@@luisnunes2010 absolutely! There's no replacement for displacement. You can't cheat physics with little speakers. And that 100 Hz midbass hump isn't the same as real extended bass. Needless to say, silk screening "studio monitor" onto a pair of cheap speakers doesn't have any magical effect.
@@socialmeaslesinpartnership1252 inverse/converse/transverse/multiverse My brain sometimes scrambles them. When afflicted by uncertainty if I have occasion to use one, I generally hope the listener doesn't know either. Conversely, † I suspect like eight people preceding me, I have subscribed brimming in anticipation of being the first to know when the vegetable police might come for me. † :,)
Hey tinker bell, where are all these buttons everyone keeps talking about. And I’m not sure about these sliding fader thingies either 🤔 Although one of them does go to 11 👍
Yes, if you have the space for a vocal recording booth, and a properly treated room, and the right equipment and, and, and. Or you can do it "wrong" and fix it in post. In my case, record voice-over for a podcast using my $1,000 Studio i.e. $150 of USB mic, an antipop windsleeve and $850 of iZotope Complete bundle bought in a big discount sale. Oh and the 12 core Zen 2 Linux box running OBS & Resolve on 128GB of Samsung B die & a 1TB SLC Raid 0 scratch drive.
"Don't mix with your eyes" Such a great tip! As a photographer, I've shot a lot of theater and music. I have a rule that I teach people: "Don't photograph with your ears" Its real easy to hear something that sounds awesome, but has no visual, and think that's the shot. The flipside of that is when something is a "sleepy" moment on the stage, but a great stage picture. Don't photograph with your ears, and don't mix with your eyes.
The worst part has to be shutting off the part of your brain that wants to listen to music so you can focus on visually getting a shot instead. I assume you don't necessarily photograph bands you enjoy listening to all the time though...
@@i-never-look-at-replies-lol I try to switch between listening to the music, and shooting for a few minutes. Its resulted in me missing a lot of cool "moments". Having said that, if you know the band really well, you know when they're going to create great stage pictures.
"There's a lot more to this job than just pushing buttons" - For real. You have to turn knobs and slide faders too. Sometimes I fuck up and turn faders, push knobs, and slide buttons... man does that leave you with a mess.
You’re not wrong about the drummer thing. A few years back we had a deal with Full Sail for recording…at one point we lost our drummer while the session was already booked. Having been a drummer for years I managed to tear myself away from the mirror (I am the singer after all) and answer the call. The engineer in charge of the lab seemed shocked at how laid back I was about having to move my gear around to get the best possible recording. Seriously did not know how many d-bags are out there!
The over-perfection of modern recordings is starting to hit its limits. As production gets more sophisticated, hopefully we can add a little more freedom, humanity and slight imperfection back to popular music.
you could just start now by rejecting all the bullshit drum replacement software, beat detective and melodyne. if a band or artist can't play their songs in one take all the way through (ignoring vocal doubles, harmonies etc) then they shouldn't be in the studio, simple as that
@@f67739 ...or totally honest and soulful... Witnesses to sessions would come away astonished at the rank amateurism of the Stones in the studio, where they were capable of showing little more expertise than the newest band of nobodies working on their worthless demo tapes. But that recklessness was essential to the Stones process. "I've virtually based a career around what I learned in those three days," pianist Jim Dickinson says with a laugh. "It was so organic and natural, you just had to stop and think, 'Who's right and who's wrong here?' And they literally didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. They were making a record the way people off the street will come in and make a record." "They were the worst bloody band on the planet, the worst bunch of musicians in the world they could be for days at a time. Really fucking horrible. And you sit there wondering how on earth are we going to get anything out of this. They would play very badly, and that's how they played most of the time, very poorly, and out of tune... They were the worst band on the planet, BUT, when IT happened, they were transformed almost instantly from this dreadful band into THE ROLLING STONES, and blow you away. It was almost magical." - Andy Johns, recording engineer ♫
I love how a lot of the advice Glenn Gives (e.g. "be easy to work with", "don't be afraid to make decisions") is stuff that should apply to basically everything - from professional work to private life. Shows how much the average person lacks in common sense. Dude, when Covid is over, I'd love to chug a beer with you.
