If you’re working in an untreated space, there are myriad acoustical issues that can distort what you hear and cause you to over- or under-compensate in ways that create problems when your mix is listened to elsewhere. Probably the most common reason that mixes don’t translate is the acoustics in your studio. There are many reasons why that can happen: It’s one thing to have to revise a mix because a client wants an artistic change, but it’s different-and can be awkward-if your mix doesn’t translate to speakers outside your studio. Then you take it somewhere else to listen, hit play, and suddenly think, “What? Did I bring the wrong file? It didn’t sound like this in my studio.” You may have had this happen: You work meticulously on a mix, and it’s sounding killer in your studio. Learn how to minimize the number of times you’ll export your mix: from studio acoustics to your mental game and more. If you don't find mixing in phones easier with it on, then I'll eat my shorts.Every mixer’s goal is to get to the final mix with maximum speed, without making too many rounds of revisions. With deep respect to Shoosh and Babz: try the head tracker. You still need to be able to return to zero of course, to have a fixed reference point for all this wandering, and that's why good full range transducers and familiarity with the room matters, and why the "sweet spot" exists. It's that integration of perceptions that make mixing in that environment more reliable in terms of other systems. When you are in a room w/speakers, you move, and those constant changes, even ones you perceive as subtle, allow you to build up an amalgamated impression of your mix that is actually the result of hearing it over time with vastly different frequency response curves. When plotted out, those changes are quite drastic. It's exactly the perceived changes in frequency response and phase when you move your head around that enables this. (Not stereo imaging fixed sims have that covered.) Translation to your car stereo, the boombox in the corner, etc. The "so what" is the part that the Waves ladies & gents are hypothesizing is the real answer to why good physical monitors in a good room make gauging translation of mixes to other systems easier. ( ) Can't move your head and hear a change. It, and plugs like it, can accurately place sound sources behind, above, beside you etc. WaveArts' Panorama plug is over 10 years old. Sure, you can't move your head virtually in relation to the surround speakers but, so what? You can't do that with virtual stereo monitoring either. There's no reason at all, for example, why fixed monitor sim plugs (where you can't move your head and hear any change) like CanOpener and Redline Monitor can't model surround: The sound will appear to come from behind you or hard left/right etc. For sure, NX is a neat way to mix in surround format when you have only headphones but if you take it as being primarily about that, then you risk missing most of what's special about this plug. I feel like there's a misunderstanding of this plugin that is exacerbated by Waves' abysmal ad campaign for it, which has consisted of a video "teaser" with bro clones flying around in a laundromat like some sort of slacker tinkerbells (seriously - if you haven't checked it out yet: don't!), and vague explanatory videos with no sound examples. As well, it shows how clever the people at Waves are. I suppose with surround, there is a tendency to move your head in the direction of a sudden sound happening behind you, so maybe there is a reason to emulate what you hear if you do that. What is the point of tracking head movement? I assume it does make a change to what you hear - otherwise why track it? If I could get it to sound pretty much like the real thing, I'd be happy with it, no matter what ELSE it can do! And I'm pretty sure it'll do that much for me. If I were to buy NX, I'd merely use it to set up a decent L/R mix such that I hear both speakers with both ears, as with real monitors. It's not going to change what you hear when you move your head, is it? If so, I didn't see that demo. Why would I want to model and reintroduce something I try to avoid? One of the appeals about mixing on headphones for me is I don't have to worry about moving off axis from the sweet spot for the speakers. I am used to staying in a certain spot when mixing. One of the biggest problems with mixing with speakers is that things sound different in different parts of the room. Babz wrote:I have Waves NX but don't see the appeal of the head-tracking part of it.
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