PERCEPTION of REVERB in MIXING was OT: Space

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Kevin wrote:
> I use headphone to play most times
> >and the resultant recordings always sound claustrophobic and way too 
> dense.


Why this happens is because we experience what recording engineers call 
"cross talk" when we are listening
to reverberation (or anything, really) in a stereo mix.

In other words,  your left ear hears a bit of the reverb from the right 
channel that crosses your face and
vice versa.    This amplifies the effect of reverbs a bit.

When you listen on headphones,  you get none of that 'cross talk' and 
consequently,  you do not get an
accurate understanding of what your recording sounds like.

For me a good rule of thumb is that I like to track with 
phones...........I like to solo instruments with phones to listen, 
carefully
to their 'timbre' in the mix and I especially like to check in on the 
volume of subsonic sounds using accurate professional
headphones that go down to the very bottom of human hearing (which many 
near and mid-field recording speakers don't do)
but I ALWAYS do final mixes with good near field monitors (which, 
wonderfully have become cheaper and cheaper for home
studio owners).        Personally,  I never use subwoofers in mixing 
because I find that most of them tend to over exaggerate
and, thus give an inaccurate picture of the saturation of the lowest 
frequencies.     A lot of dance producers would probably
highly disagree with me here, but I hear a ton of dance mixes in clubs 
that are very poorly mixed for the environment because the
club owners have no understanding of just how loud and deep their subs 
should be

Then, at the end of the process,  I try to find several diverse 
listening environments from good to bad home stereos to good to bad
boomboxes to good to bad car stereos.       After doing this a lot, I've 
learned to just know what a mix on my own near field monitors
will sound like on several systems and try to get a good cross section 
of mixes that will sound the best on the most systems.

Finally, at the end,  you can always play this game I learned from Brian 
Eno when  you think your mix is too dense and claustrophobic.
Take out a single element in the mix..........and then 
another........see how far you can go before it doesn't start sounding 
like music.
Then, and only then, do you gently add things back in , one by one.      
Most mud comes from overwriting, from my experience
working with pop bands as a producer.

Lastly be aware of Rhythmic, Timbral, Harmonic or Dynamic Masking in 
your arrangements.

Rick Walker