I have seen so many audio disasters live from people mixing with their eyes. This was a major issue back several years ago on the earlier Yamaha digital consoles that were also often used in studio environments. The issue being that the "engineer" would turn the knobs untill the eq looked like it was doing something, only to have disasterous results when they had been boosting or cutting everything by a minimum of 10 db. Something to remember is to learn a little bit of what the numbers mean. Boost or cut by 3db an you have either doubled or halfed that frequency.
Not emotionally scaring the musicians by leaving the bathroom door open was the best one yet, i'd really like to know the backstory of that if you don't mind
As a student, I worked in municipal elderly home care. I saw weird shit. Literally. Nothing can shock me. Leave your bathroom door open for me and I will straight piss the crumbs off your wall if you want me to. (Maybe also if you don't.) I dare you.
Re: "Don't Be Afraid to Make a Decision" Limitations, even artificial ones, breed creativity. So I'd add to this, don't be afraid to cut out the 1000 plugins and bring your process down to a simple as possible. You'll be surprised what you can achieve.
I think most people who voted headphones(Me included) are people recording their own stuff on a tight budget or just getting into recording. Atleast I hope so haha.
Most definitely but I'm not going to mix my own work though. I can't acoustically treat my bedroom nor do I have the space for the monitors or monitor stands. I'm basically just going to record through D.I. dry, programme my drums and bass without any effects and then send off.
having the space to do """"real production/mixing/mastering"""" is such an insane premium nowadays that headphone mixing has had to become the norm. shared housing and restrictive rentals are almost never taken into account by people giving "avoid this!"-type breakdowns. it's a shame that there isn't a better focus on how to use headphones instead of people just saying "don't! buy monitors!"
Haha I love those "audiophile" guys that brag on how good their system sounds because they spent a fortune on the monitors, cables and vinylplayers and what not. Only that they are listening to their music in an acoustic terribly treated room.
Well, that's his entire sjchpyeel :) but yeah it's very likeable. And it's a stupidness filter. If you get offended (eg as a bassist or guitarist), you rage quit, and then Glenn can focus on the rest of the audience that actually wants to listen to the message. And, we all feel like an in-crowd for it, so we can feel good about not being a pussy and being honest and intellectual. Yes, Glenn knows us well.
Good quote. Zappa once said, "Art has to have a frame around it; otherwise, 'What's that shit on the wall?'" BTW, 'vain' means arrogant or conceited. 'Vein' can be either a blood vessel or a layer of mineral in the earth; e.g. "a thick vein of gold was discovered in the mountains." You wanted the second spelling. /Grammar Nazi
4:04 minor correction: if you place your monitors too close to the wall, you'll get a massive increase in bass response causing you to think your mix has more low end than it actually does, leading to mixes with LOWER bass because when mixing you'll perceive the track as having too much bass and you'll take out too much.
Actually depends on the speakers and room. This is more of a rule of thumb. Experimenting is crucial when setting up monitors. In my particular situation I get the most even bass response with the monitors right up on the wall.
I have to mix on headphones. Literally at any minute of the day, someone is asleep and I can't record my amp or mix on my monitors. It sucks but that's the way she goes, man.
Worst case you just go to your car to listen to your mix, but headphones do the trick enough for me. Obviously Monitors a better but I cant have any here either so its fine.
Slate headphones with the room emulation sound significantly better than most headphones I've mixed on in the past - not better than monitors but still nice!
I'm really far from owning a pair of studio monitors. Being poor and being in a poor country with shitton of taxes with anything that comes from the outside doesn't help much. But hey, I've learnt how to use my headphones and people is happy with the results so, it's going ok so far.
I mix on monitors (Kali LP6's) for the most part. I do mix my guitar tones on headphones when I'm dialing one in. I use the Waves NX plug in with a pair of Shure SRH440's and have gotten great results. I feel it really helps me focus better. But I always check the tone double tracked & stereo on my monitors before moving on.
