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Old 02-26-2020, 08:50 AM   #1
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Default has anyone found a mixing solution to mixing in an untreated room?

has anyone found a mixing solution to mixing in an untreated room? i'm still waiting
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Old 02-26-2020, 09:05 AM   #2
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Yep, there are three, with varying levels of success:

1) Just don't. Rent time in a studio to do the final mix, or at least do the polish. You can get 90-95% of the way there at home, untreated, but you need accuracy to get that last 5-10%. Two hours of studio time is plenty to CHECK the low-end, stereo imaging, and ambience balances on a few mixes. If it's all out of whack, then yeah, that could get expensive in a hurry. This is also not the time to play around with production ideas, this would be strictly confirmation and final polish.

2) Treat the room. Particularly with smaller rooms, just load it up with bass traps. Not the cheapest solution, but not all THAT expensive. Don't do foam; it doesn't control low enough freqs that are generally the problems. Concentrate on corners and first reflection points. Buying commercially, figure on US$1000-1500 in traps to start.

3) Get REALLY good open-back headphones (US$500+) to use as your primary monitors, and then double-check the results on the boxes in the room, rather than the other way around.

4) Failing all the above, LEARN your room and monitors. Do several mixes, then listen to the results critically in other locations, like a living room, car, etc. TAKE NOTES about what changed, and then go back and listen again in your untreated room. Assess what needs to be changed, execute, then lather-rinse-repeat. Eventually, you'll start to "hear" what works and get closer to translatable mixes as your ears become accustomed to what is "right" in the acoustic hellhole that you mix in... ;-) If you have low-end issues, but you simply CANNOT hear the freqs in question in your room, then you're pretty much screwed, and it's back to options 1-3.
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Old 02-26-2020, 09:18 AM   #3
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Maybe also adding a spectral analyser plugin to master or monitor section, to SEE what you cannot HEAR
It may give you a better insight to frequency spectrum of audio mix idependent of used speakers, headphones and the room.

Note: But, use it only as a helper, do not let yourself to be dictated by your eyes only then. Ears First!
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Old 02-26-2020, 09:18 AM   #4
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Like SoundGuyDave suggested - I also use headphones. Or without treatment of your room, the alternative solution would be something like Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio with Mic, link below.



https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...tudio-with-mic
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Old 02-26-2020, 09:50 AM   #5
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Of course you can do it and a lot of people do, but you're not going to get "professional results".


You can still use some "pro tricks" such as using a known-good reference recording and checking the mix (and comparing to your reference) on everything you can get your hands on.


Quote:
3) Get REALLY good open-back headphones (US$500+) to use as your primary monitors
IMO - You don't have to spend THAT much. There are good headphones in the $100-$100 range and very-good headphones if you go up to $300. You quickly get to the point of diminishing returns and more money may not buy you "better sound".


And, even with the "best" headphones the pros will tell you not to use headphones as your primary monitors.


Once you have decent headphones (or monitors) it's a matter of learning what a good mix sounds like on the headphones that you have.


They do need to be comfortable for you, since you'll be wearing them for hours.
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Old 02-26-2020, 10:20 AM   #6
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has anyone found a mixing solution to mixing in an untreated room? i'm still waiting
Given that most people will be listening to music using ear buds or small speakers in an 'untreated' room, I think there's probably an advantage in mixing in an 'untreated' room; mix it to sound OK and you're done. Or use headphones. Either way, use your ears, they're free to download and much easier to use than any app, processing or room treatment.

And what sort of music are you mixing?
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Old 02-26-2020, 10:22 AM   #7
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for number one, renting a mixing room

what would be the first thing to check with them to be sure its a good mixing room? do i need to ask them for the EQ room curve or what...apart from very good monitors

thanks!
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Old 02-26-2020, 02:15 PM   #8
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Multi-reply....

