This has always been a problem for me. I record something in my studio and its lush, really good. Take it to my house hifi and its sounds [ ****** ]! Really digital and harsh.

The way I get round this is to do this several times bring it to and from the studio/house making changes to eq and what not then bung the thing through T-racks software which does seem to add some shine.

But why does it sound great in the studio to begin with and so terrible elsewhere?

My studio is pretty decent and acoustically treated. I recently transferred a bunch of recordings from reel to reel to my system, took them over to the house and they sounded great so its stuff I record that is the problem. Yet it does sound really good in the studio and certainly not digital and harsh.

I'm using pro tools 6.4 TDM mix system with 888/24 interfaces. Passive HHB circle monitors.

if it's stuff you record, not transfer, then i'd be looking at the front end, the Mics, and pre-amps.... and the recording space , and how you use them.......

could be a million reasons. Prime one? Unfortunately - experience.

More subtly? Truthfully? maybe the room isn't as good as you think (who treated it?)

The monitors are okay - but "revealing" they aint.

888 - terrible converter..

dunno.... could be myriad things...

I still think my mixes sound harsh and I mix multi million dollar projects. Maybe you're negatively biased!!

Lots of things. As above. I expect the monitoring environment is not what you think it is. J

--------------------
www.jackruston.com

Perhaps the room is at fault but I don't understand how it sounds lush in the room and harsh elsewhere. The room has bass trapping in all corners, splayed walls/ceiling going in to out from monitor position. Treatment behind the monitors position and above it and some side treatment.Of course that still doesn't mean the room isn't at fault but commercially released music fantastic in there.

Hi Wiredup, Do you ever mix using good headphones? This is one of the ways to ensure that the room ain't the problem. Also in smaller spaces , as mine is, I find that certain live instruments can be controlled in the mix by being recorded closely with good dynamic mics rather than condensers that will pick up too much of your room. Dave

--------------------
My head hurts!

Hey Dave, no but I'd wondered about using headphones in the past. Can I ask what headphones you use? I wouldn't mind investing in a decent pair for mixing if this works for me.

Here's a thing... and a common problem.

Know when you do a mix and you think "wow my mix sounds brighter and bigger than XYZ commercial mix - I've done a good job"?

Big error. You've likely made it too bright and too cooked. I get rough mixes played to me in composer studios with great comments of "listen to how big I've got the bass".... etc etc... invariably it means it's wrong. So, check your mixes against the "great sounding commercial mixes" (volume compensated). Any differences aren't often dow to doing a better job.

Beyerdynamic DT880 headphones seem to be a respected choice but I read that as they are 250 OHMS it might require a dedicated headphone amp. I don't have the budget for that and would plug them straight into my soundcraft spirit studio desk. Would that work out ok?

Quote narcoman:

---

Here's a thing... and a common problem.

Know when you do a mix and you think "wow my mix sounds brighter and bigger than XYZ commercial mix - I've done a good job"?

Big error. You've likely made it too bright and too cooked. I get rough mixes played to me in composer studios with great comments of "listen to how big I've got the bass".... etc etc... invariably it means it's wrong. So, check your mixes against the "great sounding commercial mixes" (volume compensated). Any differences aren't often dow to doing a better job.

---

Point taken, I'll look at this.

Quote WiredUp:

---

Hey Dave, no but I'd wondered about using headphones in the past. Can I ask what headphones you use? I wouldn't mind investing in a decent pair for mixing if this works for me.

---

Hi, yep I don't have top of the range cans but use the Senny HD595..they are the younger brother of the HD 650 which i notice are under £300 at Amazon. The way I work is, I will EQ with the individual instruments with the headphones and then balance between cans and monitors...and my mixes are better! without doubt.
Dave

--------------------
My head hurts!

Well, it sounds like your room is well treated and if other references sound good in there, then you have an issue with your mixes. It's possible that you're focusing too much on the high and low frequencies, the power and the prettiness rather than the crucial midrange balances. When that happens, the mix can sound lifeless when you come out of that 'perfect' environment of sitting in the sweetspot of good speakers in a treated room. When you tune in to that stuff you'll find that you make different choices when tracking and mixing.

J

--------------------
www.jackruston.com

Quote WiredUp:

---

Beyerdynamic DT880 headphones seem to be a respected choice but I read that as they are 250 OHMS it might require a dedicated headphone amp. I don't have the budget for that and would plug them straight into my soundcraft spirit studio desk. Would that work out ok?

