Bad acoustics are great

Have an urge to learn, or a calling to teach? Want to share some useful Youtube videos? Do it here!
User avatar
normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

06 Apr 2018

RobC wrote:
06 Apr 2018
I heard, different headphones have different dynamics, stereo recreation, etc.

For phase, I have a combinator, where MClass Stereo Imager sums both channels with a knob; and a summing button - to see how it will work, going to mono. There are some pretty awesome effects, I'll make a topic about in the near future. (Gotta $h!t some more bricks, so my Tetris lines clear up first. xD)

My philosophy is that ears are first, thus headphone listening. Never gonna do total phase inversion on one channel (I think) - at least not for important sounds in a songs.
Well the stereo "recreation" is simply because you have the left and right channels completely separate which you never have in a room. And the dynamics issue is because your ear has a built-in "limiter" and that is tricked into thinking it does what the compressor does when you put on a headphone, thats especially true for closed headphones.

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

06 Apr 2018

normen wrote:
06 Apr 2018
Well the stereo "recreation" is simply because you have the left and right channels completely separate which you never have in a room. And the dynamics issue is because your ear has a built-in "limiter" and that is tricked into thinking it does what the compressor does when you put on a headphone, thats especially true for closed headphones.
I meant, headphones compared to other headphones about stereo. Clearly, there's the crosstalk issue with speakers.

Don't speakers trigger our ears' defense system, too? Not that I doubt it, just want to understand more.

(Well, damn though, I wish I could just go for one or the other.)

User avatar
normen
Posts: 3431
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

06 Apr 2018

RobC wrote:
06 Apr 2018
Don't speakers trigger our ears' defense system, too? Not that I doubt it, just want to understand more.

(Well, damn though, I wish I could just go for one or the other.)
Yep they do but apparently our brain gets enough cues from the room acoustics to determine that it's not the ear doing that itself but the sound source is doing that. Listening to compression in an anechoic chamber is also something quite different.

User avatar
Marco Raaphorst
Posts: 2504
Joined: 22 Jan 2015
Location: The Hague, The Netherlands
Contact:

06 Apr 2018

RobC wrote:
06 Apr 2018
Marco Raaphorst wrote:
06 Apr 2018
I can easily detect bad guitar sound on my HD600.
I read in reviews, they aren't exactly flat response headphones. Did you calibrate them for your hearing?
No I didn't calibrate them.

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

06 Apr 2018

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
06 Apr 2018
No I didn't calibrate them.
Dunno why people don't. It opens a whole new dimension.

User avatar
O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

07 Apr 2018

BINGO!
esselfortium wrote:
06 Apr 2018
It's useful to test your music in the car, because you presumably have listened to a lot of music in the car and have an expectation for how things are supposed to sound there. Your car stereo isn't a set of mixing monitors to actually work on, just another listening environment to double-check in to make sure you haven't missed anything.

When a note is creating sharp resonance in my car that I don't normally notice in other music, whether that's from standing waves or anything else, it tells me that I've done something a bit funny in the mix.

User avatar
TritoneAddiction
Competition Winner
Posts: 4219
Joined: 29 Aug 2015
Location: Sweden

07 Apr 2018

I've heard plenty of times that you "should" mix on lower volume, which I'm sure it good advice for the most part.

But occasionally I mix on high volumes because I find it easier to figure out if certain frequencies are too loud and ear fatiguing. A good mix should sound good on high volumes too without certain frequencies getting irritating on the ears. On lower volumes you might not be bothered by them.

Am I the only one doing this?

User avatar
Marco Raaphorst
Posts: 2504
Joined: 22 Jan 2015
Location: The Hague, The Netherlands
Contact:

07 Apr 2018

TritoneAddiction wrote:
07 Apr 2018
I've heard plenty of times that you "should" mix on lower volume, which I'm sure it good advice for the most part.

But occasionally I mix on high volumes because I find it easier to figure out if certain frequencies are too loud and ear fatiguing. A good mix should sound good on high volumes too without certain frequencies getting irritating on the ears. On lower volumes you might not be bothered by them.

Am I the only one doing this?
On loud volume the whole sound irritates me. Feels like shouting.

But if it works for you, nothing wrong with it of course!

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

07 Apr 2018

TritoneAddiction wrote:
07 Apr 2018
I've heard plenty of times that you "should" mix on lower volume, which I'm sure it good advice for the most part.