READ-- A "good" room is going to be one that is neutral in tonal response, and not particularly "lively" in character. Getting that combination (particularly the tonal aspect) is not something that you're going to find very often with home-brew solutions. Look for a professionally-designed and -built studio rather than a converted room if you're paying for the rental. Two main things to look for first, before you audition the room would be proper design and treatment. For the design, you should notice that there are NO two surfaces (walls, ceiling, floor) that are parallel to each other, but the room should maintain symmetry around the mix position laterally. For treatment, look for bass trapping (4" or greater panels or quarter-round tubes) in all the vertical corners, and possibly at the wall/ceiling joints as well. For wall treatment, look for a blend of absorption and diffusion. If you find a place you think you might like, audition the room. When you walk in, clap your hands once, hard. You should hear NO audible slap-echo, nor should it be billowy and echo-y. Then have a conversation with the owner, while you're asking him/her who designed the room and who built it, listen to how the room reacts to his voice. Wander around the room while they're talking. You want as large a "sweet spot" as you can get, but nowhere in the room should sound "odd." You want a room that both sounds spacious, but also sounds tight. Listen specifically for certain tones sticking out louder than others. If it passes all that, throw on a recording or two that you know INTIMATELY, and see if you can pick out details you don't hear in your own room. If the room is "right," you'll hear depth and space that you don't at home, and it will be a LOT easier to judge the left-right positioning of the mix elements. If you find that room, write the check and get mixing! A few tips to save money: 1) Do as MUCH of the work at home as you can, and just go into the studio to check or refine. No sense paying for the time if you're programming automation lanes, or importing and arranging tracks. 2) Ask about discounts for off-hours (2:00AM on a Wednesday will be cheaper than 3:00PM on a Friday), and also ask about discounts for pre-paying for a certain number of hours. If the studio rate is $50/hr, ask what they can do for you if you want 2hrs a day, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 2:00AM, if you pre-pay for the month in advance...You'd be surprised at how low they may be willing to go to get a "simple" client. After all, once you get your laptop and sound card wired in, you're all self-service. The studio intern can handle that. Also, if you're mixing "in the box," it really doesn't matter what cool outboard is on-hand, you can do as good a job, or better, in a smaller, cheaper room. A mastering room is actually ideal. Cheaper to rent than the "Studio A" control room with a 72-input SSL G-series desk and 80U of vintage tube outboard, too!

NOOJOYSEY: Respectfully, I have to disagree with you here. It's really all about translation from one playback situation to another. If you mix on earbuds or headphones, you're going to have a VERY different approach to panning and ambience than you would if you mix "in a room." If your untreated room (or earbuds for that matter) have a massive deficiency in the low-end reproduction (for example), you don't hear ANYTHING wrong when mixing, but when you listen to it anywhere else, the bottom end will be mush. If, however, you mix in a "perfect" environment, that WILL translate beautifully to a mono cellphone speaker or cheap earbuds. The reverse is certainly and demonstrably not true.

DVDDOUG: Good tip on the "reference" material, but I still maintain that if you can't hear the note, you've got no hope of mixing it properly in context with the rest... Mixing is a series of critical decisions, and you can only make decisions on the information you have. In this case, the information is what you hear. Monitors with a "bump" in the response will trick you into mixing light in that frequency area. Monitors with a "hole" in the response will trick you into mixing heavy in that frequency area. Headphones with artificial bass and HF boosts will push you into a midrange-heavy mix. The same thing applies to a room. A small bedroom mix room, untreated, will have a series of cancellation and reinforcement nodes scattered throughout the room. That's just pure physics. Your mix will reflect those nodes, since that is what you hear to base your decisions on. That same small, untreated room will also have significant reflections in the mid and high frequencies from the walls, ceiling and floor, not to mention all the "stuff" in the room. Those reflections can alter how you perceive the "proper" amount of reverb within the mix, and can blur the positioning of a signal in the stereo field. RE: Headphones. I agree with you to a point, you don't need to break the bank, BUT the more coloration you have in the cans, the more "effect" they have on the mix. Seems like the "reference standards" these days are the AKG K701/K702 (~$600 list), Sennheiser HD800 ($1800!!!), or Shure SRH-1840 (~$650 list). And yes, don't mix single-source with headphones! You can, however, get quite a bit done on cans, then check your results on proper monitors in a room. There is a difference in how the stereo field interacts in the room that you just can't get on headphones. That said, I understand Andrew Scheps is now mixing exclusively on headphones, so...

GEROGEMICKEL: The Sonarworks stuff does look interesting, but even if you have a PERFECTLY calibrated speaker set, but put them in a boomy echo chamber, how much have you really gained? In a basic treated room, though, that can be the icing on the cake.

