To crossfeed or not to crossfeed? That is the question...

[akmal2789412237682]

As someone who only mixes and masters with Headphones and, especially, IEM, I do not cross feed.

It can mask mistakes you don't notice, but people who listen without cross feed will

ok, maybe just mixing

 

[bigshot]

The problem is the way that the bass responds to increased volume levels.

There are other problems too. I once worked on a project with a very low budget that required that they use a borderline amateur editor and mixer, not my regular sound house. The editor accidentally cut the music in at inverse phase left/right. The sound mixer worked for hours to do a first pass of the mix before the director came in using headphones. The director arrived and he switched to speakers and it was a dog’s breakfast. They kept trying to boost music levels and they were having a hard time getting the peaks right. The director stopped the mix and asked for a copy to take home and hear on his own TV. He discovered that if he engaged the TV’s fake stereo, the cancellation was eliminated and the volume of the music exploded. He called me and I grabbed the pro tools session from the fly by night sound house and took it to my regular mixer. He immediately spotted the problem. The budget was depleted, so I had to get him to put a bandaid on the mess and it went to air like that. You don’t save money working with amateurs.

 

[71 dB]

The problem is the way that the bass responds to increased volume levels.

Our ears respond to the bass differently with headphones and speakers and also the volume level.

There are other problems too. I once worked on a project with a very low budget that required that they use a borderline amateur editor and mixer, not my regular sound house. The editor accidentally cut the music in at inverse phase left/right. The sound mixer worked for hours to do a first pass of the mix before the director came in using headphones. The director arrived and he switched to speakers and it was a dog’s breakfast. They kept trying to boost music levels and they were having a hard time getting the peaks right. The director stopped the mix and asked for a copy to take home and hear on his own TV. He discovered that if he engaged the TV’s fake stereo, the cancellation was eliminated and the volume of the music exploded. He called me and I grabbed the pro tools session from the fly by night sound house and took it to my regular mixer. He immediately spotted the problem. The budget was depleted, so I had to get him to put a bandaid on the mess and it went to air like that. You don’t save money working with amateurs.

Even amateur editors should know better than have the audio channels out of phase! Out of phase problems should be extremely easy to notice with headphones since out of phase stuff sounds EXTREMELY funky on headphones. If you want to save money working with amateurs, find a competent amateur!

 

[Vamp898]

Our ears respond to the bass differently with headphones and speakers and also the volume level.


Even amateur editors should know better than have the audio channels out of phase! Out of phase problems should be extremely easy to notice with headphones since out of phase stuff sounds EXTREMELY funky on headphones. If you want to save money working with amateurs, find a competent amateur!

Its hard to find competent amateur as they don't stay amateurs for long

 

[71 dB]

Its hard to find competent amateur as they don't stay amateurs for long

That's why you have to find them while they are amateurs and every professional has been an amateur at some point. Then there are people (e.g. autistic people) who lack the skills to become professionals and stay amateurs forever.

 

[bigshot]

Out of phase problems should be extremely easy to notice with headphones since out of phase stuff sounds EXTREMELY funky on headphones.

It was a mono track split to stereo and one side out of phase to the other. With headphones it sounded ok because each channel was isolated and had no chance to cancel. But when it was played back on speakers it didn’t matter how much volume you boosted it to, it cancelled out and sounded roughly the same. The meters showed that the sound was loud, but it didn’t sound loud.

 

[Ryokan]

It was a mono track split to stereo

If done correctly how does that sound compared with a stereo recording?

 

[71 dB]

It was a mono track split to stereo and one side out of phase to the other. With headphones it sounded ok because each channel was isolated and had no chance to cancel. But when it was played back on speakers it didn’t matter how much volume you boosted it to, it cancelled out and sounded roughly the same. The meters showed that the sound was loud, but it didn’t sound loud.

You are correct about the canceling, that's how it goes, but mono sound fed out of phase to headphone causes very nasty sound because the extreme channel difference. Spatial hearing analyses (in its own way) the sum and difference of left and right ear. In this case the sum is zero and the difference is twice the amplitude of the other ear! Natural spatiality doesn't have such overall characteristics, not even close! The result is sound that is VERY unnatural, something even amateur mixers should recognise immediately! How can you mix at all if you struggle with things like this?

Out of phase stereo sound can be more difficult to detect on headphones, especially if the stereo sound is very wide. The width doesn't change much when one channel is flipped.

 

[71 dB]

If done correctly how does that sound compared with a stereo recording?

That is a crazy question. Mono sound is mono sound. If you use stereo tracks, you copy the mono signal to both left and right channels without any out-of-phase lunacy. That's it. If you want to try something fancy, you can try "diffuse mono" where there is tiny random between differences left and right channel. Diffuse mono sound doesn't have real spatial information, but it can sound "more alive" on headphones as pure mono sound feels death on headphones. On speakers mono sound (for example sound from center speaker in a multichannel set-up) isn't as dead, because room acoustics generate some spatial cues.

 

[bigshot]

If done correctly how does that sound compared with a stereo recording?

It’s mono, so it sounds mono. The editor couldn’t tell it was out of phase because the headphones isolated the channels from each other.

 

[71 dB]

It’s mono, so it sounds mono. The editor couldn’t tell it was out of phase because the headphones isolated the channels from each other.

Jesus! We have spatial hearing and a lot of it is based on phase differences between ears! The signals do not mix together acoustically, but the do "mix" together in our brain!

Have you never experienced the difference of in phase and out of phase sound on headphones? The difference in HUGE!! If you can't notice a difference that massive, how can you mix music which requires the ability to notice tiny things?

 

[bigshot]

It’s mono. It is different than stereo out of phase. Do a quick test and you’ll see.

 

[Ryokan]

I can understand splitting a stereo track to 2 mono tracks but not how you would get stereo from two mono, it would be a crude stereo and not a proper one?

 

[71 dB]

It’s mono. It is different than stereo out of phase. Do a quick test and you’ll see.

Mono can be out of phase just as stereo if you use two channels to carry it. You yourself told how in you "amateur mixer" story! My contribution to your story was to point out that out of phase mono isn't a problem only with speakers. It is a massive problem also with headphones and even amateur mixers should notice it!

I can understand splitting a stereo track to 2 mono tracks but not how you would get stereo from two mono, it would be a crude stereo and not a proper one?

If you split a stereo track into two mono tracks (in a DAW for example), you have to pan the other one to the left and the other one to the right. If they are panned to the center, you have two mono tracks that get mixed to a mono track containing both (in an ugly way I might add! Cancelations and what not!). That's also how you get stereo from two mono tracks. Of course the two mono tracks have to make sense with each other to combine into a stereo track that makes sense, so 2 random mono tracks having nothing to do with each other do not form a stereo track that makes sense.

 

[bigshot]

It was a mono track that got transferred to a stereo digital file with one channel inverted. The only way to hear that it had been reversed on one side was to sum the tracks. If you listened to each of them separately, or put one in each ear with no spill between channels, it sounded fine. Try making a file like this from a mono track. You’ll see how it works. It’s a very nasty problem when it gets mixed in with a bunch of other tracks. In this case, it was music that had been mixed in with dialogue and sound effects. It was impossible to balance the level of the music to the dial and fx because the louder it got, the more it cancelled. The VU meters showed a high level, but it didn’t sound loud. And on closed headphones you didn’t notice any problem.