Is It Even Possible to Create Transportable Mixes/Masters?!? (Warning: Scary Frequency Response Graphs)

[Anderton]

Found this frequency response graph comparing Beats Solo headphone to the earbuds included with Apple's iPod. It's pretty clear which one delivers the more accurate listening experience... [Note: this is copyrighted by Internal Media but I hope they appreciate this is being used for educational purposes and let me keep this up here based on fair use.]

 

 

Kinda speaks for itself...if you mix so it sounds good on one, it will sound horrible on the other - and I'm not sure you can pull off "splitting the difference" to have it be "sort of bad" on both.

 

Here's the frequency response for some inexpensive headphones:

 

 

So what's a mixing or mastering engineer supposed to do? Or has the public been subjected to questionable music quality for long enough that no one really cares?

[UstadKhanAli]

Go all Guided By Voices lo-fi so it doesn't matter.

 

Seriously, just mix the best you can so it sounds good on most things. People who have Beats probably are listening to bumpin' stuff anyway, so if they get a little more bass, they're not gonna care.

 

And really, how many here are mixing for the majority of stuff someone might listen to with Beats anyway? This is not something that should keep us up nights.

[Anderton]

But the problem is it's not just Beats. Headphones and laptop speakers - and yes, people do listen to laptop speakers - are incredibly inconsistent as in not even close. A mix that would tear your ears off with treble on one set of headphones can easily sound super-muffled on another set of headphones. Speakers tend to be better, but even then, there are some pretty hairy variations depending on how the manufacturer wanted to "hype" the sound.

 

So yes, you can always mix to try to have the least amount of damage over the greatest amount of transducers, we've always had to do that. My problem is that the amount of "the least amount of damage" is increasing, rather than decreasing .

[UstadKhanAli]

Of course you're right. But what do you do? I don't think it'll really change the way I mix. If it sounds good on headphones, my car, a boombox, small computer speakers, and two sets of monitor speakers, I'm good. That's already a lot of different scenarios, so I don't want to get too caught up in wondering how it sounds on laptop speakers and bass-heavy headphones and through the speakers of a mobile phone.

 

It's the same thing with website design too. I figure if it looks good and works on a phone, tablet, and a couple of browsers, it's fine. If Opera doesn't open it properly, oh well.

[philboking]

I wonder how in the world do you measure the frequency response of earbuds or even headphones? It's not like sticking them up against a measurement mic would do any good; mics just don't work that well with extremely near-field point-source sound.

 

Try pulling out your earbuds and holding them 1/2" from your ear. This is what a microphone would hear.

[MikeRivers]

Found this frequency response graph comparing Beats Solo headphone to the earbuds included with Apple's iPod. It's pretty clear which one delivers the more accurate listening experience...

 

Well, where's the "beat" in today's pop music? Right around 100 Hz. They just want to be sure you can hear it. I don't think that people who listen to classical music would ever be tempted to buy those headphones.

 

People who listen to "beat" music on Beats headphones, are accustomed to hearing music that's been enhanced in this way. Their home speaker system probably have a low end boost, and club systems thrive on it.

 

I think that if you mix so that it sounds "normal" to "normal people" (whatever either of those mean) you'll have a mix that sounds right to the people who buy bass-enhancement in their listening systems, and OK to people who don't. Or do I have this backwards - that a spectrogram of a "Beats headphone generation" mix is all red below 150 Hz so?

 

[MikeRivers]

But the problem is it's not just Beats. Headphones and laptop speakers - and yes' date=' people do listen to laptop speakers - are incredibly inconsistent as in not even close. [/quote']

 

But hasn't listening always been like that? People have always listened on a wide range of playback equipment.

 

When I'm staying in a hotel, I frequently listen on my laptop speakers. I don't enjoy the sound, but I can still enjoy the music. I've never owned a boom box, however.

 

 

[UstadKhanAli]

People listened to music on extremely wide varieties of cassette machines, clock radios, TVs with little speakers, TVs attached to stereos, audiophile systems, Walkmans with headphones, stereo systems, cassettes on car stereos, car stereos with giant woofers in the back, computers, boomboxes, and all sorts of things.

 

So it's more of the same.

 

I feel like by checking my mixes as mentioned above, that's about all I can do. It's worked before, and hopefully that amount of effort will continue working!

[blue2blue]

I know this thread is about the impossibility of mixing to a wide range of playback devices -- and that's an interesting topic, for sure (but my whole philosophy is to first please myself on my relatively flat Event 20/20bas and then not worry about losers with Apple ear buds or Beats bass muffins).

 

No, what I can't get over is still that people are paying ridiculously high prices for headphones that have ~20 dB of variation between 100 and 10k Hz. And that's sick. Not the good kind.