AKADEMIE: Agreed 100%. Metering is NEVER a bad thing, but the primary go/no-go decision still needs to be done with your ears. I've seen wayyyyy too many guys get focused on the pretty lines on the screen, obsessing about 0.2dB EQ filters with a Q of 7, while the whole mix is falling apart around them.
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Old 02-26-2020, 02:36 PM   #9
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If you are going to be living with music all your life,
If you are going to be recording and playing all your life then the sooner you treat your room the sooner you will be pleased you did. The results not only will be more satisfying but more easier to achieve rather than duck and dive under and around false echo's and still have sounds which are so so non professional and very hard to work with.

Sometimes the the hardest things to do produce the shortest road to success.

If you are staying put home wise install treatment that is built in if you are
prone to move install treatment you can take down.
At the very least build a portable booth.

I got great results for electric guitar at one stage by miking
my twin reverb in the main bedroom by the bed mind the bedroom was an attic bedroom with an angled ceiling. The same for vocals close up in an attic room.
I also got an acoustic sound to die for at the top of a wooden spiral stair case using a rode mic and an Audio Technica small diaphram.
Use your imagination find different spaces.

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Old 02-26-2020, 03:48 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundGuyDave View Post
Multi-reply....

READ-- A "good" room is going to be one that is neutral in tonal response, and not particularly "lively" in character. Getting that combination (particularly the tonal aspect) is not something that you're going to find very often with home-brew solutions. Look for a professionally-designed and -built studio rather than a converted room if you're paying for the rental. Two main things to look for first, before you audition the room would be proper design and treatment. For the design, you should notice that there are NO two surfaces (walls, ceiling, floor) that are parallel to each other, but the room should maintain symmetry around the mix position laterally. For treatment, look for bass trapping (4" or greater panels or quarter-round tubes) in all the vertical corners, and possibly at the wall/ceiling joints as well. For wall treatment, look for a blend of absorption and diffusion. If you find a place you think you might like, audition the room. When you walk in, clap your hands once, hard. You should hear NO audible slap-echo, nor should it be billowy and echo-y. Then have a conversation with the owner, while you're asking him/her who designed the room and who built it, listen to how the room reacts to his voice. Wander around the room while they're talking. You want as large a "sweet spot" as you can get, but nowhere in the room should sound "odd." You want a room that both sounds spacious, but also sounds tight. Listen specifically for certain tones sticking out louder than others. If it passes all that, throw on a recording or two that you know INTIMATELY, and see if you can pick out details you don't hear in your own room. If the room is "right," you'll hear depth and space that you don't at home, and it will be a LOT easier to judge the left-right positioning of the mix elements. If you find that room, write the check and get mixing! A few tips to save money: 1) Do as MUCH of the work at home as you can, and just go into the studio to check or refine. No sense paying for the time if you're programming automation lanes, or importing and arranging tracks. 2) Ask about discounts for off-hours (2:00AM on a Wednesday will be cheaper than 3:00PM on a Friday), and also ask about discounts for pre-paying for a certain number of hours. If the studio rate is $50/hr, ask what they can do for you if you want 2hrs a day, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 2:00AM, if you pre-pay for the month in advance...You'd be surprised at how low they may be willing to go to get a "simple" client. After all, once you get your laptop and sound card wired in, you're all self-service. The studio intern can handle that. Also, if you're mixing "in the box," it really doesn't matter what cool outboard is on-hand, you can do as good a job, or better, in a smaller, cheaper room. A mastering room is actually ideal. Cheaper to rent than the "Studio A" control room with a 72-input SSL G-series desk and 80U of vintage tube outboard, too!

NOOJOYSEY: Respectfully, I have to disagree with you here. It's really all about translation from one playback situation to another. If you mix on earbuds or headphones, you're going to have a VERY different approach to panning and ambience than you would if you mix "in a room." If your untreated room (or earbuds for that matter) have a massive deficiency in the low-end reproduction (for example), you don't hear ANYTHING wrong when mixing, but when you listen to it anywhere else, the bottom end will be mush. If, however, you mix in a "perfect" environment, that WILL translate beautifully to a mono cellphone speaker or cheap earbuds. The reverse is certainly and demonstrably not true.

