How can i improve the quality of my mixing environment?

[notoriousben15]

I am a complete mixing newbie, and the #1 thing on all mixing articles seems to be creating the ideal environment. Well, i have a very funky San Francisco home from an architecture standpoint, and i'm not entirely sure how it falls in on the spectrum.

For starters, my music area is not in a bedroom, or really much of a room at all. It's a funky area at the top of a staircase - it's a very wide open space that is kind of in the middle of the home, with all of the other rooms connecting to it from other sides. Everything i'm reading focuses only on a regular room, but for the sake of simplicity, let's say this area is more like a big living room than an actual room, since it's not enclosed on all sides. Is that kind of open space good or bad for a mixing room?

Basically, i'm not sure if i'm hearing all of the little sounds from my monitors that i would hear in a better environment, though there is a good chance that maybe i just need better equipment? I'm currently using pretty old stuff - M-Audio Fastrack, Generation 1 KRK Rokit 5's, and a 5 year old Macbook pro. Can the M-Audio Fastrack be the limiting factor? Does the audio interface make that much of a difference in what comes out of the mixers?

Any input would be much appreciated, but keep in mind i'm 100% amateur and don't have the budget to make major purchases. Thanks everyone!

 

[I'mNoGuru]

Doesn't sound ideal - I think your best bet is to get some good open-backed headphones and use them to gain reference on the mix (and your room/space) and make adjustments as nessessary.

Other than that - some acoustic treatment to cover the areas of first reflection (if possible) would be a good idea

 

[notoriousben15]

Doesn't sound ideal - I think your best bet is to get some good open-backed headphones and use them to gain reference on the mix (and your room/space) and make adjustments as nessessary.

Other than that - some acoustic treatment to cover the areas of first reflection (if possible) would be a good idea

Hey, thanks for commenting. Would you be able to elaborate on this a bit? I'm not entirely sure what you mean. You are not referring to headphones for mixing, but headphones to identify the less than ideal spots in my area and then try to correct them?

 

[hamstank]

Hi Ben,

If you absolutely must use the environment, I would do the "mirror test". Walk around the room and hold up a mirror against the walls behind you and to the side. If you can see the speaker through the mirror from where you'd be mixing, then that would mean that the soundwaves from the speakers are bouncing back to your ears, a big no-no. Look into some kind of sound diffusers (like light foam) which is relatively cheap online and place these where the sound would reflect and comb filtering might occur.

Best of luck!

Hamstank

 

[I'mNoGuru]

Hey, thanks for commenting. Would you be able to elaborate on this a bit? I'm not entirely sure what you mean. You are not referring to headphones for mixing, but headphones to identify the less than ideal spots in my area and then try to correct them?

Kinda both... Mix on your monitors (cos you have them) check and fix on headphones (and another system if possible) until it's right... Learn how a good mix sounds through your monitors in the space you use...
Eventually, you'll discover how the sound of your room&monitors translates to reality and you'll naturally mix with that in mind...

First reflection - your head (ears) making up an equilateral triangle with your monitors (same distance between left and right and your head) is the first step...
Second - get a friend to move a mirror over the walls to your left and right (while you're in the chair at mix position)
when you see the cone of the left hand speaker on the right hand wall - that's the point of first reflection for the left monitor.
Do the same for the right hand speaker on the left hand wall...

dont go go crazy with room treatment - you don't want an acoustically dead space - you want to tame it.

Another good thing would be to pull your desk (I've assumed that monitors are on the desk) forward so the monitors aren't right back against the wall - a good foot of clearance (at least) between the rear of the speaker and the wall will definitely help...

 

[I'mNoGuru]

Hi Ben,

If you absolutely must use the environment, I would do the "mirror test". Walk around the room and hold up a mirror against the walls behind you and to the side. If you can see the speaker through the mirror from where you'd be mixing, then that would mean that the soundwaves from the speakers are bouncing back to your ears, a big no-no. Look into some kind of sound diffusers (like light foam) which is relatively cheap online and place these where the sound would reflect and comb filtering might occur.

Best of luck!

Hamstank

mirror test only works in relation to where you are in the room... So you need to be at mix position in order to gauge first reflection.

 

[DarkRed]

I am a complete mixing newbie, and the #1 thing on all mixing articles seems to be creating the ideal environment. Well, i have a very funky San Francisco home from an architecture standpoint, and i'm not entirely sure how it falls in on the spectrum.

For starters, my music area is not in a bedroom, or really much of a room at all. It's a funky area at the top of a staircase - it's a very wide open space that is kind of in the middle of the home, with all of the other rooms connecting to it from other sides. Everything i'm reading focuses only on a regular room, but for the sake of simplicity, let's say this area is more like a big living room than an actual room, since it's not enclosed on all sides. Is that kind of open space good or bad for a mixing room?

Basically, i'm not sure if i'm hearing all of the little sounds from my monitors that i would hear in a better environment, though there is a good chance that maybe i just need better equipment? I'm currently using pretty old stuff - M-Audio Fastrack, Generation 1 KRK Rokit 5's, and a 5 year old Macbook pro. Can the M-Audio Fastrack be the limiting factor? Does the audio interface make that much of a difference in what comes out of the mixers?

Any input would be much appreciated, but keep in mind i'm 100% amateur and don't have the budget to make major purchases. Thanks everyone!

