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Old 07-09-2011, 01:31 PM   #1
ElCongelador
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Default How to mix/master for the "average" playback system?

It's hard enough to create a good, balanced mix that works well on my monitors / headphones, but it's even harder to make a mix that translates to a variety of real-world systems. I complete a mix, everything is fine on my monitors and it translates well to my audiophile hifi-system. Then I listen to it on typical $40 headphones/earbuds or a typical mini hifi-system and it's a different story: ludicrously pumped up lows, muddy mids - oooommmmpffff. So I go back to fix this: cut lows, emphasize mids; but then it sounds kind of unbalanced on my monitors (and expensive hifi). So what to do? Go for the middle ground?

How do you approach this problem? I often read that "a mix on good monitors sounds good everywhere" but that seems not to be entirely true - how can it be, if listening systems differ so much?

Do you mix/master for the "average" system, or for your system? How do professional mastering guys handle this problem? I guess they just target mainstream consumer systems (and the taste for mega-bass that goes with them)?
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Old 07-09-2011, 02:14 PM   #2
Tod
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Put some time into the first 23 posts in this thread, very good info.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=29283
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Old 07-09-2011, 05:15 PM   #3
flmason
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I've been fighting this one two.

I think rule #1 is get, even some cheap but legitimate, reference monitors.

Have been puttin it off myself for a long time for external reasons.

But having tried on and off for years to make a portable mix from tracks I played myself, and well, it's hit or miss. Best luck has been with a cheap set of Sony headphones I have.

For whatever reasons, the tracks I've done using midi and some really decent soundfonts seem to be significantly more portable (and pro sounding to boot).

Near as I can tell this is because the soundfonts are recorded properly and "perfectly compressed" or leveled somehow, to keep the note to not balance good.

So my best guess on how to *try* to deal with this is:

1) Compression - even levels might tend to exacerbate volume related speaker differences less

2) Aim for a spectral analysis curve in the end, of the full mix that is pretty close to pink noise, ironically enough. Seems like most commercial mixes I've looked at have a fairly flat curver that descends, left to right at between -3.00 to -6.00 db per octave. Many seem to come in around -4.5 db per octave in the genres I tend to listen too.

3) For reasons I can't pinpoint, commercial mixes seem to have a finer
grain of peaks than my own stuff. Best guesses on that are

a) They apply more light distortion at the mixer or something, thus
leading to more harmonics in the mix in total

Or

b) They have more instruments and pads mixed in a low levels that
aren't real obvious in the final mix, but none-the-less there and
making it "bigger".

Had a real life example of (b) slap me in the face one day. I'd post it but that PC is packed away at the moment... I was trying to recreate Kiss's "Lick it Up"... starting with a good midi of it... then slowly hand playing each track and turning the midi track off.

But... there was on track of piano, the completely mimicked a guitar part... without it the mix sounded "garage band", with it turned on it sounded "pro".

I left it out in the mix I posted for discussion back then (about 2005) as it felt like cheating, but probably should've posted both.

Anyway, sometimes I think the whole recording thing revolves and these kinds of treatements of nearly every track, as regards the "commercial sound". Sometimes I hear producers talk about "sweetnener" track. Not sure if it's the same thing though.

Anyway, just my guesses. I haven't figured it out. My intuition says, until I get some halfway serious monitors that are designed to be uncolored... probably it'll always be a PITA.

Didn't used to believe that until I learned of all the things a consumer speaker manufacturer might do to make his speakers "pop" on the showroom floor and so on.
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Old 07-09-2011, 05:24 PM   #4
timlloyd
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flmason View Post
I've been fighting this one two.

I think rule #1 is get, even some cheap but legitimate, reference monitors.
Rule #2 (perhaps even rule #1) is room treatment and speaker placement.

Rule number #3 would be keep checking on other systems Everyone does that, including loads (perhaps most) of the most widely sought-after mixing/mastering engineers.

///

If you keep finding that your mixes have issues in the low-lowmid, then that is the area you need to look at first when considering room treatment. Too much of some 'frequency area(s)' in your mix indicates that your monitoring environment (this includes the room) are lacking in these area(s) (either due to equipment design or room acoustics).

Go to the RealTraps site. There are articles there by Ethan Winer which ease you into the whole thing.

Last edited by timlloyd; 07-09-2011 at 05:37 PM.
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Old 07-09-2011, 05:35 PM   #5
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I don't have an answer exactly, but I want to chime in with what I want from music I listen to.

If it comes to a recording being mixed for either an accurate system or the (perceived) more common bass-boosted consumer system or whatever, then I want it to be mixed for accurate systems.