---

They might be a little quiet with some headphone outputs but I use my 250ohm DT250's with all kinds of gear and I've never had a problem.

James.

--------------------
JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

And if you do have a problem with level, this little headphone amp is getting some good press at the moment:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug11/articles/neco-soundlab.htm


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Ok, been having another look at my mix this morning. Concentrating on Acoustic Guitar, in the studio it sounds rich and a sound I am pleased with but listening to it in the house its very toppy, you clearly hear that plectrum tapping sound. Its just too much top. So using Focusrite FF D26 EQ I bring down the top end a little. When I check it I'd say slight improvement but stil toppy.

Then I tried referencing a Guitarist who plays in a similar style who's recording I would rate highly. But I notice his Guitar isn't exactly lacking in top end sparkle. Comparing it to my recording on my monitors it really doesn't sound like my Guitar has any more top than his. I recorded the Guitar part with a Rode NT5. I'm puzzled, frustrated and at a loss of what to try next & how to track down the exact problem.

Send me a mix and and a reference and I'll make some comments. PM me.

>This has always been a problem for me. I record something in my studio and its lush, really good. Take it to my house hifi and its sounds [ ****** ]! Really digital and harsh.

I've experienced this so many times over the years, and it's soul-crushing. Sounds great in the studio, crap on the lounge-room hi-fi. I have slowly improved what my mixes sound like on the hi-fi and other systems. Some possibilities:

- a very dead studio (which I have) and speakers that don't reveal enough the mid/high range (which I don't have) mean that you add too much mid-high when mixing, which is then accentuated by the more lively room and speakers
- nearfield monitors in the studio mean you add a bit too much bass to the mix. Your hi-fi amp/speakers accentuate the bass, not enough that the bass is obviously too loud, but enough to muddy everything without it being obvious that the bass is the culprit.
- too good a bass response in your studio which means your mix is bass-light, so you hear too much of the mid/ighs, making it sound 'digital and harsh'.
- adding mid/high EQ to too many tracks -- you get the mix of this perfect in your studio but on a different system and environment the delicate balance of the mix falls apart and the over-polishing is revealed
- a hundred other things unfortunately

Some things you could try:
- bring your hi-fi into the studio for a while and get to know how it sounds in there. Does it have any pecularities (eg. big bump at 100Hz)?
- try a different hi-fi for a while in the second room (if you can)
- try your hi-fi in another room as well to see how it sounds in there
- have another hi-fi in another room for another perspective (if short of dosh, just buy a cheap £100-150 system, you want it to sound acceptable on this sort of thing anyway)
- use (good) headphones for yet another perspective
- try your mix at a friend's house
- I think the idea of testing out a single instrument at a time and comparing the results in the different rooms is a good start. See how that goes, while bearing in mind that the problem might be the process of combining instruments.

Spot on. I now pay attention to what a pop mix sounds like on my kids LG Cookie phone speaker and an iphone/ipad speaker. Frankly its got to sound exciting on those to keep their attention!

Quote Jack Ruston:

---

Well, it sounds like your room is well treated and if other references sound good in there, then you have an issue with your mixes. It's possible that you're focusing too much on the high and low frequencies, the power and the prettiness rather than the crucial midrange balances. When that happens, the mix can sound lifeless when you come out of that 'perfect' environment of sitting in the sweetspot of good speakers in a treated room. When you tune in to that stuff you'll find that you make different choices when tracking and mixing.

J

---

Do you use visual spectral analyzers so that you can SEE what's going on in the mix? Are you giving each instrument it's own space in the frequency and stereo image?

I used to do it all by ear and struggled until I was put on to this technique at a demo. My mixes translate much betterer.

Get one on the stereo bus and have a look.

WiredUp , and how is it now? Have you learnt sometihng? I have the same problem , but later I'll write about it!

I suppose this is like making clothes for someone that look fantastic on that person, but when your try putting them on someone with a different shape you being disappointed that they look rubbish. You would have to make clothes that don't look ideal on your original model, but have a good chance of looking right enough on as wide range of people as possible.
And I suppose knowing when you have a mix that will translate to as many playback systems as possible when done on any one system is a matter of experience with requisite aptitude. And I guess in the real world good mixers will be able to get in the ballpark and the mix will be checked on different playback setups and be tweaked if necessary (I can't think of any studio pic I've seen where there is only one pair of monitors).

