Grebz - Listening

LISTENING

Once you obtain a result that you think is good, your work is not over yet. You must also take the time to listen to your song on all types of listening devices in order to check that it sounds well everywhere.

Why? Because all devices do not reproduce sound the same way, et the more devices you can lay a hand on, the more you can come to a compromise, a sort of "average rendering" to adjust your mix. If the cymbals in your song are too loud and make your ears bleed, it means that something definitely needs to be done. But if they sound a bit too loud on a system, and a bit too low on another system, but sound well on your monitoring speakers, then it is wise to leave them as they are and hope your listeners will be using a neutral-sounding device.

Here are a few listening devices you could use:
        - Monitoring speakers
        - Headset (open, semi-open, closed, basic headphones, in-ear headphones, etc.)
        - Stereo system speakers
        - Computer multimedia speakers
        - Television set
        - Car speakers (many people listen to music in their car)

It could also be interesting to listen:
        - From another room: you can spot things from a distance that you wouldn't necessarily notice when standing in front of your speakers, right in the middle of the stereo field. This can lead to making adjustments or improvements.
        - At different volumes: it is proven that lower frequencies are perceived differently depending on the listening volume. In order to avoid listening fatigue (and protect your ears), you should mix at a reasonable, comfortable volume. Not too loud! But at lower volumes, low frequencies don't stand out as much and you may tend to add too much of them to compensate. Thus, when listening to the final result at higher volumes (because music sounds so good when you crank it up!), you will find out there's way too much low frequencies. Check it out.

Each time you use a different kind of audio device, various aspects will stand out. On a good stereo, everything should be harmonious and balanced, in a car, bass sounds are usually tiny and if you listen from the next room, it will also sound different. All this will help you to find the right balance between instruments and that would be a mistake to listen to your song from only one audio device, no matter how good it can be.

Listen, but also take breaks, it's indispensable. Ears tend to get tired quickly and get used to what they hear. If you listen to a section of your song that is faulty for three hours in a row, you will end up not being able to hear the flaws anymore and thus... not correcting them. Also, your appreciation of an issue will change over time and you will modify things that you should not have (or did not wish to) modify in the first place, or at least not that way.

When you have spent a few hours mixing a song, don't hesitate to leave it aside for a couple of days. Listen to other stuff, forget about your song completely. And then, listen to it again with fresh ears... its flaws and qualities will jump right to your face! After two days, you will be objective again, and that's what you need to achieve a good mix. But as you may know, the ear will get used to what it listens very rapidly, so what strikes you at first as a problem will soon again sound normal to you. In order to avoid that, write down what you thought as negative in clear terms: the left guitar is too loud, the guitar on the right is too dull, the kick sounds too dry, there is too much reverb in the vocals, etc.

Write down and fix, then start this process again... Give it some time, listen again with fresh ears until you are satisfied with the result. This is of course time-consuming, but it's worth it. We all want to make it final, to listen to the finished song, to have people listen to it. But it's even more satisfying if you are really and thoroughly proud of your song, rather than letting your friends listen to a song that you know has some problems you were too lazy to fix, don't you think?

Your ears are not always the best judges out there! How can you be sure that what you hear is really good? How to remain objective with a personal creation? Even though you are your first audience (obviously!), even if your song must please you first, you still have one ordeal to overcome: have someone else listen to your work...

But don't take any chances, because you may not like the opinion you are going to get. So don't have anyone listen to your work before you have made enough progress. You will waste your time and your listener's if you insist on having him/her listen to some unfinished, half-intelligible stuff. If you are aware that the time has not yet come, then why rush things?

When you ask for someone's opinion, tell them exactly what you expect. As long as you don't see your work as complete, ask for an objective, technical opinion. Is the sound ok, not too bright, not too dull, are the lyrics understandable, do the drums sound fine, does this part provoke the expected feeling (strength, peace...)? Later, when you consider your song as finished, you can ask the ultimate question: "Do you like it?"

You should know one thing: everybody feels differently, they listen to the same song and hear different things. If you ask 10 persons their opinion, you are going to get 10 different answers, very often conflicting. Kevin loves the sound of the guitar, but Jane hates it because she thinks it's too aggressive. On the other hand, they both agree that the vocals are great, while John thinks they lack energy, and they should calm down more before the guitar solo...

In the end, you will take the decisions, but other people's opinions will necessarily have some influence on you. The purpose of music is of course about enjoying it, but also about sharing it. So if you are the only one to like what you do, that's fine, but it's a bit frustrating. And you will undoubtfully appreciate that your friends, relatives or colleagues tell you how great they think your song is.

MESSAGES

Kain
le 04/12/2016 à 05h00

Hello ^^

Jette une oreille aux productions de Positive Grid. C'est payant, certes (mais souvent en promo), mais surtout... ça vaut le détour !

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Merci Kain, en effet les avis sur les simulations Bias de Positive Grid sont en général élogieux, mais je ne les ai jamais essayées, et je ne parle que des choses j'ai testées moi-même.
Pour ceux qui seraient curieux, les tests ne manquent pas sur le Net, n'hésitez pas à aller vous rendre compte par vous-mêmes !

