Next-day blues

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Several times now, I've completed a mix or tracking session, and the
next day everything sounds completely different, and I notice flaws I
hadn't noticed before, whether sonic or performance. Some of this is
due to ear fatigue, or pure inattention, but I'm hearing it even on
short, simple sessions.

I'm sure I'm not the first to experience this. At home, I try to never
finalize a mix before sleeping on it, but at school, with rigidly
enforced studio schedules, that's not an option.

What tricks have people developed over the years to counter this?

--
Jay Levitt |
Wellesley, MA | Hi!
Faster: jay at jay dot eff-em | Where are we going?
http://www.jay.fm | Why am I in this handbasket?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Jay Levitt" <jay+news@jay.fm> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c88a14dd5b86d5e989893@news-east.giganews.com
> Several times now, I've completed a mix or tracking session, and the
> next day everything sounds completely different, and I notice flaws I
> hadn't noticed before, whether sonic or performance. Some of this is
> due to ear fatigue, or pure inattention, but I'm hearing it even on
> short, simple sessions.
>
> I'm sure I'm not the first to experience this. At home, I try to
> never finalize a mix before sleeping on it, but at school, with
> rigidly enforced studio schedules, that's not an option.
>
> What tricks have people developed over the years to counter this?

Don't do it all on one day.

And as the other poster said - don't be too hard on yourself. As the
creator, you're more aware of any flaws than virtually anybody else.

A little anecdote. My dad laid the bricks (and everything else) in our
house. He built it from scratch including digging the basement with a pick
and shovel, blue clay, hardpan and all.

One day he told me that he started laying the bricks at a certain point on
the house (smart man - he started in the back), and that the work there was
actually pretty poor. I'd lived in the house for about 14 years at the time
and never noticed. I went around and looked, and you know what, the
brickwork was a little worse there. I don't think anybody else ever
noticed - they looked at the whole house.

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In article <MPG.1c88a14dd5b86d5e989893@news-east.giganews.com> jay+news@jay.fm writes:

> Several times now, I've completed a mix or tracking session, and the
> next day everything sounds completely different, and I notice flaws I
> hadn't noticed before, whether sonic or performance.

> What tricks have people developed over the years to counter this?

Don't try to focus too closely on every little problem that you think
you hear. Listen to what's happening overall. So oftem when you work
on a mix one instrument at a time or one effect at a time you expose
things that don't matter and would be hidden if you hadn't perfected
something else that was already pretty darn good.

Spend an hour mixing a song. If you can't get close enough to go to
bed and like it the next day (but maybe hear a few things you'd like
to tweak) then you just don't have a good take. There's not much you
can do about that except do it again or start reconstructing it from
the shards.





--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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In article <MPG.1c88a14dd5b86d5e989893@news-east.giganews.com>,
Jay Levitt <jay+news@jay.fm> wrote:

> Several times now, I've completed a mix or tracking session, and the
> next day everything sounds completely different, and I notice flaws I
> hadn't noticed before, whether sonic or performance. Some of this is
> due to ear fatigue, or pure inattention, but I'm hearing it even on
> short, simple sessions.
>
> I'm sure I'm not the first to experience this. At home, I try to never
> finalize a mix before sleeping on it, but at school, with rigidly
> enforced studio schedules, that's not an option.
>
> What tricks have people developed over the years to counter this?


One thing I've discovered is leaving the room while the mix is playing and
listening from the hallway. The details are obscured and you get an overall
perspective on the mix. It's particularly revealing of the vocal level with
respect to the rest of the mix.

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x---------- http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jay/ ------------x

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Some very good advice in the thread here.

For me, I remember (and still listen to) all the music I grew up with. There were mistakes in alot
of that stuff. But it was the overall whole feel of the session or take that was more important than
note for note perfection. While there are people who strive for and accept nothing less, I find that
such a "demand" can oftentimes kill the soul of the song.

We are not machines and we should not strive to be machines. Sometimes a mistake is exactly what the
song needs.

When I produce sessions, I counsel the players to have fun and not forget what the whole point is:
to share their creations with the rest of the world. If a take has a mistake in it, but the overall
sound, performance and feel of the take is great, I might advise them to keep this take and move on
to the next song, then come in the next day and do an alternate take of the song with the mistake.
They have a chance to compare the two and hear for themselves the difference between a great take
and a "perfect" take, with no mistakes.

It's hard to make music "perfect". It is what we strive to do, but we must not lose sight of the
realities of the performance. What are you going to do in concert if you make a mistake? Stop and
start the song over again? No, you "gloss" over the mistake and keep going. Appreciative audiences
may or may not have heard the mistake.

