Exactly.

 

The feeling i have when i listen to your mix is that the dynamic range is strange. I don't feel the transients, they seem kinda blurred and struggling to appear, and are not cohesive. Trying to fix that with compression and eq's on your 2buss is too late. And limiting is not the key to fix that. Try to saturate and compress individual channels, at least the channels you want to be upfront. There will be more space with extra headroom. I don't agree you should push tracks to -8 or -10 LUFS for the sake of it, at least if you don't want your jazz musician client to be mad at you. The track should be as loud as it asks to be. And the limiter is not the place you're going to find the loudness your record needs. Eye Of The Tiger was mastered at -16 LUFS and it's clear, loud, punchy and for sure sounds way better than any Metallica's Death Magnectic songs limited to the ass. Uptown Funk, mixed by Serban Ghenea is also not that loud (-11.8) and one of the punchiest tracks of our era. A loud and balanced track is a matter of mixing. Enhancing it to deliver the best output for consumption should be a matter of mastering.

 

A wide variation in music from a youtube playlist. They all have different focus points inside the mix.Take note of the center balance (even those with the bass instrument pushed to the back).

African Popular Music

 

Last edited: Nov 19, 2024

Two bits of software that I find immensely helpful when mixing and checking mixes:

Mastering The Mix "Expose". This is a stand-alone app not a plug-in. It's good for highlighting phase issues, levels, tonal balance etc.

Audified "Mix Checker". A plug-in. It doesn't analyse or fix anything but it does simulate all manner of output devices from HiFi to headphones, TVs, laptops and phones. It really speeds up the process of tweaking a mix to suit many platforms. This really helped me get vocals to stand out on more platforms. (Top tip: ignore the small TV speakers and laptop speakers.)

For me it was all in the mid's and in finding bass sounds that fool the ear into hearing lower frequencies that are not there (!)

I don't know what your end target for your music is but you should focus primarily on that. In general, people listening on expensive HiFi is very much in decline. Music is far more likely to be listened to on ear buds or on small Bluetooth speakers via a bitrate-limited streaming service. It's possible to do different mixes for different targets but I don't think that should be necessary apart from club mixes, where mono-compatibility and the low-end are a very big deal.

But it's fine if you want to do yourself a specific mix for your own specific system!

 

What I meant is about a mixing technique that is independent from the musical style, you are going to add a little bit of harmonics to the point that it will be present on a smartphone speaker and it's what mix engineers are doing to solve that "issue".
If you think this is not acceptable for that style of music, then it means that this kind of music is not made to be listened on a smartphone speaker and also the video you linked, is very weak on a small speaker, so if the harmonics workaround is too much, you have to live with that and accept that good music must be listened on a proper audio setup.

 

I did some further experiments. I decided I let the idea go to make a comrpomise mastering. This material is just not suitable for that, moreover things from Youtube that are more suitable, they sound also somewhat bad of the HiFi, even if on other type of devices they sound okay, and not just because of the low bitrate.

So I decided to make a different mastering for online releases. The problem here was that low and middle dominancy in the HiFi mix many have mentioned and I was also aware of.

1. So, this is the orginal HiFi version, this sounds bad and silent on mobile:

2. This one is what shinjiya created:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/Y2Ze4KN1

This one sounds much better on low end speakers, and it is still okay for better ones, but still the low and middle parts are a dominant, and the other problem is that I already noted: some parts are distorting on low end speakers. For example the part from 3:50-4:48, because of the high guitar, but other times it is the voice. I guess this version is still too much for those speakers.

3. So I decided to EQ the rendered song in Goldwave now working on the laptop speake. I could create a version that sounds great on low end speakers like phone and laptop. It has power, and the key for that is that piercing kind of character:

But now the problem is that this one is too much for headphones and for my desktop speaker. Those pearcing highs are just too much. But I listened on various stuff, and my conclusion is that most of the mix is now okay on everything in this version, it is only the commentator's sharp voice due to the S-es that is a problem.

