A clear, intelligible, and engaging audio mix is perhaps the most important part of any recorded content. During the pandemic, church techs, including filmmakers as well as FOH and monitor engineers, are finding themselves mixing for live streams, recorded services, and other post-produced content. With that said, it should not be assumed that producing high quality audio mixes for pre-recorded content or streaming media is necessarily an automatic transition for those who lack experience in doing so, even if they are quite experienced at mixing for live venues. One of the biggest hurdles to producing effective audio mixes for recorded content deals with the issue of translation--ensuring that our mixes translate well to the variety of playback systems and devices that our consumers will use.
When you are mixing audio for later use or for distribution, you are effectively mixing in the blind for any given listening environment.
When an FOH engineer produces a mix, they are doing so from within the environment where the mix is consumed. This allows them to take into account things such as the tonality of their PA, reverberation times, and any acoustic anomalies within the room itself. However, when we mix for pre-recorded or broadcast content, the end product will be received in a variety of environments via a wide-ranging set of playback devices. For example, message bumpers and announcements will need to play well in your main space with its full range PA while at the same time playing well on someone’s laptop when watching from home. While the concept of translation makes sense, it’s not always easy to get right. One of the largest and most obvious issues is the frequency response and relative efficiencies of playback systems. An obvious example of this is that a full range home entertainment system with subwoofer will reproduce your audio mix quite differently than your phone. Another area of complexity is that the tonality of systems varies greatly, even when those systems have similar frequency responses. Some systems impart a brightness while others will make things sound warmer. And while these differences are many times considered to be personal preference for the consumer, they can make life difficult for the mix engineer.
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Another large issue is that everyone’s listening environments are different, and most all of them have deficiencies--some of them severe. These can come in the form of frequency build ups or drop outs (including their associated harmonics) or poor reverberation times. In a traditional live environment this is mitigated by having the mix engineer sitting within the space and compensating for it in real time. When you are mixing audio for later use or for distribution, you are effectively mixing in the blind for any given listening environment. So what can we do to give our mixes the best possible chance of sounding great during playback? Here are a few considerations to help make sure your audio mixes translate across a wide range of listening devices.
Environment
Many people think that the most important part of mix environment is the monitoring system. In reality, the most important part of this equation is the room. Consider this: every sound your monitors produce is affected by the acoustics of your mix environment. Creating an audio mix in an acoustically colored environment will produce a result that sounds out of balance in another environment.
Monitors
There are many different approaches and there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the perfect monitoring system. However, it’s unlikely we can do a great job of mixing for full-range playback systems using only a tiny pair of earbuds or small mid-range monitors. If you are referencing solely through a set of small monitors, for instance, it can become pretty difficult to know what’s going on in the lower frequencies, especially when working with modern music with synth-generated bass lines, etc. A better approach, especially if you are somewhat new to this, is to center your monitoring system around a full-range capability using monitors with 8-inch or 10-inch drivers, and then using small monitors such as 5-inch mix cubes or similar to spot check your mixes for smaller playback systems. Small and mid-range monitors can be very valuable tools for getting brutal honesty on the middle frequencies of a mix, but they should likely be considered as an adjunct to larger main monitors.
What sounds like the perfect amount of reverb while listening on headphones may,in reality, get lost in the mix when listening on monitors.
Headphones
What about mixing with headphones? Mixing with headphones is a viable alternative, if not a somewhat more difficult one to get accustomed to. Headphones can be deceptive because they provide perfect stereo separation that doesn’t actually occur in real life. When mixing this way, you should keep in mind that the dexterity you have in panning will not be as distinct when listening without headphones. In addition, I have found that headphones tend to be more forgiving of issues related to level balance. Factor in that what sounds like the perfect amount of reverb while listening on headphones may, in reality, get lost in the mix when listening on monitors.
Likewise, vocal levels may be perfectly fine while listening on headphones but be slightly out of place when played back on monitors or PA systems. Lastly, some headphones are really good at low frequency generation and can be more flattering of your mix than is appropriate. From this perspective, I find it most effective to mix on monitors and, again, spot check with cans (headphones).
Stereo & mono
While on the topic of monitoring, remember that what sounds great in stereo may be affected by comb filtering and other phase issues when combining the left and right sides into a single signal. This is especially important for the church community, where many of our PA systems are still set up in mono configurations. It can be very frustrating to put together a solid stereo mix for video, only to play it as a service bumper and have it sounding lifeless and full of artifacts because the auditorium PA is mono and we didn’t think to check that out beforehand.
Don’t expect the mix to sound exactly the same everywhere.
While there are a number of different variables that come together to affect how a mix translates for our target audience, they are all manageable with patience, practice, and by approaching our work in a methodical manner. Don’t expect the mix to sound exactly the same everywhere. But what we want is for the character and clarity of the mix to be preserved across the systems. It can be hard to calibrate your expectations here, but the more that you do it, the better you will get. And when in doubt, ask someone you trust to take a listen. There is no shame in getting a second opinion on a mix, especially if you have been working on a project for a while and have lost your perspective. Remember the end goal: better learn our craft, better learn our mix environments, and better trust our own mix judgment.