Eric Johnson recorded Ah Via Musicom three times before he was satisfied. While it is technically a
fantastic album, there are elements of the album that are "dry" and lacking. And I'm sure Mr.
Johnson is still obsessing over a mistake or three he has heard since.

We do the best we know how and we live with the results because we have to move forward in our
progress as musicians and engineers or we will not grow. Growth is learning and in learning we will
make mistakes that cannot or should not be corrected. We don't learn if we do everything right.

--fletch



Jay Levitt wrote:
> Several times now, I've completed a mix or tracking session, and the
> next day everything sounds completely different, and I notice flaws I
> hadn't noticed before, whether sonic or performance. Some of this is
> due to ear fatigue, or pure inattention, but I'm hearing it even on
> short, simple sessions.
>
> I'm sure I'm not the first to experience this. At home, I try to never
> finalize a mix before sleeping on it, but at school, with rigidly
> enforced studio schedules, that's not an option.
>
> What tricks have people developed over the years to counter this?
>

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 07:25:31 -0800, Jay Kadis <jay@ccrma.stanford.edu>
wrote:

>In article <MPG.1c88a14dd5b86d5e989893@news-east.giganews.com>,
> Jay Levitt <jay+news@jay.fm> wrote:
>
>> Several times now, I've completed a mix or tracking session, and the
>> next day everything sounds completely different, and I notice flaws I
>> hadn't noticed before, whether sonic or performance. Some of this is
>> due to ear fatigue, or pure inattention, but I'm hearing it even on
>> short, simple sessions.
>>
>> I'm sure I'm not the first to experience this. At home, I try to never
>> finalize a mix before sleeping on it, but at school, with rigidly
>> enforced studio schedules, that's not an option.
>>
>> What tricks have people developed over the years to counter this?
>
>
>One thing I've discovered is leaving the room while the mix is playing and
>listening from the hallway. The details are obscured and you get an overall
>perspective on the mix. It's particularly revealing of the vocal level with
>respect to the rest of the mix.

Yeah I like the down-the-hall perspective too. Also listening at a
really quiet volume.

Al

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Neil Rutman" <neilrutman@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:aMydnWW5IcoZ7oLfRVn-sA@speakeasy.net
> I think another important issue is managing how loud you listen. Keep
> it al low as possible until you need to bring it up to get that
> perspective, but remeber to bring it low again. Alot of what a mixer
> does can be done at low volumes and delay the inevitable ear fatigue
> that can contribute to the next day blues.

Agreed.

It is a simple fact that the normal ear's ability to hear small differences
goes down hill when the levels go above 75-85 dB. I found this out the hard
way doing DBTs involving known but small audible differences.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <psBTd.56690$wc.52693@trnddc07>, "David Morgan \(MAMS\)"
<mams@NOSPAm-a-m-s.com> says...
> Don't second guess yourself too much. Go for what feels right at the
> moment and remember... even on the most time consuming and well
> rehearsed mix, there will always remain a list of, "should have...," "could
> have...," and "why didn't I..." things that will come to the minds of the
> best mixers.

Thanks for all the tips, everyone. I probably shouldn't have mentioned
performance issues in the same breath.

What spurred this was a mix I produced last Sunday morning. We had the
studio booked for two hours, but left after about 90 minutes because we
felt we couldn't significantly improve on it - certainly not long enough
for ear fatigue. It was a simple rock tune - two guitars, bass, drums,
and lead vocal, and it sounded good.

Brought it to class the next morning, and it was just awful. The vocal
was way, way too loud, almost ear-splitting at times, the guitars too
low, the guitar tone too mellow. These aren't little "I wish I'd.."
things, they're "my God, how did we call that good?" things, and they're
on similar monitors (Tannoy System 12 vs 15). The mix engineer and I
just looked at each other in puzzlement. And this isn't the first time
it's happened to me... it's the audio equivalent of beer goggles, but I
don't drink!

Anyone else have that happen? Share your war stories...