I think it can work, open spaces are usually quite good as long as you have enough amplification and good monitor and speaker dimensions. You should not be too hang up on the fact that it might not be 100% symmetrical and stuff like that, be more focused on evening out some of the reflections if possible, so that when you look around you do not observe a lot of weird ways the sound will travel, for instance one absorbing wall on let's say the L side and the other walls reflecting the sound, weird stuff like that. It is OK that the space is not enclosed. Start by making it dead sounding, meaning over absorb the sound to max, especially the sub frequencies. It should be "totally dead". Then start opening up the acoustics with diffusors until you reach a point when you have the right absorb-diffuse ratio so that it sounds great, but also so that you can see that in the frequency response curve. When this is the case, it does not matter what the environment looks like.

You should also know that monitoring is not only about the acoustics and monitors, it is more than anything about the process - that is a learning process when you tune it, and it is a learning process when you implement it during the music creation process. But it helps a lot to have the basics in place in a good way. With basics I mean you need some bigger mains and you need a few near field speaker sets too. I would say that 2 big sets and 3 small sets is ideal, but usually due to the budget factor engineers tend to go with 1 single pair of mains and 2 near field sets, which can also work well, especially when those are very good, you know them well and how they work in the particular monitoring environment.

Yes, the M-Audio Fasttrack is a major weak point in your monitoring, it can only output ~3 volts RMS, should be 12 volts RMS or higher, so only that aspect of your monitoring can be improved by at least 300%. It's a low end monitoring setup you have. It does not matter how well you tune your room when you are feeding the speakers the wrong signal. The monitoring process is unlike processes like the mastering process, a process where you need to have very little compromise, any improvement you can do, whether small or big, is important. So when you have a component like the M-Audio Fasttrack, it's a major issue. From this perspective your rather random monitoring environment is certainly not ideal, but the thing is you can work to resolve those limitations. That you cannot do with gear to the same degree, you are stuck with the properties they have.

 

[notoriousben15]

Yes, the M-Audio Fasttrack is a major weak point in your monitoring, it can only output ~3 volts RMS, should be 12 volts RMS or higher, so only that aspect of your monitoring can be improved by at least 300%. It's a low end monitoring setup you have. It does not matter how well you tune your room when you are feeding the speakers the wrong signal. The monitoring process is unlike processes like the mastering process, a process where you need to have very little compromise, any improvement you can do, whether small or big, is important. So when you have a component like the M-Audio Fasttrack, it's a major issue. From this perspective your rather random monitoring environment is certainly not ideal, but the thing is you can work to resolve those limitations. That you cannot do with gear to the same degree, you are stuck with the properties they have.

Ok, this is very interesting. I'm trying to look up audio interfaces and what would be a good one for my needs, but it sounds like there are multiple reasons for audio interfaces and a lot of them might be for recording live sounds, which is not something i do very much of. Are there interfaces that are made mostly for mixing? Are all interfaces kind of the same once you get into the same price range?

Does anyone have any recommendations for an audio interface that would be ideal for mixing, i guess let's say, for $200 max? Can i even get an interface in that price range that'll be a significant upgrade from the M-Audi fasttrack as far as mixing goes?

 

[DarkRed]

Ok, this is very interesting. I'm trying to look up audio interfaces and what would be a good one for my needs, but it sounds like there are multiple reasons for audio interfaces and a lot of them might be for recording live sounds, which is not something i do very much of. Are there interfaces that are made mostly for mixing? Are all interfaces kind of the same once you get into the same price range?

Does anyone have any recommendations for an audio interface that would be ideal for mixing, i guess let's say, for $200 max? Can i even get an interface in that price range that'll be a significant upgrade from the M-Audi fasttrack as far as mixing goes?

It varies, even more expensive interfaces/converters have weak spots. They hide it though. It's ideal to find a unit under 3000 USD that has the specifications for the clock jitter and signal capacity detailed in the specifications. They hide it because that's their profit margin. There are several routes one can take. One option would be the Benchmark DAC1, it can do 22 volts of signal at an unknown clock accuracy. A bit more expensive than that would be the Antelope Audio Pure 2 that can do 15 volts of signal at 0.02 ppm clock accuracy and can be synced up to a master clock at 0.03 ppb.

In order to get high quality, you have to do the brickwall peak limiting process with hardware outside of the box and I think it is good to be able to feed that process a clean signal with simple gear with their own power supply, so if I were you I would probably just go with something like a Benchmark ADC1 for the AD and a Benchmark DAC1 for the DA. The USB version of these units allows you to interface with the DAW using basically any modern DAW with a USB port. If you are like me and want great clocking to get a more clear sounding sound image, then the Pure 2 is a good choice... Multiple generations of clock jitter is not so good...

You should watch this YouTube video, and ask yourself this question: Why is the mastering engineer using so much hardware compared to software and why is he demoing everything but totally skips past the converters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9qllkyBN2o

The answer: Hardware beats software much more than you think. The converters - primary differentiating factor, he does not want to share that. Pay attention. I bet the specs on those converters are stunning...

 

[sleepy]

This is kind of bad advice, but I'd say forget about the room and just make music. To properly test your room and adjust for it, it would take time, effort, and money for someone to do it, if it's even doable at all. Go for good headphones instead. Not that headphones are the best to mix with, but it'll likely be better.

On the other hand, it's possible that your room (space) is ideal if there's minimal sound reflections. If you clap, do you hear a lot of reverb? With speakers that size, the room and layout might not make much of a difference.