In our home world it's useful to have alternative speakers and 'a' headphones. If you can get your mix sounding right on all your sound outlets then you might be heading down the right direction. Then if you have some friends or anywhere that will have you, you need to go to their places and play back through their stuff, upload to something mangling like MySpace or whatever, and if you don't cringe and ouch and think oh yeah comfy, then you might have nailed it. But I think you have to not be surprised for the need of more than one round of some of that.
Or is this just a symptom of a bad room and cloth ears?

Suffice perhaps the average audionaut can't expect a mix heard through one pair of budget monitors at home to sound right first time as pro on a lot of other systems.

I suppose.

Quote Martin Walker:

---

And if you do have a problem with level, this little headphone amp is getting some good press at the moment:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug11/articles/neco-soundlab.htm


Martin

---

I cvlicked on the link and for a split second saw the readers ads total next to it and thought that was the price. After my missus resusciated me I realised it wasn't £563,756 but just over a ton.

It's a hard life being an ethnic sometimes. Too many things, too much confusion.

--------------------
Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Actually the standard version is only £75:

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/neco_soundlab

(Hugh reviewed the one with the AD8610 opamp upgrade option - an extra £15)


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Change your speakers. I used to have the same problem, and used HHB Circle 5 passives too. Mixes never translated well, and I started bringing the workstation and interface to the house and routing it through the home hi-fi for final mix referencing. Then I changed to KRK RP8s - from the outset my mixes started translating perfectly.

The HHBs are wonderful and natural sounding, but they don't give you the warts and all picture that other monitors give. The first mix I did on the KRKs and referenced on the home system was pretty much bang on. Since then I've trusted them 100%

I still use the HHBs at home for home cinema use and they are great but I'd not use them for mixing again.

Quote WiredUp:

---

This has always been a problem for me. I record something in my studio and its lush, really good. Take it to my house hifi and its sounds [ ****** ]! Really digital and harsh.

The way I get round this is to do this several times bring it to and from the studio/house making changes to eq and what not then bung the thing through T-racks software which does seem to add some shine.

But why does it sound great in the studio to begin with and so terrible elsewhere?

My studio is pretty decent and acoustically treated. I recently transferred a bunch of recordings from reel to reel to my system, took them over to the house and they sounded great so its stuff I record that is the problem. Yet it does sound really good in the studio and certainly not digital and harsh.

I'm using pro tools 6.4 TDM mix system with 888/24 interfaces. Passive HHB circle monitors.

---

This is why a basic mixing technique is to listen on more than one set of speakers, listen when NOT sitting in the "sweet spot" (listening from the next room with the door ajar is particularly useful for detecting bass imbalance), burn a CD to play on your hi-fi and in the car...

After a bit you learn what you need to be hearing on your "good" studio monitors in order to mix in a way that translates. But keep checking!

An old trick is to leave it alone and back off. Give it some time (maybe overnight and a good nap) but then listen to it from a different room. Not IN a different room but overhear it from your studio in an adjacent room - you can kind of hear what's prominent and not.

Another option, of course, is to take it to a place and mix where the gear's top notch and you can almost guarantee a good, universal result.

Or buy more truthful, honest monitors.

Or not worry about it too much.

Or maybe you need some Russ Andrews cabling!

--------------------
Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

I'm no expert, and I don't know the Rhodes NT5, but I find the NT3 very harsh on gtrs and would never think of using it. Maybe that's part of the problem.

use cheap small computer speakers

Quote WiredUp:

---

Ok, been having another look at my mix this morning. Concentrating on Acoustic Guitar, in the studio it sounds rich and a sound I am pleased with but listening to it in the house its very toppy, you clearly hear that plectrum tapping sound. Its just too much top. So using Focusrite FF D26 EQ I bring down the top end a little. When I check it I'd say slight improvement but stil toppy.

---

Acoustic guitars are tricky - instruments that sound good in the room tend to sound a bit chimey and brittle on tape. My favourite acoustic guitar for recording is a cheapo Tanglewood with rusty strings. It sounds completely dead and dull in person, but sounds nicely balanced when miked at about the 12th fret, particularly in the context of a mix.

Also, have you considered a grotbox?