If somebody listens to things on a system that intentionally changes the sound to "improve" it, they shouldn't get upset when things sound different.

But if someone has researched their setup and spent all this time and money on it, and they find that music actually sounds worse on their accurate system than in Billy's car with his ten subwoofers, they have a right to be irritated.


So like I said, I don't have anything on making the mix translate better, but that's where I come out of it.
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Old 07-09-2011, 07:00 PM   #6
ElCongelador
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Thanks for the replies, some good ideas - I guess the right compression and final spectral curve can help making a mix more "universal".

My problem is not so much lows, but mids. The mids come out weak and drowned out by lower frequencies on consumer systems. The question I can't answer right now (and it seems almost to be a moral question) - should I compensate for that trend of the spectacular ooooommphhhh bass, by cutting lows/boosting mids; or just create a good mix in my room and hope it survives "out there". It seems impossible to cater to everyone - cheap ipod earbuds, computer speakers, typical consumer gear, car systems, audiophile gear...
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Old 07-09-2011, 07:03 PM   #7
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Sort out the acoustics of your monitoring environment and things will start to fall into place on their own

It's one of the most overlooked things in 'home studio' setups, and is arguably the most important ...
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Old 07-10-2011, 09:04 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ElCongelador View Post
My problem is not so much lows, but mids. The mids come out weak and drowned out by lower frequencies on consumer systems.
This suggests that your system might be a little weak in the low end and you're overcompensateing in your mixes.

Quote:
Sort out the acoustics of your monitoring environment and things will start to fall into place on their own

It's one of the most overlooked things in 'home studio' setups, and is arguably the most important ...
Tims right, a million dollar sound system in a bad room is still going to be ill-defined. A half decent sound system in well tuned room will sound like a million bucks.
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Old 07-10-2011, 09:51 AM   #9
Fran Guidry
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ElCongelador View Post
Thanks for the replies, some good ideas - I guess the right compression and final spectral curve can help making a mix more "universal".

My problem is not so much lows, but mids. The mids come out weak and drowned out by lower frequencies on consumer systems. The question I can't answer right now (and it seems almost to be a moral question) - should I compensate for that trend of the spectacular ooooommphhhh bass, by cutting lows/boosting mids; or just create a good mix in my room and hope it survives "out there". It seems impossible to cater to everyone - cheap ipod earbuds, computer speakers, typical consumer gear, car systems, audiophile gear...
I'm a long way from an expert, but I recall a "two bass" approach being suggested. The idea is that those cheapo playback systems put a hump in the FR curve in the upper lows, say 120 or even 180. So any note that falls into that region gets turned into a boom, and the listener on her stairclimber gets the butt kick she's looking for.

Your high end playback system goes a lot deeper and presents bass in a flatter way. When you put a nice smooth accurate bass through your high end system, you get the same thing back, but the low end system makes it a thumpy mess.

So you do your bass in two stages. First high pass steeply at 80 or 100 or 120 and get a smooth mix, lacking deep bass but with some meat. Try that on the cheap playback - how's the bass? Too much, not enough, or just right? Tweak until just right.

Now back on your good system, remove the low pass and work only on the frequencies below the low pass. Get the full deep sound on your high end playback system by adjusting 40-120 only.

If you get the right cutoff point, the cheap playback system will ignore the low lows and boom just right on the high lows, while the high quality playback will add in the low lows without booming the high lows. If that makes sense.

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Old 07-10-2011, 10:40 AM   #10
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Believe it or not, in addition to my regular monitors, I also mix through a SONY boom box. ($200 @the awl-mart). This actually made a big difference.
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Old 07-10-2011, 10:55 AM   #11
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I totally believe that; lots of professional mixers do it
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Old 07-10-2011, 04:50 PM   #12
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If you have a well treated room and decent monitors with a balanced sound that doesn't emphasize or de-emphasize any parts of the frequency spectrum you can make it sound good on that system/room and it should sound good on other systems.

By "sound good", I mean a balanced sound that sounds similar to similar style music mixed by a competent person that you can use as a reference track.

It will sound boomy on boomy systems and bright on bright speakers and dull on dull sounding speakers. That's the way it should be.
You can't make it sound the same, or even good on all systems.
It will sound bad on a bad sounding system.

You do have to make some allowances for systems that have very little to no bass response or your bass will completely disappear, so don't just rely on the sub 150-200hz area for your bass sounds.
You can listen to pro mixes on portable radios with 1-2" speakers and still hear the bass line because they include higher frequencies in the bass.

Last edited by PAPT; 07-10-2011 at 05:47 PM.
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