Life is music, but your life shouldn't be music.

It becomes an addiction at that point, and some times what you really need to be when being creative is silence.

If you're a teenager, your brain wants to chase the high more so than an adult because it feel so much better to you as a teenager due to an over active "rewards system".

I was like you man, but honestly you should listen to your parents. You really have to have an environment that allows you to do that entirely, and more often than not, these professionals have made sacrifices to be able to do what they do as a career.

I am majoring in mechanical engineering, and that brings me closer to building my own studio with the work that i will do when i graduate.

You can't give water to some one if your cup is empty.

I do a large amount of shaping of my sound prior to actually touching my mixer channel eq. This is because i separate the ideas from creating and mixing mode. It helps to keep that in perspective so i remained focused on a certain mindset. Now, that shouldn't be concrete, because as soon as you start adding samples or start playing a synth noise, is when you start mixing. Your input signal is probably more important than any thing you can do with an eq.

So, these two philosophies are really just one thing. Except for when you start applying eq that's last in the chain (my mixer channel eq), then, that's when you are starting the "final mixing" stage or what have you.

Often times, i'll find myself thinking of new layers when i enter that final mixing stage and i'll add them in and see if it works out. But basically i've crossed over into final mix when ever i feel to have enough musical material to have it be a song. So then the final mix becomes just the "finalization" phase as you iron out structure, Musical ideas, and mixing. If you have a powerful enough pc, you should be able to keep things as midi up until you actually render out your track for mastering.

Thanks! So would there be a noticeable difference between 5in and 6in for example? (considering most producers here will be working in bedrooms?)

Slightly, if your ears aren't trained to hear minor differences, then you wouldn't pick up on it. But depending on brand and curve they have it could make a difference.


I bought my 8's (yamaha hs8's) so that i wouldn't have to buy a sub, and i'd still have great play back system as i upgrade (plus a sub works better in a larger or dedicated room). The 8's give me a great range, and the clarity i needed to make decisions. like those yamaha's are like this: something will continue to bother you until you fix it.

Noisia said in an interview once: even though you may not entirely hear it, it is still there.

It gives out the quality and little extra spice in your mix. But you have to have a good play back system in order to get it tucked in just right.

That happens to me a few times in the past, and now it's becoming more common as i do more volume automation and consider it.

There's nothing wrong with changing it's balance in the mix as the song evolves. I would even suggest rendering out a few clips of that sound and depending on how it fits in the mix, should have different settings.

The point is this, you have to make things fit and work. You gotta solve the problem as a sound engineer.
There's several ways to skin a cat, but this concept you're asking about is the beginning of the infinite nature of many concepts that lead to true self expression. It's way past the basics and fundamentals. Which is probably why it's not common.

Basically, make it sound good at the problem areas because it's part of the mix. It may require duplication, rendering, volume automation/settings, eq automation/settings, or not even have it in that spot.

I asked my music teacher about this sort of question, and he basically said "That's up to you man, it's taste." He couldn't give me any more "technical" advice because that's where your problem solving skills and taste as a producer/engineer start. That's where the real fun begins.

I think when people say all sounds need a "space" in the mix, it's usually referring to the frequency spectrum, not the stereo field. width is also important, but it's more important to not have too many elements overlapping in the same frequency range, especially the low-end.

You need actual physical space as well as a place to occupy, in order to have your sounds to take up space and not be crowded.

I do not agree with your bias, but i will say that both are incredibly important if you want to achieve a balance in your mix, other wise you'd literally be having to many things on top of each other but still occupy the same space.

think of it as a box  where people are standing on top of each other. Different frequency ranges, but nothing is being panned because you stacked em up like jenga blocks. This applies even if the dimension are capable to having people more spread out, which you do and that's called panning.

It's a combination of three things which are: frequency, panning (or physical space), and volume (how pronounced you are at filling up your physical and frequency space)

Not to mention width control, which roughly falls into panning and physical occupation of space.

If you get speakers that can replicate the sub sound, with a treated room, and headphones with good bass response (or any other tool to help  you feel ie sub pac) you can get a good understanding of where the sub lies.

I spoke with Crizzly, who happens to be an old high school friend, a few months ago and i asked him about the same thing. He said that he ended up just mixing with out a sub most of the time because of how much of the replication he gets out of it. It's a little over bearing at times, but a good indicator of the feeling.

I also read up on a few articles about how having one sub bass in your room can actually make things worse if you're not careful about how the room is treated. this is due to some phase issues i believe. One way to eliminate this by having two sub woofers on either corner of your room (if square) to eliminate the issues that a a single woofer may cause.

Another tip i read waaaaaaay back when i first started, comes from a sub focus tutorial i think. He said, you can get a good indication of feeling by putting your hand over the woofer of the speaker and just feeling the sub. I use this technique a few times on my yamaha hs8's.

Now, i have my mixes go through the round table of my production circle to see if i missed any thing. typically they don't have any thing to say negative about my mixes, which is good and bad lol. But the point is, you don't really need a sub, and in fact getting one with out proper calibration could just make it more of a pain than what it's about.