Ya when you use calibrated headphones/software you can get some pretty great results... I'm using the same setup with the exceptions of the headphones which are Senheisser HD-280's and I'm really happy with the headphones and the Kali's as part of the mixing process.... You (and Glenn) are right, headphones for detail work are fantastic ...
Mixing on headphones? It is less of a problem if you are using Acustica Sienna: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lorGDIjCTkk.html You should review it, Glenn. It's like Waves Nx but better. It's a shame that most of your suggestions require a decent sized budget which unfortunately a lot of musicians don't have. But the ones that are affordable or free yes people should definitely do them. Great tips!
I know I'm not alone, but #15 always hits home. Take care of people, and be a human. It's easy to write people off with, "Not my problem." It takes good people helping others to get to where we are. Kudos to you, Glenn, for pushing this.
My buddy saw my bedroom when I gave him a tour of my apartment, and his initial impression was “Well that was nice of you to give yourself a mattress in your mixing space.”
"Walking out of the studio, talking on the phone for hours" - I once recorded in a studio where the engineer was doing this, and actually tried to charge us for the entire time we were there, despite the fact that he spent probably 2 to 3 hours talking on the phone in the other room. Then he got mad that we didn't "buy him lunch".
Yes, computers on the floor collect *more* dust than on a small end table. And every year take that computer outside and blow all the out dust, dog hair and other crap with a cheap air blower. Canned compressed air is okay but in the long run you'll save money with a cheap air blower.
Also don't smoke / vape in the same room as your computer. Or your electronics. I used to fix computers and game consoles, and I lost count of how many people smoked so much they gave their electronics cancer.
Love ya buddy but putting speakers against the wall isn’t necessarily a never thing to do. Not that simple. You can get great results like I did. I had to put them against the wall and I shot the room professionally as well using REW. I also have acoustic treatment ... I built myself Night and day difference. (I’ll finish with trinnov, using sonarworks now). If I had budget ... I’m sure things would be different. Monitors very rarely suit the room unless the room is built that way. In wall monitors are a whole other conversation.
My monitors sit on the floor under my computer desk because my mixes don't sound good when I have them ear level. Just trying to make Glenn cringe a little!
So true with let's fix it in the mix. The same goes "for let's fix it ln the master" The master won't magically make everything sound smoothe and well balanced - you have to do that in the mix!
Hey Glen! I'm a hobbyist musician/composer trying to actually start learning things about recording instead of just stumbling through it with no clue what I'm doing. The first thing thing that caught my attention about your channel is that you use Reaper, which I have been using for a few years now and I am blown away at the quality it offers at such an affordable price! What has kept me coming back is your awesome sense of humor and your amazing generosity with the blood-sweat-and-tears lessons you've learned in your career. A heartfelt thank you!
Dear Glenn. I hope you see this. I have been a lifelong metal head. Now at 54 I have something you can give me advice on. Since middle school I have always written heavy metal inspired / themed lyrics / poems. I have a boxes full of them. What should I do with them? My old stuff was very Black Sabbath inspired but I think my newer things are in line with Slipknot and some that are very dark maybe even black metal. What should I do? I have been to a few meet and greets with bands and they want to check them out. I have anxiety about this well, because I have "some issues". I don't want to get my lyrics stolen. Side note. I got a bass to kind of put my songs in context for me and I sucked (because I didn't practice enough). Pass along practice to be a good bass player. I wish I did.
If memory serves, Kris Kristofferson once hung out at country musician's homes. He didn't feel he could do his writing the justice other artists could offer. Perhaps hand out some to bands you trust and see how it makes you feel.
I wouldn't recommend SSDs or other flash drives for long term backups though, cause they may start losing the data after some time without power. Also, I managed to make one cheap SSD unreadable after switching it between computers. To my understanding also CDs and DVDs start wearing out after a certain time. HDDs are a bit slower and more susceptible to physical damage (at least when the drive is spinning), but they can hold your data more reliably for long time periods, cause its physically written on an actual metal disc. Always having the files in more than one place, SSDs or HDDS or whatever, is probably the best way to go though. Cloud storage is pretty handy too.