DVDDOUG: Good tip on the "reference" material, but I still maintain that if you can't hear the note, you've got no hope of mixing it properly in context with the rest... Mixing is a series of critical decisions, and you can only make decisions on the information you have. In this case, the information is what you hear. Monitors with a "bump" in the response will trick you into mixing light in that frequency area. Monitors with a "hole" in the response will trick you into mixing heavy in that frequency area. Headphones with artificial bass and HF boosts will push you into a midrange-heavy mix. The same thing applies to a room. A small bedroom mix room, untreated, will have a series of cancellation and reinforcement nodes scattered throughout the room. That's just pure physics. Your mix will reflect those nodes, since that is what you hear to base your decisions on. That same small, untreated room will also have significant reflections in the mid and high frequencies from the walls, ceiling and floor, not to mention all the "stuff" in the room. Those reflections can alter how you perceive the "proper" amount of reverb within the mix, and can blur the positioning of a signal in the stereo field. RE: Headphones. I agree with you to a point, you don't need to break the bank, BUT the more coloration you have in the cans, the more "effect" they have on the mix. Seems like the "reference standards" these days are the AKG K701/K702 (~$600 list), Sennheiser HD800 ($1800!!!), or Shure SRH-1840 (~$650 list). And yes, don't mix single-source with headphones! You can, however, get quite a bit done on cans, then check your results on proper monitors in a room. There is a difference in how the stereo field interacts in the room that you just can't get on headphones. That said, I understand Andrew Scheps is now mixing exclusively on headphones, so...

GEROGEMICKEL: The Sonarworks stuff does look interesting, but even if you have a PERFECTLY calibrated speaker set, but put them in a boomy echo chamber, how much have you really gained? In a basic treated room, though, that can be the icing on the cake.

AKADEMIE: Agreed 100%. Metering is NEVER a bad thing, but the primary go/no-go decision still needs to be done with your ears. I've seen wayyyyy too many guys get focused on the pretty lines on the screen, obsessing about 0.2dB EQ filters with a Q of 7, while the whole mix is falling apart around them.

ok will try for a professional mastering room if ever needed i guess (or maybe i can just visit one to hear what i'm missing out on), but i doubt any professional place will let me in there work by my own which i would prefer
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Old 02-26-2020, 04:49 PM   #11
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but i doubt any professional place will let me in there work by my own which i would prefer
It's all about relationships. Yes, they'll insist that they have one of their employees there to oversee things, and to make sure you don't do anything stupid, like blow up the $30K reference monitors... That said, if you have your act together, and comport yourself as a professional, they will treat you that way, including giving you the space you want and need. Bring your buddies, leave beer bottles behind, smoke a joint in the bathroom, and you can expect to be treated as a knucklehead.

Ideally, what you want to do at home is get the .RPP all set up, do your preliminary static mix, and get your tracks together. You don't need the high-end studio to set thresholds on a gate, or do basic level and EQ automation. In other words, mix it like you do now. Then, transfer the .RPP, tracks, plug-in licenses etc to your laptop (or jump drive), and TEST it to make sure that it pops right up, interface included. You don't want to burn an hour of studio time downloading, installing and troubleshooting a driver issue! Once you are at that point, off you go. Walk in to the studio room, set up the laptop and the interface, and ask the studio people to get you lined into the monitors or console, and show you where the volume knob and speaker select switches are. Open your file, and take a listen to what you have. All that should take a max of 10 minutes, and believe me, it will impress upon them that you're serious, and professional. After a session or two with a babysitter, where you don't try to blow anything up, and you show them that you know what you're doing, they'll relax and pretty much leave you alone, except periodically asking if you need anything, like a coffee run.

Obviously, renting a studio is a "big dog" move, and I'm assuming that the intent of your project is commercial release and distribution. If all you're doing is making quickie demos for the band to learn your tune, or scratch-padding musical ideas, this would be an utter waste of cash. However, assuming commercial aspirations, proper monitoring will give you the edge over so many of the others competing for the same market share. Additionally, with an experienced studio engineer on hand, you have a resource that you can tap. Asking questions and learning is NOT something a pro shies away from! To the contrary, you will accrue bonus points with the studio if you show yourself willing to seek and accept help.
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Old 02-26-2020, 05:44 PM   #12
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It's all about relationships. Yes, they'll insist that they have one of their employees there to oversee things, and to make sure you don't do anything stupid, like blow up the $30K reference monitors... That said, if you have your act together, and comport yourself as a professional, they will treat you that way, including giving you the space you want and need. Bring your buddies, leave beer bottles behind, smoke a joint in the bathroom, and you can expect to be treated as a knucklehead.

