Ask the Engineer is a new series here on the Masterdisk blog where our guys answer questions about music production. Send us your questions at ask@masterdisk.com. We won’t be able to answer all of them but we will definitely get to some of them. If you have a specific engineer you want to pose the question to, let us know that too.
Our first “Ask the Engineer” question went to Tim Boyce. This time we had a question for Randy Merrill.
Q: In your experience, what is the most common mix or recording issue you’ve seen in jazz projects?
A: Upright bass. It’s absolutely the hardest instrument to capture with any sort of even-ness in tone. It’s an enormous instrument. There’s always some range of the upright bass that’s louder than other parts. Unfortunately, the problem is usually in the lower register of the instrument, so unless the people who are mixing have a really great monitoring environment where they can hear the low end of their mixes clearly, they mix the low end entirely too hot or don’t get the low end of the instrument entirely dialed in. This can range in severity from really bad to not that noticeable. But it’s mostly due to the listening environment of the mixer.
Q: So how can that problem be avoided?
A: Try to reference your mixes on a system with a really full bass response. If you have a set of speakers in your car with a nice deep bottom end, you can bring the mix there and it will usually tell you what’s going on in the lower register — as opposed to small studio monitors. Or if you have access to large studio monitors, that’s ideal. But those are definitely not the norm these days in smaller studios where there’s just not enough space. Anyway, for those who don’t have that, and who have a decent car system, definitely reference on those for some insight onto what’s going on with the bottom end.
Your mastering engineer should be monitoring on full range monitors so that he or she will hear these problems. Sometimes a simple EQ in mastering fixes the problem. Other times the EQ to fix the bass causes another element of the mix to lose focus. Sometimes the best answer is a simple recall mix with an EQ on the bass instrument to control those ultra-low frequencies. The end result we want is a mastered mix that is balanced with power and definition.
Mastering engineer Randy Merrill’s specialties include jazz, pop, indie rock, singer-songwriter, experimental and more. His recent clients include Bruce Hornsby, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Bill McHenry, 3 Cohens, The World/Inferno Friendship Society, Jeremy Udden, Ike Sturm and Franz Nicolay. Randy has a reputation for going the extra mile to make sure he “gets” his clients vision for their music, and then making sure they achieve it.
