Great place for mixing tips!

[Mark Kaufman]

I would like to congratulate all the posters on this thread. ProTools was first mentioned two days ago, and no one has yet said the words "industry standard". With so many wonderful programs at our disposal, it's funny how people still develop resentments and vendettas about a particular program.

[milfus]

well industry standard just means its the most commonly used in the industry, i dont see whats wrong with that

[andreh]

May 1, 2008, 12:10pm, milfus wrote:i can spend 5 minutes listening to pink noise, and then mic EVERYTHING in the right spotmilfus-This is an interesting technique. Is the pink noise meant to "clear your ears," perhaps the way a taste of bread might clear your palette between sips of fine (or crappy) wine?If so, why the preference for pink noise (which has a low-fequency bias) over white noise (which has equal power at all frequencies)? For that matter why not grey noise, which better reflects the ear's heightened mid-band perception?I feel an experiment coming to my studio soon...André

[wodinlord]

Yeah, What is with this pink noise thing. In my 30 years of recording, I have never a whisper re this technique. You have me curious. Are you not able to accomplish the same micing results without it? Do you play pink noise into the recording area walk around listen for the nodes and nulls or what? I do that with the actual instruments I am recording to find the best place for room micing, but what is your pink noise technique?Wodinlord

[milfus]

kind of, basicly you use the pink noise (white noise and grey noise can work for some elements too) and just listen to how the noise is affected, like the mic movement changing the freq and reflections in some cases, it is just a lot easier to clarify how you affect the sound with your changes if theres no actual notes or timbre to waste time indentifying, you can check reverbs and dynamics, set relative sound levels of diff elements and be sure to capture them, all sorts of stuff, the main concept is just using pink noise as a stand in, and always using pink noise as a stand in, that way you have a solid, consistant reference that you can make all your prep work off of, before the musicians come in and drool all over your console, in my experience, its easier to work for 5 minutes with a pink noise generator, than to actually make the musicians sound notes and what not, cause half the time the second you hit record, they are totally diff from the tests, and you just wasted like 20-30 minutes. Pink noise does have biases, but it also has consistancy, so if you listen to it, you can focus more on the grain and responses, it is kind of the aural equivalent of using a magnifying glass, and then putting what you wanna see under it, that way, the "tweak" phase, lasts about 15 seconds to adjust the average volume and add any coloration you want, because 95% of it is done allready

[wodinlord]

OK, I still want to understand the procedure. How are you listening to the noise. Listening through the mic, in the room, what.Wodinlord

[wodinlord]

I still think this is something you are making up. LOL just kidding.Wo

[kurtkreimier]

With all of this talk about pink noise I feel a "Golden Ears" training session coming up. Anybody here ever taken the "Golden Ears" training program? They have some exercises where they boost or lower certain frequencies within the pink noise and it is your task to identify the frequency range they have adjusted. It can be quite challenging at times, at least for me, especially when you get up into some of the higher ranges, 4Khz, 8Khz, 16Khz, etc.

[andreh]

Cool! Gonna give this a try...Thanks for sharing.AndréMay 2, 2008, 9:43pm, milfus wrote:kind of, basicly you use the pink noise (white noise and grey noise can work for some elements too) and just listen to how the noise is affected, like the mic movement changing the freq and reflections in some cases, it is just a lot easier to clarify how you affect the sound with your changes if theres no actual notes or timbre to waste time indentifying, you can check reverbs and dynamics, set relative sound levels of diff elements and be sure to capture them, all sorts of stuff, the main concept is just using pink noise as a stand in, and always using pink noise as a stand in, that way you have a solid, consistant reference that you can make all your prep work off of, before the musicians come in and drool all over your console, in my experience, its easier to work for 5 minutes with a pink noise generator, than to actually make the musicians sound notes and what not, cause half the time the second you hit record, they are totally diff from the tests, and you just wasted like 20-30 minutes. Pink noise does have biases, but it also has consistancy, so if you listen to it, you can focus more on the grain and responses, it is kind of the aural equivalent of using a magnifying glass, and then putting what you wanna see under it, that way, the "tweak" phase, lasts about 15 seconds to adjust the average volume and add any coloration you want, because 95% of it is done allready

[mazz]

Pink Noise is "A weighted", which means it's filtered to emulate the response of the human ear, as opposed to White Noise which, as Andre said, is all frequencies at equal amplitudes.I've heard of engineers cranking a guitar amp (without a guitar plugged in) to get some noise going and then move the mic around in front of the speaker while wearing headphones until the noise sounds right to them. That's where they put the mic.The pink noise trick is also mentioned in an amazing book called "Mixing with your mind" which I highly recommend. There's a website for it: http://www.mixingwithyourmind.com/ The guy is from Australia and you have to order it straight from him. It's expensive but totally worth it. There's some pretty "far out" ideas in there that make total sense when you really think about them.Enjoy!Mazz