 

 

And you can hear that people are starting to mix to these horrible things -- listen to how jacked the hats are in a lot of modern hip hop and pop -- listen to it on a decent system and it's painful. Another reason I don't listen to hip hop like I once did. It just sounds like s--t now.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I know this thread is about the impossibility of mixing to a wide range of playback devices -- and that's an interesting topic' date=' for sure (but my whole philosophy is to first please myself on my relatively flat Event 20/20bas and then not worry about losers with Apple ear buds or Beats bass muffins).[/quote']

 

 

Find (hopefully fairly accurate) speakers that work for you, learn them (and the quirks of your room / monitoring environment) and go with that. That's my philosophy anyway. Sure, I still cross-check on other systems occasionally - especially if I think it's going to be played by the majority of the listening audience on such systems, but my main speakers are still my primary reference.

 

 

No, what I can't get over is still that people are paying ridiculously high prices for headphones that have ~20 dB of variation between 100 and 10k Hz. And that's sick. Not the good kind.

 

 

Yup. It boggles the mind. Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre both should know better... but I guess they were more interested in profits than giving people good sound quality. Sure, know your target audience and give 'em what they want (in the form of that big 100 Hz bass boost and the styling / "branding"), but there's no excuse for the uneven and jagged nature of the rest of that frequency response plot. The mids are just gutted.

 

 

And you can hear that people are starting to mix to these horrible things -- listen to how jacked the hats are in a lot of modern hip hop and pop -- listen to it on a decent system and it's painful.

 

I wonder if that canyon at 3 kHz in their frequency response has anything to do with that... naaah.... couldn't be... could it?

[blue2blue]

I will admit that when I got the Events -- coming from NS10's -- it took me a second to realize that just making it sound good on the Events was not enough. I learned quickly that super low sine wave synth bass is not too 'portable'...

 

Fortunately, I still had/have the NS10's for double checking. One thing about the NS10's -- while the bass does, indeed fall off under 100, it's relatively gradual in comparison to the bump-and-dump bottom-of-range resonance reinforcement of ported speakers. And by the same token, the NS10's have much better time-response than bass reflex. I've found the pairing to be pretty complementary, for the most part.

[Anderton]

People listened to music on extremely wide varieties of cassette machines' date=' clock radios, TVs with little speakers, TVs attached to stereos, audiophile systems, Walkmans with headphones, stereo systems, cassettes on car stereos, car stereos with giant woofers in the back, computers, boomboxes, and all sorts of things.[/quote']

 

But I think it was also understood that if you listened to a clock radio, you weren't expecting decent fidelity. When you pay $200 for headphones that are supposedly high-quality, and you can't mix for them and also mix for other sets of $200 earphones, that's something else.

 

Speakers, headphones, etc. always sounded different compared to each other, that was a given. But what's distressing is playback devices that are supposed to be comparable in terms of what they deliver can vary so widely.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

But I think it was also understood that if you listened to a clock radio, you weren't expecting decent fidelity. When you pay $200 for headphones that are supposedly high-quality, and you can't mix for them and also mix for other sets of $200 earphones, that's something else.

 

I get that. But there ARE headphones that sound decent for not so much money. There's always been audio snake oil, and if people can't tell the difference, they have the choice to drop $200 on crap. If they're that crappy, then we're all good....*everything* will sound crappy, and that's the end of that.

 

I'm reacting to the general thought of mixing for people who might be listening to laptop speakers. I don't think anyone is expecting a quality audio experience there. Or with $5 earbuds. Or their mobile phone's speaker. Or their crappy TV. Or the messed up speakers in the ceiling at the gym. Or....well, you get the idea.

[MikeRivers]

But the problem is it's not just Beats. Headphones and laptop speakers - and yes' date=' people do listen to laptop speakers - are incredibly inconsistent as in not even close. [/quote']

 

But hasn't listening always been like that? People have always listened on a wide range of playback equipment.

 

When I'm staying in a hotel, I frequently listen on my laptop speakers. I don't enjoy the sound, but I can still enjoy the music. I've never owned a boom box, however.

[MikeRivers]

 

But I think it was also understood that if you listened to a clock radio, you weren't expecting decent fidelity. When you pay $200 for headphones that are supposedly high-quality, and you can't mix for them and also mix for other sets of $200 earphones, that's something else.

 

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who listen to Beat (and I'm sure there are others with similar response) and those who listen to flatter headphones. But more important, they tend to listen to different kinds of music. If you're mixing dance, rap, hip-hop and such, mix so that it will have heavily exaggerated bass when heard on Beats headphones and your those listeners will be happy. The other kind of listeners won't care because they'll never listen to that mix anyway.

 

Similarly, if you're mixing jazz, classical, easy listening, or country music, mix it so it sounds good on speakers that you trust to reveal problems in the midrange, make sure you don't have too much bass, and listeners who enjoy that kind of music will be happy.

 

I don't deny that there are some people who like "all kinds of" music. But most of them don't listen to all forms of music on the same system, in the same environment, and in the same way.

 

 

[MikeRivers]

PS - The other day at the CEWeek show, I saw a $3,500 (for you, $3,499) handheld music player. It has a 20 band parametric equalizer so you can accurately match its playback response to your own headphones, as long as you aren't playing DSD files (it doesn't work on them). I asked what the range (dB boost/cut) of the parametric EQ was and they didn't know. I think they didn't know what I was asking them about, but its adjustment resolution is 0.1 dB - they're proud of that. The graphic EQ appears to have a +/- 5 dB range so that isn't going to help your Beats.

