[ddots-l] Re: Sample Blog Post
- From: Chris Smart <csmart8@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 18:01:33 -0400
Bobby,
I trained my ears using a set of CD's called Golden Ears, produced
by Moulton Labs. Highly recommended! They are simple audio drills
that you just listen to and test yourself with. The more you do it,
the better you get at it. They're available from:
http://www.kiqproductions.com/
First, the audio spectrum is split into ten octaves, centered
around 31 HZ, 63 HZ, 125 HZ, 250 HZ, 500 HZ, 1 KHZ, 2 KHZ, 4 KHZ, 8
KHZ and 16 KHZ. Pink noise is played, and one of those octaves is
boosted or cut by 12dB, a substantial difference.
On subsequent drills and CD's you learn to detect those changes
using music, then smaller 6dB changes, then the octaves are broken
into thirds so you learn to focus in more closely etc. It's all
very gradual and of course you just work at your own pace, do each
drill set as many times as you want etc.
It also covers things like gradual volume changes over time,
detecting distortion, compression, reverb, phasing etc.
Anyway, back to your comments about mixing versus mastering.
Yes, if done wrong or if the person mastering isn't careful, his
processing can affect the overall mix balance of what he's working
on. For example, compression might make quiet reverbs or delays in
the mix more audible in the final master. That's definitely
something to guard against.
You're right that the mind set for mixing is to make sure the
various parts of the song blend well together, in terms of
frequency balance, intelligibility of the lyrics, power of the
drums, etc. but also things like timing (reverbs and delays), left
to right stereo spread between the speakers, and perceived front to
back depth.
Mastering is a more holistic mind set, where you are listening to
the piece as a whole. You have to stop worrying about that perfect
snare drum or guitar sound you were after, and just go for an
overall pleasing spread of frequencies, making sure one song isn't
markedly louder or softer than the one after or before it, etc.
Ideally, you want different people mixing and mastering, so the
mastering guy can be objective and bring fresh ears to the project.
But that isn't always possible, with everybody on such a tight
budget nowadays. Usually one person is writing, recording, mixing,
mastering, burning CDR's etc. *grin* and those are a lot of roles
to fill.
If I were both mixing then mastering something, I would at least
take a day or two off between the two steps, listen to other things
to clean out my ears etc.
Chris
--------------------------------------------------
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