldn't afford last year? Refresh your ears by doing it again.

There are very few shortcuts to better mixing, this is one of them.

[AnAverageJoe]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

... as it relates to mixing.

Just a quick discussion about a not too often touched on part of mixing. Critical listening. IHHO too few new engineers don't spend enough time training their ears. What does that mean? It means that every home studio room, room response, DA conversion and speaker system is different and in order to speed up the process of tuning your ears to your "mix room" or sweet spot (room treatment or not) you need to spend time there doing critical listening. I'll explain a bit more...

Every fan of every genre knows what "good" music in that genre sounds like. Knowing that is not enough for you to "get there" by itself. You need to know what it sounds like in your space and that knowledge has to be imprinted permanently on your aural memory. How do you do that?

Two ways.

1. Spend lots of time mixing in that room and studying your craft and eventually you'll get to a spot where your mixing skills and your ears meet at a happy place.

2. You can shorten that time considerably by planning for long periods of critical listening to high quality music at your mix position.

===========================================

A. Take some songs from your music library - not mp3, full bandwith audio - that you consider *excellent* mixes. Full round bass, great balances, smooth vocals, great use of panning etc, etc. Songs in the genre you mix most often.

Note: A dedicated mix engineer will critically listen to *all* genres to be prepared to mix anything. Rock, country, whatever. If you only mix hip-hop, listen to hip-hop. Not just songs you like... songs that are great mixes... even if you don't particularly like the content.

B. Pick a time regularly to do *nothing else* but sit upright at your mix position in the sweet spot and listen at a moderate volume. For newer mix engineers who are dead serious about the potential quality of their mixes, I'd do this at least 3-4 times a week for about 60 minutes a sitting or more.

C. Close your eyes, sit at the mix position and just *listen*. Turn off the cell phone, smoke a doobie, pour a shot of whatever, and just listen. To remove any possible sonic variable (media player processing etc), rip the songs and play them through your daw.

Listen for balance, frequency, depth, space, effects etc. Listen deep down into the music and analyze it. Listen to how the backing vox and leads interact sonically. Listen for really subtle things like spatial cues from subtle delays. If you do this regularly with really great mixes... you will imprint on your brain a sort of aural image of what a really good mix should sound like on your system under your particular listening conditions.

Eventually you'll just automatically know when something isn't right. When something is 2-dimensional, or too thin, or too fat, or the midrange isn't right, when the vox eq isn't right etc, etc.

Try it. It works. It's (imho) the biggest single reason why experienced mix engineers make better mixes, they *know* much better what the general target is. They don't hear better than you, they hear different than you. It's the same reason I can mix what turns out to be a decently balanced and translating rough mix in my iPhone earbuds. I listen to great mixes on them daily (even as compressed *.aac) so much I know immediately what music should sound like through them.

I still spend time doing this as a "refresher". I'll take some Quincy or similar into the studio and just close my eyes and listen. "Secret Garden" or the like. And when you get those great new speakers that you couldn't afford last year? Refresh your ears by doing it again.

There are very few shortcuts to better mixing, this is one of them.

Well Said!!!!

[Lawrence]

I forgot one thing...

At the end of each listening session put up one of your best mixes. It's an eye-opener. As you progress through your "ear training" bring up more recent mixes at the end of your listening sessions.

You'll hear that gap closing.

[Keyflo]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

... as it relates to mixing.

Just a quick discussion about a not too often touched on part of mixing. Critical listening. IHHO too few new engineers don't spend enough time training their ears. What does that mean? It means that every home studio room, room response, DA conversion and speaker system is different and in order to speed up the process of tuning your ears to your "mix room" or sweet spot (room treatment or not) you need to spend time there doing critical listening. I'll explain a bit more...

Every fan of every genre knows what "good" music in that genre sounds like. Knowing that is not enough for you to "get there" by itself. You need to know what it sounds like in your space and that knowledge has to be imprinted permanently on your aural memory. How do you do that?

Two ways.

