A question to the Sound Engineers out there


I really enjoy the way in which, some sound engineers have the ability to create tracks that sounds like the recording took place in a much larger physical venue outside of a studio

But based on the pictures I have seen of some studios, i.e. with the large mixing desk in front of a large pane of glass - it hardly looks to be an ideal listening environment.

So I was wondering...

- do Sound engineers listen to the finished master on a TOTL hi-fi system having a more "normal configuration" i.e. like many of us have in our houses, to ensure their end product will sound  just as they want it?

- or is the studio a near field listening environment, which is actually better for the purpose of creating a grander sounding master?

- or are the speakers not really for mixing purposes because the sound engineer relies solely on headphones to create the final product mix?

Just curious - Cheers - Steve



williewonka
I had a home studio and recorded bands in the Portland, Oregon area for about 10 years from the mid 90's. I was a one stop shop - I did the recording, mixing, and mastering. Here are a few observations from my own experience.

Most well known mastering engineers have a high quality stereo setup that is equal or better than what most audiophiles have. This rarely exists in the recording studio. I was lucky to have a nice system to help fine tune my mastering but the mixing was done on a traditional setup with bookshelf studio monitors at ear level.

A good mastering engineer will listen to their work on a home style audiophile system, car stereo, and headphones. I can testify that it is really important to listen to the final product on a variety of playback devices - mostly to get the bass right. But it's also important to check your work on a cheap pair of earbuds.

It is my opinion that there is a level of detail that recording engineers generally don't hear if they aren't doing the mastering and checking their master on a high quality system. Their monitoring equipment just isn't good enough to resolve the last layer of detail.

The effect that leads to the perception of a big recording space is more often delay, not reverb. With the advent of digital recording and digital effect plugins the delay effect has been largely perfected with a variety of adjustable parameters and is an integral part of the sound of modern recordings.
You mean pre-delay right? ... an integral variable in modern digital reverb.
@8th-note - Many thanks for your post, that has cleared up a lot of the "unknowns" that had resulted in seeing the images of the recording studio.

The biggest of which was basically...
How could the sound engineers possibly know what the finished track would sound like on an exceptional system when they are basically in such a small listening environment with what appeared to be less that optimal speakers
Cheers - Steve


Digital delay has been used for decades to simulate plate or spring or simply room reverb to great effect (no pun intended). Note that James Taylor used a metal shipping container at his elaborate home studio in MA to provide an actual acoustic reverb tank containing well placed microphones...if you can't afford that just rent a dumpster for perhaps "fragrant" reverberation.