 

http://www.astellnkern.com/

[nat whilk II]

The Beats frequency response graph makes me wonder if what they did was this - they crafted the headphones so the spillover sound heard by all the other people in the room who are not wearing the headphones makes them turn their heads and look at the headphone wearer. The loudest audible spillover bass and hihats....

 

Like the kids who used to hold the 15 lb boomboxes on their shoulders on the city bus, no?

 

nat whilk ii

 

[UstadKhanAli]

 

I don't deny that there are some people who like "all kinds of" music. But most of them don't listen to all forms of music on the same system, in the same environment, and in the same way.

 

 

And I'd be one of those people. Spotify's recommendation algorithms freak out a little with people like me.

 

But yeah, most people will gravitate toward certain listening environments.

 

 

 

 

[sailorman]

I've wondered for some time why a label would bother to pay a studio to produce a high fidelity product (definition of which may vary), when the vast majority of the target audience will listen to it on ear buds on which that fidelity will be completely wasted? Any project studio can produce results that will exceed the typical playback medium; and save the label a bucket of $$$$. They could set up a 'studio' in an empty room in corporate headquarters and no one would notice the difference.

 

Or so it would seem.

[Ernest Buckley]

So what's a mixing or mastering engineer supposed to do? Or has the public been subjected to questionable music quality for long enough that no one really cares?

 

No one really cares… as long as it thumps, repeats for 3 minutes, and no big words…

 

[MrKnobs]

I don't think it matters at all.

 

If you make your mixes sound like pro mixes on accurate monitors in an accurate room, then your stuff will sound like crap in the same way as the person owning the crap system is used to. This is why it's good to listen to cuts you admire through your control room system to sort of "calibrate" your brain before you mix your own project from a similar genre .

 

Harbal allows a similar procedure in a straightforward frequency domain way, though of course the human mind is still the greatest music processing system.

 

Terry D.

[MikeRivers]

I've wondered for some time why a label would bother to pay a studio to produce a high fidelity product (definition of which may vary)' date=' when the vast majority of the target audience will listen to it on ear buds on which that fidelity will be completely wasted? [/quote']

 

It doesn't cost that much more to do a good job, and it makes the artist feel good. And as I mentioned in another reply, with more control, the sound can be tweaked to best suit the target listener (who may be someone who listens on crummy earphones).

 

If you haven't noticed, it's the artists who are making the push for better quality audio. You don't see a lot of the common listeners complaining about sound quality. You see some pseudo-audiophiles on forums telling you how much distortion they can hear on this or that recording.

 

 

[Anderton]

I don't think it matters at all.

 

If you make your mixes sound like pro mixes on accurate monitors in an accurate room, then your stuff will sound like crap in the same way as the person owning the crap system is used to.

 

That's a really great point...going from "garbage in, garbage out" to "anything in, garbage out" does have its advantages... I feel better now.

 

[Beck]

I've always been of the mind that the onus is on the end-user to use a decent system to hear a recording in all its glory. I still mix/master for the hi-fi listener. I listen through computer speaker as well, but if I really want to take in good music I sit in between a good stereo hi-fi system.

 

Maybe someday we will have technology that detects what the music is playing through and adjusts accordingly. I can see that happening someday... maybe the "Next big thing!" Even so, it could only do so much. Until then we're responsible to have playback systems that get the most out of the mix.

[WRGKMC]

If you take a mix done properly on a flat monitor source, then take that Beats response curve and turn it upside down so the peaks are valleys and valleys are peaks. Then EQ the mix with similar peaks and valleys it would flatten out the beats response curve.

 

The question is would those headphones sound any good with a flat response. I highly doubt it. Rappers drive around with 2000w woofers in their trunks so you can hear the bass boom blocks away. There's nothing flat about that response either.

 

Its all about the feel of the vibration which has a numbing effect on the listener. The only thing that needs to stand out is the bass and vocals and those response curves in the graphs will pretty much do that.

 

I suppose the in ear will have a closer proximity effect so the additional bass isn't essential. If someone with excellent ears and judgment was to was to compare the two in an A/B comparison it may be close enough to being the same, but I think its a moot point.

 

Unless you factor in the funneling effect of the outer ear lobes have on the sound in the open air, you will never get a truly flat mix with any kind of earphones, even if you use a plugin to add cross feed. The outer ears shift the upper mids and because we are trained to use them from birth there is no accurate substitute for the way we judge the distance of sound in the open air.

 

Maybe someone will do a study someday using actual replicas of the outer ears, ear canals, and ear drums of the best mixing engineers and figure out exactly how much coloration the outer ear produces. Then you can build a plugin that adds that same phase shift and coloration. You could use it along with the cross feed and have the right amount compensation to use with ear buds. I'd guess the formulas needed would be similar to what's used to calculate short horn dispersion except in reverse.

 

After that its just a matter of getting some 1/4" jacks installed in the side of your head so you can plug into the aural nerved direct and bypass the ear drums all together.