Ideally, what you want to do at home is get the .RPP all set up, do your preliminary static mix, and get your tracks together. You don't need the high-end studio to set thresholds on a gate, or do basic level and EQ automation. In other words, mix it like you do now. Then, transfer the .RPP, tracks, plug-in licenses etc to your laptop (or jump drive), and TEST it to make sure that it pops right up, interface included. You don't want to burn an hour of studio time downloading, installing and troubleshooting a driver issue! Once you are at that point, off you go. Walk in to the studio room, set up the laptop and the interface, and ask the studio people to get you lined into the monitors or console, and show you where the volume knob and speaker select switches are. Open your file, and take a listen to what you have. All that should take a max of 10 minutes, and believe me, it will impress upon them that you're serious, and professional. After a session or two with a babysitter, where you don't try to blow anything up, and you show them that you know what you're doing, they'll relax and pretty much leave you alone, except periodically asking if you need anything, like a coffee run.

Obviously, renting a studio is a "big dog" move, and I'm assuming that the intent of your project is commercial release and distribution. If all you're doing is making quickie demos for the band to learn your tune, or scratch-padding musical ideas, this would be an utter waste of cash. However, assuming commercial aspirations, proper monitoring will give you the edge over so many of the others competing for the same market share. Additionally, with an experienced studio engineer on hand, you have a resource that you can tap. Asking questions and learning is NOT something a pro shies away from! To the contrary, you will accrue bonus points with the studio if you show yourself willing to seek and accept help.

yes its just aspirations, wanted to see what i'm missing out on. Thanks for this information SoundGuyDave!
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Old 02-26-2020, 05:51 PM   #13
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A tip I have heard is mixing at lower levels if the room is too live or whatever, so you aren't exciting the room as much and are hearing more of the direct sound of your speakers (eg, you don't hear the room ambience as much so you have a better idea of how much you are applying in the mix.

Another thought for the OP, how much experience or practice do you have mixing?

I would say if you haven't mixed many projects, just practice some mixes at home first and learn how they translate to other playback systems and locations first, do a bunch of revisions to get it as good as you can.
It will help train your ears.

If you go into a good room but don't really have the experience or ear training, it'll like you are learning on paid time.
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Old 02-26-2020, 06:44 PM   #14
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A tip I have heard is mixing at lower levels if the room is too live or whatever, so you aren't exciting the room as much and are hearing more of the direct sound of your speakers (eg, you don't hear the room ambience as much so you have a better idea of how much you are applying in the mix.

Another thought for the OP, how much experience or practice do you have mixing?

I would say if you haven't mixed many projects, just practice some mixes at home first and learn how they translate to other playback systems and locations first, do a bunch of revisions to get it as good as you can.
It will help train your ears.

If you go into a good room but don't really have the experience or ear training, it'll like you are learning on paid time.

All of this +1.

read, you don't mention how much mixing you've done at this point, but if it's minimal it really makes no sense to me to rent perfectly treated mix room to work in until you are more experienced mixing. IMO you should ramp up your skills until very little is a mystery to you before you spend the money that way.

Just get the reflections out of the room for now and don't approach it as if you shouldn't mix there until it's perfectly acoustically treated. Start now and find out how your mixes translate elsewhere. Doing the reverse is also helpful: take a professional commercial recording you are intimately familiar with and listen to it elsewhere, in better environments if you can. Bring it to your room and note what's different as a listening experience and that will be useful to recognize, and perhaps it can guide you to some quick-and-dirty DIY-treatments-for-the-meantime. Mixing at lower volumes is a good idea here, as it is as a general practice for much of the time mixing. And do some in a decent set of flat (un-hyped) headphones, of which there are plenty under $300 which are good enough for this. You don't need the best, most highly regarded professional headphones any more than you need Genelecs to mix in your bedroom when a pair of decent Kalis (or whatever) are all you need as long as you learn them and become comfortable with them. Mix into them and see how they work elsewhere.

