[linux-audio-user] mixing [was: It's music time again]

[Florin Andrei]

On Thu, 2006-02-09 at 10:54 -0800, Tim Howard wrote:
> > Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 05:11:54 -0800
> > From: Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com>

> > You know, it probably isn't as necessary as you think. All studio
> > monitors do (IMO) is give you a good listening environment when you're
> > mixing. However, they are not 'required' to get a good mix.

They're not required to do a passable mix, but for a good one you need a
good reference point. Not many things, other than good monitors, can do
that.

> I have a "home bedroom" studio with wierd acoustics, which makes it
> very difficult to get accurate sound, even from the highest quality
> studio monitors.  So I use a set of high-quality headphones to do my
> mixes.

Then fix the room's acoustics.

Headphones are for specialized listening during the mix. They should not
be the primary listening devices. Yes, even high-end phones.

My Sennheiser HD 600 headphones (which some people argued were the
world's best phones before being superceded by the HD 650) are way more
"accurate" than my Alesis M1 Active Mk2 studio monitors.
Yet I would never attempt to mix anything primarily on phones. The
result does not translate at all on real-world speakers.

> It is much easier to get high-quality, accurate sound from a smaller
> transducer closer to the ear, rather than having your speakers moving
> a lot of air through a longer distance.  It's also a lot cheaper... 

It's also very different from the experience of listening on real
speakers or studio monitors.

My suggestion, since you may tend to not trust a nobody's opinion:
Subscribe to the Sound On Sound magazine and read the articles. They
offer excellent common-sense advice on anything, including how to mix
songs.

http://www.soundonsound.com/

Yes, they're not cheap, but that's because they're worth it.

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/