But occasionally I mix on high volumes because I find it easier to figure out if certain frequencies are too loud and ear fatiguing. A good mix should sound good on high volumes too without certain frequencies getting irritating on the ears. On lower volumes you might not be bothered by them.

Am I the only one doing this?
You risk damaging your hearing; and at higher audio levels, your ears start a defense system, affecting the sound. Thus you risk making a mix that falls apart at lower audio levels. If something is ear fatiguing at higher levels, it will pop out at lower levels, too - even if not as irritating.

User avatar
esselfortium
Posts: 1456
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Contact:

07 Apr 2018

RobC wrote:
07 Apr 2018
TritoneAddiction wrote:
07 Apr 2018
I've heard plenty of times that you "should" mix on lower volume, which I'm sure it good advice for the most part.

But occasionally I mix on high volumes because I find it easier to figure out if certain frequencies are too loud and ear fatiguing. A good mix should sound good on high volumes too without certain frequencies getting irritating on the ears. On lower volumes you might not be bothered by them.

Am I the only one doing this?
You risk damaging your hearing; and at higher audio levels, your ears start a defense system, affecting the sound. Thus you risk making a mix that falls apart at lower audio levels. If something is ear fatiguing at higher levels, it will pop out at lower levels, too - even if not as irritating.
I feel like it's probably worth defining what's being considered high volumes here, because one person might be envisioning something much louder and more ear-shattering than the other. In my experience recording and mixing in studios when I was in school, they used a reasonably high volume, but it's a middle ground where you're hearing things clearly and not getting your ears blown out.
Sarah Mancuso
My music: Future Human

RobC
Posts: 1832
Joined: 10 Mar 2018

07 Apr 2018

esselfortium wrote:
07 Apr 2018
RobC wrote:
07 Apr 2018


You risk damaging your hearing; and at higher audio levels, your ears start a defense system, affecting the sound. Thus you risk making a mix that falls apart at lower audio levels. If something is ear fatiguing at higher levels, it will pop out at lower levels, too - even if not as irritating.
I feel like it's probably worth defining what's being considered high volumes here, because one person might be envisioning something much louder and more ear-shattering than the other. In my experience recording and mixing in studios when I was in school, they used a reasonably high volume, but it's a middle ground where you're hearing things clearly and not getting your ears blown out.
I think, best is to set audio levels to a comfortable level, just above where you don't have to be all ears to hear everything clearly in a sound.

User avatar
TritoneAddiction
Competition Winner
Posts: 4219
Joined: 29 Aug 2015
Location: Sweden

07 Apr 2018

RobC wrote:
07 Apr 2018
TritoneAddiction wrote:
07 Apr 2018
I've heard plenty of times that you "should" mix on lower volume, which I'm sure it good advice for the most part.

But occasionally I mix on high volumes because I find it easier to figure out if certain frequencies are too loud and ear fatiguing. A good mix should sound good on high volumes too without certain frequencies getting irritating on the ears. On lower volumes you might not be bothered by them.

Am I the only one doing this?
You risk damaging your hearing; and at higher audio levels, your ears start a defense system, affecting the sound. Thus you risk making a mix that falls apart at lower audio levels. If something is ear fatiguing at higher levels, it will pop out at lower levels, too - even if not as irritating.
Yeah I get your point but I wouldn't worry about damaging my ears in my particular case. I don't play ridiculously loud or anything and not very often or for long either. It's at a volume that I still enjoy listening to music. But the way I wrote it it could mean anything depending on how you interpreted it so I get your concern.

User avatar
O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

07 Apr 2018

Anyone actually monitoring the SPL of the Room?

Im interest, what devices or software?
Image

If not, carry on.

Image

User avatar
EnochLight
Moderator
Posts: 8405
Joined: 17 Jan 2015
Location: Imladris

08 Apr 2018

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
06 Apr 2018
Many people check their mixes on iPhone earplugs, in the car, on super small near field speakers, or an old getto blaster.

The car is so often mentioned by anyone doing hiphop. If it sounded good in the car it was good. Weird thing though: the car is small and acoustic people always say you need a large room to mix or master. Low end needs length or else it starts resonating, right?

So many people are using bad equipment with bad acoustics to mix. I can understand this. If you know how good stuff sound with that stuff you might be able to achieve it yourself.
esselfortium wrote:
06 Apr 2018
It's useful to test your music in the car, because you presumably have listened to a lot of music in the car and have an expectation for how things are supposed to sound there. Your car stereo isn't a set of mixing monitors to actually work on, just another listening environment to double-check in to make sure you haven't missed anything.

