I have a nice new bigger room to let my speakers breath in, and it's not square either like my old one.
The difference it makes now to mixing is unbelievable! The bass and kick find their spaces so much more easier.
It has overjoyed me so much that I felt compelled to write about it.
Do any of you treat your rooms?
The importance of the room you mix in.
Re: The importance of the room you mix in.
When I was with my ex, we lived in a 3 bedroom house and nearly all the rooms were large. I had one of the double bedrooms set out as my studio and whilst I didn't have a huge amount of acoustic treatment, I did have some. I also had a lot of soft furnishings and heavy curtains which made the room actually very good I thought. It wasn't a 'dead' room but it certainly didn't suffer from a lot of the common issues.
Now I'm single and in a flat, space has become and issue and I'm having to rely on judgement/experience and frequencies a lot more when it comes to mix decisions. I'm of the belief that you can achieve a good mix based on a suprisingly small number of things.
1. Good source sounds
2. Sensible balancing of frequencies to fill out the spectrum
3. Intelligent use of filters and spectral analysis tools
4. Thoughtful use of panning and stereo imaging
5. Not overloading a track with too many parts/sounds
Number 5 sounds obvious but with me in the past, I have been guilty of adding more parts if I felt something was missing. Now I'm more inclined to use less parts but the space available in the spectrum means I can make those sounds have more impact and be much more fuller and thicker. I have found by just adhering to this 5 things, the mix can sometimes take care of itself. It's not as good as a good monitoring environment obviously and whilst my current room probably isn't that great, without applying knowledge of all the above, I'd probably be very frustrated with how my mixes sounded. I also have access to friends studios though and I often play things there or send them something over MSN.
The real difficulty I find is getting the bottom end right, I don't struggle with any other aspect of the mix, but everything below 100hz is where I spend a lot of time checking out. Like I was saying, this room now is a lot smaller than what I was used to before, obviously low frequencies have longer waveforms and it's easy to assume the bass is too much when referencing through my monitors ( both of which have 6" woofers ) because of the lack of absorption. I'm well aware of this and have to compensate a lot by using as many techniques as I can think of. But then again, I did all that before even though my previous room was better set up so.....................
I think whatever room you find yourself in, you should spend time in it listening to records you know are produced well. The stuff I use as reference music sounds good in this room, punchy, defined low end and no sign of ringing or hollowness, so by that, I assume it's conceivable to produce punchy mixes in here too. I should probably do some testing to find where the bad areas of the room are, the reason I don't eq too much is that I will probably be eq'ing the room.
Now I'm single and in a flat, space has become and issue and I'm having to rely on judgement/experience and frequencies a lot more when it comes to mix decisions. I'm of the belief that you can achieve a good mix based on a suprisingly small number of things.
1. Good source sounds
2. Sensible balancing of frequencies to fill out the spectrum
3. Intelligent use of filters and spectral analysis tools
4. Thoughtful use of panning and stereo imaging
5. Not overloading a track with too many parts/sounds
Number 5 sounds obvious but with me in the past, I have been guilty of adding more parts if I felt something was missing. Now I'm more inclined to use less parts but the space available in the spectrum means I can make those sounds have more impact and be much more fuller and thicker. I have found by just adhering to this 5 things, the mix can sometimes take care of itself. It's not as good as a good monitoring environment obviously and whilst my current room probably isn't that great, without applying knowledge of all the above, I'd probably be very frustrated with how my mixes sounded. I also have access to friends studios though and I often play things there or send them something over MSN.
The real difficulty I find is getting the bottom end right, I don't struggle with any other aspect of the mix, but everything below 100hz is where I spend a lot of time checking out. Like I was saying, this room now is a lot smaller than what I was used to before, obviously low frequencies have longer waveforms and it's easy to assume the bass is too much when referencing through my monitors ( both of which have 6" woofers ) because of the lack of absorption. I'm well aware of this and have to compensate a lot by using as many techniques as I can think of. But then again, I did all that before even though my previous room was better set up so.....................
I think whatever room you find yourself in, you should spend time in it listening to records you know are produced well. The stuff I use as reference music sounds good in this room, punchy, defined low end and no sign of ringing or hollowness, so by that, I assume it's conceivable to produce punchy mixes in here too. I should probably do some testing to find where the bad areas of the room are, the reason I don't eq too much is that I will probably be eq'ing the room.
