Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
THE BIG VARIABLE: Ear Fatigue
Yes, the ugly little secret. It sounds great, it sounds bad. You can hear stuff in the night, it's gone in the morning. You can't hear the mix right at 3 AM and you realize it at noon. Things can sound great to me when I have spent four hours straight putting it together. Yet the next day I hear what's missing, what part isn't clear, what has the wrong EQ and on and on.
How do you deal with the subjective objective of getting things to sound right even though your ears seem to hear things differently from hour to hour? Why does this happen and is it always the same? Or do your ears just have a life of their own and are often unpredictable? Can you learn what your ears do over time and compensate for it? I know there are a lot of experienced ears out there. How do you do it? I am all ears!
Comments
I take breaks and listen to other music. Ears don't have a life of their own but listening to the same mix over and over is never a good idea. Watch how a pro does a mix (there are plenty on youtube.)
I usually like to do my initial balance loud then fine tune at lower levels. Never with headphones, not good for your mental health.
With all those years playing loud tenor sax and also in amplified bands, I’ve got a little hyperacousia on right ear. When really tired, I need to put an ear plug to protect it. But the more I play and the more I do some music creation the less I’ve got symptoms. I also use smooth sounding big cans with not aggressive highs, that helps me and I know them perfectly and know how to mix with them. It’s nice to test your mix on several speakers, headphones, in the car, even on iPad speakers, it should sounds good on everything. About mixing during long hours, I think 2 or 3 hours is maximum for me to keep objectivity. It can be good to finish a mix and wait for next day to validate it or not. With experience, I think you will trust your ears more, and will know their performance curve. While beginning a session, or in the morning, ears are cold and are don’t necesseraly gives best perception. When too tired, everything can be aggressive for example, or inversely you will have less accurate judgment because everything will sounds too much smooth. Best way to know if you’re at right moment, is that sound should gives real physical pleasure.
First always hold your ears clean, then make breaks and if you mainly use headphones like i do.....use good ones which can makes a huge different about ear fatigue.
Good headphones also are not just about specs but physical fit. I now stick with a cheaper pair that fits so much better than another pair I have that is twice the price and has better specs. I can wear my current pair all day with complete comfort. It makes a big difference for me in terms of audio objectivity.
With electronic music, playing a looped section for an extended period is the norm, and takes no effort, so ear fatigue is easy to do. One thing I started trying to do, is stop the loop when I'm not actively listening or adjusting something by ear, avoid spacing out and letting the loop go on and on...
HUMOR FONT ON
Stop caring so much about quality of sound. Be like Stephen King... just keep typing.
HUMOR FONT OFF
I think your night time sessions help get the music out of you. An you've been doing that and a tremendous pace.
No interruptions and you get into a creative flow. Turning off your critic.
The agony of perfecting a great mix is another stage of the process and probably just a matter of step-wise refinement and patience. MIDI tracks can help you change a note or fix timing issues for example.
Personally, I'm not going to worry about perfection and assume there's no audience. It's just for me and a few of you here and totally disposable. More like sketching than publishing. I will have more fun that way.
I do get the "ear fatique" idea. I have bought products because they sounded amazing and later realized they sound artificial and in fact... a bit annoying. Usually after the return period for a $1000-2000 keyboard. I re-gift them to cash poor artists I would like to "patronize" (in the best sense of that word). Many have gone on to be musicians or significance because they have talent, discipline and drive. Discipline and drive are actually more important.
But being a hack is still a ton of fun.
I agree with most already mentioned, in particular @Janosax 's point of self-observation to get an idea of your individual performance.
Myself working best on spontanous listening (first 2runs), even in the morning and fatigue comes extremely fast.
I'm sensitive to weather change (air pressure) and often notice some improvement after extended runs in the woods (with ears free, can't stand earplugs outdoor).
My reference cans are AKG K501, used on everything for decades - can't judge a mix without them and they are also the most convenient to wear for me.
Also, our age is important. Younger I was able to listen and make music for hours everyday. Now aged 42, I can’t listen to music more than 2 hours, and strangely can produce music for the double of this duration. After a big sax session, I often avoid producing, or at least wait for a few hours. As others said, good cans which fits you perfectly are really essential. I use smooth sounding low cost Superlux HD681EVO which despite their price are best cans I ever had for me, and they respect my ears tolerance. I use them for everything: sax monitoring, production, mixing, listening... I also have Shure SE215 closed IEM and use them only in specific situations like when I use pitching effects on my sax and needs some isolation of my acoustic sound. But I can’t use those ones more than one hour, or I feel some pain in right ear.
I work on music pretty quiet most of the time, and take lots of breaks to avoid ear fatigue. I find that getting outside for a bit on my breaks helps a lot, takes room acoustics out of the picture and often helps me to "reset" my hearing better than just going and watching TV or something.
i don't have to deal with it so much anymore since i rarely get more than an hour or so at a time with music, it's always grabbing what time i can and progressing. also, for better or for worse, i usually go with my gut and don't stress over stuff like i used to. that might mean i am better and have better instincts, or my expectations have lowered and i'm lazy.
THIS! @Max23
after a few hours I think ha, this is brilliant
then I go to bed and when I listen to it the next morning I think what kind of crap is this,
what the hell was I thinking?