1. Spend lots of time mixing in that room and studying your craft and eventually you'll get to a spot where your mixing skills and your ears meet at a happy place.

2. You can shorten that time considerably by planning for long periods of critical listening to high quality music at your mix position.

===========================================

A. Take some songs from your music library - not mp3, full bandwith audio - that you consider *excellent* mixes. Full round bass, great balances, smooth vocals, great use of panning etc, etc. Songs in the genre you mix most often.

Note: A dedicated mix engineer will critically listen to *all* genres to be prepared to mix anything. Rock, country, whatever. If you only mix hip-hop, listen to hip-hop. Not just songs you like... songs that are great mixes... even if you don't particularly like the content.

B. Pick a time regularly to do *nothing else* but sit upright at your mix position in the sweet spot and listen at a moderate volume. For newer mix engineers who are dead serious about the potential quality of their mixes, I'd do this at least 3-4 times a week for about 60 minutes a sitting or more.

C. Close your eyes, sit at the mix position and just *listen*. Turn off the cell phone, smoke a doobie, pour a shot of whatever, and just listen. To remove any possible sonic variable (media player processing etc), rip the songs and play them through your daw.

Listen for balance, frequency, depth, space, effects etc. Listen deep down into the music and analyze it. Listen to how the backing vox and leads interact sonically. Listen for really subtle things like spatial cues from subtle delays. If you do this regularly with really great mixes... you will imprint on your brain a sort of aural image of what a really good mix should sound like on your system under your particular listening conditions.

Eventually you'll just automatically know when something isn't right. When something is 2-dimensional, or too thin, or too fat, or the midrange isn't right, when the vox eq isn't right etc, etc.

Try it. It works. It's (imho) the biggest single reason why experienced mix engineers make better mixes, they *know* much better what the general target is. They don't hear better than you, they hear different than you. It's the same reason I can mix what turns out to be a decently balanced and translating rough mix in my iPhone earbuds. I listen to great mixes on them daily (even as compressed *.aac) so much I know immediately what music should sound like through them.

I still spend time doing this as a "refresher". I'll take some Quincy or similar into the studio and just close my eyes and listen. "Secret Garden" or the like. And when you get those great new speakers that you couldn't afford last year? Refresh your ears by doing it again.

There are very few shortcuts to better mixing, this is one of them.

why this forum get so interesting all of a sudden at the end of the year, lol, you got ppl posting really relevant threads, keep up the great tips guys

[coyotekells]

Cool post.

I find myself closing my eyes a lot when mixing. Sometimes when composing too, but more so when mixing...

[phillysoulman]

Absolutely!
Ive been doing that for years.
When you close your eyes, you have no distractions and you can really get inside the music and hone in and pinpoint certain segments of your mix which may or may not need updating.

[E.rOk.stA]

Thank you for the reminder. That was a great post.

[Lawrence]

In the above context, think about your car stereo. If you play commercial music in your car you know *immediately* when you pop in one of those home mixes that something isn't quite right. Like in the first few seconds. Even if you like the song. You reach for the eq.

Your brain knows what music should generally sound like there, from repetition.

Same concept.

[Jeezo]

Great to see that my way is yours ,guyz !!

Cool ...thumbsup

Be sure to have a hear to the last E40 , the mixing ingeneers play crazy with the unphasis !! put the track in mono and the sound disaperse !

Who care as the stereo mix is killer ....used to do it back in the dayz and ingeneers used to tell me Zo keep the thing straight , do go out of the road to far.....f....k dat !!!

The only rule : no rule ...guyz don't go to tehcnical , let's use our hears and nothin else , it sounds great , idon't even look at the correlation factor !!!

It sounds great , no fukin effect needed !

It's all about music not technic !!


Take care partners.....

[trilblitz]

Lawrence your post was right on good job. But what I would also like to add for those trying this method is that it will also train your ear to be able to distinguish certain compression techniques that are being used. Eq, balances tonal and otherwise. If you do it consistently you'll start to be able to pick out nuances in your own music that you missed before. What plugin to use or not. And yes your mixes will become more defined over time. And if you're a producer, your productions will greatly improve as well. At least this has been my experience.