Do you have any idea how it could be adjusted? The obvious way would be to go to Logic, copy the curve I used in Goldwave, and then listen there and adjust the voice until it sounds good on both the headphone and the laptop speaker. Unfortunately I can't do that now. My laptop is HP, but I also have OSX installed on in, but in OSX I have no built in sound. So I cannot do this from Logic. If I need to monitor both on the line out and the built in speaker, I can only do it in Windows but the song is in Logic, so I can only touch the rendered final song in Windows if I want to monitor on built in speakers.

Is there any way to regulate the S-es in this particular wav I linked? To address just that and avoid touching the cymbals for example. Because I noticed their harmonics are quite close.

If not then I don't even know how to do it because I can use the headphone in Logic, but relying on the headphone only is tricky and I can easily overshoot again. And it is annoying that for setting just something little I need to reset the laptop and reload a different system that takes minutes.

 

Check TDR Arbiter or the Softube Weiss De-Esser for a mastering-oriented de-essing, but I think it might be difficult to fix (haven't listened to it, just based on general experience).

Why not fix the sibilance in the source? Do you not have the project anymore? If you posted the mixed stems (rendering each track with your mixing instead of a single stereo master) it could be easier to master.

 

Because if I switch to Logic, in the Mac OS I don't have built in audio, can't verify on the laptop speaker, to do that I have to render, close, reset, load Windows and listen. It is not very precise.

I could export the stems but won't the outcome be different compared to when you render everything together? There is a mastering compressor on the stereo out, won't it happen that the stem render won't be compressed because the compressor is not detecting it due to the absence of the other stems? I always thought if you render stems separately and you put them together, the overall sound will be different.

 

Making sure a song translates well into other systems, doesn't start on the mastering stage, but a few choices here and there will make the mix pop up, initially when i first listended to your mix, i almost knew why you have issues...

give this a listen:

ps sorry for the gain increase.

 

It sounds good. Only the cymbal seems to be a bit strong, but maybe it is just me who is paying too much attention to that.

 

test it on the mobile device you were having an issue with.

 

That happened to me too. Last night I dressed up so nicely, exactly as I like it, but when I went outside everybody was looking at me like I was a weirdo maniac.

 

Some mix bus processing would be difficult to do in stems, but usually the mastering engineer can figure that out easily, supposing your mix bus is not doing the most work in a top down approach.

 

It is perfect anyway. Sounds good.

 

Just a little addition. It's possible to minimize it by significantly lowering the level. Listen to it more quiet to avoid most of reflections. Significantly quieter.

 

It is useless to direct the flow of discussion to that direction. Room acoustics and levels. I mentioned Me and my father are into High End HiFi for decades, and that his friend has a store specialising in such stuff for decades. Obviously if he has a specialist store like that, he considers the room. So I have a reference about how room affects this. Believe me this problems is not about that. Consider this:

I mentioned I have problem with similar recordings. Have a decade of experience about this. Consider how many situations I listened such things to during that. And the conclusion: other than HiFi, these things sound good, on HiFi not. If it was about the room, why other equipments are not affected by the room? Sounds good on other devices in any room or space, sounds bad on HiFi in any room or space. And now that I mixed this for High End HiFi, it sounds good in different spaces on different High End HiFi. Obviously this is not the problem of the room or volume.

With so many decades of experience in High End HiFi, believe me I can evaluate if it is the room that causes the problem or not.

 

Spoiler: Lie and Truth

Lie and Truth


What is really important for high-quality music playback? Here is the truth and nothing but the truth...

In the HiFi scene, a lot is said throughout the day. Very little of it is true. See accessories in general and the whole "cable madness" in particular. Logical and physical thinking is switched off. "Fairy tales" are told that have no technical basis. If you check or question these "fairy tales", nothing remains that makes sense. In most cases, even with highly sensitive measuring devices, you cannot find anything that could be relevant. The actual effect is therefore zero and this is usually very expensive. But there is not always malicious intent at play. In practice, it is often the case that both the storytellers (manufacturers/distributors/HiFi magazines/dealers) and the end consumer fall for errors together and then describe them as "experience". This can happen very quickly. With a little suggestion (intentional or unintentional) and the necessary wishful thinking, you come to the wrong conclusions. See fake tests, which always work perfectly. When listening to a comparison, there is always a lot of suggestion involved. Almost “automatically”, the more pleasant device sounds better, or the one that was (intentionally?) turned up louder.

