thadefendent
Addict
Joined: 24 Apr 2006
Posts: 59
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| Follow your Ears |
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So this isn't really off topic but...I hear alot of people saying follow your ears when creating music, whether making a beat, mixing, recording...etc. I am a firm believer in that concept just to be clear. But when beginners start out, they may not have the best equipment to work with. Poor quality speakers, headphones, mic...whatever it may be creating whatever genre of music those choose. My question is, how can you rely on your ears when your ears rely on lower quality equipment? I'm sure knowledge of concepts and learning how to manipulate sound helps, but its alot harder to trust your ears when you have a 100$ setup as apposed to a 10000$ setup. Comments are welcomed and much appreciated... |
Mon Jul 16, 2007 8:18 am |
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wailingalleycat
Forum Manager
Joined: 07 Oct 2003
Posts: 694
Location: Jersey C.I (UK) |
| Following your ears |
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Interesting comment,
you have a good point but you are forgetting that this isnt just about the mixdown, when you are recording its also important to use your ears, for example if you are recording an acoustic guitar, stick a finger in one ear and move your around, see where it sounds best and put your microphone there.
Also things like phase cancellation and related issues can still be heard even on a pair of iPod earbuds.
another thing that comes to mind is how alot of mastering engineers and those mastering themselves will purposely listen back to the recording on lower quality monitors, in the car, on a hi-fi etc. if you think that most low budget productions are just demos for friends or for publishing on myspace etc. how many times will a demo be handed to friend who goes home to play it on their 50,000 dollar Genelec monitors. its important to mix for your audience, who are generally listening on low quality equipment so i think the old adage of following your ears still applies.
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If In Doubt...Hit It With a Hammer, If Still In Doubt... Find a Bigger Hammer. |
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Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:45 pm |
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ben m
Joined: 15 Sep 2002
Posts: 337
Location: UK |
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ignoring room acoustics for the moment.....
yes you're correct that it may be harder to trust your ears when you are using cheaper, or more to the point less accurate, monitoring.
however, if you know your monitoring situation inside out then it really can be a case of trusting your ears - many people could create a better mix on a £200 set of speakers they've used for years and know inside out than using a £20,000 set of speakers they've never used before.
the 'trust your ears' mantra is also wheeled out regularly to prevent people relying too much on the visual aspects of engineering.
i'm sure at some point in our learning curve we've all hacked away at a sound with EQ inside a DAW, only to look at the EQ curve when the sound is suitable and think 'oh i can't do that, it
looks
too severe' and then make a arbitary reduction in gain, Q or whatever makes the EQ curve look more normal.
ultimately, regardless of the equipment, the most important tools we have as an engineer/musician/producer are our ears and if we can't trust our own ears then we essentially don't have faith in our tools. |
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Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:41 am |
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