[Nfinite2006]

thnx for the great tips!

[Alxi]

Great tip.

I do this from time to time and after a few session of critical listening i can always ear an amelioration in my new mixes.

It is worth the time

-Alxi-

[Storyville]

I find the biggest challenge is identifying a sound context that doesn't have an easily printed "sound." Example: Something sounds thick or bulky. You know there's some kind of non-tonal resonance build up somewhere, and you know it's in the mids, but the mid range for different instruments is always so vastly different... and... well, vast. I had bulkiness in a Cello. Turned out it was at 325hz, which is where I first went, but my bandwidth was too wide so I was cutting some of the fundamental notes out, making it sound weird. I went up and down for like two hours after that and finally found myself back at 325 with a narrower Q and that did the trick. But what a crazy instrument. There's no frequency that doesn't seem to have a distinct yet hard to identify effect on a cello.

Yeah, listening takes a great deal of practice, no doubt about it.

[Stacks]

Fantastic tip...sometimes very difficult to do(just shut out everything and make time to listen). But works wonders for producers, musicians, singers, rappers and engineers alike.
GREAT POST!

[GuitarRuss]

Best post I've read in a long time... it gave me a kick in the pants too!

I tend to roll up my sleeves when I go into my studio room. I do most of my listening in the living room where I have a comfy couch and it's a much bigger room. I also listen to my mixes there. Now I realize that I need to be doing exactly what you're talking about. Thanks!

[JusSumguy]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

A. Take some songs from your music library - not mp3, full bandwith audio - that you consider *excellent* mixes. Full round bass, great balances, smooth vocals, great use of panning etc, etc. Songs in the genre you mix most often..

Actually, it doesn't have to be "the best" mix you have. For sure it hasta have all the elements. Highs/lows/mids bla bla but.......

It should be a song or two that you are intimately familiar with. It's much more important that YOU KNOW HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO SOUND. If you know how it's supposed to sound, then you know the room after you play it.

This advise was given to me 20 years ago by Mr. Mike Flicker. Probably the best AE I've ever had the pleasure to work with.


-

[fzit0]

wow thanks, i'm sure this will help me a lot

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by JusSumguy

Actually, it doesn't have to be "the best" mix you have. For sure it hasta have all the elements. Highs/lows/mids bla bla but.......

It should be a song or two that you are intimately familiar with. It's much more important that YOU KNOW HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO SOUND. If you know how it's supposed to sound, then you know the room after you play it.

Agreed. Sure... that's the main point to get a general room reference. The other point(s), listening to really great mixes for perhaps newer engineers is to become more accustomed to hearing a level of depth and frequency balance - and gain a burned-in general reference to that - that they won't get from their own mixes early on.

If you mix - for instance a nice pop ballad - and it sounds really good to you and really 3D ... then you put on a similar great Bob Clearmountain mix of a great pop ballad as a reference ... you'll probably hear much more depth of field (and some other things). It's just setting the reference goals higher. We probably won't get to that high "Olympic Gold" level but we'll get closer. These things are all relative so set the bar really high by listening to the best (familiar as you say) mixes you have for that particular aspect of it.

I listen to Celine Dion and the like often since I do a lot of ballads. Her songs have great mixes. The vocal verb is often spectacular... I imagine the early reflections are usually real in great rooms.

So yes, it's a multi-purpose thing. It helps in many ways. But no, it doesn't have to be the best. But using great mixes certainly helps that particular part of it.

[phillysoulman]

For pop mixes,I reference alot of Mick Guzaski's mixes.
For rock,its Bob Clearmountain and Mike Fraser.
Hip Hop..Pensado

[Methlab]

I put everything in my DAW and listen. Even if I am not sitting there I listen through it and treat it like my main stereo system. It makes a huge difference, and you can learn to mix on any decent monitor system this way.