I thought I would go over a few of the bad things that have occurred in mixes in the past 70 years and hopefully learn from the mistakes of others.  This is not necessarily a comprehensive list, but it certainly is the majority of audio sins which I have seen at a major label where I worked for many years.

One interesting fact that emerges when you study recordings going back to the 1930s and up to today is that even though they had very little in the way of equipment, they made far fewer mistakes than those who record today with an embarrassment of equipment.  

I have collected a large number of recordings from the 30s onward and so have a pretty good idea of what they did.  It would be wise for those of you today to go back and listen to some of those great recordings and learn how to do things without whiz-bang presets on your Binford 9000. 

Keep in mind that virtually all those early recordings were done with a single mic.
There was no editing or FX units or layering or dubbing.  It was great musicians and skilled engineers doing a job to the best of their ability and to the limit of their equipment.

In the beginning, they did not have to worry about the stereo image, so that was one area which is not considered in the early recordings.  There were stereo experiments in the 30s and 40s, but it would not become commercially available until 1955.  And it would take years for them to figure out exactly how to mix for the new medium.

And so virtually everything before, during and for several years after the war was recorded in mono.
And most of it was before tape had been developed.  

The recorders used wire that was made of steel alloy and about the size of very fine fishing line.  Edits were performed by cutting the wire and tying a knot in it.  Those of us who have used razor blades for tape edits think we had it hard, but we really can not imagine how difficult it was to get good recordings.

Today's technology is light years ahead of the early recording, but often results in an inferior recording. The problems of today obviously are not in the technology, but in the lack of knowledge, experience, and humility.  People who think that they know it all will not learn anything, and internet forums are full of their wisdom.

So we will look at first the early mono recordings and see what we can learn from them.
This is just an introduction to this series of articles, so we will start next time.

Until then...

Speakers are the most important part of any studio, whether for tracking, mixing, or mastering.  I have spent decades listening and playing live music and listening to great speakers.  

But what if you haven't been able to do that, how do you know what music is supposed to sound like?  I went to a large venue live concert a few months ago and was really almost shocked at how bad the sound was.  And this is with national acts and a million dollar sound system.  

I walked around the sound booth area wondering if they were hearing something different than I was hearing.  But it was just as bad there.  The sound guys were on their cell phones and obviously content with the quality of the sound.  Half of the instruments were not even in the mix and the ones that were there were either too loud or too soft but always poor.  

The subs were so loud that the low frequencies just rolled around the 8,000 seat auditorium like a thunderstorm.   You could not figure out who was playing what unless you walked up to the stage and saw them.  I walked completely around the auditorium and the sound went from bad to worse.  It was not even close to acceptable at any point in the room.  

So why do I mention this here? It used to be that you learned what music is supposed to sound like by hearing live music.  But that is just not possible anymore.  If you want to hear what acoustic instruments sound like, you go to a band or orchestra concert where there is no PA system.  As far as jazz and rock groups go, you will have to listen to good recordings.

Now if you do not know how they are supposed to sound, how do you know if the recording is any good?
It is a sad musical example of Catch 22.  I have talked to many people who thought they knew what good sound was until they actually heard good sound and then realized that they did not have a clue. 

I learned this while analyzing mastered recordings with some sophisticated instruments and a great sound system.  The more I listened and pored over frequency spectrums,  and referenced the recordings to my own experience in big bands and orchestras, the more I realized that even mastering engineers can get it wrong.  I could tell when they changed their speakers, because the frequency spectrum of their masters would change.

Now if even mastering engineers have to be careful, the average young performer, artist, etc., has little chance of getting it right.   I noticed that many mastering engineers who did great work in the 70s, did not nearly as great work in the 90s, even though the equipment was better.  

So, first of all, expensive equipment is not what makes great sound.  You have to have great ears, but you also need a playback system that has accurate sound.  Obviously if you have a frequency area in your playback system that is too much or too little, even if you have perfect ears, you will adjust to that sound. The result will be flaws at those points. 

So what can we do about it?  Well, one thing is to listen on different systems as a final check.  That is what Auratones and Yamaha NS-10s were all about.  If it only sounds good in your studio, you may be congratulating yourself on your wonderful sound, but it is worthless in the real world.

Another important tool that I absolutely depend on is the frequency spectrum graph of the song.  I have done this for so many years that I can for the most part look at a printout of a frequency spectrum and tell you what it will sound like.  That takes years of study, but it means I do not completely trust my ears, especially if they are tired.  The spectrum does not lie, it is what the sound actually is.  As it comes out of your speakers, it always a compromise.  

How do you learn that?  Take recordings that everyone says are great and look at their spectrum.  Study it and realize that if yours is very different from that, your recording is no doubt wrong.

Don't listen to advertisements in magazines.  They are trying to sell you something.  Of course they are going to say it is the only product you need.  If you read the session notes in recording magazines like Mix, etc., you realize that every track in the world was recorded differently.  They used every kind of mic, recording technique, board, preamps, cables, outboard gear, plugins, DAWs, speakers, etc., known to man and some came out better than others, but it had virtually nothing to do with their equipment choice.