Glen, thank you so much for for including #15 - Don’t take the path of least resistance. I work in television news (yes, I’m the devil!!!) and have been a production manager for half my life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen my production staff do this and it’s caused animosity and trust issues between us and the on air staff. Simply put, our jobs are to make the talent look and perform their best at ALL TIMES. Even if sometimes that means doing shit we don’t want to do…like making sure an off-air monitor is at the perfect angle so they can delve deeper into their narcissism. Trust me, your life will be so much easier and the work you put out will benefit if you just make them happy. Obviously there are limits, but it’s a good rule to live by!!! Thanks for all the brilliant content!
Never knew about the Kali's until I found this channel. Mixes changed forever after I got a pair of LP-8's. Those with a serious application of acoustic treatment and no more need for software 'fixes' like Sonarworks. Thanks Glenn!!
You can use headphones but imho, only after you have used monitors for a long time. You have to remember with headphones that it is not the truth, it is somewhere close but not exactly there. Panning should not be done with headphones, the whole stereo image side is going to be 180 degrees vs 60 degrees.. it is just not going to work so do not commit before you have heard it from a 60 deg stereo setup. Headphones are awesome at "surgical EQ" and other very fine details but the whole picture needs real speakers. I enjoy mixing with headphones but there is no way to do all of it with them.
A long time ago, with a band I was in, we won a contest (something like battle of the bands) and our prize was to record one song in a "real" studio with a professional engineer. The recording went well but I remember, I sang the song 3 times and then sat down with the engineer to choose the best takes of each line (or almost each line). At some point, his phone rang, he got up and left for a long time and when he came back, he didn't even remember what we were doing. He had to look at his computer screen to see what we were doing and thankfully, we deleted the parts that we didn't like as we went, otherwise, we would have had to start all over again!
The room where I mix is also used by my wife for sewing. To store all her fabric we hang up shelves in some corners. This is good acoustic treatment as long the shelves are fully equipped with fabric. My wife doesn’t complain when I tell her that she needs to buy new fabric. Win/win!
Not sure who said that, but in my experience, I got some incredible results. Basically, any large box filled with soft stuff wil become a bass trap. In this instance, leaving the doors open sounded better than with them closed. It's certainly worth a shot!
Do not waste money on "isolation platforms". You will get the same with any soft material. One of he biggest scams in the business. Take a monitor and place it on your lap. Do you feel vibrations? If not, then there is nothing to be transmitted to the desk. You sill want to prevent hard thing to be on a hard surface, some decoupling is needed as the speaker does move around, just a bit, so we want to be sure we are not giving it 1:1 ratio but use a bit of acoustic impedance that exists between different kind of material, like soft VS hard. But, really, a couple of napkins may be enough and half an inch of urethane or silicone rubber does the same job.
mixing on headphones is probably one of my biggest issues, and not for lack of understanding. i can't really use monitors because of my living situation, which leaves me with a bluetooth speaker as a real world reference for mixing. it works, but it leaves something to be desired. what's the most frustrating is that my Sennheiser 650s make listening to music a treat, but the flat frequency response really does a disservice when it comes to mixing. the reality is what you're listening to is just NOT what the vast majority of people are going to hear. i guess car listening sessions will have to do until i'm somewhere where i can use monitors.
@@emissaryofcharybdis105 No real reason. I guess because H comes before M, lol. I'm pretty lazy too, so I usually don't reach back behind my monitors to turn them on until towards the end of a mix.
Why do the majority of people in your poll mix on headphones? Because we don't have thousands of dollars to invest in room treatment. Also, many of us are in situations where we can't make noise at all hours. It may not be ideal, but it's better than not making music at all.
I had an early (8:00 am) session ad the clients complained that there was no time to get breakfast on their way up. Took off my engineer hat. Put on the chef hat. Made breakfast for everyone and talked pre production. Had a great day!
"can you add more bottom end to the eggs ? and maybe compress the butter a bit more on the bread track !"
3 года назад
About fixing in the mix, get your priorities right! ... I rather time/pitch align a super fat or emotional take than relying on a "perfect take" that lacks emotion or expression.
