When Monitors Lie / Ghost Clipping

[stevebozz]

Lately I've been paying a lot more attention to where different tracks sit in a mix by using subtractive EQ and a little additive to try to give each one it's own space.

Things sound pretty good in the monitors, they sound pretty good on headphones, the individual tracks, busses and masters don't appear to be clipping.

When I go to the car or another source, the low end rattles speakers, sounds distorted .. as if they were clipping.

Am I getting to happy with adding low end? Why can't I gauge via the level meters or even by listening to the mix in the studio? Is this something Logic smoothes out and then when I bounce the true sound comes out?

Any tips or thoughts would be appreciated.

Using: Logic 5.5, KRK V8's

[thethingwiththestuff]

if you cant hear the low end, dont add it!! its there! waiting to distort every other system that actually reproduces the bottom octave...

if you're watching digital readouts for meters, bear in mind there might be latency as the 'puter redraws the bars, and that that bottom octave you arent hearing is taking up a TON of headroom. i bet if you hi-passed some of your channels, you'd see a huge drop in meter levels from all that low end energy being sucked away. (hint.....now you can turn it up or compress it a lot before pumping!) oh, i guess i should mention that your monitors and headphones probably dont reproduce anything below 80 or 60Hz, its not logic. and the clipping is probably within the stereo electronics you're playing back through rather than recorded in your tracks.

try some measurement of your mix area and see how messed up your bass response actually is. you're going to have to learn to mix these frequencies you cant even hear, so you should be pretty well educated as to why you cant hear them, where in the room its worse or better...

hell, find the bassiest corner of your mixing room. play back some records. listen to how ridiculously boomy the kick sounds in this spot. now play your tracks. is it even more out-of-handedly boomy? less so? is your kick going insane at 40Hz where the reference recording is really punching at 100? what if you listen from just outside the mix room?

[b3groover]

Obviously your monitors are not telling you the truth due to their own limitations and/or your room acoustics.

Download a spectral analyzer like Voxengo's SPAN (its free) and take a look at what's happening in your low end compared to other commercial records in your collection that sound great.

[floid]

does your car stereo have any type of eq engaged? those presets like "hardhittin" can do some weird stuff...

what if you listen from just outside the mix room?

no mix is complete until i've listened to it from the other side of the house - not only do i get a better idea of what's happening down low, i also get an idea of how upfront the upfront stuff really is (somehow it's different than just turning down the mix).
oh, and high-pass can definitely be you friend.

[stevebozz]

You guys are right on... I had way too much going on in the low end, but I wasn't hearing any of it.

I think it has to do with the room and position of the desk. I used to mix in an 8 x 10 room that was able to produce good low end with cheap m-audio monitors.

Now the room is a large warehouse space (50x20), with the backs of the monitors facing the open room instead of a wall that would help bass waves form better than having to wait to reflect many yards of air. Subwoofers always sound better inside an enclosed space (like under a desk) rather than in the middle of a room. Is this idea correct?

GOOD LOOKS on the SPAN plugin. Man, that thing is awesome. It made me want the spectral analyzer open all the time. Anyone manage to keep multiple VST plugins open at the same time? Maybe I'm way behind with logic 5.

thanks for the ideas!
steve

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[thethingwiththestuff]

I think it has to do with the room and position of the desk. I used to mix in an 8 x 10 room that was able to produce good low end with cheap m-audio monitors.

Now the room is a large warehouse space (50x20), with the backs of the monitors facing the open room instead of a wall that would help bass waves form better than having to wait to reflect many yards of air. Subwoofers always sound better inside an enclosed space (like under a desk) rather than in the middle of a room. Is this idea correct?

well, no. your 50X20 room will be a hell of a lot more accurate than an 8:X10 room. your speakers just arent reproducing the low end. the buildup you had in your old room may have felt bassier, but it would have been completely screwed. my room is partially treated, and depending on where my head is, i still have 20 dB dips within quarter tones let alone half steps.

your monitors in this new space should be shooting into the long part of the room. that's completely ideal. the way you have it now the sound is reflected right back at you from the back wall and is wreaking even more havoc.

you should go read ethan winer's articles on his page and realtraps' page soon.

[river]

Another thing to consider (and this reinforces the effectiveness of using high pass EQ on drums, bass, even main mix) is that the bandwidth of decent digital audio goes down to 5Hz. It's there and you can't hear it, and it's eating up tons of headroom. Curious about your monitoring level when you mix also. Do you ever just crack the volume open as a guage for where the bass is sitting in the mix?

[stevebozz]

I've been trying harder to listen at lower volumes to mix rather than my usual loud mix, which made things come out more than they actually were at regular listening levels.

What I didn't think about was cranking it here and there to get a better low end picture.. good idea!

Our space needs room treatment, and next on my list is building a few bass traps. I'm just trying to understand why these KRK's would suck so much, I used those cheap m-audios and their bass response was way better in the smaller room. I'm going to try to put the speakers closer to a wall to see how that effects their response.

thanks for the help.

[vvv]

your 50X20 room will be a hell of a lot more accurate than an 8:X10 room. your speakers just arent reproducing the low end. the buildup you had in your old room may have felt bassier, but it would have been completely screwed.

I suspect that in such a relatively large room your monitors may be underpowered and/or not large enough to give you adequate bass monitoring unless you are truly "near-field."

Ex., in the smaller room, however "accurate" the bass you heard was, you were at least hearing that low-end information was present.

[river]

What I didn't think about was cranking it here and there to get a better low end picture.. good idea!

What I meant to say was to turn the volume way down to help determine where the bass info sits in the mix.....it's a really effective tool since it forces you to be near field and doesn't allow for coloration from the room acoustics. My room is small and treated, and I'm a bassplayer, and this is one of the best ways I have of getting proper levels. The subtractive EQ is always good practice, and if/when you boost the bass frequencies, use a really tight bandwidth. Lately I've been getting good results by boosting the 2nd or 3rd harmonic instead of the fundamental, keeps it more focused and far enough away from the kick drum to help distinguish each one. Bass and low mids are the trickiest part of a mix IMHO.