As JohnnyMusic says, the most important thing is to do a lot of mixing and listening back and learning. Don't put the cart before the horse, so to speak. Especially where money is concerned.
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Old 02-27-2020, 02:33 AM   #15
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All of this +1.

read, you don't mention how much mixing you've done at this point, but if it's minimal it really makes no sense to me to rent perfectly treated mix room to work in until you are more experienced mixing. IMO you should ramp up your skills until very little is a mystery to you before you spend the money that way.

Just get the reflections out of the room for now and don't approach it as if you shouldn't mix there until it's perfectly acoustically treated. Start now and find out how your mixes translate elsewhere. Doing the reverse is also helpful: take a professional commercial recording you are intimately familiar with and listen to it elsewhere, in better environments if you can. Bring it to your room and note what's different as a listening experience and that will be useful to recognize, and perhaps it can guide you to some quick-and-dirty DIY-treatments-for-the-meantime. Mixing at lower volumes is a good idea here, as it is as a general practice for much of the time mixing. And do some in a decent set of flat (un-hyped) headphones, of which there are plenty under $300 which are good enough for this. You don't need the best, most highly regarded professional headphones any more than you need Genelecs to mix in your bedroom when a pair of decent Kalis (or whatever) are all you need as long as you learn them and become comfortable with them. Mix into them and see how they work elsewhere.

As JohnnyMusic says, the most important thing is to do a lot of mixing and listening back and learning. Don't put the cart before the horse, so to speak. Especially where money is concerned.
Thanks guys!
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Old 02-27-2020, 03:47 AM   #16
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maybe i should become a painter instead, just canvas and off u go
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Old 02-27-2020, 03:59 AM   #17
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maybe i should become a painter instead, just canvas and off u go
You will need a good light then!
(And knowledge of colours and canvas interaction and behavior, and ... and...)
So, it's not option here

Last edited by akademie; 02-27-2020 at 08:00 AM. Reason: typo
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Old 02-27-2020, 04:07 AM   #18
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On headphones:
- There are actually mastering-engineers that works primarily on headphones.
- Headphones takes away any room-issues.
- Headphones are relatively extremely good compared to similar cost monitors.

But, there's a reason all mixers would prefer to work on monitors in a treated room if given the option.
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Old 02-27-2020, 04:20 AM   #19
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just to understand this better,

Is a mastering room any different than a mixing room in terms of how bass traps etc should be positioned?

Are they both rooms looking for the same room EQ curve?
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Old 02-27-2020, 04:21 AM   #20
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You will need a good light then!
(And knowladge of colours and canvas interaction and behavior, and ... and...)
So, it's not option here
...
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Old 02-27-2020, 05:08 AM   #21
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I just finished an album done completely in an untreated room above my garage. Vocals and guitars were miked in that untreated room which is approximately 10 by 20 ft long with an 8 ft ceiling. The trick is to mic everything closely in the center of the room and mix and monitor with the near field monitors three feet from your head in an isosceles triangle at medium volumes.

I can solo the vocals and not hear the room and that allows me to add whatever reverb I want. Below are samples from all 10 songs done in that room. While treated rooms are great, I would have spent a couple grand doing it and I get the results I need without it.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread....91#post2249991
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Old 02-27-2020, 06:59 AM   #22
vdubreeze
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just to understand this better,

Is a mastering room any different than a mixing room in terms of how bass traps etc should be positioned?

Are they both rooms looking for the same room EQ curve?
Not really. Both are aiming to take the room out of the equation and be as flat as possible while still being a pleasant/non-fatiguing place to experience the audio.
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Old 02-27-2020, 09:53 AM   #23
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Not really. Both are aiming to take the room out of the equation and be as flat as possible while still being a pleasant/non-fatiguing place to experience the audio.
if i understand it correctly.

If we manage to take out the room of the equation.

Then this meaans each time our music is played through a room, the music takes shape ONLY by that room that is played it, rather than also having shape from the room we mixed it in. (as the room we mixed in is supposedly flat)

Therefore this way, when our mixing room is flat, we avoid introducing another kind of room (I.e our untreated mixing room) Into the room that the music is going to played in...

but the room that is gonna be played it, if its a normal home, of course it might boost lows high, as all homes are untreated mostly. (but at least we know our music was done right given the flat room it was mixed in)

is this correct?
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Old 02-27-2020, 10:32 AM   #24
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Quote:
if i understand it correctly.

