Major Pleasures (5 Viewers)

I think I nearly mix as much with my eyes as I would by ear these days.

Generally its

Look at the waveform while listening on crappy headphones, take a few notes.
Some order of EQ/Comp/Rev/Pan depending on the mood.
A few intent listens with Beyerdynamics
A few fine adjusts.

I'd do nearly all the EQ/Comp visually and only check the other stuff in short bursts.

People are going to listen on

A single speaker in a plastic box that talks at you and listens to your childer and makes databases for robots to read.
20mm drivers in a plastic laptop case.
Beats with EQ curve from hell.
A television half behind a chair.
Through FM compression mixed with road noise.
summed to a variant of ogg and played through 2inch driver over bluetooth.
My amazing stereo.

So I mix a lot differently than I would have a few years back.
 
So I mix a lot differently than I would have a few years back
I just pay for it now, when I can. Anything I do myself just ends up with too much (and too woolly) bottom end

I'd do nearly all the EQ/Comp visually
How? I've one of those spectral analyzer plugins and I don't feel like it tells me anything much at all ... and besides, mix bus EQ/comp is a mastering rather than a mixing thing, right?
 
I just pay for it now, when I can. Anything I do myself just ends up with too much (and too woolly) bottom end


How? I've one of those spectral analyzer plugins and I don't feel like it tells me anything much at all ... and besides, mix bus EQ/comp is a mastering rather than a mixing thing, right?

A lot of people set up their mix bus processing right after they do a rough balance and mix into it.
 
Yeah I get that, but what I'm saying is ... well, the way I've tried to use a spectral analyzer is I've put one on the mix bus, then compared what it looks like to what some reference material looks like. But then it occurs to me that I can manipulate the shape of the curve using mix bus EQ more easily/effectively than I can by doing anything to the individual tracks, and that therefore the mastering guy can probably do this better than I can ... which suggests that what I'm doing is kinda pointless, so I must be doing it wrong. How can I do it right?
 
How? I've one of those spectral analyzer plugins and I don't feel like it tells me anything much at all ... and besides, mix bus EQ/comp is a mastering rather than a mixing thing, right?

Well as a precursor I basically look at audio files at work every day so

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But like, people can be arty and all that shit but essentially 99% of the time a final mix eq slopes downward from left to right. If it doesn't, then go to back to the mix, find the outlier and fix it. The below is

1586950642858.png

the first thing that came along in a mp3 search of the HD here. Note the EQ flatlines at 16000hz because its an mp3. That is mp3 literally lobbing off 20% of the audible sound. Also the little peak at 41hz is that sub bassline - it has no competition down there, the kick drum is a few Db below it for space.

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When I say going back to an outlier and fix it, I'll go the track i suspect, I'll open the same eq window and I'll comp or eq on the frequency till it works. I liken compression to sandpaper. If it is too ragged comp it.

Never spend too long looking at one track in a mix, its not the point, but fix outliers on tracks because otherwise you are bending the whole track to accomodate and eq fix.

Now all this said, when I'm doing low end i'll probably have already done really light EQ across the beat/bass/low instruments to give them all a little room.

I remaster sometimes up to 30% of the music we get. It is invaribly something like:

More aggressive comp
Treble boost.

Also

I'd mix into the the master eq - I could probably 80% do a mix looking at eq if the instruments are labelled. When I teach this stuff I often dont even play back a sound till the last stage. Like if you are gonna go analog desk into tape then for sure ears from day one, but if you are going through DAW then maybe use the stupidly advanced visual aids. 1586950642858.png
 
Hmmm

Ok. My last-but-one experience of this is I used a spectral analyzer and made sure everything looked right, but it was still kinda woolly down low. Sent it off to a proper mixer and it came back a zillion times better


If your mixed track sounds wooly then 90% of the time a narrow cut of 1-3dB on your master eq somewhere in the 400-550 Hz range is your issue. Get your EQ, narrow Q, and then do a massive boost sweeping across the region till you find the problem, and then do your cut there.
 
I didn't think it sounded woolly until I got it back from the mixers and went "oh wow, this is way better".

Meh. I've spent an awful lot of time and money on home recording and on paying people to do studio stuff over the years, no matter what I do I seem to look back and go either "man I shouldn't have spent all that money, probably could have done the same at home" or "man I shouldn't have spend all that time, I needed to pay someone to finish the fucking thing off anyway"
 
Meds or diet or what worked for you?

The meds.
This thing started in late 2015. I'd stopped drinking after about 6 months of over doing it and a few weeks later I developed this near constant stinging, gassy feeling in the mid right hand side of my stomach.
I thought it might be an ulcer or gallstones. The doctor thought it was gastritis.I went for an ultrasound & later a CT scan, both showed nothing unusual. Eventually I had an endoscopy (a camera down the throat into the stomach) I did it without sedation, a bit uncomfortable but it wasn't too bad. That showed a tiny hiatus hernia, 2mm or something and some scarring from the stomach acid. that was the culprit. Bastard. So I took 40mg of omeprazole teva capsules everyday for about 4 months . It reduces stomach acid. As I said It's not 100% gone but it's improved massively. I kept off the booze and gave up my beloved black coffee. I only recently went back to having one or two cappuccinos a day. It's my only vice.
 
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Fair play @prefuse, for what it's worth I had something very similar, only took them a year to find it on the Irish health service, it was the endoscopy that did it for me as well. Doctor says it'll be with me for life but it only flares up when i've eaten certain things or after a bout of prolonged bad living. A leaky valve in my case.

I generally don't have to take the tablets but usually have the prescription handy (same as yours). It's sometimes bad enough to wake me up at 4am which is a) a fucking pain obviously and b) i'm told quite common because a lot of it is literally due to gravity (lie all night on your back and stuff will leak sideways, it's quite painful to stand up but goes within a minute or two). Thought it was the beginning of the end for a good six months though.
 
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The meds.
This thing started in late 2015. I'd stopped drinking after about 6 months of over doing it and a few weeks later I developed this near constant stinging, gassy feeling in the mid right hand side of my stomach.
I thought it might be an ulcer or gallstones. The doctor thought it was gastritis.I went for an ultrasound & later a CT scan, both showed nothing unusual. Eventually I had an endoscopy (a camera down the throat into the stomach) I did it without sedation, a bit uncomfortable but it wasn't too bad. That showed a tiny hiatus hernia, 2mm or something and some scarring from the stomach acid. that was the culprit. Bastard. So I took 40mg of omeprazole teva capsules everyday for about 4 months . It reduces stomach acid. As I said It's not 100% gone but it's improved massively. I kept off the booze and gave up my beloved black coffee. I only recently went back to having one or two cappuccinos a day. It's my only vice.

fair play!
I’m also on the omezaprole daily for overactive acid. Endoscopy without sedation? Fuck that I made them give me the drugs! No regrets!
 

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