When a note is creating sharp resonance in my car that I don't normally notice in other music, whether that's from standing waves or anything else, it tells me that I've done something a bit funny in the mix.

mic_drop.jpg
mic_drop.jpg (83.3 KiB) Viewed 2197 times
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

User avatar
EnochLight
Moderator
Posts: 8405
Joined: 17 Jan 2015
Location: Imladris

08 Apr 2018

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
06 Apr 2018
yes, and Standing Waves is bad according to the acoustics geniuses, right?
O1B wrote:
06 Apr 2018
Link, pls.
From the article he linked to:

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advi ... -treatment
Most home studios suffer from low‑frequency 'standing waves', where the physical length of the wave is a multiple of the room dimensions. The result is increased volume at frequencies where the wavelengths match room dimensions, and deep troughs or dead spots in places where the room dimension is an even factor (such as a half or quarter) of the wavelength. Standing waves are more apparent in smaller rooms; and square and cuboid rooms, or rooms where one dimension is an exact multiple of another, are the worst culprits. The wavelength of open 'E' on a guitar is around 14 feet (just over 4m), so if you've converted a single garage into a studio, your longest wall will probably be almost exactly the length of a waveform at that frequency!
I'm struggling with this exact problem in my new studio location (standing waves). It's an almost perfect square room, and I haven't started doing any sort of acoustic treatment yet.
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

Ostermilk
Posts: 1535
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

08 Apr 2018

Bad acoustics are not great.

Unfortunately though bad acoustics is what many of us have to live with in some form or another. It not only affects what is being listened too, which may be countered to mitigate foibles in the room to an extent by learning by practice and cross referencing with other systems, but recording in a bad space often leads to unusable takes, and wasted time just to obtain a mediocre result.

You could also make love in a hammock if you don't mind risking a few broken limbs, but it doesn't automatically make it the best place for that particular activity. (except on the odd occasion perhaps)

User avatar
cyan2k
Posts: 13
Joined: 01 Sep 2016

09 Apr 2018

Junkie XL on why he doesn't treat his room



I would guess for the small time bedroom producer it's much more important to learn the sound of your room, and test your mix on different types of devices. If it sounds good in your room, on your mom's PC speakers, your friend's headphones and your car then your mix is probably fine. Don't overthink it.


Reason 10 :reason: | Too many :re: | Some hardware synths&stuff
https://soundcloud.com/cyanism

User avatar
Marco Raaphorst
Posts: 2504
Joined: 22 Jan 2015
Location: The Hague, The Netherlands
Contact:

09 Apr 2018

I guess it all comes down to knowing your stuff. It's not about the tools. It never ever was. It is what you do with it.

User avatar
selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

09 Apr 2018

cyan2k wrote:
09 Apr 2018
Junkie XL on why he doesn't treat his room



I would guess for the small time bedroom producer it's much more important to learn the sound of your room, and test your mix on different types of devices. If it sounds good in your room, on your mom's PC speakers, your friend's headphones and your car then your mix is probably fine. Don't overthink it.
Odd advice IMO. First, to imply a treated room is a dead room is not factual.
The best rooms I've heard are somewhere between live and dead, and some even use only diffusion to create a live treated room. When you have a "neutral" room with regards to liveness/deadness, you can make better decisions about adding (or not adding) ambience (natural or artificial). Same for flat rooms (see below).

Secondly, the reason you want as flat a room as possible is to hit the middle ground between all possible playback rooms - NOT because your music will be listened to in a flat room! This seems to be a major misunderstanding about why to treat a room.

I've mentioned this before, but when I've had the opportunity to mix in a more flat environment, I just get to MIX. I don't have to test my mixes, don't have to second guess what's going on with the low end. It's a dream come true, and I can only guess those who suggest not treating a room have never mixed in a great sounding room? Who knows…

Another misconception is that you can simply learn your room, warts and all. This works IF you're lucky to have a decent starting point. But the biggest problem with rooms I've heard isn't they are too live, it's that there are low frequency modes that RING. I always wondered what "tight bass" was, and it was only after acquiring room testing software I realized that the low frequency ringing was the problem. You sometimes don't even see this when you ONLY look at the frequency response chart. This is because you're not seeing the TIME axis, just a snapshot of one point in time. Our ears average over time, and when one frequency sustains longer than others, it will appear louder (and mask others around it). This is actually worse than simply having a bump in the frequency response, because you CAN learn to work around a bump. But a ringing room mode is almost impossible to ignore, and listen "through". It can adversely affect your ability to mix the low end to any degree.