There were great recordings made in the 1930s and 40s with one (yes, only one) microphone in front of a screaming big band with a single vocalist and it was recorded in one take and you can hear every instrument and you can hear them better than recordings made last year with 50 mics and 200 tracks and millions of dollars worth of equipment.

So, if you are looking for good speakers to help you mix properly, find some great recordings from the 70s, take them to places that sell speakers, take them to studios with expensive speakers, listen carefully, and then see if you can get close to that sound without spending as much as a new car, or new house.

There are other issues such as the sound of the room.  If you are using nearfields, keep them close. (Keep your friends close, keep your speakers closer)  That minimizes the room's effect on the sound.

The present small speaker market is full of self powered options which are very inexpensive.  But from my recent tour of them (see previous blog), It is not an easy task to find good speakers in that price range.  They will have deficiencies and you have to learn what they are.  You can still use them, but you have to know where they are wrong.  That is where you rely on frequency spectrums.

Find others with good ears and ask them to help you.  "In a multitude of counselors, there is wisdom."
If you are a teenage boy, it will not be another teenage boy.  Experience in any endeavor takes years of hard work.  There are no shortcuts or presets to bypass that.  Your acquisition of a vaulted plugin will not make you an expert or guarantee a hit single.  Just like you would not win the Daytona 500 even if you owned the fastest race car.

The bottom line?

Listen more than you talk.

Words to live by.

Until next time...

Hey guys and girls, I recently visited Guitar Center and had occasion to audition all of their small format near-field studio speakers.   It was a weekday and there was almost nobody in the store, so it was an ideal time to spend some time listening. 

 Now I have spent most of the last 30 years listening to music for a living, and I never get tired of it.  I am always on the lookout for good sounding speakers.  The set-up that I have had for the last 20 years is still awesome, but you can't help wondering if something out there is going to pass you by.  

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to spend several days with Vlado Meller in his mastering studio.
He has PMC speakers and each driver has its own Bryston amp.  I was very happy to hear that what I hear in my (Bryston and Paradigm, $5,000) system is the same thing I heard in his (Bryston and PMC, $200,000) system.  (not counting bass to vibrate your lower intestine)   Anyway, as a result of that experience, I am not in the market for anything.

But I still was curious as to how the small studio speaker market was sounding and how close it was to my own incredibly flat system.  We went through KRK, Alesis, JBL, Presonus, M-Audio, Tannoy, Yamaha, Mackie, and a few others I don't remember.  The sizes were from 4" woofers to 8" woofers. (the same size range as mine)

I was especially interested in hearing the JBLs as they have gotten a bunch of accolades recently.
Well, they were all pretty good little speakers, but I am sad to say that they were not even in the ballpark with what I have.  Of course my system costs over 10 times as much, and so I think that for the price, they are all quite remarkable.

The last and largest of the collection that they had was the Mackie MR8mk3.  I spent quite a bit of time going between the JBL LSR308 and the Mackie MR8mk3.   They are virtually identical in size and target market.  But the sound was so different, I was just amazed.  It would have been nice to be able to spend all day comparing and measuring speakers, but I did not have that luxury.

The JBLs had a very bright high end that was just plain way brighter than it should have been.  Now it may have been set wrong on the back panel, but I did not bother the sales guy with a barrage of questions.  The bottom end was weak and next to the Mackies, which have a big bottom end, they sounded rather thin.   

The Mackies have a very smooth, laid back treble region that many would call weak.  But I prefer that, especially when working for 8 to 12 hours at a time.  The bass response has a hump around 100 Hz, just like a lot of big speakers in the 70s and 80s had.  This is supposedly to make up for the fact that speakers this size do not do well in the lowest octave. (30 to 60 Hz)

So, in a result I would not have guessed in a million years,  The JBL speakers have to have a large sub-woofer to make them effective,  and the Mackies have to have the treble switch in the full on position, and the bass switch in the '0 db boost' position.  And you have to ignore that 100 Hz bass boost.

So if you are in the market for the JBLs, absolutely get the sub.   As for the Mackies, they were on sale at such a good price that I took two home and have them hooked to my Cambridge Audio D-A converter and I have my Paradigm speakers sitting on top of them.   

It is nice to have another speaker to listen through as a final check,  but they will never replace the Bryston Paradigm setup for Mastering.  I had been wanting to raise the Paradigms for some time and this is a very effective way to do it.  I can stand up and the sound is the same.  Also it makes me have to sit up straight to be high enough for the speakers.
  
The Mackies can play very loud, (good for clients to listen to) and really are beautifully crafted.
And of course they have their own internal amps.   (true for most of the small format studio speakers these days)  The Mackies are loud enough to serve as the 'big studio soffit-mounted speaker' that the clients listen to for a final check.   I sit less than 4 feet from the drivers which are pointed at my ears.  Needless to say, they can play way louder than I will ever call on them to play.  