Grebz

CamilleDeby
le 06/11/2016 à 16h43

Salut !
J'ai un problème qui vous semblera peut être totalement idiot si vous êtes connaisseur mais j'ai installé la version 5 de Traktion et j'aimerais y ajouter des plug-ins mais je ne trouve pas le dossier "vst". Est-ce à moi de le créer ? Merci 1000 fois !

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Bonjour Camille,

Merci de consulter mon site !

Je ne connais pas Traktion malheureusement, mais j’ai consulté le manuel de Traktion 4 sur Internet (je n’ai pas trouvé celui de la version 5, mais je ne pense pas que la gestion des VST ait changé d’une version à l’autre), et voici ce que j’y ai trouvé :
Les paramètres concernant les plug-ins tiers (ceux qui ne sont pas fournis avec le logiciel) peuvent être gérés depuis le groupe Plug-Ins de la page des paramètres (« settings » en anglais, si le logiciel est en anglais).
On y voit la liste de tous les plugins installés et des informations les concernant.
Sous la liste se trouve un bouton « Scanning and Sorting… » (recherche et tri, le manuel que j’ai trouvé est en anglais) qui permet de dire à Traktion de rechercher de nouveaux plug-ins ou des plug-ins mis à jour. En cliquant sur ce bouton, on a un menu avec différentes options :
- Clear list : cette option supprime tous les plug-ins de la liste. Ils ne sont pas désinstallés, mais Traktion les ignore si cette option est sélectionnée.
- Remove selected plug-ins from list : idem que ci-dessus, mais l’option ne supprime que les plug-ins sélectionnés dans la liste.
- Show folder containing selected plug-ins : cela permet de savoir dans quel dossier sont installés les plug-ins de la liste
- Remove any plug-ins whose files no longer exist : permet à Traktion de détecter et supprimer de la liste les plug-ins qui ont été désinstallés, ou dont le dossier d’installation a été supprimé
- Sort alphabetically / by category / by manufacturer : permet de trier les plug-ins par ordre alphabétique / par catégorie / par fabricant
- Scan for new or updated Audio Unit plug-ins : uniquement pour Mac. Demande à Traktion de rechercher les plug-ins Audio Unit installés pour les ajouter à la liste.
- Scan for new or updated VST plug-ins : Sélectionner cette option pour afficher une boîte de dialogue dans laquelle vous pouvez ajouter des dossiers de recherche VST. Normalement, il suffit de cliquer sur le bouton « Scan » pour rechercher des plugins, mais cette option permet de spécifier des dossiers personnalisés dans lesquels vous avez mis des plugins VST.

Donc, d’après cette dernière option, cela veut dire que tu peux créer tes propres dossiers VST à l’endroit de ton choix sur ton disque dur (ou l’un de tes disques durs si tu en as plusieurs), et utiliser cette option pour indiquer à Traktion l’emplacement de ces dossiers.

En-dessous du bouton « Scanning and Sorting… », tu as également un bouton « Always check for new plug-ins at start-up », qui indique à Traktion de toujours chercher si de nouveaux plug-ins ont été installés depuis la dernière utilisation de Traktion lorsque tu lances le logiciel. Si cette option n’est pas activée, il faudra faire un scan manuel lorsque tu installes un nouveau plug-in.

Voilà, j’espère que ça répond à ta question. Je ne peux pas t’en dire plus, étant donné que je n’ai jamais utilisé Traktion, mais si tu ne trouves pas le dossier VST de base de Traktion, tu peux effectivement créer ton dossier perso et indiquer ensuite à Traktion où il se trouve grâce à l’option « Scan for new or updated VST plug-ins ».

Grebz

Thetit
le 19/09/2016 à 17h04

Salut, j'ai besoin de conseils car je me mets à la MAO. J'ai une carte son Presonus fp10 et cubase sx sous Windows Vista 32 bits.
J'ai téléchargé les simulateurs d'ampli guitare et basse pour pouvoir composer. J'ai installé les dll dans le dossier vst dans programfiles/steinberg/cubase/vst (un truc comme ça ;) ). Quand je démarre cubase je vois bien les simulateurs et quand j'ajoute un effet, ils apparaissent bien... mais je n'ai pas le son qui va avec, en fait j'entends toujours la guitare sec sans l’émulation (mais le signal est bien saturé pour un ampli hi gain par exemple mais niveau son, nada). J'ai essayé de chercher sur le net mais je ne trouve pas de solutions. J'imagine que ça doit être une histoire de config/paramètres mais franchement j'ai cherché presque partout mais rien n'y fait :( Je suis perdu. Peut-être auras-tu une idée.
Merci à toi et super ton site !!!

John
le 16/05/2016 à 22h17

Have you been able to emulate the sound of the Shadows, is there a preset for it?

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Hey John,

I haven't tried, actually. From the videos I've found on YouTube, I can see they're using Vox amplifiers (unless it's just a background for the TV show they were playing in).
What song or sort of sound in particular are you thinking about?

Grebz

Molotov
le 10/05/2016 à 07h25

How can I load an FX preset in Emissary?

LISTENING

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