Recording - March 2014 - 13

when I say that this process may be even more important than monitor choice! You should budget heavily for it, as it will lead to more
accurate translation in your mixes.
And with that word, "translation," we get to the main course,
which lends its name to the title of this article...
Lost (and found) in translation
Consider the following scenario: You have just crafted the perfect
mix on your awesome new monitors in your wonderfully treated
room. The band is blown away! Even the guitarist and singer agree
that their levels and tone could not be more perfect. So you burn
some reference discs, email them some MP3 and FLAC files... and
you head home, pleased and confident that your work here is done.
The next morning, the phone rings and the voice on the other
end is distressed. It's the singer. He's played the track for his
friends and family on multiple systems and it sounds all wrong!
"It's nothing like what I heard in your studio!" What happened,
you wonder. How did the mix get lost in translation?
Learning, teaching and training
Mixing is equal parts learning the sound of your monitors and
room, teaching yourself how to get good mixes there, and then
training yourself to understand how those mixes will translate in the
real world.
To accomplish the first part you need to seek out some wellrecorded songs and listen, and then listen some more. Your goal is to mimic
them. Learn where the vocals sit, how
the kick and the bass relate to each
other... It's important to have many different choices, representing any and all
of the genres in which you plan to mix.
Over time you should become so
intimately familiar with these songs that
they become your personal reference
standard. When this happens, you can
take these songs with you, which will
hopefully allow you to mix on other
setups in other studios as described
above. Live engineers who tour with
bands do this on a nightly basis as they
go from venue to venue.
Step two is to get your songs to achieve a similar quality level
and feel. Naturally that topic alone could fill a large number of articles on mixing (and has-see the online Reference Library again!).
So let's assume you're happy with your mixes in your studio, or are
getting there, and tackle the last, toughest issue: translation.
Translation tips
It's no good if your mixes sound killer in your own room, but
lame in the real world. Don't worry, even famous studios and
engineers have faced this problem over the years. Here are a
few tips and tricks passed down over the generations.
Just as studios and mixing environments have evolved over time,
so has the listening environment and the ways we experience
music. Early on, music was mixed on a single mono speaker,
since playback happened through single speakers in record players and entertainment consoles. In the mid-'60s we saw the dawn
of the stereo hi-fi system that dominated family rooms and bachelor pads alike. In the early 1970s, AM radio (which was mono)
gave way to the stereo format of FM radio. This led to stereo car
systems and by the 1980s portable stereo boomboxes, each complete with not only radio, but 8-track, cassette, and eventually
compact disc capability.
During this time most pro studios adopted two types of speakers,
often known as check monitors, to assure that mixes would translate
to common listening systems. The first was the Yamaha NS10; Eleanor
talks a bit about it in her article. The second was a small single-driver
speaker in a square box called the Auratone. The NS10 was used to

simulate the average home speaker of the day, while the "Horrortone"
was similar to what you would find in a car and/or boombox.
Both sets of monitors sounded questionable and were notoriously hard to mix on. But there was a benefit to them. If you could
get a mix to sound good on the studio mains, the NS10s and the
Auratones, it was a good mix! It also helped that these small
speakers being in use at most studios led to a consistency (at least
in terms of check monitors) from room to room.
Times change... or do they?
Today the big stereo setup has largely been relegated to the world
of the audiophile. Most home setups have evolved into the home theater experience-usually a subwoofer and two (or more) small satellite speakers. Sometimes these are 5.1 surround systems; we won't discuss those here. Most other home listening happens via the computer,
with speakers built into a laptop or through various desktop speakers.
Portable listening has evolved as well. MP3 players and smartphones predominate, usualy with tiny onboard speakers and
equally tiny earbuds. Additionally this past year has seen the rise
of standalone Bluetooth speaker enclosures that receive your
music wirelessly from smartphone and computer alike. Even auto
sound has changed, with modern systems often featuring enormous subs for bone-crushing bass.
While Auratone speakers live on through new variants made
by companies such as Avant Electronics, the NS10 is a vintage
item that sells for big bucks on Ebay.
I would argue that they're not as relevant now as they were decades
ago. We need check speakers for
the 2010s, not the 1980s. Here are
four alternatives to help you get your
mixes to translate today.
Start with a set of average (not
crappy) computer-style speakers. I use
the Altec Lansing IMT320, a $60 iPod
docking station that does a good job
of simulating both computer speakers
and the new Bluetooth boxes.
Second, I suggest a subwoofer. A
good one, properly balanced and
placed, will help your main mixes, but
even a cheap one is a great tool for
checking your extreme lows for problems and resonances in nonsub-equipped systems. They're also handy for checking how mixes
will succeed in home theater setups and in dance clubs.
Third, I recommend a second set of less expensive studio monitors to go with your primary monitors, or even a single speaker.
Mono wasn't in the picture for decades, but with modern smartphones having a single speaker (or stereo speakers so close together they may as well be mono)-and many, many people listening
to music this way at home and on the go!-having your music
translate accurately to a tiny mono speaker is a huge priority.
Fourth and last, if you have a car, get to know its system well! I
have heard tales of famous engineers hanging onto their automobiles well past drivability, just because they knew the audio system
so intimately. Burn mixes to CD or MP3 for use on your portable
player, and make sure they sound good in your car. Listen for stereo
imaging and how the low mids and bass frequencies resonate the
plastic panels on your doors and dash. It may sound crazy, but it
works-my PT Cruiser has become an integral part of my mix chain!
And what about headphones? See Mike Metlay's article on the
next page...
Wrap up
I know this is a lot to chew on, but to summarize: get the best monitors you can afford, learn them well, teach yourself to nail great
mixes on them, and then train yourself to check them on alternate
sources of varied quality and adjust accordingly. Following this formula should help keep your music from getting lost in translation.
RECORDING March 2014

Recording - March 2014

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