The only reason why i mix on headphones (i check my mix in all other systems i have at home) is because i cant afford it, i live in Colombia where the average worker earns less than 350USD a month
I just got monitor stands today and holy fuck the difference is huge, I always sat down like a goblin in my chair to hear the monitors "properly" So less damage to my back and a clearer sound, winwin
Great advice. The speakers being by the wall depends on the speaker. I had mine 4ft into the room and I had a dip that couldn’t be corrected. GiK recommended putting the speaker as near to the wall as I could and it solved that problem. If the speaker is rear ported, then yes, good rule of thumb, don’t get near the front wall. If it’s front ported or sealed then it is worth trying them near to the front wall.
#9 is a great tip: uncertainty has messed with many a project for me, and usually my first idea is the best. Second guessing things causes serious problems.
I am so happy you did this video. I started building my new 400 square foot studio last year and am in the finishing stages right now. Should be moved in a couple more weeks. I made the walls 12" or a foot wide using heavy gauge steel stud, double layer 5/8" type x drywall with green glue and insulated. I have some really neat sound treatments for the doors. Man I am so excited to be almost done this, dreams do come true when you work hard and stay focused on your goals.
I bought a 3 bs house for a recording studio in the Scottish Highlands. I wish I had paid for studio time in a city instead. It end up feeling like the overlook hotel in the film the shining.
I don't do any mixing myself, but a good friend of mine is heavily into it, so you help me understand wtf he's talking about sometimes, and you crack me up. Cheers, Glen.
Glenn: Mixing on headphones is shit because they are not accurate, mix on monitors you morons! Also Glenn: You have to build your house around your monitors in order for them to sound accurate! :D
Serious question: if people are just going to time align drums (beyond just making sure that the phase is good), why use real drums? Why not just use a vi? I mean the sounds are basically going to be the same (unless you use a ton of unique articulations or some extremely unique kit) and if you add up all the time mic-ing, performing, and time aligning, I bet the total time is around the same as programming. Yet programming drums is something that would be more cost effective. You can generally get a functionally similar sound for a lower cost. I am sure I am missing something that would make this make sense so someone please help
i use a solid pair of sennhesiers to mix my demos because i live in an apartment with 4 neighbors around me and i really don't want to bother anyone when it's just demos anyway, and the headphones definitely lie. i'm always testing demos in the car after periodically as the recording is going along and needing to take notes on what to adjust because of the dang headphones lol
Back in 1982 I did my first solo project " Ratatosk " on an Akai reel to reel with sound on sound. It took a whole lotta learning, and a whole lotta guessing. I still have a copy of the tape, and even if the sound is far from good, It's still great nostalgia listening to it
Oh man.. I've actually tweaked the snare mic, thinking i was tweaking the guitars. And when I realised - "Why did my snare just go full fart-mode?" Well... That was embaressing. Gave me a GOOD laugh when you said that :D
Doesn't really matter what your mix sounds like at the end, people will just listen to it once in their phone and forget about it and fellow musicians will just scoff under their breath because we're all assholes
I mix on headphones for 10 years (8 of each I use exact same headphones) and me and my clients are happy so far. I think if you know your gear well and got used to it, that's all that matters. Of course I test everything on speakers but there's usually no problems.
I think the one you missed was listen to everything in context. I had tracks before where, in isolation or just a click, the timing sounded off or things sounded a little pitchy, but drop it in to the mix and it sounded great. BTW: I'm guilty of using Melodyne to fix harmonic clashes, you know those annoying things that, no matter how well you intonate a fretted instrument you'll never get rid of, or those gems that an amp can add in for you? but the simple rule here is, if you can't hear it in the mix, don't touch it
For backup I highly recommend some type of cloud based solution. I am using Dropbox, but there's plenty to choose from these days. If your hard drive is mirrored directly in the cloud, you never run the risk of forgetting to make a backup. If your studio burns down with all your disks in it, you still have all your recordings secured. You also have the benefit of being able to reach your projects wherever you are.
“Don’t mix with your eyes!” First mix I EVER did, I could not for the life of me find out why the FUCK the snare drum was popping so freaking loud!! I did everything I could think of…. Until I realized the bottom snare mic was cranked 🤦♂️
