Brief Summary
Rich visual feedback is great to have but how your mix looks on a meter isn’t often the point. There are some ways you can help you ears hear what they need to rather than looking at a meter for guidance.
Going Deeper
A modern DAW and plug-ins take full advantage of the rich visual feedback possible on a computer interface which in the days of hardware were unimaginable. While these features can be useful they can also get in the way of perspective and good decision-making during mixing. In this article we look at some of the features which exist in in plug-ins which can help the user avoid the temptation to mix with their eyes and instead use our ears to guide our mix decisions.
Spectrum Analysers
Spectrum analysers have a lot to answer for. In early software incarnations they were interesting but the inherent latency of an FFT driven process running on a relatively slow computer meant that what you saw frequently had little to do with what you were hearing at the time. This is no longer the case and almost all utility equalisers now feature a spectrum analyser. The readout from analysers can be instructive, especially to novices learning their craft. However the temptation is always there to let your eyes guide your decisions more than your ears, which is of course the wrong thing to do. How it sounds is the only thing that matters and having spoken to students trying to equalise visual peaks out of the response of a spectrum analyser without having a clear idea why they're doing that is proof enough for me that decisions should be guided by ears in the first instance and an analyser is an interesting additional tool which can be used to confirm and refine that decision which was first made by listening.
Spectrum Analysers can be frustrating in use as a choice has to be made between resolution and responsiveness. Bigger window sizes show more spectral detail, particularly for low frequencies, but at the cost of increased latency. They can be useful for tasks such as finding an annoying resonance in a snare drum or piano. However when you look in a spectrum analyser, unless you know approximately where that peak is, you’ll probably find that the peak is hard to track down visually. The most prominent peak is unlikely to be the one which sounds out of proportion with the rest of the sound.
EQ Band Solo
The best approach is to find the frequency with your ears. If you’re experienced you’ll probably be able to find it quickly without extra help but if you do find you’re struggling to track it down a Band Solo function in your EQ will help more than an analyser will.
Many EQ plugins have a solo function, which will mute audio outside the pass band of the filter you are adjusting, Changing the Q will widen or narrow the width of the filter and knowing which modifier key to hold to do this while dragging up and down the spectrum will speed thing up considerably. If you’re looking for a specific resonance to cut you’ll be able to use a much narrower Q than would be appropriate for a boost, where very sharp peaks are best avoided.
As an example here is the solo mode in Fabfilter’s Pro Q3 is use on a snare drum. You could use the old technique of creating a narrow boost and sweeping that, but the results can be more difficult to use as a narrow peak sounds bad everywhere!
Delta In Dynamics
The difference between the amount of visual feedback available in modern tools compared to legacy equipment is extremely apparent in dynamics processing. Compression and limiting used to rely on a VU meter to show gain reduction (still a very useful tool in my experience). These were replaced by faster peak LED meters which, while more responsive, don’t always represent what the compression action feels like. However the current generation of compression tools add gain reduction history graphs which communicate the action and response of attack, release, threshold and ratio in a way that an instantaneous meter cannot.
These history graphs are seductive. I know I’ve fallen into the trap of prioritising how something looks over how it sounds and while I’m glad they exist, I’m also glad the option switch them off also exists. If you need additional feedback while setting parameters, instead of using metering why not use the delta button if your plugin has one. This function plays back only the audio which is being affected by the action of the processor, whether a compressor, limiter, expander, gate or other processors like de-essers, transient processors or de-noise plugins. In the case of a compressor do bear in mind that what you are hearing is the signal which is being reduced in level. So if you want to let transients pass unaffected you need to set the attack long enough for the transient to be cut off when listening in delta, it’s the difference signal between the processed and unprocessed sign you’re auditioning.
See this in action in this short video using Fabfilter’s Pro C-2. Both of these examples have been made using FabFilter products but that is only an example. These functions exist in many plugins so look out for them in your plugin of choice.
While I’m proposing the approach that using your ears is better than using your eyes, this isn’t always the case, there are always exceptions and an example where trusting the metering above anything else would be delivering to loudness specifications. You can get close to spec by ear but if the meter says it’s out of spec, it’s out of spec! However I think we can all agree that the maxim ‘if it sounds good, it is good’ holds up nearly all of the time.
Are there any visual helpers in your system which you think might colour mix decisions?