--
Jay Levitt |
Wellesley, MA | I feel calm. I feel ready. I can only
Faster: jay at jay dot fm | conclude that's because I don't have a
http://www.jay.fm | full grasp of the situation. - Mark Adler

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Jay Levitt wrote:
> Several times now, I've completed a mix or tracking session, and the
> next day everything sounds completely different, and I notice flaws I

> hadn't noticed before, whether sonic or performance. Some of this is

> due to ear fatigue, or pure inattention, but I'm hearing it even on
> short, simple sessions.
>
> I'm sure I'm not the first to experience this. At home, I try to
never
> finalize a mix before sleeping on it, but at school, with rigidly
> enforced studio schedules, that's not an option.
>
> What tricks have people developed over the years to counter this?
>
> --
> Jay Levitt |
> Wellesley, MA | Hi!
> Faster: jay at jay dot eff-em | Where are we going?
> http://www.jay.fm | Why am I in this handbasket?


It sounds like a monitoring problem, maybe too loud, maybe too soft.
There will always be some differneces when you listen in different
enviorments. IS the class in the same studio that you mix in?

There's a different type of monitoring problem, that has to do with
listening. I'm going to oversimplfy, to make it easier to get the idea
across. Listening as a producer is different than listening as and
engineer. I deally everyone is listening both way, but listening as a
producer is about artistic content and listening as an engineer is
about sonics.

I both producae and engineer and have found that as much as possible, I
prefer to do my producer listening away from the console and even
outside the studio (like home, not hallway). It's so easy to get
distracted by the addiction fo the persuit of good sonics.

So while what you're talking about could have a purely technical cause,
what you're complaining about is an artistic complaint. Maybe involve
an objective set of ears when you feel like you are 80-90% done. Or
work for 60 minutes, leave teh studio for 15-20 to regain some
perspecitve and then tweak.

Once you hit the micro listening instead of the macro listening, it get
be really hard to get back your perspective.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"martin griffith" <martingriffithX@Xyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:88e121df1d2vp3l8l7ffk9m2kv69dk397a@4ax.com
> On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 06:27:37 -0500, in rec.audio.pro "Arny Krueger"
> <arnyk@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
>> "Neil Rutman" <neilrutman@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>> news:aMydnWW5IcoZ7oLfRVn-sA@speakeasy.net
>>> I think another important issue is managing how loud you listen.
>>> Keep it al low as possible until you need to bring it up to get that
>>> perspective, but remeber to bring it low again. Alot of what a mixer
>>> does can be done at low volumes and delay the inevitable ear fatigue
>>> that can contribute to the next day blues.
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> It is a simple fact that the normal ear's ability to hear small
>> differences goes down hill when the levels go above 75-85 dB. I
>> found this out the hard way doing DBTs involving known but small
>> audible differences.
>>
> probably a bit OT, but how does this apply to mixing Dolby 5.1 stuff.
> Dolby insist that you line up monitors to 85dB.

85 dB peak levels (if that's what Dolby means) aren't that far outside the
fact that the normal ear's ability to hear small differences goes down hill
when the levels go above 75-85 dB. Most of the times the levels would be
well below 85 dB and there just isn't any problem.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <T4MUd.45436$EL5.21765@trnddc05>, "David Morgan \(MAMS\)"
<mams@NOSPAm-a-m-s.com> says...
> Caffeine.... now that's a life saver! I have a western swing record (not
> odd for me) out on Western Jubilee that won a "Wrangler" award just
> weeks after it's release. In the liner notes, the artist acknowledges the
> amount of coffee we put into his record. ;-) Mmmmm, sweet Java.

Then allow me to recommend www.theroastedbean.com... free shipping,
great roasts, and cheaper than the beans at my Whole Foods.

--
Jay Levitt |
Wellesley, MA | I feel calm. I feel ready. I can only
Faster: jay at jay dot fm | conclude that's because I don't have a
http://www.jay.fm | full grasp of the situation. - Mark Adler

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Lorin David Schultz" <Lorin@DAMNSPAM!v5v.ca> wrote in message news:NYOUd.21782$_G.2693@clgrps12...
> Jay, I think I just figured out what caused your "next day" problem: you
> forgot to leave time to "break in" the mix before using it. You have to
> let it run for 24 hours before listening to it.


I think you're on to something here.... maybe Jay should also check
the directional arrows on his speaker cables. A student might be
playing a practical joke on him and the mix is really great - just some
confused electrons because his cables have been reversed.

DM

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

More than one monitor source, even if it's going between speakers and
headphones.

Finding a corelation of your rough mix to a decent car stereo or home
audio system (taking it out of the studio) for another reference.
Especially in regards to the amount of bass and low end can sometimes
end up there.

Using multi band frequency analyzer on stereo mix like in wavelab or
other mastering prg. can sometimes point quickly to
overloaded/underloaded problem areas.

Good points about mixing too loud and ear fatigue, but I will usually
treat myself to an loud mix last time around. db