How Do I Make My Recording As Good As A Commercial, Part 5 - critcial, objective listening and does my mix sound ok? Options

[Saoirse O'Shea]

We are asked to comment on the mixes that we are sent and very often the question is 'Is it good enough for commercial release'? Now I have to say that we usually try to limit our critique to the main concerns for three main reasons: with some if we described all the issues we could write a book; it's human nature to 'switch off' if there's too much criticism; some people struggle to understand what are major issues and what are minor details, even when it is stated explicitly which is which.

Anyway the purpose of this thread is to outline some of the critical listening skills which can help you determine the quality of your own mix in a reasonably objecttive manner.

First - Make a mix comparison CD. Find 20 or so tracks from a variety of commercial CDs and import them in to your daw. Level match them (i.e. adjust the again so that they all sound like they are equally loud) and then take 20 seconds or less from each and compile those takes as a single track. Use this single track as a comparison between your mixes and commercial ones.

A few things to note:
If you burn the track to a CD you can use it in different studios and on different playback systems.

Don't use more than 20 seconds - 20 sec is long enough for you to get an idea of what a mix is like but not so long that you get used to it and its issues/preferences.

Tracks don't need to be ones you like but ones that represent what you think is a good mix

Tracks have to be level matched or you will suffer from the equal loudness effect.

Once you have made your CD listen to it carefully and use it to compare with your own mix. Note down issues and ask yourself questions about why things are the way they are and what you can do do to change them. (Don't try to change things in the mix just yet though- you're critically listening and evaluating for now. If you try and change things at this point then you will lose focus.) Things you might want to check may include:

1/ How are the instruments balanced. Do some appear to be too loud or too quiet particularly with respect to the focal instrument/vocal. Do some get inthe way of others?
2/ Where are the instruments positioned/panned in the stereo field? What about front to back/depth? Does this all sound natural or not?
3/ What happens to the mix when you collapse it to mono? Does it change? Do some instruments dissappear or do some get louder or quieter? Is there too much change in tonality (there will be some but it shouldn't be excessive).
4/ Can you hear any effects like reverb and delay? Is there more than one reverb being used? Is there too much of it? Is it appropriate or does it sound unnatural? Does it suit the music and the production?
5/ Do the instruments and voice sound as you would expect and does the EQ spectral balance sound reasonable? Can you judge if there are any odd resonant frequencies and if so at what frequencies are they? (You need to develop your ear so that you know what tones of say 10,000, 5000, 2500, 1500, 1000z, 250, 100, 50 Hzs sound like and can identify them reasonably accurately and consistently.) Has the mix been pass filtered/shelved and if so how does this affect the tonality of instruments and voice. Do any instruments have poor phase and/or comb filtering issues?Is the mix muddy, fatiguing, too bright, too dark and so on and how does the EQ determine this?
6/ Can you hear the fade ins and fade outs (if any) and do these work? Can you hear reverb tails decay fully and properly?
7/ Are there unintended/unwanted noises? Can you hear pops, bangs, clicks, mains hum, people talking, any other things that shouldn't be there. Is there too much background/low level noise and is the noise floor too high? Can you hear poor edits, are they properly aligned?
8/ Is a compressor used? Is there too much compression or too little? Does it affect the timbre of an instrument incorrecly? Is there unwanted pumping? Does it result in unwanted distortion?
9/ Does the track or individual instruments/vocals distort? Is it even or odd order distortion or both? Why is there distortion - deliberate or unintended? Does it cause shearing and tonal skew?
10/ Are there sufficient and appropriate macro and micro dynamics for the mix and the instruments/vocals?

If you do this with all your mixes you will develop a better sense of how good they are. You will learn how to critically evaluate your mixes and you will start to listen to them more objectively. You will also start to develop a better ear for audio and so be able to identify what frequency is what, what compression ratios and settings do, what hard and soft clipping are and what they sound like.

You'll become a better mixing engineer and the next time you ask a mastering engineer 'Tell me if my mix is any good' you won't get a 120 page list of criticisms .

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

Your posts are always very informative Tony! Thanks, it's a pleasure to read!

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