Mixing/producing music, question
Why does everything sound great through my JBL LSR305 but when I listen to my songs on headphones they sound terrible?
So much noise and the EQ is all over the place.
The music I buy sounds good on both my monitors and headphones.
could be any number of things including:
>you're monitoring too quietly
>you're monitoring too loud
>your room is fucked
>you're just inexperienced (read:shit)
>>you're just inexperienced (read:shit)
of course this
mixing is so damn hard
it's probably my room, but i try to mix at low volume to negate it
everything is so technical
your room is fucked. mixing on headphones is essential if u don't have a good room and speaker arrangement ( away for the wall etc.)
is there a budget treatment solution?
just mix on some proper and flat headphones
then check them on the monitors
not the other way around
proper monitors start around $3000 a pair, yours cost $250 a pair. that is NOT a good investment
p.s. LSR305's have the bass reflex in the back? then keep them at least 1 meter from the wall (preferably 1.5)
>but i try to mix at low volume to negate it
this can be an issue.
recommended mixing levels are usually between 73-80db (for final mix levels). this is pretty loud, for a couple of reasons:
a. these levels usually get close to compensating for equal-loudness (prev flecher-munson) curves. it's so when you set levels you aren't cranking bass levels up higher than they need to be (as well as a host of other frequency balance issues - read: human ears are garbage)
b. headphones tend to reveal a lot more detail than speakers at similar volumes, just due to the proximity of the drivers. if you're monitoring quietly all the time you're probably missing things that your headphones are picking up.
room fucky-ness can be a problem, but it's something most people learn to compensate for after a while.
personally, i'll tend to monitor fairly quietly for most of the session. bring the volume up to make sure everything's okay. then check across a couple of headphones and stereo system. then make final tweaks.
your monitors are still your best mixing tools. do not use your headphones as your primary mixing devices esp for setting levels and compression.
no. egg cartons carry chickenshit diseases and may get you sick spending all that time among them. also they look like shit.
>proper monitors start around $3000 a pair,
best response ITT and great tips/thoughts
>start at 3000 a pair
fuck off with that nonsense lol
short answer is no. you're better of re-position things considerably than half-assing treatment in terms of investment. but as said, you can learn to compensate for room issues, especially if you can monitor and reference the mix on other systems and get used to the idiosyncrasies of your usual space. provided your room isn't REALLY fucky.
>i try to mix at low volume to negate it
FYI because of annoying facts of science (see en.m.wikipedia.org
I only mix with headphones and my shit comes out alright. Is your song too quiet when you export it?
not necessarily the intended listening volume, but if you're not giving your monitors enough juice you're definitely not making full use of their full frequency response. we assume that any ideal listening environment will make full use of possible frequency reproduction.
I don't think you have to invest that much, although the Genelec monitors at that price range can stand their own ground (without a sub).
An alternative would be Adam A8X ($1800 a pair) + Adam Sub 12 ($1500)... for proper 20Hz reproduction Adam Sub 15 would better, although ringing it in at a whopping $3300
make sure your monitors are at ear level on stands/pads and equidistant aparts from each other as they are to your head. (imagine a equilateral triangle, speakers in 2 corners, head in the other corner)
sets up like that are usually a bit of a waste in a home studio environment due to room issues, regardless of treatment. unless someone's doing this professionally, they're better off just renting a space with a decent monitoring set up for a few hours for final mixdowns.
suggesting that entry level monitors like the jbl's are a waste, like that post did, is completely misleading (plus it completely discounts any number of mid range solutions offered by genelec/adam/focal/neumann etc). if someone can't mix down a tune on those and have it translate well across a range of systems, it's not the speaker's fault, it's the operator. it won't be perfect, but at a very minimum it allows for competent mixdowns.
yamaha HS8s would be $600 for a pair and they have PLENTY of bass extension for mixing in the lowest end of the spectrum. sound incredibly good. you're honestly better off investing the difference in good metering plugs if you don't have them rather than chasing fairly ephemeral audio qualities. i've compared fairly fancy monitors and really gotten fairly little out of them compared to yamaha's hs, and done mixes on HS7s that sounded great on funktion one systems.
also throwing in a sub compounds treatment issues significantly. i just don't believe in high end stuff that much for most conventional applications and environments.
do you test your final mixdowns on other systems? because - just like compensating for a room - i believe it's possible to learn how the qualities of a mix in headphones transfer to other systems. i've done this on several occasions (with the help of some metering plugs for added clarity) and been able to transfer that fairly well to various speaker systems. totally believe that it's possible.
sorry i probably sound pretty pedantic, just trying squish out some of my thoughts itt
how much would 12x12x8 room DIY treatment cost me?
op here, can i get away with mixing in headphones and checking them with the monitors, since i don't have treament?
Owens Corning. Make some wooden "crates" essentially that you can put up on your walls. Fill it with owens and cover in fabric to make it look nice.
Also Mattress against the wall. Rugs hung. Find rooms with non parallel walls, Try to make your walls non parallel with furniture or anything else you can think of . Find a really good spot in the room. Play a few different low frequencies in the room to find out where they build up. Be totally aware the entire time you are experimenting with this. There are also spectrum analyzers. Play some pink noise and get a condenser mic and check the frequencies that it picks up as you move it around. (should be relative so the frequency response of the mic matters, but not a ton just get a pretty flat one and turn it on Omni)
There's tons of stuff you can do to change your room. Just make sure its as consistent as you feel comfortable with. You may need monitors with more Mids/less bottom to help you distinguish tones in a pretty important band. Learn to mix mids and the rest is easy.
yeah, the point is to just get a good reference for your mix. You can start the mix where ever, try it on good speakers, try it on bad speakers, try it in the car. Make subtle adjustments until it sound decent on all.
forget about treatment dude. test your mixdowns on different systems. take it to your car, your friends place, a local bar if you have connections, a local club if they are open to listening events, etc. just hear the mixdowns on different systems and figure out what is going wrong, and learn to compensate for that on your monitors and headphones.
dont worry about room treatment and upgrading your equipment, but consider using more meter software. hell, if you use ableton, just going to the extended view of the EQ8 and getting a clearer view of the spectrum can be immensely useful. be aware of sound stage and keeping things well placed in the stereo field (cans vs speakers will have serious differences in this regard). mix at higher volumes.
>friends place
normie
fuck off loool
that's sick
how many do you need? they practically covered every inch
totally depends on how much space you need to cover, which will depend on your room dimensions, speaker placement, etc.
is mixing comfy?
yes
that just makes me nervous.
fuck this shit
why?
speaker placement and desk are just hyper clinical. the wood baffles are both like cozily familiar or a lodge but then just too weird. alienating.
doesn't seem like a fun place to work desu
is a treated mixing room a good place to record vocals?
money pit