The basis for good sound

Two things are more important than a great hi-fi system, and you can't (or hardly ever) buy either of them in a hi-fi specialist shop: the first is technically high-quality recordings. If you don't have these, the best hi-fi system in the world won't help you. In fact, the opposite is true, because the better the playback of such recordings, the more clearly errors are revealed. The second (and no less important) is good room acoustics. Here again, the same thing applies: the "best" hi-fi system in the world will sound terrible in a room with poor acoustics. Good room acoustics can only be achieved through well-considered physical or "mechanical" measures. Unfortunately, a few small cushions or other elements to improve the sound that are stuck to the wall "here or there" are of no use, even if that is what is promised time and time again. You can't outsmart physics and the laws of nature, you can only apply them correctly, and in this case, small sound-absorbing surfaces are of next to no use.

Without good recording and without good room acoustics there can be no good music reproduction, let's not kid ourselves about that!

Unfortunately , that is only part of the whole, because equally important are the correct placement of the stereo triangle in the listening room and a symmetrical environment for the speakers. Because if there is a strong asymmetry in the environment of a pair of stereo speakers, stereo listening is only possible to a limited extent or is hardly possible at all.

Now to the “hardware”:

The speakers

There is no question that the weakest components of a playback chain are practically always the loudspeakers. Strictly speaking, they consist of a "bundle of compromises". None of them is ideal, because that is not possible. In contrast, even cheap, good audio electronic products provide data that is beyond reproach. No loudspeaker in the world can implement this. It is almost ridiculous to try to compare the sound (!) of audio electronic products using loudspeakers, because that is a bit like trying to measure an object to a hundredth of a millimeter with a tape measure. Incidentally, the same applies to the human ear, with its extremely poor ability to remember sound details. Only measuring devices can give us precise information about any differences, the only question then is to what extent these are audible (the subject of hearing thresholds, a bottomless pit in discussions and above all individual).

The amplifier

If you mainly listen at room volume and don't use speakers that are difficult to operate, the amplifier plays a fairly minor role. But two important points to note: you don't take any risks if you choose an amplifier from a well-known and proven manufacturer and if you don't choose a tube device (an explanation of this follows later). This "minor role" of amplifiers changes in practice, however, if you want higher volumes. But the high wattages that are often cited as a sales argument are not so important, because they don't say much on their own. Reputable dealers don't talk about them at all. Reputable dealers don't talk about technical data at all, because they are usually unimportant to end users. For an amplifier that is also supposed to be suitable for high, undistorted volumes, the main thing that counts (especially when connecting low-impedance and/or low-efficiency speakers) is its load stability. The state of this should be clear from its technical data. A good indicator of this is an almost doubling of the output power at half the load impedance.
Even if it may sound ridiculous, the weight of an analog amplifier (note: does not apply to Class-D or switching amplifiers with switching power supplies!) says a lot about its load stability. In a conventional amplifier, the indirect power supplier is the mains transformer and this is always heavy if it can transmit high current. Good load stability also enables the operation of difficult loudspeakers. If necessary, even at higher or even high volumes, provided that the loudspeakers and the room acoustics allow it.

So don’t take the choice of amplifier too seriously as long as you have “normal” volume requirements for your system!

The legitimate question of why there are expensive amplifiers (and playback devices) at all can only be answered seriously, namely because they are particularly well and elegantly built. Expensive devices usually contain better electronic and mechanical components than usual, which means they are more stable over the long term and have a noticeably better feel when operating them. The functions are well thought out and useful and there is no unnecessary ballast. You can simply tell that clever people were at work here, creating something for connoisseurs. In this case, the resale value of such devices is also higher, because there are always people looking for something like this second-hand. Expensive audio electronic products do not actually sound "better", and certainly not at room volume.

Combine devices from different manufacturers?