Anyway, and again, the reason to have a "flat" room is to eliminate one variable and make your mixes the MOST translatable as possible. Also, it's more fun. ;)
Selig Audio, LLC

User avatar
cyan2k
Posts: 13
Joined: 01 Sep 2016

09 Apr 2018

selig wrote:
09 Apr 2018
[...]
Anyway, and again, the reason to have a "flat" room is to eliminate one variable and make your mixes the MOST translatable as possible. Also, it's more fun. ;)

I get what you're saying and you're of course right speaking in a professional context. Junkie XL's room isn't untreated either since having walls of modular stuff in your room is a very expensive way to treat it.

But to be honest I would guess 90% of all users here are hobbyist composing and mixing on 200$ monitors and having difficulty using an EQ and volume levels properly. If you're at this stage there are way more important things to pay attention to like learning to hear, reference track matching, learning your tools of trade and so on, and faaar down at the bottom of the list under the nice2have section then there would be "treat your room".

Just want to save people some $$$ and reality check them that if your mix is shit it's probably not because of your room.


Reason 10 :reason: | Too many :re: | Some hardware synths&stuff
https://soundcloud.com/cyanism

User avatar
selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

09 Apr 2018

cyan2k wrote:
09 Apr 2018
selig wrote:
09 Apr 2018
[...]
Anyway, and again, the reason to have a "flat" room is to eliminate one variable and make your mixes the MOST translatable as possible. Also, it's more fun. ;)

I get what you're saying and you're of course right speaking in a professional context. Junkie XL's room isn't untreated either since having walls of modular stuff in your room is a very expensive way to treat it.

But to be honest I would guess 90% of all users here are hobbyist composing and mixing on 200$ monitors and having difficulty using an EQ and volume levels properly. If you're at this stage there are way more important things to pay attention to like learning to hear, reference track matching, learning your tools of trade and so on, and faaar down at the bottom of the list under the nice2have section then there would be "treat your room".

Just want to save people some $$$ and reality check them that if your mix is shit it's probably not because of your room.
Totally agreed - but even hanging a few curtains or putting a cheep cushy sofa in the room can help, and is cheeper than using a wall of modular synths as diffusers… ;)
One level above that, I had great success in one room with stacks of R19 insulation in each corner. Yea, it cost a few hundred dollars, but made a huge difference. Only to say, it's not like you have to spend thousands of dollars to make a noticeable difference, and doing things like the insulation trick means you can reuse it later (or sell it, since you don't do anything to it but stack it).

But I do totally agree that there are other things to do FIRST. Still, I would suggest anyone doing whatever they can to spend even a few hours in a decent room to see what things are SUPPOSED to sound like - makes a world of difference when you come back to your home studio (That's what I did when I was working in studios by day, and trying to mix at home on cheap crap by night).
Selig Audio, LLC

User avatar
O1B
Posts: 2037
Joined: 26 Jan 2015

12 Apr 2018

Sorry. If this quote is for me, it's not relevant to 'why listen in a car?' conversation Marco and I were having.
He gave up.

But, about standing waves.
- Find those bass traps. hands and knees may be required.. mine is back left away from the window.
- Listen quietly. Low Low Low. No one respects this;
- Room SPL meter
-Produce at 23LU. Open it up (louder) to check the bass... intermittently.

.Check it in the CAR.

EnochLight wrote:
08 Apr 2018
Marco Raaphorst wrote:
06 Apr 2018
yes, and Standing Waves is bad according to the acoustics geniuses, right?
O1B wrote:
06 Apr 2018
Link, pls.
From the article he linked to:

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advi ... -treatment
Most home studios suffer from low‑frequency 'standing waves', where the physical length of the wave is a multiple of the room dimensions. The result is increased volume at frequencies where the wavelengths match room dimensions, and deep troughs or dead spots in places where the room dimension is an even factor (such as a half or quarter) of the wavelength. Standing waves are more apparent in smaller rooms; and square and cuboid rooms, or rooms where one dimension is an exact multiple of another, are the worst culprits. The wavelength of open 'E' on a guitar is around 14 feet (just over 4m), so if you've converted a single garage into a studio, your longest wall will probably be almost exactly the length of a waveform at that frequency!
I'm struggling with this exact problem in my new studio location (standing waves). It's an almost perfect square room, and I haven't started doing any sort of acoustic treatment yet.

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests