Question about frequency response

S

Skalz

New member
I have questions about treating a room and getting it right, getting the right sounding headphones or even creating the right mix.
From my understanding, if our ears have a curved frequency response meaning high frequency we hear louder then mids and low we hear different than mids and highs.

Why do we look to create as flat a response in our speakers or rooms or from our headphones. is it because it will create as much transparency of the sound coming through?
and how does this relate to an individuals mix?

If someone is in a "a perfect room" (which i know is unexistent ) do they look to level their mix where everything is flat, or to how they feel their ears tell them. Not sure if this makes sense but lets say i mix a beat and to me i feel that the bass is well in the beat but other people listen to it and the feedback is the bass is too much or what may it. would that be due to the room in which i have mixed or just the misrepresentation of my ears.

The reason why I ask these questions is because i know their are people who can do really good mixes on just some headphones, where other people who have good monitors and rooms could have a terrible sound.
 
Flat monitors are used because if one set of speakers used to play your song has more treble, another one has more bass, so on and so on, average all the speakers in the world and you will end up with a relatively flat response.

since we cant listen to every speaker in the world, we use flat monitors as our best guess as to what all the speakers in the world will sound like. Just like different sets of speakers all ears are not alike too.

you can theoretically mix on anything as long as you have a good reference track. for example If you play your reference track in your room and you notice the bass is quieter than your mix, you should make your bass similar because its not the reference track thats lacking bass its your room/monitors/headphones not accurately representing it. repeat for all other aspects of a track.
 
but why is there so much emphasis on getting the right type of studio monitors or headphones if i could just use reference music. Like i've been reading on getting some studio headphones and for the price range i was looking, everybody seem to be just talking about certain brands or what not for example the ATH -M50. Or even monitors everybody seems to say that the Yamaha HS10 are just good for mixing but to me they just seem very i guess the word is "flat"
I hope this makes sense.
 
You honestly don't need anything to make music but a computer and a daw, everything else you buy is to make what youre doing easier, faster, more fun.

A flat monitor most importantly of all gives you trust in the sounds you're hearing.

I have had artist come in to record, with a beat their friend made that they thought was "banging" on some logitech computer speakers, but listen through my KRks and hear all the flaws and decide to scrap the beat and get on one of mine.

Also notice I said "theoretically you can mix on anything".

By all means, please mix a song on laptop speakers (use a reference track if you like), then play it on what ever large speakers you currently own.

You might have to bounce down and tweak 50+ times to finally get the sound you like but eventually, (theoretically), as your number of bounces approaches infinity you'll still get close to a perfect mix.

If you don't have infinity x 2 minutes per bounce to wait around, I know I sure don't, get some monitors.


btw it's not just audio guys that need a flat reproduction of their work, graphic design guys/photographers, use special computer displays designed to produce an accurate (flat) colour/contrast etc of their work.
 
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what type of monitor setup do you have if you dont mind me asking?
and have you ever done mixes through headphones?
I have Adams A7s which i find are very clear too me, i had to get use to the high end it was like really sharp to my ears im guessing that due to the ribbon tweeters. But i noticed that whenever i do some listening back on other speakers i find most of the time my low end is muddy. I started getting use to my old place and began adjusting my mixes accordingly, but I moved and now I feel im back to that same scenario. I know I still have room adjustments to do and just getting a feel for the room. In this new place i have more time and loudness constraints so I figured I buy some headphones. For my price range I noticed that most people are recommending ATH-M50 for good sound representation.
 
I use Rokit 5s in a treated room. I generally don't mix on headphones unless i have to and even then I end up tweaking on the krks.

for headphones I use the KRK 8400, AKG k240, and a pair of Bose. I also use some AIAIAI earbuds as reference because they expose a poorly mixed low end.

All of the above are plugged into my monitor station by presonus so I can switch through them quickly.

Learn your room and your monitors and compensate for them, for example I know that I need to turn my low end down by 1 db from where I feel it is perfect.

Mixing at quieter levels helps reduce the rooms contribution to the sound.

With all the inspection I do, clients never hit me up more than twice for tweaks.
 
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