Connection standards have existed in the HiFi sector for almost as long as anyone can remember, at least from an electronic point of view. This means that devices from different manufacturers can be connected together without any problems. The idea that something "goes particularly well together" is once again a myth. There are only very few manufacturers who go their own way, including with regard to plugs and sockets, but this doesn't really make sense.

So, apart from matching looks and a common remote control, there is no reason to use devices from the same manufacturer. But there is also nothing wrong with it, because all good manufacturers today are able to produce all kinds of components in impeccable quality.

Regarding amplifiers with tubes and output transformers in the power stages (there are special tube amplifiers to which the following does not apply, but they are the exception)

Apart from the fact that in this area you only get rather inferior products from the Far East for little money, tube amplifiers change their linearity and thus their sound properties depending on the impedance curve of the connected loudspeakers. In brochures and magazines, their frequency response is always shown as it is measured with a fixed resistor and there is nothing to criticize here. Tube amplifiers behave very differently with fluctuating load resistance - or with complex loads, as loudspeakers are. Only full-range magnetostats have an almost linear impedance curve, but there are very few of these left on the market (unfortunately!). However, they also usually have a very low efficiency, so higher volumes are not possible with smaller tube amplifiers.

Tube amplifiers can actually sound better than conventional transistor amplifiers, but they are not sound-neutral. If you like this "distorted" sound better and are fascinated by the look, then - apart from their poor economic balance (approx. 75% of the energy supplied is converted into heat), their higher susceptibility to interference and the subsequent costs (tubes only last for a limited time) - there is nothing to speak against buying them.

A recurring misstatement: large room – large speakers, small room – small speakers

In reality, one has little to do with the other. What matters most is the listening distance, and this should be chosen small(er) than (too) large. Anything over 2.5 meters is rarely good, and if it is, then only with optimal room acoustics and very large speakers. The arrangement of the chassis (sound centers) is not unimportant in this context. Speakers in which the tweeter and midrange chassis are far apart for design reasons (often unavoidable with horns) are not well suited to short listening distances. Coaxial chassis have clear advantages here, but other disadvantages. With the bass chassis, it depends on how high they play into the fundamental range. It's not all that simple! But one thing is certain: the size of the room and the size of the speakers have almost nothing to do with each other! This applies in both directions. Small compact speakers can work very well in a large to very large room, as long as the listening distance remains small. Large speakers in a relatively small room also work if the room acoustics are good and highly sound-absorbing.

What to do if you have bass problems in your listening room?

The usual room acoustic measures are of no use. The room modes build up in any case (due to the dimensions of the room) and they can practically not be influenced by insulation materials, unfortunately! How pronounced these room modes are depends on several factors that all come into effect together. You can do a lot of good if you have the option of freely choosing the stereo triangle. If you have a room specially designed for music playback, such optimization is possible. It also depends a little on the nature of the walls. "Soft walls" with, for example, plasterboard mounted on a slatted frame can actually be advantageous because they act as plate vibrators. In studios they are sometimes used quite deliberately and/or Helmholtz resonators are used. But none of these are as effective as active bass correction (there are already several articles on this on this website).

Loudspeakers with good bass do not necessarily lead to problems in the bass range. The problematic frequencies are almost always in the higher bass range (60-120Hz), which even compact loudspeakers can stimulate "very well". In fact, it is usually precisely there that they have their "frequency hump".

Back to the topic of loudspeakers

As already mentioned, no loudspeaker in the world is capable of flawlessly reproducing the quality of good electronic audio components. Not even close! People who deny this (there are actually some!) should not be taken seriously. Fortunately, the human ear is not particularly good anyway; on the contrary, it is very tolerant of playback errors, especially in connection with music. If it were otherwise, we would hardly be able to enjoy listening to music. When using measurement signals (sine tones), the ear is much better when it comes to recognizing errors or differences (test tones/music ratio about 1:10). But that is of no use to us.
Not only advertising departments, but also discussion participants in the relevant forums repeatedly argue how sensitive the human ear is. They refer to studies related to test tones and direct switching. Accompanying this is not uncommonly graphics in which the Y axis has been spread so far that pretty much everything looks impressive. This is also a great way to paint “bogeymen”. You can do anything with non-technical people and clever people simply take shameless advantage of that.

Unfortunately, with loudspeakers, the more sound they emit, the greater their reproduction errors become. So one of the key questions to ask before purchasing suitable components is how loud you want to listen to them and how good the quality is. Interestingly, no retailer asks about this, as it is always assumed that you will only listen quietly anyway.
If you mainly listen at room volume, small(er) loudspeakers will be sufficient. But smallness has its limits! The palm-sized plastic boxes with a small boom cube (also known as a subwoofer!) that are mainly sold in supermarkets today are pretty much the saddest thing the audio industry has ever produced. They are suitable at best for a small "slapstick cinema", but not for serious music listening, because you can't outsmart the laws of nature here either. Without appropriate membrane surfaces, you can't reproduce a large orchestra or a rock band, and with passive loudspeakers, a lot of housing volume is also required. Don't be blinded by technical data, especially in this area! There is no small speaker that can reproduce 35 Hz with sufficient sound pressure, at least not a passive one! And no loudspeaker needs to reach much more than 20 kHz, because not even very young people can hear such frequencies. In addition, there are hardly any recordings where such frequencies occur and no musical instrument that produces anything significant in this range. The myth that you can feel such frequencies even though you cannot hear them is ridiculous. And above all: no studio processes them; everything above 20 kHz is always radically cut off, even in high-resolution formats. With the CD format, this is the limit anyway (for technical reasons).

There are relatively large differences in sound, which are closely related to the technology used. There is no ideal case, not even for a lot of money. Everything is subject to compromise, because every system has advantages and disadvantages.
A speaker designed with as little compromise as possible would certainly be quite large, ugly and definitely not equipped with passive technology - like 95% of all hi-fi speakers. High-quality active studio monitors can be used as a benchmark, because these are designed and built without any consideration for pleasing appearance. But be careful, because anyone who thinks that this will automatically give them the most pleasing sound could be very disappointed, although these speakers certainly do everything "more correctly" than hi-fi speakers!
High-quality studio monitors are "tools" that reproduce sound neutrally, because that is a basic requirement in connection with music production.

Are there speakers that sound particularly spatial?

We often hear and read that there are big differences here. What nonsense! In fact, a single loudspeaker can have no influence on this. Spatial reproduction - apart from good recordings in this regard - only occurs when two identical loudspeakers are used and there is absolute symmetry in every respect. Spatial reproduction is best achieved by sound radiation that is as point-shaped as possible, but this should not be overestimated either, because spatial reproduction occurs primarily in the mid-range and good loudspeakers usually radiate this frequency range quite narrowly anyway.

To understand spatial reproduction, you just have to understand how stereo works, namely on the basis of differences in intensity and time differences. The tonal quality of the reproduction is largely irrelevant; cheap speakers can reproduce stereo and sound spatial just as well as expensive ones.

So it is not the “hardware” that determines whether spatial reproduction is good or bad, but rather the software (the recording) and the symmetry of the reproduction. Nothing else (apart from completely junk devices).

Good proof of all this is provided by playback with only one loudspeaker. As with hearing with one ear or seeing with one eye, there is no spatiality or 3D effect. Our brain can only convey "spatiality" to us based on two different but matching pieces of information.

How exactly does all this have to be?

Unfortunately, it is very accurate. This is because the wavelengths in the crucial mid-range are only 1-4 decimetres long, meaning that moving your head left or right by just a few centimetres can already impair the stereo effect.

This also has a disadvantage, because the more precisely everything is correct, the better the spatial reproduction, but the more dramatic the losses are even with small deficiencies.

This means that stereo (and surround) and spatial hearing only exist at a very small point in front of the speakers. If possible, listening together only works when sitting one behind the other (the person sitting at the back would also have to be taller or sit higher), but never next to each other.

In my experience, most people buy and use stereo systems, but they don't actually listen to stereo. And they don't know it. Rather, they "flood" the room with two-channel music, but nothing fits together. Of course, you can listen to music this way and even enjoy it, but it doesn't fulfill the purpose of stereo.

Do recordings in data-reduced MP3 format sound bad? Do self-burned CDs sound bad?

Both of these are absolutely not true. The self-burned CDs are in no way distinguishable from the originals. When it comes to music in MP3 format with a sufficiently high data rate (from around 160 kBit/sec upwards), everyone who has tried to recognise the data-reduced format in a blinded state has failed. Here, as is often the case, we are subject to prejudice. However, for home use there is no reason to save existing data storage devices in MP3 format, as storage space is not very expensive these days. And you can no longer go back from the MP3 format to the original format without losing data. The MP3 format therefore mainly makes sense when there is little storage space available and/or when music is to be sent over the Internet. In any case, it is more than good enough for "background music".

Summary

HiFi is very different from what is generally assumed. There are limitations that even people who deal with HiFi on a daily basis do not know about, do not recognize or do not properly understand. Almost all HiFi salespeople and consultants have no basic knowledge; they only know numbers, keywords, brochures and tests, i.e. at best everything that could be important for a sale. They simply "parrot" what they read and never think of questioning any of it. But even those who know more (e.g. designers) will be careful not to tell the truth because they (have to) think selfishly.

HiFi magazines do not provide information, they only want to report sensational stories. Because you cannot achieve high circulation figures with the truth and without headlines. That is why every issue contains at least one exciting and sensational article in which sound-improving accessories are described and recommended with hair-raising explanations. Sentences such as "I thought I was hearing a different, much more expensive system!" are repeated again and again. In fact, the described improvement in sound that the sometimes expensive recommendations supposedly bring with them can never be recognized in a blind comparison. The same money invested "correctly" in better room acoustics would lead to a clear sound improvement that is both measurable and audible.

Almost everyone who believes they can judge the playback quality of a HiFi system is not familiar with the natural sound of musical instruments. This (presumably) also applies to many people who write test reports. Most people only ever compare one HiFi component (or system) with another. Many people who test then make the mistake of confusing "more" (bass, treble) with "better". In addition, very few music productions are suitable for judging important properties of a HiFi system.

The "greatest" technical data is nowhere near as useful in practice. Therefore, "studying" numbers is the wrong way to get closer to making the right purchasing decision.

In most cases, bad sound results from bad room acoustics and/or bad recordings. This limits the quality of almost every (better) HiFi system and it performs (even far) below its actual value. However, this should not lead to the conclusion that a cheap "plastic stereo tower" from the department store is sufficient for good music reproduction! A decent HiFi system sounds incomparably better (if everything is right). But not because it has so much better data, but because it is constructed in a much more uncompromising way and because it has the far better physical prerequisites for this.

Source: https://www.hifiaktiv.at/luege-und-wahrheit/

 

Last edited: Nov 22, 2024

Sorry but I don't even read it. There may be lots of things that are correct there, but you don't understand the essence: what you write has no significance in this case. High End HiFi world is as is. It exists. Even if you are right and with those mistakes, but it exists. If I use High End HiFi as equipment to listen to music, and my mix sounds good in this world, then we are done. As soon as it sounds generally good in that world from setup to setup, HiFi wise that mix is okay, job done. So it does not matter what mistakes and misconceptions there are in HiFi. Irrelevant. There are people who listen to stuff on High End HiFi, and for them this mix will be fine if they like this genre. The problems you mention would only matter in case my mix sounded good only on my own HiFi equipment, but when I take it to the store to test it on other setups or friends it sounded bad. Then, indeed, it would have significance what misconceptions there are in the HiFi world that resulted in my mix to become overly specialized for my very own setup. But as I wrote it is not the case. You are trying to address a problem from a direction that is legit but irrelevant.

 

High end HiFi guys, self called "Audiophiles" know everything better and do perfect mixes and masters since years... Better than anyone else in the business because they have so "experienced" guys teaching them like their fathers or HiFi traders. So why bother?

Edit: Countlessly heard or read: Room acoustics or speaker/room EQ don't matter, because my amp and speakers are "audiophile".

 

Last edited: Nov 22, 2024

Pretty ignorant, if you already know everything, why are you discussing it here! You have your point of view and don't want to learn anything new anyway, you already know everything...and please don't say in every sentence, "my father has a shop with expensive hi-fi equipment."