So the question now is, if I am 90% of the small studios in the world and I have one of these speaker configurations, how do I know what the final result is going to be?  And if I don't have expensive and sophisticated gear, and I have not been doing this for 30 years, how will I know?  Well, the simple answer is have it mastered by someone who has a record (no pun intended) of putting out good sounding albums.  

Okay, that costs more than you want to spend, no problem, lets see what you can do.  Take a song or album of the last 50 years that is similar in instrumentation to yours, and see how close you can get to it. Keep working on it, play it on different systems, note the weak points and try to adjust them.

You do not need expensive gear at all, but you do have to know how to use what you have.   I have a lot of toys in the thousand dollar range, but I know I can out-do guys who have million dollar mastering studios.  It is knowing what to do that is your challenge.

To try and get your song or album ready for production, divide it into several areas.  For instance, 1-Bass 2-Midrange 3-High-end 4-Level  5-Length 6-Pace 7-Mix Clarity 8-Breathing Room 9-Believability 10-Translatablity to different places (homes, cars, Ipods, etc.)

If your song is funky, how does it stack up to Bruno Mars'  'Uptown Funk'?  If it is classic rock sounding, how does it stand up to Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Steely Dan.  If it is Muscle Shoals, how does it sound next to Bob Dylan's 'Slow Train Coming'?  If it is a female vocalist, how does it sound next to Eva Cassidy, Norah Jones, Amanda Mcbroom?  If it is instrumental, how does it sound next to 'Winelight' by Grover Washington Jr.?   Jazz Guitar...George Benson...etc, etc., You get the idea.

Speakers are only approximations of the sound and you have to realize that it is not going to sound like it sounds in your bedroom or basement.   Use them as general indicators but not as absolute arbiters of the final result.  Listen to the great albums and you will eventually get a lot better at mixing, no matter what your speakers sound like.

Until next time...

I thought I was done with 'Just the Two Of Us' 192 kHz HD Tracks version, but when I noticed that the intersample peaks on the 44.1 kHz version were above the sample peaks, I had to figure out what was going on.  Basically when you resample from 96 kHz to 44.1 kHz, the distance between the samples and the shape that the samples are making combine to occasionally make an inter-sample curve that is above the sample level.  It was mildly shocking to me that it was .3 db!  I was not expecting that.  I ran hundreds of tests of different settings and then went in to see the waveform resample.  I took pictures of it and I hope that you can see what I saw.  The bottom line is that it is another reason to stay 1 decibel away from the 0db ceiling.  Next time we will look at something totally different (I hope).  Until next time...

       Hey guys, I just posted a video analyzing a track I just bought from HD Tracks.  It is in the rather high resolution format of 192 khz 24 bit.  I wasn't planning on doing anything other than listening to it until I noticed that it was not merely a higher resolution version of the original.  

       It was completely remastered and altered in several ways which were damaging.  It was compressed and increased in level by 4.1 db, and it had flattened the peak waveforms in a most ugly manner.
The frequency spectrum has a number of visible problems.  The sound is harsh and distorted in the loudest portions of the track.  

       The original master was perfect as it was, and should not have been raised in level at all. 
Thanks to Vlado Meller for a fantastic mastering job on the original.


       A high resolution file has no need of compression and being made 'louder'. 
It is not meant to play in a CD rotation at the neighborhood bar. 
It is meant to transfer as much of the original fidelity as possible.
This 'remaster' at 192 khz is as far from that as possible.

       I decided, just for fun, to see how RX4 would match the high level.  It did it without a single waveform being flattened.  With the mere press of a button.  Most impressive.  


       Also for fun, I decided to master it myself and match the high loudness level.  It took much longer than the RX4 job, but we were able to do it with no flattened peaks.  Let me reiterate that the original needed no changes at all, but I was just doing this as an exercise.  Pretend that a client is saying,
 "make it louder...louder!"   


So we did, but that does not make it better by any means.  It is just to show that it can be done without destroying the waveform.  It is not simple and takes every toy in the arsenal, but it is better sounding and as loud as the 192 version.  It was a fun challenge, but I would not want to do that in real life mastering.


       Snippets of the results, as well as pictures of the waveforms are on the video.
I am not intending to disparage whoever did the bad mastering job of the 192 file, but I do want to make clear that the truth is the truth, and if we know the truth, "the Truth will set us free".
Let me know what you think. 


Until next time... 

The video I recently published on Youtube concerning the similarities of 3 songs of each artist is pretty much self explanatory.  If you listen with headphones, it is hard to differentiate the drum tracks.  They are completely identical at those points.  If you merely hard pan instruments in any song, you will feel pressure in your head from the pressure difference.  These were completely different songs, recorded 35 years apart, without key, pitch, or otherwise altering, hard panned 100%. I adjusted some of beats slightly to match the tempo. It is remarkable.  The notes being sung by Marvin Gaye's background singers "Got to give it" are the same notes being sung by Robin Thicke "You know you want it".  There are other things like intro length being identical, related keys, the same words, falsetto, etc..   Next time we will look at something totally different.  Let me know what you think.