If we manage to take out the room of the equation.

Then this meaans each time our music is played through a room, the music takes shape ONLY by that room that is played it, rather than also having shape from the room we mixed it in. (as the room we mixed in is supposedly flat)

Therefore this way, when our mixing room is flat, we avoid introducing another kind of room (I.e our untreated mixing room) Into the room that the music is going to played in...

but the room that is gonna be played it, if its a normal home, of course it might boost lows high, as all homes are untreated mostly. (but at least we know our music was done right given the flat room it was mixed in)

is this correct?
Yes. The studio should be "accurate".


I don't have a treated/measured studio or proper monitors. I'm just a play-around hobbyist, and I don't do any serious audio production.


Some "audiophiles" do have treated rooms and a few (who some call "studiophiles") prefer a "dead" studio-like listening room. That's NOT me!!!


I've had my speakers in a "music hall" for some DJ gigs and to my ears they sound LOT better an a big room with nice natural reverb. And, in my living room I use one of the Pro Logic II soundfield settings that adds a little reverb to the rear speakers.


Although I like the reverb, I wouldn't mix or master with the natural or artificial reverb.
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Old 02-27-2020, 10:49 AM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by read View Post
if i understand it correctly.

If we manage to take out the room of the equation.

Then this meaans each time our music is played through a room, the music takes shape ONLY by that room that is played it, rather than also having shape from the room we mixed it in. (as the room we mixed in is supposedly flat)

Therefore this way, when our mixing room is flat, we avoid introducing another kind of room (I.e our untreated mixing room) Into the room that the music is going to played in...

but the room that is gonna be played it, if its a normal home, of course it might boost lows high, as all homes are untreated mostly. (but at least we know our music was done right given the flat room it was mixed in)

is this correct?

The boosts in someone's playback anywhere else, as well as the rooms they're in, are unpredictable and mostly choices made by them. Can't do anything about them or cater to them. The idea of a professionally acoustically treated mix room as well as a mastering room (as well as the speakers and amplifiers used) is that you are not mixing or mastering into an anomaly in the room. Some people like to mix on speakers A while others like to mix on speakers B, which sound different from each other. So in a professional situation it's all about doing work that translates well into other environments, which will never be 100% of them, or 80% well in 80% of them. That's just the way it is. A flat environment as goal to work in means you're not, for example, cutting the low end, because your room is boomy, to make it sound right. The same way you don't want to boost highs to make it sound right because your speakers lack high end definition. If you don't have a reasonably flat environment when working you can't tell what you're ending up with, regardless of if it gets played on a boombox or earbuds or audiophile rig.

BUUUUTTT (and it's a big but, as Pee Wee Herman would say), since nothing is perfect, and since engineers have their preferences, the key is knowing your room, being intimately comfortable with your room and speakers and understanding how to get what you want/need out of them, which you need to do even if you had a treated room and $6,000 monitors. This is the same approach in a high end professional studio as it is in your untreated room. An engineer might book a week in a mix room but only if they can bring their own speakers. No one walks into an unfamiliar but acoustically great mix room they've never been in and sits down and mixes like it's back in their own acoustically great mix room. They have to shift their brain as well until they can get settled hearing-wise. But a pro is used to doing that and knows how to do that to get to that place. And that skill is developed by mixing a 10,000 songs, or rather 50 versions of a 200 songs, not by where the bass traps are located in a room where they might be listened to.

Don't put the cart before the horse Dig in and enjoy it
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Old 02-27-2020, 10:56 AM   #26
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Solution?

NO!!!

Some kind of compromise you can live with?

I guess so.

Turn your room on angle, make some cheap panels and cover quite a bit of your walls with them, put down a carpet and learn your room.
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Old 03-02-2020, 12:15 AM   #27
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One thing uou can do that doesn't cost much ($60 or so) is to buy a Behringer measement mic snd download the REW program.
Set up the mic at your listening position and make a frequency response measurement.

This will at least let you know what frequencies your untreated room are garbling up. Don't sweat anything above 500 Hz, it's bass and low mids that suffer the most.

You can hang a couple thicknesses of moving blankets (Harbor Freight sells them dirt cheap) an inch or 2 off the walls. These are half inch thick blankets used to cover furniture by movers. Google "first reflection points" to see where to hang them. (It's a start...)
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