Re: The importance of the room you mix in.
I don't even have monitors 
I got a small room with way to much stuff in it. There are hi-fi speakers which are in the wrong position because I can't fit them anywhere else. So I use expensive headphones and listen to my tracks on other sound systems to get it right.
I got a small room with way to much stuff in it. There are hi-fi speakers which are in the wrong position because I can't fit them anywhere else. So I use expensive headphones and listen to my tracks on other sound systems to get it right.
Re: The importance of the room you mix in.
Thanks to mostly being in rented flats for my production "career" I've never really been able to do much with a room. Looking forward to having the opportunity to do a bit more in terms of sound absorption and so on whenever the time comes...
Re: The importance of the room you mix in.
My old room was perfect, but moved house in august, and really don't trust my new room. To a point where I'm losing interest in making music.
Will make some changes at the weekend I think...
Will make some changes at the weekend I think...
Re: The importance of the room you mix in.
I have a very small room, which is full. Cant add anything else unless i pile stuff ontop of each other.
wish i could get a studio outside the house somewhere, but its too expensive ontop of my rent already. maybe one day....
wish i could get a studio outside the house somewhere, but its too expensive ontop of my rent already. maybe one day....
Re: The importance of the room you mix in.
i think one of the most important things which never gets much of a mention is the key you usually write in.
if the root notes of keys you tend to use resonate with the room, it makes it almost impossible to get your bass right.
the room i use at the moment is far from perfect, its quite small, i have no acoustic treatment, it has windows on two sides, and yet i get almost perfectly balanced mixes ( meaning they sound the same in cutting studios, gigs, beatboxes, car stereos etc. )
the room resonates on D# on its long side, and as long as i dont write in D# my mixes come out fine.
my secret is to write in a key that is only one semitone away from the resonant frequency, (in this case E ) then there is less chance of other harmonics resonating in the mids.
its usually quite easy to tell if you've got a problem if you have windows, the window will vibrate if you are hitting a resonant frequency on an axis perpendicular to the window.
i know ive posted this before but here is a free mode calculator ;
http://www.microscopics.co.uk/blog/2009 ... alculator/
if the root notes of keys you tend to use resonate with the room, it makes it almost impossible to get your bass right.
the room i use at the moment is far from perfect, its quite small, i have no acoustic treatment, it has windows on two sides, and yet i get almost perfectly balanced mixes ( meaning they sound the same in cutting studios, gigs, beatboxes, car stereos etc. )
the room resonates on D# on its long side, and as long as i dont write in D# my mixes come out fine.
my secret is to write in a key that is only one semitone away from the resonant frequency, (in this case E ) then there is less chance of other harmonics resonating in the mids.
its usually quite easy to tell if you've got a problem if you have windows, the window will vibrate if you are hitting a resonant frequency on an axis perpendicular to the window.
i know ive posted this before but here is a free mode calculator ;
http://www.microscopics.co.uk/blog/2009 ... alculator/
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Re: The importance of the room you mix in.
Great advice,steevio wrote:i think one of the most important things which never gets much of a mention is the key you usually write in.
if the root notes of keys you tend to use resonate with the room, it makes it almost impossible to get your bass right.
the room i use at the moment is far from perfect, its quite small, i have no acoustic treatment, it has windows on two sides, and yet i get almost perfectly balanced mixes ( meaning they sound the same in cutting studios, gigs, beatboxes, car stereos etc. )
the room resonates on D# on its long side, and as long as i dont write in D# my mixes come out fine.
my secret is to write in a key that is only one semitone away from the resonant frequency, (in this case E ) then there is less chance of other harmonics resonating in the mids.
its usually quite easy to tell if you've got a problem if you have windows, the window will vibrate if you are hitting a resonant frequency on an axis perpendicular to the window.
i know ive posted this before but here is a free mode calculator ;
http://www.microscopics.co.uk/blog/2009 ... alculator/
I would also suggest just turning the gain on the monitors down , it can help if you have slap echo and comb filtering problems.
My current problem is no studio monitors, I sold my large ones when I moved, I need to get something small with a sub to use at low spl. Its not ideal but in Swansea housing association properties they didn't feel the need to put any sound insulation between me and the folks above. lol