In this episode of Ask the Expert, we've got Stephen Entwistle in the hot seat, sharing pearls of wisdom on how to train your way to a great pair of critical ears.
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Around 70% of the development time of our loudspeakers is the tuning process, where we spend a lot time in the listening room. We also do lots of objective measurements in our large measurement facility, but the proof of the pudding is in the listening to the loudspeaker. And the things that we try to focus on are what we call objective/subjective differences.
So we try to quantify the subjective impression that we have: the localisation of a sound object in the sound field, the dynamics, the bass reproduction and all of those kind of things. And we're really critical, and not really that interested in how it makes us feel – although this is one of the parameters we use. But the main thing we're looking for are the differences between one thing and another.
When mixing – when trying to dial in that snare sound, for example – you do have to start being objective in how you look at that, but at the same time it's really important when you're mixing and mastering to not lose sight of the fact that you're trying to convey a piece of artwork. And when it feels right, it feels right. This is something that you can gain with experience, and by repeated listening.
A tip would be to choose your favourite artists, and find out who the producers are, and who the mix engineer is- Go find out what they do and then just immerse yourself in their techniques and habits, and apply them to your own system where you do your mixing.
Don't do it in your hi-fi room. Don't do it on your headphones. Do it on the speakers that you're going to do your mixing on, and then you'll start to understand how the things they do works in your room, on your speakers, and on your setup. And then, when you want to be critical, start listening for those subtle differences in the way the snare reverbs, the differences in the attack of the strings, or on the fingering of somebody playing a double bass... listen for all the micro details. Generally speaking, when you get those micro details right, the big picture falls into place.
Well, first of all, it depends on what territory you're in: in Europe and the UK there are very strict guidelines, and if you're doing this professionally, you can't be exposed to loud noise levels during the working day. To reiterate: you should never be exposing yourself to high SPLs for a whole day.
But the answer also depends on what you're mixing and how you're mixing. The way I tend to approach it is, that I want to mix at a level that I'm comfortable at to spend 10 or 12 hours mixing in. Because once you really get into something, you really, really want to dig into that and you need to be comfortable the whole. And if you're listening loudly, you'll fatigue yourself. No matter how good the monitoring system is, you'll get fatigued, so it's really important to make sure that you avoid that.
The way we approach our loudspeakers is that we try to keep them sounding as similar as we can at all the levels we expect them to be used at. Sometimes there are certain constraints – we can't defy physics – so sometimes the bass might drop off when you play really loud, for example. But, if this is the case, then you should develop your studio installation to accommodate that.
To summarise, I would say that you should mix as loud as you need to, but look after your hearing. Don't ruin your ears because once they're gone! They don't recover and then you'll be a deaf mix engineer, which is a bit of an oxymoron....