on 'listening' and 'use your ears'

[SubFunk]

btw, i feel better now, thank you.

Your welcome. I guess that's all that really matters.

Sounding madphat. I know becasue I used my ears and they is tell me things is good!

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/2868571/

not really, otherwise there would be not so much emotion and passion involved and somehow the 'need' of mine to write it.

i said it's not supposed to be a lesson, right it isn't, but still i feel the need to point out the importance to care about the sense that makes us all enjoying what we love most, MUSIC and SOUND.

[kb420]

It was a great post, and I feel the same way. You have to trust your ears, but the problem I'm having is that I don't trust my room. I need to invest in some studio foam or something. Through trial and error I've "learned" my set up, so I can make a decent mix with it, but I think I need to put some work into my room because when I mix now, I'm setting levels based on my experience with my set up more so than what I am actually hearing through the monitors.

Do you understand what I am saying?

[SubFunk]

It was a great post, and I feel the same way. You have to trust your ears, but the problem I'm having is that I don't trust my room. I need to invest in some studio foam or something. Through trial and error I've "learned" my set up, so I can make a decent mix with it, but I think I need to put some work into my room because when I mix now, I'm setting levels based on my experience with my set up more so than what I am actually hearing through the monitors.

Do you understand what I am saying?

sure, if you are already at that point, then go do it... instead of spending the next 100 dollars on another plugin, do you understand what i am saying?

[kb420]

It's a lesson in frustration. That's one of the main reasons I haven't invested in a lot of 3rd party plug ins.

[SubFunk]

^^^ besides your example is actually proving my general point, a new plugin want help you to get a better product, if you can't hear what you are doing...
respectively how the plugin affects the sound, the investment of some treatment, however will eventually allow you to make full use of a new plugin in the future. (or an old one you where not even aware of what it is capable of)

it is a simple chain of importance / investment. ( after you started with basic conscious listening training, you even do not need any technology for it.
just take anything you can abuse to produce a sound and follow something like that http://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie ... isten.html * and yes i know she is extremely skilful, but that is not the point, the point is the conscious listening while you produce any kind of sound on any skill level)

[kb420]

^^^ besides your example is actually proving my general point, a new plugin want help you to get a better product, if you can't hear what you are doing...

Exactly!!!! I really want a better set of monitors. I want to keep the ones that I'm using now so that I have two sets and reference both, but it's a waste of money until I can do something about room itself.

[ethios4]

What do you guys think about using a sub? Getting sub-bass right is very important to me, but I know some people that get great mixes without a sub (Nebulae comes to mind). Also, having a sub makes proper bass treatment even more critical. I wonder if I should trade in my Alesis M1 Actives for some nicer monitors, or invest in a sub and bass treatment first?

[ChiDJ]

A Sub is Hella important if you are doing any type of dance music. How can you mix a bass line if you can't hear all of it.??

With that said. I would also like to emphasize the importance of your mix translating to the real world. I always test out my mixes on my shitty laptop speakers and as an mp3 on myspace cause that's how a lot of listeners will hear my tracks.

Tod

[SubFunk]

What do you guys think about using a sub? Getting sub-bass right is very important to me, but I know some people that get great mixes without a sub (Nebulae comes to mind). Also, having a sub makes proper bass treatment even more critical. I wonder if I should trade in my Alesis M1 Actives for some nicer monitors, or invest in a sub and bass treatment first?

that depends a bit on: are you happy with the 'whole' picture the alesis give you... and purely the bass is lacking for you?

if so, get a sub and treatment, if not get a different set of speaker... bass is a very difficult issue, i totally admit.
i for instance i always would pay more attention to the all over nice flat response, stereo field and depth plus being not fatigue, rather then purely the bass... i know most of electronic musicians are obsessed with bass, i for instance used to have a sub, i do not like it for mixing, a fullrange system without a separate bass is better for me while mixing, way better... but i do love to listen back just for the pleasure afterwards on a sub system...

that one is really hard to answer, again... take some time... and compare some systems with and without a sub, damn internet to hell... for that make the effort and go into shops, i know there are not many good ones around anymore... but go to one, they still exist and don't choose online from a sheet of paper with numbers on them...

[Tarekith]

Personally I'd rather have a good set of full range speakers than a sub, at least initially. Fairly often I master stuff from people who have subs and it seems to only make issues worse. Takes a lot of work to set up a sub properly, in terms of placement and needing the proper bass trapping. All too often it seems like people get a bass just for the BOOM and not merely to extend the low end. Plus I think you need a decent sized room for a sub too. In a small to medium sized room, I'd say skip the sub and just get better monitors. Add bass-trapping over time, and THEN start thinking about a sub.

