A Veteran Mastering Engineer on the 3 Key Ingredients for Much Better Mixes
Fred Kevorkian hanging out in his finely tuned Manhattan-based studio.
The most common issues that I encounter and work to address during mastering sessions have to do with the overall tone of the track and the mix balances. However, sometimes there are more specific problems.
For instance, a great mix can be ruined by a single track having too much unnecessary information, like the low rumble picked up by a hi-hat mic, or very low frequency pops on the vocals, etc. It is much harder to filter out these unwanted frequencies from a full mix than it is to address the problem on the individual affected tracks before they even get to the mastering stage. That seems to be a simple enough solution, right? But what if you never even heard those issues in the first place?
A problematic mix doesn’t always point to the engineer. The monitoring system and the control room are also a big part of the equation. To me, everything else is almost irrelevant if these three elements are not working well together. Let’s take a closer look at each of these three core elements in helping to get you great mixes that turn into unforgettable masters.
Ingredient #1: The Room
It’s the last thing many new engineers think of, but your room is the spine and the foundation of your mixes. A good control room is for sure the key to your success, but finding a great one to work in is not an easy task!
Of course, the rooms you will have available to work in depend on the budget, location and more. Wherever you work, there are important rules that must be taken in consideration.
For anyone who is really serious about pursuing audio professionally, and wants to have their own space, I would suggest allocating some of your finances to hire an acoustician.
You’d probably rather spend the money on a sexy buss compressor, but you can find many affordable freelance specialists, ready to help you make the correct choices right from the beginning.
This will be one of the most critical investments in your studio. Once you get the foundation right, everything else will naturally fall into place. The purpose of a good control room is not just to isolate you from the sounds and distractions of the external world but also to provide a good, honest and comfortable acoustical environment.
Simply put, it means that the room will respond evenly to most of the audio spectrum and feel natural and precise when listening to music. This is critical because if you don’t properly hear certain frequencies, or if they are accentuated by the room, you will overcompensate and end up with a tonally unbalanced mix.
The goal is to avoid the big problems and fix small ones with minimal treatment. A potentially great room starts with key proportions. It’s simply based on physics, not on looks. If your room is really off from these “golden ratios”, you will probably struggle to get good results and spend a fortune trying to fix acoustic issues that do arise.
If you’re not able to build your own space with the help of an acoustician, the next best thing is to work in a space that’s already been tailored by one. There may be many of them in your area that have some downtime and can be booked to help you finish your mixes.
If you are on a strict budget and must work in a compromised space, there are many low-cost DIY solutions you can undertake while you prepare to reach the next level. While not as ideal as working with an experienced acoustician, even small improvements to a compromised space can lead to big benefits.
The bottom line is that working in a room you can rely on is one of the most critical and often-overlooked ingredients in all of music production. Doing something serious to address it is key.
Ingredient #2: The Monitoring System
Let’s assume you’ve found a decent space to work in, put up some basic treatments to improve a home studio situation, or enlisted the help of an acoustician to create a room you can really trust. Now it is time to shop for an appropriate monitoring system.
Sounds exciting? Yes, but there are so many choices available on the market that it can be a bit confusing.
If you are not an expert on speakers and don’t intend to become one, keep it simple and stay with the industry standards.
In general, mixers like to evaluate their work on many different types of speakers, including compromised “consumer” style speakers. While this can be an important part of a mixer’s workflow, it is also important to have at least one full-range system, selected carefully, and ideally, tuned for the control room.
The volume and shape of your control room will generally dictate the type and size of the speakers that will work best: Nearfield, mid-field, free standing, soffit mounted, complemented with subs and so on.
Here again, the advice of an expert will be very welcome, and should be considered necessary in the building of a serious control room. The room and the speakers have to work together. You can’t dissociate one from the other.
Once the optimal mix position (aka “sweet spot”) is determined, then the tuning of the speakers and the room can begin in earnest. Speaker placements and electronic adjustments are one way to tweak the audio system. Custom-tailored absorbers, diffusers and bass traps designed by an acoustician for your unique room/speaker system are frequently used to correct the acoustical imperfections of the room.
As the measurements are looking better, the next step is to substitute the tones, sweeps, noises, and all these annoying sounds with some musical programs. This is where the engineer comes into the picture and it’s listening time!
Ingredient #3: The Engineer
Because personal taste is one of the many variables to be taken into consideration, the engineer is the third major piece of the puzzle.
It is very hard to define a “perfect” room. I believe the main goal for an engineer will be to work comfortably in a pleasant and customized space while getting amazing results. By listening to a large amount of great records and familiar programs, you can still fine tune the room and the monitoring system to your individual taste.
Since our brains are way more sophisticated than any fancy processor, we will most likely be the ones to evolve and adapt to the new space.
As much as we have to tune our rooms to our own needs, we also have to tune ourselves to the room. This will be a long work in progress. For some, it will even be an endless one, since they will always want to improve with time.
Summing it Up
As mentioned earlier, all the pieces are inextricably tied together. Still, it is always better to do one tweak at a time in order to hear the direct impact of each modification. Too many changes at once could be conflicting and confusing.
Modern engineers are lucky enough to be able to buy a “Fairchild 670” for $129 these days in plugin form. The bad news is that every engineer can own one and use it on every channel at once! That’s the reality. It’s harder and harder to expect any one “magic” processor—or even a whole slew of them—to give you an edge over the competition anymore. Everyone has pretty much access to the same software and mixing tools.
Yes, talent and experience can make a big difference, but remember, the work of even an extremely talented engineer can also be easily overshadowed by the impact of a mediocre acoustical environment.
The good news is that if you get these three ingredients right, you have now created a solid foundation you can build on and improve with experience.
If you can get all the technical stuff and complicated physics of acoustics out of the way in the beginning, you’ll find that spending the extra time and fees for professional expertise will have been well worth it in the time you save and the results you get later on.
As you start working in a great room you will begin to feel more and more confident. No more guessing. You will finally be able to fully trust your ears. When you work in that kind of room, all your energy will be focused into the music and your creativity will stand out.
You will finally have a chance to show off your real talent—undistorted.
I’m looking forward to seeing you sometime soon for a mastering session with some of your best mixes. If you’ve never had the pleasure of working in a perfectly tuned environment, I encourage you to stop by a great mastering studio to hear all the important details you may have been missing in your own music. You may never go back to working in a compromised environment again.
Fred Kevorkian is a Mastering Engineer who works in New York City. Click here to sign up for our mailing list and learn more about Kevorkian Mastering.
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