Do You Hear What I Hear?
Problems and solutions in the quest for quality live mixes, including the exact location of the "great mix knob."
By Mike Sokol • January 30, 2019Many live mixes are not only too loud, but also sonically unbalanced. I got to thinking about this (again) when recently re-reading “How Loud Does It Need To Be?” by Peter Janis of Radial Engineering here on ProSoundWeb.
Yes, I’m saying it right here: far too many live mixes are just plain bad. That is, too much bass, too many highs, and dynamics out of control. Add this to SPL in excess of 110 to 115 dB and it’s not only painful, it’s usually a poor version of the intended mix of the song.
Why does this happen? Isn’t there some meter or app that will tell us when the mix is dialed in? And don’t those digital mixers mix the band for us automatically? No and No.
The final music mix is solely decided by one person: the front of house engineer (and sometimes the producer standing beside him). That mix is filtered by their ears and listening experience. As Peter alludes to, these unbalanced mixes are caused not only by hearing damage from years of just plain too loud, but also by our brain’s auto-balance control of the spectrum of the mix.
I’d like to offer one more possible reason for this problem, along with a solution. Just like we are what we eat, we mix like we listen. And if we listen badly, well, we’re going to pay the price...
Continue reading here:
https://www.prosoundweb.com/channels/live-sound/do_you_hear_what_i_hear/