Just my $.02

[SubFunk]

A Sub is Hella important if you are doing any type of dance music. How can you mix a bass line if you can't hear all of it.??

With that said. I would also like to emphasize the importance of your mix translating to the real world. I always test out my mixes on my shitty laptop speakers and as an mp3 on myspace cause that's how a lot of listeners will hear my tracks.

Tod

here i have to disagree a little you are generally right, but we are so bass obsessed that we do often not realise how much is actually there in fullrange systems only because it is not thundering around with 130db and pulling your trousers off, the days i had a sub i made way to bass heavy mixes, muddy and dull, i am way better off mixing without a sub and get a nice deep punching bass. that played back on a sub system is kicking ass.

subs are OK, don't get me wrong here, if you prefer it fine, but personally i think it's a bit to strong generalisation... to say you need a sub to do bass heavy mixes, i tell you a lot of a good heavy bass comes from the overall 'weight' of a mix and for that you do not need necessarily a sub.
in other words i learned that actually taking a little attention away from the bass and concentrating more on the 'whole picture' produces automatically a heel lot of bass in a mix... try it.

[SubFunk]

Personally I'd rather have a good set of full range speakers than a sub, at least initially. Fairly often I master stuff from people who have subs and it seems to only make issues worse. Takes a lot of work to set up a sub properly, in terms of placement and needing the proper bass trapping. All too often it seems like people get a bass just for the BOOM and not merely to extend the low end. Plus I think you need a decent sized room for a sub too. In a small to medium sized room, I'd say skip the sub and just get better monitors. Add bass-trapping over time, and THEN start thinking about a sub.

Just my $.02

+1

a good mix is not about BOOM, it is about the 'whole picture' then the BOOM and more then you ever want of it, is coming by itself.

[ethios4]

Cool, thanks for the advice. Neb recommended some Mackie monitors that I'm considering. I'm thinking I'll get those first, then bass treatment for the room, then maybe a sub. I had a sub before and it just made the bass problems of the room much worse....basically I still had to do the same listening tests on different systems anyway.

As for the Alesis monitors I have now, the frequency response is not nearly flat enough I think. It exaggerates the mid-high frequency, which always causes friends to exclaim at how good they sound, but in practice I always have to compensate when mixing or I end up with a dull sounding mix on every other system.

When it comes to mixing bass, lately I've been taking the project over to a friends house and mixing the bass on his PA system with big subs. It actually works surprisingly well for hearing those very very subtle differences in EQing bass, where moving a cut just a few Hz over makes a big difference.

+1 to the 'whole picture'. It amazed me to learn that the mids mix has a big impact on how the bass mix sounds, etc.

[SubFunk]

+1 to the 'whole picture'. It amazed me to learn that the mids mix has a big impact on how the bass mix sounds, etc.

i think this is the most common mistake when people having problems with mixing, the obsession in electronic music with bass, they concentrate so much on it, and then loose the picture of the track and mucking about only in the bass region on a mix to get that more bass they want (and yeah slamming another compressor on it, hooray), this is not leading you anywhere... lean back and let the track breathe... take it as a 'whole' and an amount of bass will appear you want ask for more.

[ChiDJ]

A Sub is Hella important if you are doing any type of dance music. How can you mix a bass line if you can't hear all of it.??

With that said. I would also like to emphasize the importance of your mix translating to the real world. I always test out my mixes on my shitty laptop speakers and as an mp3 on myspace cause that's how a lot of listeners will hear my tracks.

Tod

here i have to disagree a little you are generally right, but we are so bass obsessed that we do often not realise how much is actually there in fullrange systems only because it is not thundering around with 130db and pulling your trousers off, the days i had a sub i made way to bass heavy mixes, muddy and dull, i am way better off mixing without a sub and get a nice deep punching bass. that played back on a sub system is kicking ass.

subs are OK, don't get me wrong here, if you prefer it fine, but personally i think it's a bit to strong generalisation... to say you need a sub to do bass heavy mixes, i tell you a lot of a good heavy bass comes from the overall 'weight' of a mix and for that you do not need necessarily a sub.
in other words i learned that actually taking a little attention away from the bass and concentrating more on the 'whole picture' produces automatically a heel lot of bass in a mix... try it.

I Totally agree with you. But this is kinda the point of your thread isn't it? Training your ears and optimizing your monitoring set-up. Subs ARE difficult to set up correctly and, as Tarekith said, room size and damping is crucial.

Just like you and many others, I initially set-up my sub incorrectly and suffered from thin mixes because I had the sub too loud in the room. It took me time to calibrate my room and set-up the sub correctly.

But, we're talking about obtaining optimal monitoring results aren't we? To mix everything, one has to hear everything? Yes?

Tod