I often read things like “well, I am no good at mixing”, so to all who feel this way, here are some encouraging things you should know – and some easy to understand things one should keep in mind when mixing audio.
The good news is: You are equipped with the most excellent tool to do great audio mixes!
The human ear is the highest developed sense humans have, and you will be surprised to find out how accurate your hearing is.
If you are able to tell when a guitar is out of tune, than that is proof that you are able to distinguish wether the guitar string is swinging at p.e. 440 or 450 times per second – your eye would not see the difference, but your ears are really sharp :)
The second thing besides the pitch is noticing things at high speed – while your eyes will see whirling sticks when a drummer plays a drumroll, your ear still easily distinguishes every single beat and will give you a clear idea if one single stroke sounded different from the others, or if the tempo slightly varies.
Of course, being a musician and older than 10years, some will claim they have lost some hearing, and yes, that will affect your mixing in some ways, still both abilities mentioned so far remain and are even available with one deaf ear.
For those with two working ears, here is a third thing I am sure you can do, and which you will be happy to use on your mixes:
Everybody is able to tell if a sound came from the left or the right, and if it happens close or far away.
By comparing the minimal difference in a signals contact to our ears, we have some sort of 3D-hearing, and we will be able to tell if a sound was close or far away by noticing if the sound came in as a clear direct-sounding signal, or if it was washed by being reflected on its way to our ear.
Think of someone talking to you from twenty steps away in a huge cathedral – the volume will be lower, and the sound will be quite different to someone talking right into your ear.
This 3D aspect of the hearing experience is something which is hard to capture on a recording, but your ears are excellent at this. Surround-sound systems are one approach to answer that, but stereo is all you will need to create a three dimensional mix.
When mixing, we will make use of those gifts all the time, all you need to learn is which tool affects which of these parameters, and which common mistakes you should avoid. That is what we are going to look at next.
Common mistakes
“It sounds good to me, so its a good mix!”
This is problematic. The point that it sounds good to you is affected by so many things (including your ear), that it is always better to make such statements relative:
“This sounds good to me on my headphones”
may be true, but have you tried a big-speaker stereo system or a cars hifi system?
No, you do not need to hear every mix on a lot of sound systems, but it is a good thing to do that every now and then, so you keep a feeling for the differences.
As soon as you know that all mixes you made with your headphones will have too much bass in your car, you can start to mix with that in mind.
Your next mix may sound a little weak in the bass in your headphones, but will not blast you out of your seat in the car. Good mixes should sound good on all kinds of speakers.
Get to know your monitors specialties and know their limits. When choosing monitors, try to get those who have an “average” sound, good studio monitors will never sound as warm and bumpy as hifi speakers, but they give you the best idea how to get a mix which will sound good everywhere.
The second thing to keep in mind besides the speakers is the sound of your room. Every room ads a special kind of sound experience depending on its size, amount of carpets or hard surfaces etc etc.
If your room has a great acoustic for unplugged guitar playing, then it propably produces some natural reverb (that is why people love to sing in the bathtub, too).
If you mix in that same room, the reverb will be there as well, so you might not feel the need to add any to your mix.
Again, listening in your car, you will notice the mix sounds a little dry and could use some reverb! This is the reason why recording studios often have "muted" rooms that do not produce any reflection, so the recorded signal is not catching any room related sounds.
If you have ever been in such a room, you'll know it is a very strange experience, and most people are happy to leave such rooms after a short time, so please do not try to mute your living room.
Bottom line: Before you start to mix, think about your sound setup and its specialties for a moment.
You can do great mixes on cheap speakers in an awfully sounding bathroom if you are able to keep the effects in mind, so do not think this calls for large amounts of money or a new room.
Hope you enjoyed the read!
Edited by Dick on November 21 2014 14:16
The good news is: You are equipped with the most excellent tool to do great audio mixes!
The human ear is the highest developed sense humans have, and you will be surprised to find out how accurate your hearing is.
If you are able to tell when a guitar is out of tune, than that is proof that you are able to distinguish wether the guitar string is swinging at p.e. 440 or 450 times per second – your eye would not see the difference, but your ears are really sharp :)
The second thing besides the pitch is noticing things at high speed – while your eyes will see whirling sticks when a drummer plays a drumroll, your ear still easily distinguishes every single beat and will give you a clear idea if one single stroke sounded different from the others, or if the tempo slightly varies.
Of course, being a musician and older than 10years, some will claim they have lost some hearing, and yes, that will affect your mixing in some ways, still both abilities mentioned so far remain and are even available with one deaf ear.
For those with two working ears, here is a third thing I am sure you can do, and which you will be happy to use on your mixes:
Everybody is able to tell if a sound came from the left or the right, and if it happens close or far away.
By comparing the minimal difference in a signals contact to our ears, we have some sort of 3D-hearing, and we will be able to tell if a sound was close or far away by noticing if the sound came in as a clear direct-sounding signal, or if it was washed by being reflected on its way to our ear.
Think of someone talking to you from twenty steps away in a huge cathedral – the volume will be lower, and the sound will be quite different to someone talking right into your ear.
This 3D aspect of the hearing experience is something which is hard to capture on a recording, but your ears are excellent at this. Surround-sound systems are one approach to answer that, but stereo is all you will need to create a three dimensional mix.
When mixing, we will make use of those gifts all the time, all you need to learn is which tool affects which of these parameters, and which common mistakes you should avoid. That is what we are going to look at next.
Common mistakes
“It sounds good to me, so its a good mix!”
This is problematic. The point that it sounds good to you is affected by so many things (including your ear), that it is always better to make such statements relative:
“This sounds good to me on my headphones”
may be true, but have you tried a big-speaker stereo system or a cars hifi system?
No, you do not need to hear every mix on a lot of sound systems, but it is a good thing to do that every now and then, so you keep a feeling for the differences.
As soon as you know that all mixes you made with your headphones will have too much bass in your car, you can start to mix with that in mind.
Your next mix may sound a little weak in the bass in your headphones, but will not blast you out of your seat in the car. Good mixes should sound good on all kinds of speakers.
Get to know your monitors specialties and know their limits. When choosing monitors, try to get those who have an “average” sound, good studio monitors will never sound as warm and bumpy as hifi speakers, but they give you the best idea how to get a mix which will sound good everywhere.
The second thing to keep in mind besides the speakers is the sound of your room. Every room ads a special kind of sound experience depending on its size, amount of carpets or hard surfaces etc etc.
If your room has a great acoustic for unplugged guitar playing, then it propably produces some natural reverb (that is why people love to sing in the bathtub, too).
If you mix in that same room, the reverb will be there as well, so you might not feel the need to add any to your mix.
Again, listening in your car, you will notice the mix sounds a little dry and could use some reverb! This is the reason why recording studios often have "muted" rooms that do not produce any reflection, so the recorded signal is not catching any room related sounds.
If you have ever been in such a room, you'll know it is a very strange experience, and most people are happy to leave such rooms after a short time, so please do not try to mute your living room.
Bottom line: Before you start to mix, think about your sound setup and its specialties for a moment.
You can do great mixes on cheap speakers in an awfully sounding bathroom if you are able to keep the effects in mind, so do not think this calls for large amounts of money or a new room.
Hope you enjoyed the read!
Edited by Dick on November 21 2014 14:16
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