Million­Dollar Monitoring

MillionDollar Monitoring

Your stepbystep guide to optimizing your room for studioquality sound (even if it's a bedroom, basement, or garage!)

You haven't showered in days. There are Chinese takeout boxes all over your floor. And you're about to pass out on your MIDI keyboard. But the mix? It sounds incredible. But before you click "Bounce To Disk" for the last time... You step outside... Hop in your `04 Honda Civic... Plug the aux cable into your iPhone... And take your track for a spin around the block. That's where your problems begin. Suddenly, your "massive" low end sounds muddy and boomy. The lead vocal is earsplittingly bright. And those spot delays you spent two hours crafting? Nowhere to be found. Ugh.

Sound familiar? If so, you're not alone. For many mixers, this "carcheck nightmare" is an alltoofrustrating reality. But why does it happen? How do you avoid it? And is there any way to craft mixes that sound great wherever they're listened to, without spending hours hopping back and forth between dozens of speakers? The answer is yes. In fact, I'm living proof. I rarely ever listen to my mixes outside my studio. I work completely in the box, use one set of speakers, and have equipment that wouldn't impress anyone on Gearslutz...

Where the magic happens (my humble studio)

It may not look like much, but in this room, I've cranked out mixes for some of the biggest record labels around (including Disney, Sony, and Glassnote). Many of these tracks have received national radio play and millions of streams and downloads.

And I'm not alone. Many mixers--including heavyweights like Dave Pensado, Bob Power, and Frank Filipetti--are crafting mixes for today's biggest artists in home studios too.

So how do we do it? And more importantly, how can you do the same?

In this eBook, I'll answer these questions. I'll share a simple, stepbystep process that you can apply to optimize your room for studioquality sound (even if it's a bedroom, basement, or garage). Follow this process, and the quality of your mixes will take a massive leap forward. In fact, this is likely one of the biggest keys to your mixing success.

But before I break this process down, let's talk about why it's so difficult to craft mixes that sound great outside your studio...

Mixing Is A Responsive Process

Every move you make while mixing is a response to what's coming out of your speakers.

Did you turn the kick down? If so, it's because it sounded too loud.

Did you add top end to the vocals? If so, it's because the vocals sounded too dull.

Every move you make is a response to what you hear.

Now, we typically trust that what we're hearing is what's really going on in our mixes.

If this is true, all is well. We make the right decisions, craft great mixes, and get nominated for a Grammy.

But what if it isn't?

When Responsive Mixing Fails

Imagine you're hearing too much low end in your studio.

This could be caused by a number of things--your monitors, speaker placement, where you're sitting, room acoustics...whatever. The reason isn't important right now. The point is--when you play your favorite records, the bass sounds too loud. Now, there's a good chance you'll compensate for this imbalance while mixing. How? By turning the bass in your mixes DOWN. Think about it... While mixing, you'll hear that the bass sounds too loud. You'll want your mixes to sound balanced. So you'll respond by turning the bass down. You may not even notice you're doing this. In fact, it will probably happen subconsciously. The result? Your mixes will sound great...in your studio. But when you listen to them on speakers that don't have too much low end... Your mixes won't have enough bass. They'll sound thin and wimpy. Get it? And guess what... This problem doesn't just impact the low end. In fact, it affects every part of your mixes--the top end, midrange, stereo image, etc... The bottom line? Your mixes will always end up sounding like the inverse of your monitoring chain.

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download